Transcript bradford and the plymouth colony

CHAPTER 1
ALIEN ENCOUNTERS:
Europe in the Americas
The American Nation:
A History of the United States, 13th edition
Carnes/Garraty
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SIGHTINGS
 TIERRA!—Christopher Columbus
made landfall at the West Indian
island he called San Salvador
(natives called it Guanahani) on
October 12, 1492
 By 1600, about 240,000
Spaniards had made their way to
the Americas
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The movement eventually brought
100 million persons throughout
the world to the western
hemisphere
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COLUMBUS’S GREAT
TRIUMPH—AND ERROR
 Columbus was searching for a route to Asia
for reasons of trade
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Spices: pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg,
cloves helped cover the taste of spoiled meat
Tropical foods: rice, figs, oranges
Other goods: perfumes, silk & cotton, rugs,
textiles, dyestuffs, fine steel products, precious
stones, various drugs
 If goods could be transported to Europe by
sea rather than overland, the trip would be
cheaper and more comfortable
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COLUMBUS’S GREAT
TRIUMPH—AND ERROR
 Prince Henry the Navigator, the third son of John I of
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Portugal, became interested in navigation and
exploration
Ships were clumsy, instruments for reckoning latitude
were inaccurate at best, and there were no
instruments for figuring longitude
Henry attempted to improve and codify navigational
knowledge
Henry’s captains sailed westward to the Madeiras,
the Canaries and south along the coast of Africa
In 1445, Dinis Dias reached Cape Verde
In the 1480s King John II undertook systematic new
explorations focusing on reaching India
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COLUMBUS’S GREAT
TRIUMPH—AND ERROR
 A weaver’s son from Genoa, Christopher Columbus
was committed to the westward route to India and
when the Portuguese showed no interest, he went to
Spain
 There he received the funds to equip the Pinta, Niña,
and Santa Maria, the title ‘Admiral of the Ocean Sea,’
political control over all lands discovered, and 10% of
the profits from trade
 Even after three additional voyages, he continued to
believe he had found a route to Asia
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Believing he had reached the Indies, called the locals
“Indians”
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SPAIN’S AMERICAN EMPIRE
 In 1493, Pope Alexander VI divided the non-
Christian world between Spain and Portugal
and the terms of exploitation were worked out
in the Treaty of Tordesillas the following year
 The line that was drawn left Africa to the
Portuguese and the New World to Spain
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Exception was what became Brazil which fell
on Portuguese side of line
 The Spanish spread out from their base on
Hispaniola (Santo Domingo)
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SPAIN’S AMERICAN EMPIRE
 1513: Vasco Nuñez de Balboa crossed the
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Isthmus of Panama and “discovered” the Pacific
Ocean
1519: Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs
1519: Ferdinand Magellan started 3 year voyage
around world
1530s Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas
Spaniards tricked and cheated the native
inhabitants
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Requiermento
Las Casas and criticism of Spanish actions
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SPAIN’S AMERICAN EMPIRE
 Shift from gold and silver to land exploitation through
the encomienda system
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Conquistadores concentrated on conquering most heavily
populated areas
 During the 1530s, the Spanish crown forced all the
leading conquistadores to relinquish their military
commands
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New governors were obliged to confer with the Catholic
archbishop and an advisory council of prominent colonists
 Catholic missionaries did much of the work of
implementing Spanish civilization
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When Indians resisted Christianity, friars resorted to force
 By 1570s Spanish had founded 200 cities and towns
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EXTENDING SPAIN’S
EMPIRE NORTH
 1513: Juan Ponce de Léon explored the east coast of
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Florida
1520s Pánfilo de Narváez explored the Gulf Coast of North
America westward from Florida
His lieutenant, Alvar Nuñez de Vaca, and three companions
(including a black slave named Esteban) wandered for
years until they made their way across New Mexico and
Arizona to Mexico City
1539-1543 Hernando de Soto traveled north from Florida to
the Carolinas, then westward to the Mississippi River
At the same time, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
ventured as far north as Kansas and as far west as the
Grand Canyon
