Topic > Research to Determine Whether Conflict Between Europeans and Native Americans Was Inevitable

When Europeans began migrating to the New World, problems began almost immediately. These issues consisted of land use, religion, and disease. Owning land was extremely important to European settlers. In England, and most other countries, land meant wealth and power. Many of the settlers who came to North America could never own land in Europe because they were too poor. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe first Europeans to settle the New England area of ​​the northeast wanted land. There were not many settlers and there was enough land for everyone to use and cultivate. It was easy to live together. The Indians helped the settlers by teaching them how to plant crops and survive on the land, but the Indians did not understand that the settlers would keep the land. This idea was foreign to the Indians. As the years passed, more and more settlers arrived and took more and more land. They cut down the trees. They built fences to keep people and animals away. They demanded that the Indians stay off their land. Another problem between the settlers and the Indians involved religion. New England settlers thought that Christianity was the only true faith and that all people should believe in it. The Indians were happy with their beliefs and were not interested in changing them. As a result, many settlers came to believe that Native Americans could not be trusted because they were not Christians. They began to fear the Indians and consider them evil. Other events also led to serious problems between the Native Americans and the newcomers. One problem was illness. For example, some colonists carried the bacteria that caused smallpox, although they themselves did not get sick. Smallpox had caused deadly epidemics in Europe, but was unknown to the Indians. Their immune systems had not developed any protection against the disease. He killed entire tribes. And smallpox was just one of the diseases brought from Europe. There were others that also infected the Indians. In "Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment" by Kevin Kenny, Kenny states that conflict between Europeans and Native Americans would have been inevitable if European greed for land had not hindered harmonious relations that had settled between the two. There were several things that led to the destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment. The Paxton Boys were a major contributing factor as their hunger for land caused waves of violence on the frontier, reaching the height of all-out warfare against the Indians (Text p. 211). The people also did not care about treaties that had been signed or agreements made before they even settled in the New World. William Penn, who had been given the land by King Charles II, believed it was not his to give. “In his view the land belonged to the Lenape Indians who lived there long before the settlers arrived” (Quakersintheworld.org//The Holy Experiment). He wanted to create a world where Europeans and Indians could live side by side, but conflict got in the way. Kenny also argues that “violent confiscation of Indian land became the norm rather than the exception” (Text p. 213) to highlight the violence that prevented Penn's vision from coming to life. The violent acts of the Paxton Boys inspired other settlers to fight against the peace while causing destruction throughout Pennsylvania. If the Paxton Boys had not committed these barbaric acts, the peaceful relationship between man and Indian might have.