AP US History Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Invasion and Settlement of North America, 1550-1700

Rival Imperial Models: Spain, France and Holland
The Spanish seized Mesoamerica and South America and converted many Indians to Catholicism. The Indians were forced to work as gold miners and farmers. The French and Dutch merchants created fur-trading colonies with North American natives.

New Spain: Colonization and Conversion
1540s- Vasquez de Coronado discovered the Grand Canyon, the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest, and the Kansas grasslands.
1560s- Spain gives up gold search to defend empire; establish a fort at St. Augustine (1565) which became the first permanent European settlement in the US

Franciscan Missions and Indian Revolts
Comprehensive Orders for New Discoveries (1573)- pacification was left to missionaries; Franciscan friars attacked natives’ culture by punishing those who still practiced polygamy and worshipped the traditional gods.
Franciscans encouraged Indians to talk, cook and dress like Spaniards.
Indian workers=grow crops and carry them to market
1598- Juan de Onate and his men destroyed the Pueblo peoples, murdering 800 men, women and children.
1610- Spanish returned, founded Santa Fe, reestablished former missions and forced labor systems

Pope and the Uprising of 1680
Pope and his followers killed more than 400 Spaniards and fled to El Paso. They also desecrated churches and rebuilt kivas, the structures they had once worshipped.
The Pueblos compromised with the Spaniards by speaking Spanish, accepting a patrilineal kinship system, and defending the Nuevo Mexico from Apaches and Comanches.

New France: Fur Traders and Missionaries
New France had little migration and few settlers to farm the land so it developed as a fur-acquiring enterprise.
1681- La Salle travelled down the Mississippi River to Louisiana (named after King Louis XIV) trading furs along the way.
1718- Port of New Orleans was founded

The Rise of the Iroquois
5 Nations of the Iroquois: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondagas, Oneidas, Mohawks
The Iroquois people went to war with the Hurons in 1649, the Neutrals in 1651, the Eries in 1657 and the Susquehannocks in 1660.

The Jesuit Missions
The Jesuits were members of the Society of Jesus, which was created to contest the Protestant Reformation.
1690s- Jesuits adapted Christian beliefs to the Indians’. The cult of the Virgin Mary was introduced to young Illinois women emphasizing chastity, in which the Illinois women already perceived unmarried women as “masters of their own body.”

New Netherland: Commerce
As the Dutch struggled for independence from Spain and Portugal, they seized Portuguese forts in Africa and Indonesia as well as sugar plantations in Brazil. Because of this, the Dutch gained control of the Atlantic trade of sugar and slaves and the Indian Ocean commerce of East Indian spices and Chinese silks.
The West India Company (chartered by the Dutch in 1621) founded New Netherland and brought in farmers and artisans in hopes to make the new colony thrive; however, it failed. The Dutch settlers fought with their Algonquian neighbors, who nearly destroyed the colony.
England invaded the New Netherland colony in 1664, in which the Duke of York allowed Dutch residents to retain property, legal systems, and religion. Once the Dutch recaptured their colony for a short time in 1673, the English government shut down Dutch courts, imposed English law, and demanded an oath of allegiance.

The English Arrive in the Chesapeake
The English colonies in North America were eventually transformed into tobacco-growing economies dependent on indentured servant labor and slaves. Originally, these colonies were expected to become trading outposts similar to those in India, Sierra Leone and Morocco.

Settling the Tobacco Colonies
The English settlements developed in many different ways because English monarchs didn’t control them.
Private ventures organized by nobles ultimately failed. Newfoundland collapsed due to lack of financing in the 1580s. Harsh climates caused Sir Ferdinando Gorge’s colony along the coast of Maine to fail. Sir Walter Raleigh’s expeditions to North Carolina ended when 117 settlers suddenly disappeared on Roanoke Island.
The Jamestown Settlement
King James I granted the region from North Carolina to southern New York to the Virginia Company of London; the region was named Virginia in honor of Elizabeth I, the “Virgin Queen.” After arriving in Virginia, the settlers founded Jamestown. Settlers soon died off due to disease and famine.
John Rolfe, an English colonist, imported tobacco from the West Indies that spurred the migration of thousands of English settlers. The Virginia Company granted 100 acres of land to any free man.
The Virginia Company created a system of representative government, the House of Burgesses, which could make laws and levy taxes, in which the company council in England could veto if desired.