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EXTENDING SPAIN’S
EMPIRE NORTH
 By the early 1600s Spanish explorers had reached
Virginia and there was a small Spanish settlement at
San Augustin in Florida
 In 1598 Don Juan de Onate led an expedition of 500
Spanish colonists and soldiers and a handful of
Spanish missionaries into the land of the Pueblo
Indians in the American Southwest
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Pueblo resisted the incursion resulting in the slaughter
of 800 Pueblo and the arresting of 500 more
Men, after one foot was chopped off, were sold into
slavery
Onate was dismissed in 1614
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EXTENDING SPAIN’S
EMPIRE NORTH
 Those who followed Onate made money by capturing
Apache and Ute Indians, with the forced help of the
Pueblos, and selling them as slaves in Mexico
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Apaches and Utes retaliated against Pueblo
settlements
 Friars Christianized the Indians and, in return, forced
the Indians to build and maintain the missions, till the
surrounding fields, and serve the needs of the friars
and Spanish colonists
 By the 1670s, the Pueblos had grown tired of
oppression and shamans called for revival of
traditional religion
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EXTENDING SPAIN’S
EMPIRE NORTH
 1675—Spanish arrested 47 shamans, hanging three
and whipping the remainder
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One of latter, Popé, organized rebellion
 17,000 Pueblos rose against Spanish, killing 200,
driving remaining 800 to El Paso, and destroying
Spanish buildings
 Spanish regained control in the 1690s
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Learned to deal less harshly with Pueblos
Entered into complex trade with nomadic Indians of
Great Plains and foothills of the Rockies
 By the early 1700s, Spain controlled vast American
empire
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DISEASE AND POPULATION
LOSSES
 For centuries diseases such as smallpox,
measles, bubonic plague, diphtheria, influenza,
malaria, yellow fever and typhoid had ravaged
Europe, Asia and Africa
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By 1500s these populations had developed a
resistance to such diseases
 American Indians lacked exposure to diseases
and hence lacked resistance
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Effects of disease rippled out far from area of
actual contact with Europeans
Millions of Indians died
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HOW MANY INDIANS DIED WITH
EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT?
 First problem was determining Indian population at
time of European contact
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Early 20th century scholars estimated population in
Canada and U.S. as 1 million
1960s and 1970s, scholars thought figures too low and
Henry Dobyns proposed10 to 12 million in U.S. and
Canada and over 100 million in western hemisphere
Russell Thornton and others arrived at estimates
between 4 and 8 million
Mathematicians say data is insufficient for a reliable
estimate
 All agree millions of Indians in U.S. and Canada died
and tens of millions died in remainder of western
hemisphere
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ECOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM
 European plants (especially weeds) and animals (especially
pigs, cattle and rats) disrupted Indian ecosystem leading to
Indian malnutrition and greater susceptibility to disease
 European soldiers brought back syphilis from the New World
 Also brought maize and potatoes which yielded 50 percent more
calories per acre than wheat, barley and oats
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As Europeans shifted cultivation to new plants, their population
rose sharply
Manioc transformed tropical Africa in same way, leading to
importation of increasing African population to Americas to replace
declining Indian population as slaves
 Indians did benefit from horses and sheep
 In the 300 years after Columbus, Europe’s share of the world
population increased from 11 to 20 percent while the American
Indians’ declined from 7 percent to 1 percent as a result of the
Columbian exchange
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SPAIN’S EUROPEAN RIVALS
 By 1650 over 181 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver
had been shipped from the Americas to Spain
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By 1585, a quarter of the empire’s revenue came from
American gold and silver
 1497 & 1498: John Cabot explored Newfoundland and the
northeastern coast of the continent for England
 1524: Giovanni da Verrazano explored from Carolina to
Nova Scotia for France
 1534: Jacques Cartier, also exploring for France, sailed up
the St. Lawrence as far as present day Montréal
 Fishermen from France, Spain, Portugal and England
exploited the cod and other fish off the coast of
Newfoundland in the 16th century
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SPAIN’S EUROPEAN RIVALS
 Why did other countries not immediately follow
Spanish lead in colonizing the Americas?
