Why weren't the English settlers able to enslave the Native Americans?

Question

Obviously, the English settlers, Puritans or Pilgrims were not able to live with the Indians, and they weren't able to enslave them either as they did to the Africans.

What was the reason/s for this?

Answer 1

They did enslave the Indians when they first arrived in the Caribbean.. however the Indians proved to be to feeble and died rather quickly in captivity.. I suppose the Native weren't as hardy as the Africans.

Answer 2

The Puritans and Pilgrams did not have slaves.

For the most part slavery started in the southern half of modern day USA and the Caribbean.

Slavery was for economic/financial gain. The Puritans probably would have been against it on an ethical stand point. But, what would they have gained by enslaving Indians. Think of how simply people in the northern half of the US lived with little infrastructure. There would have been no profit in having slaves.

Answer 3

far worse has occurred.
The Puritans or Pilgrims brought disease that the natives were not immune to. This devasted the population to what we have now.
Some say 90% of the native american population has died from the diseases that were brought over. It is hard to get sick people to work.

So the origins of slavery and racial segregation were present at the start of the creation of the United States. This was especially true in the southern colonies: Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Soon, Europeans and slaves together outnumbered Native Americans. By 1720 in the Carolinas, there were 37,000 Europeans and 27,000 slaves. The Native Americans had been decimated by disease, leaving only 4,000 indigenous people.

Answer 4

People who were ripped away from their homelands with no way of returning and did not know this new land would have been easier to keep enslaved. The Native people knew their own land well and would have more easily gotten back home if they got away.

Answer 5

According to my Native American friends, there were some Native American slaves, but you know with their near genocide most of their history is forgotten or just overlooked. Read the first paragraph from the source below.

Answer 6

Taking their lands and putting them on reservations (Read about the "Trail of Tears"), killing many through disease taking their children and placing them in "chrisitian" schools to wipe out their languages, culture and religion, and the lasting vestiges of the introduction of alcohol, etc. has been enslavement.

Answer 7

Because the Natives knew the terrain, it was easier for them to escape. They did try to though... disrespectful houseguests... no manners whatsoever...but since the Natives didn't "cooperate" they slaughted them...

Answer 8

I don't think they really tried to.