Introduction
The era of global colonization is a dark period for all humanity. The indigenous people of the New World and other continents, such as Australia, were killed, enslaved, and plundered by the rapidly emerging Western European empires. One can safely say that the Indigenous tribes of North America are among those who received the most tremendous damage from the Europeans. Their relationship with white settlers was complex and paradoxical, and remains so today.
In the past, their differences in worldviews often led to genocidal practices against Native ethnic groups. Surprisingly, despite the dire situation, the two sides occasionally found common ground throughout the first three centuries of the colonial era. While Native Americans based their policies toward Europeans on prudence and coexistence, Europeans were driven by financial interests and expansionism. Yet, both understood that the imperial presence must be expelled from the continent.
Prudence vs. Financial Interest
North American peoples were less technologically advanced than other civilizations. However, their approach to politics with the newcomers to the western continent was comparatively much more sincere, thoughtful, and, most importantly, prudent. A prime example of this is an early 17th-century dialogue between Captain John Smith and Powhatan. The latter tries to convey to the former that he wants peaceful coexistence between his people and the English, even though the Europeans intend to seize their lands (Foner 25).
However, he is only willing to supply food in exchange for weapons to compensate for the technological gap. Smith notes that “… none he liked without guns and swords…” (Foner 24). One can see that the worldview of many Indigenous communities was pacifistic but not naive. They understood the need for an equilibrium in military power with the other side, but tried to avoid conflict. It can be said that the Indigenous people adhered to the modern global paradigm of mutual deterrence already in the 17th century, while the Europeans acted like barbarians.
It is no secret that Western European states began colonization mainly to become more economically powerful than their immediate neighbors and the relatively more prosperous Islamic countries. They needed more resources, from food to metals, to consume, transform into goods and services, and sell. Financial interest naturally became the socio-political core of relations with Native Americans.
Bartolomé de las Casas notes that in the 16th century, Spanish colonizers brutally exploited Indians by forcing them to work in mines without adequate food or pay and prohibiting them from seeing their families (Foner 9-11). It resulted in a colossal mortality rate from exhaustion, disease, and beatings by guards. He sadly concluded that “very few ever made it home” (Foner 11). It can be said that, from the 16th to at least the 18th century, Europeans’ approach to building relationships with other ethnic groups was deeply commercialized. It led to the age of slavery and genocide in the New World.
Coexistence vs. Expansion
Another difference in political viewpoints was that Native Americans favored a coexistence paradigm, while Europeans embraced expansionism. In the mid-18th century, Ohio tribes allowed Christian missions to live among them and even perform interethnic marriages (Henretta and Yazawa 94). In the conflict between the French and the British, they were primarily concerned that the white people would take their territories. Leaders of the native tribes tell Post, “this makes everybody believe, you want to take the land from us by force, and settle it” (Henretta and Yazawa 94). They do not intend to take advantage of the opportunity, for example, to carry out historical revenge.
In contrast, Europeans began large-scale expansion into North America immediately after the first settlements adapted to local natural and weather conditions. As Calloway formulated it, they launched an all-out invasion after growing from a “trickle” to a “tsunami” of population (105). Even Christianity was interpreted in such a way that colonizers and settlers could claim and exploit new lands and native populations without remorse. The cultural and ideological phenomena of the “white man’s burden” and “manifest destiny” emerged later in the 19th century. These were natural conclusions of the coexistence and partial mixing of the paradigms of financial interest, expansionism, and Christianity in the worldview of Europeans and Americans.
Native and New Americans against the Imperial Presence
What both sides living in the newly discovered land understood equally well was that the imperial presence negatively affected their lives. According to Lepore, “between 1675 and 1680, four rebellions took place in four different colonies” (92). These were responses to either the deprivation of human rights or attempts to take away land. One hundred years before the American Revolution, there was an unspoken shared understanding among Native Americans and white settlers that it was those who lived in North America who should rule the Western lands, not those overseas. It is partly why Indigenous people would join the revolutionaries a century later.
Conclusion
The colonization of North America is, without a doubt, a tragic historical event. The cruelty and bloodshed lasted for more than three centuries because of a clash of civilizations with radically different worldviews. The indigenous tribes tried to act prudently, but the settlers’ barbarity was stronger. By the second half of the 18th century, both gradually realized North America was their home and no one else’s.
Works Cited
Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. 5th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016.
Foner, Eric, editor. Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History, Vol. 1. 6th ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Henretta, James A., and Melvin Yazawa. Documents for America’s History, Volume I: To 1877. 7th ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.
Lepore, Jill. These Truths: These Truths: A History of the United States, with Sources (Inquiry Edition). W. W. Norton & Company, 2023.