Just as Europeans tried to explain the new people and places they encountered, Indigenous Americans and Africans tried to understand who these foreigners were who suddenly burst onto the scene. Unfortunately, we have fewer indigenous records; however, we do have poignant examples of how indigenous people interacted with and thought of these new strangers. Consider the lenses through which indigenous people were seeing Europeans: strange men, who looked quite different from themselves and who also seemed to live quite different lives in a land far away.
News reached the Aztec ruler, Montezuma in the city of Tenochtitlán, (now Mexico City) about the arrival on the east coast of strange people traveling on “floating mountains” [large ships]. He sent messengers to investigate
The messengers reported to the king. They told him how they had made the journey, and what they had seen, and what food the strangers ate. Montezuma was astonished and terrified by their report… He was also terrified to learn how the cannon roared, how its noise echoed, how it caused those nearby to faint and grow deaf. The messengers told him: “A thing like a ball of stone comes out of its entrails: it comes out shooting sparks and raining fire. The smoke that comes out with it has a foul odor, like rotten mud. This odor penetrates to the brain and causes great discomfort. If the cannon is aimed against a mountain, the mountain splits and cracks open. If it is aimed against a tree, it shatters the tree into splinters. This is a most unnatural sight, as if the tree had exploded from within.”
The messengers also said: “Their trappings [armour] and arms are all made of white metal [steel]. They dress in this white metal and wear white metal covers on their heads. Their swords, their bows, their shields, and their spears are all made of this white metal. Their deer carry them on their backs wherever they wish to go. These deer, our lord, are as tall as the roof of a house.
...Their skin is white, as if it were made of lime. They have yellow hair, though some of them have black. Their beards are long and yellow, and their moustaches are also yellow. Their hair is curly, with very fine strands.
...Montezuma sent captives to be sacrificed, because the strangers might wish to drink their blood. The envoys sacrificed these captives in the presence of the strangers, but when the white men saw this, they were filled with disgust and loathing. They spat on the ground, or wiped away their tears, or closed their eyes and shook their heads in abhorrence. They refused to eat the food that was sprinkled with blood, because it reeked of it; it sickened them, as if the blood had rotted."
Chrestien Le Clercq traveled to New France as a missionary, but found that many Native Americans were not interested in adopting European cultural practices. LeClercq recorded the words of a Gaspesian Indian who explained why he believed that his way of life was superior to that of Europeans.
...You say of us also that we are the most miserable and most unhappy of all men, living without religion, without manners, without honour, without social order, and, in a word, without any rules, like the beasts in our woods and our forests, lacking bread, wine, and a thousand other comforts which you have in Europe….If France is a paradise, art thou sensible to leave it? And why abandon wives, children, relatives, and friends? Why risk thy life and thy property every year, and why venture thyself with such risk...to come to a strange and barbarous country which you consider the poorest and least fortunate of the world?
We believe, further, that you are also incomparably poorer than we, and that you are only simple journeymen, valets, servants, and slaves, all masters and grand captains...As to us, we find all our riches and all our conveniences among ourselves, without trouble and without exposing our lives to the dangers in which you find yourselves constantly through your long voyages.
Which of these two is the wisest and happiest—he who labours [works] without ceasing and only obtains, through great trouble, enough to live on, or he who rests in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasure of hunting and fishing? Learn now, my brother, once for all, because I must open to thee my heart: there is no Indian who does not consider himself infinitely more happy and more powerful than the French.
William Apes, a Pequot, offers an Indian perspective on the early history of relations between the English colonists and the native peoples of New England (where the "First Thanksgiving" supposedly took place.)
December 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and without asking liberty from anyone, they possessed themselves of a portion of the country, and built themselves houses, and then made a treaty and commanded them [the Indians] to accede to it.... And yet for their kindness and resignation towards the whites, they were called savages, and made by God on purpose for them to destroy....
We might suppose that meek Christians had better gods and weapons than cannon. But let us again review their weapons to civilize the nations of this soil. What were they: rum and powder, and ball, together with all the diseases, such as the small pox, and every other disease imaginable; and in this way sweep of thousands and tens of thousands.
Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever. It will not even perish by the flames of fire. As long as the sun shines and the waters flow, this land will be here to give life to men and animals. We cannot sell the lives of men and animals; therefore we cannot sell this land. It was put here for us by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us. You can count your money and burn it within the nod of a buffalo's head, but only the great Spirit can count the grains of sand and the blades of grass of these plains. As a present to you, we will give you anything we have that you can take with you, but the land, never.
In 1483, Portuguese explorers came upon the Kingdom of Kongo in West Africa, establishing a European presence that persisted for centuries. The king of the Kongo converted to Christianity and established a trade relationship – particularly guns – for such local goods as ivory and, especially, slaves. In 1526, concerned about the disastrous consequences of Portuguese trade for both his kingdom and his rule, King Afonso wrote King Joao III of Portugal.
...Many of our subjects greatly covet the goods which your men bring in our kingdoms from Portugal. To quench this uncontrollable thirst they kidnap many of our free or freed black subjects, even nobles...They sell them to the white men... As soon as the captives are under the white men’s power they are branded. This is how they are found by our guards when they board the ships. The white men then explain that they were bought but they cannot say from whom...