Time line of change
Heidi Wyman
3-20-08

Abstract: In this paper, I will show how the contact between the Native Americans and Europeans between the founding of Jamestown and the outbreak of the American Revolution constituted a continuous cultural revolution for the Native Americans. I will support this thesis using The Earth Shall Weep by James Wilson. This theses is important because it shows how the Europeans really changed the lifestyle of the Native Americans.

Contact between Native Americans and Europeans between the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776 constituted a continuous cultural revolution for Native Americans. The Europeans had such an impact on the Native Americans that it caused great change in their religion, culture, tools and trade. These changes either killed the Native Americans or brought them closer to the European culture. Although the Europeans had a huge impact on the Native Americans, there were some aspects of the Native American life that they could not change.

Trade has been a major part of the relation between the Native Americans and Europeans, it was the basis for there interaction and relationship. The Native Americans started trading with French settlers in the 1500's trading fur from fox, marten, mink and otter, for tools and weapons from the French. This trade changed the Native American culture by the introducing of weapons that were not hand made from natural materials. Prior to this Native Americans relied on what htey could produce from their own environment. When the Jamestown settlers came, the Native Americans trading was altered again. Native Americans were no longer just trading fur but also fresh meat, maize, berries, other foodstuffs and beaver pelts with the Europeans. The Native Americans traded their goods for cloth, trinkets, iron tools and utensils. This altered the Native American culture because they were no longer just hunting food for themselves, they were also hunting the food they needed to trade to gain European goods. A move away from only hunting what they needed to survive. The Native Americans saw this trade as a ceremonial gift exchange that allowed them to bring the Europeans into their world of equality. For the Europeans, these ceremonial gifts made for a very profitable international trade. The trading of tools led Native tribes who were not trading with the Europeans to fear those who were. Trading meant new weapons for those who were trading, this put the tribes who were not trading in danger. The nature of trading again changed when the Pilgrims came. The Native Americans would trade their surplus of land, fur and pelts for the Pilgrims steel blades, farming tools, trim clothing, warm blankets, glass and metal containers and ornaments. At the time of the Pequot war, the Native Americans stopped trading with the Europeans and relied on other countries for trade. As more and more settlers came to America, there were more groups of settlers from different countries to trade with. This was beneficial to the Native Americans because it gave them a constant source of people to trade with. If they went to war with a group, they would shift their trade to another. At first, some of the trade was helpful for the settlers. They needed help from the Native Americans to learn about the their new environment and primarily to trade food for survival in the beginning. However, soon the Native Americans were a large group of people to trade with for profit, and trade was used to manipulate tribes to get land. The Europeans also used trade to kill the Native Americans. James Wilson show us this in his book The Earth Shall Weep in an example of retaliation from the English on the Native Americans. " In response, Amherst resolved to 'punish the delinquents with entire destruction,' instructing that 'no prisoners' should be taken and initiating a primitive kind of germ warfare with the order 'to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes.'" [5] The English attempt was successful they "gave them smallpox-infected blankets from the fort hospital as a token of esteem." [5] The small pox would spread through the tribe killing all of their people. This weakened the tribe so their land could be taken.

