Cultural Exchanges in Colonial America

There were cultural exchanges among the many different races and ethnicities in colonial America.  Most of these were negative with very few being positive.

The Spanish were in control of the Southeast and Southwest of North America.  Their foreign policy was to fill the coffers with money for mother Spain.  They were particularly brutal toward the Native Americans, slaughtering men, women, and children, and forcing thousands to work in gold and silver mines.  The gruesome treatment of the Native Americans was witnessed by Friar Bartolome De Las Casas.  His reports caused a debate in 1550 by the Spanish administrators of the new world to determine if Native Americans could be categorized as human.  If so, they had souls, could be converted to Catholicism, and would have to be treated as citizens under the Spanish protectorate.  (In Films on Demand 2007).

The French mainly populated the northeast, today's Canada, and some areas in the Caribbean.  Their policy toward the Native Americans was one of assimilation.  They wanted to integrate with the Native American culture intermarrying to gain acceptance. Integration sounds pluralistic at first but when you understand the French motives, it’s a devious strategic move.  “Samuel de Champlain, reportedly promised the Ottawas and the Hurons that soon ‘our young men will marry your daughters, and we shall be one,” (Belmessous, S. 2012).

The English had a disdain for the Native Americans and viewed them as savages.  The purpose for English settlements was different in different areas.  In Virginia, it was for profit, in Massachusetts it was for religious freedom.  “Evidence points to a general English fear and hatred of Indians, which inhibited them from developing, as Frenchmen did, not just political, diplomatic, and economic relations with the Indians,” (Boucher, P. P. 1993).  The English did have some positive cultural exchanges with the local tribes in the North regarding farming techniques and trade.  They also had some positive cultural interactions in the Chesapeake area regarding how to grow and age tobacco.

The African experience in Colonial America was a terrible one at best.  Africans were considered less human and beasts of burden by European settlers.  The slave trade was so lucrative that it caused the largest mass exodus in our planets history.  Over 11 million Africans were forcibly taken from their homes, made to cross the Atlantic, and sold into slavery their will.  (In Films on Demand 2007).  Their owners discouraged them from practicing their traditional religions, so their culture was lost.