Indian-European Interactions

From the moment contact was made between Europeans and Native Americans, different

perspectives made the interactions of these civilizations difficult, and often sparked conflict.

Europeans saw the world from a vantage point that was wholly different than that of the Native

Americans. This paper will use three situations which occurred between Europeans and Native

Americans to illustrate just how different the two perspectives often were. These situations were:

the Casco Bay Treaty of 1727; the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744; and the dispossession of

Cherokee property by Georgia from 1828-1835. This paper will answer some basic questions

about the situations, such as: the reasons for the misunderstandings; the resulting occurrences

due to the differing perspectives; and who the ‘victor’ of the situations was. Finally, this paper

will draw some conclusions about how ideas influenced the operation of power in these

situations.

The Casco Bay Treaty of 1727 was intended to settle tension which had been occurring

between the English, and several tribes of Abenaki Indians in Maine. The Abenakis had

apparently been carrying out attacks against English settlers in the region. The English finally

forced the Abenakis to sign a treaty in which the Indians promised to “Cease and Forbear all

Acts of Hostility, Injuries, and Discords towards all the Subjects of the Crown of Great Britain”

and “maintain a firm and constant Amity and Friendship with all the English”. The affair might

have ended there; however, the official wording of the treaty that was signed turned out to be

different than what the Abenakis thought they had negotiated. The English transcribers of the

treaty portrayed the Abena...

... middle of paper ...

...744,” in The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America, ed. Colin G. Calloway (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1994), 101

Canasatego, 101

Canasatego, 102

Canasatego, 102

Katherine Osburn, “Indian Removal: Policy Issues and Enactment,” 5.

Perdue, Theda, and Michael D. Green. The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents, (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 85-86.

Perdue and Green, 3

Cherokee Indians “Memorial of Protest of the Cherokee Nation, June 22, 1836” in The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 87

Cherokee Indians, 88

Cherokee Indians, 91

Atiwaneto “Speech Resisting Colonial Expansion 1752”, in The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America, ed. Colin G. Calloway (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1994), 127