The English who settled North America established a variety of societies and developed a wide range of social practices. The diversity of believes and ethical systems, from the religious fervor animating early New England settlers to the competitive and commercial impulses of many colonists on the southern mainland, compounded the contrasts found between Northern and Southern colonies. The most significant and disturbing social variations was the adoption of distinctive labor systems, especially the use of large-scale African slavery used by most Southern colonists. This distinctive labor system showed that Northern and Southern colonists looked at race in two distinctive ways. .
When the English colonists first settled New England, around the 1600s, they built their new world communities by subduing varied Native American nations. Despite social, cultural, and agricultural sharing and the adaptive resilience of many Indian groups, Europeans dominance steadily advanced, as the imperial conflicts of which Indians were sometimes able to take advantage declined.
The English seized the Native Americans land leaving Native Americans with little. Remarks made by Miantonomo in 1642 show that the Native Americans were not pleased with the English. "Brothers since the Englishmen have seized our country, they have cut down the grass with scythes, and the trees with axes. Their cows and horses eat up the grass, and their hogs spoil our bed of clams; and finally we shall all starve to death; therefore - stand not in your own light, I ask, but resolve to act like men."".
Most Native Americans although displeased with the Englishman did not resist them because they knew if they did, the Englishmen would kill them off. "Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pocanet, and other powerful tribes of out people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man."".
The English described the Native Americans as savages who did not possess a soul.