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Spain had a large measure of internal tranquility
by the 16th century while France and England
were suffering from religious and political strife
Spanish seized those areas of the Americas which
were best suited for producing quick returns
First half of 16th century, under Charles V, Spain
dominated Europe as well as Americas, controlling
the Low Countries, most of central Europe, and
part of Italy
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SPAIN’S EUROPEAN RIVALS
 Under Charles’ successor, Philip
II, Spain seemed at its peak
 Added Portugal in 1580
 But there were a number of
problems:
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Corruption of Spanish court
Overdependence on gold and
silver of colonies undermined
local economy
Disruption of Catholic Church
caused by Protestant
Reformation
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THE PROTESTANT
REFORMATION
 Catholic Church suffering from a variety of
problems in the early 1500s:
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Spiritual lethargy & bureaucratic corruption
Sale of indulgences
Luxurious lifestyle of Pope and papal court
Why were protests so successful this time?
 Charismatic Leaders
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Martin Luther, who started the movement in 1517
John Calvin, who helped carry it forward
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THE PROTESTANT
REFORMATION—Political Support
 German princes stopped payments to Rome and
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seized church property
Swiss cities established political independence
from Catholic kings
Francis I of France, although remaining Catholic,
exerted authority over clergy
Efforts of Spain to suppress Protestantism in Low
Countries fueled nationalist movements
Henry VIII of England broke from Rome in 1534
when, in search of a male heir, he tried to get his
marriage annulled but the Pope refused
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THE PROTESTANT
REFORMATION—Economic Issues
 As commercial classes rose to positions of
influence, England, France, and United
Provinces of the Netherlands experienced a
flowering of trade and industry
 DUTCH: built the largest merchant fleet in the
world, captured most of the Far Eastern trade
from the Portuguese, infiltrated Spain’s
Caribbean stronghold
 ENGLISH: merchant companies began to play
vital role as colonizers forming joint stock
companies that were predecessors to modern
corporation
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ENGLISH BEGINNINGS IN
AMERICA
 Muscovy Company spent large sums looking for
a passage to China around Scandinavia and
tried six times to reach East Asia overland
through Russia and Persia
 In the 1570s, backed by Queen Elizabeth I of
England, Martin Frobisher made three voyages
across the Atlantic looking for a northwest
passage to Asia or new sources of gold
 The Queen also supported privateers such as Sir
Francis Drake, who preyed on Spanish shipping
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ENGLISH BEGINNINGS IN
AMERICA
 Elizabeth also backed settlement efforts such as the
unsuccessful efforts of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1578,
1579, and 1583
 The first settlement, on Roanoke Island off the coast
of North Carolina in 1585, was sponsored by Sir
Walter Raleigh
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Colony was reestablished in 1587
Ships due to arrive in 1588 to re-supply did not come
due to the attack of the Spanish Armada, and when
ships did arrive in 1590 not a trace of the colonists
could be found
 Destruction of the Spanish Armada left England free
to pursue colonization of New World
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ENGLISH BEGINNINGS IN
AMERICA
 Settlement efforts were costly and in 1584 Richard
Hakluyt urged crown support
 Stressed
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Military advantages
The spread of Protestantism
The possible enrichment of the parent country through
expanding markets, increasing tax revenues, and the
provision of employment and raw materials
Forests of America would provide timber and naval stores
needed for bigger navy and merchant marine
 Elizabeth, however, did not pursue Hakluyt’s suggestions
and the settlement that started in earnest after her death
in 1603 was backed mainly by merchant capitalists, not
the Crown
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THE SETTLEMENT OF
VIRGINIA
 In April 1606, James I chartered two companies (one
based in London; the other of Bristol & Plymouth
merchants) to settle Virginia (the name for all area
controlled by England at the time)
 In 1607 the first 100 settlers arrived and settled
Jamestown in the Chesapeake Bay area
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Settled in malaria infested swamp
Did not get crop into ground due to lateness of season
and so had little food
More than 1/3 of settlers were gentlemen, many of the
rest were gentlemen’s servants
