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Interactions between MODULE

American Indians 2.5
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Throughout the early and mid-seventeenth century, English, Dutch, and French colonists
profited from trade relations and military alliances with American Indian nations. Nonetheless,
European demands for land fueled repeated conflicts with tribes. Already devastated by
European-borne diseases, their very survival was at stake. Not all Europeans interacted with
American Indians the same way. A comparison of the ways in which the English, Dutch, and
French interacted with native peoples reveals important similarities and differences among
them.
In the last Writing Historically exercise, you compared the ways in which the English and
French interacted with native peoples differently. In this module, you will further explore the ways
European colonizers interacted with American Indians before 1754. Each time you note similarities
or differences, think critically about both the reasons for those similarities between different
societies as well as the differences.

nglish colonists most often followed the example that the Spanish set before them,
taking American Indian land by force. Most English colonists rebuffed American
EIndian efforts at trade in favor of theft and conflict from the very start — examples
of this include the earliest years in Jamestown, when colonists preferred to beg, borrow,
or steal American Indian goods rather than produce their own, and the atrocities com-
mitted by Pilgrim Captain Myles Standish in New England during the first half of the
seventeenth century. Such aggressive policies created a frontier of exclusion in which
American Indians were not welcome in English communities.
Continued intrusions on American Indians’ lands led to the Anglo-Powhatan Anglo-Powhatan Wars
Wars in 1620s Virginia, and the Pequot War with New England Puritans in the Series of conflicts in the
1630s (see Module 2.3). These wars, combined with the devastation of diseases 1620s between the Powhatan
brought to North America by the English, killed large percentages of American Confederacy and English
Indians in every colonial region and opened up lands to be colonized by the English settlers in Virginia and
Maryland.
through the 1640s.
By contrast, colonization by the Dutch in New Amsterdam, and the French in the
Great Lakes, succeeded mainly through trade with American Indians, although both
European settlements also spread disease in their interactions with native peoples.
These commercial alliances led to fewer violent conflicts in the first half of the
seventeenth century. However, both of these nations sent far fewer colonists to North
America, and as a result, they were significantly less motivated to invade American
Indian land than the English.
A few English colonists followed a more peaceable route. For example, in New
England, Roger Williams purchased the lands for his Rhode Island colony from local
tribes. A small number of Puritans led by missionary John Eliot attempted to establish
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