Exploiting the Native Americans - Essay Example

Why and how did the move West disrupt the lives of Native Americans? In what ways did the settlers exploit Native Americans? Despite notable successes with of colonization in the 1600s, colonists of the West had to go through several stages of inconvenient dealings with the American Indians given the fact that the conquest of America back then was not merely the pursuit of a single powerful nation. Besides the English, the French and the Dutch shared a common goal of establishing colonies in the land primarily inhabited by indigenous people whose way of living significantly differed from the lifestyle and economy of the people of Europe.

To learn the means to disrupt the lives of Native Americans, the colonists necessitated having to consult pertinent documents substantiating the expeditions of Columbus as well as hearsays from fishermen and traders which detailed personal encounters with the indigenous Americans. Perhaps through the stories relayed by Spanish visitors of the land, they found out that the latter often appeared to match emblematic descriptions as ‘savage’, ‘beastlike’, ‘flesh-eating’, or any such term near ‘hostile’.

On the other hand though, there existed locals as the Indian tribes that exhibited character of earnest openness and received the Europeans well, notwithstanding mixed emotions and motives. While many of them fell into the assumption that foreign invaders arrived for a good cause inclusive of the will to form allies to aid them in combating native adversaries, gradually, they discovered that the people from the West were scheming to exploit their resources. As an indirect manner of exploiting the native Americans, Europeans generally acknowledged trade with the latter from whom they obtained animal skins and hides and a wampum of polished shell beads in exchange of technology-based weaponry, liquors, and even religion and disease type which bore negative impact upon the sense of independence and natural system of the local people.

Initially, this relation enabled the natives to trust the settlers with their properties and resources, understanding the risk measures the foreigners had to undergo in order to survive the New World that originally belonged to the indigenous inhabitants. Eventually though, the stealthy nature of the colonizers’ primary aim was revealed and the natives realized that their course of action reflected a hidden goal of securing lands and trading for the purpose of acquiring tools to exploit the indigenous Americans.

Despite the Puritan attitude, it became clear that land acquisition by the western intruders meant complete exclusion of the natives from the huge tracts of tribal lands in New England as well as their subjection to the laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.Works CitedRobwrite (2010). “When the Native American Indians First Met the European Settlers.” HubPages. Retrieved from http://robwrite.hubpages.com/hub/When-the-Native-American-Indians-first-met-the-European-Settlers on April 8, 2012.

“Native American Clashes with European Settlers.” West Virginia Division of Culture and History. Retrieved from http://www.wvculture.org/history/indland.html. on April 9, 2012. “[Indian] Relationships With The Europeans.” Hawthorne in Salem. Retrieved from http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/11875/ on April 9, 2012.