The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

44 Chapter 1 Alien Encounters: Europe in the Americas

colonists insisted that as minions of Satan, Indians were
unworthy of becoming Christians. Other Europeans,
such as the Spanish friars, did try to convert the Indians,
and with considerable success; but as late as 1569, when
Spain introduced the Inquisition into its colonies, the
natives were exempted from its control on the ground
that they were incapable of rational judgment and thus
not responsible for their “heretical” religious beliefs.
Other troubles grew out of similar misunder-
standings. European colonists assumed that Indian
chiefs ruled with the same authority as their own
kings. When Indians, whose loyalties were shaped by
complex kinship relations more than by identification
with any one leader, failed to honor commitments
made by their chiefs, Europeans accused them of
treachery. Conversely, Indians regarded treaty making
as an act of brotherhood, marked by rituals affirming

mutual support. When settlers angrily blamed the

Indians for violating the words on a scrap of paper,

Indians were bewildered: Brothers would not treat

each other so. Colonists compounded the confusion

by describing their kings and governors as “fathers”

to the Indians. But among Indians, who experienced

childhood mostly among the kinfolk of mothers,

fathers were regarded as indulgent and non-intrusive.

Why, the Indians wondered, were the great English

“fathers” so demanding and bossy?

Indians who depended on hunting and fishing

had little use for personal property that was not easily

portable. They saw no reason to amass possessions as

individuals or as tribes. Even the Aztecs, with their

treasures of gold and silver, valued the metals for their

durability and the beautiful things that could be made

with them rather than as objects of commerce.

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Ch

esa

pea

ke

Ba

y

James

Rive

r

Rap

pah

ann

ock

Rive

r

Potomac

River

Lake

Erie

PamlicoSound

Cape Lookout

St. Augustine 1565

Roanoke I. 1584

Jamestown 1607

Martins BrandonsShirley Hundred

Bermuda Hundred

Turkey IslandHenrico

Dale‘s Gift

Archers

Hope

St. Mary’s

1634

Providence

A p p a l a ch i an M o

u nt a i

ns

Spanish

C alu

s

a

Ti

m

u

c

u

a

Yamassee

C

he

ro

ke

e

Tuscarora

Powhatan

Mona

can

C u s a b o

H

u

c

h

i

Pam lic o

Cat

aw

ba

Na

n t i c o k e

British Settlement

Dutch Settlement

Swedish Settlement

French Settlement

Spanish Settlement

Date of Settlement

Grant to Virginia Company of London

Grant to Virginia Company of Plymouth

Treaty of Hartford Boundary Between

English and Dutch, 1650

Grant to Council for New England

HuronIndian Tribe

1634

European Footholds Along the Atlantic, 1584–1650As late as 1650, hardly a colonist in the Americas lived more than a dozen miles from
deep water. Jamestown (1607), the first settlement, was on a swampy fist of land on the James River; most Virginians subsequently hugged the
banks of the Chesapeake and its tributaries. English puritans settled along the New England coast. The Dutch colony of New Netherlands
stretched from Nieuw Amsterdam along the Hudson River, and Swedish merchants settled the mouth of the Delaware River. The settlers to New
France, too, seldom strayed far from the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries in the west.