The Indian War of 1622
Conflict with the Indians began Opechancanough attacked and killed many English invaders and captured Captain John Smith.
Because of the Indian uprising, James I made Virginia a royal colony, revoking the Virginia Company’s charter. The king kept the House of Burgesses, but ruled that his Privy Council must ratify all legislation. Residents also had to pay taxes to the Church of England to support its clergy. These establishments laid the foundation for royal colonies in English America.

Lord Baltimore Settles Catholics in Maryland
King Charles I granted the lands bordering the Chesapeake Bay to Lord Baltimore (Cecilius Calvert) who wanted Maryland to be a refuge for Catholics subject to persecution in England.
A representative assembly was elected and they enacted the Toleration Act in 1649. This granted all Christians the right to follow their beliefs and hold church services.
Demand for tobacco set off an economic boom that lasted for forty years. Exports jumped from 3 million pounds to 10 million pounds from 1640 to 1660.

Masters, Servants, and Slaves
Land ownership lured more than 100,000 English migrants to Virginia and Maryland. These migrants were indentured servants.
The migrants signed indenture contracts that bound them to work for four to five years under a master, and after, they would be free to marry and work for themselves.

Indentured Servitude
In order to maximize gains, masters forced servants to work long hours, beat them without cause, and withheld permission to marry. Uncooperative servants were “sold up and down like horses.”
Many indentured servants became poverty stricken. Half of the men died before completing their contract, and the remaining men did not get any land.
Only one quarter gained land and respectability. Very few men and women escaped poverty in the Chesapeake region.

African Laborers
In 1649, the number of Africans in the Chesapeake region was only 400; however, by the 1670s, the African population was 5% of the total population. These slaves belonged to powerful men such as members of the Virginia council and wealthy officers.
When the tobacco boom ended in the 1660s, Africans began to be perceived as an inferior group of people as the English-born political elite became more race-conscious. Legislators began distinguishing English from African by skin color, rather than by religion.

Bacon’s Rebellion
The Acts of Trade and Navigation allowed only English and colonial-owned ships to enter American ports, which excluded Dutch merchants who sold the best goods, paid the highest prices for tobacco and provided the cheapest shipping services.
Colonists could only ship tobacco, sugar and other goods to England, where monarchs raised import duties constantly. By the 1670s, tobacco was only a penny per pound. Planters began to feel as if they were “beneficial slaves” to the English merchants and monarch.

The Seeds of Social Revolt
Newly freed indentured servants could not earn enough money to buy tools or seeds, so many ex-servants had to sign new indentures or become wageworkers.
William Berkeley granted lands to members of his council. These lands were exempt from taxation. To win over the House of Burgesses, he granted land and appointed legislators as sheriffs and tax collectors.
When the Burgesses took away voting from landless free men, lots of unrest began to stir. Falling tobacco prices, political corruption, angered yeomen. All of Berkeley’s changes created much turmoil.

Indians and Frontiersmen
Poor freeholders and landless former servants wanted to settle along the frontier, but this is where the Indians lived. The men demanded that these natives be expelled from this area. Wealthy planters opposed the wishes of the poor freeholders and landless former servants because they wanted to keep a supply of tenant farmers.
In late 1675, fighting broke out when a band of Virginia militiamen murdered 30 Indians. Then, a force of 1,000 militiamen killed five Susquehannock chiefs who were looking to negotiate. The Susquehannocks retaliated by attacking outlying plantations and killing 300 whites.

Nathaniel Bacon, Rebel Leader
Nathaniel Bacon was expelled from the council and was arrested when he mobilized his neighbors and attacked any Indians he came across. Bacon’s army forced the release of their leader and legislative elections. The new House of Burgesses curbed the powers of the governor and council and restored voting rights to the landless free men.
Bacon issued a “Manifesto and Declaration of the People” that demanded the death or removal of the Indians. Bacon’s army burned Jamestown to the ground. However, Bacon died of dysentery in October 1676. Governor Berkeley took revenge by dispersing the rebel army, seizing rebel estates, and hanging 23 men.
Because of Bacon’s Rebellion, taxes were cut and the Susquehannocks, Piscataways and other Indians were expelled from the region. Future rebellions by poor whites were forestalled by the use of African laborers instead of indentured servants. Chattel slavery (the ownership of a human as property) was legalized in 1705, thus creating generations of racial exploitation in America.

Puritan New England
Between 1620 and 1640, Puritans fled to America in search of religious freedom. The Puritans of New England had strong spiritual goals in which they tried to preserve a “pure” Christian faith.

