American History To 1865

Quitt Reaction Quiz 1. For most reaction quizzes, I will want you to identify the author's thesis, which is the writer's central argument. To identify this, see if you can figure out what the piece's big takeaway is. What is the author's big point? Use these guides to determine Quitt's thesis/central argument. After reading this interesting article by Martin H. Quitt, I have learned that he was trying to convey to the readers about the relationship that the English settlers and the Indians had with one another. No matter how many times they tried to come up with an agreement on how to trade, it always failed because it was going against barriers that the English and the Indians had. 2. As opposed to looking at long-term interactions (like most historians do), what advantages are drawn from studying such a short period of European-Indian interactions? The author addresses several different reasons as why studying a short period of the interactions between the English and the Indians is advantageous. One is that it is easier to make connections between people that are within a short time frame, rather than comparing those of several decades or more apart. Another advantage is that the initial encounter is truly shows how different they are compared to their opponent. Also, in cases like this, the English and the Powhatans were very curious of each other during this time, so there were several accounts that played into that study. The fourth advantage is that sometimes it is just impossible in some cases to compare long-term interactions when there is no documentation or way of knowing if it was too long ago. 3. Fully explain the many ways in which the English came to fully depend on Indians and Indian ways during this early initiation period? There are multiple ways in which the English depended on the Indians, and those ways include, food dependence, shortage of women, mortality or morbidity, numbers, and factionalized, unstable leadership. To explain the first way why the English depended on them was for food dependence. The reason why they depended on the Indians for food was to survive. They would trade the Indians items of their own for corn in return. The objective for the English during this time was to use the corn and store part of it in case they were unable to grow it their selves. Next, they relied on them because of the shortage of women. This was a huge epidemic for the English settlers because in English culture, women had several roles within the colony. These included preparing food, laundry, sweeping floors, getting water out of the well, and several other roles as well. This was a huge loss for the Englishmen, so they desperately needed the natives to take over those roles. What they found out was that Indians were able to do all those roles, as well as work in the fields. This seemed to be an insult to the settlers because to them, this was labor for the men and the natives were taking their job. Another way in which the English depended on the Indians was through mortality or morbidity. A great number of Englishmen died because of plague, small pox, medical care, ns nutrition. When comparing the mortality rate of Englishmen to Native Americans, it is easy to assume that the Native Americans had a much lower amount of death in their civilization. This ended up being a benefit to the Englishmen because the Indians would take care of them, which changed the numbers of death drastically because they were given the proper care. The next way where the English came to fully depend on the Indians was because of the population. During this era, there was said to be over 300 Englishmen and at least 8,000 Indians. The Indians clearly outnumbered the English, so they were not worried at all about being attacked. To compare the ratios between populations, the English were outnumbered 27:1. Lastly, the English settlers benefitted from the Indians because of factionalized, unstable English leadership. Whenever the Powhatans and the English met, the Powhatans had a huge advantage over the settlers because of leadership. The leader of the Powhatans first inherited six chiefdoms, which he then ruled 30 of these groups, and finally ruled an estimated 13,000 Indians. He was able to do this because of longevity, ability and inheritance. This was something that no Englishmen was able to conquer during this time period. The huge weakness that the leaders of the English settlers had was their failure to stop forbidden trade. Being with the Powhatans helped educate the English in how to be a proper leader. 4. What five progressive modes of exchange between Indians and the English did the author identify? What happened in each? The five progressive modes of exchange that the author mentions are unbalanced hospitality and gift giving, unbalanced gift giving and barter, balanced barter, trade embargo, and finally forced trade. In the first stage of exchange the author writes about unbalanced hospitality. This progressive mode of exchange dealt with an exchange of gifts between these two civilizations. They would exchange gifts unequal in value because they both thought that it was a sign of friendship and goodwill in the future. During this stage, the English would gift the Indians with a balanced exchange and this was against how the Indians traded. No matter what gift they got, they would accept it in the same manner and return a gift that was less valuable to them. This ended in Indians stealing so that it would be redressing the imbalances. The next stage addressed by the author is unbalanced gift giving and barter. The author tells us that it was difficult at times when trying to trade with the Indians. It was difficult because sometimes they just wanted to do gift giving and not barter in any way. During this stage Smith went to try and get food from the Indians and refused to take a free so they used firepower as a way to help transition the Indians from gift giving to only barter. Smith was also able to convince Powhatan to barter with him and take copper and hatchets for food. This stage did end with the Englishmen bartering with Powhatan, but it wasn’t necessarily how they wanted it to be. Powhatan would give them all of the corn he could give and would choose what items he wanted. The third stage dealt with having a balanced barter. During this stage, Smith had a ship with eighty men and supplies that he had for the colony. Smith was able to make these supplies last around fourteen weeks because he came up with a good bartering system. For someone to get supplies, they had to have gold rings, fur, money, and clothes that they weren’t using in order to make a deal. The Indians learned from this and started to make equal exchanges which was twenty for twenty. At one-point Powhatan sent turkeys to Smith and he never sent the swords in return, so a conflict happened. Both civilizations kept a hostage until peace was made again. The next progressive mode of exchange that Quitt states in his article is trade embargo. Smith in this stage wanted to come up with a different trading method. His goal was to buy corn with items that they were sending to the leader, and Powhatan did not approve of this technique. Smith was enticed by the Nansemond’s and was ambushed by the civilization. Smith threatened the tribe and forced them to give him 400 baskets of corn whenever it was harvested, or they would have severe consequences. This stage comes to an end when the leader Powhatan tries to make a deal with Smith. The last type of exchange mentioned by the author is forced trade. In this final stage Smith accepts the deal from Powhatan but learns that it was a trap. The reason why Powhatan did this to him was because he was angered that Smith confiscated all the corn from the Nansemond’s. There was a meeting to try and come to an agreement with the two leaders, but they were unable to. Powhatan escapes the area by setting up a distraction and Smith almost dies multiple times because Powhatan ordered his people to attack Smith. The article ends by explaining how the two leaders never came to a solution where they could agree on a way of trade. 5. Related to question 4, which of these stages do you think was the most important and why? Personally, I believe that the third stage, which was balanced barter was the most important stage out of the others. The reason why I strongly believe this is because before this, the Indians and the English did not have a balanced exchange going on which led to several conflicts arising. Once the bargaining was balanced, more deals were being made at the time which meant that there was less anger between the two, and so they were both being benefitted. Overall, it was just the best system that was put in place.