Questions Below Refer To The Following Passage.     When reading historical material, it is crucial to understand cause and effect relations, chronological sequence, and comparison/contrast. As you work through these passages and accompanying exercises, keep in mind that it is not necessary to remember the specific information given here. Your purpose should be to develop the skills and strategies necessary for effective study reading.     When Christopher Columbus landed on America’s shores, he encountered copper-skinned people whom he promptly called “Indians.” Mistaken in his geography,... Show more

Questions Below Refer To The Following Passage.    

When reading historical material, it is crucial to understand cause and effect relations, chronological sequence, and comparison/contrast. As you work through these passages and accompanying exercises, keep in mind that it is not necessary to remember the specific information given here. Your purpose should be to develop the skills and strategies necessary for effective study reading.    

When Christopher Columbus landed on America’s shores, he encountered copper-skinned people whom he promptly called “Indians.” Mistaken in his geography, he believed he had reached India. Current estimates indicate that there were over a million Native Americans inhabiting North America then. There are approximately 800,000 Native Americans today, of whom about 250,000 live on reservations.    
The early settlers had an amicable relationship with Native Americans, who shared their knowledge of hunting, fishing, and farming with their uninvited guests.    
Antipathy developed between the Native Americans and the settlers, whose encroachment on Native American lands provoked an era of turbulence. As early as 1745, Native American tribes coalesced to drive the French off their land. The French and Indian War did not end until 1763. The Native Americans had succeeded in destroying many of the Western settlements. The British, superficially submissive to the Native Americans, promised that further migrations west would not extend beyond a specified boundary. However, there was no holding back ardent adventurers like Daniel Boone, who ignored the British covenant with the Native Americans and blazed a trail westward.    
Evicted from their lands or, worse still, ingenuously ceding their property to the whites for a few baubles, Native Americans were ruthlessly pushed west. Tempestuous wars broke out, but lacking their former stamina and large numbers, the Native Americans were doomed to capitulation. The battle in 1876 at Little Big Horn River in Montana, in which Sitting Bull and the Sioux tribes massacred General Custer’s cavalry, caused the whites to intensify their campaign against the Native Americans. The battle at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1890 rescinded the last vestige of hope for amity between Indians and whites. Thenceforth    
Native Americans were relegated to their own reservations, lands allotted to them by the federal government.    
Although the Bureau of Indian Affairs has operated since 1824, presumably for the purpose of guarding Native Americans’ interests, Native Americans on reservations lead notoriously deprived lives. Poverty, unemployment, high infant mortality, and deficient medical care have maimed a once proud race. In recent times, irate Native Americans have taken a militant stand and have appealed to the courts and the American people to ameliorate their substandard living conditions.

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