When did the First People realize what was happening?

I have a lot to learn. Therefore, with due humility, I ask:  When did the First People in North America fully realize what the Europeans were doing to them?

It's a research topic that intrigues me. I'm using the question to guide my reading. I'm careful to remind myself, often, that I don't know the answer.

We know now the outcome of the permanent European intrusion in North America, beginning in 1492. Neither the Native Americans who experienced the first contacts, nor the first travelers who arrived from Europe in the 16^th century, knew what their future would be. Before colonists starting arriving in growing numbers in the 17^th century, perhaps the First Peoples had no explicit expectation that they would be decimated, displaced and dispersed from their homelands.

At some point, the growing numbers of Europeans and their demand for control of more and more land and resources must have made it plain to growing numbers of Native Americans that their lifestyle could not be sustained on the lands and in the hunting grounds they cherished.

Generally, Native Americans left no substantial written records. The documentary record we have was written principally by Europeans. It will be difficult to establish a verifiable understanding of the evolving awareness and outlook of Native Americans in their interaction with Europeans, and in their response to European aggrandizement. Nevertheless, I think it is important to try to understand the Native Americans' changing state of mind as we assess details and the patterns of European colonial expansion and the resistance of the First Peoples. Doubtless, Native Americans did not want to abandon or lose their way of life. When did they begin to understand what the Europeans were doing to them?

Obviously, the full realization occurred at different times for Native Americans who comprised many different cultural groups throughout North America. I'm not looking for a simple answer. I'm interested, first, in understanding the meaningful frames of reference for considering the question.

Another question: how hard did the British try to win?

Another thought....

Some sources:

Johnson, William. The Papers of Sir William Johnson. Albany, NY: New York State Library, University of the State of New York, 2008.

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2nd ed. New York City: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House Inc., 2011.

Calloway, Colin G. New Worlds For All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Cronon, William. Changes In The Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983.

Dobyns, Henry F. Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1983.

Dowd, Gregory Evans. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Fenton, William. American Indian and White Relations to 1830: Needs & Opportunities for Study. New York: Russell & Russell, A Division of Atheneum Publishers, Inc, 1971. First published in 1957 by University of North Carolina Press.

Haan, Richard L. "Covenant and Consensus: Iroquois and English, 1676-1760." In Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600-1800, eds. Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003.

Hamalainen, Pekka. The Comanche Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

Johnson, William. The Papers of Sir William Johnson. Albany, NY: New York State Library, University of the State of New York, 2008.

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2nd ed. New York City: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House Inc., 2011.

Merrell, James H. "Indian History During the English Colonial Era." In A Companion to Colonial America, edited by Daniel Vickers, 118-37. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Trigger, Bruce G., "Early Native North American Responses to European Contact: Romantic versus Rationalistic Interpretations," The Journal of American History 77, no. 4 (1991): 1195-1215.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.