Transcript for:
New England Colonization and Conflicts

all right uh so for this next set of lectures that we're going to go through we're going to talk about the colonization as well as the conflicts that are occurring in each of these regions of north america and basically what eventually becomes the 13 colonies so first is of course the new england colonies we're going to go over the development of the massachusetts bay colony rhode island connecticut new hampshire and maine we're going to go kind of colony by colony and talk about how they were established and some of the difficulties they faced and some of the problems that had happened uh politically as well as discussing what goes going on in england and how that affects new england uh and then of course we're going to go into native american warfare because of course there's going to be a lot of social conflict as a result of european culture english culture english culture and um native american culture and this culture clash results in violence and definitely new england had some of the bloodiest battles that occurred so that's going to be a big aspect of what we're going to talk about in this lecture so moving on to our first slide here so the massachusetts bay colony uh much like the pilgrims of plymouth the second massachusetts colony which is the massachusetts bay colony was founded as a religious refuge it was set up by another group of puritans who are referred to as congregationalists so very similar to the pilgrims these puritans believe that the anglican church needed to be cleaned up it needed to be fixed it needed to be purified however they did not think that it was necessary to leave the anglican church but that it was okay to repair it from the inside we don't have to create our own new religious group we can just fix what's broken with the anglican church however they were not accepted in england and so the puritans of the massachusetts bay colony left to establish a utopian-like community of the believers again this is a very common aspect of puritan faith now the leader of this settlement effort is a man by the name of john winthrop winthrop was a lawyer who of course had very strong puritan theological convictions he was very staunch in his religious beliefs and in 1629 king charles the first who is king of england at this time grants a charter to winthrop for the creation of a colony the goal of this colony is to create a perfect religious community founded of course in puritan doctrine which winthrop hoped would be an example to england in fact he stated that the colony would be a city on a hill uh that's a reference to the bible he he wanted his his colony to be an example to england and they would be so great so wholesome and so perfect that they would be welcomed back to england with open arms uh that was kind of the idea he wanted this wasn't supposed to be a permanent settlement but we would come we would make this amazing utopia england would be so pleased with us that they would welcome us back and try and use our model in england but of course that didn't happen another aspect of massachusetts bay colony which really separates it from the plymouth colony is the actual charter itself the charter that winthrop received did not specify that the seat of authority needed to be held by a joint stock company based in england so what this means is that winthrop and the other other settlers are actually able to take the royal charter with them to the massachusetts bay colony and they're actually able to govern themselves from that location uh the other colonies at this point their their authority to rule uh had the the call the charters themselves were still back in england still back in london so this is the first one where they really have a lot of independent authority to do what they want of course we know that jamestown establishes you know the house of burgesses and the mayflower they have their compact but this is definitely by far the most independent of all the governmental systems that exist uh in the colonies at this point in time now in april of 1630 uh this is when of course they launch on their their journey to the new world a group of 700 puritan settlers leave for the colony uh they were primarily family groups uh people that are you know settlers your your average everyday people and of course winthrop is going to be the governor of this colony they sailed over in 11 ships and brought with them various domesticated livestock cows horses pigs and of course tons and tons of supplies this is a large scale endeavor here this is not small this is very large especially compared to the the plymouth colony which only had about 100 people so they arrived first at a very small fishing village called salem on june 12th but then they decided to make their way southward and establish the settlement of boston winthrop established of course a very strict governing system uh with of course with himself as the head and he actually was very worried about the danger that could be wrought through democracy so he did not encourage the voice of the people but more of the rule of the law religion was of course central to the rule of the government as well church and state were intricately linked they were not to be separated in fact they were worried that if you separated the two that your society might crumble uh of course illness is always a problem that a lot of colonies face and it was the same for the massachusetts bay colony in fact there was a smallpox outbreak which caused 200 of the initial settlers to die within the first eight months many of the settlers were not prepared for the difficulty of life on the frontier so they actually decided to turn back and go back to england really the only factor which led to or the main factor which led