Thinking about white settlers only, what patterns of settlement did you find in the two maps you drew?
From the two 1750 maps, two observations were made, settlement patterns moved into the hinterlands to exploit the “free” resources. For example, the early Spanish, and the French settlers, as well as the English settlers mainly established their settlement in the new land with the aim of re-creating the European forms and living their dream of plunder. The movement was from the harbours to the hinterland in search of better, larger, more fertile unexploited lands for settlement and plantation and not to help the American Indians as they were saying.
What happened to the American Indians?
The American Indians were affected by diseases and colonials wars. There were rampant rapes of the Amerindians leading to the creation of the Métis and Mestizo populations in the process of trade. Most American Indians were taken as slaves under the labour system color identity changed as the American Indians became influenced by the identity of the white settlers whom they traded with or lived in their midst. The Indian population was greatly reduced in their size, and they were driven back hinterland from the coast that they have occupied before. However, they were still many in some inland regions. For example, the Iroquois were in the central part of New York, the Cherokees, as well as the Choctaws, were driven towards the South-Eastern part
What happened to slaves? Was their migration forced or voluntary?
The era was marked by forced migration, as they natives had to migrate or be killed or enslaved. The four colonial wars were waged in the American Indian lands as the English fought the French and Spanish soldiers. Between 1689 and 1750, there were colonial wars that saw the natives Americans sandwiched between the French and British settlers near the Atlantic coast and the fact at the American Indian country was their battlefield, most of them were killed. Some were later taken as slaves while some died from diseases. Only a handful remain in the native lands.
2) How did these migrations shape the American settlers identity? Of the Native Americans? Of slaves?
The migrations shaped the identity of the American settler. For example, their settlements were influenced by the culture of the people around as well as their forms, values, and practices in the home country of the settlers. Most of the settlers intended to established colonies, rules, building patterns and farming practices they do in their countries of origin. The Spanish settled in areas that they thought were good for sugar plantation, while the French were interested in gold mining and the English exploited their plantation and family farms. The English developed a larger empire forming the new 13 original English colonies such as Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island they moved hinterland to create New, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.
The identity of the Native Americans was influenced by the climatic condition as wells the behaviours of the white settlers whom they encountered. The American Indians were very flexible people and were known to be hunters, gathers, farmers, and fighters as the situation demanded. They, therefore, morphed into the settlers behaviours and even gave births of the Métis because of the interactions.
The slaves were the most affected they were rigid and their refusal to submit a lead to the death of many of them while some were finally forced to adopt the tradition, culture, and identity of their colonial masters.