The Encounters Between Native Americans and

European Settlers

By Miss Brubaker and Miss Otto

Agriculture

• The Europeans originally went to the Americas, thinking it was Asia, in order to find spices for trade.

• The Europeans brought new resources, such as horses, to further advance agriculture.

• The Native Americans taught the Europeans to be more dependent on agriculture.

Trade

• Europeans traded cast medal beads made of silver, brass, and German silver to improve relations with the Native Americans.

• The Native Americans were eager to trade furs for metal knives, axe heads, pots, needles, muskets, cloth, and glass beads.

• Native American tribes that immediately began to trade with the Europeans had significant advantages over other tribes.

Cultural Exchanges

• Europeans began to rely more on agriculture, while the Native Americans began to hunt more.

• The Native Americans used to move around a lot, but they began to stay on the same land as the Europeans began to take it.

• Europeans used to stay in one place, but gradually began to move farther and farther west.

Military Alliances

• Native American tribes began to make alliances with each other in order to team up against the Europeans.

• Native American alliances began to use the same European military techniques, such as horses and guns.

• The Europeans began to team up to make alliances to get rid of the “lesser” Native Americans.

Broken Treaties

• The Indian Removal Act was intended for fair exchanges of land but it really forced the Europeans to simply push the Native Americans west of the Mississippi River.

• The Treaty of Greenville gave the Native Americans a particular land reservation, but the Europeans quickly took it back.

• The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up pieces of land for the different Native American tribes. This land was later taken back and sold by the European settlers.

Massacres

• During the Jamestown Massacre, in March 1622, Powhatan killed 347 English men in effort to push the English out of Virginia.

• The 500 Year War was referred to as being the American Indian Holocaust, starting when Columbus arrived in 1492.

• The Battle of Kelly Creek in 1911 is one of the last massacres between settlers, now Americans, and Native Americans.

Control Over Land

• The Native Americans had no concept of owning land because they practiced communal land ownership. This caused conflicts between the control of land between Europeans and the indigenous.

• The Indian Removal Act of 1830 called for Natives to be removed from the states (their homeland) to federal territory west of Mississippi in exchange for their homeland.

• In present day, Native Americans do not have much land because of the Europeans. Instead, they live on Indian Reservations.