Native Americans are rarely recognized for the significant and truly fundamental impact they made in American history. For the most part, James Axtell states, Native Americans have been regarded as “exotic or pathetic footnotes to the main course of American history.”1 This idea, and the ways Native Americans have been approached in history, as either ‘heroes’ or ‘victims’, all but erase their existence. One of the approaches by historians to Native American history, the ‘contributions’ approach, can be more beneficial than others, though.1 Axtell suggests that in this approach, “we seek to define the Indian role in American history, rather than the white role in Indian history”.1 Though, the approach, like any, can have weaknesses. One being,
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Not only would events that took place be altered in a scenario without the Native Americans, but without the ‘check’ (or hindrance) they added to colonial development (because of their “native villages, tribes, and war parties”)1 the chronology of those events would be accelerated, also. The largest hurdle in colonization to jump would have been the “lack of Indian labor in a few minor industries”.1 Furthermore, without the Native Americans contending for their land, the only competition would have been other English settlers, and so the “fertile river valleys and coastal plains”1 would have been theirs for the taking. The land, then, could be used for “economic rather than military considerations”1 removing now famous landmarks such as: Jamestown, Plymouth, and St. Mary’s City. Also, communal settlements, of the “classic New England type”,1 cease to provide the strategic and/or logical reasoning they would with Native American neighbors, like the “military and moral threat of Indian war …show more content…
1 The natives had educated the colonists “in the art of guerilla warfare”-- a style of warfare where one (perhaps smaller) group use tactics like ambushes, sabotage, and hit-and-run tactics and mobility on a (perhaps larger) less mobile army. The Native Americans’ style of said warfare (“indiscriminant slaughter and torture”1) induced several reactions out of the colonists. One being a significant “increase in fear and paranoia”1, another being “the development of a defensive garrison mentality, reinforc[ing] the colonists’ sense of being a chosen”1, and a third was “a sense of being torn from thier own ‘civilized’ moorings and swept into a kind of ‘savage’ conduct”1. Though without it, Axtell says “the colonists would have fought their American wars--primarily with the British-- in a traditional military style”.1 Also, without the persistant need to ward off malicious natives and Europeans, the colonists “might have lost most of their martial spirit and prowess”1 making beating the British in the revolution close to
Not only would events that took place be altered in a scenario without the Native Americans, but without the ‘check’ (or hindrance) they added to colonial development (because of their “native villages, tribes, and war parties”)1 the chronology of those events would be accelerated, also. The largest hurdle in colonization to jump would have been the “lack of Indian labor in a few minor industries”.1 Furthermore, without the Native Americans contending for their land, the only competition would have been other English settlers, and so the “fertile river valleys and coastal plains”1 would have been theirs for the taking. The land, then, could be used for “economic rather than military considerations”1 removing now famous landmarks such as: Jamestown, Plymouth, and St. Mary’s City. Also, communal settlements, of the “classic New England type”,1 cease to provide the strategic and/or logical reasoning they would with Native American neighbors, like the “military and moral threat of Indian war …show more content…
1 The natives had educated the colonists “in the art of guerilla warfare”-- a style of warfare where one (perhaps smaller) group use tactics like ambushes, sabotage, and hit-and-run tactics and mobility on a (perhaps larger) less mobile army. The Native Americans’ style of said warfare (“indiscriminant slaughter and torture”1) induced several reactions out of the colonists. One being a significant “increase in fear and paranoia”1, another being “the development of a defensive garrison mentality, reinforc[ing] the colonists’ sense of being a chosen”1, and a third was “a sense of being torn from thier own ‘civilized’ moorings and swept into a kind of ‘savage’ conduct”1. Though without it, Axtell says “the colonists would have fought their American wars--primarily with the British-- in a traditional military style”.1 Also, without the persistant need to ward off malicious natives and Europeans, the colonists “might have lost most of their martial spirit and prowess”1 making beating the British in the revolution close to