various articles sypnosis

Various Articles Synopsis

Three of the articles provided for review deal in some way with the economic and cultural consequences of the interaction of European cultures with so called primitive ones . The forth , which will be discussed at the end of the essay discuss ritual used by the North American Nacerina to try to cope with the diseases and other afflictions plaguing them

Why Can 't People Feed Themselves ' poses this question in relation to the plight of peoples who , in spite of being considered relatively primitive , had both fairly good

arable land and sophisticated farming knowledge . The answer according to authors Moore and Collins is colonialism . They state that before the white Europeans conquered them the natives could at least sustain themselves with a variety of nutritious crops . They were forced by various means to exclusively farm a single type of crop , not to sustain themselves nor even their European masters , but to satisfy their niche demands , for example for cotton These were known as cash crops and meant to satisfy the appetites of the conquerors upper classes . This policy was enforced in a variety of ways ranging from brute force , enslavement and expropriation to more subtle but no less effective means such as targeted taxes and marketing boards , which gave the farmers very little payment for his produce since he had nowhere else he could sell it . If farmers previously owned their land they were often forced to give it up and lease instead since they could no...