The 1700's: A Comparative Analysis

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As the British expanded into the American territory, they came upon land that was already taken by the Indians. The initial encounters between the Native Americans and the Europeans were not the best. Europeans search for gold in the 1500’s left many Native American tribes destroyed by violence or disease. When English first settled near Quebec they did not have a large presence and because of that their encounters between the Native Americans were mostly positive. At first the English approached the Native Americans with caution, only engaging them for trade and protection. As their settlements grew so did the suspicion between the two groups. “By the beginning of the 1700’s, it had become clear that the two peoples would not share …show more content…

The first is land lust. As the initial colonies grew successfully so did the lust for new land from the British colonists. This prompted violent takeovers from the British colonists of land occupied by Indians. The second thing was religion. “Religious differences between the two groups prevented each group from having a common understanding of the other and led to each one seeing demons and devils in the other” (Shultz, 2014, p. 50). The third was culture. They each believed differently in the roles each gender played, how to use the land and language differences. The fourth was European alignments. Throughout the 1700’s the Europeans fought several wars to protect their land that they had acquired. This was called the great war of empire. “In the short term, Indians could profit from the situation by selling their support to one European power or the other. But as England pursued increasing world dominion, the tribes of Native America could no longer play one side off the other, and England (and eventually the United States) could subject the Indians to their will, at times violently” (Shultz, 2014, p.

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