Indians were the first people to live in the Americas.
The Vikings are believed to have explored the coast of North America
about 1000. But lasting contact between Indians and Europeans began with
Christopher Columbus' voyages to the Americas. In 1492, Columbus sailed
across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain. He was seeking a short sea route
to the Indies, which then included India, China, the East Indies,
and Japan. Europeans did not then know that North and South America
existed.
The tribes of the Eastern Woodlands were among the first Indians to
meet European explorers and settlers. At first, the two groups had
friendly relations.
Squanto,
a New England Algonquian, is said to have taught the white settlers how
to plant corn and fertilize it with dead fish. Massasoit, chief of the
Wampanoag, helped the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony. In 1621, Indians and
Pilgrims joined together in a Thanksgiving ceremony to celebrate a good
harvest and peace. Most daily activities of an Indian family centered
around providing the main necessities of life: food, clothing, and
shelter.
But the good relations did not last, and warfare between the two
groups soon became common. Most of the fighting consisted of small
battles between settlers and Indians.
As the settlers moved westward, they took the land for their own. When the Indians objected, fighting broke out. Thousands of them were
killed in battle, but thousands of Indians also died from the white
man's diseases, such as measles, smallpox, tuberculosis and others.
Some battles grew into wars. The northern tribes also became involved
in the struggle between France and Great Britain for possession of North
America. They took sides in these wars and ended up fighting one another
as well as the white settlers.
By the early 1800's, Europeans had reached the Mississippi River. As
they went west, the settlers made numerous peace treaties with the
Indians-but the whites quickly broke most of them. In 1830, Congress
passed the Indian Removal Act, which allowed the government to move the
remaining Indians west of the Mississippi River. The government moved
all but a few tribes of the Eastern Woodlands.
