Cultural Distinctions.

Education was at the heart of European efforts to colonize America. Whether Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, or English, colonists from the Old World found success only as they adapted familiar ways of life and their own expectations to the peoples, geography, and natural resources they found in this strange New World across the Atlantic Ocean. Driven by a mixture of motives, aptly captured in the phrase "God, Gold, and Glory," Europeans wanted to teach the Indians about Jesus, to exploit economically both the people and natural resources they discovered in America, and to advance the strategic interests of their respective nations. The later inclusion of large numbers of Africans, most of whom were imported as slaves, into this cultural cauldron significantly influenced the lives of Indians and Europeans as well as the Africans themselves. Despite their unequal status and their suspicion —if not outright hatred and...