Message from Charles Aulds

I asked seven anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians if they would rather have been a typical citizen of Europe or the Haudenosaunee [the proper name for the Iroquois or Six Nations — CAulds] in 1491. None was delighted by the question, because it asked them to judge the past by the standards of today — a fallacy disparaged as "presentism" by social scientists. Every one of the seven chose the Indians. Some early colonists gave the same answer. The leaders of Jamestown tried to persuade Indians to transform themselves into Europeans. Embarrassingly, almost all of the traffic was the other way — cores of English joined the locals despite promises of dire punishment. The same thing happened in New England. Puritan leaders were horrified when some members of a rival English settlement began living with the Massachusett Indians.
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from Charles Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005)