Native Americans came to master and value the European small arms very early after their initial contact.  In all areas of North America, the Native Americans who adopted European weapons almost always acquired them from trade.  Even though these weapons often ended up in use against the Europeans, some Europeans still valued profit enough to risk arming potential enemies.

Almost all Europeans in North America sought to trade with the Native Americans.  The fur trade became the first big business in North America, and in its earliest days, the Native American brought in the furs.  Native Americans traded European goods, liquor, and guns for these furs, and willingly took the risk of having these weapons used against themselves for the sake of the huge profits.  Tools made of metal, such as needles, could be purchased cheaply for the Indian, and would last forever.  These European metals also made sharp and sturdy knives and hatchets that became popular trade items.  Other metal items also Europeanized Native American weapons as various metals were melted and formed into arrowheads, spearheads, and other weapons.

In the present-day United States, three European nations contested for control of a continent.  France held the Mississippi Valley and found their colonies wedged between the Spanish and the English.  Each had allies among the Native American nations, and the armed them with modern European weapons to fight the allies of the European nation’s allies and the Europeans themselves.  France frequently traded guns with southwest tribes, who raided into New Mexico during the colonial era.  And both England and France armed Native American allies and used them against each other, as during the French and Indian War.

In the South, Native Americans began using European weapons after becoming involved in a very different trade.  South Carolina’s largest trade export was rice.  After rice, it was Native American slaves, sold to the Caribbean colonies and the North American colonies.  However, most of the capturing of slaves actually fell to the Native Americans.  Traders armed Native Americans, and a small group of Europeans went with the Native American raiding parties that ranged as far as Louisiana in pursuit of more slaves, which of course, allowed them to buy more guns.  When slaves became scarce, or when the South Carolinians wanted more land, they acquired new allies and enslaved their former ones, starting a cycle over again several times before the Revolution.

However, the Europeans always maintained a good level of control over the weapons that went to the Native Americans.  Although Native Americans became highly proficient with them, they could not replicate them.  They did learn how to improvise simple repairs, but the always relied on Native Americans for parts and powder.  A request by the Cherokee to send blacksmiths and gunsmiths to the their towns to teach them how to make European goods went unanswered, as the Europeans, motivated by profit, recognized that such learning would break the dependency of the Native American and cost them a lucrative income.