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American History Chapter 1 |
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American History
Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7
Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14
CHAPTER 1: Early America
An Outline of American History
"Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation."
-- John Smith, 1607
THE FIRST AMERICANS
At the height of the Ice Age, between 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much of the
world's water was contained in vast continental ice sheets. As a result,
the Bering Sea was hundreds of meters below its current level, and
a land bridge, known as Beringia, emerged between Asia and North America.
At its peak, Beringia is thought to have been some 1,500 kilometers wide.
A moist and treeless tundra, it was covered with grasses and plant life,
attracting the large animals that early humans hunted for their survival.
The first people to reach North America almost certainly did so without
knowing they had crossed into a new continent. They would have been following
game, as their ancestors had for thousands of years, along the Siberian coast
and then across the land bridge.
Once in Alaska, it would take these first North Americans thousands of years
more to work their way through the openings in great glaciers south to what is
now the United States. Evidence of early life in North America continues to be
found. Little of it, however, can be reliably dated before 12,000 B.C.; a recent
discovery of a hunting lookout in northern Alaska, for example, may date from
almost that time. So too may the finely crafted spear points and items found
near Clovis, New Mexico.
Similar artifacts have been found at sites throughout North and South America,
indicating that life was probably already well established in much of the
Western Hemisphere by some time prior to 10,000 B.C.
Around that time the mammoth began to die out and the bison took its place
as a principal source of food and hides for these early North Americans.
Over time, as more and more species of large game vanished -- whether from
overhunting or natural causes -- plants, berries and seeds became an
increasingly important part of the early American diet. Gradually, foraging
and the first attempts at primitive agriculture appeared. Indians in what is
now central Mexico led the way, cultivating corn, squash and beans, perhaps
as early as 8,000 B.C. Slowly, this knowledge spread northward.
By 3,000 B.C., a primitive type of corn was being grown in the river valleys
of New Mexico and Arizona. Then the first signs of irrigation began to
appear, and by 300 B.C., signs of early village life.
By the first centuries A.D., the Hohokum were living in settlements near
what is now Phoenix, Arizona, where they built ball courts and pyramid-like
mounds reminiscent of those found in Mexico, as well as a canal and
irrigation system.
MOUND BUILDERS AND PUEBLOS
The first Indian group to build mounds in what is now the United States are
often called the Adenans. They began constructing earthen burial sites and
fortifications around 600 B.C. Some mounds from that era are in the shape of
birds or serpents, andprobably served religious purposes not yet fully
understood.
The Adenans appear to have been absorbed or displaced by various groups
collectively known as Hopewellians. One of the most important centers of
their culture was found in southern Ohio, where the remains of several
thousand of these mounds still remain. Believed to be great traders, the
Hopewellians used and exchanged tools and materials across a wide region of
hundreds of kilometers.
By around 500 A.D., the Hopewellians, too, disappeared, gradually giving way
to a broad group of tribes generally known as the Mississippians or Temple
Mound culture. One city, Cahokia, just east of St. Louis, Missouri, is
thought to have had a population of about 20,000 at its peak in the early
12th century. At the center of the city stood a huge earthen mound, flatted
at the top, which was 30 meters high and 37 hectares at the base. Eighty
other mounds have been found nearby.
Cities such as Cahokia depended on a combination of hunting, foraging,
trading and agriculture for their food and supplies. Influenced by the
thriving societies to the south, they evolved into complex hierarchical
societies which took slaves and practiced human sacrifice.
In what is now the southwest United States, the Anasazi, ancestors of the
modern Hopi Indians, began building stone and adobe pueblos around the year
900. These unique and amazing apartment-like structures were often built
along cliff faces; the most famous, the "cliff palace" of Mesa Verde,
Colorado, had over 200 rooms. Another site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along
New Mexico's Chaco River, once contained more than 800 rooms.
Perhaps the most affluent of the pre-Columbian American Indians lived in the
Pacific northwest, where the natural abundance of fish and raw materials
made food supplies plentiful and permanent villages possible as early as
1,000 B.C. The opulence of their "potlatch" gatherings remains a standard
for extravagance and festivity probably unmatched in early American history.
NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES
The America that greeted the first Europeans was, thus, far from an empty
wilderness. It is now thought that as many people lived in the Western
Hemisphere as in Western Europe at that time -- about 40 million.
Estimates of the number of Native Americans living in what is now the United
States at the onset of European colonization range from two to 18 million,
with most historians tending toward the lower figure. What is certain is the
devastating effect that European disease had on the indigenous population
practically from the time of initial contact. Smallpox, in particular,
ravaged whole communities and is thought to have been a much more direct
cause of the precipitous decline in Indian population in the 1600s than the
numerous wars and skirmishes with European settlers.