Over half died the first winter
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THE SETTLEMENT OF
VIRGINIA
 While company directors stressed futile pursuits,
Captain John Smith urged his fellow colonists to build
houses and raise food and asked for the company to
send more settlers with useful skills
 Recognizing the weakness of the colonists, Smith
tried to maintain good relations with the local Indians
though he had few compunctions about cheating
them and little respect for them
 After Smith left, the colony lacked direction and each
year settlers died in wholesale lots from disease,
starvation, Indian attack, and ignorance and folly
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THE SETTLEMENT OF
VIRGINIA
 Colonists were saved by realization they needed
to grow their own food and by the cultivation of
tobacco, which had a ready market in England
 In 1612, John Rolfe introduced West Indian
tobacco.
 While the advent of tobacco allowed colonists to
buy manufactured goods, by then they had
served their seven years of indenture; since the
London Company had made it easy for settlers to
obtain their own land, no profit went to the
London Company
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THE SETTLEMENT OF
VIRGINIA
 Colonists mistreated Powhatan Indians despite the fact that
only Indian help had allowed the colonists to survive at all
 Chief Openchancanough concluded that English land hunger
could not be abated and tried to wipe them out in an attack
that killed 347 settlers
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Many of survivors died that winter of hunger
 Between 1606 and 1622, the London Company invested
more than £160,000 and sent over 6000 colonists
 No dividends were ever paid and by 1624 fewer than 1500
were still alive
 In 1624, King James revoked the company’s charter, making
Virginia a royal colony
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“PURIFYING” THE CHURCH
OF ENGLAND
 Henry VIII had broken from the Catholic Church
and founded the Anglican Church, though his
daughter Mary attempted to reinstate Catholicism
during her reign (1553-1558)
 It was under his second daughter Elizabeth (15581603) that the Anglican Church became the official
church for all of England
 This church closely resembled the Catholic Church
except the King/Queen of England was the head of
the church and services were in English not Latin
 On one side were ardent Catholics who chose to
leave England or practice their faith in private
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“PURIFYING” THE CHURCH
OF ENGLAND
 On the other were more radical Protestants
(Puritans) who felt changes had not gone far
enough and insisted the church needed to be
“purified” of Roman leftovers
 Among their biggest problems with church
teachings was the implication that anyone other
than God could free one from the mire of sin
 While only the heretic Arminians stated that one
could absolve oneself through actions on earth, the
Anglican Church implied that ones’ good actions
might sway God’s view
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“PURIFYING” THE CHURCH
OF ENGLAND
 Congregationalists—favored decentralized church
structure with the members of each church and their
chosen ministers beholden only to one another
 Presbyterians—favored some organization on local
level but one controlled by elected laymen not clergy
 During Elizabeth’s reign, most puritans hoped that
church could be saved from within but under James I,
many worried the court was returning to “popish”
ways
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All James I did for Protestants during 22 year reign
was to authorize a new translation of the Bible in
1611—the King James Version
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BRADFORD AND THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
 In 1606, the first group of puritans went further and
“separated” from the Anglican Church
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Separatists either had to go underground or into exile
 In 1608, 125 separatists left England for the Low
Countries, first to Amsterdam then to Leyden
 By 1619 disheartened by the difficulties of making
a living, disappointed by failure of others from
England to join them, and distressed that their
children were being led astray from the path of
righteousness, these “Pilgrims” decided to leave in
search of a better place
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BRADFORD AND THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
 The Puritans negotiated with the Virginia Company to
settle at the mouth of the Hudson River on the upper
edge of the company’s territory
 The Pilgrims formed a joint stock company to help
pay for the trip as well as taking non-Pilgrims (of 100
who set out only 35 were Pilgrims)
 Left from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower, in
September 1620
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In December, arrived at Cape Cod Bay, north of their
destination and the territory controlled by the London
