hi everybody by now our narrative of american history should be starting to become more familiar today we'll be talking about the new england settlements and the people we know is the puritans the colonists who came to new england differed dramatically from those who went to the chesapeake colonies of virginia and maryland here we have a painting depicting a group of puritans in prayer getting ready for the journey to the new world where most chesapeake settlers were poor male short-lived indentured servants or wealthy male aristocratic types new england attracted primarily people we would think of as middle class they preserved their freedom because they could pay their own way across the atlantic puritans came from all ranks of english society including a few aristocrats but most were small property holders farmers shopkeepers and skilled artisans the puritan tended to be the self-employed head of a household and when he came to the new world he brought his family with him again vastly different than the chesapeake where women were scarce as calvinist protestants they also espoused a more demanding faith than the anglicanism practiced in virginia known as puritans they meant to purify the protestant faith in england if possible in a new england if necessary this different set of colonists adapted to a colder less abundant but far healthier environment than that found in the chesapeake a northern and hilly land of dense forests sharp slopes stony soils and a short growing season new england demanded hard labor to make a farm and offered little prospect of getting rich but in classic puritan fashion the colonists thanked god for leading them to a land where they had to work hard emigrants who preferred chance to get rich quick could head farther south to virginia puritan values helped the colonists prosper in a demanding land in the process they developed a culture that was both the most entrepreneurial and the most emphatically pious in anglo-america coming for religious rather than commercial reasons as in the chesapeake the puritans still worked with a special zeal to honor their god and to seek rewards that offered reassurance that got approved of their efforts it's where we get the phrase the puritan work ethic new england farms as we see in this sketch as well as workshops counting houses grist mills schools and churches all constituted the puritans effort to glorify god they cherished direct access to holy and printed texts as fundamental to their liberty and identity as english and protestant folk puritans insisted that every individual man and woman should be able to read the bible rather than rely exclusively upon a priesthood for sacred knowledge almost every new england town sustained a public grammar school such as the one we see imagined in this color sketch most women and almost all men could read in new england which was not the case in the mother country or in any other colonial region book ownership primarily of bibles and other religious tracts was more prevalent in new england than anywhere else in the world in the early 17th century the colonists imported most of their books from london but they also established a press the first in english america at cambridge massachusetts in 1640. today it's harvard university press possessed of print and the ability to read it the colonists of new england were anything but passive recipients of religious instruction instead they were demanding participants active in the christian discourse of their culture not infrequently challenging and criticizing their ministers where the mother country england provided too little employment for too many people the new england colonies had too much work for too few colonists most new england farmers had to rely on their own families for the labor to build their especially demanding farms here we have a portrait painting of an early 17th century puritan family it was this reliance on family labor that kept new england more egalitarian and the distribution of property and power than was the case in the tobacco-rich chesapeake where an elite of great planners exploited the labor of servants and ultimately slaves the very first puritan emigrants to new england 102 of them eschewed the title puritan preferring to be known as pilgrims because they were religious separatists where most puritans believed that the anglican church of england could be reformed and cleansed of corruption paving the way for a return home to the mother country someday the pilgrims thought the state church too far sunk into depravity for any hope of reform so they completely separated from it never planning to return other than this difference nothing in terms of religious belief distinguished the pilgrims from their fellow puritans it was in 1620 that the original group of immigrants boarded the famous ship mayflower which we have in this sketch and sailed across the atlantic to establish a town named plymouth on the south shore of massachusetts bay beneficiaries of a devastating epidemic that had recently decimated the coastal indians the pilgrims occupied an abandoned village with conveniently cleared fields in that first harsh winter of 1620 into 1621 half of the newcomers starved and died but thereafter good crops and more immigrants from england stabilized and strengthened the colony within a decade some fifteen hundred english were living at plymouth the pilgrims were the ones who participated in the so-called first thanksgiving between europeans and indians moment captured in this painting in 1630 a second and much larger puritan immigration later called the great migration began under the leadership of john winthrop a genteel lawyer winthrop who we have here in this sketch represented a syndicate of wealthy puritans who obtained a royal charter as the massachusetts bay company unlike the ill-fated virginia company the leaders of the massachusetts bay company quickly relocated