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Native American Contributions |
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The American Indian has made many contributions to our way life. They were in North America long before Columbus arrived.
The American Indian helped the colonist by teaching them how to clear the land. They showed them how to grow corn and tobacco.
Native Americans hunted deer, buffalo, and other game. The colonists were also taught how to make maple sugar and to hunt and trap, and dress their skins. Today crops are still grown in some of the same places where they farmed the land. |
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Native American farmers were the first to farm using potatoes, tomatoes, and many other food plants that we eat today. American Indians also planted foods such as corn, beans, squash, tobacco, pumpkins, sunflowers, and sweet potatoes. The Native Americans were also the first to raise turkeys. They found uses for such Native American plants as rubber, and tobacco. Quinine was discovered from the cinchona tree. We still use many of their native herbs and foods. Over 200 drugs have been made from their original medicines.
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The environment and its care has always been a concern of the American Indian. American Indians discovered oil, and made salt by evaporation. Southwest Indians built irrigation canals, and raised cotton. They discovered the natural dyes that were later used by the pioneers.
Many Indian words can be found on our United States map.
Twenty-seven states and many cities, towns, rivers, and lakes use names from the languages of the first Americans, Their hunters, warriors, and traders used paths now followed by roads and railroads. They helped the colonist by acting as guides, and selling furs for trade. They showed the white man how to make bark canoes. Native American inventions also include the design of the kayak, toboggan and snowshoe.
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