Company
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BRADFORD AND THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
 In order to establish a government, they drew
up the Mayflower Compact, thus establishing
the early American ideal that a society should
be based on a set of rules chosen by its
members
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William Bradford was chosen as the first
governor
 The Pilgrims went ashore at Plymouth and
suffered through a winter of starvation in
which half died
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BRADFORD AND THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
 The Pilgrims were aided in survival by a local
Indian named Tisquantum (called Squanto by
the Pilgrims) who spoke English
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Taught the Pilgrims best places to fish, and
what to plant and how to cultivate it
After first successful harvest, Pilgrims treated
Indian neighbors to a Thanksgiving feast
 Bradford claimed to treat the Indians fairly but
they yielded land mainly because many had
died as a result of disease
 By 1650, still fewer than 1000 settlers
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WINTHROP AND
MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
 Before Puritans arrived, the Plymouth Company had tried
settling on the Kennebec River in 1607 but had not
succeeded
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Fisherman continued to come to the area
It was christened New England by Captain John Smith in
1614
 In 1620, the Plymouth Company reorganized itself as the
Council for New England
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Group was more interested in real estate deals than in
settlement and one deal was a small grant to a group of
Puritans from Dorchester who settled in Salem in 1629
These Dorchester Puritans organized the Massachusetts
Bay Company and obtained a royal grant in the area
between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers
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BRADFORD AND THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
 Other Puritans (nearly 1,000 in the summer of 1630)
joined in a mass migration as King Charles I cracked
down on them
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These Puritans carried with them the charter for the
Massachusetts Bay Company and by fall they had
founded Boston and several other towns
 Despite high initial death rates, by 1640 over 10,000
puritans had arrived in Massachusetts
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John Winthrop was elected governor and declared the
colony to “be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people
are upon us”
Colonists created an elected legislature, the General
Court
Right to vote and hold office was limited to male church
members, though clergymen could not hold office
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BRADFORD AND THE
PLYMOUTH COLONY
 After getting permission from the General
Court, a group of colonists who wished to
form a new church would select a minister
and conduct their spiritual matters as they
saw fit
 Membership was restricted to those who
could present satisfactory evidence of having
experienced “saving grace”
 In the 1630s, the majority of people were
members
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TROUBLEMAKERS: Roger
Williams and Anne Hutchinson
 ROGER WILLIAMS: an extreme separatist who arrived
in 1631 and was minister in Salem by 1635, quickly
offended everyone through his religious libertarianism
and his insistence that it was a sin to take land without
buying it from the Indians
 By the end of 1635, Williams was asked to leave the
colony within 6 weeks which he did in January 1636
 He traveled to the head of Narragansett Bay, worked
out a deal with the Indians and founded Providence,
establishing Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
after obtaining a charter from Parliament in 1644
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Government was relatively democratic, all religions were
tolerated and church and state were rigidly separated
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TROUBLEMAKERS: Roger
Williams and Anne Hutchinson
 ANNE HUTCHINSON: arrived in Boston in 1631 where, as a
midwife, she often discussed with women her criticisms of the
minister
 Debate was over issue of who God’s “Saints” were
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Ministers said could not be sure so had to monitor your behavior
Hutchinson said that smacked of Catholicism and Saints should
just know
Also suggested that those possessed of God’s grace were
exempt from the rules of good behavior and even from the laws of
the Commonwealth (accused of antinomianism)
 After claiming regular communication with God, Hutchinson
was banished and left with supporters for Rhode Island in 1637
 In 1642 she moved to the Dutch colony of New Netherland
where she and all but her youngest child were killed by Indians