to the success of the massachusetts bay colony uh is specifically because of the dramatic increase in the number of colonists caused by uh what historians have now termed the great migration and you see it listed there uh from 1620 to 1640 there was a mass migration of puritans leaving england to come to new england settlements settlements in the caribbean basically just getting out of england they were primarily motivated by religious freedom that was offered by the new world of course the king encouraged them to leave this would prevent religious upheaval there was already so much catholic versus anglican debate that they didn't want another voice they didn't want the voice of the puritans just adding to the complexity of everything so like i said despite wanting to be welcomed back home with open arms the king and england is just hoping that all of these people will just leave and that will get rid of the problem so during this time of the great migration around 80 000 puritans leave england of those 80 000 about 20 000 of them come to new england so of course that's a huge massive number of people that are just flooding into the new england colonies one of these settlers was a woman by the name of anne bradstreet and bradstreet as her time in the colonies she actually would go on to write poems about her life about life on the frontier and her own personal struggles uh with faith with of course living in the colonies uh it was it was her coping mechanism her way to deal with uh life and her brother-in-law actually read her work and thought that it was quite good so he decided to take her poems back to england and actually had them published without her knowledge her work was highly praised in london and it was considered the first uh she was the first new world writer and poet um she was the you know the first amazing person of literature to come out of the americas uh even though she was born in england um and had come over uh she was not as well accepted in massachusetts uh really just because puritans believe that women sitting and writing poetry was a form of idleness idleness is a waste of time idleness is a sin uh in general writing is a duty to be taken up by men and this is you know writing records keeping you know law documents and court documents and stuff um despite her writings featuring god and her devotion to her religion um reading the bible is good but sitting and writing poetry not so much so even though she was highly praised in england she did not get the same level of praise in massachusetts now jumping back to the great migration it actually stopped pretty abruptly because of the english civil war basically there was a war between the people of parliament and the royalists the people that supported the king and specifically a puritan man by the name of oliver cromwell took control of the english nation for a time so the king was actually uh deposed uh this conflict caused a just decrease in focus on colonization and the welfare of the royal colonies uh we've got a big huge problem here in england we don't really care what goes on in our colonies right now they're they're not important so they're kind of placed on the back burner um also with the leader of the nation oliver cromwell being a puritan many people didn't feel the need to leave england anymore you know the our leader is a puritan he's going to accept us we can stay uh so this also causes a dramatic decrease in migration to new england and to other uh english colonies uh the war does end uh when charles ii is appointed to the throne so england does end up with a king again and parliament is given more control more power uh the the it's a constitutional monarchy so there's a little bit more balance of power between the crown and parliament and it does allow for more religious freedom in england uh which causes many people to again not feel like they have to leave of course it's not perfect religious freedom uh and some settlers who are religious dissenters do decide that they still want to leave but not as many people are feeling that intense of a push to get out uh the the puritan movement does die down uh because of oliver cromwell's failure as a leader uh it definitely reached his peak while he was in power uh the earth the church of england also kind of in response to this conflict also decides to undergo internal revisions and this actually pleases many of the puritans who wanted the anglican church to be purified they wanted it to be fixed and so they felt you know what they did what we asked them to we can be anglican now so um the puritan movement really dies down in england uh over this time but of course it's still very strong for a lot of these puritan colonies like plymouth like massachusetts and other locations but of course puritans are not the only ones that are leaving england because of religious persecution uh catholics quakers uh and of course anglicans people that want to get involved in the the wealth that the new world has to offer but not necessarily because of religious descent come to massachusetts uh and and everyone is of course getting involved in this not just religious individuals it definitely massachusetts works to diversify uh its exports so it's not just one you know whereas virginia is one commodity it's tobacco that's what we give out massachusetts is a little different they do fur trading they export fish especially with cape cod which is very bountious and it's you know an amazing uh resource uh also lumber is another factor uh or another resource that's exported uh so this diversity also helps to bring individual prosperity to people which actually will come to be a bit of a problem uh for the puritan utopia that they wanted because puritans don't like wealth so when massachusetts bay colony starts