Native Americans In The Plymouth Colony

The Native Americans that inhabited the Americas, particularly in the Puritan colony of Plymouth in Massachusetts and the area that encompasses the English colony of Virginia in the eastern coast of North America, had their lives drastically changed upon contact with Europeans and served different roles for both different colonies. Native Americans living near the Plymouth were crucial to the survival of the Puritans in the Plymouth colony while the Native Americans in the Virginia colonies were in constant warfare with the English colonists in Jamestown.

The Puritan colonists of England that founded and settled the Plymouth colony were not well equipped to live in the area surrounding the colony while the Native Americans who had lived there

The people on the Mayflower were plagued by disease and weariness with many dying in the colony due to lack of clean drinking water and the low supplies of food. The Native Americans recognized the suffering of the colonists and offered them help in the establishing of their colony if they agreed to a few terms that were focused on not bringing war and injury to the Native Americans. The rocky soil of Massachusetts was not suitable for the planting of many crops, however the Native Americans understood how to plant corn in the soil of Massachusetts, so they shared this knowledge in order to give the colonists of Plymouth the agricultural production necessary to build a sustainable colony. Squanto showed the colonists where the most bountiful places to capture fish in order to supplement their corn diet with a protein along with using the fish as a fertilizer by burying the fish corpses in the rocky soil then planting the corn near to the fish in the newly

When the English colonists were boarding their ship, the Native Americans came “from the Hills, like Bears, with their bows in their mouths, [who] charged us very desperately in their faces, hurt Captain Gabriel Archer in both his hands, and a sailor in two places of the body very dangerous” (Jamestown:1607, The First Months; George Percy). The Native Americans were not very content with the presence of the English colonists on their lands, so they were attacked in order to keep them of their lands. Once the colony of Jamestown was established by the English the Native Americans raided the town for resources and in order to keep the colonists from pushing inland and have them return to where they came from. Even the meetings between the Native Americans did not end without violence and bloodshed as the two groups did not trust each other and were consistently armed with bows and arrows and other weapons. The English focused on building fortifications to defend their stock and keep Native Americans away from them and keep them from raiding their villages and resources such as their food, commodities, and building materials. The hostile relationship between the Virginia colonists such as those of Jamestown and the Native Americans that