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OTHER NEW ENGLAND
COLONIES
 Owners of the Plymouth Company divided their
holdings in 1629 with one taking Maine (expanded
in 1639) and the other New Hampshire
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Massachusetts purchased Maine in 1677 and New
Hampshire became a royal colony in 1680
 In 1636, Reverend Thomas Hooker founded
Hartford and helped draft the Fundamental Orders
that governed the towns of Connecticut valley in
1639
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By 1662 Connecticut had obtained a royal charter
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PEQUOT WAR AND KING
PHILIP’S WAR
 Indians identified more with their hunting group, headed by a
sachem, rather than a particular tribe
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Colonists repeatedly exploited disunity among the Indians
 In the 1630s the Pequots became worried by the steady stream
of settlers into southeastern Connecticut
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1636—Pequots refused to pay tribute in wampum and to surrender
tribal members responsible for recent clashes
Governments of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Plymouth
declared war
 1637—New England armies and their Indian allies the
Narragansetts and Mohegans attacked a palisaded Pequot
village and burned it to the ground, killing all 400 Pequots
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Indian allies claimed English way of fighting was too savage
Pequots were crushed
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PEQUOT WAR AND KING
PHILIP’S WAR
 In the 1670s, Wampanoag sachem Metacom decided to
drive out the English
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Started an uprising in 1675 that attacked more than half
of the 90 Puritan towns in New England, destroying 12
1000 puritans were massacred
1676 the colonists went on the offensive, bolstered by
Mohawk allies
Metacom was killed and many of the remaining
Wampanoag and their allies were killed when the
colonists surrounded and burned a large fort they built in
the Great Swamp in Rhode Island
About 4000 Wampanoags and their allies died in what
was termed ‘King Philip’s War’
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MARYLAND AND THE
CAROLINAS
 After the 1630s, it was increasingly easy to create
successful colonies (mostly through royal charters) and
many were encouraged to do so as prospects in England
and Europe worsened
 Proprietors obtained large land grants and then granted
land to settlers for a small annual rent while holding on to
undeveloped land for speculative purposes
 Maryland was granted by Charles I to George Calvert,
Lord Baltimore, and a Catholic who wanted a haven for his
co-religionists
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First settlers arrived in 1634, founding St. Mary’s which
quickly turned to tobacco production similar to nearby
Jamestown
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MARYLAND AND THE
CAROLINAS
 The need to attract settlers meant Lord Baltimore
had to abandon his feudal privileges and allow
settlers to own their farms and have a say in local
affairs
 While Calvert had wanted a colony of Catholics
there was a large Protestant majority which
resulted in a Toleration Act in 1649 that guaranteed
freedom of religion to anyone who believed in
Jesus Christ
 As a result of these efforts, the Calverts made a
fortune and maintained an influence in the colony
until the Revolution
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MARYLAND AND THE
CAROLINAS
 The proprietors of Carolina tried to exercise their granted
powers by drafting the Fundamental Constitutions which
created a hereditary nobility and a landed hierarchy that
proved unworkable
 The first settlers arrived in 1670, mostly from Barbados,
where slave labor was driving out small independent farmers
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Charles Town (Charleston) was founded in 1680 while another
population center formed just south of Virginia in Albemarle with
settlers predominantly from Virginia
 Charles Town engaged in a thriving trade in furs and the
export of foodstuffs to the West Indies while the Albemarle
settlement was poorer and more primitive
 The two separated in 1712, becoming North and South
Carolina
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FRENCH AND DUTCH
SETTLEMENTS
 Jacques Cartier attempted to found a French
colony at Québec in the 1530s but was
unsuccessful
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Not until the end of the century was another
colonization attempt made
 Intrepid French traders initiated a trade with
Indians for furs, which had become valuable in
Europe due to the cold temperatures of the ‘little
ice age’

Indians valued European metal knives and
hatchets, woolens and alcohol
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FRENCH AND DUTCH
SETTLEMENTS
 French traders viewed the Indians as essential trading
partners
