Compare And Contrast The Spanish Interactions With Native Americans

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From around 1500 to 1700, the European people were constantly trying to confiscate the American lands, which left the Native Americans feeling ambushed. The Native Americans were caught off guard because for the longest time they saw the land as if no one owned it, and it was there for everyone to use. Native Americans were more into sharing the land, whereas the Europeans were just there to buy it and capture it from them. The four main groups that captured the lands from the Natives were the Spanish, Virginians, New Englanders, and Pennsylvania. Although some people had conflicts with the Native Americans, each group had a different interaction with them, some of them leading into honorable relationships.
The Spanish were the first people to encounter the Native Americans. Throughout the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish conquered Central and portions of North America. The Spanish chose a more violent style. They pushed their way into the Americas, and would kill, enslave, or change the cultural views of any Native American that stood in their way. When Hernando Cortes led an army into the American mainland, Tabasco, a strong Aztec empire, resisted the Spanish, but their rifles defeated the Aztecs. In 1520, the Aztec finally rebelled against the Spaniards’ …show more content…

Unlike both New Englanders and Virginia, these settlers were interested in having a friendly relationship with the Native Americans. Penn saw his colony as a “holy experiment”, and that it wasn’t meant to be a land owning aristocracy. He wanted to have a representative assembly and freedom of religion. Penn believed that if people were spoken to with friendship, they’d respond the same way at some point. Penn regulated the colonists trade with the Native Americans because he wanted to make sure it was fair. William Penn’s colony was the only one that had not had any conflicts with the Native Americans for over 50

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