The arrival of Europeans on the Atlantic and Gulf 

 coasts, beginning with the Spaniards in the early 

 1500s, led to far-reaching changes along the Seaboard 

 and even in the vast interior drained by the Mississippi 

 River system. Drastic decline in population, the con- 

 sequence of the introduction of such diseases as mea- 

 sles, whooping cough, and smallpox to which the Indi- 

 ans had no resistance, destroyed an estimated 75 to 90 

 percent of the native people living in the Southeast by 

 about 1 580. For the area north of the Ohio River, 

 including the upper Mississippi valley and the western 

 Great Lakes, there is no generally accepted estimate of 

 the possible loss of life as a result of the further spread of 

 sixteenth-century epidemics. 



The full impact of changes brought about by Euro- 

 peans on the seacoasts did not reach the western Great 

 Lakes until the middle of the seventeenth century. The 

 era of profound changes was preceded by the advance of 

 French explorers up the St. Lawrence River to create a 

 new base at Quebec City in 1608. At virtually the same 

 time, English settlement began at Jamestown, Va. , and 

 Dutch representatives sailed up the Hudson River to 

 establish a fortified trading post at present Albany, 

 New York. The introduction of European trade goods, 

 and the demands for increasing numbers of beaver pelts 

 in exchange, set up intercolonial and intertribal 

 animosities that first disrupted the lower Great Lakes 

 region of present New York and Ontario. Merchants in 

 all the colonies promoted the lucrative trade in furs 

 with native people, who were eager to acquire iron 

 hatchets, knives, and copper kettles. These European 

 wares were obviously superior to their own stone tools 

 and pottery and bark containers. Native people also 

 were in the market for luxury goods, fancy coats, and 

 shirts, ribbons, and articles for personal adornment. 

 Essentially, leaders among the various Indian coalitions 

 were competing to control the distribution of European 

 imports to their native trading partners, and at the 

 same time trying to monopolize the supply of beaver 

 pelts from an expanding hunting territory for trade 

 with their European allies. The pattern of minor raids 

 and skirmishes characteristic of traditional Indian 

 fighting developed into wholesale economic warfare 

 supported by rival European powers also at war with 

 each other. The period of intensified warfare was 

 accompanied by waves of epidemic disease that des- 

 troyed a third to a half of the regional population. Prior 

 to the arrival of Europeans in the western Great Lakes, 

 one epidemic spread to east-central Wisconsin, vir- 

 tually annihilating the Winnebagos. 



The introduction of firearms changed the nature 



Ribbon applique skirt, Sauk and Fox. Cat, 1 7589 



neg. 110964c 



