Exchange with Native Peoples

Today’s article presentations, including my own, alluded to a concept that is often not acknowledged by Indigenous American History. This would be the idea that Native peoples actually sought out the Europeans for trading purposes, and not just the other way around. It is so often said that Europeans ventured out to Native villages in search of goods, but not that Native peoples visited European forts and settlements in search of the very same thing.

Although in these circumstances it may have often seemed as though Native peoples were receiving the better end of the deal, it is important to remember the other implications that contact with Europeans had on them. New forms of disease were brought to Native peoples by European traders and their animals. In some cases, contact with European traders could even worsen relations between societies of Native peoples.

In the end, the trade advantage that Native peoples received from the Europeans was only temporary. Ultimately, Native peoples were removed from their lands as a result of European contact, this of course was to no great advantage of theirs.