European Colonization In North America Essay

When Europeans came to North America for the first time, they called it The New World, because to them it was a land that was mysterious in many ways. The native population that lived in North America was nothing like that of Europe and the environment of North America was even more foreign. There was no way of knowing the effect of European settlement and what the consequences of their actions would be on the native people and the land. Before the invasion of Europeans in North America, the Natives had a system of living. Their way of life and ability to live off the land were soon challenged by European expansion and technology. The mindset and choices, made by the Europeans, altered the relationship between the Indians and themselves, as …show more content…
In the Native American society, personal goods such as tools were considered yours only if you created them yourself. Even if something was owned it was considered readily replaceable. Despite their easy nature of personal goods, land was different. The land which crops were grown and the area their wigwams stood on were, in their minds, possessed by them in spite of the fact that they moved every couple of months to a new area. They also believed that their main hunting and gathering lands were theirs to claim. In some parts of the land, there would be alliances on certain territories where multiple Indian tribes would gather to obtain food that would spawn in great amounts (Cronon 61-67). However, Europeans had stricter views when it came to their possessions. They saw any item that could be of means of profit for them, that they had obtained in some form, was justly …show more content…
European settlers would not take responsibility for the damages that their grazing animals caused to Native American planting fields. In contrast, they held Native Americans responsible if they were to kill any European livestock that was harming their planting fields or in their territory. The colonists believed that since Indian tribes lacked the desire to establish fences around their planting fields (which would hinder their mobile living system), they had to accept any damage done by European grazing livestock (Cronon 130-131). Legal European land ownership was just as unfair to the Native Americans as their livestock ownership principles. The land was considered owned if a colonist purchased the land from an Indian tribe or by a land grant from the king. By the late seventeenth century, much of Native American land was considered to be controlled and owned by the English crown. The only way an Indian could own property was to get a land grant from the King (Cronon 70). Once a European settler owned land, they were encouraged to “…transform the soil by a property system that taught them to treat land as capital” (Cronon 77). Cronon states a very important aspect to European land ownership in that the owner of an area of land must improve it and tend to their property for the land remain in their custody. Since Native American homes were easily