Amerindians and Their Relationship with the French and English
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- Date Submitted: 01/02/2011 04:37 PM
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The Amerindians:
Relationships with the French and English Colonists
The exploration of the Atlantic World and all of the newly discovered land, led to a tremendous amount of interaction between different types of people and races and religions, all of whom had never before been in contact with each other. The Columbian Exchange was a biological and ecological exchange that took place following the Spanish establishment of colonies in the New World. The Europeans were introduced to the Africans, the color of their skin, their tribal ways and their religion was of great intrigue to the white conquistadores. But by far the biggest interaction between cultures came with the Europeans and the Amerindians or Native Americans. Europeans and more specifically, the Puritans came to a land which seemed barren, desolate and parts seemed uninhabitable. However to their dismay this land was already inhabited by natives and it was determined by the Europeans that they had the authority to just take the land and its resources for themselves.
With continuing bad times in England and the persecution of Puritans by the English crown, this led to the Great Migration of the 1630s. Within a decade, over 10,000 Puritans had arrived in Massachusetts. “This infusion of industrious, well-educated, and often prosperous colonists swiftly created a complex and distinct culture on the edge of what one of the pessimists among them called ‘a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men’ ” (Carnes & Garraty, 2008, pg. 38). It was believed by most Western Europeans in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the Amerindians must be converted to Christianity. According to the Europeans there was only a single Christian category for people who were as deep in sin as to not be aware of the one true God. These people were called the “children of the Devil” (Lovejoy, 1994, pg. 605). The settlers thought that the Christian Gospel was infinitely...
Relationships with the French and English Colonists
The exploration of the Atlantic World and all of the newly discovered land, led to a tremendous amount of interaction between different types of people and races and religions, all of whom had never before been in contact with each other. The Columbian Exchange was a biological and ecological exchange that took place following the Spanish establishment of colonies in the New World. The Europeans were introduced to the Africans, the color of their skin, their tribal ways and their religion was of great intrigue to the white conquistadores. But by far the biggest interaction between cultures came with the Europeans and the Amerindians or Native Americans. Europeans and more specifically, the Puritans came to a land which seemed barren, desolate and parts seemed uninhabitable. However to their dismay this land was already inhabited by natives and it was determined by the Europeans that they had the authority to just take the land and its resources for themselves.
With continuing bad times in England and the persecution of Puritans by the English crown, this led to the Great Migration of the 1630s. Within a decade, over 10,000 Puritans had arrived in Massachusetts. “This infusion of industrious, well-educated, and often prosperous colonists swiftly created a complex and distinct culture on the edge of what one of the pessimists among them called ‘a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men’ ” (Carnes & Garraty, 2008, pg. 38). It was believed by most Western Europeans in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the Amerindians must be converted to Christianity. According to the Europeans there was only a single Christian category for people who were as deep in sin as to not be aware of the one true God. These people were called the “children of the Devil” (Lovejoy, 1994, pg. 605). The settlers thought that the Christian Gospel was infinitely...