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Unit/Topic: Unit 4 Colonization/Colonist – Native American Interaction

Focus Question: How did issues of power affect the relationship between Natives and Europeans?

Many European countries – Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and Sweden – fought to colonize North America in the 1500s and 1600s. Each of them shaped Native American history in a different way.

For Native Americans, it wasn't always immediately clear what the Europeans were after. Some native communities were approached with respect, and they in turn greeted the odd-looking visitors as guests. For many of the nations, however, contact with Europeans was marked by extreme violence.

Most Native American and colonial relations were based on conquest, of either land or trade. However, each conflict took its own form, based on the differences among the European powers, and among the many native peoples that occupied North America.

Do Now: During the period of colonization, Europeans and Native Americans dealt with each other in a variety of ways – some peaceful, some deadly.

Imagine you are a witness to this ‘parlay’ (polite negotiations) between these two groups. What do you imagine the tribal leader is saying to the colonists? What do you imagine the colonists are thinking about in response to what is being said? Use clues from the setting, the ‘body language’ of the participants, the objects depicted and the mood and tone of the image to add dialogue.

Directions: Use the provided readings to complete the chart below, then answer the question. Use evidence from the chart to support your claim.

Colonial Power

Positive Native American Interactions

Negative Native American Interactions

1 Example of Power from the Reading

England

France

Spain

Exit: How did issues of power affect the relationship between Natives and Europeans? Make a claim and support it with evidence from the chart.

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Spain and Native Americans in the Southwest and Southeast

Spain first colonized Central and South America, destroying its native peoples; in 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado began the conquest of the North American continent. 

In the Southwest region, De Coronado and his men encountered the Pueblo natives. The Spanish troops were brutal, usually camping outside a town and forcing the Native groups to give them food, slave laborers and women. The missionaries who accompanied the troops beat, tortured and executed Indians who attempted to keep their traditional religious practices.

Some Pueblo families fled their homes and joined the Apache natives, influencing the Navajo and Apache cultures. Other Puebloans maintained their traditional cultural and religious practices. Sometimes, they combined their traditions with the Christian rites that had been brought by the Spanish.

Meanwhile, Native Americans in the Southeast experienced their first ongoing contact with Europeans. The Spanish expedition in this region was led by Hernando de Soto, and lasted from 1539 to 1542. As the conquistadors moved inland, tribes at first treated them like any large group of visitors. They gave gifts to the leaders and supplies to the troops. However, the Spaniards either misread or ignored the intentions of their hosts and often forced natives into slavery.

As de Soto and his troops approach, the Native Americans in front of their tepees watch, and a chief holds out a peace pipe. In the foreground is a jumble of weapons and soldiers, suggesting the attack they had suffered shortly before. To the right, a monk prays as a crucifix is set in the ground. Photo from Wikimedia.

France and the Iroquoians of Huronia

The French claimed most of the American Northeast, Southeast and Subarctic as part of France. Spain, England and Native nations also claimed one or more of these territories. In particular, two of the major Native American alliances, the Huron confederacy and the Iroquois Confederacy of the Five Tribes, were in conflict with each over the territory.

The Huron were an alliance of perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 people. They lived between Hudson Bay and the St. Lawrence River in what is now eastern Canada. The Huron mainly relied on trading to obtain food and other resources.

The Five Tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy were more agricultural. They lived south of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Erie, in the present-day state of New York. The alliance was comprised of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and, later, Tuscarora peoples.

By about 1615, the conflict between the Huron and the Iroquois Confederacy was heating up. The Huron formed an alliance with the French, while the Iroquois did the same with the English. All parties were fighting over an important region around Hudson's Bay, where rivers and other trade routes were essential to commerce. 

Between 1634 and 1638, a smallpox epidemic killed as many as two-thirds of the Huron alliance. At about the same time, it became clear that beavers, which were trapped and traded for their fur, had been overhunted to the point of extinction.

Disease and the weakened fur trade created an economic crisis for the Huron. Decades of warfare culminated in fierce battles in 1648 and 1649, during which the Iroquois defeated the Huron confederacy.

Champlain trading with the Huron,Jefferys, Charles William, 1869-1951.

England and the mid-Atlantic Algonquians

Meanwhile, England was focused mainly on gaining as much territory as it could along the Atlantic coast, from New England to Virginia. Here, the first British settlements had been established.

Tribes who lived in those areas entered into early agreements with the English. However, deep cultural misunderstandings prevented further relationships. The English believed that land could be owned outright. The Native American peoples believed that someone could have the right to use the land, but not own it.

The mid-Atlantic natives who lived in the area spoke Algonquian languages. These were among the largest and best organized Native American groups. The earliest conflict between these Algonquians and the English was at the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, the Jamestown Colony. The Powhatan, an alliance of Algonquians, were initially friendly to the people of Jamestown, providing them with food and the use of land to farm.

By 1609, all friendly relations ended. The region was in its third year of severe drought, and the English were stealing food from the natives. Their leader, Powhatan, banned his people from trading food to the colonists, and from 1609 to 1611, many in the colony starved.

War broke out and continued on and off until 1644. The fighting ended only after a series of epidemics had killed much of the native population.

Native Americans trade furs at a Hudson's Bay Company trading post in the 1800s. Photo from Wikimedia.