Discussion: First Encounters: European views of Indigenous Americans; Indigenous views of European visitors

Reading for this assignment is attached:

Preparation:  After reading the First Encounters Reading Packet spend some time comparing and contrasting the ways First Nations and Hawaiian peoples such as Canassatego, Lili’uokalini, and Pokagon viewed Europeans (located at the end of the packet), as well as the ways Europeans such as Bartolome de las Casas and John Smith viewed the Native Americans.

Task:  Write a 150 to 200 word reflection piece that answers the first question and then select and answer two questions in the following group. 

 First question, required:

1. What did Canassatego, Lili’uokalini, and Pokagon say about the Europeans they encountered? How might the practices of “othering” and persecution waged against Jews in Europe (as mentioned in the second part of the lecture) been implemented against the indigenous in the Americas? 

Then answer these questions: 

2. What did de las Casas observe in terms of treatment of the First Nations people?

3. How did the Europeans such as Smith tend to characterize the Indigenous people they met in the Chesapeake? What kinds of preconceptions about the Native Americans did de las Casas and Smith bring with them to the Americas?