Colony believed that The Indians....had not subdued the land, and therefore had only a natural right to it, but not a civil right. A natural right did not have legal standing. Zinn pg 13. Yet in 1633 Roger Williams questioned the authorities who claimed that the land was theirs to take. He argued that the land was rightfully the Indians and that they would have to answer to God and greater authorities. And so the purchasing of land slowly caught on in Massachusetts, but only when it benefited the settler, such as when there was a dispute over a favorable piece of land, in which one would pay in order to obtain favorable standing of the seller.The Indians were manipulated again by the use of alcohol to sway their decisions, and by fining the Indians on American law terms for virtually no reason, bestowing land and small payments onto settlers who had witnessed the crime or had been wronged by the unsuspecting native. They were also manipulative, in the fact that; as Edmund Morgan notes,Since the Indians were better woodsmen than the English an d virtually impossible to track down, the method was to feign peaceful intentions, let them settle down and plant their corn wherever they chose, and then, just before harvest, fall upon them, killing as many as possible and burning the corn.Zinn pg.13 The Dutch had established a thriving fur trade in North America. Cooperating peacefully with the Mahicans and Local tribes in the New Albany area which the Dutch inhabited. Their population was not a large one, and was vastly outnumbered by the Indians, therefore harmonious relations were extremely crucial to the settlers. Since their main purpose was to develop a successful European fur (particularly beaver) trade, and not settling and cultivating the land, their peaceful relationship was easily maintained. Soon though, the Indians were headed dangerously close to an American game extermination, The Mahicans were not able to supply all of the pelt...
