PECKHAMS

Hakluyt argues in his discourse that the British could work with the Indians to make a thriving empire in the New World. It was certainly possible for each group to help each other: early contact between Indians and Europeans showed curiosity and interest opposed to aggression. This can be seen in the Indian leader Powhatan’s speech to Captain John Smith: Powhatan wanted to “assure [Smith] of our loves, and every yeare our friendly trade shall furnish you with Corne.” Powhatan and the Indians also knew that the English settlers need their aid. There were goods that the colonists could not “get but by our (the Indian’s) labors.” However, the kindness was not always reciprocated: Smith, a reader of Machiavelli’s Art of War as well as governor of the colony, argued that violence was the only thing the natives would respond to. However, the English colonies never went quite to the extent of the Spanish conquistadores and men like De Soto and Coronado. The English did not really have the ability to though: the British government or military did not support colonization directly until the eighteenth century. The English colonists did not have the military might to crush the powerful indian confederacies. Many tribes saw the English as potential allies at first: using firearms, and military assistance the indians used their English allies to defeat their rivals. During the Pequot War the English, Narragansetts, and the Mohegans combined their forces to defeat the Pequots.It initially proved a boon for all; the English had defeated an enemy and the Mohegans and Narragansetts now found themselves as the lead native powers in the region. Comparing the English’s methods to the Spanish is a bit of a misnomer: the native groups each European...

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...s the dominate force in Europe and North America. It was thanks to an altered, and at times spontaneous, version of Hakluyt’s plan. . The Catholic threat was driven out of the colonies once France was defeated by the British during key wars in both Europe and America. The Native American’s proved to be useful allies and destructive enemies; their loyalties forever shifting, Hakluyt’s idea for a unified front never materialized. The spread of Protestantism was quickened with the colonization of the new world, but not because of Native American converts. The population growth of the English colonies not only produced lots of new believers, but also workers who helped build the empire. England by 1763 was the premier North American power, thought that would be altered by a revolution a few years later, but for the moment men like Hakluyt and Johnson could rest easy.