Reddit mentions of Into the American Woods: Negotiations on the Pennsylvania Frontier

A good portion of French emigration to North America was mainly for the fur trade and exploration, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, French settlements usually lacked women, or at least French women. In the reign of Louis XIV, the French did decide to send over more women to encourage settlement, called the Daughters of the King. Often only French males make the trek across the Atlantic. So assimilation (though, I'm not sure if I would use that, since it seemed more like a cultural exchange) would be kind of vital if you wanted to not only survive but create some sort of settlement for trade. French traders learned the local languages and customs, as well as techniques to survive the harsh winters. This meant that the French, almost naturally out of need, had a more amicable relationship with the local Algonquians and Huron in the area. It created ties with local chiefs, especially since woman had a stronger social role in Algonquian society. I guess you can compare it to royal marriage and creating alliances between the families. It helped with strengthening trade, as the marriages would give French traders permission to use the Indian lands.

As for the British, they didn't really have assimilation in mind when they were colonizing North America. They did have trade in mind, just as much as the French, but they also intended for nearly full-scale settlement. This is speaking generally though, since there were multiple settlements and charters and not all of them held the same goals. Most often, the British usually tried to keep the natives out, except for the contacts made through trade. However, since they tended to push out the natives from their lands, the only people that really held contact with the natives were mainly the European traders or, often reluctantly, government officials.

Not everything was completely negative though, there are some more notable exceptions. William Penn founded his colony, Pennsylvania, with tolerance in mind. Aside from religious tolerance, the colony also had a history of holding an amicable relationship with natives, quite unlike most of the other colonies. That's not to say there weren't tenuous times during the history of the colony. Whenever the Indian Wars sprung up, a lot of the settlers, especially the Scots-Irish on the frontier, tended to be a little wary and distrustful of their native neighbors. In New York, William Johnson, acted as an Indian agent for the crown, later a Superintendent of Indian Affairs of North America during the French and Indian War, and helped bridge a gap between Iroquois and Briton. Johnson held the rank of major general for a time during the war and led Iroquois and New York militia into battle. He wasn't the only one either, Pennsylvania and Virginia troops also fought alongside native allies, like the Cherokee. Granted, the relations fell apart after the end of the war, but this still kind of shows that it wasn't always as one sided.

I highly recommend Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country, as well as James Merrell's Into the American Woods, Richard White's The Middle Ground, and Matthew Ward's Breaking the Backcountry. These books are where I got the material from, as well as the colonial records from PA and NY. I could probably give you a longer book list, but I think that covers everything. I wrote my undergrand honors thesis on the topic of the French and Indian War, pertaining to mainly the strained relationship with the Indians and frontier settlers in Pennsylvania, so if there's anything else I can add, please ask.