themselves with their money charter and records to new england in effect they converted their commercial charter into a self-governing colony three thousand miles away from bishops and king beginning with a settlement named boston john winthrop's puritans established the massachusetts bay colony depicted in this painting on the coast north of plymouth after an initial hungry winter the puritans easily began raising enough food to sustain themselves and numerous new immigrants who followed throughout the decade in new england and this is a critical point the starving time of adjustment proved far shorter and less deadly than in the chesapeake from the coastal towns the colonists expanded into the interior during the 1630s and 1640s creating places as we can see from this map of the region like connecticut rhode island new hampshire and maine about 14 000 english puritans participated in the great migration of the 1630s the moment was brief historically speaking because for the rest of the century from 1640 to 1700 only 7 000 more puritans arrived this means that colonial new england became you know peopled primarily by the descendants of the one great surge of immigrants during the 1630s thus the title great migration another crucial thing about new england in comparison to virginia is that although the environment demanded more labor and provided smaller rewards it also permitted the colonists in new england to live longer and much healthier lives in contrast to the chesapeake tidewater with its long hot and humid summers and low topography new england was a northern and hilly land with a short growing season and faster flowing rivers and streams which discouraged the malaria and dysentery that afflicted virginia planters in new england people who survived childhood could expect to live to about 70 whereas in the chesapeake only a minority survived beyond 45. this healthier longer-lived and more sex-balanced population sustained a rapid growth through natural increase in the chesapeake and in the west indies only continued human imports sustained population growth compared with the rest of the empire new england possessed an unusually homogeneous homogeneous rather colonial population and culture of free white and transplanted english in 1700 new england's colonial population of 91 000 exceeded the 85 000 whites in the chesapeake and the 33 000 whites in the west indies although not the wealthiest english colonial region new england was the healthiest the most populous and the most egalitarian in the distribution of property puritan longed to experience what they called a new birth a transforming infusion of divine grace that liberated people from profound anxiety over their spiritual worthlessness and eternal fate this epiphany-like moment could come as we see depicted in this painting through puritan prayer through upright moral living perhaps just from reading the bible or even listening intently to a sermon all were vehicles by which the hopeful puritan prepared for the possibility of god's saving grace but not even the most devout puritan could claim conversion and salvation as a right and a certainty because as good calvinists they recognize that god alone determined their fate it was predetermined or as calvin put it predestined god saved selectively and arbitrarily rather than universally or as a reward for good behavior puritanism reinforced the values of thrift diligence and especially delayed gratification that were essential to the well-being of the middling sword puritans held that men honored god and proved their own salvation by working hard in their occupation which they called or described as a calling bestowed by god offering a strict code of personal discipline and morality puritanism helped thousands of ordinary people cope with the economic and social turmoil that afflicted england during the early 17th century puritanism liberated people from a sense of helplessness by encouraging effort persistence study and purpose taking on a demanding tension the puritans strove to live in the world without succumbing to worldliness on the one hand puritans hinted that god would reward the diligent and godly with prosperity on the other hand they cautioned that wealth must not be an end unto itself lest carnal temptations overwhelm the ultimate purpose of human life preparation for salvation in the next world puritans denounced conspicuous consumption and covetousness and urged generous donations to spread the gospel but the godly could never escape worldly temptation because puritan virtues help them to accumulate money puritan magistrates strictly enforced laws against gambling blasphemy adultery public drunkenness and sabbath breaking they tried to purify their churches by ousting all conspicuous sinners and by inviting members to monitor one another for consistent morality and sound theology the puritans believed that god held them to a far higher standard than other less godly people they believed that they reaped precious benefits and bore extraordinary burdens in new england because they'd entered into a close and particular contract what they called a covenant with god consequently any hardship or setback demanded a collective reassessment and much individual soul searching to try and understand how they had disappointed god on their passage across the atlantic john winthrop famously told the puritans that they were destined to create what he called a city upon a hill a model christian community that could shine a beacon light back from the new world to the old the puritans would show all of europe how to do protestantism the right way the puritans called their model colony the bible commonwealth of new england since they were certain that their city upon a hill would become a battleground for the fate of all mankind the puritans were equally convinced that satan would try in every way possible to disrupt and destroy their bible commonwealth