Could relations between Europeans and Native Americans have turned out any other way in the 18th century?

by unbeliebers
Canadairy

This might be more of a question for /r/HistoricalWhatif

Algebrace

There were many factors but i would argue no to an overall result. The basic reasoning was:

I am European, i am here because i want money

Those are not civilised people therefor they do not own land

And land i claim therefor is mine, bugger anyone else

The above is in reference to British colonies (the French up north acted differently). William Cronon in his book "Changes in the Land" details how "owning" the land basically means improving it. The only real way he could identify those improvements in the Indian was the burning of the grassland to promote future growth, thus the Indian did not so much as own it as existed on it. Adding to this the Indian ownership was a "common ownership" where it was common land held by the village i.e. a village in England "owns" the land around it, while the white man had "civil ownership" which trumped the common one.

So disrespect and ignoring the Indian laws/customs basically meant that English expansion would have occurred regardless. Their greed for more land for more money and their disrespect for the Native Americans would have seen them do the same regardless of other factors. Unless the British went in with respect for the Indian customs and people then it would of happened different, but there are no models for that iirc since colonial Britain was a horrible thing for the people "colonised".

For the French on the other hand I would say if the Jesuits weren't there then things might have turned out very differently. In "The Middle Ground" by Richard White the Jesuit was seen as something at once hated and loved by both the Indian and the French. The French had a very different stance than the British since instead of colonization they were there for trade primarily and as such had a different attitude to the Indians in the region. Since they did not have a military dominance they couldnt just waltz in and take, rather they had to create a middle ground where trade could commence.

Enter into this was the Jesuit who saw the Indian living in "sin" and wanted to "save him". ( Im going to ignore many factors here since it would take a very long time to comment on everything and just focus on the Jesuit influence and its effects. ) In saving the Indian the Jesuit preached about his god and how amazing he was etc. Originally the Indians laughed him off since a lot of what he said sounded to them as retarded i.e. strict no divorce laws which as an Indian said (paraphrasing here) "If im unhappy with my wife and another with his, do we condemn ourselves to suffering or divorce and find happiness". This combined with chastity preachings which many Indian tribes saw once again as a bad idea meant that there was little common ground for the Jesuits to get their point across.

However plague arrived with the French and with the deaths many saw their gods as ineffectual and converted to Christianity as a sort of "see what this god can do" idea. An effect to this was an increased amount of chastity amongst women.

Now sexual contact between Indian women and French men was a very big issue in this time. There existed a sort of contract where the Frenchman would pay the woman and she would clean and look after his home with the added bonus of sex. These women weren't treated as whores but rather as respected members of society (Indian and European cultures are very different here) and this contact meant that the French men often had access to hunting grounds before denied to them by the woman's relatives. So while the hunters had more access to women it can be seen that there was more hunting and therefor trading.

So as access to the women dwindled so did trade and the status quo changed which was detrimental to both parties as the trade between the parties slowly decreased and the power balance slowly crumbled away.

Now in writing this up i realized something which kind of invalidates the post... but i dont want to delete it. Disease is the biggest factor. If disease had not decimated the Indian population the afore mentioned factors would have been non-issues. In regards to the English, if the Indians had not been decimated they could have resisted the English and wiped them out, rather they were weakened and did not possess the strength to resist.

The French were the same, where they were equal if disease had not hit, the Indian would have retained the upper hand in all negotiations putting them in a favourable light.

As a side-note, the reason women were sleeping with French hunters was because there was a surplus of women, around 4 women for 1 man due to the population losses they had suffered (whether disease or war i dont know).

Long winded, hoped it helped.