Native Intelligence by Charles C. Mann

Native Intelligence by Charles C. Mann, smithsonianmag.com, December 2005

The Indians who first feasted with the English colonists were far more sophisticated than you were taught in school. But that wasn’t enough to save them

"Evidence suggests that Indians tended to view Europeans with disdain. The Huron in Ontario, a chagrined missionary reported, thought the French possessed “little intelligence in comparison to themselves.” Europeans, Indians told other Indians, were physically weak, sexually untrustworthy, atrociously ugly and just plain smelly. (The British and French, many of whom had not taken a bath in their entire lives, were amazed by the Indian interest in personal hygiene.) A Jesuit reported that the “savages” were disgusted by handkerchiefs: “They say, we place what is unclean in a fine white piece of linen, and put it away in our pockets as something very precious, while they throw it upon the ground.”" 

"Eating a nutritious diet, working hard but not broken by toil, the people of New England were taller and more robust than those who wanted to move in." 

"According to one modern reconstruction, Dawnland diets at the time averaged about 2,500 calories a day, a higher level than those in famine-racked Europe."