APUSH Summer Assignment 2020

Mr. Taylor
Sunlake High School
Summer E-mail: [email protected]
Remind Code: @8c3fcfb
Follow me on the Twitter: @mrtsunlake

Read the four chapters in the PDF documents attached. You are to HANDWRITE notes on all four
chapters. The notes should display that not only you read the chapters, but have grasped the concepts
contained in the reading (most student write about 5 pages of notes per chapter). This assignment is
due the first day of class. Students are also expected to be able to intelligently discuss the topics of the
reading during the first week of class (part of this assignment’s grade will be on your ability to
participate during this discussion). Since we will not be covering the first four chapters of your
textbook during the school year, it is imperative that you learn the material from this assignment.
Failure to complete this assignment will severely hurt your chances of success in Advanced Placement
United States History.

I have also attached the Curriculum Framework from College Board that deals specifically with
the material in the reading. You may use this as a focus as to what are the more important aspects
of the reading.

On the second day of school you will have a multiple-choice exam on the material from the
summer assignment. If you have any questions or concerns during the break, please e-mail me at
the given address at the top of this sheet.

***Important*** Please buy the book in the following link.

https://www.amscopub.com/social-studies/advanced-placement/united-states-history-ap-
exam/amsco-advanced-placement-united-states-history-2020-edition-97582.html
It is best to own the 2018, 2019, or the 2020 Edition. If you are looking for it elsewhere, people call it
the AMSCO book. This WILL BE OUR PRIMARY TEXTBOOK FOR THE YEAR. It is $22.95
off of their website. By the time they factor in shipping (5-Day) it will be about $30. It usually takes 3-
5 days to get to you if you choose the 5 day shipping. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL LAST MINUTE TO
ORDER. They get backed up in July and August. If you can find it cheaper elsewhere, go for it. It
would also be helpful to brush up on Chapters 1-3 before the first day. I really believe in this book (ask
ex-students, it’s great) and it will be yours to mark up throughout the year. It is also fine to have one
that is used. However, they are paperback and take a beating. If for some reason, you cannot afford
one, please let me know before the first day of school so I can plan on securing one for you.
 CHAPTER 1

Native Peoples of America,

to 1500

H iawatha was in the depths of despair. For years his people, a group of five
Native American nations known as the Iroquois, had engaged in a seem-
ingly endless cycle of violence and revenge. Iroquois families, villages, and
nations fought one another, and neighboring Indians attacked relentlessly.
When Hiawatha tried to restore peace within his own Onondaga nation,
an evil sorcerer caused the deaths of his seven beloved daughters. Grief-
stricken, Hiawatha wandered alone into the forest. After several days, he
experienced a series of visions. First he saw a flock of wild ducks fly up from
the lake, taking the water with them. Hiawatha walked onto the dry lakebed,
gathering the beautiful purple-and-white shells that lay there. He saw the
shells, called wampum, as symbolic “words” of condolence that, when prop-
erly strung into belts and ceremonially presented, would soothe anyone’s
grief, no matter how deep. Then he met a holy man named Deganawidah
(the Peacemaker), who presented him with several wampum belts and spoke
the appropriate words—one to dry his weeping eyes, another to open his
ears to words of peace and reason, and a third to clear his throat so that he
himself could once again speak peacefully and reasonably. Deganawidah CHAPTER OUTLINE
and Hiawatha took the wampum to the five Iroquois nations. To each they
introduced the ritual of condolence as a new message of peace. The Iroquois The First Americans,
c. 13,000–2500 B.C.
subsequently submerged their differences and created a council of chiefs
Cultural Diversity,
ca. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500
!
North American Peoples on the Eve
of European Contact

1
2 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

and a confederacy based on the condolence ritual. Thus ■ How did the varied environments of the Western
was born the powerful League of the Iroquois. Hemisphere shape the emergence of a wide diver-
Although the story of Hiawatha and Deganawidah sity of Native American cultures?
was retold by speakers through the generations but not
■ What common values and practices did Native
written down until the late nineteenth century, it depicts
Americans share, despite their vast diversity?
a concrete event in American history. Archaeological
findings corroborate the sequence of bloody warfare fol-
lowed by peace, and date the league’s origins at about
A.D. 1400. Visionary Indian prophets continued to THE FIRST AMERICANS,
emerge among the Iroquois and other Native American C. 13,000–2500 B.C.
peoples during the centuries after 1492. As with all of
American history before Europeans brought their sys- Precisely how and when the vast Western Hemisphere
tem of writing, archaeological evidence, oral traditions, was first settled remains uncertain. Many Indians
and cultural patterns—examined critically—are our believe that their ancestors originated in the Americas,
principal sources of evidence. but most scientific theories point to the arrival of
The founding of the League of the Iroquois repre- peoples from northeastern Asia during the last Ice Age
sents one moment in a long history that began more (c. 33,000–10,500 B.C.), when land linked Siberia and
than ten thousand years before Christopher Columbus Alaska. Thereafter, as the Ice Age waned and Earth’s
reached America in 1492. It is also an example of the climate warmed, Native Americans (like their contem-
remarkable cultural diversity that had come to charac- poraries in the Eastern Hemisphere) adapted to envi-
terize the Western Hemisphere’s indigenous peoples. ronments ranging from frigid to tropical. Though divid-
Adapting to varied and changing environments, some ed into small, widely scattered groups, they interacted
Native Americans lived in small, mobile bands of through trade and travel. Over several thousand years,
hunter-gatherers. Others resided in seasonal or perma- Indians learned from one another and developed ways
nent villages where they grew crops, fished for salmon, of life that had much in common despite their diverse
or processed acorns. Still others lived in larger towns or linguistic, ethnic, and historical backgrounds.
even in cities. While the smallest bands were relatively
egalitarian, in most societies leaders came from promi-
Peopling New Worlds
nent families. In the largest societies, hereditary chiefs,
kings, and emperors ruled far-flung peoples. Among several theories of the peopling of America, two
Underlying their diversity, Native Americans had predominate (see Map 1.1). One theory holds that
much in common. First, they identified themselves pri- Siberian hunters, pursuing game animals, crossed the
marily as members of multigenerational families rather expanse of land linking Asia with North America during
than as individuals or (except in the very largest soci- the last Ice Age, arriving only around 10,500 B.C.
eties) subjects of governments. Second, most empha- According to this theory, the hunters made their way
sized reciprocity and mutual obligation rather then through a glacial corridor, dispersing themselves over
coercion as means of maintaining harmony within and much of the Western Hemisphere. There they discovered
between communities. Third, they perceived the entire a hunter’s paradise in which megafauna—giant mam-
universe, including nature, as sacred. These core values moths, mastodons, horses, camels, bison, caribou, and
arrived with the earliest Americans and persisted moose—roamed, innocent of the ways of human preda-
beyond the invasions of Europeans and their sharply tors. A second theory, based on recent archaeological
contrasting ideas. Throughout their long history, Native finds, suggests that the first humans arrived much earli-
Americans reinforced their commonalties through er by boat, following the then-continuous coast to
exchanges of material goods, new technologies, and reli- Alaska and progressing southward. At various points
gious ideas. along the way, groups stopped and either settled nearby
or traveled inland to establish new homes. Coastal sites
as far south as Monte Verde, in Chile, reveal evidence
This chapter will focus on three major questions:
from about 10,500 B.C. of peoples who fed on marine life,
■ What factors prompted the transition from Paleo- birds, small mammals, and wild plants, as well as on the
Indian to Archaic ways of life among the earliest occasional mastodon. Most archaeologists and other
Americans? scientists now conclude that the earliest Americans
 The First Americans, c. 13,000–2500 B.C. 3

arrived in multiple migrations by both these routes. In known as Athapaskan settled in Alaska and northwest-
light of the most recent discoveries, it is probable that ern Canada in about 7000 B.C. Some Athapaskan speak-
Americans had arrived by 13,000 B.C., if not earlier. ers later migrated to the Southwest to form the Apaches
Most Native Americans are descended from the ear- and Navajos. After 3000 B.C., non-Indian Eskimos, or
liest migrants, but the ancestors of some came later, also Inuits, and Aleuts began crossing the Bering Sea from
from northeastern Asia. Peoples speaking a language Siberia to Alaska.

MAP 1.1
The Peopling of ARCTIC
the Americas OCEAN
Scientists postulate two probable
routes by which the earliest
peoples reached America. By 9500
B.C., they had settled throughout
the Western Hemisphere.

ATLANTIC
OCEAN

PACIFIC
OCEAN

0 1000 Miles

0 1000 Kilometers

Extent of land, c.33,000—10,500 B.C.

Maximum extent of glaciers

Monte Verde
Probable migratory routes

Earliest discovered Indian sites

4 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

their ancestors originated in the Western Hemisphere.

However, other Indians note that the stories do not spec-
ify a place of origin and may well reflect the experiences
of their ancestors as they journeyed from Asia, across
water, ice, and unknown lands, and encountered large
mammals before settling in their new homes. If not taken
literally, they maintain, the traditions reinforce rather
than contradict scientists’ theories.
Paleo-Indians, as archaeologists call the earliest
Americans, established the foundations of Native
American life. Most Paleo-Indians appear to have trav-
eled within well-defined hunting territories in bands
consisting of several families and totaling about fifteen
to fifty people. Men hunted, while women prepared food
and cared for the children. Bands left their territories
when traveling to quarries to obtain favored materials
for making tools and spear points. There they encoun-
tered other bands, with whose members they exchanged
ideas and goods, intermarried, and participated in reli-
gious ceremonies. These encounters enabled Paleo-
Indians to develop a broad cultural life that transcended
their small bands.
Around 9000 B.C. many species of megafauna,
including mammoths, mastodons, horses, and giant
bison, suddenly became extinct. Although scholars for-
merly believed that Paleo-Indian hunters killed off the
large mammals, most now maintain that the mammals
were doomed by the warming climate, which disrupted
the food chain on which they depended. In other words,
the extinction of big-game mammals was part of envi-
ronmental changes associated with the end of the Ice
Age. Among the major beneficiaries of these changes
were human beings.

Archaic Societies
Native American oral traditions offer conflicting
support for scientists’ theories, depending on how the After about 8000 B.C., peoples throughout the Americas
traditions are interpreted. Pueblos and Navajos in the began modifying their Paleo-Indian ways of life. The
Southwest tell how their forebears experienced perilous warming of Earth’s atmosphere continued until about
journeys through other worlds before emerging from 4000 B.C., with far-reaching global effects. Sea levels
underground in their present homelands, while the rose, flooding low-lying coastal areas, while glacial
Iroquois trace their ancestry to a pregnant woman who runoff filled interior waterways. As the glaciers receded
fell from the “sky world.” Among the Iroquois and other northward, so did the arctic and subarctic environments
peoples, the original humans could not settle the water- that had previously extended into what are now the
covered planet until a diving bird or animal brought soil lower forty-eight states of the United States. Treeless
from the ocean bottom, creating an island on which they plains and evergreen forests gave way to deciduous
could walk. The Haida of British Columbia attribute ris- forests in the East, grassland prairies on the Plains, and
ing seawaters to a “flood tide woman” whose work forced desert in much of the West. Grasslands in South
them to move inland to higher ground. Still other tradi- America’s Amazon River basin were replaced by a tropi-
tions recall large mammals, monsters, or “hairy people” cal rain forest. The immense range of flora and fauna
with whom the first people shared Earth. Many Native with which we are familiar today emerged during this
Americans today insist that such accounts confirm that period.
 Cultural Diversity, c. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500 5

Archaic peoples, as archeologists term Native Maize agriculture quickly spread from Tehuacan. By
Americans who flourished in these new environments, 2500 B.C., Indians were growing it elsewhere in Mexico
lived off the wider varieties of smaller mammals, fish, and Central America, in the Amazon River basin, and as
and wild plants that were now available. Using the far north as what is now New Mexico. Although maize
resources of their environments more efficiently, com- itself was not yet grown elsewhere in North America,
munities required less land area and supported larger Indians cultivated squash and gourds in Missouri and
populations. Even peoples in the most extreme environ- Kentucky. Similarly, maize did not reach South America
ments, such as deserts and the Arctic, while still travel- for several more centuries, but Andean peoples already
ing in small bands, now hunted smaller game and gath- cultivated potatoes; Amazonians grew manioc, a starchy
ered wild plants. Indians in more temperate regions root crop; and Pacific coastal dwellers harvested squash,
made even more drastic changes, with some residing in beans, and peppers.
year-round villages. From about 3900 to 2800 B.C., for For a thousand years after plants were first domesti-
example, the 100 to 150 residents of a community near cated, crops made up only a small part of Native
Kampsville, Illinois, obtained ample supplies of fish, Americans’ diets. Meat, fish, and wild plants still pre-
mussels, deer and other mammals, birds, nuts, and dominated. Farming developed over many centuries
seeds without leaving home. before becoming any society’s primary source of food.
Over time, Archaic Americans sharpened some dis-
tinctions between women’s and men’s roles. Men took
responsibility for fishing as well as hunting, while
CULTURAL DIVERSITY,
women procured wild plant products. Gender roles are C. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500
apparent in burials at Indian Knoll, in Kentucky, where After about 2500 B.C., many Native Americans moved
tools relating to hunting, fishing, woodworking, and beyond the ways of their Archaic forebears. The most
leatherworking were usually buried with men and those far-reaching transformation occurred among peoples
relating to cracking nuts and grinding seeds with whose cultivated crops were their primary sources of
women. Yet gender-specific distinctions did not apply food. Farming in some of these societies was so inten-
to all activities, for objects used by religious healers sive that it radically changed the environment. Some
were distributed equally between male and female nonfarming as well as farming societies transformed
graves. trade networks into extensive religious and political sys-
Archaic Indians—women in most North American tems linking several—sometimes dozens of—local com-
societies—honed their skills at harvesting wild plants. munities. Some of these groupings evolved into formal
Through generations of close observation, they deter- confederacies and even hierarchical states. In environ-
mined how to weed, prune, irrigate, transplant, burn, ments where food sources were few and widely scat-
and otherwise manipulate their environments to favor tered, mobile bands survived by hunting, fishing, and
plants that provided food and medicine. They also gathering.
developed specialized tools for digging and grinding as
well as more effective methods of drying and storing
Mesoamerica and South America
seeds. By 5000 B.C.—well before farming reached
Europe—some Native American farmers were planting As Mesoamerican farmers developed their methods, the
selected seeds for future harvesting. quantity and quality of their crops increased. Annual
The most sophisticated early plant cultivators lived production tripled at Tehuacan and Tamaulipas from
in Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America), par- 2500 to 2000 B.C., and selective breeding of maize result-
ticularly in the highland valleys of Tehuacan and ed in larger ears. Farmers also planted beans alongside
Tamaulipas. Indians there cultivated squash, gourds, maize. The beans eaten released an amino acid, lysine,
beans, chili peppers, and several species of fruits before in the maize that further heightened its nutritional
3000 B.C. At around this time, Tehuacan farmers began value. Higher yields and improved nutrition led some
experimenting with a lowlands plant called teosinte. societies to center their lives around farming. Over the
Some teosinte seeds grew in the mountain valleys, while next eight centuries, maize-based farming societies
others failed to grow. The successful seeds eventually spread throughout Mesoamerica.
evolved into a distinct but related species, called maize After 2000 B.C., some Mesoamerican farming soci-
or corn. The earliest ears of maize were about the size of eties produced crop surpluses that they traded to less-
an adult human finger—much smaller than the corn we populous, nonfarming neighbors. Expanding their trade
know today. contacts, a few of these societies established formal
6 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

exchange networks that enabled them to enjoy more issippi valley to the Amazon valley and the Andes
wealth and power than their partners. After 1200 B.C., a Mountains. A few states arose in Mesoamerica after A.D.
few communities, such as those of the Olmecs in 1 and in South America after A.D. 500. Although men
Mesoamerica (see Map 1.2) and Chavín de Huántar in ruled most chiefdoms and states, women served as
the Andes (see Map 1.3), developed into large urban chiefs in some Andean societies until the Spanish
centers, subordinating smaller neighbors. Unlike earlier arrived.
egalitarian societies, Indian cities were highly unequal, From capital cities with thousands of inhabitants,
with thousands of residents dominated by a few wealthy states centered at Monte Albán and Teotihuacán in
elites and with hereditary rulers claiming kinship with Mesoamerica (see Map 1.2) and at Wari in the Andes (see
religious deities. Laborers built elaborate religious tem- Map 1.3) drafted soldiers and waged bloody wars of con-
ples and palaces, including the earliest pyramids in the quest. Bureaucrats administered state territories, col-
Americas, and artisans created statues of the rulers and lected taxes, and managed huge public works projects.
the gods. Priests conducted ceremonies in enormous temples and
Although the hereditary rulers exercised absolute presided over religious hierarchies extending through-
power, their realms were limited to a few closely clus- out the states. The capital of the largest early state,
tered communities. Anthropologists term such political Teotihuacán, was situated about fifty miles northeast of
societies chiefdoms, as opposed to states in which cen- modern Mexico City and numbered about a hundred
tralized, hierarchical power and institutions extend thousand people at the height of its power between the
across broad spans of territory. Chiefdoms eventually second and seventh centuries A.D. At its center was a
emerged over much of the Americas, from the Miss- complex of pyramids, the largest of which, the Sun

MAP 1.2
Major Mesoamerican Cultures, c. 1000 B.C..–A.D.1519
The Aztecs consolidated earlier Mesoamerican cultural traditions. They were still expanding when invaded by Spain in 1519.

0 100 200 Miles

0 100 200 Kilometers

Gulf of Mexico
SIERRA M

uc o
Pán
RE AD

Tuxpan Tiho (Mérida)

OR

Mayapan Chichen Itzá

IEN

Uxmal Cozumel I.
Bay of Campeche
TA

Tula Tulum
CAMPECHE
L

VALLEY OF MEXICO Teotihuacan Quiahuitztlan

Tenochtitlan Texcoco Kimpech
Tlaxcala Zempoala NORTHERN
(Mexico City) LOWLANDS
Lake Texcoco
Antigua
Cholula
Vera Cruz YUCATÁN
Caribbean
Xicalango
PENINSULA
TEOTITLAN Sea
S Balsas pa
n

IE TABASCO
lo a
Us

RR Papa
um

A M
Uaxactún
ac

AD
RE
in

Palenque Piedras Tikal

ta

DEL Naranjo
SUR Negras SOUTHERN
Monte Alban Yaxchilan LOWLANDS Caracol
Aztec site Bonampak
Atoy Seibal
ac
Maya site G
Tehuantepec rÿ
alv Dos Pilas
a
Olmec site
CHIAPAS MAYA
Other ancient sites HIGHLANDS
XOCONUSCO Copán
Approximate extent of
Aztec Empire in 1519 A.D. PACIFIC Xoconocho
Approximate extent of OCEAN
Maya civilization, 150 B.C.–900 A.D.
 Cultural Diversity, c. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500 7

Pyramid, was about 1 million cubic meters in volume. Caribbean Sea PRE-INCA CULTURES
Teotihuacán dominated the peoples of the valley of ISTHMUS OF A m a zo n
PANAMA
Mexico, and its trade networks extended over much of co
ATLANTIC
Orino OCEAN
modern-day Mexico. Although Teotihuacán declined in
SOUTH
the eighth century, it exercised enormous influence on AMERICA
Moche Chavín de Huantar
the religion, government, and culture of its neighbors. Neg
ro
Quito

A N D
Teotihuacán’s greatest influence was on the Maya, A
ma
zo n
Wari Lake
Tumbes Titicaca
whose kingdom-states flourished from southern Mexico Cahuachi

a
eir
to Honduras between the seventh and fifteenth cen- Cajamarca Tiwanaku

Tocantins
ad
M

E
turies. The Maya moved far beyond their predecessors in

ATAC
Chavin state

DESER
HUAYLAS

S
VALLEY ca. 850–250 B.C.
Lima Cuzco
developing a calendar, a numerical system (which

AMA
CUZCO VALLEY
NazcaBRAZILIAN
culture

T
included the concept of zero), and a system of phonetic, ca. 100–800 A.D.
HIGHLANDS
hieroglyphic writing. Mayan scribes produced thou- Moche state
ca. 200–700 A.D.
sands of codices (singular, codex) in the form of pieces
PACIFIC

S
0 600 Miles
of bark paper glued into long, folded strips. The codices OCEAN

D E
and other books recorded religious ceremonies, histori- 0 600 Kilometers

cal traditions, and astronomical observations.

N
Other powerful states flourished in Mesoamerica

A
Maule
and South America until the fifteenth century, when two
mighty empires arose to challenge them. The first was
Inca Empire in 1532
the empire of the Aztecs (known at the time as the
Network of Inca roads
Mexica), who had migrated from the north during the
thirteenth century and settled on the shore of Lake
Texcoco as subjects of the local inhabitants. Over- 0 600 1200 Miles
throwing their rulers in 1428, the Aztecs went on to con-
0 600 1200 Kilometers
quer other cities around the lake and extended their
domain to the Gulf Coast (see Map 1.2). The Aztec
MAP 1.3
expansion took a bloody turn in the 1450s during a four- Major Andean Cultures, 900 B.C.–A.D.1432
year drought, which the Aztecs interpreted as a sign that Despite the challenges posed by the rugged Andes Mountains,
the gods, like themselves, were hungry. Aztec priests native peoples there developed several complex societies and
maintained that the only way to satisfy the gods was to cultures, culminating in the Inca Empire.
serve them human blood and hearts. From then on, con-
quering Aztec warriors sought captives for sacrifice in
order, as they believed, to nourish the gods.
A massive temple complex at the capital of
Tenochtitlan formed the sacred center of the Aztec
empire. The Great Temple consisted of two joined pyra-
mids and was surrounded by several smaller pyramids
and other buildings. Aztec culture reflected both
Mesoamerican tradition and the multicultural character
of the state. Most of the more than two hundred deities
they honored originated with earlier and contemporary
societies, including those they had subjugated. They
based their system of writing on the one developed cen-
turies before at Teotihuacán and their calendar on that
of the Maya.
To support the nearly two hundred thousand people
residing in and around Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs maxi-
mized their production of food. They drained swampy
areas and added rich soil from the lake bottom to the
chinampas (artificial islands) that formed. The highly
fertile chinampas enabled Aztec farmers to supply the
8 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

urban population with food. Aztec engineers devised an their realm. They had surrounded and weakened, but
elaborate irrigation system to provide fresh water for not subjugated, one neighboring rival, while another
both people and crops. blocked their westward expansion. Might the Aztecs
The Aztecs collected taxes from subjects living with- have expanded still farther? We will never know because,
in about a hundred miles of the capital. Conquered peo- seemingly from out of nowhere, Spanish conquistadores
ples farther away paid tribute, which replaced the free arrived in 1519 to alter forever the course of Meso-
exchanges of goods they had formerly carried on with american history (see Chapter 2).
the Aztecs and other neighbors. Trade beyond the Aztec Meanwhile, another empire had arisen far to the
domain was conducted by pochteca, professional mer- south. From their sumptuous capital at Cuzco, the Inca
chants who traveled in armed caravans. The pochteca people conquered and subordinated societies over
sought salt, cacao, jewelry, feathers, jaguar pelts, cotton, much of the Andes and adjacent regions after 1438. One
and precious stones and metals, including gold and key to the Incas’ expansion was their ability to produce
turquoise, the latter obtained from Indians in the and distribute a wide range of surplus crops, including
American Southwest. maize, beans, potatoes, and meats. They constructed
The Aztecs were still expanding in the early six- terraced irrigation systems for watering crops on uneven
teenth century, but rebellions constantly flared within terrain, perfected freeze-drying and other preservation
techniques, built vast storehouses, and constructed a
vast network of roads and bridges. The Inca were still
expanding when they were violently crushed in the six-
teenth century by another, even more far-flung empire,
the Spanish.

The Southwest
The Southwest (including the modern American
Southwest and most of northern Mexico) is a uniformly
arid region with a variety of landscapes. Waters from
rugged mountains and forested plateaus follow ancient
channels through vast expanses of desert on their way to
the gulfs of Mexico and California. The amount of water
has fluctuated over time, depending on climatic condi-
tions, but securing water has always been a challenge for
southwestern peoples. Nevertheless, some of them aug-
mented their supplies of water and became farmers.
Maize reached the Southwest via Mesoamerican
trade links by about 2500 B.C. Yet full-time farming
began only after 400 B.C., when the introduction of a
more drought-resistant strain enabled some farmers to
move from the highlands to drier lowlands. In the cen-
turies that followed, southwestern populations rose, and
Indian cultures were transformed. The two most influ-
ential new cultural traditions were the Hohokam and the
Anasazi.
The Hohokam emerged during the third century
B.C., when ancestors of the Pima and Tohono O’odham
Indians began farming in the Gila and Salt River valleys
of southern Arizona. Hohokam peoples built irrigation
canals that enabled them to harvest two crops a year, an
unprecedented feat in the arid environment. To con-
struct and maintain their canals, the Hohokam organ-
ized large, coordinated work forces. They built perma-
 Cultural Diversity, c. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500 9

nent towns, usually consisting of several hundred peo- tures in which men conducted religious ceremonies. To
ple. Although many towns remained independent, oth- this day, Anasazi-style apartments and kivas are central
ers joined confederations in which several towns were features of Pueblo Indian architecture in the Southwest.
linked by canals. The central village in each confedera- The height of Anasazi culture occurred between
tion coordinated labor, trade, religion, and political life about 900 and 1150, during an unusually wet period in
for all member communities. the Southwest. In Chaco Canyon, a cluster of twelve
Although a local creation, Hohokam culture drew large towns forged a powerful confederation numbering
extensively on Mesoamerican materials and ideas. about fifteen thousand people. A system of roads radiat-
From about the sixth century A.D., the large villages ed from the canyon to satellite towns as far as sixty-five
had ball courts and platform mounds similar to those miles away. The roads were perfectly straight; their
in Mesoamerica at the time. Mesoamerican influence builders even carved out stairs or footholds on the sides
was also apparent in the creations of Hohokam of steep cliffs rather than go around them. By controlling
artists, who worked in clay, stone, turquoise, and rainwater runoff through small dams and terraces, the
shell. Archaeologists have uncovered rubber balls, towns fed themselves as well as the satellites. The largest
macaw feathers, cottonseeds, and copper bells from of the towns, Pueblo Bonito, had about twelve hundred
Mesoamerica at Hohokam sites. inhabitants and was the home of two Great Kivas, each
The culture of the Anasazi, a Navajo term meaning about fifty feet in diameter. People traveled over the
ancient ones, originated during the first century B.C.. in roads from the satellites to Chaco Canyon’s large kivas
the Four Corners area where Arizona, New Mexico, for religious ceremonies. The canyon was also a major
Colorado, and Utah meet. By around A.D. 700, the trade center, importing and exporting a wide range of
Anasazi people were harvesting crops, living in perma- materials from and to Mesoamerica, the Great Plains,
nent villages, and making pottery. Thereafter, they the Mississippi valley, and California.
expanded over a wide area and became the most power- The classic Anasazi culture, as manifested at Chaco
ful people in the Southwest. Canyon, Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado, and
One of the distinguishing characteristics of Anasazi other sites, came to an end in the twelfth and thirteenth
culture was its architecture. Anasazi villages consisted of centuries. Although other factors contributed, the over-
extensive complexes of attached apartments and stor- riding cause of the Anasazi demise was drought. As has
age rooms, along with kivas, partly underground struc- often happened in human history, an era of especially
10 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

abundant rainfall, which the Anasazi thought would last larger mound could watch the sun rise directly over the
forever, abruptly ended. Without enough water, the village center. As in some Mesoamerican societies at
highly concentrated inhabitants abandoned the great the time, solar observations were the basis for religious
Anasazi centers, dispersing to form new, smaller pueb- beliefs and a calendar.
los. Their descendants would encounter Spanish colo- Poverty Point was the center of a much larger politi-
nizers three centuries later (see Chapter 2). Other con- cal and economic unit. The settlement imported large
centrated communities, including the Hohokam, also quantities of quartz, copper, obsidian, crystal, and other
dispersed when drought came. With farming peoples sacred materials from long distances for redistribution
now clustered in the few areas with enough water, the to nearby communities. These communities almost cer-
drier lands of the Southwest attracted the nonfarming tainly supplied some of the labor for the earth-
Apaches and Navajos, whose arrival at the end of the works. Poverty Point’s general design and organization
fourteenth century ended their long migration from the indicate Olmec influence from Mesoamerica (see
far north (mentioned above). above). Poverty Point flourished for about three cen-
turies and then declined, for reasons unknown.
Nevertheless, it foreshadowed later developments in the
The Eastern Woodlands
Eastern Woodlands.
In contrast to the Southwest, the Eastern Woodlands— A different kind of mound-building culture, called
the vast expanse stretching from the Mississippi valley Adena, emerged in the Ohio valley around 400 B.C.
to the Atlantic Ocean—had abundant water. Water and Adena villages were smaller than Poverty Point, rarely
deciduous forests provided Woodlands Indians with a exceeding four hundred inhabitants. But Adena people
rich variety of food sources, while the region’s extensive spread over a wide area and built hundreds of mounds,
river systems facilitated long-distance communication most of them containing graves. The treatment of Adena
and travel. As a result, many eastern Indians established dead varied according to social or political status. Some
populous villages and complex confederations well corpses were cremated; others were placed in round clay
before adopting full-time, maize-based farming. basins; and still others were given elaborate tombs.
By 1200 B.C., about five thousand people lived at After 100 B.C. Adena culture evolved into a more
Poverty Point on the lower Mississippi River. The town complex and widespread culture known as Hopewell,
featured earthworks consisting of two large mounds and which spread from the Ohio valley to the Illinois River
six concentric embankments, the outermost of which valley. Some Hopewell centers contained two or three
spanned more than half a mile in diameter. During the dozen mounds within enclosures of several square
spring and autumn equinoxes, a person standing on the miles. The variety and quantity of goods buried with
 Cultural Diversity, c. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500 11

members of the elite were also greater. Hopewell elites dwarfed that of the Adena and Hopewell peoples. As in
were buried with thousands of freshwater pearls or cop- Mesoamerica, Mississippian centers, numbering hun-
per ornaments or with sheets of mica, quartz, or other dreds or even thousands of people, arose around open
sacred substances. Hopewell artisans fashioned fine plazas. Large platform mounds adjoined the plazas,
ornaments and jewelry, which their owners wore in life topped by sumptuous religious temples and the resi-
and took to their graves. The raw materials for these dences of chiefs and other elites. Religious ceremonies
objects originated in locales throughout America east of focused on the worship of the sun as the source of agri-
the Rockies. Through far-flung trade networks, Hopewell cultural fertility. The people considered chiefs to be
religious and technological influence spread to commu- related to the sun. When a chief died, his wives and ser-
nities as far away as Wisconsin, Missouri, Florida, and vants were killed so that they could accompany him in
New York. Although the great Hopewell centers were the afterlife. Largely in connection with their religious
abandoned by about 600 (for reasons that are unclear), and funeral rituals, Mississippian artists produced high-
they had an enormous influence on subsequent devel- ly sophisticated work in clay, stone, shell, copper, wood,
opments in eastern North America. and other materials.
The peoples of Poverty Point and the Adena and After A.D. 900, Mississippian centers formed exten-
Hopewell cultures did little farming. Indian women in sive networks based on river-borne trade and shared
Kentucky and Missouri had cultivated small amounts of religious beliefs, each dominated by a single metropolis.
squash as early as 2500 B.C., and maize first appeared The most powerful such system centered around
east of the Mississippi by 300 B.C.. But agriculture did Cahokia located near modern St. Louis (see A Place in
not become a dietary mainstay for Woodlands people Time: Cahokia in 1200).
until between the seventh and twelfth centuries A.D., as For about two and a half centuries, Cahokia reigned
women moved beyond gathering and minor cultivating supreme in the Mississippi valley. After A.D. 1200, howev-
activities to become the major producers of food. er, Cahokia and other valley centers experienced short-
The first full-time farmers in the East lived on the ages of food and other resources. As in the Southwest,
floodplains of the Mississippi River and its major tribu- densely concentrated societies had taxed a fragile envi-
taries. Beginning around A.D. 700, they developed a ronment with a fluctuating climate. One result was com-
new culture, called Mississippian. The volume of petition for suddenly scarce resources, which led to
Mississippian craft production and long-distance trade debilitating warfare and the undermining of Cahokia and
 A Place in Time
Cahokia in
1200

Between the tenth and religious institutions. By the twelfth century, some
thirteenth centuries, a scholars believe, Cahokia was the capital of a potential
city of about twenty nation-state.
thousand people flour- Archaeology provides evidence of what Cahokians
ished near the conflu- made and left in the ground as well as clues to their
ence of the Mississippi social structure, trade networks, and beliefs. Work gangs
and Missouri Rivers. collected soil for the mounds with shovels made of wood
Called Cahokia, it filled and stone and carried the dirt in baskets to construction
more than 6 square sites, often more than half a mile away. Much of the work
miles and contained force for this backbreaking labor undoubtedly was
more than 120 earthworks. At its center, a four-terraced drawn from neighboring towns, which also contributed
structure called Monk’s Mound covered 15 acres (more agricultural surpluses to feed specialized artisans and
than the Great Pyramids of Egypt) and rose a hundred feet elites in the city. The artisans produced pottery, shell
at its highest point. Surrounding the city, a 125-square-mile beads, copper ornaments, clothing, stone tools, and a
metropolitan area encompassed ten large towns and more range of other goods. Indians brought the raw materials
than fifty farming villages. In addition, Cahokia dominated for these objects from locations throughout eastern and
a vast network of commercial and political alliances central North America as tribute—payment by societies
extending over much of the American heartland. subordinated by Cahokia—or in return for the finished
Cahokia’s beginnings lay in the seventh century A.D.,
as Native Americans in the East were shifting to farming
as their primary means of procuring food. In search of
better soil, several small villages moved to the low flood-
plain extending eastward from the Mississippi around
what is now the Illinois side of greater St. Louis. Around
A.D. 900, these villages began their transformation into a
city with the construction of several mounds. Two cen-
turies later, a stockade enclosed Monk’s Mound and
numerous other public structures, and most of the city’s
residents lived outside the walled precincts.
Cahokia was ideally situated for preeminence in
mid-America. Its fertile land yielded surplus agricultural
crops, which the women harvested, and the river provid-
ed rich supplies of fish and mussels. Game and wild
plants abounded in nearby uplands. The city had ready
access not only to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
but also to the Ohio and Illinois Rivers, where Adena and
Hopewell peoples had previously developed extensive
trade networks based on shared religious beliefs.
Cahokia and other Mississippian societies drew on
Hopewell beliefs and new ideas from Mexico as they
erected even more complex political, economic, and

12
products. The coordination of labor, trade, and other gion. This burial and others at Cahokia appear to be
activities also required a sizable class of managers or based on similar beliefs.
overseers. Atop all these were the political and religious By 1200 Cahokia had reached its peak. During the
leaders, whose overpowering roles are confirmed by century that followed, it declined in size and power,
eighteenth-century French accounts of a similar society while other centers in the Southeast and Midwest sur-
among the Natchez Indians near Louisiana. passed it. Although the causes of this decline are not
Archaeologists also find evidence of social ranking certain, the archaeological evidence provides clues.
at Cahokia in the treatment of the dead. Most people First, neighboring communities were straining to pro-
were buried in mass graves outside the city, but more duce enough crops to feed themselves and the many
prestigious commoners were placed in ridge-top Cahokians who did not grow their own food. Second, the
mounds, and those of highest status in conical mounds. city’s demands for fuel and construction materials were
In the most remarkable mound, a man was laid out on a seriously reducing the supply of wood in and around
platform of twenty thousand beads made from shells Cahokia. This depletion of the forests also deprived resi-
originating in the Gulf of Mexico. He was surrounded by dents of the animals and wild plants on which they
bushels of mica from the Appalachians, a sheet of rolled depended for food. Third, the strengthening of the
copper from Lake Superior, and quivers of arrows from stockade surrounding central Cahokia suggests that the
communities throughout the Mississippi valley. This elites were facing a military challenge from inside or
extraordinary man did not go to his grave alone. An adja- outside the city, or both. Finally, the trade networks that
cent pit contained the bodies of fifty young females in formerly brought tribute to Cahokia and carried away
their late teens and early twenties; another held the the city’s finished products had collapsed. Taken togeth-
remains of four men whose heads and hands were cut er, these trends indicate that a combination of environ-
off; and a third included three men and three women. mental factors and resistance to centralized authority
French witnesses describe how, when a Natchez ruler probably led to Cahokia’s downfall. By the time the
died, his wife, servants, guards, and others personally French explorer La Salle passed through in 1682 (see
attached to him were killed so that they could accompa- Chapter 3), Cahokia was a small village of Illinois
ny him in the afterlife. The people called this ruler the Indians who, like other native peoples of the region, had
Great Sun to denote his position as an earthly represen- abandoned Mississippian religious and political systems
tative of the sun, the central focus of Mississippian reli- for the autonomous villages of their ancestors.

13
14 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

its allies . The survivors fled to the surrounding prairies

Nonfarming Societies
and, in some cases, westward to the lower valleys of the
Plains. By the fifteenth century, their descendants were Outside the Southwest and the Eastern Woodlands,
living in villages linked by reciprocity rather than coer- farming north of Mesoamerica was either impossible
cion. Mississippian chiefdoms and temple mound cen- because of inhospitable environments or impractical
ters persisted in the Southeast, where Spanish explorers because native peoples could obtain enough food from
would later encounter them (see Chapter 2). wild sources with less work. On the Northwest coast,
Despite Cahokia’s decline, Mississippian culture from the Alaskan panhandle to northern California, and
profoundly affected Native Americans in the Eastern in the Columbia Plateau, Indians devoted brief periods
Woodlands. Mississippians spread new strains of maize of each year to catching salmon and other spawning
and beans, along with techniques and tools for cultivat- fish. After drying the fish, they stored it in quantities suf-
ing these crops, enabling women to weave agriculture ficient to last the year. As a result, their seasonal move-
into the fabric of village life. Only in some northerly ments gave way to a settled lifestyle in permanent vil-
areas was the growing season usually too short for maize lages. For example, the Makah Indians of Ozette, on
(which required 120 frost-free days) to be a reliable crop. Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, pursued fish and sea
Woodland peoples’ slash-and-burn method of land mammals, including whales, while procuring shellfish,
management was environmentally sound and econom- salmon and other river fish, land mammals, and wild
ically productive. Indian men systematically burned plants.
hardwood forests, eliminating the underbrush and By A.D. 1, most Northwest Coast villages numbered
forming open, parklike expanses. Although they occa- several hundred people who lived in multifamily houses
sionally lost control of a fire, so that it burned beyond built of cedar planks. Trade and warfare with interior
their hunting territory, the damage was not lasting. groups strengthened the wealth and power of chiefs and
Burned-over tracts favored the growth of grass and other elites. Leading families displayed their power in
berry bushes that attracted a profusion of deer and elaborate totem poles depicting their descent from spir-
other game. They then cleared fields so that women itual figures, and in potlatches—ceremonies in which
could plant corn, beans, and pumpkins in soil enriched they gave away or destroyed their material wealth. From
by ash. After several years of abundant harvests, yields the time of the earliest contacts, Europeans were
declined, and the Indians moved to another site to amazed by the artistic and architectural achievements of
repeat the process. Ground cover eventually reclaimed the Northwest Coast Indians. “What must astonish
the abandoned clearing, restoring fertility naturally, most,” wrote a French explorer in 1791, “is to see paint-
and the Indians could return. ing everywhere, everywhere sculpture, among a nation
of hunters.”
At about the same time, Native Americans on the
coast and in the valleys of what is now California were
clustering in villages of about a hundred people to coor-
dinate the processing of acorns. After gathering millions
of acorns from California’s extensive oak groves each fall,
the Indians ground them into meal, leached them of
their bitter tannic acid, and then roasted, boiled, or
baked the nuts prior to eating or storing them. Facing
intense competition for acorns, California Indians com-
bined their villages into chiefdoms and defended their
territories. Chiefs conducted trade, diplomacy, war, and
religious ceremonies. Along with other wild species,
acorns enabled the Indians of California to prosper.
As a Spanish friar arriving in California from Mexico in
1770 wrote, “This land exceeds all the preceding terri-
tory in fertility and abundance of things necessary for
sustenance.”
Between the Eastern Woodlands and the Pacific
coast, the Plains and deserts remained too dry to sup-
 Cultural Diversity, c. 2500 B.C.–A.D. 1500 15

port large human settlements. Dividing the region are

the Rocky Mountains, to the east of which lie the grass-
lands of the Great Plains, while to the west are several
deserts of varying elevations that ecologists call the
Great Basin. Except in the Southwest, Native Americans
in this region remained in mobile hunting-gathering
bands.
Plains Indian hunters pursued a variety of game ani-
mals, including antelope, deer, elk, and bear, but their
favorite prey was buffalo, or bison, a smaller relative of
the giant bison that had flourished before the arrival of
humans. Buffalo provided Plains Indians with meat and
with hides, from which they made clothing, bedding,
portable houses (tipis), kettles, shields, and other items.
They made tools from buffalo bones and containers and
arrowheads from buffalo horns, and they used most
other buffalo parts as well. Limited to travel by foot,
Plains hunters stampeded herds of bison into small box
canyons, easily killing the trapped animals, or over cliffs.
Dozens, or occasionally hundreds, of buffalo would be
killed. Since a single buffalo could provide two hundred
to four hundred pounds of meat and a band had no
means of preserving and storing most of it, the latter
practice was especially wasteful. On the other hand, trends by relying more heavily on piñon nuts, which
humans were so few in number that they had no signifi- they harvested, stored, and ate in winter camps.
cant impact on the bison population before the arrival of Hunting improved after about A.D. 500, when Indians in
Europeans. There are no reliable estimates of the num- the region adopted the bow and arrow.
ber of buffalo then roaming the Plains, but the earliest In western Alaska, where the first Americans had
European observers were flabbergasted. One Spanish appeared thousands of years earlier, Eskimos and
colonist, for example, witnessed a “multitude so great Aleuts, carrying highly sophisticated tools and weapons
that it might be considered a falsehood by one who had from their Siberian homeland, arrived after 3000 B.C.
not seen them.” Combining ivory, bone, and other materials, they fash-
During and after the Mississippian era, groups of ioned harpoons and spears for the pursuit of sea
Eastern Woodlands Indians migrated to the lower river mammals and—in the case of the Eskimos—caribou.
valleys of the Plains, where over time the rainfall had Through continued contacts with Siberia, the Eskimos
increased enough to support cultivated plants. In con- introduced the bow and arrow in North America. As they
trast to Native Americans already living on the Plains, perfected their ways of living in the cold tundra environ-
such as the Blackfeet and the Crow, farming newcomers ment, many Eskimos spread westward across upper
like the Mandans and Pawnees built year-round villages Canada and to Greenland.
and permanent earth lodges. But they also hunted buf- Long before the arrival of Columbus, some Eskimos
falo and other animals. (Many of the Plains Indians and Indians made contact with Europeans and used
familiar today, such as the Sioux and Comanche, moved some of their material goods. From about A.D. 1, Eskimos
to the region only after Europeans had begun colonizing in western Alaska acquired European-made iron tools by
North America [see Chapter 4].) way of Russia and Siberia. However, the tools were too
As Indians elsewhere increased their food produc- few in number to affect Eskimo culture in any substantial
tion, the Great Basin grew warmer and dryer, further way. Contacts between Native Americans and Europeans
limiting already scarce sources of foods. Ducks and were more direct and sustained after about 980, when
other waterfowl on which Native Americans formerly Norse expansionists from Scandinavia colonized parts of
feasted disappeared as marshlands dried up after 1200 Greenland. The Greenland Norse hunted furs, obtained
B.C., and the number of buffalo and other game animals timber, and traded with Eskimo people on the eastern
also dwindled. Great Basin Indians countered these Canadian mainland. They also made several attempts,
16 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

beginning in about 1000, to colonize Vinland, as they nations and tribes, and spoke hundreds of languages and
called Newfoundland. The Vinland Norse initially dialects.
exchanged metal goods for ivory with the local Despite the vast differences among Native Americans,
Beothuk Indians, but peaceful trade gave way to hos- much bound them together. Rooted in common practices,
tile encounters. Within a century, Beothuk resistance Indian societies were based on kinship, the norms of reci-
led the Norse to withdraw from Vinland. As a Norse procity, and communal use and control of resources.
leader, dying after losing a battle with some natives, Trade facilitated the exchange not only of goods but also of
put it, “There is fat around my belly! We have won a technologies and ideas. Thus, the bow and arrow, ceramic
fine and fruitful country, but will hardly be allowed to pottery, and certain religious values and practices charac-
enjoy it.” Although some Norse remained in Greenland terized Indians everywhere.
as late as the 1480s, it was other Europeans who would
enjoy, at the expense of native peoples, the fruits of a
Kinship and Gender
“New World.”
Although the peoples of the Western and Eastern Like their Archaic forebears, Indian peoples north of the
Hemispheres developed entirely apart from one anoth- Mesoamerican states were bound together primarily by
er, their histories are in many ways comparable. Yet kinship. Ties among biological relatives created complex
environmental and other limitations prevented some patterns of social obligation and interdependence, even
features of Eurasian and African cultures from arising in in societies that did not expect spouses to be married
the Americas. Most fundamental was the unavailability forever. Customs regulating marriage varied consider-
of animals that could have been domesticated (other ably, but strict rules always prevailed. In most cultures,
than llamas in the Andes and dogs). Lacking cattle, young people married in their teens, after winning social
sheep, and hogs, Native Americans relied on wild meat acceptance as adults and, generally, after a period of sex-
instead of producing their own. Without horses, they ual experimentation. Sometimes male leaders took
had no incentive to develop the wheel (although the more than one wife, but nuclear families (a husband, a
Maya made children’s toys with wheels). There is no wife, and their biological children) never stood alone.
telling how American history might have unfolded in Instead, they lived with one of the parents’ relatives in
the absence of the European invasions that began in what social scientists call extended families.
1492. In some Native American societies, such as the
Iroquois, the extended families of women took prece-
dence over those of men. Upon marriage, a new hus-
NORTH AMERICAN PEOPLES band moved in with his wife’s extended family. The
ON THE EVE OF primary male authority figure in a child’s life was the
mother’s oldest brother, not the father. In many respects,
EUROPEAN CONTACT a husband and father was simply a guest of his wife’s
By A.D. 1500, native peoples had transformed the family. Other Indian societies recognized men’s extend-
Americas into a dazzling array of cultures and societies ed families as primary, and still others did not distin-
(see Map 1.4). The Western Hemisphere numbered about guish sharply between the status of female and male
75 million people, most thickly clustered in urbanized family lines.
areas of Mesoamerica and South America. But North Kinship was also the basis for armed conflict. Indian
America was no empty wasteland. Between 7 million and societies typically considered homicide a matter to be
10 million Indians lived north of Mesoamerica. They resolved by the extended families of the victim and the
were unevenly distributed. As they had for thousands of perpetrator. If the perpetrator’s family offered a gift that
years, small, mobile hunting bands peopled the Arctic, the victim’s family considered appropriate, the question
Subarctic, Great Basin, and much of the Plains. More was settled; if not, political leaders attempted to resolve
sedentary societies based on fishing or gathering pre- the dispute. Otherwise, the victim’s family members and
dominated along the Pacific coast, while village-based their supporters might seek to avenge the killing by
agriculture was typical in the Eastern Woodlands and the armed retaliation. Such feuds could escalate into wars
river valleys of the Southwest and Plains. Mississippian between communities. The potential for war rose when
urban centers still prevailed in areas of the Southeast. All densely populated societies competed for scarce
these peoples grouped themselves in several hundred resources, as on the Northwest and California coasts,
 North American Peoples on the Eve of European Contact 17

and when centralized Mississippian societies used coer- England officer, writing in the seventeenth century,
cion to dominate trade networks. Yet Native American described a battle between two Indian groups as “more
warfare generally remained minimal, with rivals seeking for pastime than to conquer and subdue enemies.” He
to humiliate one another and seize captives rather than concluded that “they might fight seven years and not kill
inflict massive casualties or conquer land. A New seven men.”

MAP 1.4
Locations of Selected Native American Peoples, A.D. 1500
Today’s Indian nations were well established in homelands across the continent when Europeans first arrived.
Many would combine with others or move in later centuries, either voluntarily or because they were forced.

