Native Americans Manteo and Wanchese’s differing views about the English Settlement on the Roanoke Islands
...ealistic if not impossible for the majority of English to collectively change their entire approach of conquest to accommodate the egalitarian lifestyle of the Native Americans living in Roanoke. The first English colonists were sent to Roanoke Islands in 1585 and their subsequent disappearance in 1587, demonstrated that the Englishmen’s first conquest efforts in North America were a failure. Obviously, the English had made mistakes and they needed to change their tactics in order to succeed in future attempts of colonization in North America. When reviewing the events that took place in Roanoke and the hardships the first colonists faced while trying to live with the Native Americans. I could not help but feel somewhat saddened by this story if not compelled to examine some of the differences and similarities between these two groups, and some of the reasons why this effort or experiment failed. First, the Native Americans saw the land and environment of Roanoke as community property and they lived together. They shared their labor and their natural resources with each other whereas the English saw the new land as something to conquer and take. The English believed that property was something that people could and should own privately and their social status was linked to their private property ownership, etc. Secondly, the Native Americans viewed themselves as equals and their community lived as an egalitarian society the looked out for each other whereas the English did not see themselves as equals but as individuals that belonged in different classes based on gender, race and ownership of property. For example, women in English culture were viewed as subordinates where women in the Native culture were viewed as equals. These differences were fundamentally very different from the Native Americans and the English did not easily overlook them. Thirdly, the English or many of them viewed the Native Americans as savages because of their polytheistic worship or belief in more than one God whereas the English believed in the monotheistic worship of one God and the English believed that they should spread their religious point of view upon others. Perhaps this reason alone was what formed the ethnocentric viewpoint that the English were superior to the Native Americans because they thought the Natives were ignorant ...