The Puritan Migration
New England was different from other European colonies in that its leaders were Protestants and settlers included women, children, and men.
Male adventurers founded New Spain and Jamestown; male traders dominated New France and New Netherland.
The Puritans created religious-based colonies at Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut. The Puritans tried to live as they did back in England. For example, settlers from Yorkshire still used their system of open-agriculture in Massachusetts Bay.

The Pilgrims
The Pilgrims left the Church of England when King James I threated to drive the Puritans out of the land. Some joined the Dutch Calvinists while others moved to America. William Bradford and 67 migrants sailed to America in 1620 on the Mayflower.
After a tough first winter in Plymouth, the Pilgrims began to thrive. They built small houses and planted ample crops. The Pilgrims also wrote a legal code that provided a representative self-government, broad political rights, property ownership and religious freedom.
England experienced much religious turmoil when King Charles I refused Protestant doctrines. The powerful Puritans of Parliament then accused the king of having Catholic beliefs. King Charles then gave himself total authority by “divine right.” Thousands of Puritans fled to America when Archbishop William Laud dismissed hundreds of dissident ministers.

John Winthrop and Massachusetts Bay
Winthrop and his associates governed Massachusetts Bay from Boston. They created a representative political system with a governor, council, and assembly.
The Puritans only gave voting and office rights to men who were members of the church. Puritanism was the state-supported religion and the Bible was the legal guide.

Roger Williams and Rhode Island
Roger Williams opposed the decision to establish Congregationalism as the official religion of the Massachusetts Bay colony. He advocated toleration and argued that political magistrates only had authority over “outward estates of man”, not their spiritual lives. Williams was banished from the colony in 1636.
Williams and his followers founded Providence. Other religious dissidents settled nearby in Portsmouth and Newport. In 1644, Parliament chartered a new colony, Rhode Island.
In Rhode Island, there wasn’t an established church, so individuals could worship God as they pleased.

Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson disagreed with the Puritans in the belief that salvation was earned through good deeds. Hutchinson believed that God bestowed salvation through the “covenant of grace.” Found guilty of heretical views, she was banished into exile in Rhode Island.
Hutchinson taught that inward grace could free an individual from rules of the church. For example, women were seen as inferior to men. Women could not vote or be ministers.
1660- King Charles II chartered Connecticut, which had an established church and an elected governor and assembly. Voting rights were granted to property-owning men, not just church members, as they were in the Massachusetts Bay colony.

The Puritan Revolution in England
A rebel Scottish army invaded England five years after Archbishop Laud imposed the Church of England prayer book on Presbyterian Scotland in 1637. English and American Puritans demanded religious reform and parliamentary power. After a civil war, Oliver Cromwell emerged victorious.
1649- King Charles I was executed, a republican commonwealth was created and bishops and elaborate rituals were banished from the Church of England.
Cromwell took total control of the Commonwealth in 1653. When he died in 1658, moderate Protestants restored the monarchy and hierarchy of bishops.

Puritanism and Witchcraft
In Salem in 1692, witchcraft allegations spun out of control. Several girls claimed to have experienced strange seizures and accused neighbors of bewitching them. The causes of such an uproar are still debatable; however, historians believe a multitude of factors could have influenced this behavior. Some include that the accusers were daughters and servants of poor farmers, and the witches were wealthy church members. Some historians believe that the women put to death for witchcraft were an attempt to subordinate women.
Because of the high number of deaths, the government discouraged prosecution for witchcraft. The European Enlightenment promoted a scientific view of the world. Sudden deaths were now referred to as “natural causes.”

A Yeoman Society, 1630-1700
The General Courts of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut bestowed land on proprietors (groups of settlers), who distributed the land to men of high social status. All families received land, and most adult men had a vote in the town meeting.
New England was a world of opportunity for even the poorest of farmers. Nathaniel Fish was one of the poorest farmers in New England, but he had a vote in the town meeting each year. Ordinary farmers elected men to manage town affairs and to represent the General Court.

The Eastern Indians’ New World
Indians in New England faced a smallpox epidemic that wiped out their people. The few that remained could not retain ancestral lands from intruders. The natives that could not defend themselves like the Iroquois could retreated westward to preserve their traditions.

