THIS chapter recounts some aspects of the histories of the native peoples of America and Australia. Theme 8 described the history of the Spanish and Portuguese colonisation of South America. From the eighteenth century, more areas of South America, Central America, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand came to be settled by immigrants from Europe. This led to many of the native peoples being pushed out into other areas. The European settlements were called ‘colonies’. When the European inhabitants of the colonies became independent of the European ‘mothercountry’, these colonies became ‘states’ or countries.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, people from Asian countries also migrated to some of these countries. Today, these Europeans and Asians form the majority in these countries, and the number of the native inhabitants are very small. They are hardly seen in the towns, and people have forgotten that they once occupied much of the country, and that the names of many rivers, towns, etc. are derived from ‘native’ names (e.g. Ohio, Mississippi and Seattle in the USA, Saskatchewan in Canada, Wollongong and Parramatta in Australia).
Till the middle of the twentieth century, American and Australian history textbooks used to describe how Europeans ‘discovered’ the Americas and Australia. They hardly mentioned the native peoples except to suggest that they were hostile to Europeans. These peoples were, however, studied by anthropologists in America from the 1840s. Much later, from the 1960s, the native peoples were encouraged to write their own histories or to dictate them (this is called oral history).
Today, it is possible to read historical works and fiction written by the native peoples, and visitors to museums in these countries will see galleries of ‘native art’ and special museums which show the aboriginal way of life. The new National Museum of the American Indian in the USA has been curated by American Indians themselves.
European Imperialism
The American empires of Spain and Portugal (see Theme 8) did not expand after the seventeenth century. From that time other countries – France, Holland and England – began to extend their trading activities and to establish colonies – in America, Africa and Asia; Ireland also was virtually a colony of England, as the landowners there were mostly English settlers.
From the eighteenth century, it became obvious that while it was the prospect of profit which drove people to establish colonies, there were significant variations in the nature of the control established.
In South Asia, trading companies like the East India Company made themselves into political powers, defeated local rulers and annexed their territories. They retained the older well-developed administrative system and collected taxes from landowners. Later they built railways to make trade easier, excavated mines and established big plantations.
Click on the below link to download NCERT Class 11 History Themes in World History Displacing Indigenous Peoples