The Native American were a group of people who survived off the land and with a religion that focused primarily on nature. They had many traditions and ceremonies in their religion. These traditions and ceremonies honor certain times of the year and their gods. Ceremonies include "feasts, music, dances and other performances" [4 ] by the tribes. Another part of Native American religion before the Europeans, include symbolism that represent certain ideas, characteristics and spirits of the tribe. Animals were often used for these symbols. Native Americans religion was based on oral myths that are passes down from one religion to another explaining how their society had come to be. Some Native American Tribes lived together in one house, these tribes would work as one and are all equal. When Jamestown came to be, it changed the culture of the Native Americans. Native Americans started to use tools from the Europeans changing their way of living off the land. Most of the Jamestown settlers were Christians and they wanted to convert the Indians to Christianity. They were partially successfully and some Native Americans converted into the European ways and were put in Praying Towns. They were taught the English language and had English schooling. The settlers realized that not many of the Indians wanted to convert to their culture and they started to push them from their land. Again, altering the Native American culture by stripping them of the land they were once a part of. Trade with the Jamestown settlers effected the tribes they were trading with and other tribes around them. The metal tools being traded affected enemies and neighbours who were at a disadvantage because they did not have the new tools. When an outbreak of small pox swept through the Native American tribes, many Native Americans converted to Christianity because the Europeans were not getting sick. James Wilson gives and example of this in his book The Earth Shall Weep, he states that the Native Americans " interpreted the epidemics as a proof of the Europeans' greater spiritual power.... This belief in the newcomers' religious potency - reinforced by the fact that so few Europeans seemed to be affected by the Epidemics - led to a number of deathbed conversions to Christianity." They believed that their culture was pleasing their god and he was rewarding them because of their behavior. However of course this was an inaccurate belief as the Europeans had an immunity to small pox having nothing to do with pleasing a god. The Native American lives were again changed when the Pilgrims came to America. The Indians now would work with the tools provided from the Pilgrims, pulling them farther away from there original tradition of simply just living off the land. The Pilgrims again made the attempt to convert the Indians to Christianity. They were more successful then the Jamestown settlers but again not completely successful. The Native Americans had a positive relationship with the Pilgrims causing them to adapt and change their culture to work with the Pilgrims culture. The Native Americans now learned part of the English language and culture. Their stories and Myths were more and more becoming like the English Myths and stories. The next major change in the Native American culture and religion came with the Pequot wars. These wars pushed the Native Americans to establish a form of currency. The Native Americans had a great loss and realized that the only way of surviving was to accept and mold to the European culture. This again made their religion and culture more and more like the Europeans. These were the major changes in the Native American culture during the time between the Jamestown settlement and the American Revolution caused by the English Europeans.

During the late 1600's and early 1700's the Hotinonshonnie, a League of Five ( later six) Nations, were changed by the French and British settlers. The Hotinonshonnie had peace treaties and traded with the French. In 1636 because of contact with the French, the tribe got a disease which killed at least half of the Hotinonshonnie tribes. This disease killed both the elderly, who contained the knowledge of the tribe, and the young who were the future of the Hotinonshonnie. The French tried to change the Hotinonshonnie by attempting to split the 5 nations. This was unsuccessful and the Hotinonshonnie people converted to Catholicism and moved to French missions in Canada. Not only were the Hotinonshonnie creating peace with the French, they were in good relation with the British and the English. Their culture was changing again as they learned to manipulate the settlers around them. They used the French against the British to keep their peace treaty. The positive relation between the British and Native Americans helped them maintain their culture as long as they could.

Even though the Europeans greatly influenced the Native Americans there were some aspects of their culture that the Europeans could not change. The first cultural aspect that was unchanged by the Europeans was sacred ceremonial cycle and other aspects of the Native American traditional life. [5] James Wilson tell us that Skanyadariyon, a Native American leader, was able to reserve these rights for the Native Americans through a new code, the Gai'wiio or good message. [5] Today we see this still in the Native Americans who have been forced onto reservations, they still work to maintain their beliefs from their traditional life. The second cultural aspect of Native American life that did not change was their leadership. Through this time period the Native Americans never became citizens of the King, they kept their traditional leadership and social structure with everyone staying equal. A third aspect of the Native American culture that remained unchanged was their oral history. Native Americans never had a form of writing and always learned their history from their elders who carried their oral history. They maintained this practice throughout this time period. We would have known more about the Native Americans point of view if their experiences had been documented by them. Although the Europeans caused revolution for the Native Americans, these aspects listed above remained unchanged leaving us with a picture of how the first people of America lived.



Sources
1.http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h27-am.html
2.http://emayzine.com/lectures/furtrade.html
3. http://www.pcmaf.org/fur_trade.htm

4.http://www.indians.org/articles/native-american-religion.html

5. Wilson, James. The Earth Shall Weep. New York: Grove P, 1998. 1-131.