Puritans and Pequots
The Puritans believed that they were God’s chosen people, so they treated the Indians brutally. The Puritan militia massacred the Pequot people, killing about 500 men, women and children. The Puritans saw the Indians as culturally inferior “savages.”
John Eliot converted Indians to Christianity by translating the Bible to Algonquian. A few Indians became Puritans, but Eliot and other ministers turned fourteen native villages into praying towns.
1670- more than 1,000 Indians lived in these new settlements, creating new native forms of Christianity

Metacom’s War of 1675-1676
The Europeans in New England outnumbered the Indians three to one by the 1670s. The Wampanoag leader, Metacom, concluded that the Europeans had to be expelled. The Indians burned houses and killed many men, women and children. The war ended with the death of Metacom.
One-fifth of the English towns were destroyed throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island and 1,000 settlers were killed. The Indian losses were much greater though; about 4,500 Indians were killed.

The Destructive Impact of the Fur Trade
The native societies lost their economic independence to the Europeans. They exchanged furs for European-made utensils and woolen blankets and neglected their own artisan skills. Not only did the Indians lose their economic independence, but they also lost their religious freedom. French missionaries divided Indian communities into hostile religious factions.
The fur trade wiped out many beaver, deer, and otter. Streams ran faster as a result of less beavers around to build dams. The underbrush grew thicker because the deer population decreased.

Voices from Abroad:
1. The Hurons’ and Champlain’s perceptions of the soothsayers hut differ in that the Hurons believe the hut is a place where they receive messages from the devil. They believe that the shaking of the cabin was the devil, not the soothsayer inside, of whom Champlain says he can blatantly see shaking the cabin. The differences of their views suggest that the Hurons have a great spirituality and are religiously devoted, such as the devil coming to the soothsayer in the form of a stone and telling him whether they will meet and kill their enemies, whereas Champlain doesn’t perceive anything beyond what he sees with his eyes. He states, “They frequently told me that the shaking of the cabin, which I saw, proceeded from the devil, who made it move, and not the man inside, although I could see the contrary…”
2. In Huron culture dreams help to foretell the future and fortunes. In the passage, the Hurons ask Champlain if he’s had a dream about the enemies to which he initially replies no. Later on, Champlain has a dream of the Iroquois drowning. The Hurons see this as a sign of good fortune, and they defeat the Iroquois, taking a prisoner of war.
3. Yes, the torture Champlain describes accurately defines the “savages” he refers to. A modern anthropologist may explain the Indian’s custom as celebration of defeating the enemy because they brutally torture this prisoner.

Comparing American Voices
1. Three Indians accused Philip of employing them to kill Sassamon. But before Sassamon’s death, he informed the English of the Indian’s plot, and if the Indians knew he did this, they would kill him. The English decided to hang Philip, and following this, the Indians and the English talked amongst themselves, working things out as to NOT start a war. However, a week after John Easton and other Englishmen met with the Indians, the governor of Plymouth wrote a letter saying that he intended to subjugate Philip with arms. This was the start of the war.
2. John Easton’s document states that the causes of the war include the English and the Indians’ quarreling. Edward Randolph’s document says that the causes of the war are debatable, some saying the magistrates of Boston trying to Christianize and civilize the Indians caused it, while others say the French priests instigated the war by promising French supplies if the Indians force the English out. The war could have been prevented if the governor of Plymouth wouldn’t have written the letter threatening to defeat Philip.
3. The magistrates of Massachusetts Bay believed a major cause of the war was the murder of Sassamon, a Christian Indian who could read and write. Historians could verify their explanation by using the reports sent back and forth between Philip and the English. Other useful sources of evidence would include John Easton’s document and the letters of Philip and the English.
4. The primary instigator of the war was the governor of Plymouth who wrote the letter stating his plans to defeat Philip. The documents of John Easton and Benjamin Church have the most compelling evidence to my conclusion. Easton’s document states that the English were afraid of the Indians and the Indians were afraid of the English, and both increased their arms. No discourtesies were done, though. A week after the meeting of Easton and his council with Philip and forty of his men, the governor of Plymouth wrote a letter detailing his plan to subjugate Philip, thus starting the war. Church’s document is the recollection of fighting in the war. He states, “An express came to the governor [c. June 25], who immediately gave orders to the captains of the towns to march the greatest part of their companies [of militia]…” The Indians plundered and destroyed cattle, and soon began killing the English. If the governor had not written the threatening letter, the war would not have happened because the English and Philip met and both agreed that fighting would have been the “worst way” and right had to be done.