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Colonies and Settlers
COLONIAL-INDIAN RELATIONS
By 1640 the British had solid colonies established along the New
England coast and the Chesapeake Bay. In between were the Dutch
and the tiny Swedish community. To the west were the original Americans,
the Indians.
Sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, the Eastern tribes were no
longer strangers to the Europeans. Although Native Americans benefitted
from access to new technology and trade, the disease and thirst
for land which the early settlers also brought posed a serious challenge
to the Indian's long-established way of life.
At first, trade with the European settlers brought advantages: knives,
axes, weapons, cooking utensils, fish hooks and a host of other
goods. Those Indians who traded initially had significant advantage
over rivals who did not.
In response to European demand, tribes such as the Iroquois began
to devote more attention to fur trapping during the 17th century.
Furs and pelts provided tribes the means to purchase colonial goods
until late into the 18th century.
Early colonial-Indian relations were an uneasy mix of cooperation
and conflict. On the one hand, there were the exemplary relations
which prevailed during the first half century of Pennsylvania's
existence. On the other were a long series of setbacks, skirmishes
and wars, which almost invariably resulted in an Indian defeat and
further loss of land.
 The
first of the important Indian uprisings occurred in Virginia in
1622, when some 347 whites were killed, including a number of missionaries
who had just recently come to Jamestown. The Pequot War followed
in 1637, as local tribes tried to prevent settlement of the Connecticut
River region.
In 1675 Phillip, the son of the chief who had made the original
peace with the Pilgrims in 1621, attempted to unite the tribes of
southern New England against further European encroachment of their
lands. In the struggle, however, Phillip lost his life and many
Indians were sold into servitude.
Almost 5,000 kilometers to the west, the Pueblo Indians rose up
against the Spanish missionaries five years later in the area around
Taos, New Mexico. For the next dozen years the Pueblo controlled
their former land again, only to see the Spanish retake it. Some
60 years later, another Indian revolt took place when the Pima Indians
clashed with the Spanish in what is now Arizona.
The steady influx of settlers into the backwoods regions of the
Eastern colonies disrupted Indian life. As more and more game was
killed off, tribes were faced with the difficult choice of going
hungry, going to war, or moving and coming into conflict with other
tribes to the west.
The Iroquois, who inhabited the area below Lakes Ontario and Erie
in northern New York and Pennsylvania, were more successful in resisting
European advances. In 1570 five tribes joined to form the most democratic
nation of its time, the "Ho-De-No-Sau-Nee," or League of the Iroquois.
The League was run by a council made up of 50 representatives from
each of the five member tribes. The council dealt with matters common
to all the tribes, but it had no say in how the free and equal tribes
ran their day-to-day affairs. No tribe was allowed to make war by
itself. The council passed laws to deal with crimes such as murder.
The League was a strong power in the 1600s and 1700s. It traded
furs with the British and sided with them against the French in
the war for the dominance of America between 1754 and 1763. The
British might not have won that war without the support of the League
of the Iroquois.
The League stayed strong until the American Revolution. Then, for
the first time, the council could not reach a unanimous decision
on whom to support. Member tribes made their own decisions, some
fighting with the British, some with the colonists, some remaining
neutral. As a result, everyone fought against the Iroquois. Their
losses were great and the League never recovered.
SECOND GENERATION OF BRITISH COLONIES
The religious and civil conflict in England in the mid-17th century
limited immigration, as well as the attention the mother country
paid the fledgling American colonies.
In part to provide for the defense measures England was neglecting,
the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven colonies
formed the New England Confederation in 1643. It was the European
colonists' first attempt at regional unity.
The early history of the British settlers reveals a good deal of
contention -- religious and political -- as groups vied for power
and position among themselves and their neighbors. Maryland, in
particular, suffered from the bitter religious rivalries which afflicted
England during the era of Oliver Cromwell. One of the casualties
was the state's Toleration Act, which was revoked in the 1650s.
It was soon reinstated, however, along with the religious freedom
it guaranteed.
In 1675 Bacon's Rebellion, the first significant revolt against
royal authority, broke out in the colonies. The original spark was
a clash between Virginia frontiersmen and the Susquehannock Indians,
but it soon pitted the common farmer against the wealth and privilege
of the large planters and Virginia's governor, William Berkeley.
 The small farmers,
embittered by low tobacco prices and hard living conditions, rallied
around Nathaniel Bacon (right), a recent arrival from England. Berkeley
refused to grant Bacon a commission to conduct Indian raids, but
he did agree to call new elections to the House of Burgesses, which
had remained unchanged since 1661.