Indian customs and culture at the time were extraordinarily diverse, as
could be expected, given the expanse of the land and the many different
environments to which they had adapted. Some generalizations, however, are
possible.
Most tribes, particularly in the wooded eastern region and the Midwest,
combined aspects of hunting, gathering and the cultivation of maize and
other products for their food supplies. In many cases, the women were
responsible for farming and the distribution of food, while the men hunted
and participated in war.
By all accounts, Indian society in North America was closely tied to the
land. Identification with nature and the elements was integral to religious
beliefs. Indian life was essentially clan-oriented and communal, with
children allowed more freedom and tolerance than was the European custom of
the day.
Although some North American tribes developed a type of hieroglyphics to
preserve certain texts, Indian culture was primarily oral, with a high value
placed on the recounting of tales and dreams. Clearly, there was a good deal
of trade among various groups and strong evidence exists that neighboring
tribes maintained extensive and formal relations -- both friendly and
hostile.
THE FIRST EUROPEANS
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for
whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland,
where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his
son Leif is thought to have explored the northeast coast of what is now
Canada and spent at least one winter there.
While Norse sagas suggest that Viking sailors explored the Atlantic coast of
North America down as far as the Bahamas, such claims remain unproven. In
1963, however, the ruins of some Norse houses dating from that era were
discovered at L'Anse-aux-Meadows in northern Newfoundland, thus supporting
at least some of the claims the Norse sagas make.
In 1497, just five years after Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean
looking for a western route to Asia, a Venetian sailor named John Cabot
arrived in Newfoundland on a mission for the British king. Although fairly
quickly forgotten, Cabot's journey was later to provide the basis for
British claims to North America. It also opened the way to the rich fishing
grounds off George's Banks, to which European fishermen, particularly the
Portuguese, were soon making regular visits.
Columbus, of course, never saw the mainland United States, but the first
explorations of the continental United States were launched from the Spanish
possessions that he helped establish. The first of these took place in 1513
when a group of men under Juan Ponce de Leon landed on the Florida coast
near the present city of St. Augustine.
With the conquest of Mexico in 1522, the Spanish further solidified their
position in the Western Hemisphere. The ensuing discoveries added to
Europe's knowledge of what was now named America -- after the Italian
Amerigo Vespucci, who wrote a widely popular account of his voyages to a
"New World." By 1529 reliable maps of the Atlantic coastline from Labrador
to Tierra del Fuego had been drawn up, although it would take more than
another century before hope of discovering a "Northwest Passage" to Asia
would be completely abandoned.
Among the most significant early Spanish explorations was that of Hernando
De Soto, a veteran conquistador who had accompanied Francisco Pizzaro during
the conquest of Peru. Leaving Havana in 1539, De Soto's expedition landed in
Florida and ranged through the southeastern United States as far as the
Mississippi River in search of riches.
Another Spaniard, Francisco Coronado, set out from Mexico in 1540 in search
of the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. Coronado's travels took him to the
Grand Canyon and Kansas, but failed to reveal the gold or treasure his men
sought.
However, Coronado's party did leave the peoples of the region a remarkable,
if unintended gift: enough horses escaped from his party to transform life
on the Great Plains. Within a few generations, the Plains Indians had become
masters of horsemanship, greatly expanding the range and scope of their
activities.
While the Spanish were pushing up from the south, the northern portion of
the present-day United States was slowly being revealed through the journeys
of men such as Giovanni da Verrazano. A Florentine who sailed for the
French, Verrazano made landfall in North Carolina in 1524, then sailed north
along the Atlantic coast past what is now New York harbor.
A decade later, the Frenchman Jacques Cartier set sail with the hope -- like
the other Europeans before him -- of finding a sea passage to Asia.
Cartier's expeditions along the St. Lawrence River laid the foundations for
the French claims to North America, which were to last until 1763.
Following the collapse of their first Quebec colony in the 1540s, French
Huguenots attempted to settle the northern coast of Florida two decades
later. The Spanish, viewing the French as a threat to their trade route
along the Gulf Stream, destroyed the colony in 1565. Ironically, the leader
of the Spanish forces, Pedro Menendez, would soon establish a town not far
away -- St. Augustine. It was the first permanent European settlement in
what would become the United States.
The great wealth which poured into Spain from the colonies in Mexico, the
Caribbean and Peru provoked great interest on the part of the other European
powers. With time, emerging maritime nations such as England, drawn in part
by Francis Drake's successful raids on Spanish treasure ships, began to take
interest in the New World.
