The idea of land ownership was not understood by Native Americans - they were a migratory people that followed the herds and fair weather. They were accustomed to lands that were open to everyone and established certain areas where they set up temporary camps for the summer or winter. Very rarely did they set up a permanent building. So when the first European colonies established themselves, their ways were an alien concept. There was no need to own land or animals or suffer in one place for the winter when there was plenty available for all.
During the early years of Virginia, colonists were encouraged to mark their territory with certain markings that came to be known as "tomahawk improvements". This required the settler to make certain improvements and place stakes to mark one-thousand-acre plots of land. As simple as that, ownership was established. The Native Americans didn't understand this concept of ownership.
When Simon Kenton was establishing territory in the Ohio River area, he attempted to (illegally) purchase land from the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh. Tecumseh sold him the land, laughing to himself that selling land was much the same as selling the moon. No one could own the land! Simon Kenton made a lot of tomahawk improvements in this area and came to be considered a wealthy man.
Later, more and more colonists arrived and claimed these same marked lands for themselves, and due to the lack of proper surveying and written records, Simon Kenton lost much of his established wealth during that time. When he met with Tecumseh again, the chief reminded him, "You see? You cannot own the land." Simon Kenton was one of the few colonists who actually understood what it was like to have his land taken out from under him.
At first, the Native Americans agreed to move to the west side of the Ohio River and let the European colonists settle to the east of it. This was a tenuous truce, as new colonists often ignored the treaties and would use the Ohio River to travel to lands to the south and west of the river, land the Native Americans had not agreed to give over to the colonies. Native Americans had many different nations, or tribes, and communication between the tribes only occurred sporadically, when someone traveled or there was an annual gathering. Some tribes didn't get along or communicate at all. So when the Colonists met with Tribal Leaders and a Treaty was established, the European Colonists believed that these treaties applied to all Native American Nations. The Native Americans understood that it only applied to the tribes whose chiefs had attended the treaty signing.
Also during these meetings, European leaders attempted to establish dominance over the tribes. They called King George III of England "the great white father across the sea" and referred to him in a way that made it sound like he was the great, benevolent father to the Native Americans as well. Some tribes were charmed by the tools and implements the Europeans brought with them and were very happy to adjust their ways to suit those of the Europeans, who also taught them about their religion. The Cherokee were one of the first tribes that the colonists deemed to be "civilized", learning European religion and farming methods.
Rules were easily broken simply because of ignorance that any even existed. Colonists set out to explore the country, never realizing that treaties had been set, and outbreaks of violence broke out, instigated by both sides. Forts were built by the colonists on lands across the river, and Native Americans came to realize that the treaties they signed held no real authority. The Europeans revised and rewrote the treaties, again and again, inching further and further to the West and South. During negotiations, the Europeans often made displays of military might. Although they offered gifts as payment for the lands, it was made very clear, using intimidation, that the lands were going to be taken. Many Chiefs signed the treaties simply to prevent bloodshed.
There was an actual turning point in the relationship between the settlers and the Native Americans. King George III of England, "the great white father across the sea" actually did attempt to establish serious boundaries for the Native Americans and tried to abide by the treaties, but policing the effectiveness of this is difficult when you are trying to rule from a far away country. He established British Indian Agents to negotiate terms between the Natives and the Europeans, and these agents also attempted to keep the boundaries in place.
Some Natives actually braved the oceans and traveled to meet with the King in person.
It is possible that things would have been very different for the Native Americans if there hadn't been an American Revolution. When the "thirteen fires" broke away from the great white father across the sea, all of the established treaties made with the King of England became null and void in the eyes of the newly established United States.
England tried to retain a foothold, using the British Indian Agents to negotiate with the Native Americans as allies, but it was at this point that the colonists broke negotiations with the Natives and began forcefully removing them from their lands.
Native Americans may also have had more success if they had united as one nation; one chief, Tecumseh, tried very hard to accomplish this, but was unsuccessful. In the end, England failed them as an ally and retreated to Canada.
Native Americans resisted European colonial expansion in many different ways. They sometimes boycotted white settlers by refusing to trade with them or to provide them with relevant information, and they sometimes denounced the Europeans as intruders and criticized their way of life and noxious influence on Native Americans. The many instances of such resistance included the temporary boycott of the Jamestown settlers by the Powhatan federation and the critique of white influence by religious Native American leaders immediately preceding the Pontiac rebellion in 1763.
The ultimate form of Native American resistance was, of course, armed conflict, which sometimes took the form of large scale war or sporadic attacks on enemy settlements. The colonists engaged in brutal revenge attacks, often on innocent populations, as they regarded all Native Americans as guilty for any attack by any Native American. This brutal warfare played an important role in shaping the political positions of the colonists. For example, the Delawares and other Native American peoples attacked white settlements in the Ohio valley during the 1760s and 1770s. They believed that the whites there intended to take away their land, as an earlier group of European settlers had in the seventeenth century. When the British colonial authorities proved unable to protect those white settlers who had defied the official prohibition on white settlement to the west of the Appalachian Mountains by settling in the Ohio Valley, the whites there felt betrayed by their own colonial government. These events contributed to the settlers’ support of the American Revolution.
The ongoing low-grade warfare between the whites and the Native Americans was an integral part of the western frontier experience throughout most of the nineteenth century. It shaped American social and cultural attitudes and contributed to the suspicion and rejection of the “other” on the one hand and to the romanticizing of arms, armed struggle, and the self-reliance of pioneers on the other hand. The ongoing American love of guns may derive from this romanticization; this is a persistent feature of US culture throughout history, despite routine shootings of innocent people, suicides, and gun-related accidents.
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