Page 110 - ABCTE Study Guide_Neat

In 1607, Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement on the continent. Jamestown was
located about sixty miles from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. The colonists, men and boys employed by
the Virginia Company, chose a site far enough away from the James River to avoid being an easy target
for the Spanish, who were also exploring and staking claims to the region. Almost immediately, the native
Powhatan attacked the English colonists. These fights for land with the Spanish and the Powhatan
presaged a pattern that would last until well after the colonists' War for Independence. Europeans would
struggle with each other and the native peoples for dominance on the continent. One example of these
conflicts is the Pequot War.

The Pequot War

The Dutch, English, and indigenous Pequot peoples all had fur-trading interests in the Connecticut River
valley in the 1630s. When English trader John Oldham was killed in 1636, the Massachusetts Bay Colony
sent forces to retaliate against the Pequots. This touched off a series of bloody battles, with various native
tribes creating alliances with the British and the Pequots.

In 1637, John Mason, with the help of Mohican and Narragansett warriors, attacked a major Pequot fort in
Mystic, Connecticut, and killed some 500 Pequots. By the next year, a coalition of British and native tribes
had tracked down the remaining Pequot. The Mohicans killed Pequot leader Sassacus.

Key Figures in the Colonies

Due to history’s homogenizing forces, we tend to think of the thirteen colonies as a whole. Although
eventually united by their enmity for British rule, the colonies were populated by a wide array of
Europeans. The colonists, from many different social classes and religious groups, came for a variety of
reasons Let’s review some of the leaders and important players in the colonial era.

• John Smith: The first leader of the first British colony at Jamestown, Smith was forced
to return to England in 1609 after being seriously injured in an accident with gunpowder. His
books about New England and the colonies, including the The True Travels, Adventures and
Observations of Captaine John Smith in Europe, Asia, Africa and America stoked English
interest in the colonies. At age fifty-one, Smith died in England.
• William Penn: William Penn, a Quaker, was granted a tract of land in the New World by
Charles II as a payment of a debt that Charles owed to Penn’s father. Penn wanted this new
settlement to be a haven for his fellow Quakers, and the free-thinking government that he
created proved to be a draw for not only his fellow Quakers but also for German, Dutch, and
French settlers who sought religious tolerance. Forced back to England by financial troubles
in 1701, he died in 1718.
• Lord Baltimore: Though he never visited the colony, Lord Baltimore (Cecil Calvert)
governed the colony of Maryland by proxy until his death in 1675.
• Roger Williams: The pastor Roger Williams initially came to Boston to seek religious
freedom, but he quickly ran afoul of the religious establishment, which banished him in 1636.
With a small group of followers, Williams settled a piece of land they called Providence.
(They felt that God had sustained them and guided them there.) Williams was an outspoken
proponent of the separation of church and state and also sought fair treatment for native
peoples in the colonies. He died in 1684.

Slavery

While slavery per se has nothing to do with race, color, or creed, the history of slavery in the United States
is synonymous with the coercion of Africans who were first brought to the colonies in the early 1600s in
Jamestown, Virginia. Some scholars estimate that twelve million Africans were brought to the Americas