Early Settler's Views on Native Americans
...d be untoward (as it is most certain they are), thirty or forty good men will be sufficient to bring them all to subjugation…” Unfortunately for the Native Americans, Smith believed that the English should treat Native Americans as the Spanish had: to compel them to "drudgery, work, and slavery," so English colonists could live "like Soldiers upon the fruit of their labor." Thus, when his negotiations with Native Americans for food occasionally failed, Smith took what he wanted by force. Later, his views on the Native Americans changed. His story of being saved by Pocahontas shows a dramatic shift in his belief that they were all savages. The trading between the colonists and the Native Americans increased dramatically because of it. Most people have some knowledge of Puritans and their role in the settlement of New England, but very few are familiar with pioneering Cavaliers like Morton. His values, therefore, and their relation to the more familiar swashbuckling Cavaliers of Europe need to be carefully explained. According to his own self-description, Morton was the university educated son of a soldier, devoted to the British crown and old English ways, and a staunch supporter of the Church of England, its liturgy, and its holy days. His portrait of the Native Americans is an attempt to show how, despite their uncivilized state, they share many values with the traditional Englishmen whom he takes to be his audience. The Native Americans' personal modesty, hospitality to strangers, respect for authority, and even religious views mirror those of England, and their contentment surpasses that of the English because of their greater closeness to nature. They are adventurers without the trappings of Europe, indulging in pleasures because they are natural and upholding authority because it allows indulgence. By contrast, the Pilgrims appear to be ill-educated rabble-rousers who despise all tradition and authority. Devoid even of common humanity, they serve their own self-glorifying appetites and deny the bounty that nature has left open to all. Roger William’s beliefs on Native Americans that eventually led to his banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony were about the Native American’s rights. The Massachusetts Bay Company charter should be invalidated since Christian kings have no right to dispose of Native American lands--a position again based on separation of spiritual and material prerogatives. Williams was a friend of the Narragansett Native Americans, a defender of their legal property rights, and an admirer of their natural virtue. He devoted much of his life to understanding their language and culture so that he could teach them about Christ; an "implicit dialogue" intended to bridge cultures for their mutual benefit. The savages had to be Christianized, but this colonizing process often had tragic effects. The importance of bringing knowledge of Christ to the Native Americans, despite this dilemma, created one of the central conflicts in Williams's life. William Bradford had a deft touch when dealing with the natives. He truly understood what was necessary to have good relations with the Native Americans. One of his first acts on assuming the executive was to send an embassy, in July, 1621, to confirm the league entered into with the Native American sachem Massasoit, the most influential and powerful of the native...