New England & Native Resistance

In this lecture, Professor Totten argues the Pilgrims and Puritans were radical separatists and reformers who disagreed with Charles I and his Archbishop William Laud who favored a return of Roman Catholic doctrines in the Church of England. Puritans had unique beliefs and goals that influenced their colonization of New England. The Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth was poorly timed with the near onset of winter and the they suffered greatly. Only the aid of an Native American named Squanto, who had been forcibly abducted and transferred all over the Atlantic World, enabled the Pilgrims to survive. "Plimouth Plantation's" relationship with native tribes was not as cordial as the myth of the first Thanksgiving depicted, as conflict frequently broke out. Though the colony was never financially successful, subsequent waves of Puritan settlers swept into the region, quickly expanding the presence of the English in the face of dwindling native numbers, due to epidemic disease and war.

Puritans suffered less than their English brethren in the Chesapeake, since Puritan families often traveled together and had more property. Unlike the decentralized Chesapeake, Puritan towns were centered around the church and school, to foster literacy in order to pursue religious studies to form a personal relationship with Christ. New England's economy was more balanced than the cash-crop export centered economic of the Chesapeake, though that also meant it yielded fewer profits. The result was a more balanced wealth gap. Without large amounts of capital and no cash crops, native and African slavery was less pronounced in the region. Puritan families worked together, with women serving as "Deputy Husbands," which allowed them greater control over their households. Due to relative balance of genders in New England, women could form tighter social networks with their neighbors to financial, moral, and political support. Premarital sex, abortion, and family planning, though rare, occurred in colonial New England, illustrating the concept of the "prude Puritan" was a myth.

Over time, relations strained between Puritans and Native American tribes. This led to the Puritan-Pequot War and the Mystic River Massacre, where the Puritan militia massacred hundreds of natives after setting fire to a Pequot village. The survivors were sold into slavery across the Atlantic World. Decades later, another conflict, King Phillip's War, broke out due to the abuse heaped upon the Wampanoag tribe. The result killed thousands of settlers and Indians and posed on of the most serious challenges to English colonialism in New England. In the end, the Puritans, aided by native allies, were successful. Metacom, also called King Phillip, was killed, his alliance broke apart, and the survivors were sold into slavery. Thus, New England embarked on a century long project of conveniently forgetting their multi-racial past, as they depicted a "white New England" against a "black South."