The Death of a Culture... or almost.

The attempted eradication of the Native Americans was not just done through the medium of genocide but also through the attempted subjugation and 'civilisation' of the native population. George Catlin's painting 'Win-Jun-Jon' was critical of the Americanisation and modernisation of the Native American. The photograph that I have chosen (see above) really does encapsulate the idea that the Native American's were modernized. It is the funeral of a Native American chief. More explicitly, Santank, the chief of Kiowa. The people pictured are seen wearing dresses and suits, which was obviously brought over by settlers that came over to the continent. These new ways of living certainly did come at a cost, as many of the natives lost their sense of identity or felt pressured into conforming to the way of life of the people who settled in America.

However, the fact that this photograph is even showing the burial of a chief shows that the culture was not dead after all. You would imagine that if the colonization and the wish of these colonies to civilize the native Americans, that the hierarchical system of chiefs and such, would dissolve.

The Manifest Destiny - to go westwards and conquer and flourish across the continent obviously had a profound affect on the Native Americans, from tribe to tribe. They believed that it was not only their divine right to the land and the bounty upon it but also to show the 'savages' God.