1. Day 5: Colonial-Native Relations
Essential Questions:
How did relations between English colonists and Native Americans evolve over time?
What factors shaped the development of Native American society after contact with the Europeans in North America?
Readings:
Kennedy Ch. 2 (Cultural Clashes-Indians New World) and Ch. 3 (Puritans vs. Indians)
Primary and Secondary Docs related to conflicts/cooperation in Virginia, New England, and Pennsylvania
“What Can You Get by War?” by Powhatan – in Ordinary Americans
“So Many Christians Lying in Their Blood” by Mary White Rowlandson – in Ordinary Americans

2. Non-English Interaction with Native Americans Create this diagram on notebook paper for your classnotes.
Spanish
Dutch
French

3. The Spanish:
Enslaved natives to grow crops and mine for gold, silver, and other valuables.
Catholic missionaries labored to convert the Indians to Christianity (Indians continued to maintain their own religious and cultural traditions, so priests concluded that the Indians were inferior and incapable of understanding Christianity.)
Indigenous populations declined b/c of epidemics.
Intermarriage between Spanish men and American Indian women was common.

4. The French:
Exploited existing inter-tribal alliances and rivalries to establish trade relationships
French traders exchanged textiles, weapons, and metal goods for the furs of animals such as beavers, bears, and wolves.
Trade strengthened traditional clan leaders' positions by allowing them to distribute these trade goods to their clan members as they saw fit.
Jesuit (Catholic) missionaries managed to convert considerable numbers
Additional incentive for conversion allowed Christian natives to purchase French muskets.
Dutch and English competed with the French for trade and territory, which gave local Indians continued economic, diplomatic, and military leverage

5. The Dutch:
Did not emphasize religious conversion in their relationships with Native Americans.
Established a fur trade alliance with the Iroquois confederacy
Smallpox and other European diseases drastically reduced the Iroquois population.
Dutch weapons helped the Iroquois to defeat the Huron, who were leaders of the other major pan-Indian confederacy in the area.

6. Notes: Colonial-Native Relations

7. Native American Foreign Policy
Native Americans took advantage of rivalries among European powers to enhance their own political and economic positions.
Ex: After England took over New Netherland (NY), the Iroquois quickly signed an alliance and trade treaty with the English while maintaining friendly relations with the French.
The Iroquois were successful at playing the French and English off one another the French and Indian War (1763).

8. Docs 1.6: English – Native Relations Cooperation and Conflict
You will rotate through three different regions of colonial America to study to cooperation and conflict between settlers and native Americans.
Virginia Colony
New England
Pennsylvania
You should discuss the readings within your respective groups. Each set of readings concludes with several questions students should consider as a guide to group discussion.
Seventeenth-century documents included in the readings are printed side-by-side with contemporary English versions.

10. Intertribal Summit
You will represent native Americans from one of the following regions.
Virginia Colony – Powhatan Wars
New England – Pequot Wars, King Phillip’s War
Pennsylvania – Treaty with Leni Lenape

11. Intertribal Summit
Work with your group to answer these two questions as thoroughly as possible for your region, then we’ll discuss as a class.
How did competition over resources lead conflict within and between North American colonial possessions and American Indians?
How did clashes between European and American Indian social and economic values cause changes in both cultures? 1
Colonies allied, traded with, and armed American Indian groups, leading to continuing political instability.
Colonies focused on gaining new sources of labor and on producing and acquiring commodities that were valued in Europe.
Settlers, especially in the English colonies, expressed dissatisfaction over territorial settlements, frontier defense, and other issues. 2
increased flow of trade goods and diseases into and out of native communities, stimulating cultural and demographic changes
Spanish – saw an accommodation with some aspects of American Indian culture
English - conflict tended to reinforce English colonists’ worldviews on land and gender roles.
By supplying American Indian allies with deadlier weapons and alcohol and by rewarding Indian military actions, Europeans helped increase the intensity and destructiveness of American Indian warfare.

12. Wrap Up
How did relations between English colonists and Native Americans evolve over time?
What factors shaped the development of Native American society after contact with the Europeans in North America?