After The Mayflower: Relations Between Wampanoag And The Pilgrims

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

In the 17th century, the Native Americans had been living peacefully in their own little world, until suddenly, the British come upon this land. Little did the British know, tribes of natives already lived there. The countenance of the Native Americans did not go over very well. There was tension between the English and the Native Americans. For example, they fought over the land of the “New World”. As expected, the Natives were fearful and angry when foreigners showed up and proposed new religious beliefs. The British and the Native Americans’ relationship changed due to those coming over for religious freedom and economic prosperity.

Daniel Richter, an American historian, completed his literary work, Ordeal of the Longhouse in 1992. His purpose of writing this book was to illustrate the Native Americans’ side of the colonization of America and their interactions with the new colonizers, while emphasizing the ordeals that they faced at that time. Those ordeals included: disease, economic dependency, imperial struggles, and issues with their neighbors (2). Richter was out to prove that despite and because of these struggles, Iroquois culture, politics, and diplomacy evolved in the 17th and 18th century through their interactions with different groups of European peoples. These interactions have shaped Native American traditions as well as American diplomacy as we know it

When the Pilgrims first arrived at Plymouth in 1620, they were faced with incredible obstacles that took extreme strength and determination to overcome. Little did the Pilgrims know that it would just get harder from there, especially when the King Philip’s War began. This war, mainly fought between the two groups of the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, caused huge death tolls on each side and could easily have been prevented, or, at least, downsized, if the leaders on both sides had not been quite so proud. The King Philip’s War was the result of, and contained, racism, national loyalty and alliances, and economic interests and land greed.

At the start of the film After the Mayflower: We Shall Remain, the English and the Native Americans celebrated the first Thanksgiving together in 1621. Both groups of people seemed trusting of each other and showed personal respect. At this time the Wampanoag Indians had the power and chose to use it to form a treaty with the weak English Pilgrims. The two groups shared everything and traded their assets with each other. As the film continued there was an obvious change in power to the English with more and more Puritan immigrants from Europe arriving. By the end of the movie the English decided to use their power to control all lands instead of keeping the treaty with the native people. The English “thanksgiving” at

First contact between the Indigenous Americans and Europeans is perhaps one of the most impactful points in Native American history, setting an important precedent for the power dynamic during the next century. This initial contact between the two contrasting groups is one that can be described with words of awe, great ignorance, and perhaps unfortunate circumstances as it would be the precursor to the eventual exploitation of the American Indigenous people. Although there are few sources of Native record on the topic, with help from Reverend John Heckewelder’s account, The Arrival of the Dutch, it is possible to better understand the critical responses of the Indigenous people from first contact in Manhattan. Furthermore, analysis of how

In, A Severe and Proud Dame She Was, Mary Rowlandson recounts the treatment she received as prisoner of war from Natives in the Wampanoags and Nipmuck tribes written in her perspective. In 1675, Mary Rowlandson found herself and children held captive in the hands of Massachusetts Native Americans. Mary writes with a bias that seems to paint the Native Americans as a species different than her own, but her tone suggests she tried her best to understand their tribe. The purpose of this article appears to be written with the intent of persuading the masses on account of personal experience; that is the interaction among Natives and their customs to be seen in a light of hypocritical behavior. Through the lens of the captured author, she details the experience of her captivity with merciful gestures on the Native’s behalf, despite them keeping her for ransom. Rowlandson suggests traditional Native warfare surrounds a central recurring theme of manipulating mind-games; psychological warfare.

The age of the new beginnings takes place during a time of discovery and colonization. At this time 102 European colonist set up a colony in New England, Massachusetts in 1620. There they will have many fascinating encounters with, a friend and a potential foe, a Native American tribe called the Wampanoag. They were believed to have a trustful relationship with one another but where did their friendship go so wrong? Their friendship came to an end since the Europeans took advantage of the Wampanoag, they had rules to their friendship, and they established an unfair legal system.

