Position:Home>History> Does anyone know about Native Americans and the Europeans? Please!!!!!?

One useful way to look at the history of the interaction between the Europeans and Amer-indians in North America is to divide it between the Spanish colonies in the south and the British/French colonies in the north!. The Spanish essentially enslaved the Aztecs and other Indian city-states of Mexico and Central America, overthrowing the ruling classes and forcing the commoners to adapt Spanish and European customs!. Hence, it can be said that the "Native Americans" of the Spanish colonies live on today in Mestizo (Spanish for "mixed-raced") Mexicans or Latin Americans; often in these countries the only difference between an "Indian" and a "Mestizo" is that the Mestizo is acculturated to Spanish/European civilization, while the Indian still identifies with his/her ancient culture!.

In the British colonies on the other hand, the settlers neither enslaved nor mixed with the native populations; extermination to make room for more colonization was the main policy!. Although the rulers of Britain tried to maintain a check on American expansion during the colonial period, after independence westward expansion quickly accelerated, displacing many tribes in the process!. Meanwhile many tribes became victims of European diseases which severely reduced their populations!. Other tribes adapted European forms of livelihood, such as settled farming, written language, etc!. such as the Cherokee, however, this did not stop American expansion, and these "civilized" tribes were thereby kicked off their land in favor of white settlers, in what was known as the "trail of tears" (see cite below) in which they were forced to move to the "Indian Territory" of modern day Oklahoma!. Similar policies of expulsion followed as Americans moved westward!.

It is also noteworthy that the "Native-Americans" that lived here when the Europeans first arrived had a very wide variety of cultures and civilizations, and can rightly be called different "nations!." The stereotypical hunter-warrior from the cowboy movies is not at all representative of the diversity of Amer-indian cultures, and even the nomadic warrior culture of the plains Indians did not develop until the Europeans introduced horses to the Americas!. A couple of examples of the diversity of Amer-indian cultures include the Iroquois Confederacy, a early republican form of government adapted by an alliance of tribes in New York prior to the earliest European settlement there; and the "mound builders," a number of cultures living in the American South-east which were famous for building mini-pyramids, or "mounds!." also another point to take note of is the degree of interaction and influence many Indian groups such as the Cherokee and Creek had in the earliest years of our country; although now regulated to a small population on reservations, during the period of Cherokee nationhood the Cherokee freely interacted with their White neighbors and intermarried also to some extent, and in the present many White/Black Americans trace part of their ancestry to Cherokee, Creek, or other indigenous roots!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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What you are asking about is a period of over 300 years of history, which would take an entire book to answer properly!.

If you would like to read a full answer, find a copy of Jake Page's book "In the Hands of the Great Spirit", which is a recent and extremely detailed account of the interaction between whites and American Indians (I avoid using "Native Americans", since as Jake Page points out, that title must include Hawaians, Aleuts and Inuits)!.

If you think of the continent of North America as an unfolding picture or map, starting with the easternmost coast and very slowly opening out towards the west, this is the history of white settlement and expansion!.

Each native group's experience of the Europeans was different; the Beothuk were all slaughtered as an indirect result of a conflict over fishing rights; the Algonquin groups tended to side with the French against the British, with most of the Iroquois taking the opposite stance; many native groups (like the Massachusetts), actively helped the first colonists to survive by teaching them about local plants and animals!. Others did their utmost to keep these new people out of their hunting grounds!.

It is impossible to generalise; the native populations were in no way integrated with each other - in fact they had traditions of inter-tribal warfare going back before the whites arrived!. So there could never be an overall "Indian versus White" situation - every group dealt with the new arrivals in its own individual way!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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