![]() ![]() Second, as the European traders preferred to keep their own numbers low for profitability, they depended on the goodwill of their Indian allies to avoid being killed by their enemies (92 101).įor the Indians, the utility of European goods (metal tools, guns, etc.) led to the abandoning of traditional stone tools and the knowledge needed to create them, meaning the Indians would need to continue trading with the Europeans or face starvation or annihilation by their better-armed enemies (97). ![]() This led to a more equitable playing field between Europeans and Indians, and in turn a complex mutual dependency, as “the Canadian French could not afford to bully, dispossess, or enslave the Indians, needing them instead to persist as suppliers of furs” (101). Freedom and progress were the main themes of the narrative, and the lesson. In the final analysis, Alan Taylors American Colonies is nothing short of a brilliant synthesis of recent scholarship on early America. The history of Colonial America used to be much shorter it started with the Mayflower and ended with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. First, it was more profitable to allow Indians to do the hard work of obtaining and processing furs than to enslave them for other purposes (94). A history of American colonialism, broadly defined. The logistics of the fur trade explain key differences in how natives were treated in the north versus the south. AMERICAN COLONIES starts with the earliest years of human colonization of the American continent and environs with the Siberian migrations across the Bering. ![]()
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