Differences Between Europeans And Indigenous People

Before Europeans came to North America, It was populated by many different tribes of Indigenous peoples. These tribes, for the most part had their own political, economic, and military systems that were eventually changed and manipulated because of the invading nations. In the books A land so Strange and Jacksonland, we see through the eyes of Cabeza de Vaca and Andrew Jackson exactly how Indigenous people were at the very beginning, and the changes they had to undertake. Obviously the books show us the view of the Europeans rather than the Indigenous people themselves, but in certain recollections from people like John Ross we see their viewpoints and why they did certain things. From the information presented in both these books, it’s clear

The Spanish superiority over the Indigenous people ended when they needed to travel along the coast by creating rafts for transportation, at the cost of their weapons. The way they interacted with the Indigenous people completely changed, instead of conquering they had to rely on them to survive. Eventually the castaways became traveling healers who passed from village to village using their skills and higher knowledge to cure the sick/ wounded. Before the castaways, their ways of healing comprised of mainly praying and blowing into the sick mouths of people, which we know doesn’t really work. Now that they were helping the indians instead of conquering them, they were treated with respect and were given shelter, food, and even gifts. The castaways had a following of around 3,000- 4,000 people following them, basically treating them as a powerful god. However while all of this was happening to the castaways, the main spanish colonists led by Guzman were treating the Indigenous people just like Narvaez and his group did when they first arrived. Guzman left a trail of destruction including the great kingdom of michoacan where they tortured and executed their ruler Cazonci. In the process of these conquests, he enslaved approximately 8,000 Indigenous peoples, treating them as wealth and putting them to work as slaves. Even though Cabeza and the castaways learned a lot from the indians, nothing they say could change the direction of Guzman and his forces, basically showing the