Axtell makes the point that the Indians were told by the missionaries about the wonders of Christianity and about its message of morality and love, and yet these same Indians were taught to the settlers all manner of vices. There was a double message being delivered, with the stronger message being the vice that undercut the religious message. Axtell notes as well that most of the settlers were not actively interested either in fighting the Indians or in converting them. They were interested only in getting on with their own lives in the New World. The majority of colonists offered little direct support and often served as obstacles to the plans of the missionaries. They would have been happy if the tactic had worked as intended and if it had made the Indians less of an obstacle to their own ambitions as a result, but they had other concerns that occupied their thoughts and actions.
Merrell concentrates on the effect on the Catawbas and shows how the Indians learned to coexist with the Europeans, though in a very changed environment. What the Indians did manage to do was to sustain some aspects of their culture as most of that culture was extinguished. Axtell is particularly interested in the ways in which the French and the British interacted with the Indians and with each other. He makes a particular point of the issue of hair, and the English in particular were ill at ease with the native mode of wearing the hair. They also feared that the native tendency to long
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