ARCTIC

Eskimo

Eskimo
Aleut

ARCTIC
Dogrib
Inuit

ARCTIC
Tlingit Kaska Inuit
Slavey Chippewyan
Naskapi
Tsmishian
Beaver
SUBARCTIC Cree
Haida Beothuk
NORTHWEST Sarsi Cree
COAST Kwakiutl Innu

Nootka Shuswap Blackfeet

Okanagan
Salish
Sanpoil
Gros
Ventre Assiniboin Ojibwa
Chinook Yakima Ottawa
PLATEAU Iroquois

i
ak
en
Menominis
Onondaga

Nez Percé
Flathead Mandan Sioux Ab
Mohawk

Crow Massachusett
Cayuga
Seneca
Oneida
go

Sac Huron
Arikara Wampanoag
Winneba

PACIFIC Fox
Cheyenne Narragansett
Potawatomi
OCEAN Pequot
Susquehannock
Yurok Shoshone GREAT PLAINS Delaware
Pawnee Erie
Pomo Miami
Washo GREAT BASIN Illinois Shawnee
Miwok Arapaho
EASTERN Powhatan
Paiute Ute
Osage WOODLANDS
e
ke

Chumash Wichita Tuscarora

ero

Walapais Navajo Catawba

CALIFORNIA Kiowa
Ch

Mohave Hopi
Zuni Pueblo
Yuma Chickasaw
Creek
Guale ATLANTIC
Pima Caddo Choctaw (Yamasee)
Natchez OCEAN
Timucua
SOUTHWEST

GULF OF MEXICO
0 500 Miles

0 500 Kilometers Taino

18 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

Women did most of the cultivating in farming things, rocks and water, sun and moon, even ghosts and
societies except in the Southwest (where women and witches. For example, Indian hunters prayed to the spir-
men shared the responsibility). With women produc- its of the animals they killed, thanking them for the gift
ing the greater share of the food supply, some soci- of food.
eties accorded them more power than did Europeans. Indians had several ways of gaining access to spiri-
Among the Iroquois, for example, women collectively tual power. One was through dreams. Most Native
owned the fields, distributed food, and played a deci- Americans took very seriously the visions that came to
sive role in selecting chiefs. In New England, women them in sleep. Some also sought power through difficult
often served as sachems, or political leaders. physical ordeals. Young men in many societies gained
recognition as adults through a vision quest—a solitary
venture that entailed fasting and awaiting the appear-
Spiritual and Social Values
ance of a spirit who would endow them with special
Native American religions revolved around the convic- powers and sometimes, as in Hiawatha’s case, entrust
tion that all nature was alive, pulsating with spiritual them with a message of import for their people. Girls
power—manitou in the Algonquian languages, orenda underwent rituals at the onset of menstruation to initi-
in the Iroquoian, and wakan in the Siouan. A mysteri- ate them into the spiritual world from which female
ous, awe-inspiring force that could affect human life for reproductive power flowed. Entire communities often
both good and evil, such power united all nature in an practiced collective power-seeking rituals such as the
unbroken web. Manitou encompassed “every thing Sun Dance, performed by Indians of the Plains and
which they cannot comprehend,” reported Rhode Great Basin.
Island’s Roger Williams. Native Americans endeavored Native Americans who had gained special religious
to conciliate the spiritual forces in their world—living powers assisted others in communicating with unseen
 Conclusion 19

spirits. These medicine men and women were healers observer in early-seventeenth-century Canada clearly
who used both medicinal plants and magical chants to understood: “For the savages have that noble quality,
cure illnesses. They also served as spiritual advisers and that they give liberally, casting at the feet of him whom
leaders, interpreting dreams, guiding vision quests, and they will honor the present that they give him. But it is
conducting ceremonies. Chiefs claiming kinship with with hope to receive some reciprocal kindness, which is
spiritual forces had to maintain respectful relations with a kind of contract, which we call . . . ’I give thee, to the
these religious leaders to support their claims. end thou shouldst give me.’ ”
Native American societies demanded a strong
degree of cooperation. From early childhood, Indians in
most cultures learned to be accommodating and
CONCLUSION
reserved—slow to reveal their own feelings until they When Europeans “discovered” America in 1492, they did
could sense the feelings of others. Using physical pun- not, as they thought, enter a static world of simple sav-
ishment sparingly, if at all, Indians punished children ages. For thousands of years, Native Americans had
psychologically, by public shaming. Communities tapped the secrets of the land, sustaining themselves
sought unity through consensus rather than tolerating and flourishing in almost every environment. Native
lasting divisions. Political leaders articulated slowly Americans transformed the landscape, as evidenced by
emerging agreements in dramatic oratory. The English their hunting camps, communities, and cornfields. But
colonizer John Smith noted that the most effective Indians never viewed these accomplishments as evi-
Native American leaders spoke “with vehemency and so dence of their ability to conquer nature. Rather, they saw
great passions that they sweat till they drop and are so themselves as participants in a natural and spiritual
out of breath they scarce can speak.” order that pervaded the universe, and their attitudes, as
Native Americans reinforced cooperation with a expressed in their religious practices, were gratitude and
strong sense of order. Custom, the demands of social concern lest they violate that order.
conformity, and the rigors of nature strictly regulated life These beliefs did not necessarily make all Native
and people’s everyday affairs. Exacting familial or com- Americans careful conservationists. Plains hunters
munity revenge was a ritualized way of restoring order often killed more animals than they could eat; and
that had broken down. On the other hand, the failure of eastern Indians sometimes burned more land than
measures to restore order could bring the fearful conse- intended. But the effect of such acts were limited;
quences experienced by Hiawatha’s Iroquois—blind Indians did not repeat them often enough to eliminate
hatred, unending violence, and the most dreaded of entire species. However, some Indians’ actions were
evils, witchcraft. In fearing witchcraft, Native Americans more consequential. The decline of the great Anasazi
resembled the Europeans and Africans they would and Mississippian centers resulted from excessive
encounter after 1492. demands placed on their environments by large con-
The principle of reciprocity, perfected in Archaic centrations of people.
times, remained strong among Native Americans. After 1500, a new attitude toward the land made
Reciprocity involved mutual give-and-take, but its aim itself felt in North America. “A people come from under
was not to ensure equality. Instead, societies based on the world, to take their world from them”—thus a
reciprocity tried to maintain equilibrium and interde- Mannahoac Indian characterized the English who
pendence between individuals of unequal power and invaded his homeland to found Virginia. Certain that
prestige. Even in the most complex societies, chiefs God had given Christians dominion over nature,
coordinated families’ uses of land and other resources, European newcomers claimed vast expanses of territo-
but never awarded these outright. ry for their crowned heads. They divided much of the
Most Indian leaders’ authority depended on the land into plots, each to be owned by an individual or
obligations they bestowed rather than on coercion. By family and to be valued according to the wealth it pro-
distributing gifts, they obligated members of the com- duced. Over the ensuing centuries, they ignored and
munity to support them and to accept their authority, even belittled Native American strategies that allowed
however limited. The same principle applied to relations natural resources to renew themselves. The modern
between societies. Powerful communities distributed society that has arisen on the Indians’ ancient conti-
gifts to weaker neighbors who reciprocated with tribute nent bears little resemblance to the world that Native
in the form of material goods and submission. A French Americans once knew.
20 CHAPTER 1 Native Peoples of America, to 1500

C H R O N O L O G Y 13,000 B . C . – A . D . 1500 FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

READINGS
c. 13,000 B.C. People present in America.
c. 10,500–9000 B.C. Paleo-Indians established The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the
throughout Western Hemisphere. Americas (3 vols., 1996–2000).Volumes on North
America, Mesoamerica, and South America, each con-
c. 9000 B.C. Extinction of big-game mammals.
taining authoritative essays by archaeologists and histo-
c. 8000 B.C. Earliest Archaic societies. rians covering the entire expanse of Native American
c. 7000 B.C. Athapaskan-speaking peoples enter history.
North America. Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary A. Joyce, eds., Women in
c. 5000 B.C. First domesticated plants grown. Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica (1997).
c. 3000 B.C. First maize grown in Mesoamerica. Fourteen essays draw on and examine archaeological
c. 3000–2000 B.C. Eskimo and Aleut peoples enter evidence of women’s roles and gender identity in a range
North America from Siberia. of Native American societies.
Thomas D. Dillehay, The Settlement of the Americas: A New
c. 2500 B.C. Archaic societies begin giving way to a
Prehistory (2000). An excellent critical review of current
more diverse range of cultures. First
scholarly debates on the earliest Americans.
maize grown in North America.
Brian Fagan, Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a
c. 1200 B.C. First chiefdoms emerge. Continent (2000). A comprehensive introduction to the
c. 1200–900 B.C. Poverty Point flourishes in continent’s history before Europeans’ arrival.
Louisiana. William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward, eds., Vikings:
c. 400–100 B.C. Adena culture flourishes in Ohio valley. The North Atlantic Saga (2000). Thirty-one essays, along
c. 250 B.C. Hohokam culture begins in Southwest. with hundreds of illustrations, cover virtually everything
scholars now know about Norse colonization in the
c. 100 B.C. Anasazi culture begins in Southwest.
North Atlantic.
c. 100 B.C.–A.D. 600 Hopewell culture thrives in Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., America in 1492: The World of the
Midwest. Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus (1992).
c. A.D. 1 Rise of chiefdoms on Northwest Coast Highly readable regional and thematic essays on life in
and in California. the Western Hemisphere on the eve of European contact.
c. 100–700 Teotihuacán flourishes in Mesoamerica. Shepard Krech III, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History
c. 600–1400 Mayan kingdoms flourish. (1999). A controversial, well-informed critique of the
c. 700 Mississippian culture begins. Anasazi idea that Native Americans invariably lived in harmony
expansion begins. with nature before Europeans arrived.
Lynda Norene Shaffer, Native Americans Before 1492: The
c. 900 Urban center arises at Cahokia.
Moundbuilding Centers of the Eastern Woodlands (1992).
c. 980 Norse arrive in Greenland. A thoughtful, readable interpretation of eastern mound-
c. 1000–1100 Norse attempt to colonize Vinland builders from Poverty Point to the Mississippians.
(Newfoundland). William C. Sturtevant, gen. ed., Handbook of North
c. 1200 Anasazi and Hohokam peoples disperse American Indians (20 vols. projected, 1978– ). A reference
in Southwest. work, still in progress, providing basic information on
c. 1200–1400 Cahokia declines and inhabitants disperse. the history and culture of Native American societies, as
well as surveys of regional archaeology and essays on
c. 1400 League of the Iroquois formed.
topics of special interest.
1428 Rise of Aztec Empire. Lawrence E. Sullivan, ed., Native American Religions: North
1438 Rise of Inca Empire. America (1989). Essays focusing on religious life and
1492 Christopher Columbus reaches Western expression throughout the continent.
Hemisphere.
 For Further Reference 21

WEBSITES Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

http://www.mashantucket.com/index1.html
American Indian History and Related Issues
(Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center,
http://www.csulb.edu/projects/ais/index.html#north
Mashantucket, CT) Includes discussion of the museum’s
(American Indian Studies Program, California State
ongoing archaeological research, an introduction to its
University, Long Beach) Provides links to hundreds of
collection of more than two thousand objects, and an
sites relating to Native Americans before and after 1492.
online information resources catalog. Emphasis on
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site northeastern Native Americans, especially in New
http://medinfo.wustl.edu/!mckinney/cahokia/cahokia.html England.
(Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Collinsville, IL)
Sipapu: The Anasazi Emergence into the Cyber World
An introduction to archaeology at Cahokia, with visitor
http://sipapu.gsu.edu/
information about the site of North America’s earliest
(John Kantner, Department of Anthropology and
metropolis.
Geography, Georgia State University, Atlanta) An excel-
lent site that enables visitors to explore Anasazi struc-
tures as well as learn about the history of a major south-
western culture.

Next Chapter
 CHAPTER 2

The Rise of the Atlantic World,

1400–1625

A t ten o’clock on a moonlit night the tense crew spotted a glimmering

light. At two the next morning came the shout, “Land! Land!” At daybreak
they entered a shallow lagoon. The captain, Christopher Columbus, rowed
ashore, the royal flag fluttering in the breeze. “And, all having rendered
thanks to the Lord, kneeling on the ground, embracing it with tears of joy for
the immeasurable mercy of having reached it, [he] rose and gave this island
the name San Salvador.” The date was October 12, 1492. The place was a tiny
tropical island less than four hundred miles southeast of present-day
Florida.
Other than his crew, the only witnesses to Columbus’s landing were some
Taíno Indians who watched from a distance as he claimed for Spain the
island that they called Guanahaní. Soon curiosity overcame their fears.
Gesturing and smiling, the Taínos walked down to the beach, where the new-
comers quickly noticed the cigars they offered and the gold pendants in their
noses.
The voyagers learned to savor the islanders’ tobacco and trade for golden
ornaments. Columbus was sure that he had reached Asia—the Indies. Two
months later, bringing with him some “Indians” and various souvenirs, he CHAPTER OUTLINE
sailed home to tell of “a land to be desired and, once seen, never to be left.”
African and European Peoples

Europe and the Atlantic World,

! 1440–1600

Footholds in North America,

1512–1625

23
24 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

Columbus’ achievement marked not only Europe’s Chapter 1). Both West Africa and western Europe were
discovery of America but also a critical step in the for- also being transformed. In Africa, the growth of long-
mation of an Atlantic world. After 1492 peoples from distance trade enabled some empires and kingdoms to
Europe, Africa, and North and South America became flourish at their rivals’ expense. A market economy was
intertwined in colonial societies, obligatory and forced emerging alongside older social and religious customs.
labor relations, trade networks, religious missions, and Meanwhile, in Europe, ambitious monarchs joined
wars. Traveling freely or as captives, they left familiar set- forces with profit-minded merchants to propel the terri-
tings for new worlds in which their customary ways of torial expansion of some nation-states. At the same
thinking and acting were repeatedly challenged. Adding time, an intellectual Renaissance was underway, and
to the challenges were the far-reaching environmental profound divisions among Roman Catholics were lead-
effects of sudden, unprecedented interactions not only ing to a religious Reformation.
of humans but also of animals, plants, and germs.
Significantly shaping this Columbian exchange, as these
Mediterranean Crossroads
environmental consequences are often termed, were the
efforts of several European nations to increase their One of the most vibrant areas in the Eastern Hemisphere
wealth and power through the control of the land and was the Mediterranean Sea. Here African, Asian, and
labor of non-Europeans they considered less than civi- European peoples had interacted in both peace and war
lized. since ancient times. By 1400 hundreds of small ships
In much of what is now Latin America, the coming were crossing the sea annually, unloading luxury goods
of Europeans quickly turned into conquest. In the future from one part of the world and loading others for the
United States and Canada, European mastery would next leg of their journeys. West African gold enriched
come more slowly. More than a hundred years would Turkish sultans; European guns strengthened North
pass before truly self-sustaining colonies were estab- African armies; and Indian spices stimulated Italian
lished. Nevertheless, from the moment of Columbus’s palates. In Africa and Asia many of these goods moved to
landing on October 12, 1492, the American continents and from the Mediterranean by caravans that traveled
became the stage for the encounter of Native American, thousands of miles. Merchant ships linked East and
European, and African peoples in the emergent Atlantic South Asia with the Arabian peninsula and East Africa,
world. and others connected northern and southern Europe.
But before the fifteenth century, intercontinental travel
and trade were unknown on the Atlantic Ocean.
This chapter will focus on four major questions:
Mediterranean commerce was closely intertwined
■ How did trade and political centralization transform with religion and politics. From the seventh to the four-
West Africa before the advent of the Atlantic slave teenth centuries, Islam spread, often by conquest, to
trade? Southeast Asia, West Africa, and much of southern
Europe. During the same period, Roman Catholic rulers
■ How did European monarchs use commerce and
introduced Christianity to new areas of central and
religion to advance their nations’ fortunes?
northern Europe. Political leaders sought to capture
■ What role did the Columbian exchange play in the some of the wealth being generated by commerce, while
formation of an Atlantic world? merchants valued the security afforded by close ties with
strong rulers. Above all, each of the two religions provid-
■ Why did Indians in North America sometimes wel-
ed a common faith and identity to peoples spread over
come and other times resist European traders and
vast distances, reinforcing the political and economic
colonizers?
links being forged between them.
Religion did not always divide people along political
AFRICAN AND or economic lines. Christian and Muslim rulers on the
Mediterranean frequently signed treaties with one
EUROPEAN PEOPLES another in order to secure commercial ties and protect
Even before the Atlantic world emerged in the fifteenth against piracy. Christians, Jews, and Muslims, especially
and sixteenth centuries, and continuing thereafter, each merchants, often traveled and lived in lands where they
continent bordering the Atlantic Ocean was undergoing were in the minority. In the fourteenth century, for
change. In the Americas, some societies rose, others fell, example, Morocco was Muslim-dominated but wel-
and still others adapted to new circumstances (see comed and tolerated Jews as well as Christians. In several
 African and European Peoples 25

parts of the Mediterranean world, Muslim, Jewish, and coastal forests, but many small states arose here, too.
Christian scholars read and commented on one anoth- Among these was Benin, where artisans had been fash-
er’s work, a collaboration that led to Europe’s ioning magnificent metalwork for centuries.
Renaissance (see below). Still farther south, along the coast and inland on the
But other Christians and Muslims regarded one Congo River, a welter of chiefdoms gave rise to four
another as enemies. Since the eleventh century, Euro- major kingdoms by the fifteenth century. Their kings
pean Christians had conducted numerous Crusades were chiefs who, after defeating neighboring chiefdoms,
against Islamic “infidels” in Europe and the Middle East, installed their own kin as local rulers of the newly con-
and some Muslim leaders waged jihad (holy war) against quered territories. Of these kingdoms, Kongo was the
Christians. While the Islamic Ottoman Empire con- most powerful and highly centralized.
quered Christian strongholds in the eastern Medi- With gold having recently been made the standard
terranean, the Christian monarchies of Portugal, Castile, for nearly all European currencies, demand for the pre-
and Aragón undertook a “reconquest” of the Iberian cious metal rose. During the fifteenth century, this
peninsula by expelling non-Christians. Portugal was demand brought thousands of newcomers from the
entirely Christian by 1250. In 1492 Castile and Aragón savanna and Central Africa to the region later known as
drove the last Muslim rulers from Spain and decreed that Africa’s Gold Coast. New states emerged to take advan-
all remaining Jews convert to Catholicism. Such Jews tage of the opportunities afforded by exporting gold,
were called conversos. though none was as extensive or powerful as Mali at its
height. Similarly eager to capitalize on its neighbor’s
resources were the Portuguese, who in the mid-fifteenth
West Africa and Its Peoples
century used new maritime techniques to sail along
Before the advent of Atlantic travel, the broad belt of
grassland, or savanna, separating the Sahara Desert
from the forests to the south was a major arena of long-
distance trade and of rivalries among states for control
of that trade. The trans-Saharan caravan trade stimulat-
ed the rise of grassland kingdoms and empires whose
size and wealth rivaled any in Europe at the time. The
richest grassland states were in West Africa, with its
ample stores of gold. During the fifteenth century, the
empire of Mali was the leading power in the West
African savanna (see Map 2.1). Its Muslim rulers had
access to a network of wealthy Muslim rulers and mer-
chants in North Africa and the Middle East. Mali
imported salt from the Sahara as well as brass, copper,
cloth, spices, manufactured goods, and Arabian horses.
Mali’s best-known city, Timbuktu, was widely recog-
nized for its intellectual and academic vitality and for its
beautiful mosque, designed and built by a Spanish
Muslim architect.
Early in the fifteenth century, divisions within Mali’s
royal family severely weakened the empire, leading sev-
eral territories to secede. A successor empire, Songhai,
flourished briefly and forcibly united most of the seced-
ed territory. But by the sixteenth century, most of Mali
and Songhai had been absorbed by Morocco to the
north.
Immediately south of the grassland empires lay a
region of small states and chiefdoms. In Senegambia at
Africa’s westernmost bulge, several Islamic states took
root. Infestation by the tsetse fly, the carrier of sleeping
sickness, kept livestock-herding peoples out of Guinea’s
26 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

ICELAND

N O R T H SWEDEN
SCOTLAND RUSSIA 0 2000 Miles
A T L A N T I C
O C E A N 0 2000 Kilometers
DENMARK
P NETH.
IRELAND ENG.
Bristol POLAND
HOLY ROMAN
EMPIRE

FRANCE HUNGARY
Venice
IT
AL
IA
N O
Aragon ST TT
PORTUGAL AT O
P SPAIN MA
N
ES

Azores Lisbon Castile EM

Seville P IRE

Mediterranean
N Sea
Madeira Is. O
R PERSIA
MOROCCO T H Alexandria
Christopher
Columbus A F R Cairo
1492 I C A
Canary
Is. EGYPT
P
S A H A R A D E S E R T
R.

P
i
le

Arguin N
Timbuktu Red INDIA
Sea
SONGHAI
SENEGAMBIA
Nig

MALI
Cape
rRe

Verde Is. Rice Coast

.

GU
I N
E A
Grain ETHIOPIA
la BENIN P
Ceylon
S

Coast Elmina ve
Gold Coast Co
Ivory Coast a st

Equator
Congo

I N D I A N O C E A N
KO

MUSLIM
N GO

CITY
R.

S O U T H A T L A N T I C STATES
O C E A N

P
P

MADAGASCAR
Traditional Venetian-Arab
spice routes
English voyages into
Barto

North Atlantic
lome

Portuguese voyages before 1460

49
uD

a1
ías

P
Ga

Portuguese voyages after 1460 Cape of Good Hope

North African coast
148

d
a

o
sc
8

Spanish voyages Va Desert

P
Trans-Sahara trade routes Grassland

P Prevailing winds Rain forest

MAP 2.1
Europe, Africa, and Southwestern Asia in 1500
During the fifteenth century, Portugal led the way in integrating Europe with Africa in a new Atlantic world.
Several voyages near the end of the century extended Europe’s reach to India and the Americas.
 African and European Peoples 27

West Africa’s coast in search of gold and slaves (see of the recently used fields was being replenished, they
below). returned to repeat the cycle. In the coastal rain forests
West African political leaders differed sharply in the West Africans grew such crops as yams, sugar cane,
amounts and kinds of political power they wielded. bananas, and eggplant, among other foods, as well as
Some kings and emperors enjoyed semigodlike status, cotton for weaving cloth. On the grasslands the staff of
which they only thinly disguised if they adopted Islam. life was grain—millet, sorghum, and rice—supplement-
Rulers of smaller kingdoms depended largely on their ed by cattle raising and fishing.
ability to persuade, to conform to prevailing customs, By the fifteenth century the market economy, stimu-
and to satisfy their people when redistributing wealth. lated by long-distance trade, extended to many small
In West Africa, the cohesiveness of kinship groups families. Farmers traded surplus crops at local market-
knitted society together. As did Native Americans, places for other food or cloth. Artisans wove cotton or
Africans lived within a network of interlocking mutual raffia palm leaves, made clothing and jewelry, and craft-
obligations to kinfolk (see Chapter 1). Not just parents ed tools and religious objects of iron and wood. While
but also aunts, uncles, distant cousins, and persons gold was the preferred currency among wealthy rulers
sharing clan ties formed an African’s kin group and and merchants, cowry shells served as the medium of
claimed his or her first loyalty. Africans held their grand- exchange for most people.
parents in high esteem and accorded village or clan eld- Religion permeated African life. Like Native
ers great deference. In centuries to come, the tradition of Americans and Europeans, Africans believed that anoth-
strong extended families would help enslaved Africans er world lay beyond the one people perceived through
in the Americas endure the forced breakup of nuclear their five senses. This other world was only rarely
families by sale. glimpsed by living persons other than priests, but the
West Africans viewed marriage as a way for extend- souls of most people passed there at death. Deities
ed families to forge alliances for mutual benefit. A spoke to mortals through priests, dreams, religious
prospective husband made a payment to his bride’s kin “speaking shrines,” and magical charms. More than
before marriage. He was not “buying” a wife; in effect, he most religious traditions, those of West Africa empha-
was posting bond for good behavior and acknowledging sized the importance of continuous revelations as foun-
the relative prestige of his own and his bride’s kin dations of spiritual truth. Such an emphasis on revela-
groups. West African wives generally maintained lifelong tions originating from multiple sources precluded the
links with their own kin groups, and in many societies development of fixed dogma and institutional hierar-
children traced descent through the mother’s, not the chies as found in Islam and in medieval Christianity (see
father’s, bloodline. All this buttressed women’s status. below). Also like Native Americans and Europeans,
A driving force behind marriage in West Africa was Africans explained misfortunes in terms of witchcraft.
the region’s high mortality rate from frequent famines But African religion differed from other traditions in its
and tropical disease epidemics. The shortage of people emphasis on ancestor worship, in which departed fore-
placed a high premium on the production of children. bears were venerated as spiritual guardians.
Children represented the labor force of the future who, Africa’s magnificent artistic traditions were also
within a few years, would contribute to a family’s wealth steeped in religion. The ivory, cast iron, and wood sculp-
by increasing its food production and the amount of tures of West Africa (whose bold designs would influence
land it could cultivate. Men of means frequently married twentieth-century western art) were used in ceremonies
more than one wife in order to produce children more reenacting creation myths and honoring spirits. A strong
frequently, and women generally married soon after moralistic streak ran through African folk tales.
reaching puberty. Storytellers transmitted these tales in dramatic public
West Africans depended on farming by both men presentations with ritual masks, dance, and music of a
and women for most of their food. The abundance of highly complex rhythmic structure, which is now appre-
land relative to population enabled African farmers— ciated as one of the foundations of jazz.
like many Native Americans and unlike Europeans—to Among Africans, Islam appealed primarily to mer-
shift their fields periodically and thereby maintain high chants trading with North Africa and the Middle East
soil quality. Before planting new fields, men felled the and to kings and emperors eager to consolidate their
trees and burned off the wild vegetation. After several power. Some Muslim rulers, however, modified Islam,
years of intensive cultivation, largely by women, farmers retaining elements of traditional religion as a concession
shifted to a new location. After a few years, while the soil to popular opinion. By the fifteenth century, Islam had
28 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

only begun to affect the daily lives of some cultivators The Renaissance was also an era of intense artistic
and artisans in the savanna. Similarly, the impact of creativity. After a century-long economic recession,
Christianity, introduced by the Portuguese, remained money had accumulated by 1500 to pay for magnificent
limited until the nineteenth century. architecture, and wealthy patrons—especially in several
Italian city-states—commissioned master painters and
sculptors to create works glowing with idealized human
European Culture and Society
beauty. Europeans celebrated these artistic achieve-
When Columbus landed on San Salvador in 1492, west- ments, along with those of writers, philosophers, scien-
ern Europe was undergoing a mighty cultural revival tists, and explorers, as the height of civilization to which
known as the Renaissance. Intellectuals and poets all other cultures ought to aspire.
believed that their age marked a return to the ideals of But European society was quivering with tension.
ancient Greek and Roman civilization. European schol- The era’s artistic and intellectual creativity was partly
ars had recently discovered scores of forgotten ancient inspired by intense social and spiritual stress as
texts in philosophy, science, medicine, geography, and Renaissance Europeans groped for stability by glorifying
other subjects. Western Europeans came across these order, hierarchy, and beauty. A concern for power
texts, and a rich tradition of commentary on them, in the and rank (“degree”) dominated European life between
writings of Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, and Jewish schol- the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Writing near
ars. Armed with the new learning, Renaissance scholars the end of the Renaissance, William Shakespeare
strove to reconcile ancient philosophy with Christian (1564–1616), expressed these values with eloquence:
faith, to explore the mysteries of nature, to map the
The heavens themselves, the planets and this
world, and to explain the motions of the heavens.
center [earth]
Observe degree, priority, and place. . .
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark, what discord follows!
Gender, wealth, inherited position, and political
power affected every European’s status, and few lived
outside the reach of some political authority’s taxes and
laws. But this order was shaky. Conflicts between states,
between religions, and between social classes constantly
threatened the balance.
At the heart of these conflicts lay deep-seated forces
of change. By the end of the fifteenth century, strong
national monarchs in France and England had unified
their realms and reduced the ability of both the Catholic
Church and the nobility to dictate national policy. On
the Iberian Peninsula, King Ferdinand of Aragón had
married Queen Isabella of Castile in 1479 to create the
Spanish monarchy. The new nation’s crowning achieve-
ment came in 1492, not with Columbus’ “discovery,” the
full significance of which was not immediately appreci-
ated, but with the final “reconquest” of the peninsula
(discussed above).
Most Europeans, about 75 percent of them, were
peasants. Peasants ranged from a few prosperous fami-
lies with large holdings to landless laborers who barely
scraped by on odd jobs. Taxes, rents, and other dues to
landlords and Catholic Church officials were burden-
some, and poor harvests or war drove even well-to-do
peasants to starvation. Not surprisingly, peasant revolts
were frequent, but the authorities mercilessly sup-
pressed such uprisings.
 African and European Peoples 29

Conditions among European peasants were made and weavers in household workshops, the workers were
worse by a sharp rise in population, from about 55 mil- competing for fewer jobs in the face of growing competi-
lion in 1450 to almost 100 million by 1600, while agricul- tion that was diminishing European markets for English
tural yields remained pitifully low. Families in many cloth. Enclosures severely aggravated unemployment,
areas cooperated in plowing, sowing, and harvesting as forcing large numbers of people to wander the country
well as in grazing their livestock on fallow fields and jointly in search of work. To the upper and middle classes, these
owned “commons.” But with new land at a premium, poor vagabonds seemed to threaten law and order. To
landlords, especially the English gentry, wanted to control them, Parliament passed Poor Laws that ordered
“enclose” the commons—that is, convert the land to pri- vagrants whipped and sent home, but most offenders
vate property. Peasants who had no written title to their only moved on to other towns.
land were especially vulnerable, although some small As in America and Africa, traditional society in
landowners (called “yeomen” in England) with se- Europe rested on maintaining long-term, reciprocal
cure titles kept their land, and a few even profited by relationships. European reciprocity required the upper
enclosure. classes to act with self-restraint and dignity, and the
The environmental effects of land scarcity and pop- lower classes to show deference to their “betters.” It also
ulation growth further exacerbated peasants’ circum- demanded strict economic regulation to ensure that no
stances. Beginning at the end of the sixteenth century, purchaser paid more than a “just price”—one that per-
lower-than-average temperatures marked a “Little Ice mitted a seller a “reasonable” profit but that barred him
Age” that lasted for two centuries. During this time, from taking advantage of buyers’ and borrowers’ misfor-
many European crops were less abundant or failed to tunes to make “excessive” profits.
grow. Hunger and malnutrition were widespread, and Yet for several centuries Europeans had been com-
full-scale famine struck in some areas. Another conse- promising the ideals of traditional economic behavior.
quence of population growth was deforestation result- “In the Name of God and of Profit,” thirteenth-century
ing from increased human demand for wood to use as Italian merchants had written on their ledgers. By the
fuel and building materials. Deforestation also deprived sixteenth century, nothing could stop the charging of
peasants of wild foods and game (whose food sources
FIGURE 2.1
disappeared with deforestation), accelerating the exo-
Decline in Real Wages in England, 1500-1700
dus of rural Europeans to towns and cities. This index measures the drop in purchasing power due to inflation
European towns were numerous but small, typically and declining wages. It indicates that by around 1630, living
with several thousand inhabitants each. A great metrop- standards for English workers had declined by about two-thirds
olis like London, whose population ballooned from fifty- since the base year, 1500.
five thousand in 1550 to two hundred thousand in 1600,
110
was quite exceptional. But all towns were dirty and
disease-ridden, and townspeople lived close-packed 100
with their neighbors. 90
Unappealing as sixteenth-century towns might
seem today, many men and women of the time preferred 80
Index of real wages

them to the villages and tiny farms they left behind. 70

Immigration from the countryside—rather than an
60
excess of urban births over deaths—accounted for
towns’ expansion. Most people who flocked into towns 50
remained at the bottom of the social order as servants or 40
laborers and could not accumulate enough money to
30
marry and live independently.
The consequences of rapid population growth were 20
particularly acute in England, where the number of peo-
10
ple doubled from about 2.5 million in 1500 to 5 million
in 1620. As throughout western Europe, prices rose 0
1500 1550 1600 1650 1700
while wages fell during the sixteenth and early seven-
teenth centuries (see Figure 2.1), widening the gap Source: E.H. Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, “Builders’ Wage-Rates, Prices and
Population: Some Further Evidence,” Economica, XXVI (1959): 18–38; adapted from
between rich and poor. Although English entrepreneurs D.C. North and R. P. Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic
expanded textile production by assembling spinners History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 111.
30 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

interest on borrowed money or sellers’ price increases in band in providing for the family’s subsistence. Children
response to demand. New forms of business organiza- were regarded as potential laborers who would assist in
tion slowly spread in the commercial world—especially these tasks until they left home to start their own fami-
the impersonal joint-stock company with many lies. The household, then, was not only a family of inti-
investors, the ancestor of the modern corporation. mately related people but also the principal economic
Demand rose for capital investment, and so did the sup- unit in European society. Peasants on their tiny farms,
ply of accumulated wealth. A new economic outlook artisans and merchants in their shops, and even nobles
gradually took form that justified the unimpeded acqui- in their castles all lived and worked in households.
sition of wealth and insisted that individuals owed one People who did not live with their own families resided
another nothing but the money necessary to settle their as dependents in the households of others as servants,
transactions. This new outlook, the central value system apprentices, or relatives. Europeans regarded those
of capitalism or the “market economy,” opposed tradi- who lived outside family-based households with
tional demands for the strict regulation of economic extreme suspicion, often accusing them of crime or
activity to ensure social reciprocity and maintain “just even witchcraft.
prices.” In a common cliché of the age, the nuclear family
Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europeans was a “little commonwealth.” A father’s authority over
therefore held conflicting attitudes toward economic his family was supposed to mirror God’s rule over
enterprise and social change, and their ambivalence Creation and the king’s over his subjects. Even grown
remained unresolved. A restless desire for fresh oppor- sons and daughters regularly knelt for their father’s
tunity kept European life simmering with competitive blessing. The ideal, according to a German writer, was
tension. But those who prospered still sought the securi- that “wives should obey their husbands and not seek to
ty and prestige provided by high social status, whereas dominate them; they must manage the home efficiently.
the poor longed for the age-old values that would Husbands . . . should treat their wives with considera-
restrain irresponsible greed. tion and occasionally close an eye to their faults.” In
Perhaps the most sensitive barometer of social practice, the father’s sovereignty often had to make
change was the family. Throughout Europe the typical room for the wife’s responsibility in managing family
household consisted of a small nuclear family—two affairs and helping to run the farm or the workshop.
parents and several children—in which the husband Repeated male complaints, such as that of an English
and father functioned as a head whose authority was author in 1622 about wives “who think themselves every
not to be questioned. The role of the wife and mother way as good as their husbands, and no way inferior to
was to bear and rear children as well as assist her hus- them,” suggest that male domination had its limits.
 African and European Peoples 31

papacy tried to silence him, Luther broadened his criti-

Religious Upheavals
cism to encompass the Mass, purgatory, priests, and the
Christianity, to which most sixteenth-century Euro- pope. After Luther refused to recant, the Roman Church
peans adhered, taught that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, had excommunicated him. Luther’s revolt initiated what
redeemed sinners by suffering crucifixion and rising became known as the Protestant Reformation, which
from the dead. Equally vivid was Christians’ belief in the changed Christianity forever. (The word Protestant
devil, Satan, whom God had hurled from heaven soon comes from the protest of Luther’s princely supporters
after the Creation and who ceaselessly lured people to against the anti-Lutheran policies of Holy Roman
damnation by tempting them to do evil. The non- Emperor Charles V.)
Christian minority encompassed scattered Jewish com- To Luther, indulgence selling and similar examples
munities plus Muslims in southern Europe. But all of clerical corruption were evil not just because they
Europe’s population—Christians, Jews, and Muslims— bilked people. The Church, he charged, gave people
worshiped a single supreme being, based on the God of false confidence that they could earn salvation simply by
the Hebrew Bible. doing good works. His own agonizing search for salva-
Although Christianity had spread throughout tion had convinced Luther that God bestowed salvation
Europe by the sixteenth century, older, non-Christian not on the basis of worldly deeds, but solely to reward a
beliefs persisted. Many Europeans feared witches and believer’s faith. “I did not love a just and angry God, but
thought that individuals could manipulate nature by rather hated and murmured against him,” recalled
invoking unseen spiritual powers—that is, by magic. Luther, “until I saw the connection between the justice
Others looked to astrology, insisting that a person’s fate of God and the [New Testament] statement that ‘the just
depended on the conjunction of various planets and shall live [be saved] by faith.’ . . . Thereupon I felt myself
stars. Such beliefs in spiritual forces not originating with to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into
a supreme deity resembled those of Native Americans paradise.” Luther’s spiritual struggle and experience of
and Africans. being “reborn” constituted a classic conversion experi-
The Catholic Church, based in Rome, taught that ence—the heart of Protestant Christianity.
Christ’s sacrifice was repeated every time a priest said Other Protestant reformers followed Luther in
Mass, and that divine grace flowed to sinners through the breaking from Catholicism, but they challenged his
sacraments that priests alone could administer—above interpretation of Christianity. Whereas Luther stressed
all, baptism, confession, and the Eucharist (commun- faith in Christ as the key to salvation, French theologian
ion). The Church was a huge network of clergymen and John Calvin (1509–1564) insisted on the stark doctrine of
religious orders, male and female, set apart from laypeo- predestination. Calvin asserted that an omnipotent God
ple by the fact that its members did not marry. At the top predestined most sinful humans to hell, saving only a
was the pope, the “vicar [representative] of Christ.” few in order to demonstrate his power and grace. It was
The papacy wielded awesome spiritual power. only these few, called the “elect” or the “godly,” who
Fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century popes dispensed would have a true conversion experience. At this
extra blessings, or “indulgences,” to repentant sinners in moment, said Calvin, a person confronted the horrifying
return for such “good works” as donating money to the truth of his or her unworthiness and felt God’s tran-
Church. Indulgences promised time off from future scending power. A good Christian, in Calvin’s view,
punishment in purgatory, where the dead atoned for would never be absolutely certain that he or she was
sins they had already confessed and been forgiven. (Hell, saved and could do nothing to affect the outcome. But
from which there was no escape, awaited those who good Christians would be pious and avoid sin because
died unforgiven.) Given people’s anxieties about sinful they knew that godly behavior was a sign (not a cause
behavior, indulgences were enormously popular. The and not a guarantee) of salvation.
jingle of one successful indulgence seller in early six- Calvinists and Lutherans, as the followers of the two
teenth-century Germany promised that Reformation leaders came to be called, were equally
horrified by more radical Protestants such as the
As soon as the coin in the cash box rings,
Anabaptists, who appealed strongly to women and
The soul from purgatory’s fire springs.
common people with their criticisms of the rich and
The sale of indulgences provoked charges that the powerful and sought to restrict baptism to “converted”
materialism and corruption infecting economic life had adults. Judging the Anabaptists a threat to the social
spread to the Church. In 1517 a German monk, Martin order, governments and mainstream churches persecut-
Luther (1483–1546), attacked the practice. When the ed them.
32 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

piously and austerely. Another reformer, Ignatius Loyola

(1491–1556), founded a militant religious order, the
Jesuits, whose members would distinguish themselves
for centuries as royal advisers and missionaries. The
high point of Catholic reform came during the Council
of Trent (1545–1563), convened by the pope. The council
defended Catholic teachings and denounced those of
the Protestants. But it also reformed Church administra-
tion in order to combat corruption and encourage wide
public participation in religious observances. This
Catholic revival, the Counter-Reformation, brought the
modern Roman Catholic Church into existence.
The Protestant Reformation changed the religious
map of much of Europe (see Map 2.2). Lutheranism
became the state religion in the Scandinavian countries,
and Calvinism made significant inroads in France, the
Netherlands (ruled by Spain), and England, where it
competed with Catholicism and with the moderately
reformed Church of England. The tiny states comprising
the modern nations of Germany and Switzerland were
divided among Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists.

The Reformation in England,

1533–1625
England’s Reformation began not with the writings of a
But Protestants also shared much common ground. theologian or with cries of the people, but with the
For one thing, they denied that God had endowed actions of a king and Parliament. King Henry VIII (ruled
priests with special powers. The church, Luther claimed, 1509–1547) wanted a male heir, but his queen, Catherine
was a “priesthood of all believers.” Protestant reformers of Aragón, failed to bear a son. Frustrated and deter-
insisted that laypeople take responsibility for their own mined, Henry asked the pope to annul his marriage.
spiritual and moral conditions. Accordingly, they placed Equally determined, the pope refused. Henry then per-
a high value on reading. Protestants demanded that the suaded Parliament to pass a series of acts in 1533–1534
Bible be translated from Latin into spoken languages so dissolving his marriage and proclaiming him supreme
that believers could read it for themselves instead of head of the Church of England (or Anglican Church).
relying on priests for knowledge of its contents. The new The move justified Henry’s wholesale seizure of Catholic
faith was spread by the newly invented printing press. Church properties as means of consolidating royal
Wherever Protestantism became established, basic edu- power.
cation and religious indoctrination followed. Finally, Religion remained a source of conflict in England
Protestantism represented a yearning in many people for more than a century after Henry’s break with Rome.
for the simplicity and purity of the ancient Christian Under Edward VI (ruled 1547–1553), the church veered
church. More forcefully than Catholicism, it condemned sharply toward Protestantism; then Mary I (ruled
the replacement of traditional reciprocity by market- 1553–1558) tried to restore Catholicism, in part by burn-
place values. Protestantism’s greatest appeal was to all ing several hundred Protestants at the stake.
those—ordinary individuals, merchants, and aristocrats The reign of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603) marked a
alike—who brooded over their chances for salvation and crucial watershed. After the reign of “Bloody Mary,” most
valued the steady performance of duty. English people were ready to become Protestant; how
In the face of the Protestant challenge, Rome was Protestant was the divisive question. Militant Calvinists,
far from idle. Reformers like Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), now called Puritans, demanded a wholesale purification
a Spanish nun from a converso (converted Jewish) fami- of the Church of England from “popish [Catholic] abuses.”
ly, urged members of Catholic holy orders to repudiate They affirmed salvation by predestination, denied
corruption and to lead the Church’s renewal by living Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, and believed that a
 Europe and the Atlantic World, 1440–1600 33

learned sermon was the heart of true worship. They

Lutherans Roman Catholics
wished to free each congregation and its minister from
outside interference by Anglican bishops and encour- Anglicans
Eastern Orthodox
Christians
aged lay members (nonclergy) to participate in church
0 300 Miles
affairs. Above all, Puritans insisted that membership in a Calvinists Jews
0 300 Kilometers
true Christian church be reserved exclusively for those Anabaptists Muslims
who had had a conversion experience. In this respect, NORWAY
they repudiated the Catholic and Anglican churches,
S W E D E N
both of which extended membership to anyone who had SCOTLAND
been baptized. Nevertheless, some Puritans, hoping to
DENMARK
reform the Church of England from within, declined to
IRELAND PRUSSIA
break openly with it. Others, called Separatists, insisted
ENGLAND
that a “pure” church had to avoid all contact with BRANDENBURG

GE
NETHERLANDS Wittenberg
Anglican “pollution.” London POLAND

RMA
Canterbury
The severe self-discipline and moral uprightness of SAXONY
Frankfurt
Puritans appealed to only a few among the titled nobili-

N Y
WÜRTTEMBERG
Vienna
ty and the poor. Puritanism’s primary appeal was instead BOHEMIA
AUSTRIA
to the small but growing number of people in the “mid- FRANCE BAVARIA TRANSYLVANIA

HUNGARY
dling” ranks of English society—landowning gentry, yeo- Geneva Trent

man farmers, merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and

university-educated clergymen and intellectuals. Self- ITALY
discipline had become central to both the secular and SPAIN
Rome
spiritual dimensions of these people’s lives. From their
ranks, and particularly from among farmers, artisans,
and clergymen, would later come the settlers of New
England (see Chapter 3). MAP 2.2
Elizabeth distrusted Puritan militancy; but, after Major Religions in Europe, c. 1560
1570 when the pope declared her a heretic and urged By 1560 some European lands were solidly Catholic, Lutheran, or
Catholics to overthrow her, she regarded English Calvinist, but others remained bitterly divided for another century
Catholics as even more dangerous. Thereafter, she or more.
courted influential Puritans and embraced militant anti-
Catholicism. the Atlantic, where the monarchs of several nation-states
Under Elizabeth, most Puritans came to expect that were consolidating their power over vast territories in
they would eventually transform the Church of England Europe and the Americas. Although England and France
into independent congregations of “saints.” But her suc- were also active, the first of the emerging new Atlantic
cessor, James I (ruled 1603–1625), the founder of powers were Portugal and Spain. Situated on the Iberian
England’s Stuart dynasty, bitterly opposed Puritan Peninsula where the Mediterranean and Atlantic come
efforts to eliminate the office of bishop. He made clear together, Portugal and Spain led a new European imperi-
that he saw Puritan attacks on bishops as a direct threat alism across the oceans of the world. Two prominent out-
to the throne when he snapped, “No bishop, no king.” comes of this new imperialism were a trans-Atlantic
Although James insisted on outward conformity to slave trade and the colonization of new lands, especially
Anglican practice, he quietly tolerated Calvinists within in the Americas. Out of the new imperialism and the
the Church of England who did not dissent loudly. multiple intercontinental encounters that resulted arose
a new Atlantic world.

EUROPE AND THE ATLANTIC Portugal and the Atlantic, 1440–1600

WORLD, 1440–1600 Portugal led the shift from a Mediterranean to an
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, European Atlantic world. While European merchants had long
wealth was concentrated in Mediterranean city-states traded with Asia and Africa by way of the Mediterranean
such as Florence and Venice. Over the next two centuries, (see above), some recognized that they could increase
much of this wealth shifted from the Mediterranean to their profits by establishing direct contacts with sources
34 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

of prized imports. During the fifteenth century, tiny recent European and Arabic observations. Thus,
Portugal led the way in overcoming impediments to Renaissance “new learning” helped sharpen Europeans’
long-distance oceanic travel. geographic sense.
Important changes in maritime technology Led by Prince Henry “the Navigator” (1394–1460),
occurred in the early fifteenth century. Shipbuilders and Portugal was the first nation to capitalize on these devel-
mariners along Europe’s stormy Atlantic coast added the opments. Henry gained the support of merchants seek-
triangular Arab sail to the heavy cargo ships they used ing to circumvent Moroccan control of the African-
for voyaging between England and the Mediterranean. European gold trade and of religious zealots eager to
They created a more maneuverable vessel, the caravel, confront Muslim power. He hoped to find a sea route
which sailed more easily against the wind. Sailors also to Asia that would enable Portugal to bypass
mastered the compass and astrolabe, by which they got Mediterranean traders in tapping the markets of that
their bearings on the open sea. Without this maritime continent as well. Henry encouraged Portuguese sea-
revolution, European exploration would have been men to pilot the new caravels far down the African coast,
impossible. searching for weak spots in Muslim defenses and for
Renaissance scholars’ search for more accurate opportunities to trade profitably. By the time of his
readings of ancient texts enabled fifteenth-century death, the Portuguese operated a successful gold-
Europeans to look at their world with new eyes. The making factory at Arguin and had established trade ties
great ancient Greek authority on geography was south of the Sahara. In 1488 Bartolomeu Días reached
Ptolemy, but Renaissance cartographers corrected his the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip. A decade
data when they tried to draw accurate maps based on later Vasco da Gama led a Portuguese fleet around the
Cape of Good Hope and on to India (see Map 2.1).
Ultimately the Portuguese failed to destroy older
Euro-Asian commercial links, although they remained an
imperial presence in the Indian Ocean and present-day
Indonesia. Meanwhile, they had brought Europeans
face-to-face with black Africans and an already flourishing
slave trade.

