Final answer:
Before European colonization, Native Americans lived in a subsistence economy, based on hunting, gathering, and primitive agriculture, with trade occurring among tribes. The arrival of Europeans disrupted these traditional economies and brought new concepts of land ownership and trade that had lasting impacts on Native societies.
Step-by-step explanation:
Prior to the development of the American colony into an agricultural economy, Native Americans lived in a subsistence economy with some trade among tribes. Before the arrival of Europeans, Native American societies were diverse, with many living a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle, supplemented by primitive agriculture in some areas. The cultivation of crops like corn was significant, but many Indigenous people persisted in hunting and gathering practices to support their communities.
With the introduction of the horse by the Spanish, Plains Native Americans could more effectively track and hunt bison. Trade did occur among tribes, but it was on a lesser scale compared to the trading networks that would develop later, following European colonization. The Native American economies were based on self-sufficiency, with communal resource sharing and no concept of individual land ownership as seen in European societal structures.
When European settlers arrived, they brought with them the idea of land being owned by individuals, which clashed with the Indigenous views and eventually led to significant cultural and economic disruptions for the Native Americans. Tribes like the Iroquois and Algonquian, who had once prospered through their own social systems and economies, found their ways of life irrevocably changed by the invading European forces.