Finding Common Ground In the 1600s, when the first English settlers began to arrive in New England, there were about 60,000 Native Americans living in what would later become the New England colonies (Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Haven, and Rhode Island). In the first English colonies in the Northeast (as well as in Virginia), there were initial conflicts and concerns over the threat colonists posed to the Native Americans’ long-established territory. Still, colonists were able to build thriving colonies with the help of locals. Trade was one of the first bridges between New England colonists and local Native American populations. For the colonists, it was about building the infrastructure and relationships they would need to stay and thrive in the New World. For the Native Americans, it was often about building potential alliances. After only five years, the Plymouth Colony was no longer financially dependent on England due to the roots and local economy it had built alongside the native Massachusetts peoples. Both sides benefited from the trade and bartering system established by the native peoples and the colonists. The Native Americans provided skins, hides, food, knowledge, and other crucial materials and supplies, while the settlers traded beads and other types of currency (also known as “wampum”) in exchange for these goods. Ideas were traded alongside physical goods, with wampum sometimes carrying religious significance as well. The first Bible printed in the New World was actually a translation into the language of the Native American people of the Algonquin, suggesting that the dialogues between the colonists and Native Americans were not just political or practical in nature, but also spiritual. The primary religion of the New England colonies was the strict Puritan Christianity originally brought to the Massachusetts Bay colony by ships like the Mayflower, but as the colonies grew and changed, some of the colonists began to move away from that base. So too did views on the Native Americans who shared their land. A famous example of this is Roger Williams, whose rebellion against the religious powers-that-be led him to create the colony of Rhode Island. Williams held the unorthodox view that the colonists had no right to occupy land without purchasing it from the Native American peoples living there.Over time, however, relations between the now-established colonies and the local peoples deteriorated. Some of the problems were unintentionally introduced by the colonists, like smallpox and other diseases that the English settlers had unwittingly brought over on their ships. Although the colonists suffered diseases of their own early on, they were largely immune to the microbes they brought over to the New World. The local Native American populations, however, had no such immunity to diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, cholera, and the bubonic plague.Some colonial leaders, such as the Puritan minister Increase Mather, believed that the illness and decimation of the New England Native Americans was an act of God to support the colonists’ right to the land: “[A]bout this time [1631] the Indians began to be quarrelsome touching the Bounds of the Land which they had sold to the English, but God ended the Controversy by sending the Smallpox amongst the Indians.” Some colonial governments used the devastation as a way to convert the natives to Christianity, making them into “praying Indians” and moving them to “praying towns,” or reservations. The First Indian War Colonist-Native American relations worsened over the course of the 17th century, resulting in a bloody conflict known as the First Indian War, or King Philip’s War. In 1675, the government of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts executed three members of the Wampanoag people. The Wampanoag leader, Philip (also known as Metacom) retaliated by leading the Wampanoags and a group of other peoples (including the Nipmuc, Pocumtuc, and Narragansett). Other peoples, including the Mohegans and Mohawks, fought the uprising with the English colonists.The war lasted 14 months, ending in late 1676 after much of the Native American opposition had been destroyed by the colonial militias and their Native American allies. Ultimately, a treaty was signed in April 1678, ending the conflict. With such heavy casualties on both sides, this war is considered one of the deadliest conflicts in American history. Both sides experienced devastating losses, with the Native American population losing thousands of people to war, illness, slavery, or fleeing to other regions. More than 600 colonists died in the course of the conflict, with dozens of settlements destroyed.Centuries later, the New England colonies’ history shows the kind of duality that paints much of American history: The idea that native and immigrant cultures have come together to create the modern United States, coupled with the devastating conflicts and mistreatment that took place along the way.
