Essay 1C
Between the late fifteen hundreds and the late eighteen hundreds, several European nations, mainly Portugal, France, England and Spain, were involved in a race to colonize the New World. This race would lead to interactions between the Europeans and the Native Americans who already lived there and monumentally affect both groups. Contact between the Native Americans and the Europeans challenged and largely extinguished the Native American worldview of communal land ownership, while forcing Europeans to confront their own fallibility. The French were most successful in assimilating with Native American culture; the Pueblo people adapted to the Spanish system until their ancient culture was in jeopardy, and Europeans benefited on a whole while the Native Americans were largely driven extinct.
Prior to encountering the Europeans, Native Americans believed in a master creator who had made this world for all to share. This Native American belief engendered a communal …show more content…
This organizational method was challenged when various European powers interacted with the Native Americans and the Europeans used the fact that no individual among the tribes explicitly owned the land as justification for claiming it and performing sedentary farming. The discovery of “savages” reinforced the sense of European superiority. Robert Gray, an English promoter of New World colonization, stated in 1609, “Although the Lord hath given the earth to children of men, the greater part of it [is] possessed and wrongfully usurped by wild beasts, and unreasonable creatures, or by brutish savages, which by reason of their godless ignorance, and blasphemous idolatry, are worse than those beasts which are of most wild and savage nature”. This was used as reasoning
Between the late fifteen hundreds and the late eighteen hundreds, several European nations, mainly Portugal, France, England and Spain, were involved in a race to colonize the New World. This race would lead to interactions between the Europeans and the Native Americans who already lived there and monumentally affect both groups. Contact between the Native Americans and the Europeans challenged and largely extinguished the Native American worldview of communal land ownership, while forcing Europeans to confront their own fallibility. The French were most successful in assimilating with Native American culture; the Pueblo people adapted to the Spanish system until their ancient culture was in jeopardy, and Europeans benefited on a whole while the Native Americans were largely driven extinct.
Prior to encountering the Europeans, Native Americans believed in a master creator who had made this world for all to share. This Native American belief engendered a communal …show more content…
This organizational method was challenged when various European powers interacted with the Native Americans and the Europeans used the fact that no individual among the tribes explicitly owned the land as justification for claiming it and performing sedentary farming. The discovery of “savages” reinforced the sense of European superiority. Robert Gray, an English promoter of New World colonization, stated in 1609, “Although the Lord hath given the earth to children of men, the greater part of it [is] possessed and wrongfully usurped by wild beasts, and unreasonable creatures, or by brutish savages, which by reason of their godless ignorance, and blasphemous idolatry, are worse than those beasts which are of most wild and savage nature”. This was used as reasoning