What contributed to Europeans becoming dominant?

What do they know of England who only England know?

The best thing they can come up with is saying a couple of the founding fathers might have been subconsciencly influenced by the Natives. But their isn't any kind of record of them mentioning them, but their is records of them discussing Classical Rome and Greeks I believe. It seemed they had a grand view of history, but I personally haven't read anything of them discussing their present day influences.

Originally posted by Beylerbeyi As Huntingdon said, the Western civilization is what it is due to the combination of traits which would be the following: Huntington is the last of a long line of Western racists/Orientalists. Still, I would really love it if the Western racists/Orientalists (that is majority of the people in the West) would read him.    Now let's tear this argument apart.   Classical heritage,   In his book he claims that the West has adopted the Greeco-Roman heritage more than other descendants, including the Orthodox. Doesn't have much proof to support this, because, frankly, there isn't any. Self-evidently ridiculous.    separation of secular and ecclesiastical power,   This did not happen until late in the West.   individualism,   I would have said this is vaguely defined, but I can't because it is not even defined. Even if such a thing exists at all, it was only there in the West after enlightenment and political revolutions.   pluralism in society,   Another vague concept. If this really exited in a political context, it was after the bourgeois revolutions.   representative councils,   Yet another vague concept. Everyone had some sort of representative council.   catholicism and protestantism,   Finally something that makes sense. Religion (actually, church) is the only factor which defined the West before the Enlightenment. However, I don't think anyone is retarded enough to claim that West got powerful because of the Catholic church.   and the diversity of language.   Again, useless in explaining anything as everyone had diversity of language.    All in all, Huntington is full of BS, as others said.   However, a West exists today. So what defines it? Christianity, developed economy, bourgeois democracy, OECD and NATO membership (although not all NATO/OECD members are Western), come to mind.   What about the West before modernity? It was defined only by religion, as Western Christendom, and as the areas under Western Roman influence.   And before that? Like Huntington says there was no West before that. He's right about Rome or Greece not being 'West'.

Originally posted by pikeshot1600 .. Benj Franklin was an admirable and brilliant person, but whatever connection he had, or thought he had, with and among Indian tribes had little or no effect on the Constitutional Convention. ...

pinguin:

Is it not possible that the colonists, seeing the potential for a dangerous war ahead with the British, thought it pragmatic to cultivate the goodwill of the surrounding native Americans through ingratiating behaviour such as invitation to the Continental Congress. Their war could have been serious hampered by hostile natives in their rear.

The last reference provided seems highly speculative in nature, not weighing other possibilities like the one I just mentioned

Originally posted by Constantine XI Is it not possible that the colonists, seeing the potential for a dangerous war ahead with the British, thought it pragmatic to cultivate the goodwill of the surrounding native Americans through ingratiating behaviour such as invitation to the Continental Congress.

The English definately wanted to keep on the good side of the Iroqouis, although the Iroqouis were at war with practically all the other native groups (except the ones they'd forced to disarm and submit). They were the most powerful military force in the region up until the revolution.

The revolutionaries may have wanted to stay on good terms, but it was not possible: when the revolution broke out, the ruling council declared that the colonists had broken the covenant chain by taking up arms and were therefore expelled from the Great Peace and under an edict of extermination, as per the Iroqouian constitution. Unfortunately for the Iroqouis, despite the council's decision, they fragmented internally over the question of who to side with, the King or the revolutionaries. They mounted only a few campaigns of extermination against the settlers before the Sullivan Expedition laid waste to the Iroqouian heartland, encountering little resistance due to internal conflict. 

Two backwards feudal states, Spain and Portugal, had a leftover class of people whose sole purpose was to expel Muslims and who had little besides a meager country estate.
Exploration was a new opportunity for glory.

It was only after the benefits of exploration were proven that the real powers like England got in on the game.