Similarities And Differences Between European Native American And African Societies

United States History to 1865 Midterm
1. Analyze the major similarities and difference among European, Native American and African societies. What was the European impact on the peoples and the environment of the Americas and Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?
-There were many similarities and differences among European, Native American and African societies. The first similarity thing is the role gender played in their societies, and they assigned work based upon gender. In Native American and African world, the men were the ones who do heavy lifting work, and the women were the ones perform the domestic duties. Likewise, men were usually the breadwinners and working outside the home, either women worked in their own

home. All three also shared a similar family structure. On the other hand, the European men were in charge of agricultural production and trading whereas Native Indian women were in charge of these duties. Europeans found the matrilineal society of Native Indians in which women took political, economic and social participation as ‘unnatural’ and thus unacceptable. The second similarity thing is they had their own culture, language and religion. Native Americans and Africans both had many spiritual gods, and nature had many parts in religion and belief. However, the culture of Native American and African was considered a sub-culture, a culture, which is inferior to the “white” (European) culture, and their religion was also considered inferior, and they were considered as they should be Christianized. Languages were also different among the different Native Indian groups, the Europeans and the Africans and overcoming this barrier was difficult. Lastly, they shared trading as a major aspect in these economies. Because of the increasing trade that took place between Europeans and Native Indians displays that they were interdependent, they produced different goods. The Native Indians traded food and raw materials, and the Europeans traded manufactured weaponry and other iron-made products. Thus, they each had diverse skills that the other group lacked. In addition, the Africa was trading the goods and slaves, and slavery was spread with trade at that time.
-The European influences to the Africans were “European imperialism in Africa led to slavery as African were used as workers and laborers for the whites, Africans also were forced to abandon their culture to adopt the western culture, and Europeans exported most of the resources in Africa cheaply and sold them costly, which benefited them” (Reference).

The European influences to the Native Americans were Europeans carried the new diseases to the Indians. “Europeans were used to these diseases, but Indian people had no resistance to them. Sometimes the illnesses spread through direct contact with colonists. Other times, they were transmitted as Indians traded with one another. The result of this contact with European germs was horrible. Sometimes whole villages perished in a short time” (Kincheloe). Slave trade was another influence to American Indians. Europeans soon realized that they could provide commercial goods such as tools and weapons to some American Indian tribes that would bring them other Indians captured in tribal wars, and these captured Indians were bought and sold as slaves. Therefore, “slavery led to warfare among tribes and too much hardship. Many tribes had to move to escape the slave trade, which destroyed some tribes completely. In time, the practice of enslaving Native peoples ended. However, it had greatly affected American Indians of the South and the Southwest” (Kinchloe). Lastly, Europeans change Native America and African’ roots. Native Americans

and Africans were forced to convert Indians and Africans to Christianity.
2. What was the basis and character of the Spanish, French and Dutch empires in North and South America? What was each nation’s objective and how successful were they in reaching their goals?
- The Spanish Empire was the largest empire in the world history as one of the first global empires. Spain started as a united monarch in 1492 after the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. Later, Christopher Columbus commanded the first Spanish exploratory voyage trip through the Atlantic Ocean that lead to the discovery of America. The Spanish expedition of the world achieved what Columbus had longed for, a westward route to Asia, and brought the Far East to Spain's attention, where it established colonies in Guam, the Philippines and surrounding islands (Brettbailey). Because of the newfound wealth gold and silver from their colonies, it led Spain’s own demise. Supply and demand balance of silver was ruined simply because everyone in Spanish Americas were digging silver and gold out of greed. Also, because of the promised wealth that came from Spanish Americas, thousands of Spanish Peninsulares and nobility seek a new opportunity they had lost hope back home. However, “the Spanish empire are successful in terms of defending the Catholic fate which was already losing position in Europe and create a vast continent from which the pope would get his money from” (Quora).
-The French Empire is the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 1600s to the late 1960s.

However, French lost its territory to the Spanish and the British, but most of France’s colonial wealth were extracted from their colonies in Africa, especially from its vast wealth of gold and diamond. “Like the Spanish the French preferred to rule their colonies under a direct rule, which urge more metropole culture spread upon colonized land. While Spanish colonial cities have plazas, the French colonial cities have Paris grid town planning and architecture that often remind one of France. They also introduced education system using French language, to help further brainwash and spread their own value” (Quora). “The French also wanted to spread their “French value” to its subject as part of their “civilizing” mission, to bless the barbaric of indigenous Africans and Asians with enlightenment (admittedly they were less successful than Americans, but did manage to spread the French language all over Africa)” (Quora). While Africa became more “France”, this failed in Indochina because the locals find French difficult to learn. The Africa colonization was pure and simple, to benefit the metropole at most while limiting the development of industry as to make Africa reliant on European

goods.
-The Dutch Empire consisted of the overseas territories controlled by the Netherlands from the 17th to the 20th century. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in establishing an overseas colonial empire. For this, they were aid by their skills in shipping and trading, and their surge of nationalism and militarism accompanying the struggle for independence from Spain. Right next to the British, the Dutch initially built up colonial possessions on the basis of indirect state capitalist corporate colonialism, via the Dutch East and West India Companies. Dutch exploratory voyages such as those led by Willem Barents, Henry Hudson and Abel Tasman revealed to Europeans vast new territories (COSMOPOLITAN). “The Dutch created the GWC (Dutch West India Company) and VOC (Dutch East India Company) not long after their independence from Hapsburg Spain. At the time, the Netherlands were still fueled with Protestant reformation and particularly didn't like the Spanish, hearing their new-found wealth in the Americas, the GWC started their own expedition first to Americas to found "New Netherlands"” (Quora). As a result, for some centuries, the Dutch managed to monopolize the profitable spice route and turn Amsterdam into Europe's center of capitalism. However, by the 19th century, VOC were dissolved because of the British East India Company, who monopolize the cotton and opium trade based in India, were flourished. Later on the kingdom of Holland descent into civil war, with Belgium gaining their independence. This resulted economic ruin to the Netherlands. At later period, the Dutch were mainly concerned with imperialism with the mind of economic and prestige goal (Quora).
4. What was the British plan of empire in North America? What role did mercantilism play in developing this plan for the American colonies? In your answer, be sure to define mercantilism and discuss the means to implement it in the colonies. Did mercantilism prove successful for the British Empire? Why or Why not?
- The British were concerned with expansion of their mother country’s land, so they managed to acquire huge part of North America. Mercantilism was a justification theory (a plan) that the British used to control their colonies.
-Mercantilism was an economic system lead by the British government that kept the colonies chances of developing a reliable economy to a minimum. “Mercantilists considered the economy and politics as zero-sum games; one side’s gain was another’s loss” (p.89). Between 1651 and 1669, the British government enacted the Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts required that all goods going to the colonies had to be shipped to England, where they could tax and some colonial products (cotton, sugar, and tobacco, etc.) had to be sent first to England before shipped elsewhere. It means if the colonists did want to seek a better economic venture by trading goods with other countries; the goods had to be shipped to Britain first just so the British could collect revenue from them. The colonies did not benefit from their economy as much as they should have. Mercantilism was also not practical for the colonies. Having to have all of the goods sent to Britain to be inventoried kept consumers in the colonies from receiving goods quickly. Colonists also did not like having the British monitor every good that would be used in the colonies. Therefore, that led to the animosity between Britain and its colonies. I think mercantilism didn’t prove successful for the British because in a mercantilism system, the sustaining country, England in this cases, ultimately benefits much greater than the providing country, in this case the American colonies. Eventually the colonists grew aggravated that Britain received the vast majority of profits and benefits and thus revolted.