Relationship Between European Settlers And Native Americans

The relationship between Settlers and the Native Americans was complicated and varied between tribes and settlements. I think perhaps the Natives knew some of the Europeans intentions, but could not see how dangerous the Europeans were, and how much they would change the native lands. Thinking about the two cultures historically, we assume, were vastly different, and they were, but they did share a few similarities. Both societies were deeply religious, but both had very different views about the world around them. The difference ultimately proved great, and both societies experienced great difficulties. Since their first meetings the relationships between the Native Americans and Europeans was tense. The Native Americans knew the Europeans

The Native Americans and did have some similarities, “both groups deep religious beliefs, subsided primarily on agriculture, accepted a social and political hierarchy, and observed well-defined gender rolls” (Norton, 39). All of these similarities were vague. Their religions were very different, they used dissimilar agricultural techniques, their hierarchies were vastly different, and some of their gender rolls were converse from one another. The colonist also had different views on land owner ship, “the Indians granted the English permission to live on pieces of land within their territories. The English saw this as a right to own and permanently occupy the land.” For most native Americans land was communal. The Native Americans believed in territories and the rights to use it, but land could not be bought, sold, and owned, like the Europeans believed. Settlers also didn’t believe anyone could lay claim to hunting territories, instead they believed “only cultivated land could be own or occupied,” and that any of these “unclaimed” land belonged directly to the English Monarchy (Norton,