Treatment of the Natives in the New World

The New World sparked interest from those all over the world. Once the word got around to the Europeans, many wanted to experience all it had to offer and wanted to benefit from its resources. From fur to tobacco, the French, Dutch, and English powers all had interest in the New World, and it was how they treated the natives they came into contact with that ultimately defined their success or failure as a colony.
    The French colonists had a huge interest in the fish and fur when establishing New France. Both were a huge source of wealth, and beaver hats especially had become very popular in Europe and were of high demand (31). The French, unlike the other European colonies, took a very peaceful approach to the native people of the New World. The Indians and the French established a partnership with the fur trade. As a result of this, the Indians saw the French as military allies as well as trading partners. Because of this, the French were entangled in rivalries between Indian groups that had long been established before the colonists arrived (32).
    The Dutch, like the French, focused mainly on the fur trade as well, and they created the West India Company. The heart of the New Netherland colony became the Hudson River, sitting between the two settlements of Fort Orange and New Amsterdam. While they made good relations with the Iroquois trading partners, they weren’t as civil with other Indian tribes. Governor Willem Kieft ordered a massacre of an encampment of Indian refuges who refused to pay him tribute and Governor Peter Stuyvesant antagonized the Susquehannocks by seizing a small Swedish colony where the Susquehannocks traded. As a result, these actions provoked retaliatory raids by the Indians which further weakened the colony (33).
    After the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, the English attempted to settle again twenty years later at Jamestown. They succeeded because of the American plant, tobacco, which was in high demand in Europe (33)....