Native Americans During The Colonial Era

The moment when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas was the beginning of the interactions between American Indians and European colonists. These very first interactions were mostly positive due to the the generosity of the Indians but turned violent when the Europeans began to mistreat, kidnap, enslave, and kill the American Indians. Actions taken by the American Indians and European Colonists, especially actions of violence, during the 1600s caused the relationship between the two parties to be negative and conflicting in New England and Chesapeake.

The fascination with Native Americans has been a constant with outsiders since explorers first “discovered” the New World. The biggest surge in this fascination came in the mid-19th century when the Indian Wars were starting to come to an end and the belief that Native Americans were disappearing, walking into the sunset never to be seen again. This led to an increase in the collecting of anything Native American, from artifacts to stories to portraits. The inevitable outcome of this was that Native Americans, who were never considered very highly to begin with, where now moved into a category of scientific interest to be study. This scientific interest in Native Americans is what many museums and other institutions based their collections and exhibits on and is one of the issues that many Native Americans have with how both their people and their culture were, and to some extent still are, represented in these places.

The first establishment of the New World was Jamestown in 1607. This colony was founded by King James I. King James sent merchants and adventurers that were looking to profit from land and wealth to the New World just as the Spaniards did in Mexico and Peru. The London Company issued a Virginia charter to form plantations in Virginia. This was lead by Sir Thomas Smith, one of the wealthiest merchants aboard the ships to the New World. There were approximately 104 settlers that arrived on a peninsula along the James River. These settlers wanted to make a profit to take back to England. This peninsula was known as Jamestown. The colonists in this low lying swamp area was stricken with disease, contaminated drinking water, and was attacked by Spaniards or Native Americans. This was a serious threat to the early settlers of Jamestown.

Beginning in the Sixteenth Century, Europeans sought to escape religious and class persecution by engaging on a journey to the New World. However, they were unaware that this “New World” was already inhabited by many groups of Native Americans, who had been established on the continent for thousands of years. At first, the two ethnic groups lived in relative peace. The colonists of Jamestown survived due to Powhatan’s tribe teaching them how to cultivate the land. However, things took a twisted turn as the colonists grew greedy. Due to cultural differences, there was stark tension between the Indian groups and European settlers in New England prior to 1750, which tremendously influenced early political means, social life, and the economy.

During the years between 1607 and 1611, many colonists died due to the following: Enviromental issues, settlers skills, and the Relationships with the Indians. In those years many colonists were traveling and seeking me lives but little did they know, their skill level was very low. As a result, many of the colonists ended up dead. Most of the colonists that traveled were gentlemen. However, these are not the nice men you're thinking of. These gentlemen are men that are usually to used to be useful or doing any work at all. Other than mainly gentlemen, the only colonists they brought were barrel makers, druggists, and people with jobs other than FARMING! Now let's dig deeper into why so many colonists died between the years of 1607 and 1611.

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

Women in colonial America played revolutionary roles. They played roles that were always changing. “All men are created equal.” It’s the basis in which America was built, but what about the women? Without women, men wouldn’t have been nearly as successful. But what exactly did women do? Well, different races had different roles to play within their population(WiseGEEK).

After the readings and discussions this week on Native Americans, the information conflicts with my previous knowledge.

There were three important people that had very different views on how to reconstruct the Union. Reconstruction was, according to The Americans by McDougal Littell, “the period during which the United States began to rebuild after the Civil War” (Page 376). It started in 1865 and ended in 1877. The views on how Reconstruction should happen were very different for each of these people: Abraham Lincoln, the Radical Republicans, and Andrew Johnson.

Native Americans during 1785-1829 were affected by western expansion because of the removal of Native Americans from the land, white settlers attempting to assimilate Native Americans to their culture, and were involved in battles between the a Native Americans and white setters which led to the depleting number of Native Americans.

When Europeans came to the American continent, contact with the Native Americans who were already living there was inevitable. In the colonization of early America, the various groups of European settlers: the Spanish, French, English, and Dutch each had unique experiences with, and therefore individual opinions of the Native Americans whom they interacted. Each of these nations also shared commonalties in their colonization processes and in how they viewed Native Americans. Furthermore, the Native Americans held differing opinions of each group of Europeans whom they encountered while some features of their relationships with Europeans were consistent despite the tribe or nation involved.

At this period in history people were making their way from England to the new world to try and settle and find places to live. In 1607, John Smith voyaged to what was called the new world and they began to attempt to start colonies. The first permanent English settlement in the new world, was the Jamestown colony in Virginia. The new world began here when the people started the first of the 13 colonies. When they went to the new world, they were not aware of the struggles they would need to overcome to make it. They had struggles with food, tools, structure, places to live, and many other things. These problems made it very hard for the colony to settle there, until the Indians assisted them, but this ended up failing because of an argument

when the colonists arrived to america, the "new world", they found that the native Americans mainly cultivated beans, maize (corn), and squash, in north america. Cassava, corn, potatoes, and quinoa, in south america. There was few domesticated animals such as guinea pigs and turkeys in mesoamerica, domestics dogs were spread, also there alpacas and llamas, they where used for

The Native American life in North America lacked technologies like metal tools, machines, gunpowder, and scientific knowledge before the Europeans arrived. None of the Tribes north of Mexico had achieved a great reading ability however, some were able to make maps on the beck of animal hides and on tree bark. They did not have wheeled vehicles of any kind or domestic animals to pull them. They were able to live life like without tools and knowledge just fine before the Europeans arrived.

When the Europeans came to explore the Americas, it left the Indians diminishing with the objects they brought over. One of the things the Indians were introduced to were pigs. These creatures reproduced swiftly and happened to be eating fields of the Indians food, such as beans and squash. During the voyage, rats stuck on boats and when they arrived in bunches from multiplying on the boats, they damaged more crops. Also, with the new plants Europeans brought, came new weeds. This caused the crops to be suffocated, meaning fewer ears of corn were furnished. Most Indians were going hungry. Not only were they were suffering of malnutrition from the lack of nutrients, but new diseases struck in the Americas that natives did not have resistance