How Did Religion Affect Indian-White Relations

880 Words4 Pages
A Sour Relationship Religion was fundamental to the Puritans who settled in the northern colonies. It served as the precedent for the structure of their society, and it also governed their relations with the Native Americans. At first, Puritans and Indians held sound alliances as the Indians aided the “newcomers’” in their initial survival. However, these collaborations quickly deteriorated. What could cause such a promising friendship to dwindle? Religion and its fervent practices and beliefs led to the onslaught of wars and rifts between Indians and Whites for years to come. There is no doubt that religious beliefs and values played “the” major role in Indian-white relations in the northern colonies. One feature in which religion affected the Indian-white relations in the northern colonies was the ideological difference between the Puritan’s religious views and those of the Native Americans. In…show more content…
In order to remedy this and “serve” God, they attempted to convert Native Americans to Christianity. This proved to be a detrimental decision. All of the Native Americans’ religious practices and rituals coincided, in the Puritans’ minds, with the practices of paganism. However, conversion quickly became forced conversion, which obviously did not stand well with Native Americans. In attempts to fend off the whites from converting them, Indians began retaliating with violence. They did not want to see their culture eliminated and conformed to that of the white settlers; for just as the Puritans saw Indians as savages, so too did the Native Americans see Puritans as aliens on their land. Again, the two cultures could not relate to one another because of their fundamental difference in beliefs and values. Spirituality was as close and intertwined into Indian society as God and the Bible were interwoven in the Puritan culture. Both stood to defend it through whatever means
Open Document