Native peoples were doing some trading and some fighting. The encroachments on their lands were more aggressive by English settlers than by French. The French were trading partners with some native people, and they were fighting with others. This was partly because of inter-tribal conflicts that were only marginally connected with the Europeans, and partly because of conflicts that were directly related to Europeans.
English settlements were moving westward from the eastern seaboard, These folks were a mixed group. Some would settle in one place and raise families, while others would trap, hunt, explore and trade with the Indigenous people they met.
These relationships were similar to relationships you may have. When two people have something in common, and particularly if one has an advantage, they may choose to team up or they may choose to compete.
If Sam Watkins, a white man from Virginia, moves to Kentucky to trap beaver, fox and "other such critters worth cash money when skinned", meets Blue Catfish, a Cherokee who has been trapping furs and selling them to a trader on the eastern slope, and believes he is being cheated, they could team up, and get more skins, which Sam can take to someone and get a better price. They would then share the money and both would prosper.
However, Sam could meet Red Deer, a native of Kentucky who just doesn't like him, for one reason or another, and they might just as easily end up fighting one another.

Contrast this with the French. Rene, an immigrant from Normandy, who comes upriver to the Illinois country, sets about trying to collect skins to sell downriver in what will one day be New Orleans. He has spent the early spring collecting beaver skins when one day, hungry and tired, he wanders in to a Kaskaskia village along the Au Kas river. There he hopes to find a meal and a place to sleep. He offers one of the men some tools he has brought along to trade with, a knife and a trade hatchet that has a hollow handle and a pipe bowl at the end. This proves acceptable to his host, and Rene and White Buffalo become fast friends. As it happens, White Buffalo has a lovely daughter who has just turned 16. One thing leads to another, and in exchange for a winter's collection of skins, given as security that the girl will be well provided for, Rene and Teal Eye become husband and Wife the following spring. They build a house, on a bluff looking down over the Au Kas river, and, though Rene continues his winter trapping, for the furs are thicker in winter, he soon finds that he has other trappers coming to his home to trade. Eventually, this excursion of a lonesome Frenchman grows into a thriving little town.

I know, this is a little "old school Disney-ish", and I got the name Teal Eye from the film version of A.B. Guthrie's The Big Sky (I liked the name), but I wanted to put a little something positive in. There were Coureur d'bois who married indigenous ladies and raised families, and they were the first European settlers in my home state.