Student Question
How did European exploration and colonization impact African and Native American cultures?
Quick answer:
Native American and African culture changed in the face of European colonization and exploration. This was a consequence of cultural collisions between diverse Native and African peoples as well as with Europeans. In all cases, cultural change exemplifies Native and African adaptation in the face of extreme circumstances.
This is a very broad and sweeping question. We have to remember that "African" and "Native American" are terms used to describe very diverse groups of people that responded to European colonization in very different ways over time. However, because the question directly refers to the effects of interactions with Europeans on culture, we can make two very large generalizations.
First, contact with Europeans often resulted in a collision of cultures among African and Native peoples themselves. The Atlantic slave trade often threw peoples from throughout West Africa onto the same ships or landed them on the same plantations. They often did not speak the same languages and had different cultural practices. Over time, even on board the slave ships themselves, and certainly on plantations, they worked out ways to communicate, developed bonds of fictive kinship, and learned about shared cultural beliefs and institutions. Similarly, contact with Europeans led to...
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demographic catastrophe for many Native peoples. Once-large tribes were heavily depleted by disease and war. They frequently joined with peoples from other tribes out of self-preservation. Many peoples throughout North and South America were formed by adopting other, formerly separate tribes.
Second, both Natives and African peoples underwent cultural adaptations without completely extinguishing their own traditions. Europeans, too, often had to adapt to Native and African ways. For example, when Europeans came to North America, they were incorporated by Natives into existing trade and diplomatic relations. Even as late as the nineteenth century, white diplomats knew that they were expected to bring presents to their Native counterparts as the price of carrying on diplomatic relations. African peoples spoke European languages but inflected with words that could be traced back to Africa. They played music using drums, banjos, and other instruments with African origins. Christianity among the enslaved was often a melding of European Christianities (Catholic and Protestant) and various religious traditions from Africa.
What is important to understand about both of these very broad developments is that historians view them as examples of the agency of peoples who faced extraordinary hardships. For enslaved people in particular, the development of culture was a form of opposition, if not rebellion. Natives, too, struggled to maintain their culture as a response to their times, adapting to European realities but holding on to traditional values.
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