Editing Key: Bold Red-Yellow Highlight=my comments Bold Black-Yellow Highlight=my comments CAPITALIZE= Dark Red Letter 1. How do these primary sources demonstrate the strangeness of cultural encounters on the eve of European exploration of America? What SPECIFIC passages best demonstrate the strangeness and uneasiness that American Indians had towards European explorers? The first strangeness and uncomfortable that was evident during the first meeting between the American Indians and the Europeans is that there was a deep cultural misunderstanding between them.{why not go to the document: John Heckewelder on the Indians meet the Dutch or go to the document of Peter the Martyr meeting the Tainos Indians? The Montagnais Indians meeting the French? The floating island story? Why not work with those documents? How strange did each culture see each other? Give specific examples from these documents.]{I am unsure who Gray is? What is this source you reference?].Guided by the success of France and Spain in America, the English started their exploration of the new world in 1585, with the journey of Sir Walter Raleigh to the outer banks of the Carolinas. Later English entrepreneurs of the London Company of Virginia met the Powhatan Indians. When the English tried to assert power over the natives, the Powhatan on the other, hand were planning to use the English to strengthen their confederacy in regional intertribal competition. [elaborate: give specific examples from the document you are interpreting} The struggle between the two groups led to the introduction of skills and goods of the other culture into theirs. 5.How did John Smith describe Powhatan Indian religion? In what ways did he demonstrate European bias? The Powhatan people like other American Indian tribes were very spiritual people whose religion was founded on animism. The Powhatans, much like the northeastern woodland Indians believed in the interaction between the physical and the spiritual world. They believed in an all including spirit—the power of everything, the Great Spirit (Brébeuf, 2008). The English Captain John Smith observed the religious practices of the Powhatans. Through his observations we see both the strangeness of Indian religion to European eyes and the bias lenses of Smith. {now give me SPECIFIC observations of smith to demonstrate his non-understanding of their religion and how he demonstrated his belief that the Powhatans were pagan] Also, Powhatan believed in demon spirit and in medicine men who acted as spiritual intermediates. The sequence of gods that the natives worshiped was offered gifts to gain favor for the hunt. . {Give me a specific example from the document] The European bias was evident in Smith letter where it is clear that converting from unbelief to belief or heathen to Christian depended on the New World project plantation that used substation. {Give me a specific example from the document] (John Smith describes Powhatans 97-98) 8.How do these ...

1. Editing Key:
Bold Red-Yellow Highlight=my comments
Bold Black-Yellow Highlight=my comments
CAPITALIZE= Dark Red Letter
1. How do these primary sources demonstrate the strangeness of
cultural encounters on the eve of European exploration of
America? What SPECIFIC passages best demonstrate the
strangeness and uneasiness that American Indians had towards
European explorers?
The first strangeness and uncomfortable that was evident during
the first meeting between the American Indians and the
Europeans is that there was a deep cultural misunderstanding
between them.{why not go to the document: John Heckewelder
on the Indians meet the Dutch or go to the document of Peter
the Martyr meeting the Tainos Indians? The Montagnais Indians
meeting the French? The floating island story? Why not work
with those documents? How strange did each culture see each
other? Give specific examples from these documents.]{I am
unsure who Gray is? What is this source you reference?].Guided
by the success of France and Spain in America, the English
started their exploration of the new world in 1585, with the
journey of Sir Walter Raleigh to the outer banks of the
Carolinas. Later English entrepreneurs of the London Company
of Virginia met the Powhatan Indians. When the English tried to
assert power over the natives, the Powhatan on the other, hand
were planning to use the English to strengthen their confederacy
in regional intertribal competition. [elaborate: give specific
examples from the document you are interpreting} The struggle
between the two groups led to the introduction of skills and
goods of the other culture into theirs.

