1. Native Americans believed in sharing the land with all people because the land produced food, clothing, and shelter that should be for everyone to use as they needed for survival. This is called common land or public land. Native Americans showed the Europeans how to grow corn, beans, squash, and other non-European crops.
2. Europeans believed in owning the land where Native Americans lived because they wanted it for profits. This kind of land is called private land. Private land begins as common land that one person, company, or government decides to take away from public use, because they think they can use it better. For example, Europeans thought it was better to own and make lots of money from the public land that Native Americans shared with them, instead of sharing that public land on which Native Americans got their food, clothing, and shelter. From 1756-1763, France and England fought against one another both in Europe (Seven Year's War)and in North America (French and Indian War) over control of the North American Fur Trade and North America in general. England won the war both in Europe and North America. This made the English very wealthy and powerful in both Europe and North America. The United States grew out of this power and continues to control Native American land as Europeans did.
3. When Europeans privatized the public land that Native Americans lived on, they had to get the Native Americans to leave their homes, farms, hunting grounds, and find new places to live. Most Native Americans did not think this was fair because their ways to get food, shelter, and clothing would be taken away and they would have to start over in new lands where they may not be welcome by other Native Americans or greedy Europeans. This made most Native Americans resist European attempts to privatize (or take) the land they lived on. They wrote letters and spoke out against Native American traitors who pretended to be Native American leaders and signed fake treaties with Europeans to get wealth or power from the Europeans. Native Americans also wrote letters and spoke out against European greed and violence. They also used guns in self defense of their homelands. Native Americans were peaceful people who went to war to return to the level of peace and balances of Native American power that existed before Europeans arrived in North America. In North America, during the Seven Year's War, France and England fought each other and tried to turn various Native American nations against one another in the process. Different Native Americans defended their homelands by making temporary alliances with either the French or English, so that they could end the European's war more quickly.
4. Impact on Native Americans 1. Native American dependency on trade with Europeans gave Europeans power over them, while causing Native Americans to loose various traditional skills. For example, Europeans who traded guns to Native Americans made these Native Americans dependent on European gun powder and bullets. Students will realize that Native Americans could only get more gun powder and bullets by hunting more animals and trading the fur, therefore creating a cycle of dependency on Europeans. 2. European desire for fur resulted in over-hunting of fur bearing animals that were also used for meat. Many Native Americans starved to death as a result. 3. European diseases that Native American bodies were not used to killed entire nations/tribes, while others still lost 50-90% of their people. This also destroyed much of Native American societies. 4. Today Native Americans have only 2.5% of total US land to live on (usually places that they were forced to move to) and are still often forced to move when there are valuable natural resources to be dug up under reservations. However, they still resist the injustices against them with demonstrations, letters, speeches, books, educational films, and other means.
