Episode 2: The Colonial Period
In around fifty posts, we will go over the basics of U.S. History and give a brief overview of the main events that occurred from the first settlers arriving in America to the modern-day. This series is based on the AP U.S. History curriculum.
In today’s post, we are going to cram almost 200 years of American history into one post. Continuing on from the previous post, we are going to continue our discussion on the American colonial period. As this section is generally glossed over in most cases, we will only cover the major events of the colonial period.
One of the worst relationships between two groups of people in American history was probably that of Native Americans and the colonists. Obviously, when the British settlers got to Virginia, the land was already inhabited by numerous Native American tribes under the leadership of Chief Wahunsenacawh, who the English called Chief Powhattan.
Because Powhattan quickly saw that the colonists were useful in that they had guns and weapons, he decided to help them as he also found that the colonists were clueless in growing and finding food. Trade was established between the two groups of people at the time. For example, the Indians gave the colonists food and furs in exchange for metals, guns, cloth, and iron tools. Unfortunately, this upset the balance within the Indians, as the Indians now spent time trying to fulfill colonists’ requests, causing tension among tribes over hunting grounds and animals, which now involved guns. Also, the colonists’ farm animals kept eating the Indians’ crops, which upset the Indians. This led to tension between the Indians and the colonists.
At one point, a colonist named John Smith was captured by the Indians, who had to be rescued by Powhattan’s daughter. Later, after Smith was injured by an explosion and went back to England, the relationship between the Indians and colonists quickly deteriorated. For example, the colonists started stealing the Indians’ crops and massacring Indians.
In 1622, Indians realized that as more and more colonists came, they were there to intrude their land, not trade. An uprising caused by the Indians failed as the British colonists fought back, and later, after another failed uprising in 1644, over 2,000 Native Americans were forced off their land and into the west of Virginia.
In New England, although the Pilgrims first had to rely on Indians for food, their relationship began to deteriorate later, too. For example, the New England settlers were afraid that women would try and live with the Indians, so the Mass. General Court imposed harsh labor punishments for those who decided to live with the Indians. This resulted in anti-Indian sentiment. By 1637, conflict broke out between the two groups after the Pequot people killed a British fur trader, resulting in 500 Pequot people dying. The Indians always had to lower hand as they had inferior weapons and less manpower.
Another conflict broke out in 1675 between Native Americans and the colonists, which almost wiped out all of New England’s colonies. Thousands died.
Besides Native American-Colonist relations, a lot went on during the colonial period. Besides the British, the Dutch also founded the colony of New Amsterdam (now New York) for business in 1624. It was taken over by the British in 1664, creating New York. The population there grew, but women and black people had it worse off than when the Dutch ruled.
A colony in Pennsylvania was also founded, originally intending to be a ground for Quakers, a Christian group. In 1737, Indians agreed to cede a piece of land to the British, bounded by the area a man could walk in 36 hours. However, the governor used lots of fast runners to mark out a large piece of land. The Quakers were also extremely opposed to slavery and tolerated religious freedom, which attracted immigrants.
Slave labor was also first used in South Carolina, where the Spanish had set up a colony. We will discuss slavery in-depth in a historical context in a future post, but you can also check out our post on slavery here.
A rebellion and rising up occurred when Nathaniel Bacon rebelled against Berkeley, the governor of Virginia. The rebellion had to be quelled by British warships. This led to a desire from Britain to control the colonies more. For example, the governor of Massachusetts would be appointed by England, rather than established there by the colonists themselves.
In New England, due to a lack of Indians and disease, the colonial population grew very quickly. As most farms there were not huge plantations, but rather small farms, land ran out quickly and cities began to form. Local manufacturing began to form, especially cloth and metalworking. Society at the time, though, was very male-dominated. Most landowners were males, and females were generally confined to work inside the house. Especially if you were poor at the time (although it was way better than in Europe), women had grueling work and hard labor. Although there was a small elite class, it was nothing like in Europe. The divide was way less than in Europe.
In the next post, we will start talking about the French and Indian War and begin discussing the Revolution. Make sure to follow the blog so you don’t miss it.
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