Through European eyes the Native Americans knew nothing of how to live. These Spanish settlers believed that they had discovered America, after all, despite thousands of years of Indian inhabitance on the same land. Calloway explains this establishment in the introduction to The World Turned Upside Down. “They [the Indians] developed effective hunting, fishing, and farming techniques; they cultivated new crops and integrated new foods into their diets; in some area of the country they built irrigation networks to enable them to grow crops in desert terrai

Years before, the English had landed on America and founded Jamestown. Initially considered an economic venture, the establishment failed miserably over and over again. The settlers were desperate for assistance, and found the Powhatan Confederacy readily available to help. With the Natives’ knowledge of the land and skills in agriculture, Jamestown grew and became profitable very quickly. To improve the relationship with the White settlers, the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, married Captain John Smith. The relationship between the cultures remained in good standing until Powhatan died in1618, and the English sacked the Confederacy. Powhatan’s son led the tribe against them in a counter attack, which destroyed a third of the population of Jamestown. This news reached Europe, which resulted in a wholesale slaughter of the Indians. By 1669, following a “take no prisoners” style assault on the Native population by the English, only eleven of the twenty-eight tribes of Indians living near Jamestown were left.

The Indians had many ways of dealing with the Whites’ apparent mission to convert or kill. If there were not a common ground that could be met by Indian compromise, then death or enslavement would soon occur. A passage of an autobiography of an Indian minister found in Calloway relates these times. “The Mohegan Indians of Connecticut had lost huge tracts of land to English colonists by the early eighteenth century, and it had become increasingly difficult to practice their traditional economy of hunting, fishing, and gathering. Confronted with apparently insurmountable pressures on their old ways and beliefs, many sought escape from their new world by turning to alcohol. Others turned to Christianity and education as offering hope for survival.” Such a reaction to the European influence contributed to the eventual downfall of most Indian culture in America, as they were pushed increasingly farther from their traditional ways. Early on, however, the Europeans made efforts to coexist in society with the Indians. They set up towns with Native self-rule, and gave the appointed guardians the power to control the land. This system was full of problems, and was eventually overturned in favor of the Europeans. With each effort to resist the Europeans’ constant encroachment into Native lands, there was greater consequence to follow. In a

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