The “New Slavery” and Racism

Slavery was well established in fifteenth-century Africa.
The institution took two basic forms. Many Africans
were enslaved because of indebtedness. Their debts
were purchased by kings and emperors who made them
servants or by families seeking additional laborers. They
or their children were either absorbed into their new
families over time or released from bondage when their
debts were considered paid off through their work. But a
long-distance commercial trade in slaves also flour-
ished. For several centuries, Middle Eastern and North
African traders had furnished local rulers with a range of
fine, imported products in exchange for black laborers.
Some of these slaves had been debtors, while others
were captured in raids and wars.
One fifteenth-century Italian who witnessed
Portuguese and Muslim slave trading noted that the
Arabs ”have many Berber horses, which they trade, and
take to the Land of the Blacks, exchanging them with the
rulers for slaves. Ten or fifteen slaves are given for one of
these horses, according to their quality.” Portuguese
traders quickly realized how lucrative the trade in slaves
 Europe and the Atlantic World, 1440–1600 35

could be for them, too. The same Italian observer con-

tinued, “Slaves are brought to the market town of
Hoden; there they are divided. . . . [Some] are
taken . . . and sold to the Portuguese leaseholders [in
Arguin]. As a result every year the Portuguese carry
away . . . a thousand slaves.”
Although in 1482 the Portuguese built an outpost,
Elmina, on West Africa’s Gold Coast, they primarily trad-
ed through African-controlled commercial networks.
Often Portuguese merchants traded slaves and local
products to other Africans for gold. The local African
kingdoms were too strong for the Portuguese to attack,
and African rulers traded—or chose not to trade—
according to their own self-interest.
Despite preventing the Portuguese from directly
colonizing them, West African societies were profoundly
affected by the new Atlantic slave trade. Portuguese
traders enriched favored African rulers not only with
gold and other luxury products but also with guns. As a
result, they exacerbated conflicts among African com-
munities and helped redraw the political map of West
Africa. In Guinea and Senegambia, where most six-
teenth-century slaves came from, small kingdoms
expanded to “service” the trade. Some of their rulers
became comparatively rich. Farther south, the kings of
Kongo used the slave trade to expand their regional
power and voluntarily adopted Christianity, just as
rulers farther north had converted to Islam. Kongo flour- investors to buy African slaves who toiled until death. In
ished until the late sixteenth century, when rival powers short, Africans enslaved by Europeans were regarded as
from the interior destroyed it. property rather than as persons of low status; as such,
Although slavery had long been practiced in many they were consigned to labor that was unending,
parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, there were ominous exhausting, and mindless. By 1600 the “new slavery” had
differences in the slavery that arose once the Portuguese become a central, brutal component of the Atlantic
began voyaging to West Africa. First, the unprecedented world.
magnitude of the trade resulted in a demographic catas- Finally, race became the ideological basis of the new
trophe for West Africa and its peoples. Before the slavery. Africans’ blackness, along with their alien reli-
Atlantic slave trade finally ended in the nineteenth cen- gion and customs, dehumanized them in European
tury, nearly 12 million Africans would be shipped in ter- eyes. As their racial prejudice hardened, Europeans jus-
rible conditions across the sea. Slavery on this scale had tified enslaving blacks as their Christian duty. From the
been unknown to Europeans since the collapse of the fifteenth century onward, European Christianity made
Roman Empire. Second, African slaves were subjected to few attempts to soften slavery’s rigors, and race defined
new extremes of dehumanization. In medieval Europe a slave. Slavery became a lifelong, hereditary, and
and in West Africa itself, most slaves had lived in their despised status.
masters’ households and primarily performed domestic
service. Africans shipped to Arab lands endured harsher
Europeans Reach America,
conditions, but were regarded as humans. But by 1450
1492–1541
the Portuguese and Spanish created large slave-labor
plantations on their Atlantic and Mediterranean islands Europeans’ varying motivations for expanding their
(see Technology and Culture: Sugar Production in the horizons converged in the fascinating, contradictory
Americas). These plantations produced sugar for figure of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the son of
European markets, using capital supplied by Italian a weaver from the Italian port of Genoa. Columbus’s
 TECHNOLOGY A N D CULTURE

Sugar Production in the Americas

B eginning with Christopher Columbus’s first expe-

dition, organisms ranging from bacteria to human
beings crossed the Atlantic in both directions. This
one of the six species of cane, Saccharum officinarum,
produced the most sugar in the shortest span of time.
The optimal time for harvesting was when the cane had
Columbian exchange had wide-ranging ecological, eco- grown twelve to fifteen feet in height, with stalks about
nomic, political, and cultural consequences for the lands two inches thick. At this point, it was necessary to
and peoples of the Americas, Africa, and Europe. One extract the juice from the plant and then the sucrose (a
significant set of consequences arose from the transfer carbohydrate) from the juice as quickly as possible or
of Mediterranean sugar production to the Americas. Out risk spoilage. Sugar makers crushed the cane fibers in
of this transfer came the single-crop plantation system, order to extract the liquid, which they then heated so that
based on enslaved African labor, and a new consumer it evaporated, leaving the sucrose—or sugar—in the form
product that revolutionized diets and, quite literally, taste of crystals or molasses, depending on its temperature.
in Europe and its colonies. Sugar production was central to the emerging
Domesticated in New Guinea before 8000 B.C., Atlantic world during the fifteenth century, after Spanish
sugar cane was one of the earliest wild plants harvested and Portuguese planters established large sugar planta-
by human beings. By 350 B.C. sugar was an ingredient in tions in the Madeira, Canary, and Cape Verde islands off
several dishes favored by elites in India, from where it Africa’s Atlantic coast. Initially, the islands’ labor force
spread to the Mediterranean world. It became a signifi- included some free Europeans, but enslaved Africans
cant commodity in the Mediterranean in the eight centu- soon predominated. The islands were the birthplace of
ry A.D. when expanding Arabs carried it as far west as the European colonial plantation system. Planters
Spain and Morocco. The Mediterranean would remain focused entirely on the production of a single export crop
the center of sugar production for Europe over the next and sought to maximize profits by minimizing labor
seven centuries. costs. Although some planters used servants, the
The basic process of making sugar from the sugar largest-scale, most profitable plantations imported
cane plant changed little over time. (Sugar made from slaves and worked them as hard as possible until they
sugar beets did not become widespread until the nine- died. Utilizing such methods, the island planters soon
teenth century.) The earliest producers discovered that outstripped the production of older sugar makers in the

36
Mediterranean. By 1500 the Spanish and Portuguese
had successfully tapped new markets across Europe,
especially among the wealthy classes.
On his second voyage in 1493, Columbus took a
cargo of sugar from the Canaries to Hispaniola. Early
efforts by Spanish colonists to produce sugar failed
because they lacked efficient milling technology,
because the Taíno Indians were dying so quickly from
epidemic diseases, and because most colonists concen-
trated on mining gold. But as miners quickly exhausted
Hispaniola’s limited gold, the enslaved Africans brought
to work in the mines became available for sugar produc-
tion. In 1515 a planter named Gonzalo de Vellosa hired
some experienced sugar masters from the Canaries who
urged him to import a more efficient type of mill. The mill
featured two vertical rollers that could be powered by
either animals or water, through which laborers passed
the cane in order to crush it. With generous subsidies
from the Spanish crown, the combination of vertical-roll
mills and slave labor led to a rapid proliferation of sugar
plantations in Spain’s island colonies, with some using as
many as five hundred slaves. But when Spain discovered
gold and silver in Mexico and the Andes, its interest in
sugar declined almost as rapidly as it had arisen.
Portugal’s colony of Brazil emerged as the major
source of sugar in the sixteenth century. Here, too,
planters established the system of large plantations and
enslaved Africans. By 1526 Brazil was exporting were revolutionized by the Columbian exchange. Like
shiploads of sugar annually, and before the end of the tobacco, coffee, and several other products of the
century it supplied most of the sugar consumed in exchange, sugar and such sugar products as rum, pro-
Europe. Shortly after 1600 Brazilian planters either duced from molasses, proved habit-forming, making
invented or imported a three-roller mill that increased sugar even more attractive to profit-seeking planters and
production still further and became the Caribbean stan- merchants.
dard for several more centuries. Portugal’s sugar monop- More than any other single commodity, sugar sus-
oly proved short-lived. Between 1588 and 1591, English tained the early slave trade in the Americas, facilitating
“sea dogs” captured and diverted thirty-four sugar-laden slavery’s spread to tobacco, rice, indigo, and other plan-
vessels during their nation’s war with Spain and Portugal. tation crops as well as to domestic service and other
In 1630 the Netherlands seized Brazil’s prime sugar- forms of labor. Competition between British and French
producing region and increased annual production to a sugar producers in the West Indies later fueled their
century-high 30,000 tons. Ten years later some Dutch nations’ imperial rivalry (see Chapter 4) and eventually
sugar and slave traders, seeking to expand their activity, led New England’s merchants to resist British imperial
shared the technology of sugar production with English controls—a resistance that helped prepare the way for
planters in Barbados, who were looking for a new crop the American Revolution (see Chapter 5).
following disappointing profits from tobacco and cotton.
The combination of sugar and slaves took hold so quick- Focus Questions
ly that, within three years, Barbados’ annual output rose
to 150 tons. • What was the role played by Spain’s and Portugal’s
Sugar went on to become the economic heart of the island colonies in revolutionizing sugar production?
Atlantic economy (see Chapter 3). Its price dropped so • How did developments in mill technology interact
low that even many poor Europeans could afford it. As a with other factors to make sugar the most profitable
result, sugar became central to European diets as they crop produced in colonial America?

37
38 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

GREENLAND ICELAND
Norse explorers

English explorers NORSE c.10

00
NORWAY
Hudson Bay 78
FROBISHER 1576 –15
French explorers DA
VIS
15
85
CABOT 1497 –1
Spanish explorers 58
7
ENGLAND
Bristol
CARTIER 1534
Portuguese explorers EUROPE
FRANCE

ATLANTIC OCEAN
NORTH SPAIN
MEDI
Palos TER
AMERICA RAN
EA
NS
EA

VERRAZANO 152
4

Canary Is.
2
BUS 149
CO L U M
Gulf of Mexico Bahamas

Hispaniola 49 6
3 –1
149
BUS
C O LU
M A F R I C A

50 4
COLUMBUS 1502 –1
Caribbean Sea

COLUMBUS 1498

00
SOUTH 15
L
A
AMERICA
BR
CA

MAP 2.3
Major Transatlantic Explorations, 1000-1587
Following Columbus’s 1492 voyage, Spain’s rivals soon began laying claim to parts of the New World based on the voyages of Cabot
for England, Cabral for Portugal, and Verrazano for France. Later English and French exploration focused on finding a passage to Asia
around or through Canada.

maritime experience, self-taught geographical learning, accepted Columbus’s offer. Picking up the westward-
and keen imagination led him to conclude that Asia blowing trade winds at the Canary Islands, Columbus’s
could be reached by sailing westward across the three small ships reached Guanahaní within a month
Atlantic. By the early 1480s he was obsessed with this (see Map 2.3).
idea. Religious fervor led Columbus to dream of carry- Word of Columbus’s discovery caught Europeans’
ing Christianity around the globe and liberating imaginations. To forestall competition between them as
Jerusalem from Muslim rule, but he also burned with well as potential rivals, Isabella and Portugal’s King John II
ambition to win wealth and glory. in 1492 signed the Treaty of Tordesillas (see Map 2.4). The
Columbus would not be the first European to ven- treaty drew a line in the mid-Atlantic dividing all future
ture far out into the Atlantic. Besides the early Norse (see discoveries between Spain and Portugal. After Isabella
Chapter 1), English fishermen in the North Atlantic may sent Columbus back to explore further, he established a
already have landed on the North American coast. But colony on Hispaniola, the Caribbean island today occu-
Columbus was unique in the persistence with which he pied by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Columbus
hawked his “enterprise of the Indies” around the royal proved to be a poor administrator, and he was shunted
courts of western Europe. John II of Portugal showed aside after his last voyages (1498–1502). He died an embit-
interest until Días’s discovery of the Cape of Good Hope tered man, convinced that he had reached the threshold
promised a surer way to India. Finally, in 1492, hoping to of Asia only to be cheated of his rightful rewards.
break a threatened Portuguese monopoly on direct trade England’s Henry VII (ruled 1485–1509) ignored the
with Asia, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain Treaty of Tordesillas and sent an Italian navigator, John
 Europe and the Atlantic World, 1440–1600 39

Cabot, to explore the north Atlantic in 1497. Sailing past Santa Fe

1609 0 1000 Miles
Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the rich Grand Banks
0 1000 Kilometers
fisheries, Cabot claimed everything he saw and the lands St. Augustine
1565
beyond them for England. Like Columbus, Cabot NEW
Gulf of Mexico
ATLANTIC OCEAN
Havana 1515
thought that he had reached Asia. SPAIN

The more Europeans explored, the more apparent it Mexico City

1521
Caribbean Sea
became that a vast landmass blocked the route to Asia.
In 1500 the Portuguese claimed Brazil (much of which NEW
Caracas 1567
Panama City GRENADA
lay, unexpectedly, east of the line established in the 1519

Treaty of Tordesillas), and other voyages soon revealed a

continuous coastline from the Caribbean to Brazil. In PACIFIC
1507 this landmass got its name when a publisher OCEAN PERU
Lima 1535
brought out a collection of voyagers’ tales. One of the
chroniclers was an Italian named Amerigo Vespucci. Rio de Janeiro
1555
With a shrewd marketing touch, the publisher devised a São Paulo
catchy name for the new continent: America. Spanish
LA PLATA
1554

Santiago
Getting past America and reaching Asia remained 1541
Portuguese Buenos Aires
the early explorers’ primary aim. In 1513 the Spaniard 1535
Vasco Núñez de Balboa chanced upon the Pacific Ocean Demarcation line, Treaty
of Tordesillas, 1494 To Spain To Portugal
when he crossed the narrow isthmus of Panama. Then in
1555
Date city conquered/
1519 the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for founded

Spain, began a voyage around the world by way of the

stormy straits (later named for him) at South America’s MAP 2.4
The Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1610
southern tip. In an incredible feat of endurance, he
By 1610 Spain dominated Latin America, including Portugal’s
crossed the Pacific to the Philippines, only to die fighting
possessions. Having devoted its energies to exploiting Mexico and
with local natives. One of his five ships and fifteen ema- the Caribbean, Spain had not yet expanded into what is now the
ciated sailors finally returned to Spain in 1522, the first United States, aside from establishing outposts in Florida and
people to have sailed around the world. New Mexico.
France joined the race for Asia’s fabled wealth in
1524 when King Francis I (ruled 1515–1547) dispatched
40 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

an Italian navigator, Giovanni da Verrazano, to find a labor, and tribute to wealthy colonists. The earliest
more direct “northwest passage” to the Pacific. encomiendas were gold mines, which produced limited
Verrazano explored the North American coast from the profits for a few mine operators.
Carolinas to Newfoundland. In three subsequent voy- From the beginning, encomiendas harshly exploited
ages between 1534 and 1542, the French explorer Native Americans, who died in droves from overwork,
Jacques Cartier carefully probed the coasts of malnutrition, and disease. Then Portuguese slavers
Newfoundland, Quebec, and Nova Scotia and sailed up stepped in, supplying shiploads of Africans to replace
the St. Lawrence River as far as present-day Montreal. the perishing Indians. Spanish missionaries who came
Although encountering large numbers of Native to Hispaniola to convert the Indians quickly sent back
Americans, Verrazano and Cartier found no gold and no grim reports of Indian exploitation; King Ferdinand
northwest passage. (who had made money by selling encomiendas) felt suf-
ficiently shocked to attempt to forbid the practice. But
while the missionaries deemed Native Americans
Spain’s Conquistadors, 1492–1536
potential Christians, they joined most other colonizers
Columbus was America’s first slave trader and the first in condemning Africans as less than fully human and
Spanish conqueror, or conquistador. At his struggling thereby beyond hope of redemption. Blacks could there-
colony on Hispaniola, he enslaved Native people and fore be exploited without limit. In Cuba, Puerto Rico,
created encomiendas—grants awarding Indian land, and other islands, they were forced to perform back-
 Europe and the Atlantic World, 1440–1600 41

breaking work on Spanish sugar plantations (see

Technology and Culture: Sugar Production in the
Americas).
Meanwhile, Spanish settlers fanned out across the
Caribbean in search of Indian slaves and gold. In 1519 a
restless nobleman, Hernán Cortés (1485–1547), led six
hundred troops to the Mexican coast. Destroying his
boats, he enlisted the support of enemies and discon-
tented subjects of the Aztecs (see Chapter 1) in a quest to
conquer that empire. Besides military support, Cortés
gained the services of Malintzin (or Malinche), later
known as Doña Marina, an Aztec woman brought up
among the Maya. Malintzin served as Cortés’ inter-
preter, diplomatic broker, and mistress.
Upon reaching the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the
Spanish were stunned by its size and wealth. “We were
amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they
tell of [in stories], and some of our soldiers even asked
whether the things that we saw were not a dream,”
recalled one soldier. Certainly, the golden gifts that the
Aztec emperor, Moctezuma II (ruled 1502–1520) initially
offered the invaders were no dream. “They picked up the
gold and fingered it like monkeys,” one Aztec recalled.
“Their bodies swelled with greed, and their hunger was
ravenous. They hungered like pigs for that gold.”
The Spanish ignored Moctezuma’s offer, raiding his
palace and treasury, and melting down all the gold they between 1532 and 1536 by a second reckless conquista-
could find. Despite their emperor’s imprisonment, the dor, Francisco Pizarro (c. 1478–1541). As with the Aztecs,
Aztecs regrouped and drove the invaders from the city, smallpox and native unfamiliarity with European ways
killing three hundred Spanish and four thousand of their and weapons enabled a small army to overpower a
Indian allies before reinforcements from Cuba enabled mighty emperor and his realm. The human cost of the
the Spanish to prevail. The victory was also ensured by Spanish conquest was enormous. Mourned a van-
the smallpox epidemic the Spanish brought with them, quished Aztec,
the same one that was killing large numbers of Indians
Broken spears lie in the roads;
on Hispaniola and the other islands. Lacking any previ-
We have torn our hair in our grief.
ous contact with the disease, the Aztecs’ and other
The houses are roofless now. . .
Indians’ immune systems were ill equipped to resist it.
And the walls are splattered with gore. . .
Just when the Aztecs took back Tenochtitlan, the epi-
We have pounded our hands in despair
demic struck. When the Spanish finally recaptured the
Against the adobe walls.
city, wrote one Spanish chronicler, “the streets were so
filled with dead and sick people that our men walked When Cortés landed in 1519, central Mexico’s popu-
over nothing but bodies.” By striking down other lation had been between 13 and 25 million. By 1600 it
Indians, friends as well as foes, the epidemic enabled the had shrunk to about seven hundred thousand. Peru and
Spanish to consolidate their control over much of cen- other regions experienced similar devastation. America
tral Mexico. By 1521 Cortés had overthrown the Aztecs had witnessed the greatest demographic disaster in
and began to build a Spanish capital, Mexico City, on the world history.
ruins of Tenochtitlan.
Over the remainder of the sixteenth century, other
The Columbian Exchange
conquistadors and officials established a great Spanish
empire stretching from New Spain (Mexico) southward The emerging Atlantic world linked not only peoples but
to Chile (see Map 2.4). The most important of these con- also animals, plants, and microbes from Europe, Africa,
quests was that of the Inca empire (see Chapter 1) and the Americas. After 1492 Native Americans died
42 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

above all because they lacked antibodies that could blended people emerged as these men married Indian
ward off European and African infections—especially women, giving rise to the large mestizo (mixed Spanish-
deadly, highly communicable smallpox. From the first Indian) population of Mexico and other Latin American
years of contact, frightful epidemics of smallpox and countries. Lesser numbers of métis, as the French
other unknown diseases scourged the defenseless termed people of both Indian and European descent,
Indian communities. In the larger West Indian islands, would appear in the French and English colonies of
95 percent of the native population perished within thir- North America. Throughout the Americas, particularly
ty years. “The people began to die very fast, and many in in plantation colonies, European men fathered mulatto
a short space,” an Englishman later remarked, adding children with enslaved African women, and African-
that the deaths invariably occurred after Europeans had Indian unions occurred in most regions. Colonial soci-
visited an area. Whole villages perished at once, with no eties differed significantly in their official attitudes
one left to bury the dead. Such devastation directly facil- toward the different kinds of interracial unions and in
itated European colonization everywhere in the their classifications of the children who resulted.
Americas, whether accompanied by a military effort or The Americas supplied seemingly limitless wealth
not. for Spain. Some Spaniards grew rich from West Indian
The Columbian exchange—the biological encounter sugar plantations and Mexican sheep and cattle ranch-
of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres—affected the es, and immense quantities of silver crossed the Atlantic
everyday lives of peoples throughout the Atlantic world. after rich mines in Mexico and Peru began producing in
Besides diseases, sixteenth-century Europeans intro- the 1540s. Spain took in far more American silver than its
duced horses, cattle, sheep, swine, chickens, wheat and economy could absorb, setting off inflation that eventu-
other grains, coffee, sugar cane, numerous fruits and gar- ally engulfed all Europe. Bent on dominating Europe,
den vegetables, and many species of weeds, insects, and the Spanish kings needed ever more American silver to
rodents to America. In the next century, enslaved finance their wars. Several times they went bankrupt,
Africans carried rice and yams with them across the and in the 1560s their efforts to squeeze more taxes from
Atlantic. The list of American gifts to Europe and Africa their subjects helped provoke the revolt of Spain’s rich
was equally impressive: corn, many varieties of beans, Netherlands provinces (see below). In the end, American
white and sweet potatoes, the tropical root crop manioc, wealth proved to be a mixed blessing for Spain.
tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, peanuts, vanilla, cacao,
avocados, pineapples, chilis, tobacco, and turkeys. Often,
several centuries passed before new plants became FOOTHOLDS
widely accepted across the ocean. For example, many IN NORTH AMERICA,
Europeans initially suspected that potatoes were aphro-
disiacs and that tomatoes were poisonous, and few
1512–1625
Indians would ever grow wheat. Most European immigrants in the sixteenth century
European weeds and domestic animals drastically flocked to Mexico, the Caribbean, and points farther
altered many American environments. Especially in south. But a minority helped extend the Atlantic world
temperate zones, livestock devoured indigenous plants, to North America through exploratory voyages, fishing
enabling hardier European weeds to take over. As a expeditions, trade with Native Americans, and piracy
result, wild animals that had fed on the plants stayed and smuggling. Except for a Spanish base at St.
away, depriving Indians of a critical source of food. Free- Augustine, Florida, the earliest attempts to plant
roaming livestock, especially hogs, also invaded Native colonies failed, generally because they were predicated
Americans’ cornfields. In this way, colonists’ ways of life on unrealistic expectations of fabulous wealth and pli-
impinged directly on those of Native peoples. Settlers’ ant natives.
crops, intensively cultivated on lands never replenished After 1600 the ravaging of Indian populations by dis-
by lying fallow, often exhausted American soil. But the ease and the rise of English, French, and Dutch power
worldwide exchange of food products also enriched finally made colonization possible. By 1614 Spain,
human diets and later made enormous population England, France, and the Netherlands had made often
growth possible. overlapping territorial claims and established North
Another dimension of the Atlantic world was the American footholds (see Maps 2.4 and 2.5). Within
mixing of peoples. During the sixteenth century, about another decade, each colony developed a distinct eco-
three hundred thousand Spaniards immigrated, 90 per- nomic orientation and its own approach to Native
cent of them male. Particularly in towns, a racially Americans.
 Footholds in North America, 1512–1625 43

Spain’s Northern Frontier, 0 200 Miles

1512–1625 NEWFOUNDLAND
0 200 Kilometers

The Spanish had built their American empire by subdu-

ing the Aztec, Inca, and other Indian states. The dream
of more such finds drew would-be conquistadors to
lands north of Mexico. “As it was his object to find another
treasure like that . . . of Peru,” a witness wrote of one Tadoussac 1600

such man, Hernando de Soto, he “would not be content

with good lands nor pearls.” St. Croix 1604
Sable I. 1598

dy
The earliest of these invaders was Juan Ponce de

un
Quebec 1608

of F
Port Royal 1604
León, the conqueror of Puerto Rico, who in 1512–1513

B ay
and again in 1521 trudged through Florida in search of

Ke n
gold and slaves. His quest ended in death in a skirmish

R.

ne
ce

be
c
ren
with Native Americans. The most astonishing early

R.
aw
Sagadahoc 1607
expedition began in Florida in 1527. After provoking sev-

.L
St
eral attacks by Apalachee Indians, the three hundred H
explorers were separated into several parties. All were

ud
so
Mo h
a w k R. Plymouth

n
thought to have perished until eight years later, when 1620

R.
Fort Nassau
four survivors, led by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and 1614
including an African slave, Estevanico, arrived in north-
ern Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca’s account of their journey
New Amsterdam 1625
from Florida through Texas and New Mexico is the most
compelling European literary work on North America
before permanent colonization.
ATLANTIC OCEAN
Cabeza de Vaca provided direct inspiration for the
two most formidable attempts at Spanish conquest. De
Soto and his party in 1539–1543 blundered from Tampa Chesapeake Bay

Bay to the Appalachians to the southern Plains, scouring Jamestown 1607

the land for gold and alienating Native people wherever sR Jacán
.

Jame 1570
they went. “Think, then,” one Indian chief appealed to Roanoke 1587

him vainly,
what must be the effect on me and mine, of the Dutch settlement
sight of you ]and your people, whom we have at no
time seen, astride the fierce brutes, your horses, French settlement

entering with such speed and fury into my country, Spanish settlement
that we had no tidings of your coming—things so Santa Elena
1566
absolutely new, as to strike awe and terror into our French claim

hearts. Charlesfort
1562 English claim

In 1540 a coalition of Native Americans gathered at Disputed claim—

the Mississippian city of Mábila to confront the San Mateo 1565 England and France
Fort Caroline 1564 Disputed claim—
invaders. Although victorious militarily, the expedition’s England and the Netherlands
St. Augustine 1565
own losses doomed the Spanish effort. Most of their
Spanish claims

MAP 2.5
Santa Lucia
European Imperial Claims and Settlements Tocobaga
1567 1565

in Eastern North America, 1565–1625

By 1625 four European nations contended for territory on Calos Tequesta 1567
North America’s Atlantic coast. Except for St. Augustine, 1567

Florida, all settlements established before 1607 had been Gulf of Mexico
abandoned by 1625.
44 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

French and English intruders. In 1565 Spain established

the first successful European settlement in North
America, a fortress at St. Augustine, Florida. Despite
attempts to strengthen Florida and to build forts linking
it to Mexico, St. Augustine remained a lone military
stronghold and a base for a chain of religious missions
extending north to Chesapeake Bay. Rejecting mission-
ary efforts to reorder their lives, the Guale, Powhatan,
and other Indians rebelled and forced the closing of all
the missions before 1600. Franciscan missionaries
renewed their efforts in Florida in the early seventeenth
century and secured the nominal allegiance of about
sixteen thousand Guale and Timucua Indians. But epi-
demics in the 1610s killed about half the converts.
Meanwhile, in the 1580s, Spanish missionaries had
returned to the Southwest, preaching Christianity and
scouting the area’s potential wealth. Encouraged by their
reports, New Spain’s viceroy in 1598 commissioned Juan
de Oñate to lead five hundred Spaniards, mestizos,
Mexican Indians, and African slaves into the upper Rio
Grande Valley. They seized a pueblo of the Tewa Indians,
renamed it San Juan, and proclaimed the royal colony of
New Mexico.
horses died from arrow wounds while their livestock The Spanish encountered swift resistance at the
(their principal source of food aside from the corn they mesa-top pueblo of Ácoma in December 1598. When the
seized) scattered. Thereafter, the expedition floundered. Ácoma Indians refused Spanish demands for provisions
Although de Soto died without finding gold or for an exploring expedition, fifteen Spanish soldiers
extending Spanish rule, his and other expeditions ascended the mesa to obtain the goods by force. But the
spread epidemics that destroyed most of the remaining natives resisted and killed most of the soldiers.
Mississippian societies (see Chapter 1). By the time Determined to make an example of Ácoma, Oñate
Europeans returned to the southeastern interior late in ordered massive retaliation. In January Spanish troops
the seventeenth century, only the Natchez on the lower captured the pueblo, killing eight hundred inhabitants
Mississippi River still inhabited their sumptuous tem- in the process. Oñate forced surviving men to have one
ple-mound center and remained under the rule of a foot cut off and, along with the women and children, to
Great Sun monarch. Depopulated groups like the be servants of the soldiers and missionaries. Two promi-
Cherokees and Creeks had adopted the less-centralized nent leaders also had their right hands amputated.
village life of other eastern Indians. Despite having crushed Ácoma and forced other
As de Soto roamed the Southeast, some Spanish Pueblo Indians to serve in Spanish encomiendas, the
officials in Mexico heard rumors of fabulous wealth that new colony barely survived. The Spanish government
lay to the north in the “Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola.” In replaced Oñate in 1606 because of mismanagement and
1540–1542 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado led a mas- excessive brutality toward the Indians, and seriously
sive expedition bent on finding and conquering these considered withdrawing from New Mexico altogether.
cities. Coronado plundered several pueblos on the Rio Franciscan missionaries, aiming to save Pueblo Indian
Grande and wandered from the Grand Canyon to pres- souls, persuaded the authorities to keep New Mexico
ent-day Kansas before returning to Mexico, finding no alive. By 1630 Franciscans had been dispatched to more
gold but embittering many Native Americans toward the than fifty pueblos and nominally converted up to twenty
Spanish. Other expeditions along the California coast thousand Indians. But resistance was common because,
and up the Colorado River likewise proved fruitless. as the leading Franciscan summarized it, “the main and
For several decades after these failed ventures, general answer given [by the Pueblos] for not becoming
Spain’s principal interest north of Mexico and the Christians is that when they do, . . . they are at once
Caribbean lay in establishing strategic bases to keep out compelled to pay tribute and render personal service.”
 Footholds in North America, 1512–1625 45

New Mexico began, then, amidst uneasy tensions power comparable to the power of quartz, mica, and
between colonists and natives. other sacred substances that they had long obtained via
trade networks (see Chapter 1). By the next century, spe-
cialized factories in Europe would be producing both
France: Initial Failures and
cloth and glass for the “Indian trade.”
Canadian Success, 1541–1610
Seeing the lucrative Canadian trade as a source of
The voyages of Verrazano and Cartier (see above) revenue, the French government dispatched the explor-
marked the beginning of French activity in North er Samuel de Champlain to establish the colony of New
America. France made its first colonizing attempt in France at Quebec in 1608. The French decided that a
1541 when Cartier returned with ten ships carrying four colony was the surest means of deterring English,
hundred soldiers, three hundred sailors, and a few Dutch, and independent French competitors. Having
women to the St. Lawrence Valley. Cartier had earned previously explored much of the Northeast and headed a
Native Americans’ distrust during his previous expedi- short-lived French settlement at Acadia, Champlain was
tions, and his construction of a fortified settlement on familiar with Indian politics and diplomacy in the
Stadacona Indian land (near the modern city of Quebec) region. Building on this understanding, he shrewdly
removed all possibility of friendly relations. Over the allied with the Montagnais and Algonquins of the St.
next two years, the French suffered heavy casualties Lawrence and the Hurons of the lower Great Lakes. He
from Stadacona attacks and from scurvy (for which the agreed to help these allies defeat their enemies, the
Stadoconas could have shown them a cure) before aban- Mohawks of the Iroquois Confederacy, who sought
doning the colony. direct access to European traders on the St. Lawrence.
The failed French expedition seemed to verify the Champlain’s new allies were equally shrewd in recogniz-
Spanish opinion, voiced by the cardinal of Seville, that ing the advantage that French guns would give them
“this whole coast as far [south] as Florida is utterly against the usually dreaded Mohawks.
unproductive.” The next French effort at colonization In July 1609 Champlain and two other Frenchmen
came in 1562 when French Huguenots (Calvinists) accompanied sixty Montagnais and Huron warriors to
briefly established a base in what is now South Caro- Lake Champlain (which the explorer named for himself).
lina. In 1564 the Huguenots founded a settlement near Soon they encountered two hundred Mohawks at Point
present-day Jacksonville, Florida. Sensing a Protestant Ticonderoga near the lake’s southern tip. After a night of
threat to their control of the Caribbean, Spanish forces
destroyed the settlement a year later, executing all 132
male defenders. These failures, along with a civil war
between French Catholics and Huguenots, temporarily
hindered France’s colonizing efforts.
Meanwhile, French and other European fishermen
were working the plenteous Grand Banks fisheries off
the coast of Newfoundland. Going ashore to dry their
fish, some French sailors bartered with Beothuk Indians
for skins of beaver, a species almost extinct in Europe. By
the late sixteenth century, as European demand for
beaver hats skyrocketed, a French-dominated fur trade
blossomed. Before the end of the century, French traders
were returning annually to sites from Newfoundland to
New England and along the lower St. Lawrence.
Unlike explorers such as de Soto and colonizers
such as those at Roanoke (see below), most traders rec-
ognized the importance of reciprocity in dealing with
Native Americans. Consequently, they were generally
more successful. In exchange for pelts, they traded metal
tools such as axes and knives, cloth, and glass beads.
Seen by the Europeans as trinkets, glass beads were con-
sidered by northeastern Indians to possess spiritual
46 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

mutual taunting, the two parties met on shore the follow- in northern Ireland, or Ulster, and established their own
ing morning. As the main French-Indian column neared settlements (“plantations”) of English and Scottish
its opponents, Champlain stepped ahead and confront- Protestants. The English practiced total war to break the
ed the Mohawks’ three spectacularly attired war leaders. rebellious population’s spirit, inflicting starvation and
mass slaughter by destroying villages in the winter.
When I saw them make a move to draw their bows
Elizabeth’s generals justified these atrocities by
upon us, I took aim with my arquebus [a kind of
claiming that the Irish were ”savages” and that Irish cus-
gun] and shot straight at one of the three chiefs,
toms, religion, and method of fighting absolved the
and with this same shot two fell to the ground, and
English from guilt in waging exceptionally cruel warfare.
one of their companions was wounded and died a
Ireland thus furnished precedents for later English tac-
little later. . . . As I was reloading my arquebus, one
tics and rationales for crushing Native Americans.
of my [French] companions fired a shot from within
England had two objectives in the Western
the woods, which astonished them again so much
Hemisphere in the 1570s. The first was to find the north-
that, seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage and
west passage to Asia and discover gold on the way; the
took to flight.
second, in Drake’s words, was to “singe the king of
The French and their allies pursued the fleeing Spain’s beard” by raiding Spanish fleets and ports from
Mohawks, killing about fifty and capturing a dozen pris- Spain to the West Indies. The search for the northwest
oners. A few pro-French Indians suffered minor arrow passage only led to such embarrassments as explorer
wounds. Martin Frobisher’s return from the Canadian Arctic with
The battle of Lake Champlain marked the end of a shipload of “fool’s gold.” However, privateering raids
casual Indian-European encounters in the Northeast proved spectacularly successful and profitable for their
and the beginning of a deadly era of trade, diplomacy, financial backers, including merchants, gentry, govern-
and warfare. Through their alliance with the powerful ment leaders, and Elizabeth herself. The most breath-
Hurons, the French gained access to the thick beaver taking enterprise was Drake’s voyage around the world
pelts of the Canadian interior in exchange for European (1577–1580) in quest of sites for colonies. During this
goods and protection from the Iroquois. These econom- voyage, he sailed up the California coast and entered
ic and diplomatic arrangements defined the course Drake’s Bay, north of San Francisco, where he traded
of New France’s history for the rest of the seventeenth with Miwok Indians.
century. Now deadly rivals, Spain and England sought to out-
maneuver one another in America. In 1572 the Spanish
tried to fortify a Jesuit mission on the Chesapeake Bay.
England and the Atlantic World,
They failed, largely because Powhatan Indians resisted.
1558–1603
After an attempt to colonize Newfoundland failed, Sir
When Elizabeth I became queen in 1558, England was a Walter Raleigh obtained a royal patent (charter) in 1584
minor power; Spain and France grappled for supremacy to start an English colony farther south, closer to the
in Europe; and Spain and Portugal garnered wealth from Spanish—a region the English soon named Virginia in
the Americas. Although England and Spain had been at honor of their virgin queen. Raleigh dispatched Arthur
peace, the largely Protestant English worried about Barlowe to explore the region, and Barlowe returned
Spanish interventions against Calvinists in France and singing the praises of Roanoke Island, its peaceable
the Netherlands, and about the pope’s call for Elizabeth’s natives, and its ideal location as a base for anti-Spanish
overthrow. In securing the loyalty of England’s rival privateers. Raleigh then persuaded Elizabeth to dispatch
Protestant movements (see above), Elizabeth shifted a colonizing expedition to Roanoke.
toward a militantly anti-Catholic foreign policy. Secretly, At first all went well. The Roanoke Indians eagerly
she stepped up her aid to the Calvinist rebels and traded and shared their corn. Given such abundance
encouraged English “sea dogs” like John Hawkins and and native hospitality, the colonists wondered why they
Francis Drake—privateers who plundered Spanish should work at all. Refusing to grow their own food, they
ships. expected the Roanokes to feed them. By the first winter,
The Anglo-Spanish rivalry in the Atlantic extended the English had outlived their welcome. Fearing that the
to Ireland after 1565, when Spain and the pope began natives were about to attack, English soldiers killed
directly aiding Irish Catholics’ resistance to English rule. Wingina, the Roanoke leader, in June 1586. When
In a war that ground on through the 1580s, the English Raleigh’s friend Drake visited soon after on his way back
drove the Irish clans out of their strongholds, especially to England, many colonists joined him.
 Footholds in North America, 1512–1625 47

Thereafter, the Anglo-Spanish conflict repeatedly sales of stock to the public—could raise enough funds
prevented English ships from returning to Roanoke to for American settlement. Such stock offerings produced
supply those who remained. When a party finally arrived large sums with limited risk for each investor.
in 1590, it found only rusty armor, moldy books, and the On April 10, 1606, James I granted a charter author-
word CROATOAN cut into a post. Although the stranded izing overlapping grants of land in Virginia to two sepa-
colonists were presumably living among the Croatoan rate joint-stock companies, one based in London and
Indians of Cape Hatteras, the exact fate of the “lost the other in Plymouth. The Virginia Company of
colony” remains a mystery to this day. Plymouth received a grant extending south from mod-
Roanoke’s brief history underscored several stub- ern Maine to the Potomac River, and the Virginia
born realities about European expansion to North Company of London’s lands ran north from Cape Fear to
America. First, even a large-scale, well-financed coloniz- the Hudson River. Both companies dispatched colonists
ing effort could fail, given the settlers’ lack of prepared- in 1607.
ness for the American environment. Second, colonists The Virginia Company of Plymouth sent 120 men to
did not bring enough provisions for the first winter and Sagadahoc, at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Half left
disdained growing their own food. Although some set- in 1608 after alienating nearby Abenaki Indians and
tlers were curious and open-minded about the Indians’ enduring a hard Maine winter, and the rest went back to
way of life, most assumed that Native Americans would England a year later. Soon thereafter the company dis-
submit to their authority and feed them while they banded.
looked for gold—a sure recipe for trouble. Third, colo- The Virginia Company of London barely avoided a
nizing attempts would have to be self-financing; finan- similar failure. Its first expedition included many gentle-
cially strapped monarchs like Elizabeth I would not men who disdained work and expected riches to fall into
throw good money after bad. Fourth, conflict with the their laps. They chose a site on the James River in May
Spanish hung menacingly over every European attempt 1607 and named it Jamestown. Discipline quickly fell
to gain a foothold in North America. apart and, as at Roanoke, the colonists neglected to
In 1588, while Roanoke struggled, England won a plant crops. When relief ships arrived in January 1608
spectacular naval victory over the Armada, a huge inva- with reinforcements, only 38 survivors remained out of
sion fleet sent into the English Channel by Spain’s Philip 105 immigrants.
II. This famous victory preserved England’s independ- Short of workers who could farm, fish, hunt, and do
ence and confirmed its status as a major power in the carpentry, Virginia also lacked effective leadership. The
Atlantic. council’s first president hoarded supplies, and its second
was lazy and indecisive. By September 1608, three coun-
cilors had died and three others had returned to
The Beginnings of English
England, leaving only a brash soldier of fortune, Captain
Colonization, 1603–1625
John Smith.
Anglo-Spanish relations took a new turn after 1603, Twenty-eight years old and of yeoman origin, Smith
when Elizabeth died and her cousin, the king of had experience fighting Spaniards and Turks that pre-
Scotland, ascended the English throne as James I. The pared him for assuming control in Virginia. Organizing
cautious, peace-loving king signed a truce with Spain in all but the sick in work gangs, he ensured sufficient food
1604. Alarmed by Dutch naval victories (see below), the and housing for winter. Applying lessons learned in his
Spanish now considered England the lesser danger. soldiering days, he laid down rules for maintaining sani-
Consequently, Spain’s new king, Philip III (ruled tation and hygiene to limit disease. Above all, he brought
1598–1621), conceded what his predecessors had always order through military discipline. During the next winter
refused: a free hand to another power in part of the (1608–1609), Virginia lost just a dozen men out of two
Americas. Spain renounced its claims to Virginia, and hundred.
England could now colonize unmolested. Smith also became the colony’s diplomat. After
The question of how to finance English colonies Powhatan Indians captured him in late 1607, Smith dis-
remained. Neither the crown nor Parliament would played such courage that their weroance (chief), also
agree to spend money on colonies, and Roanoke’s failure named Powhatan, arranged an elaborate reconciliation
had proved that private fortunes were inadequate to ceremony in which his daughter Pocahontas “saved”
finance successful settlements. Political and financial Smith’s life during a mock execution. Smith maintained
leaders determined that joint-stock companies— satisfactory relations with the Powhatans in part
business corporations that would amass capital through through his personality, but he also employed calculated
48 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

demonstrations of English military strength to mask the debt. Second, the colony’s population suffered from an
settlers’ actual weakness. appallingly high death rate. The majority of fatalities
John Smith prevented Virginia from disintegrating stemmed from malnutrition owing to the poor diets of
as Sagadahoc had. But when he returned to England in the servants, or from salt poisoning, typhus, or dysen-
1609 after being wounded in a gunpowder explosion, tery contracted when the settlers drank the salty, pollut-
discipline again crumbled. Expecting the Indians to pro- ed water from the lower James River. Most of the 3,500
vide them with corn, the colonists had not laid away suf- immigrants entering Virginia from 1618 to 1622 died
ficient food for the winter. A survivor wrote, within three years. Finally, relations with the Powhatans
steadily worsened after Pocahontas died in England in
So lamentable was our scarcity, that we were
1617 and Powhatan died a year later. Leadership passed
constrained to eat dogs, cats, rats, snakes,
to Opechancanough, who at first sought to accommo-
toadstools, horsehides, and what not; one man out
date the English. But relentless English expansion led to
of the misery endured, killing his wife powdered her
Indian discontent and to the rise of a powerful religious
up [with flour] to eat her, for which he was burned.
leader, Nemattenew, who urged the Powhatans to resist
Many besides fed on the corpses of dead men.
the English to the death. After some settlers killed
Of the five hundred residents at Jamestown in Nemattenew, the Indians launched a surprise attack in
September 1609, about 400 died by May 1610. But an 1622 that killed 347 of the 1,240 colonists. With much of
influx of new recruits, coupled with the reimposition of their livestock destroyed, spring planting prevented, and
military rule, enabled Virginia to win the First Anglo- disease spreading through cramped fortresses, hun-
Powhatan War (1610–1614). The English population dreds more colonists died in the ensuing months.
remained small, however, just 380 in 1616, and it had yet After the Virginia Company sent more men,
to produce anything of value for Virginia Company Governor Francis Wyatt reorganized the settlers and
stockholders. took the offensive during the Second Anglo-Powhatan
Tobacco emerged as Virginia’s salvation. John Rolfe, War (1622–1632). Using tactics developed during the
an Englishman who married Pocahontas after the war, Irish war, Wyatt inflicted widespread starvation by
spent several years adapting a salable variety of destroying food supplies, conducted winter campaigns
Caribbean tobacco to conditions in Virginia. By 1619 the to drive Indians from their homes when they would suf-
product commanded high prices, and that year Virginia fer most, and fought (according to John Smith) as if he
exported large amounts to a newly emergent European had “just cause to destroy them by all means possible.”
market. By 1625 the English had effectively won the war, and the
To attract labor and capital to its suddenly profitable Powhatans had lost their best chance of driving out the
venture, the Virginia Company awarded a fifty-acre intruders.
“headright” for each person (“head”) entering the The clash left the Virginia Company bankrupt and
colony, to whomever paid that person’s passage. By pay- James I concerned over complaints against its officers.
ing the passage of prospective laborers, some enterpris- After receiving a report critical of the company’s man-
ing planters accumulated sizable tracts of land. agement, James revoked its charter in 1624, and Virginia
Thousands of young men and a few hundred women became a royal colony. Only about five hundred
calculated that uncertainty in Virginia was preferable to colonists now lived in Virginia, including a handful of
continued unemployment and poverty in England. In Africans who had been brought in since 1619. The vast
return for their passage, they agreed to work as inden- majority of this population, white as well as black, con-
tured servants for fixed terms, usually four to seven sisted of unfree laborers, and most would die early
years. The Virginia Company abandoned military rule in deaths (see Chapter 3). The roots from which Virginia’s
1619 and provided for an assembly to be elected by the Anglo-American and African-American peoples later
“inhabitants” (apparently meaning only the planters). grew were fragile indeed.
Although the assembly’s actions were subject to the
company’s veto, it was the first representative legislature
New England Begins, 1614–1625
in North America.
By 1622 Virginia faced three serious problems. First, The next English colony, after Virginia, that proved per-
local officials systematically defrauded the shareholders manent arose in New England. In 1614 the ever-enter-
by embezzling treasury funds, overcharging for supplies, prising John Smith, exploring its coast, gave New
and using company laborers to work their own tobacco England its name. “Who,” he asked, “can but approve
fields. They profited, but the company sank deep into this most excellent place, both for health and fertility?”
 Footholds in North America, 1512–1625 49

An admirer of Cortés, Smith planned to conquer its Plymouth’s relations with the Native Americans
“goodly, strong, and well-proportioned [Indian] people” soon worsened. The alliance that Squanto and Samoset
and establish a colony there. But his hopes came to had arranged between Plymouth and the Wampanoags,
nothing. As for the region’s Native peoples, a terrible epi- headed by Massasoit, had united two weak parties. But
demic spread by fishermen or traders devastated coastal with their firearms the colonists became the dominant
communities by about 90 percent in 1616–1618. Later partner, forcing the Wampanoags to acknowledge
visitors found the ground littered with the “bones and English sovereignty. News of the Powhatan attack in
skulls” of the unburied dead and acres of overgrown 1622 hastened the colony’s militarization under the
cornfields. leadership of a professional soldier, Miles Standish.
In 1620, against this tragic backdrop, the Virginia Standish threatened Plymouth’s “allies” with the colony’s
Company of London gave a patent to some London monopoly of firepower. For although Massasoit
merchants headed by Thomas Weston for a settlement. remained loyal, many Wampanoags were offended by
Weston sent over twenty-four families (a total of 102 the colonists’ conduct.
people) in a small, leaky ship called the Mayflower. The Relations with Native Americans also enabled
colonists promised to send lumber, furs, and fish back to Plymouth to become economically self-sufficient. After
Weston in England for seven years, after which they the colony turned from communal farming to individu-
would own the tract. ally owned plots, its more-prosperous farmers produced
The expedition’s leaders, but only half its members, corn surpluses, which they traded to nonfarming
were Separatist Puritans who had withdrawn from the Abenakis in Maine for furs. Within a decade, Plymouth
Church of England and fled to the Netherlands to prac- had attracted several hundred colonists.
tice their religion freely. Fearing that their children were The Plymouth colonists’ lasting importance was
assimilating into Dutch culture, they decided to immi- threefold. First, they constituted an outpost for Puritans
grate to America. dissenting from the Church of England. Second, they
In November 1620 the Mayflower landed at proved that a self-governing society consisting mostly of
Plymouth Bay, north of Virginia’s boundary in present- farm families could flourish in New England. Finally,
day Massachusetts. Knowing that they had no legal right they foreshadowed the aggressive methods that later
to be there, the expedition’s leaders insisted that all the generations of European Americans would use to gain
adult males in the group (including non-Separatists) mastery over Indians. In all three respects, Plymouth
sign the Mayflower Compact before they landed. By this was the vanguard of a massive, voluntary migration of
document they constituted themselves a “civil body Puritans to New England in the 1630s (see Chapter 3).
politic,” or government, under English rule, and estab-
lished the colony of New Plymouth, or Plymouth.
The Enterprising Dutch, 1609–1625
Weakened by their journey and unprepared for win-
ter, half the Pilgrims, as the colonists later came to be Among the most fervently Calvinist regions of Europe
known, died within four months of landing. Those still were the Dutch-speaking provinces of the Netherlands.
alive in the spring of 1621 owed much to the aid of two The provinces had come under Spanish rule during the
English-speaking Native Americans. One was Squanto, a sixteenth century, but Spain’s religious intolerance and
Wampanoag Indian who had been taken to Spain as a high taxes drove the Dutch to revolt beginning in 1566.
slave in 1614 and then escaped to England. Returning Repeatedly unable to quell the revolt, Spain and the
home with a colonizing expedition, he learned that most Dutch Republic agreed on a truce in 1609. By then the
of the two thousand people of his village had perished in Netherlands was a wealthy commercial power. The
the recent epidemic. The other friendly Indian, an Dutch built an empire stretching from Brazil to South
Abenaki from Maine named Samoset, had experience Africa to Taiwan, and played a key role in colonizing
trading with the English. To prevent the colonists from North America.
stealing the natives’ food, Squanto showed them how to Just as the French were routing the Mohawk
grow corn, using fish as fertilizer. Plymouth’s first har- Iroquois at Lake Champlain in 1609, Henry Hudson
vest was marked by a festival, “at which time . . . we exer- sailed up the river later named for him, traded with
cised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst Native Americans, and claimed the land for the
us, . . . some 90 men, whom for three days we enter- Netherlands. When Dutch traders returned the following
tained and feasted.” This festival became the basis for year, some of their most eager customers were—not sur-
Thanksgiving, a holiday established in the nineteenth prisingly—Mohawk. Having established lucrative ties
century. with Indians on the lower Hudson River, Dutch traders
50 CHAPTER 2 The Rise of the Atlantic World, 1400–1625