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Traveling aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, 104 men landed in Virginia in 1607 at a place they named Jamestown. This was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Thirteen years later, 102 settlers aboard the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts at a place they named Plymouth. With these two colonies, English settlement in North America was born. LOCATION OF THE SETTLEMENTS Jamestown offered anchorage and a good defensive position. Warm climate and fertile soil allowed large plantations to prosper. Plymouth provided good anchorage and an excellent harbor. Cold climate and thin, rocky soil limited farm size. New Englanders turned to lumbering, shipbuilding, fishing and trade. REASONS FOR THE COLONIES Economic motives prompted colonization in Virginia. The Virginia Company of London, organized in 1606, sponsored the Virginia Colony. Organizers of the company wanted to expand English trade and obtain a wider market for English manufactured goods. They naturally hoped for financial profit from their investment in shares of company stock. Freedom from religious persecution motivated the Pilgrims to leave England and settle in Holland, where there was more religious freedom. However, after a number of years the Pilgrims felt that their children were being corrupted by the liberal Dutch lifestyle and were losing their English heritage. News of the English Colony in Virginia motivated them to leave Holland and settle in the New World. EARLY SETBACKS Inexperience, unwillingness to work, and the lack of wilderness survival skills led to bickering, disagreements, and inaction at Jamestown. Poor Indian relations, disease, and the initial absence of the family unit compounded the problems. Cooperation and hard work were part of the Pilgrim's lifestyle. Nevertheless, they too were plagued with hunger, disease, and environmental hazards. RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES The settlers at Jamestown were members of the Anglican faith, the official Church of England. The Pilgrims were dissenters from the Church of England and established the Puritan or Congregational Church. GOVERNMENT In 1619, the first representative legislative assembly in the New World met at the Jamestown church. It was here that our American heritage of representative government was born. Since New England was outside the jurisdiction of Virginia's government, the Pilgrims established a self-governing agreement of their own, the "Mayflower Compact." NATIVE AMERICANS The Virginia colonists settled in the territory of a strong Indian empire or chiefdom. English relations with the Powhatan Indians were unstable from the beginning. Vast differences in culture, philosophies, and the English desire for dominance were obstacles too great to overcome. After the Indian uprising in 1622, the colonists gave up attempts to christianize and live peacefully with the Powhatans. Prior to the Pilgrims' arrival, an epidemic wiped out the majority of the New England Indians. Several survivors befriended and assisted the colonists. Good relations ended in 1636 when the Massachusetts Bay Puritans declared war on the Pequot Tribe and Plymouth was dragged into the conflict. LEGENDS Who married Pocahontas? Some erroneously believe John Smith did. In actuality, she married John Rolfe, an Englishman who started the tobacco industry in Virginia. The John Smith connection stems from Smith's later writings relating an incidence of Pocahontas saving his life. According to Longfellow's epic, The Courtship of Miles Standish, John Alden proposed to Priscilla Mullins on behalf of Standish and she replied, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Priscilla did in fact marry John Alden at Plymouth. The records do not mention Standish ever courting Priscilla. THANKSGIVING On December 4, 1619 settlers stepped ashore at Berkeley Hundred along the James River and, in accordance with the proprietor's instruction that "the day of our ship's arrival ... shall be yearly and perpetually kept as a day of thanksgiving," celebrated the first official Thanksgiving Day. In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims held a celebration to give thanks to God for his bounty and blessings. This occasion was the origin of the traditional Thanksgiving as we know it today. CONCLUSION The growth and development of these two English colonies, though geographically separated, contributed much to our present American heritage of law, religion, government, custom and language. As Governor Bradford of Plymouth stated, "Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shown unto many, yea, in some sort, to our whole Nation." The charter of the Virginia Company stated, "Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the giver of all goodness, for every plantation which our father hath not planted shall be rooted out." BIBLIOGRAPHY Bradford, William. Bradford's History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908. Breen, T. H. Puritans and Adventurers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Hatch, Charles. The First 17 Years. Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, 1957. Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975. Robbins, Roland W. Pilgrim John Alden's Progress. Plymouth, Massachusetts: Pilgrim Society, 1969. Author: Nancy Fisher Park Ranger 1985 1st Revision John Short, Park Ranger 1994 2nd Revision Jen Loux, William and Mary Intern November 1995 |
What was one major way that the colonists settling in New England differed from the original Jamestown colony?
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