they felt themselves embroiled in the cosmic struggle between god's will and the devil's wiles although they didn't doubt the ultimate power and eventual triumph of god they still believed that to castigate the unwary among humans god permitted satan to wax powerful at times to teach humans lessons far from a distant abstraction puritans felt this eternal battle between god and satan between good and evil in every act and event that affected their lives and the largest of the new england colonies massachusetts bay and connecticut especially the puritans felt a compelling duty to employ government to punish sinners lest the colonists provoke god by tolerating sin in their midst drawing upon the old testament as well as the english common law the puritan colonies criminalized immorality including breaking the sabbath worshiping idols blaspheming the name of god and as we can see indicated in this drawing from the period practicing magic the puritans were dismayed by people who publicly promoted an alternative form of protestantism they'd emigrated to new england to realize their own ideal of a uniform society and certainly not to champion religious toleration or pluralism in both massachusetts bay and connecticut the puritans prosecuted tried convicted and exiled religious dissenters but the greatest disputes and discontent derived from within puritan ranks as they struggled to balance consensus with their intense pursuit of perfection without bishops and crown to struggle against puritans quickly discovered their many disagreements as good protestants all acknowledged that the bible was fundamental to their social order and that every individual must seek its sacred truths but differing in their interpretations they argued over the proper shape and policies of a so-called bible commonwealth determined men and women who had suffered so much for their faith the colonists did not easily compromise their powerful convictions given the cosmic stakes that they invested in their new home leading puritans feared that compromise would sacrifice their souls and their colony to divine wrath during the early 1630s the salem minister roger williams who we have in this sketch sorely provoked the massachusetts authorities by insisting that they'd not gone far enough in separating themselves from the church of england and the king to evade arrest and deportation back to england williams fled southward with his followers to establish providence the first settlement in what became rhode island later in the 1630s the charismatic and hutchinson who we see depicted in this sketch sparked an even more serious and divisive controversy in massachusetts claiming the powers of prophecy hutchinson led prayer meetings in her boston home attracting hundreds of followers she suggested that most of the ministers and magistrates of the colony were godless hypocrites dangerous to the souls of their congregants and the survival of the bible commonwealth one puritan minister described hutchinson as in his words a woman of haughty and fierce carriage of a nimble wit an active spirit and very valuable tongue more bold than a man in 1637 the leaders of massachusetts bay expelled hutchinson and she took refuge with some of her followers in rhode island which orthodox puritans considered a den of radical heretics by drawing dissidents out of massachusetts and connecticut the rhode island settlements helped to maintain orthodoxy in the two major puritan colonies although the massachusetts leaders like governor winthrop despised rhode island they benefited from it as a safety valve for discontents who otherwise would fester in their midst the theological diversity of rhode island led the colonists there to adopt a policy of religious toleration that was unique in the english world and that attracted baptists quakers and even jews the rhode islanders led by roger williams also sought a separation of church and state from a conviction that any mingling of the two corrupted religion in new england unlike in virginia there was no large indian confederacy like powhatans that the english had to confront the new england indians possessed cultural and linguistic affinities but they lacked any sort of political unity the natives spoke related algonquin languages their many tribes were primarily linguistic and ethnic groups here we have a map that indicates the many different indian peoples that made up the region in southeastern new england the leading tribes were the mohegan and pequot of connecticut the narragansett of rhode island the wampanoag of the plymouth colony and the nipmuck massachusetts and penacook of the massachusetts bay colony the tribes were subdivided into many local bands each consisting of a few hundred people sharing a settled village for part of the year in a common hunting and gathering territory for the rest each band had a leading sacham or chief assisted by a council of lesser sachim's shamans and prestigious warriors here we have an illustration of massasoit the wampanoag sacham who welcomed the pilgrims to plymouth and participated in what was called the first thanksgiving dinner in consultation with his council chief satchems like massasoit assigned cornfields mediated disputes and supervised trade diplomacy and war with outsiders dependent upon consensus and consent the sachim built his influence on persuasion example and generous gift giving rather than on coercion the natives highly productive horticulture supplied most of their diet women built and maintained homes like the one we see in this image known as wigwams here we can see what many of them looked like from the inside some could be quite large an idea of which we can get from this illustration of a new england indian village the indian women of new england gathered firewood tended to the fires butchered and stored the animals and fish that the men brought in and prepared meals women and children also did most of