C H R O N O L O G Y, 1400–1625

c. 1400–1600 European Renaissance.

c. 1400 Mali challenged in West African grassland.
Coastal West African kingdoms rise and expand.
1440 Portuguese slave trade in West Africa begins.
1488 Días reaches the Cape of Good Hope.
1492 Christian “reconquest” of Spain.
Columbus lands at Guanahaní.
1517 Protestant Reformation begins in Germany.
1519–1521 Cortés leads Spanish conquest of Aztec empire.
1519–1522 Magellan’s expedition circumnavigates the globe.
1532–1536 Pizarro leads Spanish conquest of Inca empire.
1534 Church of England breaks from Roman Catholic Church.
1541–1542 Cartier attempts to colonize eastern Canada.
1539–1543 De Soto attempts conquests in southeastern
United States.
1540–1542 Coronado attempts conquests in
southwestern United States.
1558 Elizabeth I becomes queen of England.
1565 St. Augustine founded by Spanish.
1585–1590 English colony of Roanoke established, then
disappears.
in 1614 built Fort Nassau near what would become 1588 England defeats the Spanish Armada.
Albany, and established the colony of New Netherland. 1598 Oñate founds New Mexico.
In 1626 the Dutch bought an island at the mouth of the 1603 James I becomes king of England.
Hudson from local Indians and began a second settle- 1607 English found colonies at Jamestown and Sagadahoc.
ment there. The Dutch named the island Manhattan and 1608 Champlain founds New France.
the settlement New Amsterdam. 1609 Henry Hudson explores the Hudson River.
New Netherlanders lived by the fur trade. Through 1610–1614 First Anglo-Powhatan War.
the Mohawks, they relied on the Five Nations Iroquois,
1614 New Netherland founded.
much as the French depended on the Hurons, as com-
1619 Large exports of tobacco from Virginia begin.
mercial clients and military allies. In the 1620s, to stimu-
First Africans arrive in Virginia.
late a flow of furs to New Netherland, Dutch traders
1620 Plymouth colony founded.
obtained from coastal Indians large quantities of
1622–1632 Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
wampum—sacred shells like those used by Dega-
nawidah and Hiawatha to convey solemn “words” of 1624 James I revokes Virginia Company’s charter.
condolence in rituals (see Chapter 1)—for trade with
the Iroquois. The Dutch-Iroquois and French-Huron ly entered a new era in which nation-states drew on
alliances became embroiled in an ever-deepening Renaissance knowledge, merchants’ capital, and reli-
contest to control the movement of goods between gious zeal to advance national power and overseas
Europeans and Indians. expansion.
The Atlantic world brought few benefits to West
CONCLUSION Africans and Native Americans. Proclaiming that civi-
lization and Christianity rendered them superior,
The sixteenth century marked the emergence of an Europeans denigrated Native Americans and Africans as
Atlantic world linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas. savages whose land and labor Europeans could seize
Kings and emperors in West Africa were already compet- and exploit. Initial Portuguese incursions promised to
ing ferociously for the wealth brought by long-distance expand West Africa’s trade ties with Europe. But Europe’s
trade, including trade in slaves. Western Europe halting- overwhelming demand for slave labor depleted the
 For Further Reference 51

region’s population and accelerated the reshaping of Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women
trade, politics, warfare, and societies. Africa’s notorious in Western Europe, vol. I: 1500–1800 (1996). An outstand-
underdevelopment, which persists in our own time, had ing interpretive synthesis.
begun. D. W. Meinig, The Shaping of America, vol. 1: Atlantic
After 1492 the Atlantic world spread to the Americas. America, 1492–1800 (1986). A geographer’s engrossing
study of Europeans’ encounter with North America and
Indigenous peoples in Mexico, Peru, and elsewhere felt
the rise of colonial societies.
the terrible violence of Spanish conquest, suffering Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar
untold losses of population as well as the shattering of in Modern History (1985). The role of sugar as crop, com-
political, social, and religious institutions. The forced modity, food, and cultural artifact.
and unforced movements of people, as well as those of Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of
animals, plants, and disease-bearing germs, constituted Empire in Spain, Britain and France, c. 1500–c. 1800
a Columbian exchange that profoundly affected peoples (1995). A comparative discussion of imperialist thought
and environments of both exploiters and exploited. in Europe’s three most powerful overseas empires.
Native peoples north of Mexico and the Caribbean David B. Quinn, North America from Earliest Discoveries to
held would-be conquerors and colonizers at bay until First Settlements: The Norse Voyages to 1612 (1977). A
after 1600. Depending on Europeans’ dealings with thorough, learned account of European exploration,
based on a wide range of scholarship.
them, native North Americans cooperated with
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the
Europeans who practiced reciprocity while resisting Atlantic World, 2nd ed. (1998). Insightful perspectives on
those who tried to dominate them. By 1625 Spain had the role of West Africans in American colonization.
advanced only as far north as seemed worthwhile to
protect its prized Mexican and Caribbean conquests.
Meanwhile, French, English, and Dutch colonists WEBSITES
focused on less-spectacular resources. New France and Africans in America
New Netherland existed primarily to obtain furs from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/title.html
Indians, while the English in Virginia and Plymouth cul- WGBH Educational Foundation.
tivated lands once belonging to Native Americans. All An excellent site, offering a good narrative history and
these colonies depended for their success on maintain- multiple resources and documents for further pursuing
ing stable relations with at least some Native Americans. the subject. Part, 1, The Terrible Transformation,
1450–1750, is especially pertinent for this chapter.
The transplantation of Europeans into North America
was hardly a story of inevitable triumph. A Biography of America, 1: New World Encounters
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog01/index.html
Annenberg/CPB Learner.org.
A good introduction to North America before and after
FOR FURTHER REFERENCE the arrival of Europeans, emphasizing Native Americans’
experiences and Spanish and English imperialism.
READINGS Plimoth-on-Web
Robert J. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of http://www.plimoth.org/index.html
the American Indian from Columbus to the Present A wealth of information on the histories of Wampanoag
(1978). A penetrating analysis of the shaping of Indians and Pilgrim colonists in Plymouth, as well as on
European and American attitudes, ideologies, and poli- visiting Plimoth Plantation, the careful re-creation of
cies toward Native Americans. Indian and English life in New England’s first colony.
Nicholas Canny, ed., The Origins of Empire (The Oxford Texts of Imagination and Empire: The Founding of
History of the British Empire, vol. 1; 1998). Essays by Jamestown in Its Atlantic Context
leading authorities offer a comprehensive treatment http://www.folger.edu/institute/jamestown/index_main.htm
of the origins and early development of English An excellent, comprehensive introduction to the peoples
imperialism. and forces that shaped Virginia’s early history.
Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., Ecological Imperialism: The Biological
Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (1986). Accessible discus-
sion of the environmental and medical history of
European overseas colonization.
Philip Curtin, et al., eds., African History: From Earliest
Times to Independence, 2nd ed. (1995). Excellent essay
overviews by leading historians in the field.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 CHAPTER 3
Expansion and Diversity:
The Rise of Colonial America,
1625–1700

O n the West Indian island of Barbados in 1692, a widowed Englishwoman

named Sarah Horbin drew up a list of her relatives to see who might
deserve bequests of property in case her only son—a sailor being held for
ransom in a North African prison—died. Through her kinsman, John
Seabury of Barbados, she had kept in contact with a dozen Seabury cousins
in New England. She had also remained in touch with several Virginia rela-
tives in the Empereur family and with a kinsman of her husband’s, Andrew
Rouse, who lived in Carolina.
Sarah Horbin and her far-flung clan were part of a massive migration of
European women and men, predominantly English, who built new commu-
nities in North America and the Caribbean during the seventeenth century
(see Map 3.1). By 1700 there were more than 250,000 people of European
birth or parentage, most of them English, within the modern-day United
States. They made up North America’s first large wave of immigrant settlers.
In 1672 another recently widowed immigrant, Mary Johnson of Somerset CHAPTER OUTLINE
County, Maryland, conducted a similar survey of her kin as she drew up a
The New England Way
will. Each of her two sons, living nearby, had a wife and two children.
Johnson’s other relatives were undoubtedly as widely scattered as Horbin’s, Chesapeake Society
but unlike Horbin, she had no idea where they were. Mary Johnson had
The Spread of Slavery: The Caribbean
arrived in Virginia fifty years earlier as a slave. Although Mary’s origins are
and Carolina

The Middle Colonies

!
Rivals for North America: France and
Spain

53
54 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

The vast migrations of Europeans and Africans were

From possible only because of yet another demographic
0 England upheaval, the depopulation and uprooting of Native
5,00
To New England 2 189,000
000 Americans. Having begun in the sixteenth century (see
0,
eak e 5 Chapter 2), the process continued in the seventeenth,
To Chesap

0
00

00
uda
4,0 primarily as a result of epidemic diseases but also

0,
erm
To B because of warfare and other factors arising from

11
s
Europeans’ occupation of Indian lands. Although many

ie
ATLANTIC

nd
OCEAN Native populations partly recovered, it is likely that
tI
es about 1 million North American Indians died as a result
W
To

of contact with Europeans by 1700. Sarah Horbin, Mary

Johnson, and their extended families settled not in
CARIBBEAN SEA
wildernesses but in lands long inhabited and worked by
Native Americans.
Patterns of Indian depopulation and of European
and African immigration transformed North America in
the seventeenth century. From a few scattered outposts
MAP 3.1 in 1625, Europeans expanded their territorial domains
English Migration, 1610–1660 and built colonial societies from the St. Lawrence River
During the first phase of English transatlantic migration, the
to the Rio Grande. At the same time, the arrival of west-
West Indies attracted more than twice as many colonists as
ern Europeans and West Africans further enriched the
went to the Chesapeake, and over four times as many as settled
in New England. continent’s cultural diversity.
The preponderance of immigrants and capital from
England ensured that nation’s domination of North
America’s eastern coast as well as the Caribbean. Before
unknown, her husband Anthony had previously been 1700 the English would force the Dutch out of North
called Antonio, indicating that he had already been America altogether and leave France and Spain with
enslaved by the Portuguese. Soon after their marriage in lands less attractive to colonists. Within England’s main-
1625, the Johnsons managed to gain their freedom, as land colonies, four distinct regions emerged: New
did a few dozen other enslaved Africans in Virginia’s England, the Chesapeake, Carolina, and the middle
early decades. Thereafter they bought some land and colonies. Several factors distinguished these regions
even a few black slaves. Still, they faced the uncertainties from one another, including their physical environ-
confronting all small tobacco planters in the seven- ments, the motives of white immigrants, and the con-
teenth-century Chesapeake region, besides daunting centrations of enslaved Africans.
legal restrictions based on race.
Most of the Johnsons’ fellow Africans were less for-
tunate. Whereas Europeans might at least hope to realize This chapter will focus on four major questions:
economic opportunity or religious freedom, most ■ Why did colonial New Englanders abandon John
Africans and their children remained the property of Winthrop’s vision of a “city on a hill”?
others for as long as they lived. The Johnsons’ grandchil-
dren disappeared from Maryland records after the turn ■ Why did indentured servitude give way to racial slav-
of the eighteenth century, most likely the victims of leg- ery in England’s plantation colonies? Why were both
islation forcing most free blacks into slavery. these institutions more limited in the nonplantation
The vast majority of the three hundred thousand colonies?
Africans taken to the Caribbean and North America
■ What were the major factors facilitating French and
during the seventeenth century went to the sugar
Spanish colonial expansion?
plantations of Sarah Horbin’s neighbors in Barbados
and elsewhere in the West Indies. A small but distinct ■ Why was England’s North American empire so much
minority went to the mainland plantation colonies of larger and wealthier than those of France and Spain
the Southeast, and a scattered few to other regions. by 1700?
 The New England Way 55

THE NEW ENGLAND Winthrop denounced the economic jealousy that

bred class hatred. God intended that “in all times some
WAY must be rich and some poor,” he asserted. The rich had
One of the earliest colonial regions to prosper in North an obligation to show charity and mercy toward the
America was New England. Separatist Puritans had poor, who should accept rule by their social superiors as
established Plymouth in 1620 (see Chapter 2), and a few God’s will. God expected the state to keep the greedy
hundred others had drifted into the region over the next among the rich from exploiting the needy and to prevent
decade. In 1630 a Puritan-led Great Migration to New the lazy among the poor from burdening their fellow cit-
England began (see Map 3.1). Establishing a colony izens. In outlining a divine plan in which all people, rich
based on religious ideals, this larger, more formidable and poor, served one another, Winthrop expressed a
group of Puritans endeavored to build America’s first conservative European’s understanding of social hierar-
utopian, or ideal, society. Although internal divisions chy (see Chapter 2) and voiced Puritans’ dismay at the
and social-economic change undermined these ideals, economic forces battering—and changing—English
Puritanism gave New England a distinctive regional society.
identity. Winthrop and his fellow immigrants reached Boston
(the new capital) in June 1630, and by fall six towns had
sprung up nearby. During the unusually severe first win-
A City upon a Hill, 1625–1642
ter, 30 percent of Winthrop’s party died, and another
After Charles I (ruled 1625–1649) became England’s king, 10 percent went home in the spring. By mid-1631, how-
Anglican authorities undertook a systematic campaign ever, thirteen hundred new settlers had landed, and
to eliminate Puritan influence within the Church of more were on the way. The worst was over. The colony
England. With the king’s backing, bishops insisted that would never suffer another starving time. Like Plymouth,
services be conducted according to the Book of Common Massachusetts Bay primarily attracted landowning farm
Prayer, which prescribed rituals similar to Catholic prac- families of modest means, most of them receptive if not
tices. They dismissed Puritan ministers who refused to actively committed to Calvinism. These immigrants
perform these “High Church” rites, and church courts quickly established a healthier, more stable colony than
fined or excommunicated Puritan laypersons. did their contemporaries in Virginia. By 1642 more than
In the face of such harassment, several Puritan mer- fifteen thousand colonists had settled in New England.
chants obtained a charter to colonize at Massachusetts
Bay, north of Plymouth, in 1628. Organizing as the
The Pequot War, 1637
Massachusetts Bay Company, they took advantage of a
gap in their charter and in 1629 moved the seat of their Also in contrast to Virginia, colonization in New England
colony’s government, along with four hundred colonists, began with little sustained resistance from Native
to Salem, Massachusetts. Like Plymouth, Massachusetts Americans, whose numbers were drastically reduced by
Bay would be a Puritan-dominated, self-governing the ravages of disease. After one epidemic killed about
colony rather than controlled from England by stock- 90 percent of New England’s coastal Indians (see
holders, proprietors, or the crown. But unlike in Chapter 2), a second inflicted comparable casualties on
Plymouth, in Massachusetts leaders were nonsepa- Indians throughout the Northeast in 1633–1634. Having
ratists, advocating the reform of, rather than separation dwindled from twenty thousand in 1600 to a few dozen
from, the Anglican church. survivors by the mid-1630s, the Massachusett and
In 1630, the company sent out eleven ships and Pawtucket Indians were pressed to sell most of their land
seven hundred passengers under Governor John to the English. During the 1640s Massachusetts Bay
Winthrop. In midvoyage Winthrop delivered an address passed laws prohibiting them from practicing their own
titled “A Model of Christian Charity,” spelling out the religion and encouraging missionaries to convert them
new colony’s utopian goals. to Christianity. Thereafter they ceded more land to the
Winthrop boldly announced that “we shall be as a colonists and moved into “praying towns” like Natick, a
city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” The reservation established by the colony. In the praying
settlers would build a godly community whose example towns Puritan missionary John Eliot hoped to teach the
would shame England into truly reforming the Church Native Americans Christianity and English ways.
of England. The revival of piety would create a nation The rapid expansion of English settlement farther
governed according to God’s will. inland, however, aroused Indian resistance. Beginning
56 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

in 1633, settlers moved into the Connecticut River Valley By late 1637 Pequot resistance was crushed, with the
and in 1635 organized the new colony of Connecticut. survivors taken by pro-English Indians as captives or by
Friction quickly developed with the Pequot Indians, who the English as slaves. The Pequots’ lands were awarded
controlled the trade in furs and wampum with New to the colonists of Connecticut and another new Puritan
Netherland. After tensions escalated into violence, colony, New Haven. (Connecticut absorbed New Haven
Massachusetts and Connecticut took coordinated mili- in 1662.)
tary action in 1637. Having gained the support of the
Mohegan and Narragansett Indians, they waged a ruth- Dissent and Orthodoxy, 1630–1650
less campaign, using tactics similar to those devised by
As members of a popular religious movement in
the English to break Irish resistance during the 1570s
England, Puritans had focused on their common oppo-
(see Chapter 2). In a predawn attack English troops sur-
sition to Anglican practices. But upon arriving in New
rounded and set fire to a Pequot village at Mystic,
England, theological differences began to undermine
Connecticut, and then cut down all who tried to escape.
the harmony Winthrop had envisioned. To ensure har-
Several hundred Pequots, mostly women and children,
mony, ministers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New
were killed. Although their Narragansett allies protested
Haven struggled to define a set of orthodox practices—
that “it is too furious, and slays too many men,” the
the “New England Way.” Other Puritans resisted their
English found a cause for celebration in the grisly mas-
efforts.
sacre. Wrote Plymouth’s Governor William Bradford,
One means of establishing orthodoxy was through
It was a fearful sight to see them [the Pequots] education. Like most European Protestants, Puritans
thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood insisted that conversion required familiarity with the
quenching the same, and horrible was the stink Bible and, therefore, literacy. Education, they believed,
and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet should begin in childhood and should be promoted by
sacrifice, and they [the English] gave the praise to each colony. In 1647 Massachusetts Bay ordered every
God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, town of fifty or more households to appoint a teacher to
thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and whom all children could come for instruction, and every
give them so speedy a victory over so proud and town of at least one hundred households to maintain a
insulting an enemy. grammar school. This and similar laws in other Puritan
 The New England Way 57

colonies represented New England’s first steps toward

public education. But none of these laws required
school attendance, and boys were more likely to be
taught reading and especially writing than were girls.
Because orthodoxy also required properly trained
ministers, Massachusetts founded Harvard College in
1636. From 1642 to 1671 the college produced 201 grad-
uates, including 111 ministers. As a result, New England
was the only part of English America with a college-
educated elite during the seventeenth century.
Puritans agreed that the church must be free of state
control, and they opposed theocracy (government run
by clergy). But Winthrop and other Massachusetts Bay
leaders insisted that a holy commonwealth required
cooperation between church and state. The colony
obliged all adults to attend services and pay set rates (or
tithes) to support their local churches. Massachusetts
thus had a state-sponsored, or “established,” church,
whose relationship to civil government was symbolized
by the fact that a single building—called a meetinghouse
rather than a church—was used for both religious serv-
ices and town business.
Roger Williams, who arrived in 1631, took a different
stance. He argued that civil government should remain agreed that “good works” were a false road to heaven,
absolutely uninvolved with religious matters, whether instead following John Calvin in maintaining that God
blasphemy (cursing God), failure to pay tithes, refusal to had predetermined who would and would not be saved.
attend worship, or swearing oaths on the Bible in court. But Hutchinson argued that ministers who scrutinized a
Williams also opposed any kind of compulsory church person’s outward behavior for “signs” of salvation, espe-
service or government interference with religious prac- cially when that person was relating his or her conver-
tice, not because all religions deserved equal respect but sion experience, were discarding God’s judgment in
because the state (a creation of sinful human beings) favor of their own. Only by looking inward and ignoring
would corrupt the church. such false prophets could individuals hope to find salva-
Recognizing the seriousness of Williams’ challenge, tion. Hutchinson charged that only two of the colony’s
the colony’s officials declared his opinions subversive ministers had been saved; the rest lacked authority over
and banished him in 1635. Williams moved south to a the elect.
place that he called Providence, which he purchased By casting doubt on the clergy’s spiritual state,
from the Narragansett Indians. At Williams’s invitation a Hutchinson undermined its authority over laypersons.
steady stream of dissenters drifted to the group of settle- Critics charged that her beliefs would delude individuals
ments near Providence, which in 1647 joined to form into imagining that they were accountable to no one
Rhode Island colony. (Other Puritans scorned the place but themselves. Winthrop branded her followers
as “Rogues Island.”) True to Williams’s ideals, Rhode Antinomians, meaning those opposed to the rule of law.
Island was the only New England colony to practice reli- Hutchinson bore the additional liability of being a
gious toleration. Growing slowly, the colony’s four towns woman who stepped outside her prescribed role. As one
had eight hundred settlers by 1650. of her accusers put it, “You have stepped out of your
A second major challenge to the New England Way place; you [would] have rather been a husband than a
came from Anne Hutchinson, whom Winthrop des- wife, a preacher than a hearer; and a magistrate than a
cribed as “a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, of a subject.”
nimble wit and active spirit.” The controversy surround- By 1636 Massachusetts Bay had split into two
ing Hutchinson centered on her assertion that most New camps. Hutchinson’s supporters included Boston mer-
England ministers implicitly endorsed the Catholic idea chants (like her husband) who disliked the government’s
that one’s “good works” on earth were the key to salva- economic restrictions on their businesses, young men
tion thereafter (see Chapter 2). Supposedly, all Puritans chafing against the rigid control of church elders, and
58 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

women impatient with their second-class status in a hill from a market economy that, they feared, would
church affairs. In 1636 the Antinomians were strong strangle the spirit of community within a harsh new
enough to have their candidate elected governor, but world of frantic competition.
they suffered defeat with Winthrop’s return to office in
1637.
Power to the Saints, 1630–1660
The victorious Winthrop brought Hutchinson to
trial for heresy before the Massachusetts Bay legislature Despite sharp limits on dissent, New England’s religious
(the General Court), whose members peppered her with and political institutions were based on greater popular
questions. Hutchinson’s knowledge of Scripture was so participation than elsewhere in Europe and its colonies.
superior to that of her interrogators, however, that she Although most Puritan colonists considered themselves
would have been acquitted had she not claimed to be nominal members of the Church of England, their self-
converted through a direct revelation from God. Like governing congregations, like those in Separatist
most Christians, Puritans believed that God had ceased Plymouth, ignored Anglican bishops’ authority. Control
to make known matters of faith by personal revelation of each congregation lay squarely in the hands of its
after New Testament times. Thus Hutchinson’s own male “saints,” as Puritans termed those who had been
words condemned her. saved. By majority vote these men chose their minister,
The General Court banished the leading Anti- elected a board of elders to handle finances, and decid-
nomians from the colony, and others voluntarily fol- ed who else deserved recognition as saints. Compared to
lowed them to Rhode Island or New Hampshire, or back Anglican parishes in England and Virginia, where a few
to England. The largest group, led by Hutchinson, settled powerful landowners selected priests (subject to a bish-
in Rhode Island. op’s formal approval) and made other major decisions,
Antinomianism’s defeat was followed by new control of New England churches was broadly based.
restrictions on women’s independence and religious In its church membership requirements, New
expression. Increasingly, women were prohibited from England diverged even from other Puritans’ practices.
assuming the kind of public religious roles claimed by English Puritans accepted as saints any who correctly
Hutchinson, and were even required to relate their con- professed the Calvinist faith, repented their sins, and
version experiences in private to their ministers rather lived free of scandal. Massachusetts Puritans, however,
than publicly before their congregations (see below). insisted that candidates for membership stand before
The most fundamental threat to Winthrop’s city their congregation and provide a convincing, soul-
upon a hill was that the people would abandon the ideal baring “relation,” or account, of their conversion experi-
of a close-knit community to pursue self-interest. Other ence (see Chapter 2). Many colonists shared the reluc-
colonies—most pointedly, Virginia—displayed the acquis- tance of Jonathan Fairbanks, who refused for several
itive impulses transforming England, but in New years to give a public profession of grace before the
England, as one minister put it, “religion and profit jump church in Dedham, Massachusetts, until the faithful
together.” While hoping for prosperity, Puritans believed persuaded him with many “loving conferences.” The
that there were limits to legitimate commercial behav- conversion relation emerged as the New England Way’s
ior. Government leaders tried to regulate prices so that most vulnerable feature.
consumers would not suffer from the chronic shortage Political participation was also more broadly based
of manufactured goods that afflicted New England. In in New England than elsewhere. Massachusetts did not
1635, when the Massachusetts General Court forbade require voters or officeholders to own property but
pricing any item more than 5 percent above its cost, bestowed suffrage on every adult male “saint.” By 1641
Robert Keayne of Boston and other merchants objected. about 55 percent of the colony’s twenty-three hundred
These men argued that they had to sell some goods at men could vote. By contrast, English property require-
higher rates in order to offset their losses from other ments allowed fewer than 30 percent of adult males to
sales, shipwrecked cargoes, and inflation. In 1639, after vote.
selling nails at 25 percent to 33 percent above cost, In 1634, after public protest that the governor and
Keayne was fined heavily in court and was forced to council held too much power, each town gained the
make a humiliating apology before his congregation. option of sending two delegates to the General Court. In
Controversies like the one involving Keayne were 1644 the General Court became a bicameral (two-cham-
part of a struggle for New England’s soul. At stake was ber) lawmaking body when the towns’ deputies separat-
the Puritans’ ability and desire to insulate their city upon ed from the appointed Governor’s Council.
 The New England Way 59

New England legislatures 0 1/ 2 Mile

established a town by awarding a 0 1/2 Kilometer

S ud
9 acres
grant of land to several dozen

bury R .
General Field
landowner-saints. These men then Common
Swamp

W
laid out the settlement, organized

O
R

its church, distributed land among T

ES General
themselves, and established a town T
H
W
Field

R
meeting—a distinctly New England

O
General Field

N
Cranberry
institution. In England and Virginia Swamp
Pound
EAST STREET

(see below), justices of the peace Cranberry

Hill
Training
Field
administered local government G
re
at Meetinghouse
5 acres
through county courts. By contrast, R MILL
i
North Field

v
New England’s county courts

R
Clay Pit

O
r

AD
M
served strictly as courts of law, and 6 acres ter Pine

ea
Minis Swamp

do
local administration was conduct- House

w
Gravel Pit Cow Common
ed by the town meeting. Town 4 1/2 acres
.
INT RD Mill
AL PO
meetings decentralized authority House location BRID
and lot
over political and economic deci- Sand Hill
9 1/2 acres
Meetinghouse
sions to a degree unknown in ro
ok South Field
k
Grants to John Goodnow r oo B
England and its other colonies. st B

ll
W e

Mi
(6 grants for a house lot
and 34 acres)
Each town determined its own
qualifications for voting and hold-
MAP 3.2
ing office in the town meeting, Land Divisions in Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1639-1656
although most allowed all male tax- Early New England towns sought to heighten communalism by clustering homes around a
payers (including nonsaints) to meetinghouse and a town commons (used for grazing). Sudbury, like many towns, followed
participate. The meeting could an English practice of distributing croplands in scattered strips. John Goodnow, for example,
exclude anyone from settling in grew crops in five fields at varying distances from his house. (Source: Puritan Village: The
town, and it could grant the right of Formation of a New England Town. Copyright © 1963 by Sumner Chilton Powell and
sharing in any future land distribu- reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.)
tions to newcomers, whose chil-
dren would inherit this privilege.
Few aspects of early New England life are more their communities. With their husbands and older sons
revealing than the first generation’s attempt in many, but attending the family’s fields, women remained at home
not all, towns to keep settlement tightly clustered (see in the tightly clustered neighborhoods at the center of
Map 3.2). They did so by granting house lots near the each town. Neighboring women exchanged not only
town center and by granting families no more land than goods—say, a pound of butter for a section of spun
they needed to support themselves. Dedham’s forty-six wool—but advice and news of other neighbors as well.
founders, for example, received 128,000 acres from They also gathered at the bedside when one of them
Massachusetts Bay in 1636 yet gave themselves just gave birth, an occasion supervised by a midwife and
3,000 acres by 1656, or about 65 acres per family. The rest entirely closed to men. In these settings women confid-
remained in trust for future generations. ed in one another, creating a “community of women”
With families clustered within a mile of one another, within each town that helped enforce morals and pro-
the physical settings of New England towns were con- tect the poor and vulnerable. In 1663 Mary Rolfe of
ducive to traditional reciprocity. They also fostered an Newbury, Massachusetts, was being sexually harassed
atmosphere of mutual watchfulness that Puritans hoped by a high-ranking gentleman while her fisherman hus-
would promote godly order. For the enforcement of such band was at sea. Rolfe confided in her mother, who in
order, they relied on the women of each town as well as turn consulted with a neighboring woman of influence
male magistrates. before filing formal charges. Clearly influenced by the
Although women’s public roles had been sharply town’s women, a male jury convicted the gentleman of
curtailed following the Antinomian crisis, women— attempted adultery. When a gentlewoman, Patience
especially female saints—remained a social force in Dennison, charged her maidservant with repeatedly
60 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

stealing food and clothing, a fourth woman testified that Puritans defined matrimony as a contract rather
the maid had given the provisions to a poor young wife, than a religious sacrament, and New England couples
whose family was thereby saved from perishing. The were married by justices of the peace instead of minis-
servant was cleared while her mistress gained a lifelong ters. As a civil institution, a marriage could be dissolved
reputation for stinginess. by the courts in cases of desertion, bigamy, adultery, or
physical cruelty. By permitting divorce, the colonies
diverged radically from practices in England, where
New England Families
Anglican authorities rarely annulled marriages and civil
Like other Europeans of the time, Puritans believed that divorces required a special act of Parliament. Still, New
society’s foundation rested not on the individual but Englanders saw divorce as a remedy fit only for extreme-
rather on the “little commonwealth”—the nuclear fami- ly wronged spouses, such as the Plymouth woman who
ly at the heart of every household. “Well ordered fami- discovered that her husband was also married to women
lies,” declared minister Cotton Mather in 1699, “natural- in Boston, Barbados, and England. Massachusetts courts
ly produce a Good Order in other Societies.” In a proper allowed just twenty-seven divorces from 1639 to 1692.
family, the wife, children, and servants dutifully obeyed Because Puritans believed that healthy families
the household’s male head. According to John Winthrop, were crucial to the community’s welfare, authorities
a “true wife” thought of herself “in subjection to her hus- intervened whenever they discovered a breakdown of
band’s authority.” household order. The courts disciplined unruly young-
sters, disobedient servants, disrespectful wives, and vio-
lent or irresponsible husbands. Churches also censured,
and sometimes expelled, spouses who did not maintain
domestic tranquillity. Negligent parents, one minister
declared, “not only wrong each other, but they provoke
God by breaking his law.”
New England wives enjoyed significant legal protec-
tions against spousal violence and nonsupport and also
had more opportunity than other European women to
escape failed marriages. But they also suffered the same
legal disabilities as all Englishwomen. An English wife
had no property rights independent of her husband
unless he consented to a prenuptial agreement leaving
her in control of property she already owned. Only if a
husband had no other heirs or so stipulated in a will
could a widow claim more than the third of the estate
reserved by law for her lifetime use.
In contrast to England, New England benefited from
a remarkably benign disease environment. Although
settlements were compact, minimal travel occurred
between towns, especially in the winter when people
were most susceptible to infection. Furthermore, easy
access to land allowed most families an adequate diet,
which improved resistance to disease and lowered death
rates associated with childbirth.
Consequently, New Englanders lived longer and
raised larger families than almost any society in the
world in the seventeenth century. Life expectancy for
men reached sixty-five, and women lived nearly that
long. More than 80 percent of all infants survived long
enough to get married. The 58 men and women who
founded Andover, Massachusetts, for example, had 247
children; by the fourth generation, the families of their
 The New England Way 61

descendants numbered 2,000 (including spouses who

prospered. But the colonists grew more worldly, and
married in from other families). The fact that most set-
fewer of their children emerged as saints.
tlers came as members of family groups soon resulted in
a population evenly divided between males and females.
This balance permitted rapid population growth with- The Half-Way Covenant, 1662
out heavy immigration.
As New England slowly prospered, England fell into
Most colonists had little or no cash, relying instead
chaos. The efforts of Charles I to impose taxes without
on the labor of their large, healthy families to sustain
Parliament’s consent sparked a civil war in 1642.
them and secure their futures. Male household heads
Alienated by years of religious harassment, Puritans
managed the family’s crops and livestock, conducted
gained control of the successful revolt and beheaded
most of its business transactions, and represented it in
Charles in 1649. The consolidation of power by Puritan
town government. Their wives bore, nursed, and reared
Oliver Cromwell raised New Englanders’ hopes that
their children. Women were in charge of work in the
England would finally heed their example and establish
house, barn, and garden, including the making of food
a truly reformed church. But Cromwell proved more
and clothing. Women also did charitable work and
receptive to Rhode Island’s Roger Williams than to
played other roles in their communities (see above).
advocates of the New England Way. After Cromwell
More than in England and the other colonies, the
died, chaos returned to England until a provisional
sons of New England’s founding generation depended
government “restored” the Stuart monarchy and
on their parents to provide them with acreage for farm-
crowned King Charles II (ruled 1660–1685). The
ing. With eventual land ownership guaranteed and few
Restoration left New England Puritans without a mis-
other opportunities available, sons delayed marriage
sion. Contrary to Winthrop’s vision, “the eyes of all peo-
and worked in their fathers’ fields until finally receiving
ple” were no longer, if ever they had been, fixed on New
their own land. Because the average family raised three
England.
or four boys to adulthood, parents could depend on thir-
Meanwhile, a crisis over church membership also
ty to forty years of work if their sons delayed marriage
gripped New England. The first generation believed that
beyond age twenty-five.
they had accepted a holy contract, or covenant, with
While daughters performed equally vital labor, their
God, obliging them to implement godly rule and charge
future lay with another family—the one into which they
their descendants with its preservation. In return, God
would marry. Being young, with many childbearing
would make the city upon a hill prosper and shield it
years ahead of them, enhanced their value to that family.
from corruption. The crisis arose because many
Thus first-generation women, on average, were only
Puritans’ children were not joining the elect. By 1650, for
twenty-one when they married.
example, fewer than half the adults in the Boston con-
Families with more sons and daughters enjoyed a
gregation were saints. The principal reason was the chil-
labor surplus that allowed them to send their children to
dren’s reluctance to subject themselves to public grilling
work as apprentices or hired hands for others. However,
on their conversion experience. Most New England chil-
this system of family labor was inefficient for two rea-
dren must have witnessed at least one person suffer an
sons. First, the available supply of labor could not
ordeal like Sarah Fiske’s. For more than a year, Fiske
expand in times of great demand. Second, parents were
answered petty charges of speaking uncharitably about
reluctant to force their own children to work as hard as
her relatives—especially her husband—and then was
strangers. Nevertheless, family labor was the only sys-
admitted to the Wenham, Massachusetts, congregation
tem that most New Englanders could afford.
only after publicly denouncing herself as worse “than
Saddled with the burdens of a short growing season,
any toad.”
rocky soil salted with gravel, and (in most towns) a sys-
Because Puritan ministers baptized only babies born
tem of land distribution in which farmers cultivated
to saints, the unwillingness of the second generation to
widely scattered parcels, the colonists managed to feed
provide a conversion relation meant that most third-
large families and keep ahead of their debts, but few
generation children would remain unbaptized. Unless a
became wealthy from farming. Seeking greater fortunes
solution were found, saints’ numbers would dwindle and
than agriculture offered, some seventeenth-century
Puritan rule would end. In 1662 a synod of clergy pro-
New Englanders turned lumbering, fishing, fur trading,
posed a compromise known as the Half-Way Covenant,
shipbuilding, and rum distilling into major industries.
which would permit the children of baptized adults,
As its economy became more diversified, New England
including nonsaints, to receive baptism. Derisively
62 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

termed the “halfway” covenant by its opponents, the tlements from one another and from hunting, gathering,
proposal would allow the founders’ descendants to and fishing areas (see Map 3.3).
transmit potential church membership to their grand- English expansion put new pressures on Native peo-
children, leaving their adult children “halfway” members ples and the land. As early as 1642 Miantonomi, a
who could not take communion or vote in church affairs. Narragansett sachem (chief), warned neighboring
Congregations divided bitterly over limiting membership Indians,
to pure saints or compromising purity in order to main-
These English having gotten our land, they with
tain Puritan power in New England. In the end, they
scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the
opted for worldly power over spiritual purity.
trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, and their
The crisis in church membership signaled a weak-
hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall all be
ening of the New England Way. Most second-generation
starved.
adults remained in “halfway” status for life, and the
saints became a shrinking minority as the third and Within a generation, Miantonomi’s fears were being
fourth generations matured. Sainthood tended to flow in borne out. By clearing away extensive stands of trees for
certain families, and by the 1700s there were more fields and for use as fuel and building material, colonial
women than men among the elect. But because women farmers altered an entire ecosystem. Deer were no
could not vote in church affairs, religious authority longer attracted, and the wild plants upon which Native
stayed in male hands. Nevertheless, ministers publicly Americans depended for food and medicine could not
recognized women’s role in upholding piety and the grow. The soil became drier and flooding more frequent
church itself. in the face of this deforestation. The settlers also intro-
duced domestic livestock, which, according to English
custom, ranged freely. Pigs damaged Indian cornfields
Expansion and Native Americans,
(until the Natives adopted the alien practice of fencing
1650–1676
their fields) and shellfish-gathering sites. English cattle
As settlements grew and colonists prospered, the num- and horses quickly devoured native grasses, which the
bers and conditions of Native Americans in New settlers then replaced with English varieties.
England declined. Although Indians began to recover With their leaders powerless to halt the alarming
from the initial epidemics by midcentury, the settlers decline of their population, land, and food sources,
brought new diseases such as diphtheria, measles, and many Indians became demoralized. In their despair
tuberculosis as well as new outbreaks of smallpox, which some turned to alcohol, increasingly available during
took heavy tolls. New England’s Indian population fell the 1660s despite colonial efforts to suppress its sale
from 125,000 in 1600 to 10,000 in 1675. to Native Americans. Interpreting the crisis as one of
Native Americans felt the English presence in other belief, other Natives joined those who had already con-
ways. The fur trade, which initially benefited interior verted to Christianity. By 1675 Puritan missionaries
Natives, became a liability after midcentury. Once had established about thirty praying towns in eastern
Indians began hunting for trade instead of just for their Massachusetts, Plymouth, and nearby islands. Super-
own subsistence needs, they quickly depleted the vised by missionaries, each praying town had its own
region’s beavers and other fur-bearing animals. Because Native American magistrate, usually a sachem, and
English traders shrewdly advanced trade goods on cred- many congregations had Indian preachers. Although the
it to Indian hunters before the hunting season, the lack missionaries struggled to convert the Indians to “civi-
of pelts pushed many Natives into debt. Traders such as lization” (meaning English culture and lifestyles) as well
John Pynchon of Springfield, Massachusetts, began tak- as Christianity, most praying Indians integrated the new
ing Indian land as collateral and selling it to settlers. faith with their native cultural identities.
Elsewhere, English townsmen, eager to expand their Anglo-Indian conflict became acute during the
agricultural output and provide land for their sons, 1670s because of pressures imposed on unwilling
voted themselves larger amounts of land after 1660 and Indians to sell their land and to accept missionaries and
insisted that their scattered parcels be consolidated. For the legal authority of colonial courts. Tension ran espe-
example, Dedham, Massachusetts, which distributed cially high in Plymouth colony where Metacom, or “King
only three thousand acres from 1636 to 1656, allocated Philip,” the son of the colony’s onetime ally Massasoit,
five times as much in the next dozen years. Rather than (see Chapter 2) was now the leading Wampanoag
continue living closely together, many farmers built sachem. The English had engulfed the Wampanoags,
homes on their outlying tracts, often cutting Native set- persuaded many of them to renounce their loyalty to
 The New England Way 63

MAP 3.3 Dover 1623

Colonizing New England, 1620-1674

n e c t ic u t R.
Portsmouth 1630

White expansion reached its maximum extent in the Exeter 1638

seventeenth century just before King Philip’s War, which Haverhill 1643 ATLANTIC

Con
PENNACOOKS OCEAN
erupted as a result of the pressure on Indian SOKOKIS Andover
Northfield Dunstable 1673 1646
communities. New England’s territorial expansion did not 1673 PAWTUCKETS
Salem
MASSACHU SETTS
resume until after 1715. (Source: Frederick Merk, History Deerfield
1669
Lancaster 1645 1628
Sudbury BAY
1638 Boston 1630
of the Westward Movement. Copyright © 1979 by Lois POCUMTUCKS Marlborough 1660 Wessagusset 1622
Bannister Merk. Used by permission of Alfred A Knopf, a Northampton
1654
Hadley 1659
MASSACHUSETTS
Scituate 1636
Dedham
Duxbury
1636
division of Random House, Inc.) Brookfield
Wrentham
1663
1627
Eastham
Plymouth

W
Westfield 1662 1667 1646

AM
Taunton 1620
Springfield

PA
1638 Yarmouth
1636

N
O
NIPMUCKS Rehoboth 1638

AG
1645

S
Simsbury 1664 Windsor 1635 Providence 1636 NARRAGANSETTS Sandwich PLYMOUTH
Hartford 1636 Shawomet 1642 1637
Wethersfield 1635 RHODE
MOHEGANS
Norwich 1660 ISLAND Edgartown 1671
CONNECTICUT WESTERN EASTERN
NIANTICS NIANTICS Newport
PEQUOTS 1639
Saybrook
New Haven 1638 1635 New London
1646
Fairfield 1639 Southold
1640 MONTAUKS Location of Indian tribe

Area of white settlement by 1674

Greenwich 1639
MONTAUKS Southampton
1640
Is l an d
Lo ng 0 100 Miles
Hempstead 1644
0 100 Kilometers

Metacom, and forced a number of humiliating conces- overt resistance to white expansion. It also deepened
sions on the sachem. English hostility toward all Native Americans, even the
In 1675 Plymouth hanged three Wampanoags for Christian and other Indians who had supported the
killing a Christian Indian and threatened to arrest colonies. In Massachusetts ten praying towns were dis-
Metacom. A minor incident, in which several banded and Native peoples restricted to the remaining
Wampanoags were shot while burglarizing a farmhouse, four; all Indian courts were dismantled; and English
ignited the conflict known as King Philip’s War. “guardians” were appointed to supervise the reserva-
Eventually, two-thirds of the colonies’ Native tions. “There is a cloud, a dark cloud upon the work of
Americans, including some Christians, rallied around the Gospel among the poor Indians,” mourned John
Metacom. Unlike Indians in the Pequot War, they were Eliot. In the face of poverty and discrimination, remain-
familiar with guns and as well armed as the colonists. ing Indians managed to maintain their communities
Indian raiders attacked fifty-two of New England’s ninety and cultural identities.
towns (entirely destroying twelve), burned twelve hun-
dred houses, slaughtered eight thousand head of cattle,
Salem Witchcraft and the Demise
and killed twenty-five hundred colonists (5 percent).
of the New England Way, 1691–1693
The tide turned against Metacom in 1676 after the
Mohawk Indians of New York and many Christian Indians Along with the relaxation of church membership require-
joined the English against him. The English and their ments, social and economic changes undermined the
allies destroyed their enemies’ food supplies and sold New England Way. The dispersal of settlers away from
hundreds of captives into slavery, including Metacom’s town centers, besides pressuring Native Americans, gen-
wife and child. “It must have been as bitter as death to erated friction between townspeople settled near the
him,” wrote Puritan clergyman Cotton Mather, “to lose his meetinghouse and “outlivers,” whose distance from the
wife and only son, for the Indians are marvellously fond town center limited their influence over town affairs.
and affectionate toward their children.” About five thou- Moreover, the region’s commercial economy was grow-
sand Indians starved or fell in battle, including Metacom ing, especially in its port cities, and the distribution of
himself, and others fled to New York and Canada. wealth was becoming less even. These developments
King Philip’s War reduced southern New England’s heightened Puritan anxieties that a small minority might
Indian population by about 40 percent and eliminated be profiting at the community’s expense. They also
 TECHNOLOGY A N D CULTURE

Native American Baskets and

Textiles in New England

F or thousands of years before 1492, peoples of the

Eastern and Western Hemispheres exchanged
materials and techniques for making things with their
and line graves. English observers admired the scale and
variety of women’s products. One described an under-
ground storage container that held sixty gallons of maize.
neighbors. After Columbus broke the Atlantic barrier in Another saw baskets of “rushes; . . . others of maize
1492, they were able to broaden those exchanges across husks; others of a kind of silk grass; others of a wild
the hemispheres. Such exchanges rarely resulted in one hemp; and some of barks of trees, . . . very neat and arti-
group’s wholesale adoption of another’s technology. ficial, with the portraitures of birds, beasts, fishes, and
Instead, each group selected materials and techniques flowers upon them in colors.”
from the other group, incorporating what it selected into Indian women employed a variety of techniques
customary practices. Such was the case with Native in crafting these objects. One author told how
Americans living near New England colonists in the sev- Massachusett Indian women made mats by stitching
enteenth century. together long strips of sedge, a marsh grass, with “nee-
Among the Wampanoags, Narragansetts, Mohegans, dles made of the splinter bones of a cranes leg, with
Pequots, and other Native peoples of southern New threads made of . . . hemp.” Another described Abenaki
England, men and women each specialized in crafting women’s “dishes . . . of birch bark sewed with threads
objects for everyday use. Men made tobacco pipes from drawn from spruce and white cedar roots, and garnished
stone, ornaments from copper, and bows from wood. on . . . the brims with glistening quills taken from the por-
Women used the wild and domestic plants they harvested cupine and dyed, some black, others red.” Others elabo-
not only for preparing food but also to make baskets and rated on the several varieties of bark and plant fibers that
other containers, fish traps, and mats to cover wigwams women interwove to make wigwams—materials that
combined to ensure that a house kept its occupants
warm and dry while remaining light and flexible enough
to be carried from place to place.
When English colonists arrived in New England
beginning in 1620, they brought the practices and prod-
ucts of their own textile traditions. Many colonial families
raised sheep for wool while others harvested flax, a plant
used to make linen. Englishwomen used spinning wheels
to make woolen yarn and linen thread, and both men and
women operated looms to weave yarn and thread into
cloth.
Over time Native American women incorporated
these English materials into their traditional baskets. A
few such baskets survive today in museums. For one,
the weaver used long strips of bark as the warp, or long
thread, which she stitched together with two different
“wefts,” or “woofs,” one of red and blue wool and the
second probably from cornhusks (see photo). The basic
technique of “twining” the warp and wefts is found in
New England baskets dating to a thousand years earlier;
the use of wool, however, was new. The basket came
into English hands during King Philip’s War (1675–1676).
A Native woman whose community was at peace with

64
the colonists entered the English garrison town at what is
now Cranston, Rhode Island, and asked a woman there
for some milk. In return, the Indian woman gave her
English benefactor the basket.
The story behind a second twined basket made of
bark and wool has been lost. But it is clear that someone
worked the wool into this basket after it was originally
made. Archaeological evidence suggests that the addi-
tion of new materials to existing baskets was not excep-
tional. One Rhode Island site yielded seventy-three
pieces of European cloth among the remains of sixty-six
Indian baskets.
Besides incorporating European yarn and thread
into familiar objects, Native Americans obtained finished
European cloth, especially duffel, a woolen fabric that
manufacturers dyed red or blue to suit Indian tastes.
European traders furnished Native American customers
with cloth as well as iron scissors, needles, and pins
made to shape and sew it. In return, they obtained the
material from which Indians made their own garments—
beaver pelts. In these two-way exchanges of textiles,
the English realized profits while Native Americans
broadened ties of reciprocity (see Chapter 1) with the
colonists.
English colonists and Indians shaped their newly
acquired materials to their own tastes. The traders sold
the pelts to European hatters, who cut and reworked
them into beaver hats, a fashion rage in Europe. Native
women used cloth in ways that were just as unfamiliar to
Europeans. Mary Rowlandson, an Englishwoman cap-
tured by enemy Indians during King Philip’s War, wrote a
vivid description of what Americans would later call “the
Indian fashion.” As her captors danced during a cere-
mony, Rowlandson described the garb of her Narra-
gansett “master” and Wampanoag “mistress”:

He was dressed in his holland shirt [a common

English shirt], with great laces sewed at the tail of it. affirmed the new, multicultural reality of New England life
His garters were hung round with shillings, and he had but defied colonial efforts to suppress their culture and
girdles of wampum upon his head and shoulders. She their communities. Once again technological exchange
had a kersey [coarse wool] coat covered with girdles had led people to change without abandoning familiar
of wampum from the loins upward. Her arms from her ways of making things and expressing cultural identity.
elbows to her hands were covered with bracelets.
There were handfuls of necklaces about her neck and Focus Questions
several sorts of jewels in her ears. She had fine red
• How did Native American women in New England
stockings and white shoes, [and] her hair [was]
use English materials and techniques to modify tra-
powdered and face painted red.
ditional ways of making baskets and textiles during
In combining indigenous materials in distinctive the seventeenth century?
styles, the dancers—like Native basket makers and tex- • How did the new products Indians made reflect
tile artisans—acknowledged the colonists’ presence their attitudes about the colonists and about English
while resisting assimilating to English culture. They culture?

