- The chessboard of empire: the late 17th to the early 19th century
From a Native American perspective, the initial intentions of Europeans were not always immediately clear. Some Indigenous communities were approached with respect and in turn greeted the odd-looking visitors as guests. For many Indigenous nations, however, the first impressions of Europeans were characterized by violent acts including raiding, murder, rape, and kidnapping. Perhaps the only broad generalization possible for the cross-cultural interactions of this time and place is that every group—whether Indigenous or colonizer, elite or common, female or male, elder or child—responded based on their past experiences, their cultural expectations, and their immediate circumstances. Although Spanish colonial expeditions to ...(100 of 34940 words)