Contact
After Columbus, the contact between the Europeans and Native Americans was founded on the need to exploit and gain wealth from the Natives. The Dutch, the French, the Spanish, and the English established ways to enable them to be part of or have territory in North America to exploit the land for their material benefit (Gallup-Diaz et al. 10). For example, the 17th century New Netherland colonial province was located towards North America’s East Coast, whose purpose was to exploit the region’s fur trade by the Natives.
Misunderstanding
Once contact was established, the Europeans brought differences in culture that were instilled among the Natives. With the new norm among the Natives, the Europeans began introducing indentures relative to how they interacted with the Natives. The differences resulted in uncomfortable and contradictory rulings on how the Europeans dealt with the Natives, leading to states of unrest in positions of culture and land allocation.
European Incursion
With the laws of the respective colonies established in Europe, the Europeans could impose punitive rules that allowed them to move deeper into the Natives’ original territories. The use of laws coupled with a series of transformations and rivalry between different states was significant in how the Europeans traversed the land, searching for better opportunities. Moreover, with the laws in place, the Natives encountered intolerable acts from their European neighbors resulting in the Natives surrendering their lands to minimize, if not avoid, conflicts.
Tribal Crisis
The more involved the Natives were with the Europeans, the more struggle they encountered in maintaining inter-tribe unity among themselves. Different tribes sided with different European colonies meaning the perspective dissimilarities between the Europeans were shared among the Natives, making it challenging to have cohesion in their relations. Coupled with European affairs, several Indian tribes contributed to the successful crushing of other tribes and drove them far from their lands.
Violence
Alongside tribal crises and involvement in European affairs, the Indians were caught up in power struggles that resulted in European-Indian and Indian-Indian violence. For example, to displace the French, the Iroquois Confederacy helped the English by crushing the Huron people and driving them away from the Great Lakes (Gallup-Diaz et al. 14). For such displacement to have taken place, the Indians were involved in violence resulting in significant loss of life.
Displacement
As illustrated, the divisions by the Indians resulted in different tribes taking sides with the different European nations in the region. Depending on the association between the European country and the tribes, it was possible to displace the weak tribes that were not strong enough to hold their positions. Using the illustrated example, the relationship between the Iroquois Confederation and the English resulted in the displacement of the Hurons and the French colony in the Great Lakes territory.
Confinement
Any opposing attempts by the Indians were met with violence or strict use of power by the Europeans towards establishing authority over the Natives. The use of laws, as already illustrated, led to not only transformations but also displacements, failure to which the resisting Natives were confined or even killed. The same applied to the frontiersmen that seemed to stand in the line of change by their respective or opposing colonies.
Forced Assimilation
Once contact was made, the Indians were forced to learn to facilitate their interactions with the Europeans. In various instances, the Europeans were forced to learn about the Indians’ ways of life to ease communication and venture further into the land. The Natives were also forced to learn the European culture to enable effective communication between them and the foreigners. Due to the forced ways of life, the Natives had to change their thinking methods to make possible fruitful interactions with the Europeans.
Work Cited
Gallup-Diaz, Ignacio, and Geoffrey G. Plank. Quakers and Native Americans. Brill. 2019.