65
66 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

prompted many colonists, both urban and rural, to eastern section farmed richer soils and benefited from
act more competitively, aggressively, and impersonally Salem Town’s commercial expansion, whereas those in
toward one another. John Winthrop’s vision of a religiously the less fertile western half did not share in this prosper-
oriented community sustained by a sense of reciprocity ity and had lost the political influence that they once
was giving way to the materialistic, acquisitive society that held in Salem.
the original immigrants had fled in England. In late 1691 several Salem Village girls encouraged
Nowhere in New England did these trends converge an African slave woman, Tituba, to tell them their for-
more forcefully than in Salem, Massachusetts, the tunes and talk about sorcery. When the girls later began
region’s second largest port. Trade made Salem prosper- behaving strangely, villagers assumed that they were vic-
ous but also destroyed the relatively equal society of tims of witchcraft. Pressed to identify their tormenters,
first-generation fishermen and farmers. Salem’s divi- the girls named two local white women and Tituba.
sions were especially sharp in the precinct of Salem So far the incident was not unusual. Witchcraft
Village (now Danvers), an economically stagnant district beliefs remained strong in seventeenth-century Europe
located north of Salem Town. Residents of the village’s and its colonies. Witches were people (nearly always
women) whose pride, envy, discontent, or greed suppos-
edly led them to sign a pact with the devil. Thereafter
they allegedly used maleficium (the devil’s supernatural
power of evil) to torment neighbors and others by caus-
ing illness, destroying property, or—as with the girls in
Salem Village—inhabiting or “possessing” their victims’
bodies and minds. Witnesses usually also claimed that
witches displayed aggressive, unfeminine behavior. A
disproportionate number of the 342 accused witches in
New England were women who had inherited, or stood
to inherit, property beyond the one-third of a husband’s
estate normally bequeathed to widows. In other words,
most witches were assertive women who had or soon
might have more economic power and independence
than many men. For New Englanders, who felt the need
to limit both female independence and economic indi-
vidualism, witches symbolized the dangers awaiting
those who disregarded such limits. In most earlier
witchcraft accusations, there was only one defendant
and the case never went to trial. The few exceptions to
this rule were tried with little fanfare. Events in Salem
Village, on the other hand, led to a colony-wide panic.
By April 1692 the girls had denounced two locally
prominent women and had identified the village’s for-
mer minister as a wizard (male witch). Fears of witch-
craft soon overrode doubts about the girls’ credibility
and led local judges to sweep aside normal procedural
safeguards. Specifically, the judges ignored the law’s ban
on “spectral evidence”—testimony that a spirit resem-
bling the accused had been seen tormenting a victim.
Thereafter, accusations multiplied until the jails over-
flowed with accused witches.
The pattern of hysteria in Salem Village reflected
that community’s internal divisions. Most charges came
from the village’s troubled western division, and most of
those accused came from wealthier families in the east-
ern village or in Salem Town (see Map 3.4).
 The New England Way 67

MAP 3.4
The Geography of Witchcraft: 0 2 Miles
W
Salem Village, 1692 0 2 Kilometers

Geographic patterns of witchcraft testimony

mirrored tensions within Salem Village.
Accused witches and their defenders lived D A AA A A
A AA A A
mostly in the village’s eastern division or in A
A
D W
A
A D D D
Salem Town, whereas their accusers A
AA W
D W
overwhelmingly resided in the village’s A D W
W
western sector. (Source: Adapted from Paul A SALEM DD D A
D DD W
Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem VILLAGE W
W
Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft A
Meetinghouse
A DA A
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Ip s w A DD
ich R
. DD W WA D
1974).) A A WD

WN
A A W D
A D
A A D
DD

T O
WW
W
D W

M
or
S a l e m H arb

E
A Accuser Roads and bridges

L
W

A
D Defender Village boundary S W
Courthouse
Internal division between W
W Accused witch village accusers and defenders
Gallows Hill W

Other patterns were also apparent. Two-thirds of By late 1692 most Massachusetts ministers came to
all “possessed” accusers were females aged eleven to doubt that justice was being done. They objected that
twenty, and more than half had lost one or both parents spectral evidence, crucial in most convictions, lacked
in Anglo-Indian conflicts in Maine. They and other sur- legal credibility because the devil could manipulate it.
vivors had fled to Massachusetts, where most were now New Englanders, concluded Increase Mather, a leading
servants in other families’ households. They most fre- clergyman, had fallen victim to a deadly game of “blind
quently named as witches middle-aged wives and wid- man’s buffet” set up by Satan and were “hotly and madly,
ows—women who had avoided the poverty and uncer- mauling one another in the dark.” Backed by the clergy
tainty they themselves faced. At the same time, the (and alarmed by an accusation against his wife),
“possessed” accusers gained momentary power and Governor William Phips forbade further imprisonments
prominence by voicing the anxieties and hostilities of for witchcraft in October—by which time over a hun-
others in their community and by virtually dictating dred individuals were in jail and twice that many stood
the course of events in and around Salem for several accused. Shortly thereafter he suspended all trials. Phips
months. ended the terror in early 1693 by pardoning all those
The number of persons facing trial multiplied convicted or suspected of witchcraft.
quickly. Those found guilty desperately tried to stave The witchcraft hysteria was but an extreme expres-
off death by implicating others. As the pandemonium sion of more widespread anxieties over social change in
spread beyond Salem, fear dissolved ties of friendship New England. The underlying causes of this tension
and family. A minister heard himself condemned by his were most evident in the antagonism of Salem Village’s
own granddaughter. A seven-year-old girl helped send communally oriented farmers toward the competitive,
her mother to the gallows. Fifty persons saved them- individualistic, and impersonal way of life represented
selves by confessing. Twenty others who refused to dis- by Salem Town. In this clash of values, the rural villagers
grace their own names or betray other innocents went sought to purge their city upon a hill of its commercial
to their graves. Shortly before she was hanged, a victim witches, only to desecrate the landscape with gallows.
named Mary Easty begged the court to come to its Recognizing the folly of hunting witches, New
senses: “I petition your honors not for my own life, for I Englanders—especially the younger generation—con-
know I must die . . . [but] if it be possible, that no more cluded that Winthrop’s vision belonged to the past. The
innocent blood be shed.” generation reaching maturity after 1692 would be far
68 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

less willing to accept society’s right to restrict their per- the colony’s government from the crown to Virginia’s
sonal behavior and economic freedom. True to their planters.
Puritan roots, they would retain their forceful convic- After 1630 the need for additional taxes led royal
tions and self-discipline, but they would apply them to governors to call regular assemblies. The small number
the pursuit of material gain. Puritanism gave New of elected representatives, or burgesses, initially met as a
England a distinctive regional identity that would single body with the council to pass laws. During the
endure. 1650s the legislature split into two chambers—the
House of Burgesses and the Governor’s Council, whose
members held lifetime appointments.
CHESAPEAKE SOCIETY In 1634 Virginia adopted England’s county-court
As New England moved away from its roots, Virginia and system for local government. Justices of the peace
its Chesapeake neighbor Maryland single-mindedly served as judges but also set local tax rates, paid county
devoted themselves to the production of tobacco for officials, and oversaw the construction and mainte-
export. In this pursuit, the Chesapeake was quite unlike nance of roads, bridges, and public buildings. Justices
New England, where farm families sought primarily to and sheriffs, who administered the counties during the
feed themselves. Also unlike New England, Chesapeake courts’ recesses, were chosen by the governor instead of
society was sharply divided between a few wealthy by an electorate. Everywhere south of New England,
planters who dominated a majority consisting of (most- unelected county courts would become the basic unit of
ly white) indentured servants and small but growing local government by 1710.
numbers of black slaves and poor white farmers. In contrast to Puritan New England, Virginia’s estab-
lished church was the Church of England. In each
parish, six vestrymen—chosen from among the wealthi-
State and Church in Virginia
er planters—handled all church finances, determined
King James I disliked representative government and who was deserving of poor relief, and investigated com-
planned to rule Virginia through a governor of his own plaints against the minister. The taxpayers, who were
choosing, who would appoint and dismiss advisers to a legally obliged to pay fixed rates to the Anglican Church,
council. But Virginians petitioned repeatedly that their elected vestries until 1662, when the assembly made
elected assembly be revived. In 1628 the new king, them self-perpetuating and independent of the voters.
Charles I, grudgingly relented, but only to induce the Because few counties supported more than one
assembly to tax tobacco exports, transferring the cost of parish, many residents could not conveniently attend
 Chesapeake Society 69

services. A chronic shortage of clergymen left many spared a starving time, thanks to the Calvert family’s
communities without functioning congregations. In careful study of Virginia’s early history. The new colony’s
1662 ten ministers served Virginia’s forty-five parishes. success showed that English overseas expansion had
Compared to New Englanders, Chesapeake dwellers felt come of age. Baltimore, however, stayed in England,
religion’s influence lightly. governing as an absentee proprietor, and few Catholics
went to Maryland. From the outset, Protestants formed
the majority of the population. With land prices low,
Maryland
they purchased their own property, thereby avoiding
Until 1632 successful English colonization had resulted becoming tenants on the manors. These conditions
from the ventures of joint-stock companies. Thereafter, doomed Calvert’s dream of creating a manorial system
the crown awarded portions of the Virginia Company’s of mostly Catholic lords collecting rents. By 1675 all of
forfeited territory to favored English politicians. These Maryland’s sixty nonproprietary manors had evolved
proprietors, as they were called, assumed responsibility into plantations.
for peopling, governing, and defending their colonies. Religious tensions soon emerged. In 1642 Catholics
In 1632 the first such grant went to Lord Baltimore and Protestants in the capital at St. Mary’s argued over
(Cecilius Calvert) for a large tract of land north of the use of the city’s chapel, which the two groups had shared
Potomac River and east of Chesapeake Bay, which he until then. As antagonisms intensified, Baltimore draft-
named Maryland in honor of England’s Queen Henrietta ed the Act for Religious Toleration, which the Protestant-
Maria. Lord Baltimore also secured freedom from royal dominated assembly passed in 1649. The toleration act
taxation, the power to appoint all sheriffs and judges, made Maryland the second colony (after Rhode Island)
and the privilege of creating a local nobility. The only to affirm liberty of worship. However, the act did not
checks on the proprietor’s power were the crown’s con- protect non-Christians, nor did it separate church and
trol of war and trade and the requirement that an elected state, since it empowered the government to punish reli-
assembly approve all laws. gious offenses such as blasphemy.
With the consent of Charles I, Lord Baltimore The toleration act also failed to secure religious
intended to create an overseas refuge for English peace. In 1654 the Protestant majority barred Catholics
Catholics, who constituted about 2 percent of England’s from voting, ousted Governor William Stone (a pro-tol-
population. Although English Catholics were rarely erance Protestant), and repealed the toleration act. In
molested and many (like the Calverts) were very 1655 Stone raised an army of both faiths to regain the
wealthy, they could not worship in public, had to pay government but was defeated at the Battle of the Severn
tithes to the Anglican Church, and were barred from River. The victors imprisoned Stone and hanged three
holding political office. Catholic leaders. Catholics in Maryland actually experi-
In making Maryland a Catholic haven, Baltimore enced more trouble than had their counterparts during
had to avoid antagonizing English Protestants. He the English Civil War, in which the victorious Puritans
sought to accomplish this by transplanting to the seldom molested them.
Chesapeake the old English institution of the manor— Maryland remained in Protestant hands until 1658.
an estate on which a lord could maintain private law Ironically, Lord Baltimore resumed control by order of
courts and employ a Catholic priest as his chaplain. the Puritan authorities then ruling England. Even so, the
Local Catholics could then come to the manor to hear Calverts would encounter continued obstacles in gov-
Mass and receive the sacraments privately. Baltimore erning Maryland because of Protestant resistance to
adapted Virginia’s headright system (see Chapter 2) by Catholic political influence.
offering wealthy English Catholic aristocrats large land
grants on condition that they bring settlers at their own
Death, Gender, and Kinship
cost. Anyone transporting five adults (a requirement
raised to twenty by 1640) received a two-thousand-acre Tobacco sustained a sharp demand for labor that lured
manor. Baltimore hoped that this arrangement would about 110,000 English to the Chesapeake from 1630 to
allow Catholics to survive and prosper in Maryland 1700. Ninety percent of these immigrants were inden-
while making it unnecessary to pass any special laws tured servants and, because men were more valued as
alarming to Protestants. field hands than women, 80 percent of arriving servants
Maryland’s colonization did not proceed as were males. So few women initially immigrated to the
Baltimore envisioned. In 1634 the first two hundred Chesapeake that only a third of male colonists found
immigrants landed. Maryland was the first colony brides before 1650. Male servants married late because
70 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

their indentures forbade them to wed before completing tery, and salt poisoning. After 1650 malaria became
their term of labor. Their scarcity gave women a great endemic as sailors and slaves arriving from Africa car-
advantage in negotiating favorable marriages. Female ried it into the marshy lowlands, where the disease was
indentured servants often found prosperous planters to spread rapidly by mosquitoes. Life expectancy in the
be their suitors and to buy their remaining time of service. 1600s was about forty-eight for men and forty-four for
Death ravaged seventeenth-century Chesapeake women—slightly lower than in England and nearly
society mercilessly and left domestic life exceptionally twenty years lower than in New England. Servants died
fragile. Before 1650 the greatest killers were diseases at horrifying rates, with perhaps 40 percent going to
contracted from contaminated water: typhoid, dysen- their graves within six years of arrival, and 70 percent by
age forty-nine. Such high death rates severely crippled
family life. Half of all people married in Charles County,
Maryland, during the late 1600s became widows or wid-
owers within seven years. The typical Maryland family
saw half of its four children die in childhood.
Chesapeake women who lost their husbands tended
to enjoy greater property rights than widows elsewhere.
To ensure that their own children would inherit the fam-
ily estate in the event that their widows remarried,
Chesapeake men often wrote wills giving their wives
perpetual and complete control of their estates. A widow
in such circumstances gained economic independence
yet still faced enormous pressure to marry a man who
could produce income by farming her fields.
The prevalence of early death produced complex
households in which stepparents might raise children
with two or three different surnames. Mary Keeble of
Middlesex County, Virginia, bore seven children before
being widowed at age twenty-nine, whereupon she mar-
ried Robert Beverley, a prominent planter. Mary died in
1678 at age forty-one after having five children by
Beverley, who then married Katherine Hone, a widow
with one child. Upon Beverley’s death in 1687, Katherine
quickly wed Christopher Robinson, who had just lost his
wife and needed a mother for his four children.
Christopher and Katherine’s household included chil-
dren named Keeble, Beverley, Hone, and Robinson. This
tangled chain of six marriages among seven people
eventually produced twenty-five children who lived at
least part of their lives with one or more stepparents.
The combination of predominantly male immigra-
tion and devastating death rates notably retarded popu-
lation growth. Although the Chesapeake had received
perhaps one hundred thousand English immigrants by
1700, its white population stood at just eighty-five thou-
sand that year. By contrast, a benign disease environ-
ment and a more balanced gender ratio among the
twenty-eight thousand immigrants to New England dur-
ing the 1600s allowed that region’s white population to
grow to ninety-one thousand by 1700.
The Chesapeake’s dismal demographic history
began improving in the late seventeenth century. By
 Chesapeake Society 71

then, resistance acquired from childhood immunities as having died at age seventy-nine “on the same
allowed native-born residents to survive into their fifties, Plantation where he was born in 1680, from which he
or ten years longer than immigrants. As a result, more never went 30 Miles in his Life.”
laborers now lived beyond their terms of indenture The isolated folk in Virginia and Maryland and in the
instead of dying without tasting freedom. But especially unorganized settlements of what would become North
in Virginia, newly freed servants faced conditions little Carolina shared a way of life shaped by one overriding
more promising than before. fact—their future depended on the price of tobacco.
Tobacco had dominated Chesapeake agriculture since
1618, when demand for the crop exploded and prices
Tobacco Shapes a Region,
spiraled to dizzying levels. The boom ended in 1629
1630–1670
when prices sank a stunning 97 percent (see Figure 3.1).
Compared to colonists in New England’s compact towns After stabilizing, tobacco rarely again fetched more than
(where five hundred people often lived within a mile of 10 percent of its former price.
the meetinghouse), Chesapeake residents had few Despite the plunge, tobacco stayed profitable as long
neighbors. A typical community contained about two as it sold for more than two pence per pound and was cul-
dozen families in an area of twenty-five square miles, or tivated on fertile soil near navigable water. The plant grew
about six persons per square mile. Friendship networks best on level ground with good internal drainage, so-
seldom extended beyond a three-mile walk from one’s called light soil, which was usually found beside rivers.
farm and rarely included more than twenty adults. Locating a farm along Chesapeake Bay or one of its tribu-
Many, if not most, Chesapeake colonists lived in a con- tary rivers also minimized transportation costs by permit-
stricted world much like that of Robert Boone, a ting tobacco to be loaded on ships at wharves near one’s
Maryland farmer. An Annapolis paper described Boone home. Perhaps 80 percent of early Chesapeake homes lay

FIGURE 3.1
Tobacco Prices, 1618-1710
Even after its great plunge in 1629, tobacco remained profitable
until about 1660, when its price fell below the break-even point—
the income needed to support a family or pay off a farm mortgage.

30.0
Break-even price for producers
27.0
Price in pennies per pound (sterling)

24.0

21.0

18.0

15.0

12.0

9.0

6.0

3.0

0
1618
20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

00

10
16

16

16

16

16

16

16

16

17

17

Source: Russell R. Menard, “The Chesapeake Economy, 1618–1720: An Interpretation”

(unpublished paper presented at the Johns Hopkins University Seminar on the Atlantic
Community, November 20, 1973) and “Farm Prices of Maryland Tobacco, 1659–1710,”
Maryland Historical Magazine, LVIII (Spring 1973): 85.
72 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

0 10 Miles Servants faced a bleak future when they managed to

Jame
0 10 Kilometers Hog I. s Riv
er
survive until their indentures ended. Having received no
Farm or plantation pay, they entered into freedom impoverished. Virginia
obliged masters to provide a new suit of clothes and a

La
Jamestown year’s supply of corn to a freed servant. Maryland required

wn
e'
s
Lower
these items plus a hoe and an ax and gave the right to

Cr
Chippokes

ee
k
Creek
claim fifty acres—if an individual paid to have the land
er

College surveyed and deeded. Maryland’s policy permitted many

Riv

Run
of its freedmen to become landowners. Two-thirds of all
es
Jam

Gray's Creek Chesapeake servants lived in Virginia, however, where no

F ir
such entitlement existed. After 1650 large planters and
English speculators monopolized most available land,
st
am
S
Third Swam
w
Cypress Swamp p
making it even less affordable for freedmen.
p

Upper Chippokes Creek After 1660 the possibility of upward mobility almost
John Checohunk Swamp vanished from the Chesapeake as the price of tobacco
fell far below profitable levels, to a penny a pound (see
Figure 3.1). So began a depression lasting over fifty years.
Large planters found ways to compensate for their
ISLE OF WIGHT

tobacco losses through income from rents, trade, inter-

SURRY

Otter Dam Swamp

R. est on loans, and fees earned as government officials.
CHA

er
SUR

They also extended servants’ terms as penalties for even

at
RLE

kw

Coppahaunk Swamp
RY

c
S C

Bl a
minor infractions.
ITY

Many landowners held on by offsetting tobacco

MAP 3.5 losses with small sales of corn and cattle to the West
Pattern of Settlement in Surry County,
Indies. A typical family nevertheless inhabited a shack
Virginia, 1620–1660
barely twenty feet by sixteen feet and owned no more
In contrast to New Englanders (see Map 3.2), Chesapeake
colonists spread out along the banks of rivers and creeks. property than Adam Head of Maryland possessed when
(Source: Thad W. Tate and David Ammerman, eds., The he died in 1698: three mattresses without bedsteads, a
Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill: University chest and barrel that served as table and chair, two pots,
of North Carolina Press, 1979). Copyright © 1979 by the a kettle, “a parcell of old pewter,” a gun, and some
University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the books. Most tobacco farmers lacked furniture, lived on
publisher.) mush or stew because they had just one pot, and slept
on the ground—often on a pile of rags. Having fled
within a half-mile of a riverbank, and most were within poverty in England or the Caribbean for the promise
just six hundred feet of the shoreline (see Map 3.5). of a better life, they found utter destitution in the
From such waterfront bases, wealthy planters built Chesapeake.
wharves that served not only as depots for tobacco The growing number of servants who completed
exports but also as distribution centers for imported their indentures after 1660 fared even worse, for the
goods. Their control of both export and import com- depression slashed wages well below the level needed to
merce stunted the growth of towns and the emergence build savings and in this way placed landownership
of a powerful merchant class. Urbanization proceeded beyond their means. Lacking capital, many freedmen
slowly in the Chesapeake, even in a capital like worked as tenants or wage laborers on large plantations.
Maryland’s St. Mary’s, which as late as 1678 was still a
mere hamlet of thirty scattered houses.
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1675–1676
Taking advantage of the headright system, a few
planters built up large landholdings and grew wealthy By the 1670s these bleak conditions trapped most
from their servants’ labor. The servants’ lot was harsh. Virginia landowners in a losing battle against poverty
Most were poorly fed, clothed, and housed. The and left the colony’s laborers and freedmen verging on
exploitation of labor in the Chesapeake was unequaled despair. In addition, some wealthy planters resented
anywhere in the English-speaking world outside the their exclusion from Governor Berkeley’s inner circle,
West Indies, and the gap between rich and poor whites whose members profited as collectors of government
far exceeded that of New England. fees or as merchants in the colony’s fur trade monopoly.
 Chesapeake Society 73

These groups focused their varied resentments against

0 50 Miles
Native Americans. Areas settled by 1650
0 50 Kilometers
Virginia had been free of serious conflict with Areas settled by 1700 Su
sq R.
Indians since the Third Anglo-Powhatan War law
a re

ue
h
De

an
(1644–1646). Resentful of tobacco planters’ continued

na
R.
encroachments on their land, a coalition of Indians led
M A
by Opechancanough, then nearly a century old but able R
Y

P o to
to direct battles from a litter, killed five hundred of the L

De l
A

aw
m
cR N
colony’s eight thousand whites before being defeated.

a
EY

ar
.
LL D

e
VA Annapolis 1648

Ba
By 1653 tribes encircled by English settlement began

y
H

NE
A

LI
DO
agreeing to remain within boundaries set by the govern-

AN

FA L L
ap
EN
ha

pa
ment—in effect, on reservations. White settlement then

SH
nn
oc
k
expanded north to the Potomac River, and by 1675 R.
St. Mary’s 1634
(capital to 1694)
Virginia’s four thousand Indians were greatly outnum-
V I R G I N I A

Bay
bered by forty thousand whites.

O C E AN
Henrico 1611
Ja m
As in New England, tensions flared between

C hes a p ea k e
e s R. Williamsburg
Jamestown 1607 1699
Chesapeake Natives struggling to retain land and sover- (capital to 1699)

eignty in the face of settlers’ expansionism (see Map Fort Henry (Petersburg)
1645

TIC
Yorktown
3.6). The conflict also divided white society because 1691 Hampton 1691

both Governor Berkeley and Lord Baltimore, along with

L AN
Norfolk 1682

a few cronies, held fur-trade monopolies that profited

AT
from friendly relations with frontier Indians. As a result, E
PIEDMONT N
settler resentments against the governor and proprietor LI
LL
became fused with those against Indians. In June 1675 a FA
TIDEWATER
dispute between some Doeg Indians and a Virginia
farmer escalated until a force of Virginia and Maryland
militia pursuing the Doegs instead murdered fourteen
friendly Susquehannocks and then assassinated the MAP 3.6
Susquehannocks’ leaders during a peace conference. Chesapeake Expansion, 1607–1700
The violence was now unstoppable. The Chesapeake colonies expanded slowly before midcentury.
Tensions were especially acute in Virginia, reflecting By 1700 Anglo-Indian wars, a rising English population, and an
the greater disparities among whites there. Governor influx of enslaved Africans permitted settlers to spread
Berkeley proposed defending the panic-stricken frontier throughout the tidewater.
with a chain of forts linked by patrols. Stung by low
tobacco prices and taxes that took almost a quarter of ed. Bacon’s troops were free to plunder all “enemies” of
their yearly incomes, small farmers preferred the less their furs, guns, wampum, and corn harvests and also to
costly solution of waging a war of extermination. They keep Indian prisoners as slaves. The assembly’s incen-
were inspired by Nathaniel Bacon, a newly arrived, tives for enlisting were directed at land-bound bucca-
wealthy planter and Berkeley’s distant relative. Defying neers eager to get rich quickly by seizing land and
the governor’s orders, three hundred colonists elected enslaving any Indians who fell into their clutches.
Bacon to lead them against nearby Indians in April 1676. But Berkeley soon had second thoughts about let-
Bacon’s expedition found only peaceful Indians but ting Bacon’s thirteen hundred men continue their fron-
massacred them anyway. tier slaughter and called them back. The rebels returned
When he returned in June 1676, Bacon sought with their guns pointed toward Jamestown. Forcing
authority to wage war “against all Indians in generall.” Berkeley to flee across Chesapeake Bay, the rebels
Bacon’s newfound popularity forced the governor to burned the capital, offered freedom to any Berkeley sup-
grant his demand. The legislature voted a program porters’ servants or slaves who joined the uprising, and
designed to appeal to both hard-pressed taxpayers and looted their enemies’ plantations. But at the very
former servants desperate for land. The assembly moment of triumph in late 1676, Bacon died of dysen-
defined as enemies any Indians who left their villages tery and his followers dispersed.
without English permission (even if they did so out of The tortured course of Bacon’s Rebellion revealed a
fear of attack by Bacon), and declared their lands forfeit- society under deep internal stress. It was an outburst of
74 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

long pent-up frustrations by marginal taxpayers and for- Chesapeake planters began formulating this racial
mer servants driven to desperation by the tobacco caste system before slavery itself became economically
depression, as well as by wealthier planters excluded significant. As late as 1660, fewer than a thousand slaves
from Berkeley’s circle of favorites. Although sheer eco- lived in Virginia and Maryland. The number in bondage
nomic opportunism was one motive for the uprising, the first became truly significant in the 1680s when the
willingness of whites to murder, enslave, and rob all Chesapeake’s slave population (by now almost entirely
Native Americans, no matter how loyal, made clear that black, owing to Indian decline) almost tripled, rising
racism also played a major role. from forty-five hundred to about twelve thousand. By
1700 slaves made up 22 percent of the inhabitants and
over 80 percent of all unfree laborers.
Slavery
Having been made possible by racism, slavery
Chesapeake whites drew racialized boundaries between replaced indentured servitude for economic reasons.
themselves and the region’s growing population of First, it became more difficult for planters to import
Africans. Even before Bacon’s Rebellion, planters had white laborers as the seventeenth century advanced.
begun to avert the potential for class conflict by substi- Between 1650 and 1700, a gradual decline both in
tuting black slaves for white servants. England’s population growth and in its rate of unem-
Racial slavery developed in three stages in the ployment led to a 50 percent rise in wages at home.
Chesapeake. From 1619 to 1640, Anglo-Virginians careful- Under these new circumstances, servile labor and its
ly distinguished between blacks and whites in official doc- prospects in the Chesapeake attracted fewer immi-
uments, but did not assume that every African sold was a grants. Second, before 1690 the Royal African Company,
slave for life. The same was true for Native Americans cap- which held a monopoly on selling slaves to the English
tured in the colony’s wars. Some Africans gained their colonies, shipped nearly all its cargoes to the West
freedom, and a few, such as Anthony and Mary Johnson Indies. During the 1690s this monopoly was broken, and
(see above), owned their own tobacco farms. rival companies began shipping large numbers of
During the second phase, between 1640 and 1660, Africans directly to the Chesapeake.
growing numbers of blacks and some Indians were treat- The rise of a direct trade in slaves between the
ed as slaves for life, in contrast to white indentured ser- Chesapeake and West Africa exacerbated the growing
vants who had fixed terms of service. Slaves’ children gap between whites and blacks in another way. Until
inherited their parents’ status. Evidence from this period 1690 most blacks in the Chesapeake, like Mary and
also shows that white and black laborers often ran away Anthony Johnson, had either been born, or spent many
or rebelled against a master together, and occasionally years, in West African ports or in other American
married one another. colonies. As a consequence, they were familiar with
Apparently in reaction to such incidents, the colonies Europeans and European ways and, in most cases, had
officially recognized slavery and regulated it by law after learned to speak some English while laboring in the West
1660. Maryland first defined slavery as a lifelong, inherita- Indies. Such familiarity had enabled some blacks to
ble racial status in 1661. Virginia followed suit in 1670. This carve out space for themselves as free landowners, and
hardening of status lines did not prevent some black and had facilitated marriages and acts of resistance across
white laborers from joining Bacon’s Rebellion together. racial lines among laborers. But after 1690, far larger
Indeed the last contingent of rebels to lay down their arms numbers of slaves poured into Virginia and Maryland,
consisted entirely of slaves and servants. By 1705 strict arriving directly from the West African interior.
legal codes defined the place of slaves in society and set Language and culture now became barriers rather than
standards of racial etiquette. By then free blacks like Mary bridges to mutual understanding among blacks as well
Johnson’s grandchildren had all but disappeared from as between blacks and whites, reinforcing the overt
the Chesapeake. Although this period saw racial slavery racism arising among whites.
become fully legalized, many of the specific practices The changing composition of the white population
enacted into law had evolved into custom before 1660. also contributed to the emergence of racism in the
Emerging gradually in the Chesapeake, slavery was Chesapeake colonies. As increasing numbers of immi-
formally codified by planter elites attempting to stabilize grants lived long enough to marry and form their own
Chesapeake society and defuse the resentment of families, the number of such families slowly rose, and
whites. In deeming nonwhite “pagans” unfit for free- the ratio of men to women became more equal, since
dom, the elites created a common, exclusive identity for half of all children were girls. By 1690 an almost even
whites as free or potentially free persons. division existed between males and females. Thereafter,
 The Spread of Slavery: The Caribbean and Carolina 75

the white population grew primarily through an excess thousand English who emigrated to the Americas went
of births over deaths rather than through immigration, to the Caribbean. By 1660 France’s West Indian colonies
so that by 1720 most Chesapeake colonists were native- had a white population of seven thousand compared to
born. Whites’ shared attachments to the colony still fur- just twenty-five hundred colonists in Canada. Beginning
ther heightened their sense of a common racial identity in the 1640s the English and French followed Spanish,
vis-à-vis an increasingly fragmented and seemingly Portuguese, and Dutch practice by using slave labor to
alien black population. produce sugar on large plantations. The fastest-growing
From its beginnings as a region where profits were and most profitable sugar plantations were those of the
high but life expectancy was low, the Chesapeake had English.
transformed by 1700. As nonwhites’ conditions deterio- After 1670 many English islanders moved to the
rated, Virginia and Maryland expanded their territories, Chesapeake and to Carolina, thereby introducing large-
and their white colonists flourished. scale plantation slavery to the mainland colonies. By
1710 the population of Carolina, like that of the
Caribbean colonies, was predominantly black and
THE SPREAD OF SLAVERY: enslaved.
THE CARIBBEAN AND
CAROLINA Sugar and Slaves: The West Indies
Simultaneously with the expansion of European colo- The tobacco boom that powered Virginia’s economy
nization in mainland North America, an even larger until 1630 also led English settlers to cultivate that plant
wave of settlement swept the West Indies (see Map 3.7). in the Caribbean. But with most colonists arriving after
Between 1630 and 1642 almost 60 percent of the seventy 1630, few realized spectacular profits. Through the 1630s

MAP 3.7
The Caribbean Colonies, 1660
By 1660 nearly every West Indian island had been colonized by Europeans and was producing sugar with slave labor.

Dutch settlement
Canada
.
eR

Acadia English settlement

nc
re

a w
.L
St New England French settlement

Spanish settlement
New Netherland

Maryland
Virginia

Bermuda (Eng.)

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Rio Florida
Gr

WEST INDIES
an

Bahamas (Eng.)
de

St. Eustatius (D.)

Gulf of Mexico
St. Christopher (Eng.)
Puerto Rico Antigua (Eng.)
Guadeloupe (Fr.)
Cuba Dominica (Sp.)
Hispaniola Nevis (Eng.) Martinique (Fr.)
NEW St. Domingue St. Lucia (Fr.) Barbados
PACIFIC Jamaica (Eng.) St. Vincent (Sp.) (Eng.)
SPAIN Grenada (Sp.)
OCEAN Caribbean Sea Curaçao (D.)

0 1000 Miles

0 1000 Kilometers
NEW GRENADA
76 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

the English West Indies remained a society with a large plunged into slave owning with gusto.
percentage of independent landowners, an overwhelm- Sugar planters like Sarah Horbin’s husband (see
ingly white population, and a relative equality of wealth. above) preferred black slaves to white servants because
During the early 1640s an alternative to tobacco slaves could be driven harder and cost less to maintain.
rapidly revolutionized the islands’ economy and society. Moreover, most servants ended their indentures after
Dutch merchants familiar with Portuguese methods of four years, but slaves toiled until death. Although slaves
sugar production in Brazil began encouraging English initially cost two to four times more than servants, they
(and French) planters to raise and process sugar cane, proved a more economical long-term investment. In this
which the Dutch would then market (see Technology way the profit motive and the racism that emerged with
and Culture, Chapter 2). the “new slavery” (see Chapter 2) reinforced one another.
Because planters needed three times as many work- By 1670 the sugar revolution had transformed the
ers per acre to raise cane as tobacco, rising sugar pro- British West Indies into a predominantly slave society.
duction greatly multiplied the demand for labor. As in Thereafter the number of blacks shot up from approxi-
the Chesapeake, planters initially imported white inden- mately 40,000 to 130,000 in 1713. Meanwhile, the white
tured servants. After 1640, however, sugar planters population remained stable at about 33,000 because the
increasingly purchased enslaved Africans from Dutch planters’ preference for slave labor greatly reduced the
traders to do common fieldwork and used their inden- importation of indentured servants after 1670.
tured servants as overseers or skilled artisans. Declining demand for white labor in the West Indies
Although slavery had died out in England after the diverted the flow of English immigration from the
eleventh century, English planters in the Caribbean islands to mainland North America and so contributed
quickly copied the example set by Spanish slaveowners. to population growth there. Furthermore, because the
On Barbados, for example, English newcomers imposed expansion of West Indian sugar plantations priced land
slavery on both blacks and Indians immediately after beyond the reach of most whites, perhaps thirty thou-
settling the island in 1627. The Barbados government in sand people left the islands from 1655 to 1700. Most
1636 condemned every black brought there to lifelong whites who quit the West Indies migrated to the main-
bondage. Planters on other English islands likewise land colonies, especially Carolina.
 The Spread of Slavery: The Caribbean and Carolina 77

crop that could make them rich. By the early eighteenth

Rice and Slaves: Carolina
century, they found it in rice. Because rice, like sugar,
During the 1650s settlers from New England and the enormously enriched a few men with capital to invest in
English West Indies established several unauthorized costly dams, dikes, and slaves, it remade southern
outposts along the swampy coast between Virginia and Carolina into a society resembling that of the West
Spanish Florida. After the Restoration revived England’s Indies. By earning annual profits of 25 percent, rice
monarchy, King Charles II bestowed this unpromising planters within a generation became the only colonial
coast on several English supporters in 1663, making it elite whose wealth rivaled that of the Caribbean sugar
the first of several Restoration colonies. The grateful pro- planters.
prietors named their colony Carolina in honor of No matter how inhumanly they might be driven,
Charles (Carolus in Latin). indentured English servants simply did not survive in
Carolina grew haltingly until 1669, when one of the humid rice paddies swarming with malaria-bearing
proprietors, Anthony Ashley Cooper, speeded up settle- mosquitoes. The planters’ solution was to import an
ment by offering immigrants fifty-acre land grants for ever-growing force of enslaved Africans who, from their
every family member, indentured servant, or slave they masters’ standpoint, possessed two major advantages.
brought in. Cooper’s action marked a turning point. In First, perhaps 15 percent of the Africans taken to
1670 settlement of southern Carolina began when two Carolina had cultivated rice in their homelands in
hundred colonists landed near modern-day Charleston, Senegambia, and their expertise was vital in teaching
“in the very chops of the Spanish.” Here, the settlement whites how to raise the unfamiliar crop. Second, many
they called Charles Town formed the colony’s nucleus, Africans had developed immunities to malaria and yel-
with a bicameral legislature distinct from that of the low fever, infectious and deadly diseases transmitted by
northern district. mosquito bites, which were endemic to coastal regions
Cooper and his young secretary, John Locke—later of West Africa. Enslaved Africans, along with infected
acclaimed as one of the great philosophers of the age slave ships’ crews, carried both diseases to North
(see Chapter 4)—devised an intricate plan for Carolina’s America. (Tragically, the antibody that helps ward off
settlement and government. Their Fundamental malaria also tends to produce the sickle-cell trait, a
Constitutions of Carolina attempted to ensure the genetic condition often fatal to the children who inherit
colony’s stability by decreeing that political power and it.) These two advantages made commercial rice pro-
social rank accurately reflect settlers’ landed wealth. duction possible in Carolina. Because a typical rice
Thus they invented a three-tiered nobility that would planter farming 130 acres needed sixty-five slaves, a
hold two-fifths of all land, make laws through a Council great demand for black slave labor resulted. The propor-
of Nobles, and dispense justice through manorial law tion of slaves in southern Carolina’s population rose
courts. Ordinary Carolinians with smaller landholdings from just 17 percent in 1680 to about half by 1700.
were expected to defer to this nobility, although they Carolina was becoming the first North American colony
would enjoy religious toleration and the benefits of with a black majority.
English common law. Rice thrived only within a forty-mile-wide coastal
Until the 1680s most settlers were small landowners strip extending from Cape Fear to present-day Georgia.
from Barbados or the mainland colonies, along with The hot, humid, marshy lowlands quickly became
some French Huguenots. Obtaining all the land they infested with malaria. Carolinians grimly joked that the
needed, they saw little reason to obey pseudofeudal rice belt was a paradise in spring, an inferno in summer,
lords and all but ignored most of the plans drawn up for and a hospital in the wet, chilly fall. In the worst months,
them across the Atlantic. Southern Carolinians raised planters’ families usually escaped to the relatively cool
livestock and exported deerskins and Indian slaves (see and more healthful climate of Charles Town and let over-
below), and colonists in northern Carolina exported seers supervise their slaves during harvests. By 1700
tobacco, lumber, and pitch, giving local people the southern Carolina’s harsh combination of racism,
name “tarheels.” At first these activities did not produce exploitation, and an environment suitable for rice had
enough profit to warrant maintaining many slaves, so already rendered it one of Britain’s wealthier colonial
self-sufficient white families predominated in the area. regions.
But many southern Carolinians were not content White Carolinians’ attitudes toward Native Ameri-
merely to eke out a marginal existence. Like colonists in cans likewise hardened into exploitation and violence.
the Chesapeake and Caribbean, they sought a staple In the 1670s traders in southern Carolina armed nearby
78 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

Indians and encouraged them to raid Spanish missions protection of the Spanish in Florida) and the Creeks, a
in Florida. These allies captured unarmed Guale, powerful confederacy centered in what is now western
Apalachee, and Timucua Indians at the missions and Georgia and northern Alabama. For three decades these
traded them, along with deerskins, to the Carolinians for Indian allies of the English terrorized Catholic mission
guns and other European goods. The English then sold Indians in Spanish Florida with their slave raids. No sta-
the enslaved Indians, mostly to planters in the West tistical records of Carolina’s Indian slave trade survive,
Indies but also in the mainland colonies as far north as but one study estimates that the number of Native
New England. By the mid-1680s the Carolinians had Americans enslaved was in the tens of thousands. Once
extended the trade inland through alliances with the shipped to the West Indies, most died quickly because
Yamasees (Guale Indians who had fled the inadequate they lacked immunities to both European and tropical
diseases.
MAP 3.8
European Colonization in the Middle and North
Atlantic, c. 1650
THE MIDDLE COLONIES
North of Spanish Florida, four European powers competed for Between the Chesapeake and New England, two non-
territory and trade with Native Americans in the early English nations established colonies (see Map 3.8). New
seventeenth century. Swedish and Dutch colonization was the Netherland and New Sweden were small commercial
foundation upon which England’s middle colonies were built. outposts, although the Dutch colony eventually flour-
0 150 Miles
ished and took over New Sweden. But England seized
0 150 Kilometers
New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664, and by 1681
established New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania on
C E

Tadoussac 1600

the former Dutch territory. These actions together creat-

N

ed a fourth English colonial region, the middle colonies.

A
R

Beauport 1634
F

Québec 1608
Precursors: New Netherland
W
E

N
Trois-Rivières 1634
and New Sweden
Fort Richelieu 1642
New Netherland was North America’s first multiethnic
Montréal 1642 colony. Barely half its colonists were Dutch; most of the
R. rest were Germans, French, Scandinavians, and Afri-
n ce
aw
re cans, free as well as enslaved. In 1643 the population
L

included Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims; and

St.

ND

eighteen European and African languages were spoken.

LA

But religion counted for little (in 1642 the colony had
G
N

seventeen taverns but not one place of worship), and the

N EW NE

L.
E

Ontario Rensselaerwyck 1630

Fort Orange 1614
colonists’ get-rich-quick attitude had fostered New
W

Amsterdam’s growth as a thriving port. The same atti-

E
TH

Esopus 1653
tude sapped company profits as private individuals per-
ERL

Hudson
R.
sisted in illegally trading furs. In 1639 the company
A
ND

Yonkers 1646 bowed to mounting pressure and legalized private fur

New Amsterdam 1625
trading.
De l a

Privatization led to a rapid influx of guns into the

wa

eR
r

.
NEW SWEDEN
Fort Christina 1638 Tinicum 1643
hands of New Netherland’s Iroquois allies, giving them a
Fort Casimir 1651 Fort Nye Elfborg 1643 distinct advantage over other Natives. As overhunting
depleted local supplies of beaver skins and as smallpox
Swaanendael 1631
epidemics took their toll, the Iroquois encroached on
MARYLAND Area of Dutch settlement
rival pro-French Indians in a quest for pelts and for cap-
Area of English settlement tives who could be adopted into Iroquois families to
VIRGINIA replace the dead. Between 1648 and 1657 the Iroquois,
Area of French settlement
in a series of bloody “beaver wars,” dispersed the Hurons
Area of Swedish settlement and other French allies, incorporating many members of
these nations into their own ranks. Then they attacked
 The Middle Colonies 79

the French settlements along the St. Lawrence. “They characterized by ethnic and religious diversity that
come like foxes, they attack like lions, they disappear like would continue in England’s middle colonies.
birds,” wrote a French Jesuit of the Iroquois.
Although the Dutch allied successfully with the
English Conquests:
inland Iroquois, their relations with nearby coastal
New York and New Jersey
Native Americans paralleled white-Indian relations in
England’s seaboard colonies. With its greedy settlers and Like Carolina, the English colonies of New York and New
military weakness, New Netherland had largely itself to Jersey originated in the speculative enterprise of
blame. In 1643 all-out war erupted when the colony’s Restoration courtiers close to King Charles II. Here, too,
governor ordered the massacre of previously friendly upper-class proprietors hoped to create a hierarchical
Indians who were protesting settler encroachments on society in which they could profit from settlers’ rents.
Long Island. By 1645 the Dutch prevailed over these These plans failed for the most part in New Jersey, as in
Indians and their allies only with English help and by Carolina. Only in New York did they achieve some success.
inflicting additional atrocities. But the fighting, known In 1664, waging war against the Dutch Republic,
as Kieft’s War for the governor who ordered the mas- Charles II dispatched a naval force to conquer New
sacre, helped reduce New Netherland’s Indian popula- Netherland. Weakened by additional wars with Indians
tion from sixteen hundred to seven hundred. as New Netherland sought to expand northward on the
Another European challenger distracted the Dutch Hudson River, Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant and four
as they sought to suppress neighboring Native hundred poorly armed civilians surrendered peacefully.
Americans. In 1638 Sweden had planted a small fur- Nearly all the Dutch (including Stuyvesant himself)
trading colony in the lower Delaware Valley. Trading with remained in the colony on generous terms.
the Delaware (or Lenni Lenape) and Susquehannock Charles II made his brother James, Duke of York,
Indians, New Sweden diverted many furs from New proprietor of the new province and renamed it New
Netherland. Annoyed, the Dutch colony’s governor, York. When the duke became King James II in 1685, he
Peter Stuyvesant, marched his militia against New proclaimed New York a royal colony. Immigration from
Sweden in 1655. The four hundred residents of the rival New England, Britain, and France boosted the popula-
colony peacefully accepted Dutch annexation. tion from nine thousand in 1664 to twenty thousand in
Tiny though they were, the Dutch and Swedish 1700. Just 44 percent were descended from the original
colonies were historically significant. New Netherland New Netherlanders.
had attained a population of nine thousand and fea- Following Dutch precedent, New York’s governors
tured a wealthy, thriving port city by the time it came rewarded their wealthiest political supporters, both
under English rule in 1664. Even short-lived New Dutch and English, with large land grants. By 1703 five
Sweden left a mark—the log cabin, that durable symbol families held approximately 1.75 million acres (about
of the American frontier, which Finnish settlers in the half the area east of the Hudson River and south of
Swedish colony first introduced to the continent. Above Albany; see Map 3.9), which they withheld from sale in
all, the two colonies bequeathed a social environment hope of creating manors with numerous rent-paying
80 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

group of proprietors headed by William Penn, John Lord

0 20 Miles
Berkeley, and Sir Philip Carteret. The area at the time was
0 20 Kilometers
inhabited by about four thousand Delaware Indians and
Saratoga Patent
1684 a few hundred Dutch and Swedes. From the beginning
Mo
ha
New Jersey’s proprietors had difficulty controlling their
wk
R. province. By 1672 several thousand New Englanders had
settled along the Atlantic shore. After the quarrelsome
Puritans renounced allegiance to them, Berkeley and
Albany Carteret sold the region to a group of even more con-
Van Rensselaer Manor
S
SETT
1685 tentious religious dissenters called Quakers, who split
the territory into the two colonies of West Jersey (1676)
ACHU

and East Jersey (1682).