In 1578 Humphrey Gilbert, the author of a treatise on the search for the
Northwest Passage, received a patent from Queen Elizabeth to colonize the
"heathen and barbarous landes" in the New World which other European nations
had not yet claimed. It would be five years before his efforts could begin.
When he was lost at sea, his half-brother, Walter Raleigh, took up the
mission.
In 1585 Raleigh established the first British colony in North America, on
Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. It was later abandoned, and
a second effort two years later also proved a failure. It would be 20 years
before the British would try again. This time -- at Jamestown in 1607 -- the
colony would succeed, and North America would enter a new era.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS
The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe
to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew
from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a flood of millions of
newcomers. Impelled by powerful and diverse motivations, they built a new
civilization on the northern part of the continent.
The first English immigrants to what is now the United States crossed the
Atlantic long after thriving Spanish colonies had been established in
Mexico, the West Indies and South America. Like all early travelers to the
New World, they came in small, overcrowded ships. During their six- to
12-week voyages, they lived on meager rations. Many died of disease; ships
were often battered by storms and some were lost at sea.
Most European emigrants left their homelands to escape political oppression,
to seek the freedom to practice their religion, or for adventure and
opportunities denied them at home. Between 1620 and 1635, economic
difficulties swept England. Many people could not find work. Even skilled
artisans could earn little more than a bare living. Poor crop yields added
to the distress. In addition, the Industrial Revolution had created a
burgeoning textile industry, which demanded an ever-increasing supply of
wool to keep the looms running. Landlords enclosed farmlands and evicted the
peasants in favor of sheep cultivation. Colonial expansion became an outlet
for this displaced peasant population.
The colonists' first glimpse of the new land was a vista of dense woods. The
settlers might not have survived had it not been for the help of friendly
Indians, who taught them how to grow native plants -- pumpkin, squash, beans
and corn. In addition, the vast, virgin forests, extending nearly 2,100
kilometers along the Eastern seaboard, proved a rich source of game and
firewood. They also provided abundant raw materials used to build houses,
furniture, ships and profitable cargoes for export.
Although the new continent was remarkably endowed by nature, trade with
Europe was vital for articles the settlers could not produce. The coast
served the immigrants well. The whole length of shore provided innumerable
inlets and harbors. Only two areas -- North Carolina and southern New Jersey
-- lacked harbors for ocean-going vessels.
Majestic rivers -- the Kennebec, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac and
numerous others -- linked lands between the coast and the Appalachian
Mountains with the sea. Only one river, however, the St. Lawrence --
dominated by the French in Canada -- offered a water passage to the Great
Lakes and into the heart of the continent. Dense forests, the resistance of
some Indian tribes and the formidable barrier of the Appalachian Mountains
discouraged settlement beyond the coastal plain. Only trappers and traders
ventured into the wilderness. For the first hundred years the colonists
built their settlements compactly along the coast.
Political considerations influenced many people to move to America. In the
1630s, arbitrary rule by England's Charles I gave impetus to the migration
to the New World. The subsequent revolt and triumph of Charles' opponents
under Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s led many cavaliers -- "king's men" -- to
cast their lot in Virginia. In the German-speaking regions of Europe, the
oppressive policies of various petty princes -- particularly with regard to
religion -- and the devastation caused by a long series of wars helped swell
the movement to America in the late 17th and 18th centuries.
The coming of colonists in the 17th century entailed careful planning and
management, as well as considerable expense and risk. Settlers had to be
transported nearly 5,000 kilometers across the sea. They needed utensils,
clothing, seed, tools, building materials, livestock, arms and ammunition.
In contrast to the colonization policies of other countries and other
periods, the emigration from England was not directly sponsored by the
government but by private groups of individuals whose chief motive was
profit.
JAMESTOWN
The first of the British colonies to take hold in North America was
Jamestown. On the basis of a charter which King James I granted to the
Virginia (or London) Company, a group of about 100 men set out for the
Chesapeake Bay in 1607. Seeking to avoid conflict with the Spanish, they
chose a site about 60 kilometers up the James River from the bay.
Made up of townsmen and adventurers more interested in finding gold than
farming, the group was unequipped by temperament or ability to embark upon a
completely new life in the wilderness. Among them, Captain John Smith
emerged as the dominant figure. Despite quarrels, starvation and Indian
attacks, his ability to enforce discipline held the little colony together
through its first year.
In 1609 Smith returned to England, and in his absence, the colony descended
into anarchy. During the winter of 1609-1610, the majority of the colonists
succumbed to disease. Only 60 of the original 300 settlers were still alive
by May 1610. That same year, the town of Henrico (now Richmond) was
established farther up the James River.
