ABSTRACT
The English arrived in Eastern North America with similar motives to the Dutch and French, especially the shared desire to replicate earlier Spanish success in discovering mineral wealth and numerous Indian laborers. But unlike the Spaniards in sixteenth-century Mesoamerica and the Andes, the Dutch, French, and English all encountered semisedentary indigenous societies-today known collectively as the Eastern Woodlands Indiansnot silver mines or densely settled indigenous empires. The nature of indigenous societies in Eastern North America fundamentally shaped the Dutch, French, and English experiences of colonization that at least initially closely resembled one another in fundamental ways, not least in the critical role of the fur trade in each case. Yet, differences emerged with time, as the English sponsored a relocation of people on a scale unmatched by the other two European powers that altered the nature of English relations with native peoples.
