French And English Relationship With Native Americans

Scholars estimate that by the time of the first European contact, in 1492, from 1 million to more than 7 million American Indians lived in North America. European settlers interacted with the continents native peoples in different ways. The Spanish ruled the Indians as a conquered people, forcing many to work on large agricultural estates. The French developed a fairly friendly relationship with the Indians. The English approach to the Indians fell somewhere in between. French and English interaction with Indians can be examined in terms of trade, alliances, and warfare.
From the beginning, the focus of the French relationship with American Indians was trade. The French wanted the beaver pelts that the Indians were so skilled at procuring.

French traders sent shiploads of beaver furs to France, where hat makers turned them into sturdy, waterproof felt hats that were in great demand among fashionable men and women in Europe. In return for the pelts, traders gave the Indians such items as copper pots, glass beads, blankets, and iron tools. True to native custom, many of these traders married Indian women and blended into their tribal culture. They and their children often served as go-betweens, connecting the two cultures and smoothing over differences. As a result, the French developed a fairly friendly relationship with many Indian culture groups, or tribes, throughout northern and western North America. Native peoples also adopted aspects of French culture. For example, French missionaries converted many Indians to Catholicism.
English settlers, too, saw the value of beaver pelts and began establishing a trading relationship with Indian tribes in New England and in the Middle Colonies.

In the South, colonists grew rich trading for deerskins, which could be made into clothing, leather gloves, and moccasins. Like the French, some English traders and other colonists also married Indians. In general, however, the English preferred to keep some distance between the two cultures. By the mid-1700s, New York had become the center of the English fur trade. South Carolina and Georgia came to dominate the deerskin trade. Yet it was the Indians who were really in charge. By controlling the Appalachians and the territory to the west, groups such as the Iroquois in the north and the Cherokee and Chickasaw in the south held the key to the main sources of beaver and deer in the English

colonies.
Without Indian cooperation, Europeans could not have carried on the lucrative trade in furs and skins.

This need for partnership led the French and English to make alliances with the Indians. The French acted first, beginning around 1600. They allied themselves with several tribes, from the Abenaki in the east to the Huron near the Great Lakes. Later, French traders expanded their territory, making alliances with Indian groups even farther west and also south along the Mississippi River. In the 1660s, the English formed an alliance with the powerful Iroquois. This alliance gave them access to furs in the lands around the Great Lakes and into the Ohio Valley.
Through their alliances, the American Indians and the Europeans became economically dependent on each other. The Europeans relied on their Indian partners to provide them furs and skins. The Indians relied on their European partners to provide them iron tools, woolen garments, and guns. But the Indian-European alliances went beyond economics. They also served a military purpose. The Huron and Iroquois, for example, had long been enemies. The French regularly found themselves drawn into battle against the Iroquois in support of their Huron

allies.
Early in the colonial period, violent conflicts pitted Indians against English colonists. The competition for land was the main source of friction that led to violence. Powerful Indian tribes controlled access to beaver and deer in the interior of the continent. Those same tribes also blocked access to English settlers who wanted to expand westward. These Indians feared being swamped by the westward migration of English settlers.
In King Philip's War (1675-1676), New England Indians fought to preserve their land and way of life. They destroyed a dozen frontier settlements and killed hundreds of colonists. But the colonial militias fought back, wiping out entire villages and some 3,000 Indians. They forced some captured Indians to work on their farms as slaves and shipped others off to plantations in the West Indies.
In the Yamasee War (1715-1716) several southern tribes, led by the Yamasee tribe, joined together to attack settlements in Carolina. This war was triggered not just by land disagreements, but also by issues over credit. The Yamasee, largely ignorant of English economic ways, had built up a huge credit debt for goods they received. When traders demanded Indian deerskins to cover the amount due, the Yamasee reacted violently. Backed by other tribes, they launched a series of bloody raids on trading posts and plantations, threatening to wreck Carolina's economy. Troops from neighboring colonies had to be called in to help defeat the Indian warriors and drive them out of Carolina.
Indian deaths in wars such as these took a grave toll on tribes. But it was nothing compared with the greatest killer of all: disease. Europeans unknowingly carried contagious diseases with them to the Americas. There they devastated the Indians, who lacked immunity to these foreign diseases. Epidemics of smallpox, measles, plague, and influenza swept through Indian villages, often killing every resident. These deadly diseases wiped out native populations in nearly every section of North America, leaving the Indians less able to resist the Europeans.