to get wealthy it starts to cause some problems and this is something that we'll talk about a little bit in some of our other lectures so moving on to our next colony here we have rhode island uh so europeans had known about the region which would eventually become to be known as rhode island for quite some time in fact it's believed that explorers such as the norse vikings going all the way back to um leif erickson and his expeditions may have actually explored the region uh they never settled but they they think that they may have explored it uh the first european to document his account of rhode island was actually a man by the name of giovanni deverazano and in his description of the land he compared it to the greek island of rhodes and that's basically why it is called rhode island was because verdizano said that it looked so much like the the islands of rhodes and so it had kept that name that area had kept that name from pretty much the beginning now uh it was settled by a man named roger williams williams was a puritan settler who had actually come to massachusetts in 1631 as part of the great migration uh he was a devout separatist puritan though he was one of the ones who believed that we should separate from the church of england and create our own faith as opposed to the congregationalists who just wanted to fix the church but stay inside of it he was also pretty bold in his statements he was not afraid to make his position known and this got him in trouble a little bit with the government in fact his ideas of separation were very very strong in fact he believed that the that true puritans should be completely separated uh specifically they should have a separation of church and state um it's important to note here that uh williams did not want a separation of church and state because he was not a religious person in fact he was incredibly religious his idea of of separation of church and state is part of his ideas of religion that a faith more holy faith should include personal liberty personal freedom you know a person should be willing to choose to follow god in his doctrine as opposed to being forced into worship because it's the law uh in fact he believes that forced worship and coercion of faith through the connection of government and and church was wrong and in fact he felt that this was actually in in god's eyes this was very vile this was a very wicked thing to do uh now williams traveled to salem where he served as a pastor there for a while and then moved on to preach in plymouth his teachings were actually pretty well accepted in plymouth and while he was there he took time to study native american culture and languages and he also started to question why royal charters did not recognize that native american people owned the land and because of that settlers needed to purchase the land in fact he really came to love the indian people and their culture and was a staunch supporter of their rights during this time in plymouth he also developed what was considered a very radical religious idea for puritans uh specifically he questioned the necessity for churches for actual religious buildings and institutions according to his logic if salvation only comes through god's grace and it was part of a personal connection between the believer and god then why would you need a church or a pastor or a minister at all an individual should have the right to simply worship god on their own time and in their own way the church building and structure was not necessary for that uh and and if this is true then there's no such thing as god's true church or true religion because the individual is the church the individual's faith is the the religion if that makes sense uh of course uh they they are not pleased with his uh preachings especially that idea and when he gets back to boston he is actually um he is challenged he is not accepted uh and in fact governor winthrop and members of the general court actually plan to ship him back to england he is spreading radical ideas that could definitely shake the foundations of our colony we've got to get rid of him but before they could do that williams and his wife snuck away and actually headed south uh first they went to plymouth where they actually met with chief massasoit this is the same massasoit that uh helped establish peace relations with the pilgrims uh and he was actually a good friend of williams and he actually protected the two of them during the winter and gave them as well as some of the followers that came with williams some land to live on unfortunately they were warned by the governor of the plymouth colony you have to remember that plymouth and massachusetts were two separate colonies at this time uh that they were still technically within the boundaries of the plymouth colony so to avoid conflict it would be safer for them to move south so he just kind of said gave him a heads up and said hey i don't want to arrest you but it'd be safer for you if you moved southward uh so williams and some of his followers then moved to the area now known as rhode island uh williams actually purchased the land of rhode island from a local narragansett tribe which allowed them of course to ownership of the land the rights of ownership uh they were able to access english goods uh without having to trade with the people of boston they were able to trade with the native americans and the native americans kind of acted as intermediaries to get them the goods that they needed and the narragansett definitely viewed williams as a good ally eventually the capital was established as the settlement of providence uh providence is a religious term uh specifically you know the god's protective care is kind of is what it means so they kind of viewed their settlement as being protected