Paul W. answered • 03/26/21
MA Military & Diplomatic History with 10+ Years of Teaching Experience
Human beings belonging to different cultural / ethnic / religious / racial (etc...) groups have always encountered difficulties in relating to and interacting with each other - Why?
Our concepts of what constitutes 'normal' - including concepts of good and bad, right and wrong - are naturally established by the society within which we grow to adulthood - parents, other family members, friends, authority figures, etc... teach us everything we know and, naturally, we accept / assume that what we are taught is the way things are / should be.
Its natural, therefore, that when human beings from society 'A' encounter other human beings from society 'B' who do not have the same beliefs and do not behave the same way, the humans of society 'A' will view / judge the humans from society 'B' as DIFFERENT - separate from the humans in society 'A' (just as the humans in society 'B' will themselves view / judge the humans in society 'A' as different and, therefore, separate from the humans in society 'B').
Because, as explained above, human beings naturally - even unconsciously - accept the beliefs / values / behavior of the group to which they belong as what constitutes 'normal', those beliefs / values / behaviors (etc...) held by and practiced by humans from a different group are viewed as 'abnormal' - NOT normal. More often than not, humans equate 'abnormal' with inferior / wrong. In other words, 'If someone - from another group of humans - is different from me, that someone will be judged by me to be inferior and / or bad because of their different beliefs / values / behavior (etc...)'. In short, all to often among human beings DIFFERENT = INFERIOR, INFERIOR = WRONG / BAD.
It should be noted, when considering the differences between Native American societies and the societies of the Europeans who arrived in the Americas beginning in the late 15th century that there was a great variety among both. There was a great variety of Native American societies within the Americas, from the Aztec and Inca Empires in Mexico and South America, respectively, to the woodland Indians of the east coast North America, etc... Granted, there were fewer differences among the European explorers / conquerors. Nevertheless, there were still significant differences between the Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, differences that affected the way in which they interacted with the Native American societies that they encountered.
Religion was among the most important differences that separated Native American societies and Europeans. The vast majority of European explorers / conquerors practiced Christianity, which dictated that there was only one true God (granted, different Europeans practiced different versions of Christianity: Catholicism (practiced mainly by the majority of the French, by the Portuguese, and by the Spanish), the Protestant Faith of the Anglican Church (practiced by the majority of the English), and the Protestant Faith preached by Calvinists (practiced by the Dutch and a minority of the English)). Christianity was exclusive - that is, Christianity held that anything different from Christianity had to be wrong (evil) because only Christianity was true.
Religious differences shaped attitudes toward the nature of families and the relationship between human beings and the natural world. Christians were taught and believed that marriage was sacred and that the only legitimate marriages were those that were formed through a Church ceremony performed by a member of a Christian Church. Christians were taught and believed that marriage was monogamous - only between one man and one woman. Therefore, in the eyes of Europeans, the family relationships among Native Americans were illegitimate / wrong because they weren't Christian. (It's not clear what the attitudes among different Native American peoples were towards the nature of European families...)
Although both Native American and Europeans believed that God / the gods / spirits had created and continued to control the natural world, religious differences produced different concepts of the correct relationship of human beings with the natural world. Christianity taught that the natural world was given to human beings as a gift from God and that God wanted human beings to use the resources of the natural world as much as possible. For instance, human beings were to kill as many wild animals as they wished and transform as much as the landscape as possible in order to grow crops. By contrast, the beliefs of most of the Native American societies living along the east coast of North America taught that the natural world was NOT a gift to human being from the gods / spirits, that the natural world did not exist simply for the use of human beings. Instead, they believed that the natural world was just as valuable to the gods / spirits as human beings and, because of this, human beings should practice restraint when using the resources of the natural world.
As a result of these differences in religious beliefs concerning the correct relationship between human beings and the natural world, the Native American peoples and the European conquerors / settlers in the east coast of North America viewed the each others ways of using natural resources as wrong. Native Americans judged the European approach of hunting - in their eyes - more wild animals than they needed and using more land to grow - in their eyes - more crops than they needed as wasteful and disrespectful of the wished of the Native American gods / spirits. Ironically, the European conquerors / settlers judged the Native American approach to hunting and growing crops as wasteful because they failed to use ALL of the resources of the natural world, leaving, for instance, a great deal of land upon which crops could be grown unused, to be allowed to grow wild. To the European conquerors / settlers, THIS was wasteful and disrespected the wishes of the Christian God.
