Native American Disasters

Devastating Disasters

European settlers, when arriving to North America, would not have survived if not for the Native Americans; however, the settlers did more harm than good to the Natives. The Europeans believed they were superior, even though they did not know how to survive in the New World; many of them died within the first winter. The Massasoit were the first to help the Europeans, seeing how pitiful they were. They thought of them as allies, and easy to manage; the Natives thought they could use the Europeans to do their bidding for them. The settlers did not want to be similar to slaves, so they created an alliance between them, for the Europeans needed help to survive. Massasoit believed the treaty to be reciprocal. The Europeans, …show more content…
To them, “unclaimed” was defined as fenced in land, which was a different definition than the Native Americans. The European settlers then took their land, using it to build colonies. This was later a grievance that led to King Philip’s War. What was once fertile land that the Natives could use for crops was turned into residential areas and colonies. That alone reduced the Native American’s crop supplies. As aforementioned, the settlers brought livestock when they migrated to North America. They let them roam free, which ended up being a huge issue for Natives. The cows and pigs would trample their crops, eat their crops, or transfer diseases over. Again, this was added to the Native American’s list of grievances towards the Europeans. The environment and ecosystem was also affected by the presence of the livestock, which meant the Natives had to change their ways. Due to the lack of food supply, the wildlife population also slowly dwindled, and there was less opportunities for the Natives to hunt and fish. Both crops and meat were sparse, and the Natives had to deal with the epidemic and a lack of food. There was always at least some slight hostility between the Natives and the settlers, but this became major in King Philip’s War. The Native Americans had a big list of grievances against the English, and the groups became involved in warfare. Each side was savage, using unmentionable forms of torture and killing women and children. This reduced both sides’ populations, but more settlers came to replenish the dead Europeans, while the Natives had a harder time repopulating their