In 1607 the English founded Jamestown; in 1608 the French built Quebec; and in 1609 the Spanish established Santa Fe. Non-Indians had been arriving in North America for more than 100 years, and by the beginning of the 17 th century, as Europeans established these and other permanent settlements, the signs were clear that they intended to stay.
Indian reactions to these invaders in their lands varied according to the foreigners’ aims and behavior. Overall, the French were given the highest regard. They primarily came to North America as businessmen intent on amassing fortunes in the fur trade, in which they gave European goods to Indians in exchange for the pelts of fur-bearing animals, most often the beaver. The French sought to create strong friendships with their Indian trading partners, because their livelihoods depended on it. Traders often adopted Indian customs, particularly the ritual of giving gifts to express goodwill, and they sometimes married Indian women to strengthen these crucial business relationships.
The Spanish incursions in the Southwest and Southeast were far more disruptive to the Indian groups there. Using methods of conquest pioneered by the Spanish in Mexico, soldiers swept into Indian villages and compelled the inhabitants to perform labor for them. In exchange, the Spanish promised protection from their Indian and non-Indian enemies. Responding to the Spanish Crown’s insistence on the conversion of its Indian subjects, Catholic priests established missions among the Indians.
Groups under Spanish control generally tried to keep the peace by accommodating—or seeming to accommodate—the demands of soldiers and missionaries. Indians such as the Pueblo, for instance, worked for the Spanish and agreed to become Christian converts, all the while retaining much of their autonomy and their traditional culture and religion. Only when conditions became intolerably oppressive did the Indians respond with violence. The 17th century saw a series of Pueblo revolts, the most effective being the rebellion led by Pope in 1680, which forced the Spanish to abandon the Pueblos’ territory for 12 years.
Despite the frequent brutality of the Spanish, the English posed perhaps an even greater threat to their Indian neighbors. Relatively uninterested in the Indians’ souls or animal furs, they instead had their eyes on tribal lands. As their population and number of settlements grew, the English showed little regard for the Indian populations they displaced. With the exception of a few enlightened colonial leaders such as Roger Williams and William Penn, British settlers generally viewed Indians with contempt. They took whatever land they wanted without its inhabitants’ consent and without offering any sort of compensation. When met with Indian resistance, they fought back with unequaled ferocity. Their aim in such conflicts as the Pequot War and King Philip’s War was not just victory but the total annihilation of their Indian enemies.
Increased contact with whites did not just bring Indians into conflict with the newcomers. It also created new rivalries or inflamed old ones between Indian groups. The Pueblo and the Apache had long had a contentious relationship. But when the Spanish refused to provide the Apache with the Pueblo corn they needed, the Apache had to resort to attacking and raiding Pueblo villages to steal the food they previously had obtained through trade. Competition in the fur trade similarly pitted the Huron tribes against the mighty Iroquois Confederacy. As allies of the French, the Huron grew wealthy as middlemen, trading food to interior tribes for furs, which they in turn traded to their French partners. Armed by the Dutch, the jealous Iroquois set out to destroy their Huron rivals. In a brutal 1649 attack, they killed huge numbers of Huron and drove the survivors from their lands, forever destroying the unity of the tribe.
By the beginning of the 18 th century, Indians were increasingly drawn into the conflicts between the English and French, who had emerged as the primary non-Indian competitors for lands in the east. A series of wars fought on European and North American soil culminated in what was called in North America the French and Indian War (1754—63)—so named because most Indian groups involved in the conflict chose to fight on the side of the French. England’s victory in the war proved disastrous for all eastern Indians. In the peace treaty, France was forced to relinquish nearly all its land claims in North America. Indians were stunned by these concessions: accustomed to playing the two European powers against one another, they now had to deal with the British only, leaving them in a far more vulnerable position than ever before.
The Indians’ fears about the English were quickly borne out. General Jeffrey Amherst, the commander of British troops in North America, abandoned the European practice of distributing gifts to ingratiate Indians and solidify allegiances with them. Many groups had come to rely on the goods they had routinely received from the French, so Amherst’s policy posed a dire threat to their wellbeing. Indian fury at the British exploded in a series of attacks on Detroit and other English forts. The conflict became known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, after the Ottawa leader who helped instigate the attacks by translating the anti-British religious movement of the popular Lenni Lenape (Delaware) prophet Neolin into military action.
Although the rebellion was short-lived, it impressed upon the English government the need to court Indian favor. The Crown responded by establishing the Proclamation Line of 1763, a boundary stretching along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains. The king declared that all land west of the line was for Indian use and forbade all colonists from entering it. The declaration, however, did little except fuel the growing anger of the colonists, who resented royals an ocean away dictating where the colonists could and could not settle. These tensions would only become more intense and would eventually draw Indians into still another nonIndian war.
World History
