Lecture 3: New Colonies
Puritan Refugees: Connecticut
and Rhode Island
 The Puritan migration to New England was
very marked in its effects in the two decades
from 1620 to 1640, after which it declined
sharply for a while.
 The term Great Migration usually refers to
the migration in this period of English settlers,
primarily Puritans to Massachusetts and the
warm islands of the West Indies, especially
the sugar rich island of Barbados, 1630-40.
 They came in family groups, rather than
as isolated individuals and were
motivated chiefly by a quest for freedom
to practice their Puritan religion.
 Famous Puritans:
 Thomas Hooker
 Roger Williams
 Anne Hutchinson
Propriety Colonies: Maryland
and Pennsylvania
 Maryland named after the King of
England's wife Henrietta Maria, who was a
catholic.
 Many of the people living in Maryland
practiced the catholic faith making it unique
in the colonies as most were protestants.
 Its economy was based on tobacco.
Pennsylvania
 Given land by King Charles the II as payment,
William Penn was giving a large pact of land west
of the Delaware River.
 Penn and his family belonged to the Quaker sect, a
religious group that favored religious toleration
and pacifism.
 The Quakers had been prosecuted in England for
their unwillingness to pay taxes to support the
English military or the church.
 This led to Penn opening up his colony for anyone
who was being persecuted.
 Pennsylvania attracted many farmers from
Germany and England.
 Philadelphia comes from the Greek
meaning “city of brotherly love.”
The Carolinas
 Named after King Charles II
 The economy was based on tobacco plantations.
 By 1675 North Carolina had a population of over
5,000.
 Settlers from the overcrowded islands of Barbados
founded another colony.
 The settlers brought over many slaves who made
up almost half of the colony’s population.
New York
 During the early 17th century the independent
Netherlands established a fur trading colony along
the Hudson river-at the tip of Manhattan Islandcalled New Amsterdam.
 The Dutch West-India Company’s alliance with
the Iroquois soon enabled it to dominate the fur
trade throughout the Great Lakes.
Societies in Conflict
 Relations between the colonists and native
Americans were at first peaceful, but with new
diseases and the need for expansion, violence once
again reared its head.
 Major Conflict include:
 King Philips War 1675
 Nathanial Bacon’s Rebellion 1676
 Salem Witch Trials 1692
 King William’s War 1689
King Philips War
 King Philip's War, sometimes called
Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or
Metacom's Rebellion,[1] was an armed
conflict between Native American
inhabitants of present-day southern New
England and English colonists and their
Native American allies in 1675-1676.
 The war is named after the main leader of the
Native American side, Metacomet, known to
the English as "King Philip".
 Major Benjamin Church emerged as the
Puritan hero of the war; it was his company of
Puritan rangers and Native American allies
that finally hunted down and killed King Philip
on August 12, 1676.
 The war continued in northern New England
(primarily on the Maine frontier) after King Philip
was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay
in April 1678.
 The war was the single greatest calamity to occur
in seventeenth-century Puritan New England.
 In little over a year, nearly half of the region's
towns were destroyed, its economy was all but
ruined, and much of its population was killed,
including one-tenth of all men available for
military service.[5]
 Proportionately, it was one of the bloodiest
and costliest wars in the history of North
America.
 More than half of New England's ninety
towns were assaulted by Native American
warriors.
 King Philip's War was the beginning of the
development of a greater American identity,
for the trials and tribulations suffered by the
colonists gave them a group identity separate
and distinct from subjects of the English
Crown.
Bacons Rebellion
 Bacon's Rebellion was an uprising in 1676 in the
Virginia Colony in North America, led by a 29year-old planter Nathaniel Bacon.
 About a thousand Virginians rose because they
resented Virginia Governor William Berkeley's
friendly policies towards the Native Americans.
 When Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of
Indian attacks on frontier settlements, others took
matters into their own hands, attacking Indians,
chasing Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia, and
torching the capitol.
 It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in
which discontented frontiersmen took part; a similar
uprising in Maryland occurred later that year.
 A protest against raids on the frontier; some
historians also consider it a power play by Bacon
against Berkeley, and his policies of favoring his own
court.
 Their alliance disturbed the ruling class, who
responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery.
 While the farmers did not succeed in their goal of
driving Native Americans from Virginia, the rebellion
did result in Berkeley being recalled to England.
Salem Witch Scare
Salem Witch Trials…
 In 1691 several young women in the
Massachusetts port of Salem were accused of
witchcraft.
 Throughout 1692 the community was in turmoil,
with over 100 women and a few men accused of
involvement in witchcraft.
 20 individuals were convicted and executed before
the new governor ordered a halt to the trials.
 Most commonly those accused of witchcraft were
old women, unmarried or widowed, who were
denounced by their neighbors out of fear and
jealousy.
 The accused came from the more prosperous
commercial parts of the town and were members
of religious minorities, such as Anglicans and
Quakers.
 Their accusers were largely from areas of the town
that were suffering economically, and were mostly
Puritans.
King William’s War
 In the final decade of the 17th cent a lengthy
struggle began b/w France and England for control
of North America.
 The first part of the conflict, known in North
America as King William’s War, began in 1689
when a combined force of English and Iroquois
attacked Montreal.
 The French who were allied with the Algonquins
also raided frontier settlements.
 The importance of this war is that it foreshadowed
the imperial struggle of the 18th cent and led
governments to increase their control over the
American colonies in order to ensure a more
coordinated defence.
 In 1701, the English took direct control over the
proprietary colonies, ensuring that each colony
had a royal governor.
Emerging Patterns
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Impact of contact b/w natives and colonists.
Natives struggle to adapt
Equality disappearing b/w groups
People came for economic and religious freedom
Differences were emerging between urban and
frontier society
Check your understanding
1. What reasons did Anne Hutchinson and Roger
Williams have for leaving Massachusetts and
establishing a colony in Rhode Island?
2. Why were the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania
founded?
3. What were the common factors in King Philips War,
Bacons Rebellion, and other conflicts with Native
Americans?
4. How did the Iroquois use their relations with the
English?
5. What relationships are shown between the Native
Americans and the English and French in King
Williams War?