How Did Indian-European Contact Affect Native Americans

The period known as the Indian-European contact was unarguably an extremely difficult time for the Indians, who experienced massive lifestyle changes. One major change experienced was a reduction in their population, as result of the foreign diseases brought in. This reduction in turn affected how well they could defend themselves from the outsiders trying to take control of their territories. Thus, most were eventually forced to change their homestead locations. The Indians also experienced a change in how they were perceived by the many different nationalities that wanted to take over their land. These perceptions were quite opposite from those of the earlier explorers and traders who had visited them and passed through their lands, and who
Massive epidemics of smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, diphtheria, measles, and mumps had a definite toll on the native inhabitants who lacked immunities to these diseases that were common in Europe. Often, these airborne diseases would reach the Indians well before they even met the Europeans who brought these very diseases with them. If the Indians had been more resistant to such diseases, then few would have died as a result, quite opposite of what unfortunately happened. A greater resistance would then have meant that the Indians would have had greater numbers to defend themselves and their territories during the upcoming battles, and they could of maintained an independent existence from the Europeans. Thus, the Europeans would not have found entire towns and/or tribes completely wiped out due to the Indians’ inability to fight the diseases brought over from their own countries, and the Indians would not have had a demographic weakness that allowed the various European groups to conquer their lands and extend their rule over
One form of violence was between the Europeans and the Indians. It is well documented that the Spanish butchered, beat, and killed countless Indians in order to secure territory. In general, all of the various European nationalities used their advantages in war tactics to force the Indians off of their own lands and onto lands that they were unfamiliar with. This in turn caused the Indians a great amount of hardship, because they now did not know the best places to hunt, or to gather berries, or to garden, or where to build their homesteads. By using violence to force the Indians to move away from their familiar homelands, the Europeans also caused a breakdown of the reciprocal tribal relationships. Thus the violence caused everyone to recreate new social structures and to conform to new ways of