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By 1650 there were only 700 French colonists in New
France
 French government sought to protect its vulnerable
holdings by building forts on key northern waterways
and sending soldiers to protect the traders
 By 1700, 15,000 French colonists lived in scattered
settlements
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In contrast 250,000 English (and 34,000 African slaves)
occupied English colonies
 French recruited the Algonquian Indians as allies even
as English worked with their enemies the Iroquois
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FRENCH AND DUTCH
SETTLEMENTS
 Result was warfare pitting French-Algonquian
and English-Iroquois in increasingly bloody
conflict as Indians gained guns and ammunition
 The Dutch founded New Netherland in the
Hudson Valley after the 1609 explorations of
Henry Hudson
 As early as 1624 the Dutch established an
outpost at Fort Orange (present day Albany) and
two years later founded New Amsterdam at the
mouth of the Hudson River, while Peter Minuit
(director general of the West India Company)
bought Manhattan Island from the Indians
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FRENCH AND DUTCH
SETTLEMENTS
 The Dutch traded with the Indians for furs and
plundered Spanish colonial commerce
 Charter of Privileges of Patroons authorized large
grants of land to individuals who could bring over
50 settlers

Only Rensselaerswyck was successful
 Removed from his post in 1631, Peter Minuit
helped the Swedes found New Sweden on the
lower reaches of the Delaware River but after
years of conflict it was overrun by the Dutch in
1655
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THE MIDDLE COLONIES
 English and Dutch trade rivalries resulted in King
Charles II granting his brother James, Duke of York,
the entire area between Connecticut and Maryland
(which included the Dutch colony of New Netherland)
 In 1664 English forces captured New Amsterdam and
its population of 1500 without a fight and the rest of
the colonies soon followed

Renamed the colony New York
 Life remained much the same under English rule as it
had under Dutch, though a local assembly was
established in the 1680s
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THE MIDDLE COLONIES
 In 1664, the Duke of York gave New Jersey (the region between
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the Hudson and the Delaware) to John, Lord Berkeley, and Sir
George Carteret who offered land on easy terms, established
freedom of religion, and a democratic system of local
government
A considerable number of New England and Long Island
Puritans moved to the colony
In 1674, Berkeley sold his interest to two Quakers
Quakers believed in the Inner Light (a direct mystical experience
of religious truth), refused to take oaths, and were pacifists,
which generally made them unwelcome
The Concessions and Agreements of 1677, drafted for the new
Quaker colony, created an autonomous legislature and
guaranteed settlers freedom of conscience, the right to trial by
jury, and other civil rights
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THE MIDDLE COLONIES
 William Penn was responsible for the main Quaker
settlement when King Charles II paid off his debt by
giving Penn the region north of Maryland and west of
the Delaware River in 1681
 In 1682, Penn founded Philadelphia in his new colony
of Pennsylvania which had gained Delaware as a gift
from the Duke of York
 Penn treated the Indians fairly and opened settlement
to anyone who believed in one God
 However, in government he was more paternalistic
and the assembly could only approve or reject laws
proposed by the governor and council

Individual rights were well protected
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THE MIDDLE COLONIES
 Penn sold large and small tracts to settlers on easy
terms but reserved large areas for himself
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Promoted Pennsylvania tirelessly
Attracted large numbers of settlers, especially
Germans
 By 1685 there were almost 9,000 settlers and by
1700 there were twice that number
 The colony produced wheat, corn, rye and other
crops

Much of produce was sold to sugar plantations of the
West Indies
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European Footholds Along
the Atlantic, 1584–1650
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
 Indians worshipped a variety of gods but
Europeans saw them as non-religious

Worse, some viewed them as heathens or even
minions of Satan
 Some saw them as unworthy of conversion while
others, such as the Spanish friars, believed in the
value of conversion

As late as 1569, when Spain introduced the
Inquisition in the colonies, natives were exempt
because they were viewed as incapable of rational
judgment
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
 Europeans assumed Indian chiefs ruled with the same
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authority as their own kings
Instead Indian loyalties were shaped by complex kinship
