Native Americans & the Arrival of Europeans
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The responses of the various nations of Native Americans to the arrival of Europeans after 1492, and the manner in which they subsequently dealt with their presence, varied widely from one group to another. Responses to the encounter depended on the cultural characteristics of the different nations, on the economic and political circumstances in which they found themselves, and, to a considerable extent, on the same factors as they applied to the particular groups of Europeans they encountered. Just as there was no uniform Indian response to the encounter there were also significant differences in the ways the Spanish, English, French, and others approached the peoples whose land they were intent on occupying. A brief comparison of various encounters between several Native American nations and the Spanish and English settlers of various period will demonstrate the multiple factors that had an impact of the relationships between the various groups. There was, however, one uniform characteristic among the Europeans in that "all Europeans of whatever social origin considered themselves superior to the Native Americans" and this was reflected in their relations with the Indians and in the form of the societies they established in the Americas (Roark et al. 62). When, as in New Spain, the Europeans were merely a tiny minority of the population (in comparison with both Native Americans and, later, African slaves) or when, as eventually in happened in northeaste
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egan with the massacre of 347 people -- nearly a third of the settlers -- that resulted in "a murderous campaign of Indian extermination" that pushed the Native peoples entirely out of the immediate range of the burgeoning settlements (Roark et al. 86). After 1622 the English had simply concluded that the Native Americans were no longer necessary to their survival.
Once the English and Spanish had established their various footholds in the Americas their relationships with the Indians differed considerably. The Spaniards were intent on the extension of Spanish power and their notion of empire, "which was largely derived from the Roman model, rested on the medieval theory that existing regional structures could be incorporated within the baroque structure of the absolute state" (Bauer 676). This meant that the Spanish settlers could develop colonies that had political parity with the old country while exploiting the human resources of the region. The Spanish had, since the time of Columbus, seen the conversion of the native Americans as a primary duty (even when it was coupled with their virtual enslavement) because they saw the Indians' religions and culture not as "the natural state of the savage but [as] the devil's (rever
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Approximate Word count = 1866
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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