|
The
Vikings | Columbus
| John Day |
John Cabot |
Martin Frobisher |
Jacques Cartier
| John Guy |
Henry Hudson |
Samuel De
Champlain |
Native Perceptions
| Francis Drake |
Humphrey Gilbert
Native perceptions of
the different explorers that appear differed as much
with the intentions and objectives of the explorers as
it did with the particular native groups that they
encountered. The Aztecs believed that Cortes and his men
were the fulfillment of a prophesize that foretold the
coming of a god who would overthrow their empire. Some
natives greeted the explorers with curiosity and were
eager to trade for their strange items. Some accepted
them as strange visitors to be tolerated but were
impatient for their departure. Yet others accepted the
explorers and later settlers as potential new friends
and allies.
The worse encounters
took place with Spanish Conquistadors who looked upon
the natives as sub-human creatures to be defeated
subjugated and in many cases forced into slavery. One of
the crucial problems with these first encounters
centered around the transfer of disease and viruses
which were alien to North American peoples and hence
left them in many cases biologically unable to resist
the sickness or produce antibodies to fight the germs.
Estimates of the number of indigenous people that may
have died from these new European diseases range from a
few hundred thousand to millions. This was a process
that occurred for hundreds of years throughout the
Americas and was most prominate when the first contact
took place between the Europeans and the natives.
For native groups in Canada who were
technologically hundreds of years behind the Europeans,
the wondrous ships, metal instruments, weapons and
chemical inventions such as gunpowder must have seemed
wondrous, yet in other ways the Europeans inability to
live off the land in the knowledgeable, traditional way
the natives did may have made the Europeans appear
somewhat weak and uninventive. It was the natives who
saved the starving Pilgrims and the Algonquin spruce tea
that healed the scurvy that the first French settlers
suffered from.
How did the clash of
cultures and values resolve themselves? The answer to
that is in many different ways but usually to the
detriment of the native peoples. |
