Colonization

Colonization

The arrival of the Europeans meant a drastic change for the Native Americans. Together with diseases which decimated the native population, the English settlers also brought an alien culture and religion and more advanced technology. The worldviews of the English and Native Americans differed significantly and religious bias and mutual misunderstanding made the early contact difficult. The English considered their culture superior and their attitudes were often aggressive and intolerant. The Native Americans, on the other hand, lacked the military strength and unity of the English and were, to some extent, willing to assimilate some features of European culture into their own. The growing number of English settlers, together with their constant hunger for land, inevitably led to conflicts and to the rapid expansion of the English settlements. The way in which the English dealt with the Native peoples of New England in century bore all the hallmarks of the future treatment of the Native Americans elsewhere in the United States. Sadly, something which had originally started as an attempt to find freedom and to build a model society for the whole Christian world resulted in the exploitation and conquest of the indigenous inhabitants of North America. An example of oppression of Native Americans was when the Spanish explored and colonized the Americas. The Spanish instituted the caste and encomienda system. The caste system had different groups. First were the European born Spaniards, then the american born known as creoles. Farther down were the mestizos and mulattos who were the children of europeans and natives and europeans and africans. At the bottom were pure Africans and natives. Due to the establishment of the encomienda system, the Spanish were able to force the lower level classes to do labor for them. This was an example of the Spanish viewing the Native Americans as inferior and using them to benefit the colonists.

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