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As Europeans started shaping the Americas with their beliefs and values, they negatively impacted the indigenous population socially by reducing their social status and decimating their population.

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The new social hierarchy established with the arrival of the Europeans.

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This document depicts the social hierarchy which was created following the arrival of European explorers. This was primarily due to intermarriage between natives and Europeans. It is notable that the very top of the pyramid is dominated by those who are closely related to Europeans. The Native Americans, who formerly constituted for the whole upper class of the social pyramid, can now be seen at the very bottom of the pyramid. This shows the division based on race and religion. The most "inhuman" race was put on the bottom and those who were not Christian also resided towards the bottom of the pyramid. Even enslaved peoples were seen in a higher social class than the Native Americans. This further shows that many Europeans saw natives as "impure" due to their lack of understanding in Christianity and felt it was necessary to intermarry in order to spread their religion.

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This document appears to show a European man preaching Christianity to Native Americans. Prior to this, the Americas were still a very divided place with clans constantly fighting and all having very different cultures. However, Europeans did not take into account that indigenous people had a different religion. They felt they were "saving" the natives by spreading their culture, while they were actually invading an already existing culture. Formerly, Natives were used to being at the top of the social pyramid and having control over their clan. Missionaries were successful in teaching them European methods of agriculture and instilling loyalty to their masters. Forced assimilation contributed to the social changes as many Natives radically shifted from a familiar culture to a foreign one.

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Diseases spreading throughout indigenous population from the Europeans.

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This document represents the suffering of the indigenous peoples, especially from deathly diseases such as smallpox. These diseases were utterly foreign to the indigenous, as they were introduced by the Europeans colonizers who brought them overseas; therefore, they had no immunity and were defenseless towards the disease. This resulted in a rapid population decline of the indigenous population, as Europeans transferred these diseases over and infected the widespread native population quickly. Approximately, over 95% of the population was decimated by disease, which was about 20 million people. From a functional perspective, this image depicts the effects and consequences of the Europeans' influence on the indigenous population.

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Spanish coins made from silver mined by Native Americans

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This document depicts coins made by Native American forced laborers who were brought into the encomienda system, where they were essentially forced to work in mines. There, they mined for precious metals that the Spanish would send back to the motherland. These laborers demonstrate the social hierarchy created by the arrival of the Europeans and how the Native Americans were negatively impacted by this new hierarchy. Native Americans before the arrival of the Europeans were at the top of the social hierarchy, as there were no Europeans to take part in it. However, the Europeans established themselves as the upper class and forced Native Americans all the way to the bottom of the new Social Pyramid, forcing them to work in mining facilities like these. They were treated as inferior and were thought of as slaves, as that was what they basically were. The Europeans, however, were benefiting from this relationship, as they were able to use free labor to mine for precious metals which the motherland received and gained economic prosperity from. In addition, they overworked the natives and starved which caused widespread death. This contributed to the changes socially because native populations started to dramatically decrease, leaving the Europeans with little to no resistance against colonization.

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European explorers murdering Natives to gain land and spread religion 

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This picture depicts Europeans taking the land of the natives forcefully, killing thousands. Their reasoning for doing this was because they saw the natives as uncivilized due to their nomadic lifestyle and they felt they were underutilizing the land. They also wanted to spread Christianity as a way of civilizing them. As the Europeans hunger to expand grew, they conquered more native populations killing a large chunk of the natives. This is relevant to the social change because the large reduction in Native American populations allowed for the easy shift in the social pyramid without much resistance.