2. 5.How did John Smith describe Powhatan Indian religion? In
what ways did he demonstrate European bias?
The Powhatan people like other American Indian tribes were
very spiritual people whose religion was founded on animism.
The Powhatans, much like the northeastern woodland Indians
believed in the interaction between the physical and the
spiritual world. They believed in an all including spirit—the
power of everything, the Great Spirit (Brébeuf, 2008). The
English Captain John Smith observed the religious practices of
the Powhatans. Through his observations we see both the
strangeness of Indian religion to European eyes and the bias
lenses of Smith. {now give me SPECIFIC observations of smith
to demonstrate his non-understanding of their religion and how
he demonstrated his belief that the Powhatans were pagan] Also,
Powhatan believed in demon spirit and in medicine men who
acted as spiritual intermediates. The sequence of gods that the
natives worshiped was offered gifts to gain favor for the hunt. .
{Give me a specific example from the document] The European
bias was evident in Smith letter where it is clear that converting
from unbelief to belief or heathen to Christian depended on the
New World project plantation that used substation. {Give me a
specific example from the document] (John Smith describes
Powhatans 97-98)
8.How do these documents reveal Native American cultural
views concerning the animal world? How did American Indians
regard the animal world?
According to the historical documents on early European
meeting with the Native Americans, it is evident that despite
that not all tribes had separate cultures; they had rich and
diverse beliefs in the afterlife. According to French observers,
the American Indians of the northeastern woodlands and Great
Lakes embraced the belief structure of animism—a belief that
all living and non-living things contained the power of the
universe In the Huron culture, animals and nature at received
great respect and had rights equal to humans. Animals were
only hunted for food, but permission had to be sought from the

3. animal’s spirit. Despite the varying religious beliefs between
tribes, there was a common belief in the Great Spirit, the creator
of the earth.(Your source? What document did you use?) The
culture perceived kindred spirits in all plants and animals. In
native understanding of the universe, for survival and
abundance within the natural world there needed to be respect
between both humans and animals. Huron oral traditions offer
an example of a killed beaver who before his entrance into the
afterworld returns to visit his hunters and “looks very carefully
to see what is done with its bones” (document: European and
Huron Views). In the film Black Robe, Annuka, the daughter of
chief Chomina, told Daniel that during the night in the forests
of the Algonquins, the “souls of men hunt the souls of animals.”
Father Laforgue, never fully grasping the belief systems of his
Algonquin companions, dismissed this theology as “childish”
(Video: Black Robe). American Indians who were connected
with and dependent upon the natural world, were devoted in
paying reverence to the souls of animals--something that the
Jesuit missionaries could not, would not, or did not come to
terms with.
10. What advice did the Jesuit priest Jean De Brebeuf give
young priests on how to adapt to Huron culture? Explain why
the display of proper etiquette was important as the Jesuits
formed cultural connections or a Middle Ground with the
American Indians of the northeast woodlands and Great Lakes?
The work of the French Jesuits who spread the Christian faith to
the Huron Indians of the cultural region of Huronia was
frustrated by the disinclination of the Huron’s to leave their
beliefs arguing that each country had their own fashion.
{Example?} To adapt to Huron’s culture, Jesuit priest, Jean de
Brebeuf gave advice to young apostles that to win the Huron
people over to Christ.. Brebeuf gave a list for his young priests
to follow. {Now give me specific instructions from the list—
elaborate on what you think are very important instructions] His
advice on adapting to the Huron culture them was to be very

4. cautious when rebuking a thousand things among their customs
because it greatly a crime those who are brought up in a
different world. He counsels others on the best way to abandon
and canceled the Huron culture that he describes as ‘silly but
not criminal’. He is of the opinion that the natives can be made
to abandon their beliefs through gradual inducement so that they
recognize their absurdity and laugh at them (Rushforth,
Colonial North America 80-83). Etiquette issues were of vital
significance when forming a cultural connection with the native
Indians from the Great Lakes and the Northeast Woodland. The
Jesuits had problems in bridging their social connections and
cultural divide making their conversation tries hard. Thus,
Jesuits had to use the existing social structures and customs to
gain entry and settle in villages to ease their work. The
missionaries side by side some Christian aspects with some of
the basics of the Huron culture such as learning the native
language and using it to convert them.
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