relations
As a result, Europeans often accused Indians of treachery
when some failed to honor commitments made by their
chiefs
Indians regarded treaty-making as an act of brotherhood,
marked by rituals affirming mutual support and were
confused when settlers blamed Indians for violating the
precise wording of the treaty
Tendency for colonists to talk about kings and governors
as fathers made little sense to Indians whose childhood
mainly involved mothers while fathers were indulgent and
non-intrusive
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
 Generally, Indians who depended on hunting and
fishing had little use for private property and were
confused by European tendency to amass
possessions and work all the time
 Indians were puzzled by the fact that European men
worked in the fields rather than the women as among
the Indians
 Indians tended to gain status by distributing their
goods, rather than amassing them
 Europeans saw this lack of concern for material
things as an indication that Indians were childlike
creatures, not to be treated as equals
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
 Saw “childlikeness” of Indians as justification to take
the land and use it “properly”
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But Indians cleared fields, burned underbrush in the
forests, diverted rivers and streams, built roads and
settlements, and built huge earthen mounds
Yet due to metal plows and axes, the European imprint
was deeper and more devastating
 Indians held land communally
 Tribal boundaries were traditional and not marked by
treaties or fences
 Agricultural products were often stored communally
and drawn on by all as needed
 Indians resented the intensity of European cultivation
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CULTURAL COLLISIONS
 Indians did not seek to possess land and as a
result did not seek to destroy their enemies but
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to prove their own valor
to avenge an insult or perceived wrong
to acquire captives who could take the place of
missing family members
 Preferred ambush to confrontation with a
superior force
 Europeans preferred to fight in heavily armed
masses that aimed to obliterate the enemy
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CULTURAL FUSIONS
 Interaction between Indians and Europeans was
typical of the settlement years
 Colonists learned a great deal from the Indians
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Names of plants and animals
What to eat in their new home and how to catch or
grow it (especially corn)
What to wear
How to best get from one place to another (birchbark
canoes particularly helpful)
How to fight
In some respects, how to think
 Colonists also adopted Indian birchbark canoes
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CULTURAL FUSIONS
 Indians adopted European technology, particularly
goods made of metal (though through 17th century
bow remained more effective than flintlock)
 Indians very active participants in fur trade where
each side profited: Indians traded plentiful fur for
valuable European objects while Europeans gained
valuable furs in exchange for “cheap” European
goods
 The fur trade shifted Indian patterns
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Hunting parties became larger
Villages shifted nearer trade routes and European forts
Some groups combined into confederations to control
larger hunting territories
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CULTURAL FUSIONS
 Europeans and Indians became
interdependent
 European colonists did not want to be like the
Indians, whom they considered the epitome
of savagery and barbarism

Repudiation of the Indians was part of the
collective identity of the settlers, part of what
made them Americans rather than
transplanted Europeans
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MILESTONES
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WEBSITES
 Vikings in the New World
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/index.html
 The Columbus Doors
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/columbus/col1.html
 1492: An Ongoing Voyage
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/Intro.html
 The Computerized Information Retrieval System on
Columbus and the Age of Discovery
http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/
 Contact Era in New Hampshire
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/users/deetz/
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WEBSITES
 The Discoverers’ Web
http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/discovery
 The Plymouth Colony Archives Project at the
University of Virginia
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/users/deetz/
 Jamestown Rediscovery
http://www.apva.org/jr.html
 Jamestown
http://www.nps.gov/colo
 Williamsburg
http://www.history.org
 William Penn, Visionary Proprietor
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/PENN/pnhome.html
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