Imagine life as one of the Indians in the fifteenth century. Then when the European settlers come in to the early Americas, they take your land, family, and possessions. Later, they relocate you to another part of the land. Then, more and more settlers start coming in from each direction.
The Spanish conquistadors enslaved, tortured, and killed millions of Indians. And as if that wasn't enough, they burned the villages imprisoned the Indians, and took all of the land and riches with it, with which they created a giant empire, stretching from South America to California to Florida. And, by the end of the sixteenth century the Indian population had gone down to about 1 million because of conquest, disease, and starvation.
Then the English tried to kill as many Indians as possible. On of the leaders proclaimed, “It is better to have no heathen among us, as they were thorns in our sides, than to be at peace and league with them.” Later on, King Phillip's rise to power caused such fear and hatred, many New England colonists tried to exterminate friendly native tribes such as the Mohegan and the Pequot, and stole their lands.
By the late 1600s, England and France were struggling for dominance in North America. Meanwhile, continued immigration from Britain swelled the English colonies. By 1740 over 1.5 million English had arrived, making them the biggest European group in North America. Their growing numbers also caused crowding in the colonies and spurred the demands for new lands in the west.
And, as the British and the French fought, they both enlisted Indian tribes to help them. The Indians thought they would protect them and their lands from encroachment. The Europeans only wanted to use the Indians as pawns in the ongoing fight, which seemed to never end. Then, when the American colonists revolted against England in 1775, Indians in the Ohio River Valley realized that their own fate depended on which nation won the war.
Despite their distrust of the English, many tribes viewed the British as the lesser of the two evils and threw them their support. The decision caused widespread regret later, when the Americans defeated the British and showed little sympathy for those who had opposed them.
Later, after the war between America and Britain, nearly 9 thousand Indians in horrible conditions had to cooperate with their “white captors” to survive. Since the fort lacked all the basic supplies, many Indians died along the path, which later became known as the Trail of Tears. Some Navajo Indians had slipped away, but General Carleton's men shot them at will.
So in conclusion, the time of English settlers coming to North America was the worst time for the Indians because of the wars, disease, and the mass murders that had happened, all because they were different.