by god uh so another individual who is a bit of a problem maker in boston was a woman by the name of anne hutchinson she was a very outspoken puritan woman she was the wife of a prominent merchant and had raised 13 children in her lifetime she worked as a midwife and hosted religious discussions in her home eventually these religious discussions turned into bi-weekly gatherings which seemed to be more like serving sermons which were given by hutchinson which if you know anything about the puritan church women don't give sermons that's something that men do that is not appropriate for a woman to do hutchinson was very open and passionate about her religious views and some of her congregation actually said that she was a better preacher than many of the male ministers that they knew in a very similar way to williams hutchinson criticized the mandatory attendance of church for all individuals actually all people in the colony were required by law to go to church whether they were puritan or not um she again thought that this this wasn't fair this wasn't right people should go only if they believe only if they're willing to she also did not like the absolute power that was held by ministers and magistrates basically if you were one of these two individuals you you had ultimate authority and again that goes from the strong connection of church and state that existed at the time but the the most threatening aspect of her preaching was her claim that she knew who was saved and who was not and this included ministers of the church in fact she called out a couple of the ministers saying that they were not saved even though they had been telling people that they were now in 1697 hutchinson was of course arrested and she was put in front of an all-male jury on charges of slander she was very pregnant at the time but hutchinson was able to keep up with this minister and even able to perfectly cite bible verses to defend herself completely angering and exhausting governor winthrop in his questioning after two days she finally admitted that she received direct revelation from god this particular um statement or idea was viewed as blasphemy to puritans so she was banished from the colony because of this and in 1638 she her family and 60 of her followers left the massachusetts bay colony they actually moved to a small community just south of providence rhode island uh of course rhode island like i said was kind of a refuge for these religious dissenters so so they were accepted there unfortunately their journey to providence was quite harsh and uh hutchinson uh her child was stillborn uh her critics claimed that this was god's punishment proof that she was wrong uh hutchinson and her followers stayed in rhode island and again it was much more accepting of them until her husband passed away in 1642 so due to this death she and her followers decided to move further south to a settlement called new amsterdam we'll talk about that settlement in uh next week's lectures but then the following year their settlement was attacked by indians which killed her six of her children and nine other of her followers winthrop considered her murder a divine justice uh and her critics also agreed that this was you know god's punishment you know satan has led her to wickedness and evil and this is why she failed essentially uh so the settlement of rhode island actually gained the nickname rogue island from its critics in the massachusetts bay colony they viewed it as a gathering place for you know rebels for riffraff for the the dregs of society but despite this negative view it was actually quite the opposite it was uh amazingly progressive for its time of course as was mentioned it was a haven for persecuted religions uh this includes catholics quakers even jews before these people had colonies of their own it passed laws which abolished trials of witchcraft imprisonment for debt and reduced the numbers of crime punishable by death it also illegalized both white and black slavery by the 1670s it was considered by many people in england to be the most successful region of new england so definitely you can see how kind of opening their minds and opening their perspectives helped them to be a much better colony overall so jumping to our next colonies here uh the the next couple colonies connecticut new hampshire and maine their histories kind of go together so we're just gonna kind of talk about them collectively so hope it doesn't get too confusing here um but going into connecticut's founding it was pretty similar to rhode island and the fact that it was established by someone who didn't like the government in massachusetts uh the man's name was thomas hooker and he was a devout minister but he was not necessarily displeased with the church or displeased with religion it was more he was more bothered by the fact that voting rights were connected to church membership in order to vote you had to be a member of the church so even though the law required that everyone go to church not everyone is a member of the church and so he just didn't feel that this was a very fair thing because if you live here you should be able to vote that's something that you should be able to do um and so uh the dutch had actually been settling in what would be known as connecticut for a while uh but they had not officially established a colony so in 1636 hooker leads a group of followers to establish a new city this city would eventually become hartford connecticut and uh the religion in connecticut was similar to that of massachusetts it was a creation of a christian commonwealth but in accordance with hooker's views on voting all free men were allowed to vote regardless of religion regardless of church attendance the congregation church was the official church and leaders had