The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [82]
Native Americans
The Native Americans were in a conundrum. What were they to do now that the white men had arrived? In South America they were enslaved, and in North America they were driven out. The colonists of the north did not want to enslave them, they wanted them to go away. In the north farming was all important, so the settlers wanted to clear the land used for hunting by the Native Americans and plant crops. The northern colonists cut down the trees and built homes and farms everywhere. Eventually, cities arose on areas once roamed by Native Americans. Frequent wars broke out between the Natives and the colonists. Often the Natives would kill a rather large number of the white men, but the colonists always struck back. With disease killing millions of them the Native Americans could not effectively combat the white settlers. As more ships arrived with ever more Europeans, the Native Americans could only despair. Construction started on massive cities, the likes of which no Native American had ever seen or imagined. White settlers brought guns and technology as well as increasing numbers. All the natives could do was retreat, but they knew there was no end to this surge of people coming to use the land in new ways. The Native Americans had no place in this kind of world.
The Native Americans failed to unite against the white man. Some settled in and bartered with the newcomers trying to fit into the new milieu. Others, usually in piecemeal fashion, warred with the settlers in a losing attempt to change the flow of history. The warriors lost, as did the traders who were trying to fit in. The warriors lost their lives, their villages, and their families. The passive lost their culture and their identity. They became the Indians, or red men; people who were lost in a new age and unwelcome by those who occupied the land. Some Native Americans attended college, received degrees, and otherwise “made good” in the new white settlers’ world; nevertheless, they failed to be accepted as full equal partners in the new society transplanted from Europe. Europeans had many prejudiced ideas, and these did not leave their minds because they crossed an ocean.
The Native Americans did not do much to endear themselves to the Europeans. Several of the tribes were at least part time cannibals. Needless to say, cannibalism enraged the colonist and was, to some, more proof the Indians were worth nothing but extermination. The natives also were fierce in battle. It was common for Iroquois warriors to bite chunks of flesh off the men they were fighting in hand-to-hand combat. So called Indian massacres stories were told and re-told all over the colonies. Europeans feared these warriors who moved like shadows and ambushed parties of white men in the dense forest of the eastern seaboard. Many Europeans came to hate the Native Americans as godless heathens asking for destruction. This is the common result of unremitting warfare such as the kind waged on the colonial frontier. (Or in modern Israel/Palestine)
As the Native Americans endured obliteration new problems arose for the settlers. French colonization of Canada and sections of America triggered a large war. In 1682, France claimed Louisiana and the Mississippi River lands. (All lands drained by the Mississippi River) Then in 1718, the French founded the city of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River, effectively gaining control of the waterway. In fact, all over the world the French and English were having problems with one another, and in 1756 they went to war. (Note the date, 20 years before the American Revolution) The war was termed