Throughout the course of history there have been numerous accounts regarding Native American and European interaction. From first contact to Indian removal, the interaction was somewhat of a roller coaster ride, leading from times of peace to mini wars and rebellions staged by the Native American tribes. The first part of this essay will briefly discuss the pre-Columbian Indian civilizations in North America and provide simple awareness of their cultures, while the second part of this essay will explore all major Native American contact leading up to, and through, the American Revolution while emphasizing the impact of Spanish, French, and English explorers and colonies on Native American culture and vice versa. The third, and final, part of this essay will explore Native American interaction after the American Revolution with emphasis on westward expansion and the Jacksonian Era leading into Indian removal. Furthermore, this essay will attempt to provide insight into aspects of Native American/European interaction that are often ignored such as: gender relations between European men and Native American women, slavery and captivity of native peoples, trade between Native Americans and European colonists, and the effects of religion on Native American tribes.

For hundreds of years, Native Americans have been persecuted by outsiders who invaded their lives and territories and subsequently robbed them of their lives. Through various readings from Tecumseh, Benjamin Franklin, and Andrew Jackson one can see how perception greatly affects interactions between Native Americans, interactions between whites, and interactions between Native Americans and whites. It is interesting to see how these different writers perceive issues of unity and civility.

In We Shall Remain after the Mayflower is a story of hope, courage, and survival. It happened most likely in the late summer of 1621 in North America. The pilgrims were completely alone in the New World, and would not have survived if it wasn’t for the Indians. Because of this it always made the Indians welcome into their “home.” The Wampanoag’s (Indians) lived in fear, while the Pilgrims felt alone. The Wampanoag’s brought five fresh killed deer, and they decided to have a feast. The Thanksgiving celebration at the Plymouth symbolized where there relationship stood, and the Pilgrims knew they were going to be able to survive because of the Wampanoag’s. The Wampanoag’s were to be known as the “people of the light.” Indian people shared this continent, it was

The Indian-White relationship had long been breaking down, due to a developing question between the pioneers and the Indians. One of the reasons of this doubt was that the pilgrims were exploiting the positive attitude of the Indians. The King Phillip's war was a contention between the Native Americans and the pilgrims. This contention was the aftereffect of numerous abuses toward the Indians executed by the homesteader. The King Phillip's war was an advocated war. Numerous elements added to the flare-up of this war, for instance numerous Indians felt that they did great to the pioneers and that the settlers were the first doing incorrectly. Another variable was that Englishmen were exploiting the Indians when arranging land; the pioneers were

When the first colonists landed in the territories of the new world, they encountered a people and a culture that no European before them had ever seen. As the first of the settlers attempted to survive in a truly foreign part of the world, their written accounts would soon become popular with those curious of this “new” world, and those who already lived and survived in this seemingly inhospitable environment, Native American Indian. Through these personal accounts, the Native Indian soon became cemented in the American narrative, playing an important role in much of the literature of the era. As one would expect though, the representation of the Native Americans and their relationship with European Americans varies in the written works of the people of the time, with the defining difference in these works being the motives behind the writing. These differences and similarities can be seen in two similar works from two rather different authors, John Smith, and Mary Rowlandson.

The long history between Native American and Europeans are a strained and bloody one. For the time of Columbus’s subsequent visits to the new world, native culture has

In Jeannette Armstrong’s poem, History Lesson, she writes in perspective of Indigenous people reacting to the first encounters with European settlers. Historically, Indigenous people did not have a positive encounter with the first settlers due to their clash of beliefs and values of how communities and structures should run. Instead, they had many disagreements which caused the partial destruction of their whole culture. It is clear that Armstrong uses the theme of history to portray the destruction that the first European settlers had on the Indigenous way of life through various points in history. Armstrong imbeds the theme of history throughout her poem to further emphasize her stance on the assimilation of the Indigenous people with the restricting and destructive effects the early settlers had on them throughout history.