Native American Desire

The European desire for capital was socially disastrous because they implemented the strategy of divide and conquer within the Native American and African-origin peoples. Hartman quotes Walter Rodney in saying “There was in existence a fundamental class contradiction between the ruling nobility and the commoners; and the ruling classes joined hands with the Europeans in exploiting the African masses” (Hartman 31). Indeed, the Europeans’ entitlement made them foreign to the idea of family and ultimately led to a divided Africa nation. In Lose Your Mother, an elder of the Akan people reflected on his merchant life and said “The desire we have for your fascinating goods and your brandy, bring it to pass that one brother cannot trust the other,
nor one friend another. Indeed, a father hardly his own son!” (Hartman 119). This notion of separating families was not a new tool for the Europeans when they disembarked on the Native American territory. When the Europeans began to subjugate the Native Americans, they were given two options: join the “white” social structure or walk the “trail of tears”. Similar to the African origin peoples, the European’s orders functioned as a method for making the sense of culture and family unfamiliar to tribes bonded by the same beliefs and practices. Sisseton Elder Ed Red Own, who left his people for the U.S. army recalls, “When he saw his nephew coming, he said, ‘I had tears in my eyes, but yet I had the orders of the United States Army to fulfill. And so before my own eyes, I shot him until he died”(Wilson 190). The use of this tactic throughout centuries attest to the notion that Euro-American settlers were ruthless when it came to satisfying their “manifest destiny”.