Peoples of Eastern North America and American democracy

American Democracy

Contact between Europeans and Native Americans undoubtedly shaped the course of New World history. Political alliances enabled strategic partnerships for trade as well as land settlements. Pre-existing rivalries between the French and British were played out on New World grounds, and the indigenous peoples served critical roles. Moreover, as Johansen points out, European settlers witnessed Enlightenment values in practice among Iroquois Confederacy government. It was as if the Iroquois offered a concrete vision of what the future of the United States might look like. Therefore, the indigenous people of North America did in fact shape the formation of the United States.

The indigenous people of North America quite literally shaped the formation of the United States by determining which colonial power(s) had access to which specific territories. For example, a British alliance with the Iroquois enabled military victories that determined geo-political boundaries (Johansen). The alliances formed between European settlers and the indigenous peoples were indispensable, because without aboriginal knowledge of the land it would have been impossible to navigate through forests and rugged mountains (Johansen).

On the other hand, encounters with the indigenous populations of North America did not change the imperialistic worldview that Europeans brought with them. European historians have projected and conjectured about the pre-contact history of the indigenous peoples (Price and Fineman). Similarly, European accounts of contact with the aboriginal peoples vary from "romantic" to derogatory (Fagan). The "noble savages" in all their alien diversity were put on ships to the Old World and put on display like circus animals (Fagan). Considering the genocidal effects of contact, the Europeans had a far more devastating, meaningful, and long-lasting effect on Native Americans than it did on the settlers.

Given the very nature of colonialism and imperialism, it is doubtful that the Europeans would have wanted to give any credit to the Native Americans for their contributions to the development of democracy in the United States. As Johansen points out, the settlers in the Northeast must have gleaned some information about how Enlightenment principles can be put into practice. However, the indigenous peoples of North America were incredibly diverse, as were the settlers and their settlement patterns. Influences of Native Americans on Europeans varied, and in many cases the interactions were totally unlike the ones described by Johansen.