the gathering of shellfish berries roots and herbs in contrast to the colonists who assigned most outside farm work to men indian women planted weeded tended and harvested the crops because the site of women laboring in the fields struck the colonists as strange they depicted native women as drudges because colonists ordinarily saw indian men at their leisure and their villages in the warm months the puritans dismissed them as lazy exploiters of their hard-working women as a consequence of their mobile way of life indians acquired few material possessions and they shared what they had they owned only what they could readily carry through their annual cycle of shifting encampments some clothing and their wooden and stone tools their culture also cherished leisure and generosity more than the laborious accumulation of individual property for display honor and influence accrued to chiefs who gave away food and dear skins rather than to those who hoarded all that they could acquire no one went hungry in an indian village unless all starved with so little to steal and so little need to theft was virtually unknown and no one locked a wigwam indians preserved most of their domain as a commons for hunting and gathering but responded violently to intruding hunters from any rival tribe because land was not a commodity for them the indians neither bought nor sold portions of their domain unless they were induced or compelled to it by the colonists puritans insisted that their christian god meant for them to enjoy the land in reward for their godly industry and to punish the indians for their pagan if not devilish ways the colonists appointed themselves to judge how much land the indians needed which shrank with every passing year to perfect their land titles the leading colonists usually tried to buy tracks of the indians land offering trade goods and return for their marks on paper documents called deeds the english and the indians did not understand the deeds in the same way for the natives did not share the european notion of private property the colonists maintained that by signing deeds the indians gave up every right to the land and had to move out in favor of the purchasers who obtained exclusive possession the indians however regarded their deed as an offer to share the land with the colonists they expected to persist in hunting and fishing where they wished as they pursued their annual cycle of mobility consequently the indians were surprised and offended when colonists abused or arrested natives as trespassers when the indians lashed out against this treatment the colonists saw themselves as unoffending victims obliged to protect themselves against dangerous brutes who could not keep their bargains during the early 1620s the wampanoag indians had hoped to incorporate the plymouth colonists into a mutually beneficial network of exchange and alliance to the surprise and dismay of the wampanoag as the plymouth plymouth colonists grew in number and strength they expanded their settlements and openly treated the indians as inferiors especially after they learned of opicioncano's great indian uprising of 1622 in virginia the plymouth colonists concluded that their own survival depended upon violence and treachery against the indians the first major conflict between the puritans and the indians of new england erupted in 1636 determined to extend their authority into the mystic river valley of southeastern connecticut the puritan leaders demanded that the resident pequod pay a heavy tribute and wamp them give up several of their children as hostages and surrender suspects accused of killing a traitor rebuffed the connecticut plymouth and massachusetts bay colonies declared war and then proceeded to pressure the narragansett and mohegan peoples to help fight the pequot the narragansett in mohegan consented in part from long rivalry with the pequot and in part from a preference for joining the side likely to win is their reward the indian allies meant to strengthen their numbers with pequot prisoners in may 1637 narragansett and mohegan warriors guided the puritan forces deep into the pequot territory to surprise a palisaded village beside the mystic river the winding dark green line on this map shows the route they took the village contained about 70 wigwams and 400 inhabitants mostly women children and old men at the time the puritan forces were led by captains john mason on the left in this illustration and john underhill on the right the puritan force and their indian allies surrounded the sleeping village and set it ablaze shortly before dawn the pequot died either in the flames or in flight from the inferno as they ran into the gunfire and onto the swords of their enemies here we have a few illustrations that sought to capture the event the indiscriminate slaughter contradicted indian custom and shocked the narragansett and mohegan allies of the puritans who'd expected to capture and adopt the women and children it was a lesson they wouldn't forget as news of the violence against the pequot made its way back across the atlantic many puritans in england also criticized the new england colonists for overkill feeling defensive leading colonists insisted that they had done nothing less than god's will william bradford the colonial governor of plymouth during the pequot war who we see in this sketch argued that in his words it was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and scent thereof but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice and they gave the praise thereof to god who had wrought so wonderfully for them thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and given them so speedy a victory regarding war is a test of their godliness the puritans interpreted their especially bloody victory as compelling proof that god had found them worthy during the rest of 1637 mop-up expeditions killed or captured most of the remaining pequot the