Artwork depicting images of indian savagery and hostility were common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  However, just as common in the nineteenth century were the brutal paintings of the American Civil War.  These images not only also depicted war, but portrayed America in a negative light as a whole, regardless of whether you supported the Union or the Confederate.  Thirty-two thousand years ago, the first cave paintings were made, and those portrayed images of killing through both war and hunting.  It would seem that violence in art is timeless, and as such it stirs deep, instinctual feelings in all people.  This makes artwork a very powerful tool in persuasion, and was used as such by Europeans to convince others that the Native Americans were rabid, violent, and dangerous.  Eventually, this strong dislike of Native Americans was used to discredit their governments, as well as to drown a culture that was so obviously evil.

Most of Native American literature is not in actuality meant to be literature.  The cultural traditions of many tribes included the oral illumination of songs, stories, and religion.  While this tradition proved to be (and still is) extremely effective in the native way of life, the industrious Europeans undermined them with the press and written literature.  With this, Native Americans were not only unexperienced in written literature, but they were also not given the opportunities in most cases to experiment with it.  Missions would teach those natives that were willing to convert how to write, but only in a structured way which restricted them to Christian writings. The natives who were willing to convert to Christianity were not also necessarily willing to give up their culture in its entirety.  This suppression of written communication was detrimental to the struggling and oppressed voices of the Native American people who were fighting for a right to be represented in the government.

(page 593-594)

Natives were not only forced to convert, but the true situation of why they were converting and how were covered by lies told to the common people of Europe.  They were not only being harmed, but this seemingly mass conversion of different people spurred a religious race between various European countries such as Spain, England, France, Portugal, Italy and Germany.  This battle for conversion formed a sort of circle, in which the more people were converted, the higher the competition became, and the more the Native Americans were forced to convert, and killed for resisting to change their lifelong cultural traditions.  This factor led to many more deaths and even furthered the loss of culture in Native American civilizations.

(Page 22-23 of American Lazarus)

The findings of Christopher Columbus which are documented in his journal illustrate the findings of exotic treasures and foods.  However, they also give insight to some of the main reasons the Native Americans were taken advantage of in the ways that they were.  From the very beginning of European adventure into the new land, the natives were seen as servants.  They seemed to Columbus to be stupid, having no education or moral values.  This assumption led to the encouragement and forcing of the natives to adopt the Europeans' morals and traditions because it was thought that they needed it in order to become civilized, simply because they lived and communicated in a way which was unfamiliar to the Europeans. 

This article shows that not on were Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries taking advantage of and converting natives, but that after Americans began calling themselves and independent nation, they continued to force natives out of their land and hold prejudices against them.  This long standing battle wore the natives down in numbers over not just years, but generations, which also aided in the gradual decline of their rights, cultures, and traditions.  An increasing number of Europeans coming to American soil overran the natives, especially with their advantage of immunity build ups and better technology for weapons.  After centuries of fighting for land and rights, the natives didn't have much left to fight with.

This image of Columbus and the Native Americans, or "indians" as he would incorrectly dub them, shows the natives showering the Europeans with gifts.  This is also a common depiction which Europeans like to construe as the natives worshipping them like gods.  While Europeans in this time period did believe that they were far more superior than other races such as the natives or African-Americans, those other cultures did not really view them as gods, but simply as strange beings.  The natives were friendly and offered to trade in some cases, but unfortunately that image is usually construed as them being subservient and in awe of the Europeans.  This was not at all the case, as the natives had huge and complex civilizations during this time period.  This image created views of the willingness of the natives to serve and not think for themselves.  It is because of this that Europeans could get away with saying that natives needed to be taught the Christian ways and leave their culture behind.  However, the natives did not respond to this with whole-hearted enthusiasm, which unfortunately led to bloodshed from the indigenous people as the Europeans tried to force them to be obedient.