Morgan Bilyeu
Honors English I Per 4
Mrs. Selfridge
11 September 2014
The Choice of Hostility over Tranquility In pursuit of riches and a land full of abundant resources, European settlers and explorers committed many atrocities, acting with complete disregard for moral principles and destroying ways of life for the indigenous populations. The foreigners’ actions proved unjustifiable and unnecessary, as many cultures of the Americas were known for their hospitality and generosity and would have gladly shared the New World and its resources with the newcomers. The people of Jamestown, typically upper class Englishmen who left physical labor to those in lower social classes, put much more of their time and focus into conquering the land and pursuing gold than into establishing a peaceful settlement in the New World. This meant that the English depended almost entirely on being fed by the local natives, those belonging to various tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy. The Indians were puzzled by the English settlers’ desire to destroy those who provided them with necessities of life. In his speech to Captain John Smith and the English settlers of Jamestown in 1607, Chief Powhatan asked: “Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love?” The Englishmen risked getting nothing from war when the natives could easily, as Powhatan mentions in his speech, “hide our provisions and fly to the woods” (14). The people of Jamestown would only be harming themselves by extinguishing their friendly relationships with the Indians. Smith was not the only European explorer to use these insensible tactics to gain land and fortune in the New World. Christopher Columbus believed that he must subjugate the Arawaks in order to satisfy his lust for land and riches. He returned the kindness of the people of the Arawak tribe with enslavement in order to gain gold, and
