Throughout the seventeenth century, conflict between Europeans and Native Americans was rampant and constant. As more and more Europeans migrated to America, violence became increasingly consistent. This seemingly institutionalized pattern of conflict begs a question: Was conflict between Europeans and Native Americans inevitable? Kevin Kenny and Cynthia J. Van Zandt take opposing sides on the issue. Kevin Kenny asserts that William Penn’s vision for cordial relations with local Native Americans was destined for failure due to European colonists’ demands for privately owned land. On the other hand, Cynthia J. Van Zandt argues that despite military disputes among the two bodies, trade alliances between the groups continued. Van Zandt further claimed that relational failure stemmed from conflict among various Europeans nations advocating for dominance over the New World. The overarching purpose of the argument is to determine …show more content…
Van Zandt takes the contrary position. Van Zandt claims that relations between Europeans and Native Americans did not have to be laced with hostility. She uses the Susquehannock’s relationship with William Claiborne’s colony in Virginia to fuel her argument. Van Zandt believes that the Susquehannock-European alliance showed that both cultures were able to overcome their differences to form a mutually beneficial relationship. The alliance lasted for a less than ten years but came to an end because of intra-English quarrels for favored status with the Susquehannocks. On page 37 of Taking Sides, Van Zandt states “… It took actual North American experience and knowledge of Europeans to fully understand the necessity of allying with powerful Indian nations or at least to gain a more realistic appreciation of which Indian Nations were the most powerful”. Van Zandt summarizes her arguments by stating that power struggles were the reason behind intercultural alliance failures, not cultural differences between Europeans and Native
In this book, Peter Silver argued that the Seven Years War served to unite backcountry colonists against their common enemies: the French and the Native Americans. Furthermore, these colonists came from various religious and ethnic backgrounds. In Europe, this meant irreconcilable differences. In the colonies, however, Silver argued that this diversity became strength in the face of Native American attacks, as they were forced to throw of their prejudices for survival. This laid the foundation for tolerance after the war and in the future United States.
Tension and tribulation between white settlers and Native Americans make up much of America’s early history. Two landmark events, The McGillivray Moment and Chief Joseph’s Surrender, provide a few similarities and differences, and changes and continuities of how American policies and ideas about Native Americans varied greatly as time progressed. During both The McGillivray Moment and Chief Joseph’s surrender, the American-made policies acted as nothing more than broken promises, and Native Americans were not seen as citizens of the United States; however, the policies concerning the forced migration of Native Americans were the opposite of each other, and the Creek nation chiefs were praised while the Nez Perce were punished. Throughout both
Signed on August 25th 1737 was one of history 's most disreputable treaties in the records of native-white relations. The agreement involving the Founder of Pennsylvania 's sons and the Delaware or Lenape was determined by “as far as a man could walk in a day and a half”. Unlike their father, William Penn, who had earned his reputation for being fair and respectful towards the natives, Richard, John and Thomas Penn had a different mindset. After his death, his sons faced problems with their father’s debt. In order to pay off the loans, the Penn brothers and their agent James Logan made an agreement with Lenape leaders known as The Walking Purchase.
During the early 1600’s there were two influential men, John Smith and William Bradford, that both wrote stories on their experience in America being European, where they set off to the New World to become leaders of a colony. Smith wrote The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles and Bradford wrote Of Plymouth Plantation. Smith became a leader of Jamestown, and Bradford became the governor of Plymouth. Smith and Bradford had major differences when it came to their views on Native Americans. They both want the majority same thing for their communities, but they do have some differences on how they want their community to be.
After reading Native Americans and the “Middle Ground,” I realized how narratives of historians are quick to shame and blame Native Americans in history. This article begins by revealing how European settlement presented the Indians as obstacles. Recent historians, such as Gary Nash, show the Native Americans as being conquered by the Europeans. Author of The Middle Ground, Richard White, seems to be one of the first to examine the culture of Native Americans and the relationship between colonists. White writes about the “middle ground” of the politics and trade that is eventually established.
This article’s title is “Inseparable Companions” and Irreconcilable Enemies: The Hurons and Odawas of French Detroit, 1701-38 and its author is Andrew Sturtevant. The thesis in this article is the sentence, “The Hurons ' and Odawas ' simmering hostility and eventual conflict demonstrate that native groups survived the Iroquois onslaught and that their interaction profoundly shaped the region”. In this article, Sturtevant is arguing that the Huron and Odawa are distinct nations with different culture and that because of the differences they had many disagreements, not simply because of the colonialism by the French. Sturtevant uses direct quotes from primary sources to show that the distinct nations fought because of their own differences,
The colonizers “thirst for expansion” lead to various “encounters” with the Iroquois people, resulting with dramatic changes in territory, population, social and economic development. By examining the relationship between the colonizers and the Native American Iroquois Tribes,
As I mentioned before many Native Americans understood each other’s politics and cultural. But, even so there was still strife between many tribes in different areas and having outsiders involved made things become even more of a quagmire. Perrot and his men were often referred to as middle ground person. Perrot and his men were often referred to as middle ground person. There was peace for some time, “like the French, the peoples of the middle ground saw opportunity in the evolving social world of the western interior, a place of abundant and increasingly accessible resources” (227).
The US’s treatment of native tribes emphasized their inferiority to white America, denying the founding value of equality. The Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal.” Unfortunately, the US did not uphold this value with its relations with
When the Indians and the Europeans encountered one another, social and environmental changes spurred, in which the colonists, for the most part, benefitted, while the Indians suffered by being subjected to inferiority and death. The natives of North America got the short end of the peace pipe once colonists from Europe began to settle in their land. A common misconception today is that, the Indians were always territorial and non-welcoming, but they in fact wanted to live in harmony with the colonists.
I feel that a contradiction may come from a lack of involvement of women in colonial America. Though both articles emphasise a love and belief in God, though both works of literature display a love of God being displayed in a different manner. The author 's purpose is to shed light on the atrocities committed against the natives in colonial America. This may have influenced American policies to where we feel we don 't answer to anyone on earth, and we gain our power from a greater
The French and Indian War already made the native distrust whites, and having them moved onto their land caused a
The white traders used a language to facilitate trade with the Native Americans called the Chinook jargon. The Chinook language developed their social relationship through the trading of their goods and the exchange of gifts. The political relationship that they developed between the Natives’ was developed through marriage, “these alliances being formed solely on political considerations when presents are exchanged according to the means of the parties” (George Simpson 135). Simpson’s goal was to improve the profit and the economic status for the Hudson’s Bay Company by developing a mutually beneficial relationship with native
Westward expansion not only opened up the west coast to America, it also opened up America to new interactions with Native Americans. Westward expansion created one big question for Americans, what to do with the Native Americans? The answer to this was not black and white, many Americans felt as if assimilation was the key, while other Americans felt that annihilation was the key. This created a big divide in America on deciding what to do with Native Americans and whites in the new frontier. In this collection of documents, the primary sources differ from helping the Native Americans to exterminating the Native Americans: A congressional speech by James Michael Cavan given on 1868, a book called A Century of Dishonor written by Helen
Merrell’s article proves the point that the lives of the Native Americans drastically changed just as the Europeans had. In order to survive, the Native Americans and Europeans had to work for the greater good. Throughout the article, these ideas are explained in more detail and uncover that the Indians were put into a new world just as the Europeans were, whether they wanted change or