puritans executed some captives and enslaved others for their own use or for profitable sale in the west indies the colonial leaders of new england formally declared the pequot nation dissolved lacking a collective identity as indians the native peoples of new england committed or continued to think of themselves as members of particular bands and tribes it was a factor that rendered them all vulnerable to colonial manipulation and domination despite the colonists many contentions over lands boundaries and theology the english fundamentally considered themselves a common people sharply distinguished from all indians when push came to shove colonists usually set aside their squabbles to unite in war against the indians unable to unite the various indian bands became shrinking minorities in a land dominated by the rapidly growing colonial population in 1670 the 52 000 colonists across new england outnumbered the region's indians by nearly three to one many indian bands divided over how best to deal with the powerful and treacherous colonists should they fight to remain autonomous indians or should they accept subordination as wards of the english did safety lie in resistance or in submission during the 1620s and 1630s the puritans did little to missionarize among the indians focusing instead on expanding their towns and farms but stung by rebukes from those their fellow puritans back home in the mother country especially over the pequot slaughter some ministers in new england belatedly turned their attention to evangelizing among the indians beginning in the late 1640s the reverend john elliott who we see in this sketch took the lead he began his work over the opposition of many settlers who preferred to destroy the indians the missionaries like elliot sincerely wanted to rescue indians lives from the colonists and saved their souls from hell but the missionary effort demanded that indians surrender their own culture as the price of physical survival here's another sketch depicting elliot evangelizing among the indians because the english simply could not conceive of permitting the indians to remain independent and culturally autonomous peoples they had to convert or die like the franciscans of new spain the puritan missionaries of new england believed that the first and essential step was to oblige the mobile indians to settle down in permanent and delimited communities in permanent compact so-called praying towns the indians could be kept under closer surveillance and under more constant pressure to change their behavior and appearance in praying towns they could also be removed from friends and relatives who refused to change their traditional ways and not incidentally restricting indians to fixed towns freed up additional lands for colonial settlements because the other new england colonies showed little or no interest in the missionary program as we can see on our final map image here the praying towns were largely confined to massachusetts at their peak in 1674 the new england praying towns contained some 1600 indians the puritan missionaries sought from the indians a thorough conversion manifest in virtually every behavior they had to abandon their algonquin names and take new english names the missionaries compelled indian men to cut their hair short in the puritan fashion for they regarded long hair as a sign of pride and vanity since they were quicker to detect in others than in themselves short hair and english attire also set the praying indians apart from their traditionalist brethren above all the missionaries exhorted the indians to adopt the puritan pace and mode of work which meant long days of agricultural labor insisting upon the gendered division of labor favored by the english the missionaries urged the indian men to forsake hunting and fishing in favor of farming the indian women were supposed to withdraw from the cornfields to attend the home and to spin and weave cloth just as english women did obliged to work hard six days a week the praying indians had to rest and worship on the seventh day the sabbath praying towns did not appeal to those indians who belong to the largest and most autonomous bands principally the narragansett mohegan and wampanoag comfortable in their own culture most indians balked at converting to english ways and beliefs but the praying towns did appeal to small and weak bands like the massachusetts nipmuck and penacook which had been especially devastated by the colonial invasion diminished by disease environmental disruption and the settler intrusion they hoped to find in christianity a way to make sense of their recent catastrophes they worked to stabilize their world by seeking new supernatural guides superior to their shamans who had failed to stem the epidemics cattle and settlers and the impressive technology and apparent disease immunities of the english these indians detected a superior form of supernatural power that they desperately hoped to tap for their own use seeking in the new faith a capacity to recover their numbers and power keenly listening to sermons and learning to read the bible translated into their own language some converts became close critics of colonial culture making the bible their own these praying indians put the missionaries on the defensive by noting the many deviations of colonial behavior from christian injunctions most lay puritans continue to distrust the praying indians as treacherous savages with a dangerous veneer of insincere christianity all right so that does it for today next time we'll finish off our discussion of new england and virginia by focusing on a couple of crucial historical events that dramatically shaped the future of the english colonies in north america these were king phillips war and bacon's rebellion we'll also sort of briefly take a look at the last two significant colonies that emerged in the early colonial period pennsylvania and south carolina