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Divergent Worldviews and Mutual Misunderstandings
Because Europeans and Native Americans had such drastically different cultural beliefs, it was inevitable that there would be misunderstandings between the two groups.
Regarding religion, most (but not all) Europeans belonged to some denomination of Christianity. Culturally, European society was patriarchal, meaning that men were more powerful than women and largely controlled women’s lives. Fathers, uncles, brothers, and husbands controlled what women did, and women had little political power. European society also valued ownership and cultivation of land—that is, they felt that the best way to use land was to grow crops and sell or trade their produce.
In contrast, Native American spiritual beliefs tended to focus on harmony with nature and taking good care of the earth. These beliefs were often polytheistic (belief in many gods) and passed down by oral tradition. Gender roles were different from those of Europe: women owned and cared for the home and household goods while men hunted, conducted warfare, and interacted with outsiders. Farming was often considered women’s work, while men were responsible for hunting and conducting warfare. As a result, when Europeans watched Indigenous women working in the fields while their men sat around between hunts, it looked to Europeans like the Indigenous men were lazy, making their women do all the work. This created a basic misunderstanding between Europeans and Indigenous people, which impacted their interactions for decades.
Many Native American societies were also matrilineal, meaning that power and property descended through mothers, an idea very foreign to the Europeans. Indigenous ideas on land use were based on the belief that land was more valuable than money, because it lasts forever. They were careful not to over-farm it. Land ownership was also communal, meaning that the land belonged to the whole tribe together, not to individuals. This was very different from the European idea of land ownership and led to misunderstandings about land use when Europeans thought they were purchasing land for their own ownership while the Native Americans thought Europeans were going to join the community using the land.
Cultural Adoptions
As European and Native American encounters increased, both societies adopted or adapted some technology and ideas from the other society. The Europeans influenced Native Americans by introducing new farming techniques, influencing some Native American religions, and introducing the concept of a more-centralized government.
Native Americans also influenced Europeans. French and Spanish colonists frequently married Indigenous women. French colonists traded furs with the Native Americans, and some Europeans adopted aspects of Native American dress. Europeans also learned new farming techniques, such as “Three Sisters” farming where corn, beans, and squash are planted together to make the best use of soil. They also learned how to catch fish with a fish weir, which is a wooden, in-river fish trap.
The Pueblo Revolt / The Popé’s Rebellion
In large part, due to the spread of diseases and gunpowder weapons, Europeans were able to dominate Native American societies with limited resistance. The Pueblo Revolt was one of the more significant of these.
The Pueblos lived in modern-day New Mexico and across the modern-day Southwestern United States, where the Spanish had established a city at Santa Fe. As the Spanish expanded their control, they first attacked the Pueblos’ spiritual beliefs, forbidding sacred dances, confiscating sacred objects, and prohibiting the use of ceremonial hallucinogens while expecting the Pueblos to adopt Catholicism. The Pueblos’ resentment was exacerbated by a famine and some Apache raids that the Spanish could not fend off.
Finally, in 1680, the Pueblo leader, Popé, organized 20 native towns in rebellion. These rebels burned churches, tortured and murdered Catholic priests, and set up a native-led Confederacy that lasted for 14 years. Although the Spanish eventually took control again, the Pueblo Revolt was the greatest defeat Native Americans ever inflicted in response to European efforts to conquer them.
