INDIAN - EUROPEAN CONFLICT IN THE NEW WORLD Since 1492 to late into the17th the century there was perpetual struggle between the power hungry Europeans and the natives in the New World. Pitted against each other, the Dutch, English, French, Spaniards, and Indians struggled to maintain control of what they viewed as rightfully theirs. The English, were struggling to settle on the eastern coast and had no use and respect for the Indians or their land and way of life. At first maintaining a tentative relationship, the English, in the case of the Quakers and Puritans, soon realized that the Indians had very little to offer and were an obstacle on the path of their progress. Spain was primarily interested in missionary activities and conquered the natives of south western America and Mexico because they were seen as obstacles on valuable land. What peoples the Spaniards did not deliberately destroy, disease finished off. The extremely powerful Dutch had goals of commerce, conquest, and complete exploitation of American resources. They did all they could at first to maintain peaceful exchange with the Indians, being vastly dependent on the natives for the fur trade. Further north, along the St. Lawrence River, the Indians were vital to the French.. Relations were kept better than anywhere previously in the New World. Yet Southern French- Indian relations were sadly much different, as evident in the interaction with the Natchez in 1722 ultimately, interaction with the Indians of North America was solely dependent on the needs and goals of the invading Europeans.Quakers fleeing from the oppression of England, were initially dedicated to non- violence between all races and religions. In the 1670s they settled in East and West Jersey, Eventually moving into Pennsylvania, believing that they could form a utopian society which they called the Holy Experiment. A man named William Penn initiated the peaceful interaction in 1682. He approached the...
