DBQ2 Native America
QUESTION
“British colonial and Native American perceptions of each other created economic cooperation and
social friction between the two groups prior to the American Revolution.”
Assess the validity of this statement.Use the documents and your knowledge of the period between 1607
and 1761 in constructing your response.
Document A
Virginia colony promoter Sir William Herbert, 1610s
Colonies degenerate assuredly when the colonists imitate and embrace the habits,
customs, and practices of the natives. There is no better way to remedy this evil than to
do away with and destroy completely the habits and practices of the natives.
Document B
John Rolfe on his decision to marry Pocahontas, in a letter to Sir Thomas Dale,
governor of Virginia, 1614
Let therefore this my well advised protestation . . . condemn me herein, if my chiefest
intent and purpose be not, to strive with all my power of body and mind, in the undertaking of so mighty a matter, no way led (so far forth as man’s weakness may permit) with
the unbridled desire of carnal affection: but for the good of this plantation, for the honour
of our country, for the glory of God, for my own salvation, and for the converting to the
true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas. . . .
Shall I be of so untoward a disposition, as to refuse to lead the blind into the right way?
Shall I be so unnatural, as not to give bread to the hungry? or uncharitable, as not to
cover the naked? Shall I despise to actuate these pious duties of a Christian? Shall the
base fears of displeasing the world, overpower and withhold me from revealing unto man
these spiritual works of the Lord, which in my meditations and prayers, I have daily made
known unto him? God forbid. . . .
Now if the vulgar sort, who square all men’s actions by the base rule of their own
filthiness, shall tax or taunt me in this my godly labour: let them know, it is not any
hungry appetite, to gorge my self with incontinency; sure (if I would, and were so
sensually inclined) I might satisfy such desire, though not without a seared conscience,
yet with Christians more pleasing to the eye, and less fearful in the offence unlawfully
committed.
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DBQ2 Native America
Document C
A Wicomesse Indian to the governor of Maryland, 1633
Since that you are heere strangers and come into our Countrey, you should rather
confine yourselves to the Customes of our Countrey, than impose yours upon us.
Document D
A French Jesuit missionary, 1642
To make a Christian out of a Barbarian is not the work of a day. . . . A great step is
gained when one has learned to know those with whom he has to deal; has penetrated
their thoughts; has adapted himself to their language, their customs, and their manner
of living; and when necessary, has been a Barbarian with them, in order to win them
over to Jesus Christ.
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DBQ2 Native America
Document E
Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, in A Key into the Language of America, 1643\
Roger Williams was the founder of Rhode Island. His book A Key into the Language of
America is the first study of an Indian language, the Narragansett language.
I once traveled to an island of the wildest in our parts, where in the night an Indian (as he
said) had a vision or dream of the sun (whom they worship for a god) darting a beam into
his breast which he conceived to be the messenger of his death: this poor native called his
friends and neighbors, and prepared some little refreshing for them, but himself was kept
waking and fasting in great humiliations and invocations for ten days and nights; I was
alone (having traveled from my bark, the wind being contrary) and little could I speak to
them to their understandings especially because of the change of their dialect or manner
of speech from our neighbors: yet so much (through the help of God) I did speak, of the
true and living only wise God, of the creation: of man, and his fall from God, etc. that at
parting many burst forth, “Oh when will you come again, to bring us some more news of
this God?” . . .
Nature knows no difference between Europe and Americans in blood, birth, bodies, etc.
God having of one blood made all mankind, Acts 17, and all by nature being children of
wrath, Ephes, 2.
More particularly:
Boast not proud English, of thy birth and blood
Thy brother Indian is by birth as good.
Of one blood God made him, and thee, and all.
As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal.
By nature, wraith’s his portion, thine, no more
Till grace his soul and thine in Christ restore.
Make sure thy second birth, else thou shalt see
Heaven ope to Indians wild, but shut to thee.
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DBQ2 Native America
Document F
The London-based Lords Proprietor of Carolina rebuking colonists for arming Indians and paying
them to capture other Indians for slave trade, 1683
Covetousness of your gunns, Powder, and Shott and other European commodities
[have caused Indians] to ravish the wife from the Husband, Kill the father to get the
Child and to burne and Destroy the habitations of these poore people into whose
Country wee were Ch[e]arefully received by them, cherished and supplied when wee
were weake, or at least never have done us hurt; and after wee have set them on worke
to doe all these horrid, wicked things to get slaves to sell [to] the dealers in Indians
[you] call it humanity to buy them and thereby keep them from being murdered.
Document G
Edward Randolph’s report of King Philip’s War in New England, 1675
Various are the reports and conjectures of the causes of the present Indian warre [sic].
Some impute it to an imprudent zeal in the magistrates of Boston to christianize those
heathen before they were civilized and enjoining them the strict observation of their
laws. . . . [T]he people, on the other side, for lucre and gain, entice and provoke the
Indians to the breach thereof, especially to drunkenness, to which those people are so
generally addicted that they will strip themselves to their skin to have their fill of rum
and brandy. . . .
Some believe there have been vagrant and jesuitical priests, who have made it their
business, for some years past, to go from Sachem to Sachem, to exasperate the Indians
against the English and to bring them into a confederacy, and that they were promised
supplies from France and other parts to extirpate the English nation out of the
continent of America. . . .
But the government of the Massachusetts . . . [has] contributed much to their
misfortunes, for they first taught the Indians the use of arms, and admitted them to be
present at all their musters and trainings, and shewed [sic] them how to handle, mend
and fix their muskets, and have been furnished with all sorts of arms by permission of
the government.
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DBQ2 Native America
Document H
A brass plaque presented by Massachusetts Bay to chiefs of tribes who aided the colony during the
King Philip’s War, 1676
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DBQ2 Native America
Document I
Minavavana, a Chippewa chief, addressing trader Alexander Henry, as recorded by Henry, 1761
Englishman, although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us!
We are not your slaves. . . .
Englishman, our father, the King of France, employed our young men to make war
upon your nation. In this warfare many of them have been killed, and it is our custom
to retaliate until such time as the spirits of the slain are satisfied. But the spirits of the
slain are to be satisfied in either of two ways; the first is by the spilling of the blood of
the nation by which they fell; the other by covering the bodies of the dead, and thus
allaying the resentment of their relations. This is done by making presents.
Englishman, your king has never sent us any presents, . . . wherefore he and we are still
at war; and until he does these things we must consider that we have no other father,
nor friend among the white men than the King of France. . . . You do not come armed
with an intention to make war. . . . We shall regard you, therefore, as a brother. . . . As a
token of our friendship we present you with this pipe to smoke.
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