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Keywords

Algonquian Indians, Native Americans, Colonization, survival

Abstract

During the early seventeenth century, the Algonquian Indians of Southern New England demonstrated courage and resilience as their societies survived a "massive depopulation" from diseases introduced through European colonization (See Fig. 1). It is a credit to the strength of their core values that Native Americans successfully combined remaining clan members and reconstructed stable communities. However, these communities became threatened as increased numbers of English colonists arrived believing that the devastation of Indian numbers was the divine hand of God paving the way for colonial settlement and supremacy. As contact increased between two vastly different worlds, colonists minimized Indians and portrayed them in derogatory terms such as 'savages' and 'barbarians,' despite good evidence that Indian societies were already productive, feasible entities capable of enduring, and worthy of recognition as a civilized choice of living. Consequently, colonists relentlessly pressured Indians to conform to what they considered a superior society such that by 1676, these two groups clashed in King Philip's War. This confrontation became a major turning point as English colonists gained an overwhelming advantage of political and economic control. Post-war colonial domination focused on coercing natives to make substantial changes or be swept away. In response, Indians fortified and rebuilt strong communities based on their longestablished foundational values of political, religious, and social infrastructure of family and community, as they adapted and blended both cultures in retaining their "lndianness" and resiliency in survival.

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