Here's a history question that I never got clarified while in college.?

Question

While studying the "Age of Exploration," I learned about the natives' experiences with the Spaniards, the English, and the French.

I was told that the "Spanish Experience" was horrible as they tortured and killed thousands of natives in the name of expansion and of God. The "French Experience" was different as the French were mainly concerned with trade and didn't bother the natives that much.

However, I seem to have forgotten how the "English Experience" was. How did the English treat the natives when they came to the New World? From my understanding, there was some mistreatment as some of the English believed the natives to be devils (red skin, strange clothing, strange religion, etc) but I'm not sure if it escalated beyond that.

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

You remember it right. The Spanish (in general) were the worst in terms of direct abuse and enslavement. The French for the most part were relatively well received because they seemed to be fair in trading and did not take over the land. The English were in between. There were men like William Johnson in New York state who related fairly well to the natives. Early on the constant push for acquisition of land created problems. Initially the natives could not understand the concept of land ownership. When they made treaties ceding land, they did not realize they were not allowed any use of that land afterward

Answer 2

The British retained a policy of condescending isolation from the natives.
Towards the beginning of the colonization, Puritans had closer relations with the Native Americans in order to survive with the help of the Natives and the hope that they would convert to Christianity. After the English learned the key agricultural techniques of the Indians and realized that they would not be able to convert the Indians due to their defiance to stop their cultural traditions, most English settlers cut themselves off completely or mostly from all contact with the Native Americans.
This policy of isolation from natives of a country had also seemed to work splendidly in Ireland, a country which was considered a "colony" of the British empire.
As the years pressed on, relations didn't get any better after settlers demanded more land, retaliated viciously to Indian raids, and treated the Indians in general with a condescending manner.
Hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

1) British Colnial Policy:

British colonial policy was always driven to a large extent by the United Kingdom's trading interests, perhaps most noticeably that of the East India Company.While settler economies developed the infrastructure to support balanced development, some tropical African territories found themselves developed only as raw-material suppliers. British policies based on comparative advantage left many developing economies dangerously reliant on a single cash crop, which others exported to the United Kingdom or to overseas British settlements.[citation needed] A reliance upon the manipulation of conflict between ethnic, religious and racial identities, in order to keep subject populations from uniting against the occupying power — the classic "divide and rule" strategy — left a legacy of partition and/or inter-communal difficulties in areas as diverse as Ireland, India, Malaya (Malaysia), Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Cyprus, The Sudan, and Uganda.

The debate about the start of the Industrial Revolution also concerns the massive lead that Great Britain had over other countries. Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. It has been pointed out, however, that slave trade and the West Indian plantations provided less than 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution."

2) More Particular - British Attitudes Toward the Natives In North America:

It started off on the wrong foot but eventually got better when the Brits needed thE various tribes to be on side in their wars with the French.

"In the 16th century, English monarchs gave explorers great freedom to claim territory with almost no regard for the rights of Native Americans. If indigenous people were considered at all, they were considered as subjects of the Crown. As the British colonies expanded, they often confiscated tribal lands through warfare, although in some areas royal charters mandated land purchase. The British justified their occupation of huge tracts of land with the argument that Native Americans were heathens who did not develop the land. Once territory was acquired, the British allowed the colonists to devise their own policies for dealing with Native Americans. Usually, the colonists imposed their own laws on Native Americans who lived within their jurisdiction.

"By the early 18th century, however, the British colonists were competing with the Spanish and the French for land and trade. The British began to use the treaty-making process as their primary means of negotiating with Native Americans. These treaties were official written agreements that dealt with tribal groups as sovereign nations. They provided the basis for land cessions, trade, and other relationships between native peoples and the British government."


Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 4

passing out small pox blankets stealing killing and raping the natives..
it was only 200 hundred or so years ago.. native americans were pretty much wiped out.
the ones that are left now are on lil' reservations (if they're lucky).. one sits right under mount rushmore.