Defying Berkeley's orders, Bacon led an attack against the friendly
Ocaneechee tribe, nearly wiping them out. Returning to Jamestown
in September 1676, he burned it, forcing Berkeley to flee. Most
of the state was now under Bacon's control. His victory was short
lived, however; he died of a fever the following month. Without
Bacon, the rebellion soon lost its vitality. Berkeley re-established
his authority and hanged 23 of Bacon's followers.
With the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, the British once
again turned their attentions to North America. Within a brief span,
the first European settlements were established in the Carolinas
and the Dutch driven out of New Netherland. New proprietary colonies
were established in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
The Dutch settlements had, as a general matter, been ruled by autocratic
governors appointed in Europe. Over the years, the local population
had become estranged from them. As a result, when the British colonists
began encroaching on Dutch lands in Long Island and Manhattan, the
unpopular governor was unable to rally the population to their defense.
New Netherland fell in 1664. The terms of the capitulation, however,
were mild: the Dutch settlers were able to retain their property
and worship as they pleased.
As early as the 1650s, the Ablemarle Sound region off the coast
of what is now northern North Carolina was inhabited by settlers
trickling down from Virginia. The first proprietary governor arrived
in 1664. A remote area even today, Ablemarle's first town was not
established until the arrival of a group of French Huguenots in
1704.
In 1670 the first settlers, drawn from New England and the Caribbean
island of Barbados, arrived in what is now Charleston, South Carolina.
An elaborate system of government, to which the British philosopher
John Locke contributed, was prepared for the new colony. One of
its prominent features was a failed attempt to create a hereditary
nobility. One of the colony's least appealing aspects was the early
trade in Indian slaves. Within time, however, timber, rice and indigo
gave the colony a worthier economic base.
 Massachusetts Bay
was not the only colony driven by religious motives. In 1681 William
Penn (left), a wealthy Quaker and friend of Charles II, received
a large tract of land west of the Delaware River, which became known
as Pennsylvania. To help populate it, Penn actively recruited a
host of religious dissenters from England and the continent -- Quakers,
Mennonites, Amish, Moravians and Baptists.
When Penn arrived the following year, there were already Dutch,
Swedish and English settlers living along the Delaware River. It
was there he founded Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love."
In keeping with his faith, Penn was motivated by a sense of equality
not often found in other American colonies at the time. Thus, women
in Pennsylvania had rights long before they did in other parts of
America. Penn and his deputies also paid considerable attention
to the colony's relations with the Delaware Indians, ensuring that
they were paid for any land the Europeans settled on.
Georgia was settled in 1732, the last of the 13 colonies to be established.
Lying close to, if not actually inside the boundaries of Spanish
Florida, the region was viewed as a buffer against Spanish incursion.
But it had another unique quality: the man charged with Georgia's
fortifications, General James Oglethorpe, was a reformer who deliberately
set out to create a refuge where the poor and former prisoners would
be given new opportunities.
SETTLERS, SLAVES AND SERVANTS
Men and women with little active interest in a new life in America
were often induced to make the move to the New World by the skillful
persuasion of promoters. William Penn, for example, publicized the
opportunities awaiting newcomers to the Pennsylvania colony. Judges
and prison authorities offered convicts a chance to migrate to colonies
like Georgia instead of serving prison sentences.
But few colonists could finance the cost of passage for themselves
and their families to make a start in the new land. In some cases,
ships' captains received large rewards from the sale of service
contracts for poor migrants, called indentured servants, and every
method from extravagant promises to actual kidnapping was used to
take on as many passengers as their vessels could hold.
In other cases, the expenses of transportation and maintenance were
paid by colonizing agencies like the Virginia or Massachusetts Bay
Companies. In return, indentured servants agreed to work for the
agencies as contract laborers, usually for four to seven years.
Free at the end of this term, they would be given "freedom dues,"
sometimes including a small tract of land.
It has been estimated that half the settlers living in the colonies
south of New England came to America under this system. Although
most of them fulfilled their obligations faithfully, some ran away
from their employers. Nevertheless, many of them were eventually
able to secure land and set up homesteads, either in the colonies
in which they had originally settled or in neighboring ones. No
social stigma was attached to a family that had its beginning in
America under this semi-bondage. Every colony had its share of leaders
who were former indentured servants.
There was one very important exception to this pattern: African
slaves. The first blacks were brought to Virginia in 1619, just
12 years after the founding of Jamestown. Initially, many were regarded
as indentured servants who could earn their freedom. By the 1660s,
however, as the demand for plantation labor in the Southern colonies
grew, the institution of slavery began to harden around them, and
Africans were brought to America in shackles for a lifetime of involuntary
servitude.
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