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The sharp decline in the bison population.

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There were numerous reasons, but the one that had most input was the US Government, they exterminated the buffalo, massacred Indian villages, separated all Indian tribes, and took away their weapons. The Indians became massively dependent on the food handouts from the US gov, the gov undermined the Indian social structure and hierarchy when they made some loyal (toward the USA) Indians into US style police officers. The government made the younger Indian generation attend christian schools, and they never learnt the Indian way of life. The US assimilated the Indians by making them FARM like the whites, given one plot for each Indian Family.

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10y ago

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More answers

There are several reasons why the Native Americans lost their old way of life.

In the beginning, it was the concept of land ownership. While territorial, the tribes understood that the lands belonged to Mother Earth. The Europeans, believed that the lands were there for the taking. Generally, the Indians shared their lands and the whites took the land.

Later it was simply a matter of numbers. The invaders were so massive in numbers that the Native American could not grasp it. Then, too, Europeans were simply technologically more advanced than the Indian. The Indians' weapons were unable to compete with guns and cannons.

Then you add in the devious minds of the Europeans, contrasting with the concept of complete honesty prevalent with the tribes at that time, where the reservation system was devised to cause the extinction of the tribes, for instance. There was the deliberate introduction of diseases that annihilated some tribes. The white legal system was manipulated over and over again to contain and to kill the Indian.

But the Indians were not blameless either. They warred against one another in centuries old feuds and seldom banded together to fight the Europeans. Naivity, and the failure to see what was happening before too late, was another issue.

However, it is important that the Indian spirituality was never truly defeated. It went into hiding, was covered up, but it exists today in many Native Americans.

What happened was inevitable. It was the way it happened that made it unconcionable.

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12y ago
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Well, the Native American way of life is not destroyed, but if you meant who drove them out of their homes, then the Americans did

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13y ago
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They destroyed the Native American culture in a result of treaties written and broken by foreign governments, or warfare, and of forced assimilation

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8y ago
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The whites took over

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Wiki User

12y ago
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Q: Why did people destroy the native American culture?
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