to govern in a religious manner so it was still there still was a connection of church and state but church was not connected to voting rights uh now new hampshire's colonial history is really connected to the states that are around it uh really connected to other areas which and and these two states are not technically part of the original 13 colonies and we're talking about vermont and maine so the region that would be known as new hampshire was originally part of the massachusetts bay colony the massachusetts colony was was much larger than it is of course the state today the region had actually been explored by john smith and he had actually called it northern virginia so it was actually considered part of the virginia colony at the time but in 1622 uh the council of new england under the permission of king james the first had actually granted a charter to a captain john mason and sir fernando gorges the charter gave these two men quite a large area of land again in the northern region of the massachusetts bay colony these men agreed to divide their grant between the two of them so gorges would control what would eventually become the state of maine and mason created new hampshire uh the first settlements of people of colonists were sent in 1623 but the the legal official charter for new hampshire came in 1629 mason and gorges both proved to be rather weak lord's proprietors they just didn't really know what they were doing they were just given this charter by the king and they were like okay cool now what uh so so it just wasn't very effective mason had passed away in 1635 just before his first visit to the colonies so he actually never made it so there was a huge power vacuum in the region of new hampshire which the massachusetts bay eventually filled in puritans from massachusetts and connecticut began to migrate into the region and in 1641 new hampshire was actually incorporated back into the massachusetts bay colony two years later maine was reincorporated but new hampshire was able to do better than maine it was actually able to regain its personal royal charter in 1679 and the new hampshire grant included the area that would eventually become vermont but vermont was not established until 1776. maine would stay a part of massachusetts until 1820 so that's why both vermont and maine are not considered 13 colonies even though those regions uh did exist and were occupied by colonists uh so again our timeline is kind of jumping around a little bit here uh but during the time of the english civil war uh the colonies like i said they were forgotten they were mismanaged uh people really didn't care what was going on in the colonies because they were so concerned with what was going on in england itself so there was a lot of political problems there was a lot of internal conflict in the colonies they weren't very profitable there were just some serious issues so at the end of the civil war and the monarchy was reinstated with charles ii he could not get the massachusetts bay colony to cooperate with his orders so because they wouldn't cooperate he revoked their charter several months after that he passed away and his successor james ii decided to create what was called the dominion of new england this merged all the new england colonies together into one royal dominion one large colony owned and operated by the government the purpose is to centralize the governmental authority of this colonies or the colonies into one giant colony uh also to help strengthen defense again against native american attack uh but also to support the navigation acts now the navigation acts were certain trading laws which basically prevented colonists from trading with other nations uh particularly the dutch were a huge problem as they were attempting to establish a settlement in new amsterdam uh and there have been other navigation acts which have been in place but definitely the more recent acts were added and made the trade regulations very very strict needless to say people did not like this they were unhappy with it and i'll explain why in a minute uh but a man by the name of sir edmund andros was named the governor of the dominion of new england and the capital was established as boston so what happens as a result of this dominion is that town meetings are severely restricted and local legislatures are disbanned taxes are also increased to deal with some of the financial issues that had occurred in the colonies also land titles are called into question reassessed and many people lose either all of their land or just portions of their land so in general there's just a great deal of unrest there's a great deal of financial issues there is a rise in prices for goods because you when the goods come from england the price increases because you're not allowed to buy from anybody else so because it's kind of a monopoly people can force the prices up there's also an increase in smuggling because people don't want to have to buy from england when they can buy from the dutch who are much cheaper so there's definitely a lot more smuggling going on a lot more illegal acts and there's also just a lot of this causes the people of new england to really just distrust the crown they don't like the government and specifically in massachusetts and really boston there is an a strong attitude of dislike for taxes dislike for the navigation acts and a dislike for the government and the crown times were very difficult for people and specifically the people of boston felt that they were very targeted by what was going on now in 1689 there was another political upheaval in england uh but this was a different uh event this is called the glorious revolution uh james ii's daughter mary and her husband william actually took over the crown but this was a bloodless