ossession. These differences between Indian groups proved crucial to their ultimate defeat: though they actively fought European encroachment, from the beginning the Indians were crippled by disunity. Disunity which the colonists exploited.
Early on, after the first disillusionments of contact, New England tribes engaged in local wars against the settlers - only to be neutralized by other Indian tribes allying themselves with the newcomers. The South Atlantic coastal tribes were no less adamant in their resistance - and equally stymied by internecine wars that left them battling on two fronts.
Still, prior to the American Revolution, the Indian nations still constituted enough of a power bloc to command the colonial authorities' respect. Mercantile trade being a major incentive for settlement in the colonies by the 1700s - particularly in furs and animal hides - the Europeans turned first to the "natural resource": the Indian hunters who could supply such valued commodities in great numbers. In return, the Indians acquired European weapons, seeking to compete on a footing of equal technology. For a time, particularly during the heyday of the extended French and Indian Wars, Native American leaders practiced a rather sophisticated form of "European" diplomacy, balancing treaties among the Spanish, French and English, allying themselves in war with one side or the other, generally using the Europeans' internecine warfare as an opportunity to protect their own base. Such actions are always a risky proposition, of course: those allied with the French lost ground with the British victories of the 1760s; those aligned with the British in 1776 were persona non grata after the American Revolution. The final "war" defeat for the Eastern tribes came with the Battle of Tippecanoe, when Tecumseh's defeat by U.S. Army forces broke the last power base of the warriors in the Norhteast. The final defeat for the diplomatic faction of ...