It was not long, however, before a development occurred that revolutionized
Virginia's economy. In 1612 John Rolfe began cross-breeding imported tobacco
seed from the West Indies with native plants and produced a new variety that
was pleasing to European taste. The first shipment of this tobacco reached
London in 1614. Within a decade it had become Virginia's chief source of
revenue.
Prosperity did not come quickly, however, and the death rate from disease
and Indian attacks remained extraordinarily high. Between 1607 and 1624
approximately 14,000 people migrated to the colony, yet only 1,132 were
living there in 1624. On recommendation of a royal commission, the king
dissolved the Virginia Company, and made it a royal colony that year.
MASSACHUSETTS
During the religious upheavals of the 16th century, a body of men and women
called Puritans sought to reform the Established Church of England from
within. Essentially, they demanded that the rituals and structures
associated with Roman Catholicism be replaced by simpler Protestant forms of
faith and worship. Their reformist ideas, by destroying the unity of the
state church, threatened to divide the people and to undermine royal
authority.
In 1607 a small group of Separatists -- a radical sect of Puritans who did
not believe the Established Church could ever be reformed -- departed for
Leyden, Holland, where the Dutch granted them asylum. However, the Calvinist
Dutch restricted them mainly to low-paid laboring jobs. Some members of the
congregation grew dissatisfied with this discrimination and resolved to
emigrate to the New World.
In 1620, a group of Leyden Puritans secured a land patent from the Virginia
Company, and a group of 101 men, women and children set out for Virginia on
board the Mayflower. A storm sent them far north and they landed in New
England on Cape Cod. Believing themselves outside the jurisdiction of any
organized government, the men drafted a formal agreement to abide by "just
and equal laws" drafted by leaders of their own choosing. This was the
Mayflower Compact.
In December the Mayflower reached Plymouth harbor; the Pilgrims began to
build their settlement during the winter. Nearly half the colonists died of
exposure and disease, but neighboring Wampanoag Indians provided information
that would sustain them: how to grow maize. By the next fall, the Pilgrims
had a plentiful crop of corn, and a growing trade based on furs and lumber.
A new wave of immigrants arrived on the shores of Massachusetts Bay in 1630
bearing a grant from King Charles I to establish a colony. Many of them were
Puritans whose religious practices were increasingly prohibited in England.
Their leader, John Winthrop, openly set out to create a "city upon a hill"
in the New World. By this he meant a place where Puritans would live in
strict accordance with their religious beliefs.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was to play a significant role in the
development of the entire New England region, in part because Winthrop and
his Puritan colleagues were able to bring their charter with them. Thus the
authority for the colony's government resided in Massachusetts, not in
England.
Under the charter's provisions, power rested with the General Court, which
was made up of "freemen" required to be members of the Puritan Church. This
guaranteed that the Puritans would be the dominant political as well as
religious force in the colony. It was the General Court which elected the
governor. For most of the next generation, this would be John Winthrop.
The rigid orthodoxy of the Puritan rule was not to everyone's liking. One of
the first to challenge the General Court openly was a young clergyman named
Roger Williams, who objected to the colony's seizure of Indian lands and its
relations with the Church of England.
Banished from Massachusetts Bay, he purchased land from the Narragansett
Indians in what is now Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636. There he set up
the first American colony where complete separation of church and state as
well as freedom of religion was practiced.
So-called heretics like Williams were not the only ones who left
Massachusetts. Orthodox Puritans, seeking better lands and opportunities,
soon began leaving Massachusetts Bay Colony. News of the fertility of the
Connecticut River Valley, for instance, attracted the interest of farmers
having a difficult time with poor land. By the early 1630s, many were ready
to brave the danger of Indian attack to obtain level ground and deep, rich
soil. These new communities often eliminated church membership as a
prerequisite for voting, thereby extending the franchise to ever larger
numbers of men.
At the same time, other settlements began cropping up along the New
Hampshire and Maine coasts, as more and more immigrants sought the land and
liberty the New World seemed to offer.
NEW NETHERLAND AND MARYLAND
Hired by the Dutch East India Company, Henry Hudson in 1609 explored the
area around what is now New York City and the river that bears his name, to
a point probably north of Albany, New York. Subsequent Dutch voyages laid
the basis for their claims and early settlements in the area.
Like the French to the north, the first interest of the Dutch was the fur
trade. To this end, the Dutch cultivated close relations with the Five
Nations of the Iroquois who were the key to the heartland from which the
furs came. In 1617 Dutch settlers built a fort at the junction of the Hudson
and the Mohawk Rivers, where Albany now stands.