The Jerseys’ Quakers, Anglicans, Puritans, Scottish
MASS

Livingston
Manor
R.

1686 Presbyterians, Dutch Calvinists, and Swedish Lutherans

son
H ud

got along poorly with one another and even worse with
NEW YORK the proprietors. Both governments collapsed between
1698 and 1701 as mobs disrupted the courts. In 1702 the
Great Nine Partners’ disillusioned proprietors finally surrendered their politi-
Patent 1703
cal powers to the crown, which proclaimed New Jersey a
CONNECTICUT
Rumbout Patent royal province.
1685 Beekman Patent 1703

Philipse Patent 1697 Quaker Pennsylvania

Van Cortlandt Manor
1697
The noblest attempt to carry out European concepts of
justice and stability in founding a colony began in 1681.
Philipse Manor That year Charles II paid off a huge debt by making a
1693
supporter’s son, William Penn, the proprietor of the last
unallocated tract of American territory at the king’s dis-
NEW JERSEY posal. Penn (1644–1718) had two aims in developing his
Morris Manor 1697
colony. First, he was a Quaker and wanted to launch a
“holy experiment” based on the teachings of the radical
New York
English preacher George Fox. Second, “though I desire to
extend religious freedom,” he explained, “yet I want
some recompense for my trouble.”
ATLANTIC OCEAN Quakers in late-seventeenth-century England stood
well beyond the fringe of respectability. Quakerism
MAP 3.9 appealed strongly to men and women at the bottom of
New York Manors and Land Grants the economic ladder, and its adherents challenged the
Between 1684 and 1703, English governors awarded conventional foundation of the social order. George Fox,
most of the best land east of the Hudson River as
the movement’s originator, had received his inspiration
manors to prominent politicians—the majority of them
while wandering civil war-torn England’s byways and
Dutch—whose heirs became the wealthiest elite in
the rural northern colonies. searching for spiritual meaning among distressed com-
mon people. Tried on one occasion for blasphemy, he
tenants. Earning an enormous income from their rents warned the judge to “tremble at the word of the Lord”
over the next half-century, the New York patroons (the and was ridiculed as a “quaker.” Fox’s followers called
Dutch name for manor lords) formed a landed elite sec- themselves the Society of Friends, but the name Quaker
ond in wealth only to the Carolina rice planters. stuck. They were the most successful of the many radical
Ambitious plans collided with American realities in religious sects born in England during the 1640s and
New Jersey, which also was carved out of New 1650s.
Netherland. Immediately after the Dutch province’s con- The core of Fox’s theology was his belief that the
quest in 1664, the Duke of York awarded New Jersey to a Holy Spirit or “Inner Light” could inspire every soul.
 The Middle Colonies 81

Mainstream Christians, by contrast, found any such Not all Quakers came from the bottom of society.
claim of special communication with God highly suspi- The movement’s emphasis on quiet introspection and
cious, as Anne Hutchinson’s banishment from Massa- its refusal to adopt a formal creed also attracted some
chusetts Bay colony in 1637 revealed. Although trusting well-educated and prosperous individuals disillusioned
direct inspiration and disavowing the need for a clergy, by the quarreling of rival faiths. The possessor of a great
Quakers also took great pains to ensure that individual fortune, William Penn was hardly a typical Friend, but
opinions would not be mistaken for God’s will. They felt there were significant numbers of merchants among the
confident that they understood the Inner Light only estimated sixty thousand Quakers in the British Isles in
after having reached near-unanimous agreement the early 1680s. Moreover, the industriousness that the
through intensive and searching discussion led by Society of Friends encouraged in its members ensured
“Public Friends”—ordinary laypeople. In their simple that many humble Quakers accumulated money and
religious services (“meetings”), Quakers sat silently until property.
the Inner Light prompted one of them to speak. Much care lay behind the Quaker migration to
Some of the Quakers’ beliefs led them to behave in Pennsylvania that began in 1681, and it resulted in the
ways that aroused fierce hostility for being disrespectful most successful beginning of any European colony in
to authorities and their social superiors. For example, North America. Penn sent an advance party to the
insisting that individuals deserved recognition for their Delaware Valley, where about five thousand Delaware
spiritual state rather than their wealth or status, Quakers Indians and one thousand Swedes and Dutch already
refused to tip their hats to their social betters. They like- lived. After an agonizing voyage in which one-third of
wise flouted convention by not using the formal pro- the passengers died, Penn arrived in 1682. Choosing a
noun “you” when speaking to members of the gentry, site for the capital, he named it Philadelphia—the
instead addressing everyone with the informal “thee” “City of Brotherly Love.” By 1687 some eight thousand
and “thou” as a token of equality. By wearing their hats settlers had joined Penn across the Atlantic. Most were
in court, moreover, Quakers appeared to mock the Quakers from the British Isles, but they also included
state’s authority; and by taking literally Scripture’s ban Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, and Catholics, as well
on swearing oaths, they seemed to place themselves as Lutherans and radical sectarians from Germany—all
above the law. The Friends’ refusal to bear arms attracted by Pennsylvania’s religious toleration. Because
appeared unpatriotic and cowardly to many. Finally, most Quakers immigrated in family groups rather than
Quakers accorded women unprecedented equality. The as single males, a high birthrate resulted, and the popu-
Inner Light, Fox insisted, could “speak in the female as lation grew rapidly. In 1698 one Quaker reported that in
well as the male.” Acting on these beliefs, Quakers suf- Pennsylvania one seldom met “any young Married
fered persecution and occasionally death in England, Woman but hath a Child in her belly, or one upon her
Massachusetts, and Virginia. lap.”
82 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

After wavering between authoritarian and more functioning Quaker movement—in which the humblest
democratic plans, Penn finally gave Pennsylvania a gov- member had equal authority in interpreting the Inner
ernment with a strong executive branch (a governor and Light—into a hierarchical church dominated by the cler-
governor’s council) and granted the lower legislative gy. The majority of Quakers rejected Keith’s views in
chamber (the assembly) only limited powers. Friends, 1692, whereupon he joined the Church of England, tak-
forming the majority of the colony’s population, domi- ing some Quakers with him. Keith’s departure began a
nated this elected assembly. Penn named Quakers and major decline in the Quaker share of Pennsylvania’s
their supporters as governor, judges, and sheriffs. Hardly population. The proportion fell further once Quakers
a democrat, he feared “the ambitions of the populace ceased immigrating in large numbers after 1710.
which shakes the Constitution,” and he intended to William Penn met his strongest opposition in the
check “the rabble” as much as possible. Because he also counties on the lower Delaware River, where the best
insisted on the orderly disposition of property and lands had been taken up by Swedes and Dutch. In 1704
hoped to avoid unseemly wrangling, he carefully over- these counties became the separate colony of Delaware,
saw land sales in the colony. To prevent haphazard but Penn continued to name their governors.
growth and social turmoil in Philadelphia, Penn The middle colonies soon demonstrated that British
designed the city with a grid plan, laying out the streets America could benefit by encouraging pluralism. New
at right angles and reserving small areas for parks. York and New Jersey successfully integrated New
Unlike most seaboard colonies, Pennsylvania avoid- Netherland’s Swedish and Dutch population; and
ed early hostilities with Native Americans. This was part- Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware refused to
ly a result of the reduced Native population in the require residents to pay support for any official church.
Delaware Valley. But it was also a testament to Penn’s Meanwhile, England’s European rivals, France and Spain,
Quaker tolerance. To the Indians Penn expressed a wish were also extending their claims in North America.
“to live together as Neighbours and Friends,” and he
made it the colony’s policy to buy land it wanted for set-
tlement from them.
Land was a key to Pennsylvania’s early prosperity. RIVALS FOR
Rich, level lands and a lengthy growing season enabled NORTH AMERICA:
immigrants to produce bumper crops. West Indian
demand for the colony’s grain rose sharply and by 1700
FRANCE AND SPAIN
made Philadelphia a major port. In marked contrast to England’s compact, densely popu-
Like other attempts to base new American societies lated settlements on the Atlantic, France and Spain
on preconceived plans or lofty ideals, Penn’s “peaceable established far-flung inland networks of fortified trading
kingdom” soon bogged down in human bickering. In posts and missions. Unable to attract large numbers of
1684 the founder returned to England, and the settlers colonists, they enlisted Native Americans as trading
quarreled incessantly (until he returned in 1699). An partners and military allies, and the two Catholic
opposition party attacked Penn’s efforts to monopolize nations had far more success than English Protestants in
foreign trade and to make each landowner pay him a converting Indians to Christianity. By 1700 French and
small annual fee. Bitter struggles between Penn’s sup- Spanish missionaries, traders, and soldiers—and rela-
porters in the governor’s council and opponents in the tively few farmers and ranchers—were spreading
assembly deadlocked the government. From 1686 to European influence well beyond the range of England’s
1688, the legislature passed no laws, and the council colonies, to much of Canada and to what is now the
once ordered the lower house’s speaker arrested. Penn’s American Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest.
brief return to Pennsylvania from 1699 to 1701 helped England’s rivals exercised varying degrees of control
little. Just before he sailed home, he made the legislature in developing their American colonies. France, the
a unicameral (one-chamber) assembly and allowed it to supreme power in late-seventeenth-century Europe,
initiate measures. poured in state resources, whereas Spain, then in eco-
Religious conflict shook Pennsylvania during the nomic decline, made little attempt to influence North
1690s, when George Keith, a college-educated Public American affairs from Europe. In both cases, local offi-
Friend, urged Quakers to adopt a formal creed and train cials and missionaries assumed the primary burden for
ministers. This would have changed the democratically extending imperial interests.
 Rivals for North America: France and Spain 83

France Claims a Continent for the French navy. To begin realizing these goals, they
revoked the charter of the Company of New France in
After briefly losing Canada to England (1629–1632), 1663 and placed the colony under royal direction. They
France resumed and extended its colonization there. then sought to stifle the Iroquois threat to New France’s
Paralleling the early English and Dutch colonies, a pri- economy and to encourage French immigration to
vately held company initially assumed responsibility for Canada.
settling New France. The Company of New France grant- For more than half a century, and especially since
ed extensive tracts, or seigneuries, to large landlords the “beaver wars,” the Iroquois had limited New France’s
(seigneurs), who could either import indentured ser- productivity by intercepting convoys of beaver pelts
vants or rent out small tracts within their holdings to from the interior. After assuming control of the colony,
prospective farmers. Although some farmers and other the royal government sent fifteen hundred soldiers to
colonists spread along the St. Lawrence River as far stop Iroquois interference with the fur trade. In 1666
inland as Montreal (see Map 3.8), Canada’s harsh win- these troops sacked and burned four Mohawk villages
ters and short growing season sharply limited their that were well stocked with winter food. After the
numbers. alarmed Iroquois made a peace that lasted until 1680,
More successful in New France were commercial New France enormously expanded its North American
traders and missionaries who spread beyond the settle- fur exports.
ments and relied on stable relations with Indians to suc- Meanwhile, the French crown energetically built up
ceed. Despite costly wars with the Iroquois, which the colony’s population. Within a decade of the royal
entailed the defeat of some of France’s Native American takeover, the number of whites rose from twenty-five
allies (see above), French-Indian trade prospered. hundred to eighty-five hundred. The vast majority con-
Indeed the more lucrative opportunities offered by trade
diverted many French men who had initially arrived to
take up farming.
The colony also benefited from the substantial
efforts of Catholic religious workers, especially Jesuit
missionaries and Ursuline nuns. Given a virtual monop-
oly on missions to Native Americans in 1633, the Jesuits
followed the fur trade into the Canadian interior.
Although the missionaries often feuded with the traders,
whose morality they condemned, the two groups
together spread French influence westward to the Great
Lakes, securing the loyalty of the region’s Indians in their
struggles with the Iroquois. The Ursulines ministered
particularly to Native American women and girls nearer
Quebec, ensuring that Catholic piety and morality
directly reached all members of Indian families.
Even more forcefully than his English counterparts,
France’s King Louis XIV (reigned 1661–1715) sought to
subordinate his American colony to the nation’s inter-
ests. His principal adviser, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, was a
forceful proponent of the doctrine of mercantilism (see
Chapter 4), which held that colonies should provide
their home country with the raw materials it lacked and
with markets for its manufactured goods. In this way, the
nation would not have to depend on rival countries for
trade. Accordingly, Colbert and Louis hoped that New
France could increase its output of furs, ship agricultural
surpluses to France’s new sugar-producing colonies in
the West Indies, and export timber to those colonies and
84 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

sisted of indentured servants who were paid wages and year later the French erected a fort near present-day
given land after three years’ work. Others were former Biloxi, Mississippi. In 1702 they occupied the former
soldiers and their officers who were given land grants Mississippian city of Mábila, where De Soto’s expedition
and other incentives to remain in New France and farm had faltered a century and a half earlier (see Chapter 2),
while strengthening the colony’s defenses. The officers founding a trading post, and calling it Mobile. But
were encouraged to marry among the “king’s girls,” Louisiana’s growth would be delayed for another
female orphans shipped over with dowries. decade.
The upsurge in French immigration petered out
after 1673. Tales of disease and other hazards of the
New Mexico: The Pueblo Revolt
transatlantic voyage, of Canada’s hard winters, and of
wars with the “savage” Iroquois were spread by the two- Spanish colonization in North America after 1625
thirds of French immigrants who returned to their native expanded upon the two bases established earlier in New
land over the next century. New France would grow Mexico and Florida (see Chapter 2). With few settlers, the
slowly, relying on the natural increase of its small popu- two colonies needed ties with friendly Native Americans
lation rather than on newcomers from Europe. in order to obtain land, labor, and security. But friendly
Colbert had encouraged immigration in order to relations proved hard to come by in both locales.
enhance New France’s agricultural productivity. But as From the beginning, the Spanish sought to rule New
in earlier years, many French men who remained Mexico by subordinating the Pueblo Indians to their
spurned farming in the St. Lawrence Valley, instead authority in several ways. First, Franciscan missionaries
swarming westward in search of furs. By 1670 one-fifth supervised the Indians’ spiritual lives by establishing
of them were voyageurs, or coureurs de bois—independ- churches in most of the Indian communities (pueblos)
ent traders unconstrained by government authority. and attempting to force the natives to attend mass and
Living in Indian villages and often marrying Native observe Catholic rituals and morality. Second, Spanish
women, the coureurs built an empire for France. From landowners were awarded encomiendas (see Chapter 2),
Canadian and Great Lakes Indians they obtained furs in which allowed them to exploit Indian labor and produc-
exchange for European goods, including guns to use tivity for personal profits. Finally, the Spanish drove a
against the Iroquois and other rivals. In their commer- wedge between the Pueblo Indians and their nonfarm-
cial interactions, the French and Indians observed ing trade partners, the Apaches and Navajos. By collect-
Native American norms of reciprocity (see Chapter 1). ing corn as tribute, the Pueblo Indians could no longer
Their exchanges of goods sealed bonds of friendship and trade their surplus crops with the Apaches and Navajos.
alliance, which served their mutual interests in trade Having incorporated corn into their diets, the Apaches
and in war against common enemies. in particular raided the pueblos as well as the Spanish
Alarmed by the rapid expansion of England’s for the grain. A few outlying pueblos made common
colonies and by Spanish plans to link Florida with New cause with the Apaches, but most responded to the raids
Mexico (see below), France boldly sought to dominate by strengthening their ties to the Spanish.
the North American heartland. As early as 1672, fur trad- Although rebellions erupted sporadically over the
er Louis Jolliet and Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette first six decades of Spanish rule, most pueblos accom-
became the first Europeans known to have reached the modated themselves to Spanish rule and Catholicism.
upper Mississippi River (near modern Prairie du Chien, Beginning in the 1660s, however, many Natives grew dis-
Wisconsin); they later paddled twelve hundred miles illusioned. For several consecutive years their crops
downstream to the Mississippi’s junction with the withered under the effects of sustained drought.
Arkansas River. Ten years later, the Sieur de La Salle, an Drought-induced starvation plus deadly epidemic dis-
ambitious upper-class adventurer, descended the entire eases sent the Pueblo population plummeting from
Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. When he reached the about eighty thousand in 1598 to just seventeen thou-
delta, La Salle formally claimed the entire Mississippi sand in the 1670s. Riding horses stolen from the
basin—half the territory of the present-day continental Spanish, Apaches inflicted more damage than ever in
United States—for Louis XIV, in whose honor he named their raids. Reeling under the effects of these catastro-
the territory Louisiana. phes, Christian Indians returned to traditional Pueblo
Having asserted title to this vast empire, the French beliefs and ceremonies in hopes of restoring the spiritu-
began settling the southern gateway into it. In 1698 the al balance that had brought ample rainfall, good health,
first colonizers arrived on the Gulf of Mexico coast. A and peace before the Spanish arrived. Seeking to sup-
 Rivals for North America: France and Spain 85

press this religious revival as “witchcraft” and “idolatry,” did a new governor, Diego de Vargas, arrive to “recon-
the Franciscan missionaries entered sacred kivas quer” New Mexico. Exploiting divisions that had
(underground ceremonial centers), destroyed religious emerged among the Pueblos in the colonists’ absence,
objects, and publicly whipped Native religious leaders Vargas used violence and threats of violence to reestab-
and their followers. lish Spanish rule. Even then Spain did not effectively
Matters came to a head in 1675 when Governor Juan quash Pueblo resistance until 1700, and thereafter its
Francisco Treviño ordered soldiers to sack the kivas and control of the province was more limited than before. To
arrest Pueblo religious leaders. Three leaders were sent appease the Pueblos, on whom they depended for the
to the gallows; a fourth hanged himself; and forty-three colony to endure, Spanish authorities abolished the
others were jailed, whipped, and sentenced to be sold as hated encomienda. They also ordered the Franciscans
slaves. In response, armed warriors from several pueblos not to disturb the Pueblos in their traditional religious
converged on Santa Fe and demanded the prisoners’ practices and to cease inflicting corporal punishment on
release. With most of his soldiers off fighting the the Indians.
Apaches, Governor Treviño complied. Pueblos’ suspicions of the Spanish lingered after
Despite this concession, there was now no cooling 1700, but they did not again attempt to overthrow them.
of Pueblo resentment against the Spanish. Pueblo lead- With the missions and encomienda less intrusive, they
ers began gathering secretly to plan the overthrow of
Spanish rule. At the head of this effort was Popé, one of
those who had been arrested in 1675. Besides Popé and
one El Saca, the leaders included men such as Luis
Tupatú, Antonio Malacate, and others whose Christian
names signified that they had once been baptized. Some
were of mixed Pueblo-Spanish ancestry, and one leader,
Domingo Naranjo, combined Pueblo, Mexican Indian,
and African ancestors. They and many of their followers
had attempted to reconcile conversion to Christianity
and subjection to Spanish rule with their identities as
Indians. But deteriorating conditions and the cruel
intolerance of the Spanish had turned them against
Catholicism.
In August 1680 Popé and his cohorts were ready to
act. On the morning of August 10, some Indians from the
pueblo of Taos and their Apache allies attacked the
homes of the seventy Spanish colonists residing near
Taos and killed all but two. Then, with Indians from
neighboring pueblos, they proceeded south and joined a
massive siege of New Mexico’s capital, Santa Fe. Thus
began the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the most significant
event in the history of the colonial Southwest.
At each pueblo, rebels destroyed the churches and
religious paraphernalia and killed those missionaries
who did not escape. All told, about four hundred
colonists were slain. Then they “plunge[d] into the rivers
and wash[ed] themselves with amole,” a native root, in
order to undo their baptisms. As a follower later testified,
Popé also called on the Indians “to break and enlarge
their cultivated fields, saying now they were as they had
been in ancient times, free from the labor they had per-
formed for the religious and the Spaniards.”
The siege of Santa Fe led to the expulsion of the
Spanish from New Mexico for twelve years. Only in 1692
86 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and Diversity: The Rise of Colonial America, 1625–1700

sustained their cultural identities within, rather than with enslaved Africans. Slavery had been instituted ear-
outside, the bounds of colonial rule. lier by English sugar planters in the West Indies, some of
whom introduced it at the very beginning of coloniza-
tion in the third North American region, Carolina.
Florida and Texas
Between the Chesapeake and New England, a fourth
The Spanish fared no better in Florida, an even older region, the middle colonies, combined the ethnic and
colony than New Mexico. Before 1680 the colony faced religious pluralism of Swedish and Dutch predecessors
periodic rebellions from Guale, Timucua, and Apalachee with the religious tolerance of the Quakers. Middle
Indians protesting forced labor and the religious disci- colonists embraced the market economy with far less
pline imposed by Franciscan missionaries. Beginning in hesitation than their Puritan neighbors in New England.
the 1680s Creek and other Indian slave raiders allied to While planters or merchants rose to prominence in each
the English in Carolina added to the effects of recurrent English region, most whites continued to live on family
diseases. While the Spanish, with their small numbers of farms.
soldiers and arms looked on helplessly, the invading The English colonies were by far the most populous.
Indians killed and captured thousands of Florida’s By 1700 the combined number of whites and blacks in
Natives and sold them to English slave traders (see England’s mainland North American colonies was about
above). Even before a new round of warfare erupted in 250,000, compared with 15,000 for those of France and
Europe at the turn of the century, Spain was ill prepared 4,500 for those of Spain.
to defend its beleaguered North American colonies. With far fewer colonists, French and Spanish
English expansion threatened Florida, while the colonists depended more on friendly relations with
French establishment of Louisiana defied Spain’s hope Native Americans for their livelihoods and security than
of one day linking that colony with New Mexico. To did the English. Most French North Americans lived in
counter the French, Spanish authorities in Mexico pro- the St. Lawrence Valley, where a lively commercial-agrar-
claimed the province of Texas (Tejas) in 1691. But no ian economy was emerging, though on a smaller scale
permanent Spanish settlements appeared there until than in New England and the middle colonies. Most
1716 (see Chapter 4). Spanish colonists not connected to the government,
military, or a missionary order were concentrated in the
Rio Grande valley in New Mexico. But smaller numbers
CONCLUSION and geographic isolation precluded the Southwest’s
In less than a century, from 1625 to 1700, the movements development as a major center of colonization.
of peoples and goods, across the Atlantic and within the By 1700 there were clear differences between the
continent transformed the map of North America. The societies and economies of the three colonial powers in
kin of Sarah Horbin, Mary Johnson, and others spread North America. These differences would prove decisive
far and wide among colonial regions in the Americas, in shaping American history during the century that
while emergent trade routes linked some regions to oth- followed.
ers and all of them to Europe. While strong, favorably
located Indian groups like the Creek and the Iroquois FOR FURTHER REFERENCE
used trade with colonists to enhance their economic
and political standing, other Native Americans con- READINGS
fronted colonists who sought their land, labor, or loyalty. Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries
From New England to New Mexico, such Indians either of Slavery in North America (1998). A major study com-
reconciled themselves to coexistence with Europeans or paring the experiences and cultures of three distinct
fled their homelands in order to avoid contact with the cohorts of mainland slaves, from the earliest arrivals
through the age of the American Revolution.
intruders.
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The
Within the English colonies, four distinct regions
Social Origins of Witchcraft (1974). A study of the witch-
emerged. New England’s Puritanism grew less utopian craft episode as the expression of social conflict in one
and more worldly as the inhabitants gradually recon- New England community.
ciled their religious views with the realities of a commer- William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists,
cial economy. After beginning with a labor force consist- and the Ecology of New England (1983). A pioneering
ing primarily of white indentured servants, the tobacco study of the interactions of Native Americans and
planters of the Chesapeake region began replacing them European settlers with the New England environment.
 For Further Reference 87

C H R O N O L O G Y, 1625–1700

1627 English establish Barbados. 1661 Maryland defines slavery as a lifelong, inheritable racial
1629 Massachusetts Bay colony founded. status.
1630–1642 “Great Migration” to New England. 1662 Half-Way Covenant debated.
1633 First English settlements in Connecticut. 1664 English conquer New Netherland; establish New York
1634 Lord Baltimore establishes Maryland. and New Jersey.
1636 Roger Williams founds Providence, Rhode Island. 1670 Charles Town, Carolina, founded.
Harvard College established. Virginia defines slavery as a lifelong, inheritable racial
1637 Antinomian crisis in Massachusetts Bay. status.
Pequot War in Connecticut. 1675–1676 King Philip’s War in New England.
1638 New Sweden established. 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia.
1642–1648 English Civil War. 1680 Pueblo revolt begins in New Mexico.
1643–1645 Kieft’s War in New Netherland. 1681 William Penn founds Pennsylvania.
1644–1646 Third Anglo-Powhatan War in Virginia. 1682 La Salle claims Louisiana for France.
1648–1657 Iroquois “beaver wars.” 1690s End of Royal African Company’s monopoly on English
1649 Maryland’s Act for Religious Toleration. slave trade.
King Charles I beheaded. 1691 Spain establishes Texas.
Five Nations Iroquois disperse Hurons.
1692–1700 Spain “reconquers” New Mexico.
1655 New Netherland annexes New Sweden. 1692–1693 Salem witchcraft trials.
1660 Restoration in England; Charles II crowned king. 1698 First French settlements in Louisiana.

James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz, The Times of Their WEBSITES
Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony (2000).
From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery
An examination of everyday life in New England using
http.www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr3.html
archaeological and documentary evidence and offering
A useful introduction to Virginia’s changing labor force
some surprising conclusions.
and the lives and legal treatment of enslaved Africans in
Allison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English
the colony.
Atlantic World (1999). An in-depth study of English emi-
grants to the Chesapeake, New England, and the Carib- Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and
bean in the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Transcription Project
Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft
Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the An excellent site featuring extensive courtroom tran-
Formation of American Culture (1988). A brilliant synthe- scripts and other documents, maps, and biographies of
sis that takes a regional approach in discussing England’s accusers, accused, magistrates, and other figures.
mainland and island colonies. William Penn: Visionary Proprietor
Allan Greer, The People of New France (1997). An excellent http://xroads.virginia.edu.~CAP/PENN/pnhome.html
brief introduction to the social history of French North A good introduction to Penn and his Quaker idealism,
America. emphasizing his approach to Native Americans and his
Andrew L. Knaut, The Pueblo Revolt of 1680: Conquest and design for Philadelphia.
Resistance in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico (1995). A For additional works please consult the Bibliography at
comprehensive, insightful account of Pueblo-Spanish the end of the book.
relations during the seventeenth century.
Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom:
The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (1975). A classic analysis
of the origins of southern slavery and race relations.
Mary Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers:
Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society
(1996). A major study of female and male power in the
seventeenth-century English colonies.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

 CHAPTER 4

The Bonds of Empire,

1660–1750

A lexander Garden, the Church of England’s commissary (representative) in

the southern colonies, was furious. George Whitefield, a young Anglican
minister just over from England, was preaching that Garden’s ministers were
unsaved and were endangering their parishioners’ souls. Asserting his
authority, Garden summoned Whitefield to Charles Town and demanded a
retraction. But Whitefield brushed off the demand, claiming that Garden
“was as ignorant as the rest” of the local clergy for failing to teach the central
Calvinist doctrine of salvation by predestination (see Chapter 2). Whitefield
threatened to widen his attacks if Garden refused to condemn dancing and
other “sinful” entertainments. Garden shot back that Whitefield would be
suspended if he preached in any church in the province, to which Whitefield
retorted that he would treat such an action as he would an order from the
pope. The meeting ended with Garden shouting, “Get out of my house!”
Garden got Whitefield out of his house but not out of his hair. The two
men continued their dispute in public. Garden accused Whitefield of jeop-
ardizing the stability of colonial society, while Whitefield charged the CHAPTER OUTLINE
Anglican clergy with abandoning piety in favor of the cold heresy of reason.
Rebellion and War, 1660–1713
An extraordinary orator, Whitefield was the first intercolonial celebrity, trav-
eling thousands of miles to spread his critique of the established religious Colonial Economies and Societies ,
1660–1750

Competing for a Continent, 1713–1750

!
Public Life in British America,
1689–1750

89
90 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

order. Everywhere he went, people from all walks of life REBELLION AND WAR,
poured out by the thousands to individually experience
the overwhelming power of a direct connection with
1660–1713
God. Before the Restoration (1660), England made little seri-
Whitefield represented one of two European cultur- ous effort to weld its colonies into a coherent empire.
al currents that crossed the Atlantic, primarily from or Thereafter, English authorities undertook a concerted
through Britain, during the middle decades of the eigh- effort to expand overseas trade at the expense of the
teenth century. He was the greatest English-speaking nation’s rivals and to subordinate its colonies to English
prophet of a powerful revival of religious piety sweeping commercial interests and political authority. These
the Protestant world. The second current was the efforts were modified but continued after the fall of the
Enlightenment—a faith in reason rooted in natural sci- Stuarts in 1689 and by a succession of international wars
ence—which found its earliest and foremost American that followed.
exponent in Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s emphasis on
reason might seem at odds with Whitefield’s conscious
efforts to tap his audience’s deepest emotions. But both
Royal Centralization, 1660–1688
men repudiated the self-contained hierarchical commu- As the sons of a king (Charles I) executed by Parliament,
nities of the past in favor of a more dynamic society that the Restoration monarchs disliked representative gov-
was intercolonial and transatlantic in its orientation. ernment. Charles II rarely called Parliament into session
Whitefield, an Englishman in America, and after 1674, and not at all after 1681. James II (ruled
Franklin, a colonist who traveled frequently to England, 1685–1688) hoped to reign as an “absolute” monarch like
also signaled the close ties that increasingly bound France’s Louis XIV, who never faced an elected legisla-
Britain and America. Beginning with a series of ture. Not surprisingly, the two English kings had little
Navigation Acts in the late seventeenth century, England sympathy for American colonial assemblies.
tightened the economic bonds linking the colonies’ eco- Royal intentions of extending direct political control
nomic fortunes with its own. Coupled with the astonish- to North America first became evident in New York. The
ing growth of its population, slave as well as free, these proprietor, Charles II’s brother James, the Duke of York,
policies enabled British North America to achieve a level considered elected assemblies “of dangerous conse-
of growth and collective prosperity unknown elsewhere quence” and forbade them to meet, except briefly
in the Americas. The accelerating movement of goods between 1682 and 1686. Meanwhile, Charles appointed
and people was accompanied by the movement of news former army officers to about 90 percent of all guberna-
and ideas that, by 1750, made the British Empire a lead- torial positions, thereby compromising the time-hon-
ing world power and distinguished its colonies sharply ored English tradition of holding the military strictly
from their French and Spanish neighbors. accountable to civilian authority. By 1680 such “gover-
nors general” ruled 60 percent of all American colonists.
James II continued this policy.
This chapter will focus on four major questions:
Ever resentful of outside meddling, New Englanders
■ How did the Glorious Revolution and its outcome proved most stubborn in defending self-government
shape relations between England and its North and resisting crown policies. As early as 1661, the
American colonies? Massachusetts assembly declared its citizens exempt
from all laws and royal decrees from England except for
■ What were the most important consequences of
a declaration of war. The colony ignored the Navigation
British mercantilism for the mainland colonies?
Acts and continued to welcome Dutch traders. Charles II
■ What factors best explain the relative strengths of responded by targeting Massachusetts for special pun-
the British, French, and Spanish colonial empires in ishment. In 1679 he carved a new royal colony, New
North America? Hampshire, out of its territory. Then in 1684 he declared
Massachusetts itself a royal colony and revoked its char-
■ What were the most significant consequences of the
ter, the very foundation of the Puritan city upon a hill.
Enlightenment and the Great Awakening for life in
Puritan minister Increase Mather repudiated the King’s
the British colonies?
actions, calling on colonists to resist even to the point of
martyrdom.
 Rebellion and War, 1660–1713 91

Despite such resistance, royal centralization accel- wife bore a son who would be raised—and would even-
erated after James II ascended to the throne. In 1686 the tually reign—as a Catholic. Aghast at the thought of a
new king consolidated Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Catholic succeeding to the throne, some of England’s
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth into a single political and religious leaders asked Mary and her hus-
administrative unit, the Dominion of New England, with band, William of Orange (head of the Dutch Republic),
a capital at Boston. He added New York and the Jerseys to intervene. When William and Mary led a small Dutch
to the Dominion in 1688. With this bold stroke, all legis- Protestant army to England in November 1688, most
latures in these colonies ceased to exist, and still another royal troops defected to them, and James II fled to
former army officer, Sir Edmund Andros, became gover- France.
nor of the new supercolony. This bloodless revolution of 1688, called the
Massachusetts burned with hatred for the dominion Glorious Revolution, created a “limited monarchy” as
and its governor. By “Exercise of an arbitrary Govern- defined by England’s Bill of Rights of 1689. The crown
ment,” preached Salem’s minister, “ye wicked walked on promised to summon Parliament annually, sign all its
Every Side & ye Vilest of men ware [sic] exalted.” Andros bills, and respect traditional civil liberties. This vindica-
was indeed arbitrary. He suppressed the legislature, lim- tion of limited representative government burned
ited towns to a single annual meeting, and strictly deeply into the English political consciousness, and
enforced toleration of Anglicans and the Navigation Acts. Anglo-Americans never forgot it. Colonists struck their
“You have no more privileges left you,” Andros reported- own blows for liberty when Massachusetts, New York,
ly told a group of outraged colonists, “than not to be sold and Maryland rose up against local representatives of
for slaves.” Andros’ success in gaining some local sup- the Stuart regime.
port, including his appointing some Massachusetts elites News that England’s Protestant leaders had rebelled
to high office, further enraged most other colonists. against James II electrified New Englanders. On April 18,
Tensions also ran high in New York, where Catholics 1689, well before confirmation of the English revolt’s
held prominent political and military posts under the success, Boston’s militia arrested Andros and his coun-
Duke of York’s rule. By 1688 colonists feared that these cilors. (The governor tried to flee in women’s clothing
Catholic officials would betray New York to France, now but was caught after an alert guard spotted a “lady” in
England’s chief imperial rival. When Andros’s local army boots.) The Massachusetts political leaders acted
deputy, Captain Francis Nicholson, allowed the harbor’s in the name of William and Mary, risking their necks
forts to deteriorate and reacted skeptically to rumors should James return to power in England.
that Native Americans would attack, New Yorkers sus- Although William and Mary dismantled the
pected the worst. Dominion of New England and restored the power to
elect their own governors to Connecticut and Rhode
Island, they acted to retain royal authority in Massa-
The Glorious Revolution in England
chusetts. While allowing the province to absorb
and America, 1688–1689
Plymouth and Maine, they refused to let it regain New
Not only colonists but also English people were alarmed Hampshire. More seriously, Massachusetts’ new charter
by the religious, political, and diplomatic directions in of 1691 stipulated that the crown, rather than the
which the monarchy was taking their nation. The Duke electorate, would choose the governor. In addition,
of York became a Catholic in 1676, and Charles II con- property ownership, not church membership, became
verted on his deathbed. Both rulers ignored Parliament the criterion for voting. Finally, the colony had to toler-
and violated its laws, issuing decrees allowing Catholics ate other Protestants, especially proliferating numbers
to hold high office and worship openly. English of Anglicans, Baptists, and Quakers (although non-
Protestants’ fears that they would have to accept Puritans’ taxes would continue to support the estab-
Catholicism intensified after both kings expressed their lished Congregational church). For Puritans already
preference for allying with France just as Louis XIV was demoralized by the demise of the “New England Way”
launching new persecutions of that country’s Protestant (see Chapter 3), this was indeed bitter medicine.
Huguenots in 1685. New York’s counterpart of the anti-Stuart uprising
The English tolerated James II’s Catholicism only was Leisler’s Rebellion. Emboldened by news of Boston’s
because the potential heirs to the throne, his daughters coup, the city’s militia—consisting mainly of Dutch and
Mary and Anne, remained Anglican. But in 1688 James’s other non-English artisans and shopkeepers—seized
92 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

the harbor’s main fort on May 31, 1689. Captain Jacob 1681, Lord Baltimore sent a messenger from England in
Leisler of the militia took command of the colony, early 1689 to command Maryland’s obedience to William
repaired its rundown defenses, and called elections for and Mary. But the courier died en route, leaving the
an assembly. When English troops arrived at New York in colony’s unknowing Protestants in fear that their
1691, Leisler, fearing that their commander was loyal to Catholic proprietor was a traitor who supported James II.
James II, denied them entry to key forts. A skirmish John Coode and three others organized the
resulted, and Leisler was arrested. Protestant Association to secure Maryland for William
“Hott brain’d” Leisler unwittingly had set his own and Mary. These conspirators may have been motivated
downfall in motion. He had jailed many elite New more by their exclusion from high public office than by
Yorkers for questioning his authority, only to find that religious zeal, for three of the four had Catholic wives.
his former enemies had gained the new governor’s ear Coode’s group seized the capital in July 1689, removed
and persuaded him to charge Leisler with treason for fir- all Catholics from office, and requested a royal governor.
ing on royal troops. In the face of popular outrage, a They got their wish in 1691 and made the Church of
packed jury found Leisler and his son-in-law, Jacob England the established religion in 1692. Catholics, who
Milborne, guilty. Both men went to the gallows insisting composed less than one-fourth of the population, lost
that they were dying “for the king and queen and the the right to vote and thereafter could worship only in
Protestant religion.” private. Maryland stayed in royal hands until 1715, when
News of England’s Glorious Revolution heartened the fourth Lord Baltimore joined the Church of England
Maryland’s Protestant majority, which had long chafed and regained his proprietorship.
under Catholic rule. Hoping to prevent a repetition of The revolutionary events of 1688–1689 decisively
religion-tinged uprisings that had flared in 1676 and changed the colonies’ political climate by reestablishing
 Rebellion and War, 1660–1713 93

legislative government and ensuring religious freedom Iroquois population declined 20 percent over twelve
for Protestants. Dismantling the Dominion of New years, from eighty-six hundred to seven thousand. (By
England and directing governors to call annual assem- comparison, the war cost about thirteen hundred
blies, William and Mary allowed colonial elites to English, Dutch, and French lives.)
reassert control over local affairs. By encouraging the By 1700 the Confederacy was divided into pro-
assemblies to work with royal and proprietary gover- English, pro-French, and neutralist factions. Under the
nors, the monarchs expected colonial elites to identify impact of war, the neutralists set a new direction for
their interests with those of England. A foundation was Iroquois diplomacy. In two separate treaties, together
thus laid for an empire based on voluntary allegiance called the Grand Settlement of 1701, the Five Nations
rather than submission to raw power imposed from far- made peace with France and its Indian allies in
away London. The crowning of William and Mary exchange for access to western furs, while redefining
opened a new era in which Americans drew rising confi- their British alliance to exclude military cooperation.
dence from their relationship to the English throne. “As Skillful negotiations brought the exhausted Iroquois far
long as they reign,” wrote a Bostonian who helped top- more success than had war by allowing them to keep
ple Andros, “New England is secure.” control of their lands, rebuild their decimated popula-
tion, and gain recognition as a key to the balance of
power in the Northeast.
A Generation of War, 1689–1713
In 1702 European war again erupted when England
Ironically, the bloodless revolution of 1688 ushered in a fought France and Spain in the War of the Spanish
quarter-century of warfare, convulsing both Europe and Succession, called Queen Anne’s War by England’s
North America. In 1689 England joined a general American colonists. This conflict reinforced Anglo-
European coalition against France’s Louis XIV, who sup- Americans’ awareness of their military weakness. French
ported James II’s claim to the English crown. The result- and Indian raiders from Canada destroyed several towns
ing War of the League of Augsburg (which Anglo- in Massachusetts and Maine that colonists had recently
Americans called King William’s War) was the first established on the Indians’ homelands. In the South-
struggle to embroil colonists and Native Americans in east, the outbreak of Anglo-Spanish war broadened an
European rivalries. older conflict involving the English in Carolina, the
With the outbreak of King William’s War, New Spanish in Florida, and Native peoples in the region (see
Yorkers and New Englanders launched a two-pronged Chapter 3). The Spanish invaded Carolina and nearly
invasion of New France in 1690, with one prong aimed at took Charles Town in 1706. Enemy warships captured
Montreal and the other at Quebec. After both invasions many English colonial vessels and landed looting parties
failed, the war took the form of cruel but inconclusive along the Atlantic coast. Meanwhile, colonial sieges of
border raids against civilians carried out by both English Quebec and St. Augustine ended as expensive failures.
and French troops and their respective Indian allies. England’s own forces had more success than those
Already weary from a new wave of wars with pro- of the colonies, seizing the Hudson Bay region as well as
French Indians, the Five Nations Iroquois Confederacy Newfoundland and Acadia (henceforth called Nova
bore the bloodiest fighting in King William’s War. Scotia). Although Great Britain kept these gains in the
Standing almost alone against their foes, the Iroquois Treaty of Utrecht (1713), the French and Indian hold on
faced overwhelming odds. Not only did their English the continent’s interior remained unbroken.
allies fail to intercept most enemy war parties, but the The most important consequence of the imperial
French were allied with virtually all other Indians from wars for Anglo-Americans was political, not military. The
Maine to the Great Lakes. In 1691 every Mohawk and clashes with France reinforced their identity with post-
Oneida war chief died in battle; by 1696 French armies 1689 England as a bastion of Protestantism and political
had destroyed the villages of every Iroquois nation but liberty. Recognizing their own military weakness and the
the Cayugas and Oneidas. extent to which the Royal Navy had protected their ship-
Although King William’s War ended in 1697, the Five ping, colonists acknowledged their dependence on the
Nations staggered until 1700 under invasions by pro- newly formed United Kingdom of Great Britain (created
French Indians (including Iroquois who had become by the formal union of England and Scotland in 1707).
Catholic and moved to Canada). By then one-quarter of As a new generation of English colonists matured, war
the Confederacy’s two thousand warriors had been buttressed their loyalty to the crown and reinforced their
killed or taken prisoner or had fled to Canada. The total identity as Britons.
94 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

COLONIAL ECONOMIES AND chants. After the Restoration, Parliament enacted the
Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663, barring colonial mer-
SOCIETIES, 1660–1750 chants from exporting such commodities as sugar and
The achievement of peace in 1713 enabled Britain, tobacco anywhere except to England, and from import-
France, and Spain to concentrate on competing eco- ing goods in non-English ships. An act in 1672 provided
nomically rather than militarily. Each nation was already administrative machinery to enforce these rules. Finally,
acting to subordinate its North American colonies to the Molasses Act of 1733 taxed all foreign molasses (pro-
serve its larger imperial goals. Thereafter, the two princi- duced from sugar plants and imported primarily for dis-
pal powers, Britain and France, sought to integrate their tilling rum) entering the mainland colonies at sixpence
American colonies into single imperial economies. per gallon. This act was intended less to raise revenue
Spain pursued a similar course but was limited in its than to serve as a tariff that would protect British West
ability to control developments north of Mexico and the Indian sugar producers at the expense of their French
Caribbean. rivals.
The Navigation Acts affected the British colonial
economy in four major ways. First, they limited all impe-
Mercantilist Empires in America rial trade to British-owned ships whose crews were at
The imperial practices of Britain, France, and Spain were least three-quarters British. The acts classified all
rooted in a set of political-economic assumptions colonists, including slaves (many of whom served as
known as mercantilism. The term refers to policies seamen), as British. This restriction not only contributed
aimed at guaranteeing prosperity by making a nation as to Britain’s rise as Europe’s foremost shipping nation but
economically self-sufficient as possible by eliminating also laid the foundations of an American shipbuilding
dependence on foreign suppliers, damaging foreign industry and merchant marine. By the 1750s one-third
competitors’ commercial interests, and increasing its of all “British” vessels were American-owned, mostly by
net stock of gold and silver by selling more abroad than merchants in New England and the middle colonies. The
buying. swift growth of this merchant marine diversified the
Britain’s mercantilist policies were articulated above northern colonial economy and made it more commer-
all in a series of Navigation Acts governing commerce cial. The expansion of colonial shipping also hastened
between England and its colonies. Parliament enacted urbanization by creating a need for centralized docks,
the first Navigation Act in 1651, requiring that colonial warehouses, and repair shops in the colonies. By mid-
trade be carried on in English- or colonial-owned vessels century Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, and
in order to wrest control of that trade from Dutch mer- Charles Town had emerged as major transatlantic ports.
 Colonial Economies and Societies, 1660–1750 95

The second major way in which the Navigation Acts

affected the colonies lay in their barring the export of
certain “enumerated goods” to foreign nations unless
these items first passed through England or Scotland.
The mainland colonies’ major “enumerated” exports
were tobacco, rice, furs, indigo (a Carolina plant that
produced a blue dye), and naval stores (masts, hemp,
tar, and turpentine). Parliament never restricted grain,
livestock, fish, lumber, or rum, which together made up
60 percent of colonial exports. Parliament further
reduced the burdens on exporters of tobacco and rice—
the chief commodities affected by enumeration—with
two significant concessions. First, it gave tobacco grow-
ers a monopoly over the British market by excluding for-
eign tobacco, even though this hurt British consumers.
(Rice planters enjoyed a natural monopoly because they
had no competitors.) Second, it minimized the added
cost of landing tobacco and rice in Britain by refunding
customs duties when those products were later shipped
to other countries. With about 85 percent of all American
tobacco and rice eventually being sold outside the
British Empire, planters’ profits were reduced by less
than 3 percent.
The navigation system’s third effect on the colonies
was to encourage economic diversification. Parliament
used British tax revenues to pay modest bounties to
Americans producing such items as silk, iron, dyes,
hemp, and lumber, which Britain would otherwise have
had to import from other countries, and it raised the
price of commercial rivals’ imports by imposing protec-
tive tariffs on them. The trade laws did prohibit Anglo-
Americans from competing with large-scale British
manufacturing of certain products, most notably cloth-
ing. However, colonial tailors, hatters, and housewives took imported wares into more remote areas of the
could continue to make any item of dress in their house- countryside. One such peddler arrived in Berwick,
holds or small shops. Manufactured by low-paid labor, Maine, in 1721 and sold several kinds of cloth, a “pair of
British clothing imports generally undersold whatever garters,” and various “small trifles” before local authori-
the colonists could have produced given their higher ties confiscated his goods because he had failed to pur-
labor costs. The colonists were also free to produce iron, chase a license. Other traders traveled to Native
and by 1770 they had built 250 ironworks employing American communities where they exchanged cloth and
thirty thousand men, a work force larger than the entire other commodities for furs. As a result of colonial con-
population of Georgia or of any provincial city. sumption, the share of British exports bound for North
Finally, the Navigation Acts made the colonies a America spurted from just 5 percent in 1700 to almost 40
protected market for low-priced consumer goods and percent by 1760. Mercantilism had given rise to a “con-
other exports from Britain. Steady overseas demand for sumer revolution” in British America.
colonial products spawned a prosperity that enabled Cheap imported goods enabled middle-class
white colonists to consume ever larger amounts not colonists to emulate the lifestyles of their British coun-
only of clothing but also of dishware, home furnishings, terparts. One of the most popular imports was tea.
tea, and a range of other items both produced in Britain Colonists desired tea not simply for its caffeine or its
and imported by British and colonial merchants from taste. As in Britain, “taking tea” was a social occasion
elsewhere. Shops sprang up in cities and rural cross- that called for the fashionable (as well as heat-resistant)
roads throughout the colonies, and itinerant peddlers cups, saucers, pots, and sugar bowls produced in
96 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

Staffordshire, England. “Without too much exaggera- modities as basic as food. Without the flourishing of
tion,” writes one historian, “Staffordshire pottery might contraband trade, Spain’s colonies in North America
be seen as the Coca-Cola of the eighteenth century.” might not have survived.
The economic development of the French and At bottom, Britain’s colonies differed from those of
Spanish colonies paled beside that of British North France and Spain in their respective economies and
America. Although France’s most forceful proponent of societies. While all three nations were governed accord-
mercantilism, Colbert (see Chapter 3) and his successors ing to mercantilist principles, in France and Spain most
had great difficulty implementing mercantilist policies. wealth was controlled by the monarchy, the nobility, and
New France gradually developed agricultural self-suffi- the Catholic Church. Most private wealth was inherited
ciency and, in good years, exported some of its wheat to and took the form of land rather than liquid assets.
France’s West Indian colonies. It also exported small England, on the other hand, had become a mercantile-
amounts of fish and timber to the Caribbean and to commercial economy, and a significant portion of the
France. The colony’s chief imports were wine and nation’s wealth was in the form of capital held by mer-
brandy, its chief export, furs. Although furs were no chants who reinvested it in commercial and shipping
longer very profitable by the eighteenth century, the enterprises. For its part, the British government used
French government maintained and even expanded the much of its considerable income from duties, tariffs, and
fur trade because it would need Native American mili- other taxes to enhance commerce. For example, the gov-
tary support in another war with Britain. The govern- ernment strengthened Britain’s powerful navy to protect
ment actually lost money by sending large amounts of the empire’s trade and created the Bank of England in
cloth, firearms, and other manufactured commodities to 1694 to ensure a stable money supply and lay the foun-
Indian allies in exchange for furs. Moreover, France dation for a network of lending institutions. These bene-
maintained a sizable army in its Canadian colony that, fits extended not only to Britain but also to colonial
like the trade with Native Americans, was a drain on the entrepreneurs and consumers. Although Parliament
royal treasury. Meanwhile, Canada attracted little pri- intended the laws to benefit only Britain, the colonies’
vate investment from France or from within the colony. per capita income rose 0.6 percent annually from 1650
French Canadians enjoyed a comfortable if modest stan- to 1770, a pace twice that of Britain.
dard of living but lacked the private investment, exten-
sive commercial infrastructure, vast consumer market,
Immigration, Population Growth,
and manufacturing capacity of their British neighbors.
and Diversity
France’s greatest American success was in the West
Indies where French planters emulated the English by Britain’s economic advantage over its North American
importing large numbers of enslaved Africans to pro- rivals was reinforced by its sharp demographic edge. In
duce sugar under appalling conditions. Ironically, this 1700 approximately 250,000 non-Indians resided in
success was partly a result of French planters’ defying English America, compared to only 15,000 French
mercantilist policies. In St. Domingue, Martinique, and colonists and 4,500 Spanish. During the first half of the
Guadeloupe, many planters built their own sugar eighteenth century, all three colonial populations at
refineries and made molasses instead of shipping their least quadrupled in size—the British to 1,170,000, the
raw sugar to refineries in France, as mercantilism pre- French to 60,000, and the Spanish to 19,000—but this
scribed. They then sold much of their molasses to mer- only magnified Britain’s advantage.
chants in Britain’s mainland colonies, especially Spanish emigrants could choose from among that
Massachusetts. France attempted to duplicate its nation’s many Latin American colonies, most of which
Caribbean success in Louisiana but, like New France, offered more opportunities than remote, poorly devel-
Louisiana remained unprofitable. oped Florida, Texas, and New Mexico. Reports of
Although Spain had squandered the wealth from Canada’s harsh winters and Louisiana’s poor economy
gold and silver extracted by the conquistadors and early deterred most potential French colonists. France and
colonists (see Chapter 2), its economy and that of Latin Spain made few attempts to attract immigrants to North
America revived during the eighteenth century. That America from outside their own empires. And both lim-
revival did not extend to North America, where colonists ited nonslave immigration to Roman Catholics, a restric-
conducted little overseas commerce. Spanish traders in tion that diverted French Huguenots to the English
Texas offered horses to Louisianans in exchange for colonies instead. The English colonies, for their part,
French goods. Spaniards in Florida traded with English, boasted good farmlands, healthy economies, and a
French, and the Indian allies of both—even for com- willingness to absorb members of most European
 Colonial Economies and Societies, 1660–1750 97

nationalities and Protestant denominations. While anti- recruited some German refugees, and encouraged large-
Catholicism remained strong, small Jewish communi- scale slave imports. By 1732 two-thirds of lower
ties also formed in several colonial cities. Louisiana’s 5,800 people were black and enslaved.
Spain regarded its northernmost colonies less as The British colonies outpaced the population
centers of population than as buffers against French and growth of not only their French and Spanish rivals but of
English penetration of their more valued colonies to the Britain itself. White women in the colonies had an aver-
south. While hoping to lure civilian settlers, the Spanish age of eight children and forty-two grandchildren, com-
relied heavily on soldiers stationed in presidios (forts) for pared to five children and fifteen grandchildren for
defense plus missionaries who would, they hoped, settle women in Britain. The ratio of England’s population to
loyal Native Americans at strategically placed missions. that of the mainland colonies plummeted from 20 to 1 in
Most immigrants came not from Spain itself but from 1700 to 3 to 1 in 1775.
Mexico and other Spanish colonies. Although immigration contributed less to eigh-
Although boasting more people than the Spanish teenth-century population growth than did natural
colonies, New France and Louisiana were comparably increase, it remained important. In the forty years after
limited. There too the military played a strong role, while Queen Anne’s War, the colonies absorbed 350,000 new-
missionaries and traders worked to enhance the comers, 40 percent of them (140,000) African-born
colony’s relations with Native Americans. New France’s slaves who had survived a sea crossing of sickening bru-
population growth in the eighteenth century resulted tality. All but a few enslaved immigrants departed from
largely from natural increase rather than immigration. West African ports from Senegambia to Angola (see Map
Some rural Canadians established new settlements 4.1). Most planters deliberately mixed slaves who came
along the Mississippi River in Upper Louisiana, in what from various regions and spoke different languages, in
are now the states of Illinois and Missouri. But on the order to minimize the potential for collective rebellion.
lower Mississippi, Louisiana acquired a foul reputation, But some in South Carolina and Georgia expressly
and few French went there willingly. To boost its popula- sought slaves from Gambia and nearby regions for their
tion, the government sent paupers and criminals, rice-growing experience.

