2.5 Interactions Between American Indians and Europeans

The fur trade bound many Native nations to Europeans. Native hunters and traders exchanged beaver pelts and deerskins for guns, metal tools, kettles and cloth. These goods changed Native life, making some groups more dependent on European trade and more competitive with each other. Trade also carried epidemic diseases into Native communities, sharply reducing many populations.

Native nations were not pawns. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, for example, traded with the Dutch and later the English, fought the French and their Native allies for control of the fur trade in the mid-1600s, and later tried to stay neutral between Britain and France so it could play them against each other. European powers, in turn, supplied Native allies with guns and encouraged them to attack rival Europeans and their partners.

In the Southwest and on the Plains, horses spreading from the Spanish colonies reshaped Native life. Groups such as the Comanche became skilled horse riders and powerful raiders and traders by the early 1700s.

English settlers' demand for farmland caused repeated wars. In Virginia, the Powhatan Confederacy launched major attacks in 1622 and 1644 against expanding tobacco plantations; each time the English struck back hard and took more land. In New England, the Pequot War (1636–1638) included the 1637 massacre of hundreds of Pequot people at Mystic.

Metacom's War, also called King Philip's War (1675–1676), was the most destructive. Metacom, a Wampanoag leader the English called King Philip, led a coalition of Native nations against New England settlers who were taking land and pressuring Native people to follow English laws and religion. Dozens of English towns were attacked, and thousands of people died, most of them Native. The English won with help from Native allies such as the Mohegan, and many surviving Native people were sold into slavery in the West Indies. Native power in southern New England was broken.

In New Mexico, Spanish colonists forced Pueblo people to work and pay tribute, and Franciscan missionaries tried to stamp out Pueblo religion by destroying sacred objects and punishing religious leaders. Drought and Apache raids made life harder.

In 1680 a Pueblo religious leader named Popé (Po'pay) organized a coordinated revolt among many pueblos. They killed about 400 Spanish colonists, including more than 20 priests, and drove the survivors out of Santa Fe for twelve years.

When the Spanish returned in 1692, they adopted a policy of accommodation: they allowed more Pueblo religious practice and eased forced labor demands. This is a key example of resistance changing colonial policy.

The English generally kept Native peoples outside their communities and took their land. The French and Dutch generally relied on trade and alliances. The Spanish tried to absorb Native people into a Catholic, hierarchical society, then softened their approach after the Pueblo Revolt. Native nations everywhere chose among resistance, alliance and accommodation depending on their interests.