French And English Relationship With Native Americans

Scholars estimate that by the time of the first European contact, in 1492, from 1 million to more than 7 million American Indians lived in North America. European settlers interacted with the continents native peoples in different ways. The Spanish ruled the Indians as a conquered people, forcing many to work on large agricultural estates. The French developed a fairly friendly relationship with the Indians. The English approach to the Indians fell somewhere in between. French and English interaction with Indians can be examined in terms of trade, alliances, and warfare.
From the beginning, the focus of the French relationship with American Indians was trade. The French wanted the beaver pelts that the Indians were so skilled at procuring.

In the South, colonists grew rich trading for deerskins, which could be made into clothing, leather gloves, and moccasins. Like the French, some English traders and other colonists also married Indians. In general, however, the English preferred to keep some distance between the two cultures. By the mid-1700s, New York had become the center of the English fur trade. South Carolina and Georgia came to dominate the deerskin trade. Yet it was the Indians who were really in charge. By controlling the Appalachians and the territory to the west, groups such as the Iroquois in the north and the Cherokee and Chickasaw in the south held the key to the main sources of beaver and deer in the English

This need for partnership led the French and English to make alliances with the Indians. The French acted first, beginning around 1600. They allied themselves with several tribes, from the Abenaki in the east to the Huron near the Great Lakes. Later, French traders expanded their territory, making alliances with Indian groups even farther west and also south along the Mississippi River. In the 1660s, the English formed an alliance with the powerful Iroquois. This alliance gave them access to furs in the lands around the Great Lakes and into the Ohio Valley.
Through their alliances, the American Indians and the Europeans became economically dependent on each other. The Europeans relied on their Indian partners to provide them furs and skins. The Indians relied on their European partners to provide them iron tools, woolen garments, and guns. But the Indian-European alliances went beyond economics. They also served a military purpose. The Huron and Iroquois, for example, had long been enemies. The French regularly found themselves drawn into battle against the Iroquois in support of their Huron