O ' Neal

The Native Americans are a prime example of the repression, poverty, and discrimination many minority groups have had to endure throughout the years. The Native Americans had their own land, culture and language. They were people able to adapt well to their particular region by hunting, fishing and farming crops. Their cultures primarily rested on wise use of all natural resources available. Many historians believe there were between 6 and 10 million Native Americans living in what later became the United States before the arrival of the Europeans (Parrillo, 2011). This paper will analyze the views the Europeans had about the Natives, what came about from these views and where the Native American

Many of the Florida Indians by the time of the British arrival (1763) were trading for decades with the Spanish and its colonies to the immediate south. The Creek Nation was a loose confederation of disparate Southeastern tribes sharing a common language and matrilineal line. Many of the Creeks who did not share their nation’s policy of trade with the British colonies migrated to new lands in Florida. But despite the geopolitical separation into Spanish territory, many still identified themselves as Creek when the British took over Florida. Creeks negotiated treaties with the French, British, Spanish, and having their multi-ethnic population in their midst, including black Indians who spoke European languages and served as interpreters. There were yet no Seminoles in Florida, just their antecedents that at the time were recognized as Tallasees, Mikasukis, Tohopekaligas, among others, who lived throughout the peninsula. This included other tribes who were later then identified as separate tribes and eventually grouped as Creeks: the Apalachicolas, Cauetas, Yamasees, and Talapuses. While some Oconees in Florida identified themselves as “Simallone” (as a corruption of Seminole – missing “r” in Hitchiti tongue was substituted for an “l”), but the British and subsequently Spain and the United States would mistake all East Florida Indians as Seminole Creeks. The Spanish were still using the term “cimarron” in a very general sense.

When the Europeans arrived in the Americas they were looking for riches, spices, and new trade routes to India. When they found this new world and the Native Americans that lived there, they deliberately mistreated them. Looked at as obstructions, the Natives were driven from their land and homes and pushed west. Europeans that encountered the Native Americans had different ideas about them depending on their political and religious beliefs but none were positive. Those ideas ranged from pity for them as non-Christians to be converted (Doc. A2) and treated as children to a lower status of human to be taken advantage of for profits. The Natives were forced to mine precious metals, and farm sugar cane and tobacco. They were not viewed or treated as equal persons. They were considered part of the wild land to be conquered, enslaved, killed, and beaten into cooperation.

During the early exploring of the American continent in the 1500s and 1600s, the New World seemed to be untouched land only inhabited by native, primitive people. It was believed to be the literal Garden Eden, a world without human sins, and the perfect balance between humans and nature. However, when the English first started to settle along the East coast, the reality of this New World appeared to not be as perfect and utopic as they thought: Attacks and conflicts between the natives and settlers, the lack of civilization, and dangerous winter conditions surfaced. Nevertheless, for many settlers, the new land was promising and gave those a chance who were unable to live a happy life in Europe.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west and found himself on the shores of a new world. His mission was to secure new land for Spain. Other European countries heard of his findings, they too crossed the ocean in hopes of securing new opportunities in this newly discovered land such as fur trading and gold mining. Little did they know that a community of indigenous people had already settled in this land thousands of years before. The Europeans decided to negotiate with the natives in order to set up their own communities in the land but the Native Americans held beliefs about society and religion that were far different from their European peers. Europeans thought the Indians to be “Noble Savages, gentle and friendly, but uncivilized, brutal, and barbaric” (citation). They could not see past their own

Before Europeans ever ventured to North America, the land had been populated by Native American nations that had their own distinct cultures and social structures. Native Americans had trade routes and established complex relationships between tribes. They were not merely heathens waiting to be civilized by the Europeans. Yet, Europeans would use those justifications to lay claim on their land.

Spain, England, and France led the colonization of the Americas having distinct missions, and using different approach. By the mid 1960’s, all these great nations were in a race to establish American colonies. Like in every expedition, the primary purposes were to gain wealth and riches, which was the main reasoning behind all of the colonization’s. On their way to building these settlements, the colonials encountered the Native Americans and had to deal with them in very different ways.

"Native Americans, Treatment of (Spain Vs. England) (Issue)." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 8 Jul. 2015 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

The first interaction that took place in the New World, occurred between a group of European settlers and Native Indians, who inhabited the borders of the United States. Indian tribes, who resided in the North, lacked the skills and literacy Europeans had obtained, such as craftsman’s ship of tools, weapons, and wheeled vehicles. However, their simplistic lives allowed them to master skills, which would become important and useful to new settlements, such as farming, hunting, developing structures, and engage in far-reaching networks of trade. Europeans viewed the Natives one of two ways, “they were regarded either as noble savages, gentle, friendly, and superior in some ways to Europeans, or as uncivilized and brutal savages.” (Give Me Liberty

Through the 16th and 17th centuries European Nations colonized their way across the New World. through ruthless murders of Native Americans and endless colonization, they gained access to the valuable resources the New World had to offer. Consequently, colonies settled by different nations, in the early 18th century had created their own individual societies that operated a lot different from each other. These colonies were founded on different terms, and their labor systems, and the needs for labor, were completely different. Although they had their differences, their attitudes toward the Native Americans remained constant throughout the different colonies.

European explorers first landed on the shores of what would later become North America more than 500 years ago. Not long after the first explorers had entered the "New World" they found out that they were not alone on this new frontier. Their neighbors in this new land were the Native Americans who had been there for centuries, virtually unaware of life outside the continent. Thus began an inconsistent and often times unstable relationship between the European settlers and the North American Indians. Two nations who had particularly interesting relationships with the Native Americans were the British and the French, both of whom took different approaches to their relations with the Indians economically as well as culturally. Neither nation had complete trust for the Indians, nor did the Indians ever completely trust the men who arrived on "floating islands with many tall trees". Nonetheless, they did interact with one another in their daily lives. Both economically and culturally the French and British went about their interactions with the Native Americans differently. Through first hand writings and documents as well as observations by historians, it is evident that the British and French interacted with the Indians of North America in different ways.

Before Europeans settled the North American continent, Native Americans viewed the land as sacred and had to be shared among the people; not

The Ikaniuksalgi, or “the people of the peninsula” (today more commonly referred to as the Seminoles), arrived in Florida late in the eighteenth century. Although Florida and the Seminoles have been linked for almost three centuries, the origins of the Seminoles lie in part in the Creek Confederacy that migrated to Spanish Florida from Alabama and Georgia. Even though other Indians had inhabited the peninsula, European diseases and wars along with rival southeastern Indians devastated the aboriginal population. Those few Indians who survived allied for the most part with the incoming Creeks, other Indians, and runaway slaves joining the amalgamating native population. The Creeks’ Muscogee language became the most prevalent, and contributed to the generalized grouping of the Florida Indians. But political factors weighed heavily in the creation of a new consolidating identity.

For thousands of years the Native Americans of the Americas were isolated from the Europeans. The Natives came into America over an ice bridge and into Alaska. After the ice bridge melted away, the Natives were disconnected from the world. They spread throughout the continent and their world consisted of many different societies within America. When the Europeans arrived, the Natives were unprepared for the rapid expansion of Europeans and all of the alien matters that they would face (Henretta, 2006).

One of the strategies the Indians employed when the European invaded their land was to incorporate them. Before natives fully accepted the Europeans, they still offered them help, advice, and friendship. They helped European ships to berth after several weeks at sea seeking safe anchorage. They also helped they collect firewood, fresh water, arrange small trade and sometimes sexual favor in exchange for English goods. When the Europeans made landfall and eventually settled in the land, the Indians welcomed them by giving honorary titles just as they did to other natives whom they adopted or other captives of war.