Settlement on the island of Manhattan began in the early 1620s. In 1624, the
island was purchased from local Indians for the reported price of $24. It
was promptly renamed New Amsterdam.
In order to attract settlers to the Hudson River region, the Dutch
encouraged a type of feudal aristocracy, known as the "patroon" system. The
first of these huge estates were established in 1630 along the Hudson River.
Under the patroon system, any stockholder, or patroon, who could bring 50
adults to his estate over a four-year period was given a 25-kilometer
river-front plot, exclusive fishing and hunting privileges, and civil and
criminal jurisdiction over his lands. In turn, he provided livestock, tools
and buildings. The tenants paid the patroon rent and gave him first option
on surplus crops.
Further to the south, a Swedish trading company with ties to the Dutch
attempted to set up its first settlement along the Delaware River three
years later. Without the resources to consolidate its position, New Sweden
was gradually absorbed into New Netherland, and later, Pennsylvania and
Delaware.
In 1632 the Calvert family obtained a charter for land north of the Potomac
River from King Charles I in what became known as Maryland. As the charter
did not expressly prohibit the establishment of non-Protestant churches, the
family encouraged fellow Catholics to settle there. Maryland's first town,
St. Mary's, was established in 1634 near where the Potomac River flows into
the Chesapeake Bay.
While establishing a refuge for Catholics who were facing increasing
persecution in Anglican England, the Calverts were also interested in
creating profitable estates. To this end, and to avoid trouble with the
British government, they also encouraged Protestant immigration.
The royal charter granted to the Calvert family had a mixture of feudal and
modern elements. On the one hand they had the power to create manorial
estates. On the other, they could only make laws with the consent of freemen
(property holders). They found that in order to attract settlers -- and make
a profit from their holdings -- they had to offer people farms, not just
tenancy on the manorial estates. The number of independent farms grew in
consequence, and their owners demanded a voice in the affairs of the colony.
Maryland's first legislature met in 1635.
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, 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, 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.
SIDEBAR: THE ENDURING MYSTERY OF THE ANASAZI
Time-worn pueblos and dramatic "cliff towns," set amid the stark, rugged
mesas and canyons of Colorado and New Mexico, mark the settlements of some
of the earliest inhabitants of North America, the Anasazi (a Navajo word
meaning "ancient ones").
By 500 A.D. the Anasazi had established some of the first identifiable
villages in the American Southwest, where they hunted and grew crops of
corn, squash and beans. The Anasazi flourished over the centuries,
developing sophisticated dams and irrigation systems; creating a masterful,
distinctive pottery tradition; and carving intricate, multi-room dwellings
into the sheer sides of cliffs that remain among the most striking
archaeological sites in the United States today.
Yet by the year 1300, they had abandoned their settlements, leaving their
pottery, implements, even clothing -- as though they intended to return --
and seemingly disappeared into history. Their homeland remained empty of
human beings for more than a century -- until the arrival of new tribes,
such as the Navajo and the Ute, followed by the Spanish and other European
settlers.
The story of the Anasazi is tied inextricably to the beautiful but harsh
environment in which they chose to live. Early settlements, consisting of
simple pithouses scooped out of the ground, evolved into sunken kivas that
served as meeting and religious sites. Later generations developed the
masonry techniques for building square, stone pueblos. But the most dramatic
change in Anasazi living -- for reasons that are still unclear -- was the
move to the cliff sides below the flat-topped mesas, where the Anasazi
carved their amazing, multilevel dwellings.
The Anasazi lived in a communal society that evolved very slowly over the
centuries. They traded with other peoples in the region, but signs of
warfare are few and isolated. And although the Anasazi certainly had
religious and other leaders, as well as skilled artisans, social or class
distinctions were virtually nonexistent.
Religious and social motives undoubtedly played a part in the building of
the cliff communities and their final abandonment. But the struggle to raise
food in an increasingly difficult environment was probably the paramount
factor. As populations grew, farmers planted larger areas on the mesas,
causing some communities to farm marginal lands, while others left the mesa
tops for the cliffs. But the Anasazi couldn't halt the steady loss of the
land's fertility from constant use, nor withstand the region's cyclical
droughts. Analysis of tree rings, for example, shows that a final drought
lasting 23 years, from 1276 to 1299, finally forced the last groups of
Anasazi to leave permanently.
Although the Anasazi dispersed from their ancestral homeland, they did not
disappear. Their legacy remains in the remarkable archaeological record that
they left behind, and in the Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo peoples who are
their descendants.
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The U. S. Constitution