takeover they basically just came in and said we're in charge now and james who was worried about being killed said okay and backed off uh so when news arrived that king james had been removed the the man that established the dominion of new england the man that we disliked and hated a mob grew up in boston and they actually captured andros the governor of the dominion and replaced him with what they called a council of safety reappointed their own individuals the dominion was officially overthrown and the transition back into royal charter colonies of self-government was not easy but and it was definitely problematic but basically we are the the colonies were broken back up into massachusetts rhode island connecticut and new hampshire so really uh the most important thing to pull from the dominion of new england and the issues that were a result of it was the development of particular attitudes not only in new england but in massachusetts and boston specifically um some of the the main ideas that you see here are a dislike of increase in taxes that are deemed unjust and unfair a dislike of trade restrictions uh dislike of land removal and land seizures uh there's also a distrust of the king and of parliament also mob activity is able to remove a governing authority uh so a lot of these things sound like the ideas that launch the american revolution uh this is this sounds like a small scale practice run of what we see happening in boston during the time of the revolution and it's the same issues that we're going to talk about in our origins of the american revolution lecture there's the same distrusts the same dislikes the same anger uh that that is felt by these people uh because of what happens with the dominion of new england certain ideas and precedents are set for the people of boston although this is of course not the same people who are alive at the time of the revolution the ideas and distrust of the government in england become a really prominent part of boston culture specifically and that's why boston is such a hotbed of rebellion in the 16 or the 1760s and 70s so the you know if you think of it for example the people of boston from the revolution they had parents or they had grandparents that were alive and around when the dominion of new england was uh and or you know possibly great grandparents so just think about the stories that your grandparents told you of things that they disliked when they were young things that the government did that made them angry that perhaps influenced the way you think about government today uh it's it's the same kind of thing so these ideas are really prominent within the the public memory of the people of boston and so uh that's definitely a huge hugely important thing that comes from the dominion of new england uh now jumping to we've gone through our new england colonies here uh jumping to warfare uh definitely the bloodiest and largest conflicts of warfare are in new england as opposed to the other colonies new england is of course one of the one of the older areas that is one of the first to be settled by uh people uh by europeans uh but also there there is some resistance uh and there are some issues that occur and of course the middle and the southern colonies but but definitely the new england colonies is where a lot of battle takes place uh so of course the arrival of more and more english people along the eastern coast uh increases or increases the chance of contact with native american people of course these initial contacts were very peaceful they were very kind but as more and more english come they settle on more and more land they encroach more and more on native american territories it's really only a matter of time before the situation comes to blows and a lot of these disputes are going to be over land as was mentioned native americans specifically native americans in north america really had different cultural beliefs on land ownership uh people didn't own the land it was you know we as a community we as a group uh we all own the land together of course native americans fought about who you know whether you're you know narragansett versus wampanoag who has the right to the land uh but once a certain people have it then the whole group is allowed to to use it uh the european and more importantly the english perspective was that personal ownership and right to the land existed so once i bought the land it's mine i get it nobody else does i put a fence around it and oftentimes land is taken without the consent of native american people uh and of course some people did purchase the land for example roger williams is one uh the pilgrims were others uh but there's also kind of a misunderstanding of what it means to own land so if you tell a native american person oh i want to buy this land then they may not understand that that means i get exclusive rights to the land and you get nothing again just cultural differences and so this really just goes to strain tensions between the two peoples now the first conflict that we're going to talk about here is called the pequot wars tensions have been on the rise with dutch settlers encroaching on native american fur trade as well as wampum and you can see there it's spelled w-a-m-p-u-m uh wampum is a form of exchange uh kind of you know similar to how we have dollar bills today native american people used wampum which were belts that were intricately woven with certain beads and they had very uh significant traditional and cultural value uh and so it was very much supposed to be a native american commodity that was owned and controlled by native americans it wasn't meant for white people to be involved in the trade of wampum so many of native americans with the dutch encroaching on the wampum trade were were really upset