Christianity In Native Americans

In David D. Hall’s essay Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies and T.H. Breen’s Worlds of Goods in the Northern Colonies; the argument of the settler’s views or main objective on the land is put to question. David D. Hall supports the idea that religion was deeply rooted in the early settlers while T.H. Breen supports the idea that the early Americans only concern was becoming an “empire of goods.” While the two hold factual evidence to this argument, David D. Hall proves to be the most reliable due to its religious reliability of tradition.

This section highlights that history has created a false narrative depicting the natives as a victimized people, which they were to some extent but only in the fashion that they did not possess the same technology for warfare, immunity of communal diseases transmitted, and they were not anticipating combat. All other factors considered, the natives stood to be a potential threat. In regards to knowledge obtained by Spaniards prior to arrival and knowledge gained from observation, it would be remiss had they not prepared for battle. This argument is not to be misconstrued in approving their actions; I do recognize colonization as an evil for both the reasons employed and its damaging effects, but rather to change the narrative surrounding that of the native people. While they did experience a tragedy, I feel that it is erroneous to write them into history as being incompetent resulting from their

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

As a rule, the Native Americans are perhaps the most overlooked sector of the population of the colonies. This war completely varied their knowledge of their land and its value. “We know our lands have now become more valuable,” (Document B). No more would they be fooled by

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 relationship between the English and the Native Americans in 1600 to 1700 is one of the most fluctuating and the most profound relationships in American history. On the one side of the picture, the harmony between Wampanoag and Puritans even inspires them to celebrate “first Thanksgiving”; while, by contrast, the conflicts between the Pequots and the English urge them to antagonize each other, and even wage a war. In addition, the mystery of why the European settlers, including English, become the dominant power in American world, instead of the indigenous people, or Indians, can be solved from the examination of the relationship. In a variety of ways, the relationship drastically alters how people think about and relate to the aborigines. Politically, the relationship changes to establish the supremacy of the English; the English intends to obtain the land and rules over it. Socially, the relationship changes to present the majority of the English settlers; the dominating population is mostly the English settlers. Economically, the relationship changes to obtain the benefit of the English settlers; they gain profit from the massive resource in America. Therefore, the relationship does, in fact, change to foreshadow the discordance of the two groups of people.

The migration of European settlers and culture to North America is an often examined area. One aspect of this, however, is worthy of deeper analysis. The conquest of North America by Europeans and American settlers from the 16th to 19th centuries had a profound effect on the indigenous political landscape by defining a new relationship dynamic between natives and settlers, by upsetting existing native political, economic and military structures, and by establishing a paradigm where the indigenous peoples felt they had to resist the European and American incursions. The engaging and brilliant works of Andres Rensendez and Steve Inskeep, entitled respectively “A Land So Strange” and “Jacksonland”, provide excellent insights and aide to this analysis.

The history of the United States with regards to its native population is inaccurate and assumes that the history of this country began when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock (Richter, pp. 4-5). With regards to the native people’s

In West of the Revolution, Saunt explores eight notable moments of interaction, and often first contact, between “old world” colonial powers and indigenous peoples in North America that were occurring simultaneously with the English colonists’ declarations of independence and armed revolt. By providing the reader with a broader perspective of what was happening throughout America in 1776, Saunt illustrates that our collective understanding of what constituted America at that time tends to be remarkably limited and that colonial struggles were multi-faceted, depicted here in a series of snapshots of our land’s history that challenge, complicate, and clarify our conception of what America was. What emerges from this mosaic is a pattern of European national, economic, and religious interests, arrogant and ignorant in equal measure, infiltrating into native lands with consequent uneasy alliances and outright hostilities

As all authors are undeniably guilty of, James Axtell has a bias, and not one shamefully swept underneath the rug. The enlightening article Axtell has published remains not only as informational; it stands convicting in a sense. Unfortunately, the reader may find themselves lumped into the assemblage of Americans that regard the Native Americans as “pathetic footnotes to the main course of American History” (Axtell 981). Establishing his thesis, Axtell offers plentiful examples of how Native Americans contributed to Colonial America,

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.

During American colonial times, the native peoples of the new world clashed often with the English settlers who encroached upon their lifestyle. Many horror stories and clichés arose about the natives from the settlers. As one might read in Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative, often these disputes would turn to violence. To maintain the process of the extermination of the natives alongside Christian moral beliefs, one of the main tenets of colonial life was the belief that the natives were “savages”; that they were morally and mentally inferior to the English that settled there. As is the case with many societies, certain voices of dissent began to spin. These voices questioned the assertions

Instead of becoming havens for the English poor and unemployed, or models of interracial harmony, the southern colonies of seventeenth-century North America were weakened by disease, wracked by recurring conflicts with Native Americans, and disrupted by profit-hungry planters’ exploitation of poor whites and blacks alike. Many of the tragedies of Spanish colonization and England’s conquest of Ireland were repeated in the American South and the British Caribbean. Just as the English established their first outpost on Chesapeake Bay with a set of goals and strategies in mind, so too the native Indians of that region pursued their own aims and interests. They

The defeat of the first United States army by a coalition of Native Americans is the focus in Collin Calloway’s The Victory with No Name. In this historical account, Calloway addresses what occurred on November 4th, 1791, when an Indian army consisting of a variety of Indian tribes, led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, ambushed the first American army near the Wabash River to protect themselves from American expansion of the Northwest Territory. The American army, led by Revolutionary War veteran Arthur St. Clair, was ill-equipped with men, horses, and weaponry, and ignorant about Indian whereabouts and tactics. Calloway organizes his argument by describing America’s desire for land, the invasion and settlement of Indian land, and the resistance formed by Native Americans. Calloway continues by illustrating the defeat of the American army and the aftermath of the battle between Native Americans and the U.S. By drawing on extensive historical evidence that illustrated the events before, during, and after the battle, Calloway presents a detailed historical narrative that challenges the idea that “winners write the history…even when they lose” and offers a narrative that shows both the Native American and the U.S. perspective, ultimately giving credit to the Indians for their victory. However, Calloway provides information that is irrelevant to his argument and the book, which makes it difficult to follow along throughout the story.

The 19th century history of the Native Americans has been so profoundly mistold, that most textbooks don’t regard the actions between the white settlers and Indians as attempted genocide. Many people have been mislead to believe that Native Americans were wiped out entirely, which is thankfully false. One of the major factors that isn’t communicated enough through textbooks is the peace that the natives tried to instill with settlers. They often vent solely about the savagery of the Indians, yet they forget to expose the endless stories of remorseless violence from the settlers. Another part of their past that has been hidden involves the manipulation that settlers used to take advantage of the natives. They deceived them and made many promises that they didn’t live up to, while also breaking treaties with the Indians numerous times. When told from the perspective of the victims in the attempted massacre of the Native Americans in the 1800s, one can see that the West was won out of deceiving lies and unkept promises from White settlers, along with remorseless violence and prejudice.