MAP 4.1
0 1000 Miles
African Origins of North American Origin and proportion of
Angola 25% slaves from each region
Slaves, 1690-1807 0 1000 Kilometers
Virtually all slaves brought to English North North African coast
America came from West Africa, between
Desert
Senegambia and Angola. Most were captured
or bought inland and marched to the coast, Grassland
where they were sold to African merchants
who in turn sold them to European slave Rain forest

traders. FS
LO ES
WO LINK S
Senegambia 19% M A OE
ING S
AND NTIS UBA AS
Windward Coast 11% M HA YOR US
AS HA S
IBO
Gold Coast 16%

Niger Valley/Benin 27%

US
NT S
BA NGI
A
Congo Valley/Angola 25% UB

ZULUS MALAGASIES
HOVAS

Madagascar and Mozambique 2%

98 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

Conditions aboard slave ships were appalling by any north of Maryland, mostly in New York and New Jersey.
standard. Africans were crammed into tight quarters By 1750 every seventh New Yorker was a slave.
with inadequate sanitary facilities, and many died from Because West Indian and Brazilian slave buyers out-
disease. Those who refused to eat or otherwise defied bid the mainland colonists, a mere 5 percent of enslaved
the slavers’ authority were flogged. If they found the Africans were transported to the present-day United
chance, a significant number of slaves hurled them- States. Unable to buy as many male field hands as they
selves overboard in a last, desperate act of defiance wanted, masters purchased enslaved women and pro-
against those who would profit from their misery. A tected their investments by maintaining the slaves’
Guinea-born slave, later named Venture Smith, was one health. These factors promoted family formation and
of 260 who were shipped from the Gold Coast port of increased life expectancy far beyond the Caribbean’s low
Anomabu in 1735. But “smallpox . . . broke out on levels (see Chapter 3). By 1750 the rate of natural
board,” Smith recalled, and “when we reached increase for mainland blacks almost equaled that for
[Barbados], there were found . . . not more than two whites.
hundred alive.” As the numbers of creole (American-born) slaves
From 1713 to 1754, five times as many slaves poured grew, sharp differences emerged between them and
onto mainland North America as in all the preceding African-born blacks in the southern colonies. Unlike
years. The proportion of blacks in the colonies doubled, African-born slaves, creoles spoke a single language,
rising from 11 percent at the beginning of the century to English, and were familiar from birth with their environ-
20 percent by midcentury. Slavery was primarily a ment and with the ways of their masters. These advan-
southern institution, but 15 percent of its victims lived tages translated into more autonomy for some creoles.
 Colonial Economies and Societies, 1660–1750 99

Until the 1770s, planters continued to import African- Other European

born slaves to labor in their fields, especially on more All African (2%)
(11%) 1700
remote lands recently gained from Native Americans.
Scottish
But as wealthier, more long-established planters diversi- (3%)
fied economically and developed more elaborate Dutch
lifestyles (see below), they diverted favored creoles (4%)
toward such services as shoeing horses, repairing and
driving carriages, preparing and serving meals, sewing English &
Welsh
and mending clothing, and caring for planters’ children. (80%)
The approximately 210,000 whites who immigrated
to the British colonies during these years included a
sharply reduced share from England compared to the
seventeenth century (see Figure 4.1). Whereas between
1630 and 1700 about 2,000 English settlers landed annu-
ally (constituting 90 percent of all European immi- Other European
grants), after 1713 the English contribution dropped to (2%)
about 500 a year. Rising employment and higher wages All African 1755
(20%)
in eighteenth-century England made voluntary immi-
gration to America less attractive than before. But eco-
nomic hardship elsewhere in the British Isles and north-
ern Europe supplied a steady stream of immigrants, who
German English &
contributed to greater ethnic diversity among white (7%) Welsh
North Americans. (52%)
One of the largest contingents was made up of Scots-Irish
100,000 newcomers from Ireland, two-thirds of them (7%)
Irish
“Scots-Irish” descendants of sixteenth-century Scottish (5%)
Presbyterians who had settled in northern Ireland. After Scottish
1718 Scots-Irish fled to America to escape rack renting (4%) Dutch
(3%)
(frequent sharp increases in farm rents), usually moving
as complete families. In contrast, 90 percent of all Figure 4.1 Distribution of Non-Indian Nationalities
Catholic Irish immigrants were unmarried males who Within the British Mainland Colonies, 1700-1755
The impact of heavy immigration from 1720 to 1755 can be seen in the
arrived as indentured servants. Rarely able to find
reduction of the English and Welsh from four-fifths of the colonial
Catholic wives, they often abandoned their faith to
population to a slight majority; in the doubling of the African population;
marry Protestant women. and in the sudden influx of Germans and Irish, who together comprised
Meanwhile, from German-speaking regions in cen- a fifth of white colonists by 1755. For a more detailed breakdown of
tral Europe came 125,000 settlers, most of them fleeing African origins see Map 4.1.
terrible economic conditions in the Rhine Valley. Source: Thomas L. Purvis, “The European Ancestry of the United States Population,” William
Wartime devastation had compounded the misery of & Mary Quarterly, LXI (1984): 85–101.

Rhenish peasants, many of whom were squeezed onto

plots of land too small to feed a family. One-third of
German immigrants financed their voyage by indentur- meant an extension of their service. But at the end of
ing themselves or their children as servants. Most their terms, most managed to collect “freedom dues,”
Germans were either Lutherans or Calvinists. But a sig- which could help them marry and acquire land.
nificant minority belonged to small, pacifist religious Few immigrants settled in New England, New Jersey,
sects that desired above all to be left alone. lower New York, and the southern tidewater, where land
Overwhelmingly, the eighteenth-century immi- was most scarce and expensive. Philadelphia became
grants were poor. Those who became indentured ser- immigrants’ primary port of entry. So many foreigners
vants worked from one to four years for an urban or went to Pennsylvania that by 1755 the English accounted
rural master. Servants could be sold or rented out, beat- for only one-third of that colony’s population; the rest
en, granted minimal legal protection, kept from marry- came mostly from elsewhere in the British Isles and from
ing, and sexually harassed. Attempted escape usually Germany.
100 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

Rising numbers of immigrants also traveled to the lar American gateway, Charles Town. Most moved on to
Piedmont region, stretching along the eastern slope of the Carolina Piedmont, where they raised grain, live-
the Appalachians. A significant German community stock, and tobacco, generally without slaves. After 1750
developed in upper New York, and thousands of other both streams of immigration merged with an outpour-
Germans as well as Scots-Irish fanned southward from ing of Anglo-Americans from the Chesapeake in the
Pennsylvania into western Maryland. Many more from rolling, fertile hills of western North Carolina. In 1713
Germany and Ireland arrived in the second-most popu- few Anglo-Americans had lived more than fifty miles
from the sea, but by 1750 one-third of all colonists
MAP 4.2 resided in the Piedmont (see Map 4.2).
Immigration and British Colonial Expansion, to 1755 The least free of white immigrants were convict
Black majorities emerged in much of the Chesapeake tidewater and the laborers. England had deported some lawbreakers to
Carolina-Georgia low country. Immigrants from Germany, Ireland, and America in the seventeenth century, but between 1718
Scotland predominated among the settlers in the piedmont. A significant
and 1783 about thirty thousand convicts arrived. A few
Jewish population emerged in the seaports.
were murderers; most were thieves; some were guilty of
0 200 Miles
Abenakis
the most trivial offenses, like a young Londoner who “got
0 200 Kilometers intoxicated with liquor, and in that condition attempted
to snatch a handkerchief from the body of a person in
MAINE
(MASS.) the street to him unknown.” Convicts were sold as ser-
vants on arrival. Relatively few committed crimes in
N.H.
America, and some eventually managed to establish
NEW YORK
MASS.
themselves as backcountry farmers.
a r io
Affluent English-descended colonists did not relish
nt
L. O the influx of so many people different from themselves.
s

as
On agas

wk

CONN. Newport
Mo s

ror

R.I.
a
ha

“These confounded Irish will eat us all up,” snorted one

On s

eid
d

ca
ga
Ca as

on

s us
yu
c
ne

are T

Bostonian. Benjamin Franklin spoke for many when he

Se

asked in a 1751 essay on population,

law

ie New York
Er
De

L.
PA.
Philadelphia
N.J. Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English,
To Philadelphia:
Germans,
become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so
MD.
Scots-Irish numerous as to Germanize us instead of us
Mingoes DEL. Anglicizing them, and will never adopt our
es

language or customs any more than they can

ne

R.
aw

S.

acquire our complexion?

io
Sh

Oh

To the Chesapeake:
VA.
M T

Africans,
British convicts In the same ungenerous spirit, Franklin objected to the
slave trade because it would increase America’s black
population at the expense of industrious whites, and
A N

N.C.
suggested that the colonists send rattlesnakes to Britain
in return for its convict laborers.
I
C H

ATLANTIC
e es

OCEAN
Rural White Men and Women
L A
rok
C he

ta
a

wb
Although the benefits of rising living standards in the
A

as

British colonies were widespread, even the white popu-

P P

To Charles Town:
S.C.
C Africans, Germans,
re
ek Scots-Irish, Scots lation enjoyed these advantages unevenly. Except for
A

s Charles Town
Benjamin Franklin (who was born neither rich nor poor)
GA.
Savannah Predominantly and a few others, true affluence was reserved for those
Creeks Indian lands
African German who inherited their wealth. For other whites, personal
Jewish success was limited and came through hard work, if
synagogues Dutch Scots-Irish
at all.
Area settled by English
whites by 1755 and Welsh Scottish Because most farm families owned just enough
acreage for a working farm, they could not provide all
 Colonial Economies and Societies, 1660–1750 101

their children with land of their own when they married.

Moreover, since couples typically started having chil-
dren in their mid-twenties, had their last babies some-
time after forty, and lived past sixty, all but their
youngest children would be approaching middle age
before receiving any inheritance. Young adults rarely got
more than a sixth or seventh of their parents’ estate,
because most families wrote wills that divided property
more or less evenly among all daughters and sons. A
young male had to build savings to buy farm equipment
by working (from about age sixteen to twenty-three) as a
field hand for his father or neighbors. Because mort-
gages usually required down payments of 33 percent, a
young husband normally supported his growing family
by renting a farm from a more prosperous landowner
until his early or mid-thirties. In some areas, most
notably the oldest colonized areas of New England, the
continued high birthrates of rural families combined
with a shortage of productive land to limit farming
opportunities altogether. As a result, many young men
turned elsewhere to make their livings—the frontier, the
port cities, or the high seas.
Even after acquiring their own land, farmers often
supplemented their incomes through seasonal or part-
time work. Some learned crafts like carpentry that
earned money year-round. Others trapped furs, gath-
ered honey and beeswax, or made cider, shingles, or tur-
pentine. Whenever possible, farmers found wintertime
jobs draining meadows, clearing fields, or fencing land
for wealthier neighbors.
Families worked off mortgages slowly because the
long-term cash income from a farm (6 percent) about
equaled the interest on borrowed money (5 to 8 per- merchants, spun yarn into cloth for tailors, knitted gar-
cent). After making a down payment of one-third, a hus- ments for sale, and even sold their own hair for wigs. A
band and wife generally satisfied the next third upon farm family’s ability to feed itself and its animals was
inheriting shares of their deceased parents’ estates. They worth about half of its cash income (a luxury that few
paid off the final third when their children reached their European peasants enjoyed), and women worked as
teens and the family could expand farm output with two much as men did in meeting this end.
or three full-time workers. Only by their late fifties, just Legally, however, white women in the British
as their youngest offspring got ready to leave home, did colonies were constrained (see Chapter 3). A woman’s
most colonial parents free themselves of debt. single most autonomous decision was her choice of a
In general, the more isolated a community or the husband. Once married, she lost control of her dowry,
less productive its farmland, the more self-sufficiency unless she was a New Yorker subject to Dutch custom,
and bartering its people practiced, although only the which allowed her somewhat more authority. Women in
remotest settlements were completely self-sufficient. the French and Spanish colonies retained ownership of,
Rural families depended heavily on wives’ and daugh- and often augmented, the property they brought to a
ters’ making items that the family would otherwise have marriage. Widows did control between 8 and 10 percent
had to purchase. Besides cooking, cleaning, and wash- of all property in eighteenth-century Anglo-America,
ing, wives preserved food, boiled soap, made clothing, and a few—among them Eliza Pinckney of South
and tended the garden, dairy, orchard, poultry house, Carolina, a prominent political figure—owned and man-
and pigsty. They also sold dairy products to neighbors or aged large estates.
102 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

the time of summer.” Chesapeake planters’ tobacco

Colonial Farmers and
yields declined after only three or four years in the same
the Environment
plot. Like farmers elsewhere, they used animal manure
The rapid expansion of Britain’s colonies hastened envi- to fertilize their food crops but not their tobacco, fearing
ronmental change east of the Appalachians. Whereas the that manure would spoil the taste for consumers. As
earliest colonists farmed land already cleared and culti- Chesapeake tobacco growers moved inland to hillier
vated by Native Americans, eighteenth-century settlers areas, away from rivers and streams, they also con-
usually had to remove trees before beginning their plots. tributed to increased soil erosion.
Despite the labor involved, farmers and planters, espe- Confronting a more serious shortage of land and
cially those using slave labor, preferred heavily forested resources, Europe’s well-to-do farmers were already
areas where the soil was most fertile. New England farm- turning their attention to conservation and “scientific”
ers had to clear innumerable heavy rocks—debris from farming. But most colonists ignored such techniques,
the last Ice Age—with which they built walls around either because they could not afford to implement them
their fields. Colonists everywhere used timber to con- or because they believed that American land, including
struct their houses, barns, and fences and to provide fuel that still held by Indians, would sustain them and future
for heating and cooking. Farmers and planters also sold generations indefinitely.
firewood to the inhabitants of cities and towns. Only six
years after Georgia’s founding, a colonist noted, there
The Urban Paradox
was “no more firewood in Savannah; . . . it must be
bought from the plantations for which reason firewood The cities were British North America’s economic para-
is already right expensive.” dox. As major ports of entry and exit, they were keys to
In removing the trees (deforestation), farmers the colonies’ rising prosperity; yet they held only 4 per-
drove away bears, panthers, wild turkeys, and other cent of the colonies’ population, and a growing percent-
forest animals while attracting grass- and seed-eating age of city-dwellers were caught in a downward spiral of
rabbits, mice, and possums. By removing protection declining opportunity.
from winds and, in summer, from the sun, deforesta- As colonial prosperity reached new heights after
tion also brought warmer summers and colder win- 1740, economic success proved ever more elusive for
ters, further increasing colonists’ demand for fire- residents of the three major seaports—Philadelphia,
wood. By hastening the runoff of spring waters, it led New York, and, especially, Boston. The cities’ poor rolls
both to heavier flooding and drier streambeds in most bulged as poor white men, women (often widowed), and
areas and, where water could not escape, to more children arrived from both Europe and the colonial
extensive swamps. In turn, less stable temperatures countryside. High population density and poor sanita-
and water levels, along with impediments created by tion in urban locales allowed contagious diseases to run
mills and by the floating of timbers downstream, rap- rampant, so that half of all city children died before age
idly reduced the number of fish in colonial waters. twenty-one and urban adults lived ten years less on
Writing in 1766, naturalist John Bartram noted that average than country folk.
fish “abounded formerly when the Indians lived much Even the able-bodied found cities increasingly
on them & was very numerous,” but that “now there is treacherous. Early eighteenth-century urban artisans
not the 100[th] or perhaps the 1000th [portion of ] fish typically trained apprentices and employed them as
to be found.” journeymen for many years until they opened their own
Deforestation dried and hardened the soil, but shops. By midcentury, however, more and more employ-
colonists’ crops had even more drastic effects. Native ers kept laborers only as long as business was brisk,
Americans, recognizing the soil-depleting effects of releasing them when sales slowed. In 1751 a shrewd
intensive cultivation, rotated their crops regularly so Benjamin Franklin recommended this practice to
that fields could lie fallow (unplanted) and thereby be employers as a way to reduce labor costs. Recessions hit
replenished with vital nutrients (see Chapter 1). But more frequently after 1720 and created longer spells of
many colonial farmers either did not have enough land unemployment, making it increasingly difficult for many
to leave some unplanted or were unwilling to sacrifice to afford rents, food, and firewood.
short-term profits for potential long-term benefits. Insignificant before 1700, urban poverty became a
As early as 1637, one New England farmer discovered major problem. By 1730 Boston could no longer shelter
that his soil “after five or six years [of planting corn] grows its destitute in the almshouse built in 1685. The propor-
barren beyond belief and puts on the face of winter in tion of residents considered too poor to pay taxes
 Colonial Economies and Societies, 1660–1750 103

30,000 FIGURE 4.2

New York Populations of Boston, New York,
Philadelphia and Philadelphia, 1690-1776
25,000 Transatlantic commerce contributed to the
Boston rapid growth of the three northern seaports.
But Boston’s growth leveled off in 1740 while
20,000 New York and Philadelphia continued to
flourish.
Population

Source: Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change,

15,000 Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American
Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979)
p. 409.

10,000

5,000

1690 1700 1710 1720 1730 1740 1750 1760 1770 1780

climbed even as the total population leveled (see Figure

4.2). Not until 1736 did New York need a poorhouse (for
just forty people), but by 1772, 4 percent of its residents
(over eight hundred people) required public assistance
to survive. The number of Philadelphia families listed
as poor on tax rolls jumped from 3 percent in 1720 to
11 percent by 1760.
Wealth, on the other hand, remained highly concen-
trated. For example, New York’s wealthiest 10 percent
(mostly merchants) owned about 45 percent of the
property throughout the eighteenth century. Similar
patterns existed in Boston and Philadelphia. Set along-
side the growth of a poor underclass in these cities, such
statistics underscored the polarization of status and
wealth in urban America.
Most southern cities were little more than large
towns. Charles Town, however, became North America’s
fourth-largest city. South Carolina’s capital offered gra-
cious living to the wealthy planters who flocked from
their plantations to townhouses during the months of
the worst heat and insect infestation. Shanties on the
city’s outskirts sheltered a growing crowd of destitute
whites. The colony encouraged whites to immigrate in
hopes of reducing blacks’ numerical preponderance,
but most European newcomers could not establish
farms or find any work except as ill-paid temporary
laborers. Like their counterparts in northern ports,
Charles Town’s poor whites competed for work with
urban slaves whose masters rented out their labor.
Although middle-class women in cities and large
towns performed somewhat less manual drudgery than
their country cousins, they nonetheless managed com-
plex households that often included servants, slaves,
104 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

and apprentices. While raising poultry and vegetables as clothing the average slave. Masters usually provided adult
well as sewing and knitting, urban wives purchased their slaves with eight quarts of corn and a pound of pork each
cloth and most of their food in daily trips to public mar- week but expected them to grow their own vegetables,
kets. Many had one or more household servants, usually forage for wild fruits, and perhaps raise poultry.
young single women or widows, to help with cooking, Blacks worked for a far longer portion of their lives
cleaning, and laundering—tasks that required more than whites. Slave children entered the fields as part-
attention than in the country because of higher urban time helpers soon after reaching seven and began work-
standards of cleanliness and appearance. Wives also ing full-time between eleven and fourteen. Whereas
worked in family businesses or their own shops, which most white women worked in their homes, barns, and
were located in owners’ homes. gardens, black females routinely tended tobacco or rice
Less affluent wives and widows had the fewest crops, even when pregnant, and often worked outdoors
opportunities of all. They housed boarders rather than in the winter. Most slaves toiled until they died, although
servants, and many spun and wove cloth in their homes those who survived to their sixties rarely performed hard
for local merchants. Poor widows with children looked labor.
to the community for relief. Whereas John Winthrop and Africans and creoles proved resourceful at maximiz-
other Puritan forebears had deemed it a Christian’s duty ing opportunities within this harsh, confining system.
to care for poor dependents (see Chapter 3), affluent House slaves aggressively demanded that guests tip
Bostonians in the eighteenth century looked more warily them for shining shoes and stabling horses. They also
upon the needy. Preaching in 1752, the city’s leading sought presents on holidays, as a startled New Jersey vis-
minister, Charles Chauncy, lamented “the swarms of itor to a Virginia plantation discovered early one
children, of both sexes, that are continually strolling and Christmas morning when slaves demanding gifts of cash
playing about the streets of our metropolis, clothed in roused him from bed.
rags, and brought up in idleness and ignorance.” In the South Carolina and Georgia rice country,
Another clergyman warned that charity for widows and slaves working under the task system gained control of
their children was money “worse than lost.” about half their waking hours. Under tasking, each slave
spent some hours caring for a quarter-acre, after which
his or her duties ended for the day. This system permit-
Slavery’s Wages
ted a few slaves to keep hogs and sell surplus vegetables
For slaves, the economic progress achieved in colonial on their own. In 1728 an exceptional slave, Sampson,
America meant only that most masters could afford to earned enough money in his off-hours to buy another
keep them healthy. Rarely, however, did masters choose slave, whom he then sold to his master in exchange for
to make their human property comfortable. A visitor to a his own freedom.
Virginia plantation from Poland (where peasants lived in The gang system used on tobacco plantations
dire poverty) recorded this impression of slaves’ quality afforded Chesapeake slaves less free time than those in
of life: Carolina. As one white observer noted, Chesapeake
blacks labored “from daylight until the dusk of evening
We entered some Negroes huts—for their
and some part of the night, by moon or candlelight, dur-
habitations cannot be called houses. They are far
ing the winter.”
more miserable than the poorest of the cottages of
Despite Carolina slaves’ greater autonomy, racial
our peasants. The husband and wife sleep on a
tensions ran high in the colony. As long as Europeans
miserable bed, the children on the floor . . . a little
outnumbered Africans, race relations in Carolina
kitchen furniture amid this misery . . . a teakettle
remained relaxed. But as a black majority emerged,
and cups . . . five or six hens, each with ten or
whites increasingly used force and fear to control “their”
fifteen chickens, walked there. That is the only
blacks. For example, a 1735 law, noting that many
pleasure allowed to the negroes.
Africans wore “clothes much above the condition of
To maintain slaves, masters normally spent just 40 slaves,” imposed a dress code limiting slaves’ apparel to
percent of the amount paid for the upkeep of indentured fabrics worth less than ten shillings per yard and even
servants. Whereas white servants ate two hundred prohibited their wearing their owners’ cast-off clothes.
pounds of meat yearly, black slaves consumed fifty Of even greater concern were large gatherings of blacks
pounds. The value of the beer and hard cider given to a uncontrolled by whites. In 1721 Charles Town enacted a
typical servant alone equaled the expense of feeding and nine P.M. curfew for blacks, while Carolina’s assembly
 Colonial Economies and Societies, 1660–1750 105

placed all local slave patrols under the colonial militia.

Slaves responded to the colony’s vigilance and harsher
punishments with increased instances of arson, theft,
flight, and violence.
Despite these measures, South Carolina (separated
from North Carolina since 1729) was rocked in 1739 by a
powerful slave uprising, the Stono Rebellion. It began
when twenty blacks seized guns and ammunition from a
store at the Stono River Bridge, outside Charles Town.
Marching under a makeshift flag and crying “Liberty!”
they collected eighty men and headed south toward
Spanish Florida, a well-known refuge for escapees (see A
Place in Time: Mose, Florida, 1740). Along the way they
burned seven plantations and killed twenty whites, but
they spared a Scottish innkeeper known for being “a
good Man and kind to his slaves.” Within a day, mounted
militia surrounded the slaves near a riverbank, cut them
down mercilessly, and spiked a rebel head on every mile-
post between that spot and Charles Town. Uprisings
elsewhere in the colony required more than a month to
suppress, with insurgents generally “put to the most
cruel Death.” Thereafter, whites enacted a new slave
code, essentially in force until the Civil War, which kept
South Carolina slaves under constant surveillance.
Furthermore, it threatened masters with fines for not
disciplining slaves and required legislative approval for
manumission (freeing of individual slaves). The Stono
Rebellion and its cruel aftermath thus reinforced South of thefts and fires attributed to New York slaves led to
Carolina’s emergence as a rigid, racist, and fear-ridden similar executions of twenty-six slaves and four white
society. accomplices, and the sale of seventy more blacks to the
Slavery and racial tensions were by no means con- West Indies.
fined to plantations. By midcentury slaves made up
20 percent of New York City’s population and formed a
The Rise of Colonial Elites
majority in Charles Town and Savannah. Southern
urban slave owners augmented their incomes by renting A few colonists benefited disproportionately from the
out the labor of their slaves, who were cheaper to growing wealth of Britain and its colonies. Most of these
employ than white workers. Slave artisans—usually elite colonists inherited their advantages at birth and
creoles—worked as coopers, shipwrights, rope makers, augmented them by producing plantation crops, buying
and, in a few cases, goldsmiths and cabinetmakers. and selling commodities across the Atlantic or carrying
Some artisans supplemented their work as slaves by them in ships, or serving as attorneys for other elite
earning income of their own. Slaves in northern cities colonists. They constituted British America’s upper
were more often unskilled. Urban slaves in both North class, or gentry. (In Britain, the gentry constituted the
and South typically lived apart from their masters in lesser, untitled nobility.)
rented quarters alongside free blacks. A gentleman was expected by his contemporaries to
Although city life afforded slaves greater freedom of behave with an appropriate degree of responsibility, to
association than did plantations, urban blacks remained display dignity and generosity, and to be a community
the property of others and chafed at racist restrictions. leader. His wife, a “lady,” was to be a skillful household
In 1712 rebellious slaves in New York City killed nine manager and, in the presence of men, a refined yet
whites in a calculated attack. As a result, eighteen slaves deferring hostess.
were hanged or tortured to death, and six others com- Before 1700 the colonies’ class structure was not
mitted suicide to avoid similar treatment. In 1741 a wave readily apparent because elites spent their limited
 A Place in Time
Mose, Florida,
1740

The Spanish presence Carolina began attacking and capturing Florida mission
in Florida was always Indians for sale into slavery, the Spanish colony formed
tenuous and, after En- a black militia unit. In 1686 fifty-three blacks and
glish colonists estab- Indians conducted a counterraid into Carolina and
lished Charles Town, returned with, among other prizes, thirteen of the gover-
Carolina, in 1670, vul- nor’s slaves. In subsequent negotiations between the
nerable to outside at- two colonies, Florida’s governor, Diego de Quiroga,
tack. During the eigh- refused English demands that he return the blacks,
teenth century Spain instead giving them paying jobs. Soon other Carolina
retained its hold in Florida by enlisting the support of slaves began making their way to Florida. Spain’s King
Native Americans and Africans alienated by the English. Charles II ruled in 1693 that all arriving slaves should be
In particular, by promising freedom to slaves who fled given their freedom, “so that by their example and my
from Carolina to Florida and converted to Catholicism, liberality others will do the same.”
the Spanish bolstered Florida’s population and defenses. With Spain deliberately encouraging Carolina slaves
The black community of Mose, established near St. to escape to Florida, the numbers continued to rise,
Augustine in 1738, vividly demonstrated the importance especially during the Yamasee War (1715–1716), when
of these immigrants. the English were nearly crushed by a massive uprising of
Blacks had lived in Florida since the founding of St. Indians. In 1726 a former South Carolina slave,
Augustine in 1565. In 1683, after Indians armed by Francisco Menéndez, was appointed to command a
black militia unit to defend against an
expected English invasion. The
Spanish built a fortified village for
Menéndez’s men and their families in
1738 and called it Gracia Real de Santa
Teresa de Mose, usually shortened to
Mose, an Indian name for the location.
Mose was strategically placed just
two miles north of St. Augustine, and
its residents served as both sentries
and a buffer for the capital. Spanish
and English documents, along with
recent archaeological excavations,
reveal that it had sturdy earthen walls
“lined round with prickly royal” (a
thorny plant) and was surrounded by a
moat. A stone fort was the most promi-
nent structure inside the walls.
Outside the fort the one hundred resi-
dents planted fields and gathered
shellfish from the banks of a nearby
saltwater stream. In a letter to the

106
Spanish king, Florida’s governor, Manuel de Montiano, complete liberty.” To return to the town, which they
praised Menéndez for having “distinguished himself in once had cherished as a symbol of their freedom, after
the establishment and cultivation of Mose, . . . [and] twelve years of assimilation in the capital city now
doing all he could so that the rest of his subjects, follow- seemed like relegation to second-class citizenship.
ing his example, would apply themselves and learn good In 1763 Spain ceded Florida to Britain in the Treaty
customs.” of Paris (see Chapter 5). Spanish authorities evacuated
To its residents Mose symbolized their new status as the people of Mose and allotted them homesteads in
freed men and women. Most had been born in West Matanzas, Cuba. But the meager provisions given the
Africa and enslaved and carried to Carolina. After escap- blacks proved inadequate, and many, including
ing, they had lived among friendly Indians who helped Francisco Menéndez, soon moved to Havana. In 1783
them make their way to the Spanish colony. Mose was another Treaty of Paris returned Florida to Spain (see
their own community, their first since being taken from Chapter 6), and the following year, a new Florida gover-
Africa. In agreeing to live there, they understood the nor resumed the policy of granting freedom to escaped
price they might have to pay. Writing to the king in 1738, slaves. Hearing the news and recalling Florida’s earlier
they declared themselves “the most cruel enemies of the reputation, hundreds of slaves responded. But now
English” who were ready to shed their “last drop of blood Spain proceeded more cautiously with the slaveholders’
in defense of the Great Crown of Spain and the Holy government to Florida’s north; and in 1790 U.S.
Faith.” Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson persuaded the
The importance of Florida’s free blacks and their Spanish to rescind the policy of granting freedom to
town was demonstrated in 1740 when, with England and escaped slaves. In 1819 the United States annexed
Spain at war, Georgia’s governor, James Oglethorpe, led Florida, and in 1845 Florida joined the Union as a slave
colonial troops, Indian allies, and seven warships in an state.
invasion of Florida. The English captured Mose in May
after its residents had been evacuated, but Menéndez’s
militia and other troops recaptured the town a month
later in a fierce battle that helped Oglethorpe decide to
withdraw. (The British called the battle Bloody Mose.) As
a result of the English destruction of the town and the
Spanish crown’s refusal to fund its rebuilding, Mose’s
residents moved into St. Augustine. For twelve years they
lived among the Spanish as laborers, seamen, and
hunters and in other capacities. In 1752 a new governor
had Mose rebuilt and ordered the blacks to return to
their former town despite their express “desire to live in

107
108 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

resources buying land, servants, and slaves instead of on gentry—the richest 2 percent, owning about 15 percent
luxuries. As late as 1715 a traveler noticed that one of of all property—constructed residences such as the
Virginia’s richest planters, Robert Beverley, owned Cornelius Low House, New Jersey’s most splendid home
“nothing in or about his house but just what is neces- in 1741, and the Shirley mansion in Virginia. The lesser
sary, . . . [such as] good beds but no curtains and instead gentry, or second wealthiest 2 to 10 percent holding
of cane chairs he hath stools made of wood.” about 25 percent of all property, lived in more modest
As British mercantilist trade flourished, higher dwellings such as Pennsylvania’s Lincoln homestead or
incomes enabled elite colonists to display their wealth the wood-frame house, Whitehall in Rhode Island. In
more openly, particularly in their housing. The greater contrast, middle-class farmers commonly inhabited
one-story wooden buildings with
four small rooms and a loft.
Colonial gentlemen and ladies
also exhibited their status by imi-
tating the “refinement” of upper-
class Europeans. They wore costly
English fashions, drove carriages
instead of wagons, and bought
expensive chinaware, books, furni-
ture, and musical instruments.
They pursued a gracious life by
studying foreign languages, learn-
ing formal dances, and cultivating
polite manners. In sports men’s
preference shifted to horse racing
(on which they bet avidly) and
away from cockfighting, a less ele-
gant diversion. A few young gentle-
men even traveled abroad to get an
English education. Thus, elites led
colonists’ growing taste for British
fashions and consumer goods (see
above).
 Competing for a Continent, 1713–1750 109

COMPETING FOR A Although more than a third of the colony’s twenty-six

hundred inhabitants were nonwhite slaves in 1752, their
CONTINENT, 1713–1750 principal export was wheat, a more reliably profitable
After a generation of war, Europe’s return to peace in crop than the plantation commodities grown farther
1713 only heightened British, French, and Spanish south. In exporting wheat, Illinois resembled Penn-
imperial ambitions in North America. Europeans com- sylvania to the east; but the colony’s remote location
peted in expanding their territorial claims, intensifying limited such exports and attracted few whites, obliging it
both trade and warfare with Native Americans, and carv- to depend on France’s Native American allies to defend
ing out new settlements. Native Americans welcomed it from Indian enemies.
some of these developments and resisted others, With Canada and the Mississippi Valley secure from
depending on how they expected their sovereignty and European rivals, France sought to counter growing
livelihoods to be affected. British influence in the Ohio Valley. The valley was at
peace after the Iroquois declared their neutrality in
1701, encouraging Indian refugees to settle there.
France and Native Americans Nations such as the Kickapoos and Mascoutens
A principal focus of France’s imperial efforts was its new returned from the upper Great Lakes, while Shawnees
colony of Louisiana (see Chapter 3). In 1718 Louisiana arrived from the east to reoccupy older homelands.
officials established New Orleans, which became the Other arrivals were newcomers, such as Delawares
colony’s capital and port. Louisiana’s staunchest Indian escaping English encroachments and Seneca Iroquois
allies were the Choctaws, through whom the French seeking new hunting territories. Hoping to secure com-
hoped to counter both the rapidly expanding influence mercial and diplomatic ties with these Natives, the
of Carolina’s traders and the weakening Spanish pres- French expanded their trade activities. Detroit and sev-
ence in Florida. But by the 1730s inroads by the persist- eral other French posts ballooned into sizable villages
ent Carolinians led the Choctaws to become bitterly housing Indians, French, and mixed-ancestry métis. But
divided into pro-English and pro-French factions. English traders were arriving with better goods at lower
Life was dismal in Louisiana for whites as well as prices, and most Indians steered a more independent
blacks. A thoroughly corrupt government ran the colony. course.
With Louisiana’s sluggish export economy failing to sus-
tain them, settlers and slaves found other means of sur-
vival. Like the Indians, they hunted, fished, gathered
wild plants, and cultivated gardens. In 1727 a priest
described how some whites eventually prospered: “A
man with his wife or partner clears a little ground, builds
himself a house on four piles, covers it with sheets of
bark, and plants corn and rice for his provisions; the
next year he raises a little more for food, and has also a
field of tobacco; if at last he succeeds in having three or
four Negroes, then he is out of difficulties.”
But many red, white, and black Louisianans
depended on exchanges with one another in order to
stay “out of difficulties.” Indians provided corn, bear oil,
tallow (for candles), and above all deerskins to French
merchants in return for blankets, kettles, axes, chickens,
hogs, guns, and alcohol. Indians from west of the
Mississippi brought horses and cattle, usually stolen
from Spanish ranches in Texas. Familiar with cattle from
their homelands, enslaved Africans managed many of
Louisiana’s herds, and some became rustlers and illicit
traders of beef.
French settlements in Upper Louisiana, usually
referred to as “Illinois,” were somewhat better off.
110 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

Although generally more effective in Indian diplo- had been killed or enslaved, the nation surrendered.
macy than the English, the French did not enjoy univer- Most Tuscarora survivors migrated northward to what is
sal success. The Carolina-supported Chickasaws fre- now upstate New York and in 1722 became the sixth
quently attacked the French and their native allies on nation of the Iroquois Confederacy.
the Mississippi River. Although ultimately unsuccessful, Having helped defeat the Tuscaroras, Carolina’s
the Mesquakie, or Fox, Indians led a prolonged effort to Indian allies resented a growing number of abuses,
prevent French traders from making direct contact with including cheating, violence, and enslavement, by
Sioux Indians to the west. And the French in 1729–1730 English traders and encroachments on their land by set-
brutally suppressed the Natchez Indians, the last practi- tlers. In 1715 the Yamasees, who were most seriously
tioners of Mississippian culture, in order to gain addi- affected, led a coordinated series of attacks by Catawbas,
tional plantation land. The French enslaved many Creeks, and other allies on English trading houses and
Native Americans seized in these wars for labor in settlements. Only by enlisting the aid of the Cherokee
Louisiana, Illinois, Canada, and (in a few cases) the West Indians, and allowing four hundred slaves to bear arms,
Indies. did the colony crush the uprising. Yamasees not killed or
By 1744 French traders were traveling as far west as captured fled to Florida or to Creek towns in the interior.
North Dakota and Colorado and were buying beaver The defeat of the Yamasees left their Catawba sup-
pelts and Indian slaves on the Great Plains. At the insti- porters vulnerable to pressures from English on one side
gation of these traders and their British competitors, and Iroquois on the other. As Carolina settlers moved
trade goods, including guns, spread to Native Americans uncomfortably close to some Catawba villages, the
throughout central Canada and then to the Plains. inhabitants abandoned these villages and joined more
Meanwhile, Indians in the Great Basin and southern remote Catawbas. Having escaped the settlers, however,
Plains were acquiring horses, thousands of which had the Catawbas faced rising conflict with the Iroquois.
been left behind by the Spanish when they fled New After making peace with the Indian allies of New France
Mexico during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Adopting the in 1701 (see above), the Iroquois looked south when
horse and gun, Indians such as the Lakota Sioux and launching raids for captives to adopt into their ranks. To
Comanches moved to the Plains and built a new, highly counter the well-armed Iroquois, the Catawbas turned
mobile way of life based on the pursuit of buffalo. With back to South Carolina. By ceding land and helping
this way of life, they met whites traveling westward to defend that colony against outside Indians, the
adopt their own new ways of life a century later (see Catawbas received guns, food, and clothing. Their rela-
Chapter 17). By 1750 France had an immense domain, tionship with the English allowed the Catawbas the
but one that depended on often-precarious relations security they needed to strengthen their traditional
with Native Americans. institutions. However, the growing gap in numbers
between Natives and colonists, and their competition
with the English for resources, limited the Catawbas’
Native Americans
autonomy.
and British Expansion
To the north, the Iroquois Confederacy accommo-
As in the seventeenth century, British colonial expan- dated English expansion while consolidating its own
sion was made possible by the depopulation and dislo- power among Native Americans. Late in the seventeenth
cation of Native Americans. Epidemic diseases, environ- century, the Iroquois and several colonies forged a series
mental changes, war, and political pressures on Indians of treaties known as the Covenant Chain. Under these
to cede land and to emigrate all combined to make new treaties the Confederacy helped the colonies subjugate
lands available to white immigrants. Indians whose lands the English wanted. Under one
Conflict came early to Carolina, where a trade in such agreement, the Iroquois assisted Massachusetts
Indian slaves (see Chapter 3) and imperial war had in subjugating that colony’s Natives following King
already produced violence. In 1711 Iroquoian-speaking Philip’s War in New England. Under another, the Sus-
Tuscarora Indians, provoked by whites encroaching on quehannock Indians, after being crushed in Bacon’s
their land and kidnapping and enslaving some of their Rebellion, moved northward from Maryland to a new
people, destroyed New Bern, a nearby settlement of homeland adjacent to the Iroquois’ own. By relocating
seven hundred Swiss immigrants. To retaliate, northern non-Iroquois on their periphery as well as by inviting
Carolina enlisted the aid of southern Carolina and its the Tuscaroras into their Confederacy, the Iroquois con-
well-armed Indian allies. By 1713, after about a thou- trolled a center of Native American power that was dis-
sand Tuscaroras (about one-fifth of the total population) tinct from, but cooperative with, the British. At the same
 Competing for a Continent, 1713–1750 111

time, the Confederacy established buffers against, and silk, the colony’s sponsors intended that Georgia be a
deflected, potential English expansion to their own refuge for bankrupt but honest debtors. Parliament even
lands. allotted funds to ensure Georgia’s success, making it the
The Covenant Chain grew more powerful with only North American province besides Nova Scotia to be
Pennsylvania’s entry in 1737. With immigration and directly subsidized by the British government.
commercial success, William Penn’s early idealism A tough-minded idealist, James Oglethorpe, domi-
waned in Pennsylvania. Between 1729 and 1734 the nated the provincial board of trustees during Georgia’s
colony coerced the Delaware Indians into selling more first decade. Oglethorpe founded the port of entry,
than fifty thousand acres. Then the colony’s leaders Savannah, in 1733, and by 1740 a small contingent of
(Penn’s sons and his former secretary) produced a twenty-eight hundred colonists had arrived. Almost half
patently fraudulent treaty in which the Delawares the immigrants came from Germany, Switzerland, and
allegedly had agreed in 1686 to sell their land as far west- Scotland, and most had their overseas passage paid by
ward as a man could walk in a day and a half. In 1737, the government. A small number of Jews were among
Pennsylvania blazed a trail and hired three men to walk the early colonists. Along with Pennsylvania, early
west as fast as they could. The men covered nearly sixty Georgia was the most inclusive of all the British colonies.
miles, meaning that the Delawares, in what became Oglethorpe hated slavery. “They live like cattle,” he
known as the Walking Purchase, had to hand over an wrote to the trustees after viewing Charles Town’s slave
additional twelve hundred square miles of land. Despite market. “If we allow slaves, we act against the very prin-
the protests of Delaware elders who had been alive in ciples by which we associated together, which was to
1686 and remembered no such treaty, the Delawares relieve the distressed.” Slavery, he thought, degraded
were forced to move under Iroquois supervision. The blacks, made whites lazy, and presented a terrible risk.
proprietors then sold these lands to settlers and specula- Oglethorpe worried that wherever whites relied on a
tors at a large profit. Within a generation, the Delawares’ slave labor force, they courted slave revolts, which the
former lands were among the most productive in the Spanish could then exploit. But most of all, he recog-
British Empire. nized that slavery undermined the economic position of
poor whites like those he sought to settle in Georgia.
At Oglethorpe’s insistence, Parliament made
British Expansion
Georgia the only colony where slavery was outlawed.
in the South: Georgia
Oglethorpe also pushed through a requirement that
Britain’s undertook a new expansionist thrust in 1732 landholdings be no larger than five hundred acres.
when Parliament authorized a new colony, Georgia. These measures were aimed at keeping rural Georgia
Ignoring Spain’s claims, Oglethorpe purchased the land populated by white, independent farmer-soldiers who
for Georgia from Creek Indians. Although expecting would defend the colony and would not speculate in real
Georgia to export expensive commodities like wine and estate or build up slave-labor plantations.
112 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

But Oglethorpe’s well-intentioned plans failed com- The livestock-raising ranchos, radiating out for
pletely. Few debtors arrived because Parliament set many miles from little clusters of houses, monopolized
impossibly stringent conditions for their release from vast tracts along the Rio Grande and blocked further
prison. Limitations on settlers’ rights to sell or enlarge town settlement. On the ranchos, mounted cattle
their holdings, as well as the ban on slavery, also dis- herders created the way of life later associated with the
couraged immigration. Raising exotic export crops American cowboy, featuring lariat and roping skills, cat-
proved impractical. As in South Carolina, only rice, tle drives, roundups (rodeos), and livestock branding.
which required substantial capital and many cheap By 1750 New Mexico numbered about 14,000, more
laborers, proved profitable. Oglethorpe struggled than half of them Pueblo Indians. Most Pueblos now
against economic reality for a decade and then gave up. cooperated with the Spanish, and although many had
After the trustees legalized slavery and lifted restrictions converted to Catholicism, they also practiced their tradi-
on landholdings in 1750, Georgia, like Britain’s other tional religion. The two peoples continued to experience
plantation colonies, boomed. Apache raids, now augmented by those of armed and
mounted Utes from the north and Comanches from the
east. The raiders sought livestock and European goods
Spain’s Tenacity
as well as captives, often to replace those of their own
While endeavoring to maintain its empire in the face people who had been enslaved by Spanish raiders and
of Native American, French, and British adversaries, sent to mine silver in Mexico.
Spain spread its language and culture over much of Spain had established Texas in order to counter
North America, especially in the Southwest. Seeking to growing French influence among the Comanches and
repopulate New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt, Spain other Native Americans on the southern Plains (see
awarded grants of approximately twenty-six square Chapter 3). Colonization began after 1716, when
miles wherever ten or more families founded a town. Spaniards established several outposts on the San
Soldiers erected strong fortifications to protect against Antonio and Guadalupe Rivers. The most prominent
Indian attacks, now coming primarily from the Apaches. center was at San Antonio de Béxar, where two towns, a
As in early New England towns, the settlers built homes presidio, and a mission (later known as the Alamo) were
on small lots around the church plaza, farmed separate clustered. But most Indians in Texas preferred trading
fields nearby, grazed livestock at a distance, and shared a with the French to farming, Christianity, and the ineffec-
community wood lot and pasture. tive protection of the Spanish. Lack of security also
deterred Hispanic settlement, so that by 1760 only
twelve hundred Spaniards faced the periodic raids by
Comanches and other Indians.
Spain’s position in Florida was equally precarious.
After 1715 the neutrality of the Creeks enabled the
Spanish to compete with the English and French in the
southeastern deerskin trade, though with limited effec-
tiveness, and to sponsor Indian counterraids into
Carolina. In addition, the Spanish offered freedom to
any English-owned slaves who escaped and made their
way to Florida (see A Place in Time: Mose, Florida, 1740).
As in Texas, Florida’s relatively few colonists hampered
Spain’s ability to counter its chief imperial rival in the
region. As early as 1700, there were already thirty-eight
hundred English in recently founded Carolina, com-
pared to just fifteen hundred Spanish in Florida. This
disparity widened during the decades that followed. The
Spanish saw Georgia’s founding in 1733 as a bold new
threat to Florida, but fought the English colony to a
bloody draw when Spain and England went to war (see
below).
By 1750 Spain controlled much of the Southeast and
Southwest, while France exercised influence in the
 Competing for a Continent, 1713–1750 113

Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri River valleys, as well as colonists joined a British assault on Cartagena, in what
around the Great Lakes and in Canada (see Map 4.3). is now Colombia, but more than half perished due to
Both empires were spread thin and depended on the Spain’s repelling the attack and to yellow fever.
goodwill or acquiescence of Native Americans. In con- The Anglo-Spanish War quickly merged with a sec-
trast, British North America was compact, wealthy, ond one in Europe, the War of the Austrian Succession,
densely populated by non-Indians, and aggressively called King George’s War in British America (1740–1748).
expansionist. King George’s War followed the pattern of earlier imperial
conflicts. Few battles involved more than six hundred
men, and most were attacks and counterattacks on civil-
The Return of War, 1739–1748
ians in the Northeast in which many noncombatants
After a generation of war ended in 1713, the American were killed and others captured. Most captives were New
colonies enjoyed a generation of peace as well as pros- Englanders seized by French and Indians from isolated
perity. But in 1739 British launched a war against Spain, towns. Although prisoners were exchanged at the end of
using as a pretext Spain’s cutting off the ear of a British the war, some English captives, particularly women and
smuggler named Jenkins. (Thus the British termed the children, elected to remain with the French or Indians.
conflict the War of Jenkins’ Ear.) In 1740 James King George’s War produced just one major engage-
Oglethorpe led a massive British assault on Florida. ment. In 1745 almost four thousand New Englanders
Although failing to seize St. Augustine (see A Place in under William Pepperell of Maine besieged and, after
Time: Mose, Florida, 1740), he led 650 men in repelling seven weeks of intense fighting, captured the French
3,000 Spanish troops and refugee South Carolina slaves bastion of Louisbourg, which guarded the entrance
who counterattacked Georgia in 1742. Meanwhile 3,500 to the St. Lawrence River. After three more years

MAP 4.3
French and Spanish Occupation of North America, to 1750
While British colonists concentrated themselves on the Atlantic seaboard, the French and Spanish together
established themselves thinly over two-thirds of the present-day United States.

