Culture Vs Native American Culture

“True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person.

Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who have found the center of their lives in their own hearts’” (Norris

197). Every culture throughout history has had its own view on hospitality, religion, education, and government. Sometimes, when those cultures meet, those views clash. Even though not all early settlers believed themselves better than the Native Americans, most believed their way of living, education, and government better than that of the natives, at times even belittling the

Native Americans culture and beliefs.

To begin, a person’s concept of culture is defined

Further proof of the early settler’s sense of superiority was in their fierce religiosity towards the natives. “The Missionaries who have attempted to convert them to Christianity, all complain of this as one of the great difficulties of their Mission” (Franklin 3). The natives had their own sets of beliefs and values, but this did not stop the settlers from preaching their religion in hopes of changing the natives. As the politeness of the natives was well known, they gladly sat through the stories that the settlers had to offer. This politeness was not reciprocated though, after an Indian Orator shared their beliefs with the missionaries, the settlers primary certitude towards Christianity was evident in the passage “The good Missionary disgusted with this