500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, 2nd Edition

500 Years of Indigenous resistance

In the period up to 1600, more recon-
naissance missions were conducted; in 1576
Martin Frobisher charted the Arctic coasts
encountering Inuuk, and in 1578 Francis
Drake charted the coast of California.
Meanwhile, the Spanish were pushing
into North America from their bases in
southern Mexico, encountering resistance
from Pueblos and others.
In the beginning of the 1600s, as the
horse spread throughout the southwest
and into the plains, Samuel de Champlain
expanded on Cartier’s earlier expedition,
penetrating as far west as Lake Huron and
Lake Ontario. His attacks on Onondago
communities, using Wendat (Huron)
warriors, would turn the Haudenosaunee
against the French.
In 1606, the British finally succeeded
in establishing their first permanent settlement in North America at
Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620, Pilgrims (English Puritans) landed on the
east coast also, establishing the Plymouth colony.
Meanwhile, Beothuks in Newfoundland had retaliated against a French
attack in clashes that followed killed 37 French settlers. The French respond-
ed by arming Micmacs —traditional enemies of the Beothuks—and offering
bounties for Beothuk scalps. This is believed to the origin of ‘scalp-taking’
by Native warriors; the stereotype of Native ‘savagery’ was in fact introduced
by the French and, later, the Dutch. The combined attacks by the French and
Micmacs led to the eventual extermination of the Beothuk nation.
In 1624, the Dutch established Fort Orange (later to become Albany,
New York) and claimed the area as New Netherland.
While the Atlantic coast area of North America was becoming quickly
littered with British, French and Dutch settlements, substantial differences
in the lands and resources forced the focus of exploitation to differ from the
colonization process underway in Meso- and South America.
In the South, the large-scale expropriation of gold and silver fi-
nanced much of the invasion. As well, the dense populations of the In-
digenous peoples provided a large slave-labour force to work in the first
mines and plantations.