If I had to be a native from the colonies of South Africa, Rwanda, Australia, and the United States I would pick the United States for several reasons. One of those reasons is because the natives in the United States got to have interactions with the French before the British came so they were able to experience the better side of European society. The French came to the United States in the 1600’s but not for colonization purposes, they had come to trade the native s for their furs so they could bring them back to France and make a profit off of them when they were sold into fashion.
The French had come to this land not with the idea of empire and conquering all that stand in their way, but with the idea to make friends with the native people of the land so they may be able to swindle them more easily out of their precious furs. This idea did work as the fur trade was quite prosperous as well as there was many cross marriages between the French fur traders/explorers and the women of the Native American tribes. The Native Americans also got a good impression of European way of life when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Even though the Pilgrims were British and the Brits were the ones that had acted the harshest towards the natives, the Pilgrims were not bad at all. They had escaped England to seek out religious freedom and a land where they could practice without worry. They had landed at Plymouth with little food and the temperatures were starting to drop as the cold New England winter began to move in. Sickness overwhelmed the adult population of Pilgrims on board the Mayflower leaving the children of the ship the ones who were forced to get food for themselves and their ill parents and to take care of those who were not well.
Many had died after that winter but the colony of Plymouth trudged onward. Later that fall a native by the name of Squanto came to the Pilgrims offering them help by teaching them how to farm better and hunt better leaving them a bit more time to worry on gathering food and spending more time on constructing their settlement. The Pilgrims then celebrated their appreciation for what the natives had done with the feast that would go on to become Thanksgiving.
We all know that story but it just proves my point. Even if there was disease there were still no hostile forces pushing the natives off their land. So I have come to the conclusion that it would have been the best situation to have been a native living in the United States during colonization as long as the British Empire was not there.
The French had come to this land not with the idea of empire and conquering all that stand in their way, but with the idea to make friends with the native people of the land so they may be able to swindle them more easily out of their precious furs. This idea did work as the fur trade was quite prosperous as well as there was many cross marriages between the French fur traders/explorers and the women of the Native American tribes. The Native Americans also got a good impression of European way of life when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Even though the Pilgrims were British and the Brits were the ones that had acted the harshest towards the natives, the Pilgrims were not bad at all. They had escaped England to seek out religious freedom and a land where they could practice without worry. They had landed at Plymouth with little food and the temperatures were starting to drop as the cold New England winter began to move in. Sickness overwhelmed the adult population of Pilgrims on board the Mayflower leaving the children of the ship the ones who were forced to get food for themselves and their ill parents and to take care of those who were not well.
Many had died after that winter but the colony of Plymouth trudged onward. Later that fall a native by the name of Squanto came to the Pilgrims offering them help by teaching them how to farm better and hunt better leaving them a bit more time to worry on gathering food and spending more time on constructing their settlement. The Pilgrims then celebrated their appreciation for what the natives had done with the feast that would go on to become Thanksgiving.
We all know that story but it just proves my point. Even if there was disease there were still no hostile forces pushing the natives off their land. So I have come to the conclusion that it would have been the best situation to have been a native living in the United States during colonization as long as the British Empire was not there.
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