by this they didn't like this wampum was was their commodity it was something that didn't belong to the dutch and in western parts of new england including regions of modern day new york the pequot had actually been a dominant power in the region for quite a while and in 1637 some of the settlers in the massachusetts bay colony accused two pequot men of murdering some of their traders uh traders as in you know fur traders a militia organized and burned down an entire pequot village killing all those that attempted to flee they killed hundreds of men women and children this would go on to launch a year of bitter warfare between the pequot and the english along with dutch settlers uh but also native american allies now like uh narragansetts and mohegans joined with uh the europeans to fight against the pequot so there was definitely a lot of conflict in the area but over the course of the war many of the pequot were captured men and boys were sold south to the caribbean and women were kept as household servants and slaves basically the course over the course of this war the whole purpose was a complete and total eradication of the pequot people and their culture and this is unfortunately what happened it was a success for the europeans and definitely a huge huge loss for the pequot now another conflict which occurred uh with the people of the massachusetts bay colony uh was a battle which is not a battle but a conflict which is referred to as king philip's war uh so a bit of background information here as was mentioned in the previous lecture on uh plymouth there was actually long-standing peace between the pilgrims and the wampanoags due to the work of squanto and massasoit when massasoit died he was first succeeded by his son sutta uh who is known by the name of alexander to the english and and like his father alexander tried to maintain peace between the pilgrims and other english settlers he he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and keep relations positive however he uh died pretty young and the the leadership passed through his brother metacom also known as philip to the english because massasoit had asked his sons to take english names so metacom was very displeased with the english settlers and their continual uh encroachment on native american lands more settlers just kept coming and more land was needed and the local people kept getting you know the local indians kept getting pushed out uh tensions were very very high when a particular event sparked war uh so the puritan cellar settlers had established what were called praying towns these towns were basically local indian communities for people who had converted to christianity these native americans were encouraged to take on english names live in english-styled homes and communities dawn english clothing culture language they were basically told to assimilate as part of their religious conversion giving up their more heathen lifestyle for a more holy one um a lot of these people were not forced uh but more of convinced to live this lifestyle um they were encouraged to live in these communities but they didn't have to live there if they didn't want to but other people were forced it really it varied from town to town but many of the people that lived in praying towns were there because they wanted to be and they the indians who lived in these communities were called praying indians and the towns were called praying towns uh so one of these praying indians uh was named john sassamon uh and he was a christian convert as well as harvard educated he was a strong ally to the english and he served as an interpreter for them in the fall of 1647 he warned the plymouth governor that the wampanoag were preparing for war uh he disappeared shortly after that and a few months later he was found murdered in a frozen pond despite having very little little evidence the plymouth governor tried and executed three wampanoags who they believed had murdered sasimon retribution was of course very quick and it launched three years of intense warfare between the wampanoag and it actually spread to other regions of new england it started as local but then it got bigger and bigger uh native americans allied uh on both sides they lied with the wampanoag they allied with the english um and over over the years thousands of native americans and english people were killed uh thousands of homes were destroyed and thousands of livestock animals were killed so this was definitely very messy very bloody uh very bitter fighting by the end of the conflict uh the wampanoag had lost there are just too many english people they just keep coming uh the the wampanoag just can't combat them and also they have native american alliances so that gives the english an edge so uh the population of the wampanoag is reduced by half metacom is tracked down and killed his head is placed on a spike and stays in plymouth for two decades uh not only is this a reminder of their victory you know they can walk by every day and see metacom's head but it also serves as a very intense threat to other native americans who are thinking about doing the same thing so if you're native american you visit plymouth and you see hey if i don't do what they want that might be me or that might be my chief or my people the last set of wars we're going to talk about are the beaver wars this was a conflict primarily between the french and the native americans the english really weren't involved in this uh it took place in regions that the english just weren't settling at this point so the iroquois were the main traitors of furs in the region of new england and canada and beaver pelts were the prime commodity of the fur trade beaver was prized for its very luxurious fur which was incredibly warm as well as waterproof the