The Karankawas, who had managed to survive 300 years of European contact, ultimately fell victim to rapid American colonization and direct exterminatory warfare. To the end of their existence, these coastal people retained their hunting, fishing, and gathering culture.

Language loss has been especially acute in North America. No doubt scores, perhaps hundreds, of tongues indigenous to this continent have vanished since 1492. Some have perished without a trace.

European/French usage of metal tools altered Indian ways of life, especially as the gun, or rifle, and the plow, meant the European/French colonies were deliberately planned to settle the so-called New World. The European/French presence introduced at least a dozen strange diseases during this era that American Indians had no natural immunity against. The native population suffered enormous losses. It has been said that more native people died due to foreign diseases than were lost in wars fighting for their homelands.
The "white intruders" brought much change to Indian people. Who is to say that it was not meant to be that way? Yes, the entire North American continent has been taken away, except for about two percent that American Indians still have that they call their homelands. The American Indian almost disappeared with the buffalo when less than a thousand buffalo were left by the turn of the 20th century, and only 225,000 Indians had survived the deadly new diseases and more than one thousand wars. But life was hard; it was never meant to be easy -- not for anyone! Perhaps, that is what all of us must learn for the 21st century. That we should not waste our natural resources and that we should value the natural environment, or else we will destroy ourselves.
To restore the balance of power in favor of their allies, the French began selling firearms and ammunition in limited amounts to the Huron