By 1770, just a few years before the creation of the United States, it was evident that the European invaders—particularly the Spanish, French, and English—were going to stay in North America. These three European powers, with their very different attitudes regarding American Indians, completed with each other for land and access to Indian trade. Competition between the European powers often meant that Indian nations were caught in the middle of these conflicts with two or more European nations seeking their help.
Spanish
In general, the Spanish viewed Indian people as another resource to exploit. When they established their ranches, farms, and mines, they expected the Indians to work for them as a kind of peasant class. In their book Indians, Franciscans, and Spanish Colonization: The Impact of the Mission System on California Indians, Robert H. Jackson and Edward Castillo write:
“To maximize the profits of the colonial enterprise, the Spaniards created institutions that siphoned off surplus production for mines, commercial agriculture, and major building projects: the institutions of repartimiento and mita provided Indian labor, while tribute was the most important means of taxing the Indian communities.”
Repartimiento was the Spanish policy which gave the Spanish colonists the right to use native labor for religious education. In the southwest, the Spanish established a system of encomiendas or land grants. Spain would grant a colonist a certain amount of land which gave the recipient the right to work the land and to collect tribute in the form of goods and services from the Indians who lived within the boundaries of the grants. This provided the Spanish overlords with Indian serfs who could do the farming, tend the livestock, and take care of the house.
The Spanish distribution presented to the Indian nations in Texas and Louisiana: 378 pesos to the Caddo; 515 pesos to the Quapaw; 122 pesos to the Tunica. The Spanish distributed the presents without alcohol and one disgruntled Quapaw chief informed the Spanish governor that his people expected and demanded rum (tafia).
In Texas, the Spanish held a council with several Witchita leaders. The Spanish told the Witchita that the French had been erased and forgotten and asked them to pledge their loyalty to the king of Spain. Eager to obtain Spanish support and firearms in their conflicts with the Osage, the Witchita pledged allegiance to Spain.
In Louisiana, the Spanish government attempted to limit trade with the Indians on the upper Red River valley. Trade in horses and mules was prohibited. Traders with licenses to deal with the Caddo were not allowed to trade with the Comanche or Wichita.
In Louisiana, the Natchitoches and Yatasi formally ceded their land to the Spanish King and agreed not to furnish arms to tribes warring against the Spanish.
In California, the Franciscans established the San Carlos mission and began recruiting converts from the Monterey Bay region, Salinas Valley, and Carmel Valley.
In Arizona, the Apache attacked the Sonoita visita of the Guevavi mission, killing 19 people.
French
In general, the French viewed Indians very differently from the Spanish and the English. The French saw Indians as trading partners and had no problem wearing Indian clothes, speaking Indian languages, and marrying Indian women.
Historian William Eccles, in his chapter on French exploration in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, reports:
“In the eighteenth century the French had four main aims in their thrust into the Far West: to discover new supplies of furs; to find new tribes to proselytize the faith of the Church of Rome, a motive that was considerably diminished as the century wore on; to penetrate and dominate the Spanish commercial empire by land; and to be the first to discover the inland sea that would lead to the Pacific.”
In Louisiana, French explorer Jean-Bernard Bossu employed two Tunica to hunt for him while traveling up the Mississippi River. One of the hunters shot a poisonous snake near the boat. In Arkansas, the Quapaw honor the Tunica hunter with a ceremony and a tattoo. Bossu explains the tattoo:
“They designed and tattooed around his body the figure of a serpent with its head falling on a place which ladies will permit me to let them guess.”
In Arkansas, seven separate Osage war parties attacked French hunting camps, taking weapons and ammunition.
English
The English concern with North America was land, and Indians were often seen as a kind of vermin to be exterminated. In an article in The Indian Historian, Yasuhide Kawashima reports:
“No matter how valuable and useful the Indians might have been to the colonists as allies, dependent tribes, and servants and slaves, however, they were never considered as equal to the white settlers.”
Indians were not citizens, nor could they become citizens and from the viewpoint of the English colonists, they were aliens.
The Treaty of Lochabar with the Cherokee revised the terms of the Treaty of Hard Labor and moved the border of Virginia westward, adding another 9,000 square miles to the colony. Among those signing the treaty for the Cherokee were Attakullakulla, Oconostota, and Ketagusta. The Shawnee protested Cherokee sale of lands in Kentucky which they regarded as their own.
In Mississippi, a group of about 30 Choctaw broke into the English warehouse at Natchez and took all the merchandise and horses. They were pursued by a group of Quapaw and English who attacked their camp. Historian Daniel Usner, in his book Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783, reports:
“One candid settler attributed this raid to both the Choctaws’ dissatisfaction with the English commandant’s unfulfilled promises of presents and the large quantity of rum being sold to them at Natchez.”
Between 50 and 60 kegs of rum were recovered from the raiders.
In Boston, American colonists attacked British troops. One of the rebel leaders killed in this attack was Crispus Attucks, the son of a Black man and a Massachuset woman.
Fur and Hide Trade
The fur and hide trades were important as the European tanneries were unable to produce leather as supple and white as that produced by the Indians. In her chapter in Robes of Splendor: Native North American Painted Buffalo Hides, Anne Vitart notes:
“The cost of Indian leather, on the European market, was twice that of the regular leather from European tanneries.”
The fur trade changed the economies of many Indian nations. In the southeast, for example, Indians had traditionally hunted only to supplement their agricultural efforts. By the end of the 17th century, however, hunting had grown to be a vital element of Indian lives and the means by which they could obtain European goods. Items such as guns, housewares (iron pots, brass and tin kettles, pans, canisters), tools, blankets, textiles, and rum were frequently considered necessities rather than luxuries.
About 800,000 deerskins were exported from the American colonies. Deerskins were used in making clothing items such as gloves.
Hudson’s Bay Company sent out Samuel Hearne with an Indian named Conne-e-quese to look for possible artic copper mines. Conne-e-quese claimed that he had seen the copper mines.
The party was joined by a group of Chipewyan and soon numbered over 600 people. Conne-e-quese left the Hudson’s Bay Company party to winter with the Chipewyan. Hearne began to return home in the winter with no snowshoes, tent, warm clothes, or food. After three days, and near death, he was found by the Chipewyan chief Matonabbee. Matonabbee was the son of a Chipewyan hunter and a Cree slave. He spoke Cree as well as some English. In his book Empire of the Bay: An Illustrated History of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Peter Newman describes him as “A handsome six-footer with a hawk nose and brooding eyes.”
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explorers various American Indian topics. More eighteenth-century histories from this series:
Indians 101: Indian nations 250 years ago, 1770
Indians 101: Some Indian Events of 1766
Indians 201: The Royal Proclamation of 1763
Indians 101: The Utes, the Spanish, and Silver
Indians 101: Cherokee Government and the English
Indians 201: The Yamasee War and the Indian Slave Trade
Indians 101: George Washington and the Indians
Indians 201: Pontiac's War