This week’s writing assignment starts off with a gruesome tail of a violent exchange between the English and natives. The purpose of this demonstration and the reading in general is to show the underlying factors that contributed to poor relations between them. One key factor is the idea of mutual misunderstanding, where relations turn sour between two parties as a result of both misunderstanding and\/or misinterpreting the other’s actions, intentions, etc. Many of the locations of native populations were desirous of the Europeans for prospective colonies, trade, and military advantage. While this did not provide justification for some of the Europeans actions and attitudes toward the natives, it did provide some motivation. Leading up to the Pequot War, natives were found to be particularly helpful to the Europeans, proving themselves better navigators in many ways. Their canoes maneuvered easier and faster than those of the English, which proved advantageous when fighting the English. At the same time, the larger sailing vessels of the Europeans had advantages of their own. Classmate Tram Hua points out that one of the main points is to highlight competition between the Natives and English. While this was certainly a key point in this reading, I think it is a smaller piece of a larger picture, being the Europeans’ much more urgent competition with each other. The reading reinforces this idea, explaining that \u201cWar with the Pequots would help the English extinguish the Dutch West India Company’s easterly claims in a way that war with the Narragansetts would not\u201d (page 290). Relations and interactions between natives and Europeans often result from mutual misunderstanding. More often than not, Europeans would then capitalize on these situations not only establishing themselves as the dominant party with the natives, but also gaining advantage over their European rivals.<\/p>\n