iroquois were the largest powers in this region of um western new york and parts of canada so because of their power and authority they had prime control of beaver hunting and the beaver fur trade so the war was named after of course the fighting over who had the right to trade beaver uh the french were trying to get in on the trade and didn't like that the iroquois had the monopoly uh so many algonquian people were pulled into the conflict some fought with the french because they were enemies of the iroquois some fought with the iroquois because they didn't want to side with europeans um but there's it's long-term warfare as you can see uh 1629 to 1701 it's it's not necessarily continuous warfare but it's continuous battles continuous skirmishes there are lulls and then it picks up again uh but the there is definitely a significant decrease in the population of iroquois as well as algonquian uh specifically men because they are the ones that fight they are the ones that go to war uh so the the male population is uh specifically decimated uh but the war ends with a treaty and subsequent alliance between the french and iroquois it's actually uh this alliance of the french and iroquois uh that will come to play on the french and indian war uh it's actually when the english start encroaching on land that caused the french as well as the indians to get involved in conflict as we will discuss in that lecture so one of the main factors of native american warfare uh was actually a rise in native american captivity of settlers as was mentioned in the native american lecture especially in iroquois and algonquian culture captured enemies uh would actually be adopted into the tribe specifically if they were women and children men would often be killed to pay the price for those that had died in battle but women and children and even sometimes men would be allowed to survive they would either be sold off to other tribes or adopted into tribes so of course during a time of increased warfare captivity by native americans was very very common this idea completely terrified the settlers of course because a lot of them viewed the native americans as you know as heathens as the devilish as evil so to be captured and forced to live amongst these people uh was definitely a very shocking idea to them uh in in uh european culture prisoners of war were usually they they were kept but for the purpose of eventually returning whether it was returning as part of a trade or returning at the end of conflict uh so this idea of keeping people forever uh was of course very very terrifying uh and so uh because these stories were so scary and it was really hard a lot of people actually started to write down their accounts of captivity uh it was kind of their way after they got out of it of kind of coping with it in fact the first person to write about their captivity was a woman by the name of mary rollinson uh it was considered the first american best seller her work was largely celebrated and it showed for a lot of english people it showed you know the the terror and the dangers of native american captivity um and it was definitely an interesting read and so after mary rollinson's account a lot of other accounts of captivity start coming out and people you know kind of sharing their stories the most famous captivity narrative of the day was that of hannah dustin she was actually captured shortly after giving birth to a child her village was raided by native americans during king williams war and her husband was able to take most of the children and hide them dustin and her maid along with a young boy were kidnapped uh during the raid the natives actually killed her newborn baby by smashing it against a tree for several days they were ventured into the woods uh of course as captives of these native americans but when they fell asleep dustin stole a hatchet and killed 11 of her captors and returned with their scalps uh and she was paid for their scalps she was deemed a hero um very much you know like like the amazons of ancient greece this was amazing and remarkable and you know she did what any good mother would have done but definitely one of the most famous captivity stories and native american captivity narratives uh were just a huge huge part of colonial history and colonial stories uh so overall uh these this wars or these wars with the native americans definitely demonstrate major losses for native american people of course their populations had already been dramatically decreased by diseases but continuous warfare continued to decimate their numbers and more importantly the english the french the europeans they just kept coming they wouldn't stop the native american people simply just couldn't keep up and in the conflicts that followed eastern native american people would start to ally themselves with european powers and so that there was definitely less conflict of europeans versus native americans uh you know for example the french and indian war uh it's the the french ally or the indians ally with the french because they realize that they can't fight off european powers anymore uh and and in general the number of conflicts in new england starts to decrease and native american people eventually just they just leave they just find that there's no way for them to fight because they just don't have the numbers so a lot of them move west and there are a lot of native american tribes that had originally been in you know the eastern coast of the united states that had to migrate more central america or central north america so that they could avoid conflict uh so definitely the the biggest you know uh aspect or the biggest loss is for the native american people they are the ones who really just cannot recover from the violence that ensues in new england