Europeans and native americans?

Question

it is sometimes said that the europeans who came to the Americas settled a "virgin land" that was unused and spoiled.

is this true or not?

Answer 1

The belief in a "virgin land" is a complete fallacy.  The land was  not only occupied by Native Americans but was maintained and manipulated by the same.  The woodlands of America were periodically burned and so had very open areas under tree cover.  This encouraged young grasses which attracted deer for hunting and prevented periodic forest fires due to accumulation of dry tinder on the ground.  The Europeans found it much easier to justify the colonization of a "virgin land" than to admit they were stealing land from fellow humans and so they created all kinds of reasons to permit them to sleep at night.  Not really human, don't have a European concept of property (i.e. exclusive rights), etc.  These lessons were applied more stringently in Australia.  The British declared the continent 'terra nullius' or no one's land and occupied it as if no one lived there.  The British (in America and Australia) instituted non-burning policies.  This led to accumulation of large amounts of dry, flammable under growth that led to massive forrest fires.  

Short answer:  Not true at all!

Answer 2

It was an example of the most egregious racist and elitist attitudes.  They knew of Native Americans from the very beginning.  They considered them unworthy, especially as those "Indians" weren't Christian.  At that time, the prevalent attitude was that such peoples deserved to be exterminated, or at least didn't have the right to remain where they were and compete for scarce resources.  

It is not true that Native Americans - and there is Native American blood in my ancestry and I lived on the Rez for awhile - were saintly stewards of the land and never wasted any of those resources, but nether were they a band of uncaring despoilers.  

The "conquest" of this continent remains one of the sorriest chapters in human history - a chapter to which the final paragraphs have yet to be written.

Answer 3

Virgin land because it did not belong to them. Unused and unspoiled because they felt they had the divine right to take over it. After all, the natives were not even humans, maybe they did not even have a soul to begin with. Besides they must/ve been really dumb because they had a lot of land and resources and did not know how to use them.

Many corporations use the same reasoning for many of their enterprises. This is not new.

Answer 4

If i remember correctly, that is where the initially landed, but they didn't settle there....not long after they made their way to current US.....

Answer 5

They made treaties with many of the natives and formed alliances.  It wasn't an invasion and immediate conquest with no regard for the inhabitants.  Many of the natives were decimated by newly introduce diseases.  Historians who talked about it weren't interested in the point of view of the natives and didn't consider it belonging to anybody.  The Europeans were dividing the world into their colonies at the time.

Answer 6

The land was Native and the Europeans screwed them, so in a way you could say it was "virgin" because it got deflowered by greed and racism.