Ft. La Jonquiere
1751
C A N A D A
Ft. Dauphin
1741
Ft. La Tourette 1684
Ft. Rouge 1738
Ft. Kaministiquia Ft. des Abitibis 1686
Ft. St. Charles 1679 Quebec 1608
1732 Ft. Michipicton
Ft. St. Pierre Trois Rivieres 1634
1731 1730 Montreal 1642
Ft. Chequamegon 1718 Sault Ste. Marie 1689
Ft. Frontenac
Ft. St. Croix 1673
1680 Ft. La Baye Ft. Mainac
1712
IMS

Ft. St. Antoine 1685 1684

A

Ft. d'Huillier 1700 Ft. St. Joseph 1686

CL

Ft. Ponchartrain
ND

Ft. St.Joseph 1680 1701

ATLANTIC
L

LA
O

Ft. St. Louis 1682 Ft. Miami 1704

OCEAN
ISH

Ft. Crevecoeur 1682 Ft. Ouiatanon 1719

U

R IT

Ft. Orleans 1722 Cahokia Present-day

I

E B

1698
continental
S

Ft. Vincennes 1735

U.S. borders
C T IV
I

Ste. Genevieve Kaskaskia Disputed

A

1732 1709
EFF E

claim
N

Santa Fe 1609
A

Albuquerque 1706 Ft. Prudhomme Area of British

1682 settlement to 1750
Socorro 1628 Ft. Arkansas
NEW MEXICO 1686 Ft. Tombeche Area of French
San Javier del Bac 1700 1736 Ft. Toulouse 1714 influence to 1750
Natchitoches 1714
Guevavi 1731 Ft. Rosalie
El Paso del Norte (Juarez) Apalachee
1716 Ft. St. Louis 1632 Area of Spanish
1659 1702
Adaes 1716 St. Augustine influence to 1750
TEXAS San Antonio
Ft. San
1565
PACIFIC 1718 Baton Rouge
Carlos 1696 St. Marks 1677 Fort
1719 Mission
Ft. Maurepas
OCEAN San Francisco de la Espada 1699
1730 New Orleans FLORIDA
La Salle’s camp 1718
1685-1687

0 300 Miles MEXICO Gulf of Mexico

0 300 Kilometers
Havana CUBA
114 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

of inconclusive warfare, Britain signed the Treaty of Aix-la- blies, as a major political force. Except in Connecticut
Chapelle (1748), exchanging Louisbourg for a British out- and Rhode Island, the crown or a proprietor in England
post in India that the French had seized. The memory of chose each colony’s governor. Except in Massachusetts,
how their sacrifices at Cartagena and Louis-bourg went the governor named a council, or upper house of the leg-
for naught would rankle colonists thereafter. islature. The assembly was the only political body sub-
ject to control by colonists rather than by English offi-
cials. Before 1689 governors and councils took the
PUBLIC LIFE IN BRITISH initiative in drafting laws, and the assemblies followed
AMERICA, 1689–1750 their lead; but thereafter the assemblies assumed a more
During the early and middle eighteenth century, the ties central role in politics.
linking Britain and its colonies consisted of much more Colonial leaders argued that their legislatures
than the movements of goods and peoples. England’s should exercise the same rights as those won by
new Bill of Rights was the foundation of government and Parliament in its seventeenth-century struggle with
politics in the colonies. The ideas of English thinkers ini- royal authority. Indeed, Anglo-Americans saw their
tially inspired the intellectual movement known as the assemblies as miniature Houses of Commons, which
Enlightenment, while the English preacher George represented the people and defended their liberty
Whitefield sparked a generation of colonists to trans- against centralized authority, in particular by its exclu-
form the practice of Protestantism in British America. sive power to originate revenue-raising measures. After
While reinforcing the colonies’ links with Britain, these Parliament won supremacy over the monarchy through
developments were also significant because they the Bill of Rights in 1689, assemblymen insisted that
involved many more colonists than before as active par- their governors’ powers were similarly limited.
ticipants in politics, in intellectual discussions, and in The lower houses steadily asserted their prestige
new religious movements. Taken as a whole, this wider and authority by refusing to permit outside meddling in
participation signaled the emergence of a new phenom- their proceedings, by taking firm control over taxes and
enon in colonial life, the “public.” budgets, and especially by keeping a tight rein on execu-
tive salaries. Although governors had considerable pow-
ers (including the right to veto acts, call and dismiss
Colonial Politics
assembly sessions, and schedule elections), they were
The most significant political result of the Glorious vulnerable to legislatures’ financial pressure because
Revolution was the rise of colonial legislatures, or assem- they received no salary from British sources and relied
 Public Life in British America, 1689–1750 115

on the assemblies for income. This “power of the purse” meet these requirements. Still, most white males in
sometimes enabled assemblies to force governors to British North America could vote by age forty, whereas
sign laws opposed by the crown. two-thirds of all men in England and nine-tenths in
The assemblies’ growing importance was reinforced Ireland were never eligible.
by British policy. The Board of Trade, established in 1696 In rural areas voter participation was low unless a
to monitor American developments, could have weak- vital issue was at stake. The difficulties of voting limited
ened the assemblies by persuading the crown to disal- the average rural turnout to about 45 percent (a rate of
low objectionable colonial laws signed by the governors. participation higher, however, than in typical U.S. elec-
But it rarely exercised this power before midcentury. The tions today, apart from those for president). Most gover-
resulting political vacuum allowed the colonies to nors called elections when they saw fit, so that elections
become self-governing in most respects except for trade might lapse for years and suddenly be held on very short
regulation, restrictions on printing money, and declar- notice. Thus voters in isolated areas often had no knowl-
ing war. Representative government in the colonies orig- edge of upcoming contests. The fact that polling took
inated and was nurtured within the protective environ- place at the county seat discouraged many electors from
ment of the British Empire. traveling long distances over poor roads to vote. In sev-
The elite planters, merchants, and attorneys who eral colonies voters stated their choices orally and pub-
monopolized colonial wealth also dominated politics. licly, often with the candidates present. This procedure
Most assemblymen ranked among the wealthiest 2 per- inhibited the participation of those whose views differed
cent of colonists. To placate them, governors invariably from those of elites. Finally, most rural elections before
appointed other members of the greater gentry to sit on 1750 were uncontested. Local elites decided in advance
their councils and as judges on the highest courts. which of them would “stand” for office. Regarding office-
Although members of the lesser gentry sat less often in holding as a gentleman’s public duty, they considered it
the legislature, they commonly served as justices of the demeaning to appear interested in being chosen, much
peace. less to compete or “run” for a position.
Outside New England (where any voter was eligible Given all these factors, many rural voters were indif-
for office), legal requirements barred 80 percent of white ferent about politics at the colony level. For example, to
men from running for the assembly, most often by spec- avoid paying legislators’ expenses at the capital, many
ifying that a candidate must own a minimum of a thou- smaller Massachusetts towns refused to elect assembly-
sand acres. (Farms then averaged 180 acres in the South men. Thirty percent of men elected to South Carolina’s
and 120 acres in the middle colonies.) Even without such assembly neglected to take their seats from 1731 to 1760,
property qualifications (as New England showed), few including a majority of those chosen in 1747 and 1749.
ordinary colonists could have afforded to hold elective
office. Assemblymen received only living expenses,
which might not fully cover the cost of staying at their
province’s capital, much less compensate a farmer or an
artisan for his absence from farm or shop for six to ten
weeks a year. As a result, a few wealthy families in each
colony dominated the highest political offices. Nine
families, for example, provided one-third of Virginia’s
royal councilors after 1680. John Adams, a rising young
Massachusetts politician, estimated that most towns in
his colony chose their legislators from among just three
or four families.
By eighteenth-century standards, the colonies set
liberal qualifications for male voters, but all provinces
barred women and nonwhites from voting. In seven
colonies voters had to own land (usually forty to fifty
acres), and the rest demanded that an elector have
enough property to furnish a house and work a farm
with his own tools. About 40 percent of free white men
—mostly indentured servants and young men still living
with parents or just beginning family life—could not
116 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

Despite these limitations, rural elections slowly England’s adult white men and 40 percent of white
emerged as community events in which many nonelite women could write well enough to sign documents,
white men participated. In time, rural voters would follow thanks to the region’s traditional support for primary
urban colonists and express themselves more forcefully. education. Among white males elsewhere in the
Meanwhile, a truly competitive political life devel- colonies, the literacy rate varied from about 35 percent
oped in the northern seaports. Depending on their eco- to more than 50 percent. (In England, by contrast, no
nomic interests, wealthy colonists aligned themselves more than one-third of all males could read and write.)
with or against royal and proprietary governors. To gain How readily most of these people read a book or wrote a
advantage over rivals, some factions courted artisans letter was another matter.
and small shopkeepers whose fortunes had stagnated or The best-educated colonists—members of the gen-
declined as the distribution of urban wealth tilted try, well-to-do merchants, educated ministers, and
increasingly toward the rich. In actively courting growing numbers of self-improving artisans and farm-
nonelite voters, they scandalized rival elites who feared ers—embraced a wider world of ideas and information.
that an unleashing of popular passions could disturb the Though costly, books, newspapers, and writing paper
social order. could open up eighteenth-century European civilization
New York was the site of the bitterest factional con- to reading men and women. A rich, exciting world it was.
flicts. In one episode in 1733, Governor William Cosby Scientific advances seemed to explain the laws of
suspended his principal rival, Lewis Morris, from Morris’ nature; human intelligence appeared poised to triumph
position as chief justice after Morris ruled against the over ignorance and prejudice. For those who had the
governor. To mobilize popular support for Morris, his time to read and think, an age of optimism and progress
faction established the New-York Weekly Journal, which was dawning, an age known as the Enlightenment.
repeatedly accused Cosby and his associates of rampant Enlightenment ideals combined confidence in
corruption. In 1734 the governor’s supporters engi- human reason with skepticism toward beliefs not
neered the arrest of the Weekly Journal’s printer, John founded on science or strict logic. A major source of
Peter Zenger, on charges that he had seditiously libeled Enlightenment thought was English physicist Sir Isaac
Cosby. Following a celebrated trial in August 1735, Newton (1642–1727), who in 1687 explained how gravi-
Zenger was acquitted. tation ruled the universe. Newton’s work captured
Although it did not lead to a change in New York’s Europe’s imagination by demonstrating the harmony of
libel law nor significantly enhance freedom of the press natural laws and stimulated others to search for rational
at the time, the Zenger verdict was significant for several principles in medicine, law, psychology, and govern-
reasons. In New York and elsewhere, it encouraged the ment.
broadening of political discussion and participation Before 1750 no American more fully embodied the
beyond a small circle of elites. Equally significant were Enlightenment spirit than Benjamin Franklin. Born in
its legal implications. Zenger’s brilliant attorney, Andrew Boston in 1706, Franklin migrated to Philadelphia at age
Hamilton, effectively seized on the growing colonial seventeen. He brought along skill as a printer, consider-
practice of allowing attorneys to speak directly to juries able ambition, and insatiable intellectual curiosity. In
on behalf of defendants. He persuaded the jury that it moving to Philadelphia, Franklin put himself in the right
alone, without the judge’s advice, could reject a charge of place at the right time, for the city was growing much
libel “if you should be of the opinion that there is no more rapidly than Boston and was attracting merchants
falsehood in [Zenger’s] papers.” Until then, truth alone and artisans who shared Franklin’s zest for learning and
had not served as a sufficient defense against a charge of new ideas. Franklin organized some of these men into a
libel in British and colonial courts of law. By empower- reading-discussion group called the Junto, and they
ing nonelites as voters, readers, and jurors, the Morris- helped him secure printing contracts. In 1732 he first
Cosby rivalry and the Zenger trial encouraged their par- published Poor Richard’s Almanack, a collection of max-
ticipation in New York’s public life. ims and proverbs that made him famous. By age forty-
two Franklin had earned enough money to retire and
devote himself to science and community service.
The Enlightenment
These dual goals—science and community bene-
If property and wealth were the keys to political partici- fit—were intimately related in Franklin’s mind, for he
pation and officeholding, literacy and education permit- believed that all true science would be useful, in the
ted Anglo-Americans to participate in the trans-Atlantic sense of making everyone’s life more comfortable. For
world of ideas and beliefs. Perhaps 90 percent of New example, experimenting with a kite, Franklin demon-
 Public Life in British America, 1689–1750 117

strated in 1752 that lightning was electricity, a discovery

that led to the lightning rod.
Although some southern planters, such as Thomas
Jefferson, eventually championed progress through sci-
ence, the Enlightenment’s earliest and primary
American centers were cities, where the latest European
books and ideas circulated and where gentlemen and
self-improving artisans met to investigate nature and
conduct experiments. Franklin organized one such
group, the American Philosophical Society, in 1743 to
encourage “all philosophical experiments that let light
into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of
man over matter, and multiply the conveniences and
pleasures of life.” By 1769 this society had blossomed
into an intercolonial network of amateur scientists. The
societies emulated the Royal Society in London, the
foremost learned society in the English-speaking world.
In this respect, the Enlightenment initially strengthened
the ties between colonial and British elites.
Although confident that science would benefit
everyone, the Enlightenment’s followers envisioned
progress as gradual and proceeding from the top down.
They trusted reason far more than they trusted the com-
mon people, whose judgment, especially on religious
matters, seemed too easily deranged.
Just as Newton inspired the scientific bent of
Enlightenment intellectuals, English philosopher John
Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690), led many to embrace “reasonable” or “rational”
religion. Locke contended that ideas, including religion,
are not inborn but are acquired by toilsome investiga-
tion of and reflection upon experience. To most
Enlightenment intellectuals, the best argument for the
existence of God was the harmony and order of nature,
which pointed to a rational Creator. Some individuals, Franklin contributed money to most of the churches in
including Franklin and, later, Jefferson and Thomas Philadelphia but thought that religion’s value lay in its
Paine, carried this argument a step farther by insisting encouragement of virtue and morality rather than in
that where the Bible conflicted with reason, one should theological hair splitting.
follow the dictates of reason rather than the Bible. Called In 1750 the Enlightenment’s greatest contributions
Deists, they concluded that God, having created a per- to American life still lay in the future. A quarter-century
fect universe, did not miraculously intervene in its work- later, Anglo-Americans drew on the Enlightenment’s
ings but rather left it alone to operate according to natu- revolutionary ideas as they declared their independence
ral laws. from Britain and created the foundations of a new
Most colonists influenced by the Enlightenment nation (see Chapters 5 and 6). Meanwhile, a series of
described themselves as Christians and attended religious revivals known as the Great Awakening chal-
church. But they feared Christianity’s excesses, particu- lenged the Enlightenment’s most basic assumptions.
larly as indulged in by those who persecuted others in
religion’s name and by “enthusiasts” who emphasized
The Great Awakening
emotion rather than reason in the practice of piety.
Mindful of Locke’s caution that no human can be Viewing the world as orderly and predictable, rational-
absolutely certain of anything but his or her own exis- ists were inclined to a sense of smug self-satisfaction.
tence, they distrusted zealots and sectarians. Typically, Writing his will in 1750, Franklin thanked God for giving
118 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

him “such a mind, with moderate passions” and “such a they received were conveyed through the powerful
competency of this world’s goods as might make a rea- preaching of charismatic ministers who appealed
sonable mind easy.” But many Americans lacked such a directly and brazenly to their audiences’ emotions
comfortable competency of goods and lived neither rather than to their intellects. Some revivalists were
orderly nor predictable lives. For example, in 1737 and themselves intellectuals, comfortable amid the books
1738 an epidemic of diphtheria, a contagious throat dis- and ideas of the Enlightenment. But for all, religion was
ease, killed every tenth child under sixteen from New primarily a matter of emotional commitment.
Hampshire to Pennsylvania. Such an event starkly In contrast to rationalists, who stressed the poten-
reminded colonists of the fragility of earthly life and tial for human betterment, revivalist ministers roused
turned their thoughts to religion. their audiences into outbursts of religious fervor by
Throughout the colonial period, religious fervor depicting the emptiness of material comfort, the utter
periodically quickened within a denomination or region corruption of human nature, the fury of divine wrath,
and then receded. But in 1739 an outpouring of and the need for immediate repentance. Although he
European Protestant revivalism spread to British North was a brilliant thinker, well aware of contemporary phi-
America. This “Great Awakening,” as its promoters losophy and science, the Congregationalist Jonathan
termed it, cut across lines of class, gender, and even race. Edwards, who led a revival at Northampton, Mass-
Above all, the revivals represented an unleashing of anx- achusetts, in 1735, drove home this message with
iety and longing among ordinary people—anxiety about breathtaking clarity. “The God that holds you over the pit
sin, and longing for assurances of salvation. The answers of Hell, much as one holds a spider or other loathsome
insect over the fire, abhors you,” Edwards intoned in one
of his famous sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God.” “His wrath toward you burns like fire; He
looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast
into the fire.”
Even before Edwards’s Northampton revival, two
New Jersey ministers, Presbyterian William Tennent and
Theodore Frelinghuysen of the Dutch Reformed Church,
had stimulated conversions in prayer meetings called
Refreshings. But the event that brought these various
threads of revival together was the arrival in 1739 of
George Whitefield (see above). So overpowering was
Whitefield that some joked that he could make crowds
swoon simply by uttering “Mesopotamia.” In age with-
out microphones, crowds exceeding twenty thousand
could hear his booming voice clearly, and many wept at
his eloquence.
Whitefield’s American tour inspired thousands to
seek salvation. Most converts were young adults in their
late twenties. In Connecticut alone, the number joining
churches jumped from 630 in 1740 to 3,217 after
Whitefield toured in 1741. Within two more years, every
fifth Connecticut resident under forty-five had reportedly
been saved by God’s grace. Whitefield’s allure was so
mighty that he even awed potential critics. Hearing him
preach in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin first vowed to
contribute nothing to the collection. But so admirably
did Whitefield conclude his sermon, Franklin recalled,
“that I empty’d my Pocket wholly into the Collector’s
Dish, Gold and all.”
Divisions over the revivals quickly developed in
Whitefield’s wake and were often exacerbated by social
and economic tensions. For example, after leaving
 Public Life in British America, 1689–1750 119

Boston in October 1740, Whitefield invited Gilbert Connecticut’s Windham County, an extra story had to be
Tennent (William’s son) to follow “in order to blow up added to the jail to hold all the New Lights arrested for
the divine flame lately kindled there.” Denouncing not paying tithes. Elisha Paine, a revivalist imprisoned
Boston’s established clergymen as “dead Drones” and there for illegal preaching, gave sermons from his cell
lashing out at aristocratic fashion, Tennent built a fol- and drew such crowds that his followers built bleachers
lowing among the city’s poor and downtrodden. So did nearby to hear him. Paine and his fellow victims generat-
another preacher, James Davenport, who was expelled ed widespread sympathy for the New Lights, who finally
for having said that Boston’s clergy were leading the peo- won control of Connecticut’s assembly in 1759.
ple blindfolded to hell. Although New Lights made steady gains until the
Exposing colonial society’s divisions, Tennent and 1770s, the Great Awakening peaked in 1742. The revival
Davenport corroded support for the revivals among then crested everywhere but in Virginia, where its high
established ministers and officials. As Whitefield’s point came after 1755 with an upsurge of conversions by
exchange with Alexander Garden showed, the lines Baptists, who also suffered legal harassment.
hardened between the revivalists, known as New Lights, For all the commotion it raised at the time, the Great
and the rationalist clergy, or Old Lights, who dominated Awakening’s long-term effects exceeded its immediate
the Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregational church- impact. First, the revival marked a decline in the
es. In 1740 Gilbert Tennent published The Danger of an influence of Quakers (who were not significantly affect-
Unconverted Ministry, which hinted that most Presby- ed by revivalism), Anglicans, and Congregationalists. In
terian ministers lacked saving grace and hence were undermining Anglicans and Congregationalists, the
bound for hell, and urged parishioners to abandon them Great Awakening contributed to the weakening of offi-
for the New Lights. By thus sowing the seeds of doubt cially established denominations. As these churches’
about individual ministers, Tennent undermined one of importance waned after 1740, the number of Presby-
the foundations of social order. For if the people could terians and Baptists increased.
not trust their own ministers, whom would they trust? The Great Awakening also stimulated the founding
Old Light rationalists fired back. In 1742 Charles of new colleges as both Old and New Lights sought
Chauncy, Boston’s leading Congregationalist, con- institutions free of one another’s influence. In 1746
demned the revival as an epidemic of the “enthusiasm” New Light Presbyterians established the College of
that enlightened intellectuals so loathed. Chauncy par- New Jersey (Princeton). Then followed King’s College
ticularly blasted those who mistook the ravings of their (Columbia) for Anglicans in 1754, the College of Rhode
overheated imaginations for the experience of divine Island (Brown) for Baptists in 1764, Queen’s College
grace. He even provided a kind of checklist for spotting (Rutgers) for Dutch Reformed in 1766, and Dartmouth
enthusiasts: look for “a certain wildness” in their eyes, College for Congregationalists in 1769.
the “quakings and tremblings” of their limbs, and foam- The revivals were also significant because they
ing at the mouth, Chauncy suggested. Put simply, the spread beyond the ranks of white society. The emphasis
revival had unleashed “a sort of madness.” on piety over intellectual learning as the key to God’s
The Great Awakening opened unprecedented splits grace led some Africans and Native Americans to com-
in American Protestantism. In 1741 New and Old Light bine aspects of their traditional cultures with Christian-
Presbyterians formed rival branches that did not re- ity. The Great Awakening marked the beginnings of black
unite until 1758, when the revivalists emerged victori- Protestantism after New Lights reached out to slaves,
ous. The Anglicans lost many members to New Light some of whom joined white churches and even preached
congregations, especially Presbyterian and Baptist. at revival meetings. Meanwhile, a few New Light preach-
Congregationalists splintered so badly that by 1760, New ers became missionaries to Native Americans resid-
Lights had seceded from one-third of New England’s ing within the colonies. A few Christian Indians, such
churches and formed separate congregations. as Samson Occom, a Mohegan born in Connecticut,
The secession of New Lights was especially bitter in became widely known as preachers themselves. Despite
Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the Congre- these breakthroughs, blacks and Indians still faced con-
gational church was established by law. To force New siderable religious discrimination, even among New
Lights into paying tithes to their former church, Old Lights.
Lights repeatedly denied new churches legal status. The Great Awakening also added to white women’s
Connecticut passed repressive laws forbidding revival- religious prominence. For several decades ministers had
ists to preach or perform marriages, and the colony singled out women—who constituted the majority of
expelled many New Lights from the legislature. In church members—as embodying the Christian ideal of
120 CHAPTER 4 The Bonds of Empire, 1660–1750

Historians have disagreed over whether the Great

Awakening had political as well as religious effects.
Although Tennent and Davenport called the poor “God’s
people” and flayed the wealthy, they never advocated a
social revolution, and the Awakening did not produce a
distinct political ideology. Yet by empowering ordinary
people to assert and act openly on beliefs that countered
those in authority, the revivals laid some of the ground-
work for political revolutionaries a generation later.

CONCLUSION
By 1750 Britain’s mainland colonies barely resembled
those of a century earlier. Mercantilist policies bound
the colonies to the rising prosperity of the British
Empire. A healthy environment for whites, along with a
steady supply of Native Americans’ land, enabled the
population to grow and expand at an astonishing rate.
The political settlement that followed England’s
Glorious Revolution provided the foundation for repre-
sentative government in the colonies. Educated Anglo-
Americans joined the intellectual ferment known as the
Enlightenment. The Great Awakening, with its European
origins and its intercolonial appeal, further signaled the
colonies’ emergence from provincial isolation.
The achievements of France and Spain on the North
American mainland contrasted starkly with those of
Britain. More lightly populated by Europeans, their
piety. Now some New Light churches, mostly Baptist and colonies were largely remote from the more dynamic
Congregationalist, granted women the right to speak centers of Atlantic commerce. Despite their mercantilist
and vote in church meetings. Like Anne Hutchinson a orientations, neither France nor Spain developed
century earlier, some women moved from leading colonies that substantially enriched the home country.
women’s prayer and discussion groups to presiding over And neither could avoid depending militarily on Native
meetings that included men. One such woman, Sarah Americans for their colonies’ survival.
Osborn of Newport, Rhode Island, conducted “private For all of its evident wealth and progress, British
praying Societies Male and female” that included black America was rife with tensions. In some areas, vast dis-
slaves in her home. In 1770 Osborn and her followers crepancies in the distribution of wealth and opportuni-
won a bitter fight over their congregation’s choice of a ties fostered a rebellious spirit among whites who were
new minister. While most assertive women were pre- less well off. The Enlightenment and the Great
vented from exercising as much power as Osborn, none Awakening revealed deep-seated religious and ideologi-
was persecuted as Hutchinson had been in Puritan New cal divisions. Slave resistance and Anglo-Indian warfare
England. demonstrated the depths of racial antagonisms. The
Finally the revivals had the unintended effect of revived imperial warfare of 1739–1748 added to the
blurring denominational differences among Protestants. uncertainties of colonial life.
Although George Whitefield was an Anglican who
defied his superior, Garden, and later helped found FOR FURTHER REFERENCE
Methodism, he preached with Presbyterians such as READINGS
Gilbert Tennent and Congregationalists like Jonathan Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan, eds., Strangers
Edwards. By emphasizing the need for salvation over Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British
doctrinal and institutional fine points, revivalism Empire (1991). Leading historians examine the interplay
emphasized Protestants’ common experiences and pro- of ethnicity and empire in North America, the
moted the coexistence of denominations. Caribbean, and the British Isles.
 For Further Reference 121

3C H R O N O L O G Y, 1660–1750 W. J. Eccles, France in America, rev. ed. (1991). An interpre-

tive overview of French colonization in North America
1651–1733 England enacts Navigation Acts. and the Caribbean by a distinguished scholar.
Ronald Hoffman et al., eds., Through a Glass Darkly:
1660 Restoration of the English monarchy. Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America (1997).
1686–1689 Dominion of New England. Essays that explore issues of personal identity for indi-
vidual Americans during the seventeenth and eighteenth
1688–1689 Glorious Revolution in England. centuries.
1689–1691 Uprisings in Massachusetts, New York, and John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of
Maryland; royal authority established. British America, 1607–1789, rev. ed. (1991). A compre-
hensive discussion of the economy, drawing on a wide
1689–1697 King William’s War (in Europe, War of the range of scholarship.
League of Augsburg). James H. Merrell, Into the Woods: Negotiators on the
1690 John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Pennsylvania Frontier (1999). A brilliant, innovative
study of intercultural diplomacy as practiced by Indians
1693 Spain begins offering freedom to English slaves and colonists.
escaping to Florida. Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the
1701 Iroquois Confederacy’s Grand Settlement with England Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (1998).
and France. The definitive study of African-American life in Britain’s
southern colonies.
1702–1713 Queen Anne’s War (in Europe, War of the Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A
Spanish Succession). Native History of Early America (2001). A highly original
1711 Tuscarora War in Carolina. examination of colonial American history from the per-
spective of Native Americans.
1715–1716 Yamasee War in Carolina. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun: Objects and
1716 San Antonio de Béxar founded. Stories in the Creation of an American Myth (2001). A
pathbreaking study that uses New England women’s
1718 New Orleans founded. work with textiles as a window into economic, gender,
1729–1730 French war on Natchez Indians in Louisiana. and cultural history.
David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America
1733 Georgia founded. (1992). A masterful synthesis of Spanish colonial history
1735 John Peter Zenger acquitted of seditious libel in north of the Caribbean and Mexico.
New York.
Jonathan Edwards leads revival in Northampton,
Massachusetts. WEBSITES
From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery
1737 Walking Purchase of Delaware Indian lands in
http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html
Pennsylvania.
Part 1, 1619–1789, includes an excellent discussion of
1739 Great Awakening begins with George Whitefield’s arrival slavery and the slave trade in North America, including
in British colonies. Stono Rebellion in South Carolina. African contexts. Features useful maps and links to pri-
mary and secondary sources.
1739–1744 Anglo-Spanish War.
Historic Deerfield Collections and Research
1743 Benjamin Franklin founds American Philosophical http://www.historic-deerfield.org/collections/collections.html
Society. View furniture, china, and other examples of elite
1744–1748 King George’s War (in Europe, the War of the consumption in eighteenth-century New England.
Austrian Succession). Photos are accompanied by information on artisans
and techniques.
1750 Slavery legalized in Georgia. Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel02.html
Part 2, Religion in Eighteenth-Century America, shows
the role of religion in the British colonies, examining
both the revivals and the deism of Enlightenment
Jon Butler, Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776 thinkers. Includes illustrations from the period.
(2000). A provocative discussion of the British colonies, For additional works please consult the bibliography at
arguing that they became a distinctive modern society the end of the book.
between 1680 and 1770.

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

1491–1607 1607–1754 1754–1800 1800–1848 1844–1877 1865–1898 1890–1945 1945–1980 1980–PRESENT

PERIOD 1:
1491–1607
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 1.1: As native populations migrated and settled

Related Thematic across the vast expanse of North America over time, they
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam developed distinct and increasingly complex societies by
Questions) adapting to and transforming their diverse environments.

MIG-2.0: Analyze I. Different native societies adapted to and transformed their environments
causes of internal through innovations in agriculture, resource use, and social structure.
migration and patterns
of settlement in A) The spread of maize
what would become cultivation from present-
the United States, day Mexico northward into
and explain how the present-day American
migration has affected Southwest and beyond
American life. supported economic
GEO-1.0: Explain development, settlement,
how geographic advanced irrigation, and
and environmental social diversification
factors shaped the among societies.
development of
various communities, B) Societies responded to the
and analyze how aridity of the Great Basin and
competition for the grasslands of the western
and debates over Great Plains by developing
natural resources largely mobile lifestyles.
have affected both
interactions among C) In the Northeast, the
different groups and Mississippi River Valley,
the development of and along the Atlantic
government policies. seaboard some societies
developed mixed
agricultural and hunter-
gatherer economies that
favored the development
of permanent villages.

D) Societies in the Northwest

and present-day California
supported themselves by
hunting and gathering, and
in some areas developed
settled communities
supported by the vast
resources of the ocean.

Period 1: 1491–1607 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 1.1
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 25
© 2015 The College Board
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 1.2: Contact among Europeans, Native Americans,

Related Thematic and Africans resulted in the Columbian Exchange and significant
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam social, cultural, and political changes on both sides of the
Questions) Atlantic Ocean.

WXT-2.0: Explain I. European expansion into the Western Hemisphere generated intense
how patterns of social, religious, political, and economic competition and changes within
exchange, markets, European societies.
and private enterprise
have developed, A) European nations’ efforts
and analyze ways to explore and conquer the
that governments New World stemmed from
have responded to a search for new sources
economic issues. of wealth, economic and
WXT-3.0: Analyze military competition, and a
how technological desire to spread Christianity.
innovation has
affected economic B) The Columbian Exchange
development brought new crops to
and society. Europe from the Americas,
stimulating European
WOR-1.0: Explain how population growth, and
cultural interaction, new sources of mineral
cooperation, wealth, which facilitated
competition, and the European shift from
conflict between feudalism to capitalism.
empires, nations,
and peoples have C) Improvements in maritime
influenced political, technology and more
economic, and social organized methods for
developments in conducting international
North America. trade, such as joint-stock
companies, helped drive
changes to economies in
Europe and the Americas.

Period 1: 1491–1607 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 1.2
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 26
© 2015 The College Board
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 1.2: Contact among Europeans, Native Americans,

Related Thematic and Africans resulted in the Columbian Exchange and significant
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam social, cultural, and political changes on both sides of the
Questions) Atlantic Ocean.

MIG-1.0: Explain the II. The Columbian Exchange and development of the Spanish Empire in the Western
causes of migration to Hemisphere resulted in extensive demographic, economic, and social changes.
colonial North America
and, later, the United A) Spanish exploration and
States, and analyze conquest of the Americas
immigration’s effects were accompanied and
on U.S. society. furthered by widespread
WXT-1.0: Explain deadly epidemics that
how different labor devastated native
systems developed populations and by the
in North America and introduction of crops
the United States, and and animals not found
explain their effects in the Americas.
on workers’ lives
and U.S. society. B) In the encomienda system,
Spanish colonial economies
GEO-1.0: Explain marshaled Native American
how geographic labor to support plantation-
and environmental based agriculture and
factors shaped the extract precious metals
development of and other resources.
various communities,
and analyze how C) European traders partnered
competition for with some West African
and debates over groups who practiced slavery
natural resources to forcibly extract slave
have affected both labor for the Americas. The
interactions among Spanish imported enslaved
different groups and Africans to labor in plantation
the development of agriculture and mining.
government policies.
D) The Spanish developed
a caste system that
incorporated, and carefully
defined the status of,
the diverse population
of Europeans, Africans,
and Native Americans
in their empire.

Period 1: 1491–1607 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 1.2
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 27
© 2015 The College Board
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 1.2: Contact among Europeans, Native Americans,

Related Thematic and Africans resulted in the Columbian Exchange and significant
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam social, cultural, and political changes on both sides of the
Questions) Atlantic Ocean.

CUL-1.0: Explain how III. In their interactions, Europeans and Native Americans asserted divergent
religious groups and worldviews regarding issues such as religion, gender roles, family, land use,
ideas have affected and power.
American society
and political life.
A) Mutual misunderstandings
CUL-3.0: Explain how between Europeans and
ideas about women’s Native Americans often
rights and gender defined the early years
roles have affected of interaction and trade
society and politics. as each group sought to
make sense of the other.
CUL-4.0: Explain Over time, Europeans and
how different group Native Americans adopted
identities, including some useful aspects of
racial, ethnic, class, each other’s culture.
and regional identities,
have emerged and
B) As European encroachments
changed over time.
on Native Americans’ lands
WOR-1.0: Explain how and demands on their
cultural interaction, labor increased, native
cooperation, peoples sought to defend
competition, and and maintain their political
conflict between sovereignty, economic
empires, nations, prosperity, religious
and peoples have beliefs, and concepts of
influenced political, gender relations through
economic, and social diplomatic negotiations
developments in and military resistance.
North America.
C) Extended contact with Native
Americans and Africans
fostered a debate among
European religious and
political leaders about how
non-Europeans should be
treated, as well as evolving
religious, cultural, and
racial justifications for the
subjugation of Africans
and Native Americans.

Period 1: 1491–1607 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 1.2
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 28
© 2015 The College Board
1491–1607 1607–1754 1754–1800 1800–1848 1844–1877 1865–1898 1890–1945 1945–1980 1980–PRESENT

PERIOD 2:
1607–1754
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 2.1: Europeans developed a variety of colonization and

Related Thematic migration patterns, influenced by different imperial goals, cultures,
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam and the varied North American environments where they settled, and
Questions) they competed with each other and American Indians for resources.

MIG-1.0: Explain the I. Spanish, French, Dutch, and British colonizers had different economic and imperial
causes of migration to goals involving land and labor that shaped the social and political development of
colonial North America their colonies as well as their relationships with native populations.
and, later, the United
States, and analyze A) Spanish efforts to extract
immigration’s effects wealth from the land led
on U.S. society. them to develop institutions
WOR-1.0: Explain how based on subjugating native
cultural interaction, populations, converting
cooperation, them to Christianity,
competition, and and incorporating them,
conflict between along with enslaved and
empires, nations, free Africans, into the
and peoples have Spanish colonial society.
influenced political,
economic, and social B) French and Dutch colonial
developments in efforts involved relatively
North America. few Europeans and
relied on trade alliances
and intermarriage with
American Indians to build
economic and diplomatic
relationships and acquire
furs and other products
for export to Europe.

C) English colonization efforts

attracted a comparatively
large number of male and
female British migrants,
as well as other European
migrants, all of whom
sought social mobility,
economic prosperity,
religious freedom, and
improved living conditions.
These colonists focused
on agriculture and settled
on land taken from Native
Americans, from whom
they lived separately.

Period 2: 1607–1754 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 2.1
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 30
© 2015 The College Board
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 2.1: Europeans developed a variety of colonization and

Related Thematic migration patterns, influenced by different imperial goals, cultures,
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam and the varied North American environments where they settled, and
Questions) they competed with each other and American Indians for resources.

NAT-1.0: Explain II. In the 17th century, early British colonies developed along the Atlantic coast, with regional
how ideas about differences that reflected various environmental, economic, cultural, and demographic factors.
democracy, freedom,
and individualism A) The Chesapeake and North Carolina
found expression in colonies grew prosperous exporting
the development of tobacco — a labor-intensive
cultural values, political product initially cultivated by white,
institutions, and mostly male indentured servants
American identity. and later by enslaved Africans.
WXT-2.0: Explain how
patterns of exchange, B) The New England colonies,
markets, and private initially settled by Puritans,
enterprise have developed around small towns
developed, and analyze with family farms and achieved
ways that governments a thriving mixed economy of
have responded to agriculture and commerce.
economic issues.

MIG-1.0: Explain the C) The middle colonies supported a

causes of migration to flourishing export economy based
colonial North America on cereal crops and attracted
and, later, the United a broad range of European
States, and analyze migrants, leading to societies
immigration’s effects with greater cultural, ethnic, and
on U.S. society. religious diversity and tolerance.

MIG-2.0: Analyze
D) The colonies of the southernmost
causes of internal
Atlantic coast and the British West
migration and patterns
Indies used long growing seasons to
of settlement in what
develop plantation economies based
would become the United
on exporting staple crops. They
States, and explain
depended on the labor of enslaved
how migration has
Africans, who often constituted the
affected American life.
majority of the population in these
GEO-1.0: Explain areas and developed their own forms
how geographic and of cultural and religious autonomy.
environmental factors
shaped the development E) Distance and Britain’s initially lax
of various communities, attention led to the colonies creating
and analyze how self-governing institutions that were
competition for and unusually democratic for the era. The
debates over natural New England colonies based power
resources have affected in participatory town meetings,
both interactions among which in turn elected members to
different groups and their colonial legislatures; in the
the development of Southern colonies, elite planters
government policies. exercised local authority and also
dominated the elected assemblies.

Period 2: 1607–1754 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 2.1
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

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AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 31
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 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 2.1: Europeans developed a variety of colonization and

Related Thematic migration patterns, influenced by different imperial goals, cultures,
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam and the varied North American environments where they settled, and
Questions) they competed with each other and American Indians for resources.

WXT-2.0: Explain how III. Competition over resources between European rivals and American Indians encouraged
patterns of exchange, industry and trade and led to conflict in the Americas.
markets, and private
enterprise have A) An Atlantic economy developed in which
developed, and analyze goods, as well as enslaved Africans
ways that governments and American Indians, were exchanged
have responded to between Europe, Africa, and the Americas
economic issues. through extensive trade networks.
CUL-4.0: Explain European colonial economies focused
how different group on acquiring, producing, and exporting
identities, including commodities that were valued in Europe
racial, ethnic, class, and gaining new sources of labor.
and regional identities,
have emerged and B) Continuing trade with Europeans
changed over time. increased the flow of goods in and
out of American Indian communities,
WOR-1.0: Explain how
stimulating cultural and economic
cultural interaction, changes and spreading epidemic diseases
cooperation, that caused radical demographic shifts.
competition, and
conflict between
empires, nations, C) Interactions between European rivals and
and peoples have American Indian populations fostered
influenced political, both accommodation and conflict. French,
economic, and social Dutch, British, and Spanish colonies allied
developments in with and armed American Indian groups,
North America. who frequently sought alliances with
Europeans against other Indian groups.

D) The goals and interests of European

leaders and colonists at times
diverged, leading to a growing mistrust
on both sides of the Atlantic. Colonists,
especially in British North America,
expressed dissatisfaction over issues
including territorial settlements,
frontier defense, self-rule, and trade.

E) British conflicts with American

Indians over land, resources, and
political boundaries led to military
confrontations, such as Metacom’s War
(King Philip’s War) in New England.

F) American Indian resistance to Spanish

colonizing efforts in North America,
particularly after the Pueblo Revolt,
led to Spanish accommodation
of some aspects of American
Indian culture in the Southwest.

Period 2: 1607–1754 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 2.1
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

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AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 32
© 2015 The College Board
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 2.2: The British colonies participated in political,

Related Thematic social, cultural, and economic exchanges with Great Britain that
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam encouraged both stronger bonds with Britain and resistance to
Questions) Britain’s control.

NAT-1.0: Explain I. Transatlantic commercial, religious, philosophical, and political exchanges led
how ideas about residents of the British colonies to evolve in their political and cultural attitudes as
democracy, freedom, they became increasingly tied to Britain and one another.
and individualism
found expression A) The presence of different
in the development European religious and ethnic
of cultural values, groups contributed to a
political institutions, significant degree of pluralism
and American identity. and intellectual exchange,
POL-1.0: Explain how which were later enhanced
and why political ideas, by the first Great Awakening
beliefs, institutions, and the spread of European
party systems, and Enlightenment ideas.
alignments have
developed and changed. B) The British colonies experienced
a gradual Anglicization over
WXT-2.0: Explain how time, developing autonomous
patterns of exchange, political communities based
markets, and private on English models with
enterprise have influence from intercolonial
developed, and analyze commercial ties, the emergence
ways that governments of a trans-Atlantic print
have responded to culture, and the spread of
economic issues. Protestant evangelicalism.
CUL-1.0: Explain how
religious groups and C) The British government
ideas have affected increasingly attempted to
American society incorporate its North American
and political life. colonies into a coherent,
hierarchical, and imperial
CUL-2.0: Explain how structure in order to pursue
artistic, philosophical, mercantilist economic aims,
and scientific ideas have but conflicts with colonists
developed and shaped and American Indians led
society and institutions. to erratic enforcement
of imperial policies.

D) Colonists’ resistance to
imperial control drew on
local experiences of self-
government, evolving ideas
of liberty, the political thought
of the Enlightenment, greater
religious independence and
diversity, and an ideology
critical of perceived corruption
in the imperial system.

Period 2: 1607–1754 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 2.2
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 33
© 2015 The College Board
 The AP U.S. History Curriculum Framework

Key Concept 2.2: The British colonies participated in political,

Related Thematic social, cultural, and economic exchanges with Great Britain that
Learning Objectives

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
(Focus of Exam encouraged both stronger bonds with Britain and resistance to
Questions) Britain’s control.

WXT-1.0: Explain II. Like other European empires in the Americas that participated in the Atlantic
how different labor slave trade, the English colonies developed a system of slavery that reflected
systems developed the specific economic, demographic, and geographic characteristics of those
in North America and colonies.
the United States, and
explain their effects A) All the British colonies
on workers’ lives participated to varying degrees
and U.S. society. in the Atlantic slave trade due
CUL-3.0: Explain how to the abundance of land and
ideas about women’s a growing European demand
rights and gender for colonial goods, as well
roles have affected as a shortage of indentured
society and politics. servants. Small New England
farms used relatively few
CUL-4.0: Explain enslaved laborers, all
how different group port cities held significant
identities, including minorities of enslaved people,
racial, ethnic, class, and the emerging plantation
and regional identities, systems of the Chesapeake
have emerged and and the southernmost
changed over time. Atlantic coast had large
numbers of enslaved workers,
WOR-1.0: Explain how
while the great majority
cultural interaction,
of enslaved Africans were
cooperation,
sent to the West Indies.
competition, and
conflict between
empires, nations, B) As chattel slavery became
and peoples have the dominant labor system
influenced political, in many southern colonies,
economic, and social new laws created a strict
developments in racial system that prohibited
North America. interracial relationships and
defined the descendants
of African American
mothers as black and
enslaved in perpetuity.

C) Africans developed both overt

and covert means to resist
the dehumanizing aspects of
slavery and maintain their
family and gender systems,
culture, and religion.

Period 2: 1607–1754 TEACHER-SELECTED EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL

INDIVIDUALS, EVENTS, TOPICS, OR SOURCES FOR
Key Concept 2.2
STUDENTS TO EXAMINE THE KEY CONCEPT IN DEPTH

Return to
AP United States History Course and Exam Description Table of Contents 34
© 2015 The College Board