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Dominion of New England

Following the period of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth in England, the ‘Restoration’ in 1660 marked the return of Charles II as king, who had been in exile in Europe and then reclaimed the crown of England. The bishops were restored to Parliament, which established a strict Anglican orthodoxy. (Britannia)

After the Restoration, Charles II cast a doubtful eye on the Massachusetts Bay Colony that sometimes ignored English civil law if it conflicted with biblical demands.  (Brooks)

In 1683 Charles insisted that they revise its charter to weaken the influence of biblical teachings and eliminate the stringent voting requirements. The Massachusetts government said no. With that, Charles revoked the charter.  Massachusetts remained in political limbo until 1685, when James II came to the throne. Then conditions grew far worse.  (Brooks)

In an effort to centralize administration of his growing American empire, King James decided on a reorganization of the colonies. He combined several of the northern colonies into one large unit under direct loyal control.  (Brooks)

King James II chose Sir Edmund Andros to govern the Dominion. Andros had previously served as the governor of New York and New Jersey from 1674 to 1681.  (Brooks)

The constitution of the Dominion of New England was determined by the commission and instructions which were issued to Governor Andros and modeled on those given to the governors of the first royal colony, Virginia.  (Barnes)

The Dominion of New England, included Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Plymouth Plantations, New Jersey and New York, both newly acquired from the Dutch.  (Brooks)

The formation of the Dominion of New England was the most complete expression of the British colonial policy in the seventeenth century. (Barnes)

By it England attempted to define the status of the New England colonies, to bring them into a closer relationship with the mother country, and to reform the colonial policy in matters of trade and defense.

The establishment of Dominion government was variously received by the different parties and factions. The moderates, although supporting it at the outset, objected to the great concentration of power in the hands of the governor and council and to their extensive interference with long-established precedents and traditions.

The strict Puritans hated it because it destroyed their theocracy and brought a remodeling of their institutions on the English pattern.  (Barnes)

According to the book The Imperial Executive in America, it was the lack of local legislatures that became the biggest source of strife in the Dominion:

The Dominion of New England did not have a representative assembly. All legislation would be adopted by the governor and council subject to the approval of the king.

William Blathwayt’s assistant, John Povey, accurately surmised that it “will put Sir Edmund to his utmost dexterity” to govern Massachusetts without a representative body.

Andros himself had no aversion to an assembly and in New York had requested the duke to permit him to call such a body. The absence of an assembly was probably the chief reason underlying unrest in Massachusetts.

Even before Andros arrived, [Edward] Randolph had warned the Privy Council that he found “the country dissatisfied for want of an Assembly of Representatives … with power to raise money, and make laws, etc.” Randolph’s suggestions to provide representative government fell on deaf ears.

Boston was chosen as the headquarters of the Dominion of New England. Andros arrived in Boston on December 20, 1686 and immediately took control of the Dominion.

Town meetings were severely restricted, the local legislatures were disbanded and a council was created to assist Andros in governing the colony.  (Brooks)

Andros’ council was based in Boston and distance made it difficult for many of the council members, who were not paid for their service or compensated for their travel expenses, to attend the meetings. As a result, Andros often passed legislation that the council had not even voted on.

One of the first things Andros did as Governor of the Dominion was find a way to raise revenue. In March of 1687, Andros proposed a penny per pound tax for imports, estates and poll taxes. The council opposed this measure but discovered shortly after that Andros had signed it into law without a vote.

The following year, when these taxes failed to raise enough revenue, Andros also raised levies on wine, rum and brandy, which again went against the wishes of many of the councilors.

Also, because the old charter was revoked, all the old land titles were brought into question. All landowners were informed that the titles to their land had been voided. The land now belonged to the king and the landowners were required to petition the government for new titles.  (Brooks)

Other measures Andros took involved cracking down on the smuggling of imports and goods that arose after the passage of the Navigation Act and, due to King James II Declaration of Indulgence, holding Anglican services in the local churches for the first time.

In 1686, Andros founded the King’s Chapel congregation, which was the first Anglican church in colonial New England.

In addition, although the puritan ban on Christmas was lifted in 1681, the puritans still disapproved of Christmas and were offended when Andros attended Christmas services, with sixty redcoats following behind him, the first month he arrived in Boston.

According to the New England Historical Society website, Andros committed a similar offense again on Good Friday:

On March 23, 1687, the Wednesday of Passion Week, Andros ordered his agent to ask for the keys to the Old South Church (then the Third Church) for Anglican services. He was rebuffed. A Puritan delegation visited him to explain why they couldn’t allow it.

On Good Friday, he ordered the sexton to throw open the doors of Old South and ring the bell for ‘those of the Church of England.’ Whether the sexton was persuaded or coerced is not known, but the doors were open, the bell rung and the service held. It was an affront the Puritans would not forgive.

In 1688, when the puritans in Boston refused to sell land to the congregation to build a church on, Andros directed King’s Chapel to be built on public land in the corner of an old puritan burying ground on Tremont street. (In 1749, the original small wooden church built there was eventually replaced with the large granite church that still stands there today.)

The British government also issued a Royalist flag for the Dominion: A white flag with a red cross and a gold crown embossed with the letters J.R.

When New York was added to the Dominion in 1688, the Lieutenant Governor of New York at the time, Thomas Dongan, was dismissed and Andros was sent to New York that summer to establish his commission.

The colonists strongly resented the Dominion of New England and Andros, whom they viewed as greedy and arrogant. Andros offended the puritans when he established the Church of England as the official religion of the colony. He also alienated the non-puritans when he completely abolished the local legislatures, which they had struggled to be included in for years.

When Andros instituted the new taxes, both puritans and non-puritans refused to pay them. The colonists were also angered by the presence of Andros’ small army of soldiers whom they accused of teaching people to “drink, blaspheme, curse and damn.”

The Dominion was disbanded after the Glorious Revolution took place in England, during which James II was pressured to abdicate the throne in December of 1688 after England was invaded by James II’s son-in-law, William of Orange.

On February 13, 1689 his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange, became King and Queen of England. The news sparked a mob to rise up in Boston and overthrow Andros.

The insurgents seized Andros on April 18 and set up a Council for Safety, which was led by Simon Bradstreet and included Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, who later became judges in the Salem Witch Trials.

The council handled affairs in the colony for a few months until official confirmation of a new regime came from William and Mary.

On May 22, the council voted to return the colony to its former puritan-run government. This prompted the other colonies that had been included in the Dominion to assert their independence and reinstate their old charters as well.

The Dominion of New England forever changed the culture of the New England colonies from a strict puritan society independent of Britain into a much more secular royal colony.

Following the failure of the Dominion of New England, in the late-1690s and early-1700s the British government began to follow a policy of salutary neglect, during which it relaxed its enforcement of laws and trade regulations in the colonies.

This came to an end though after the Seven Year’s War in 1763 when the government, saddled with debt from the war, began passing new laws and taxes in the colonies, causing the colonist’s lingering resentment to build until it erupted in the American Revolution in the late 1770s.  (Brooks)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Dominion of New England:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Dominion-of-New-England.pdf

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Corn

Growing, gathering and hunting for food was very important to both the Wampanoag and Pilgrims. For both cultures, good or bad harvests could mean the difference between comfort and hardship.

There were four ways the Wampanoag gathered food during the 1600s and before. These were hunting, fishing, harvesting wild plants and the planting of crops. The Wampanoag have been planting crops for about 1,200 years. 

Corn (what the Wampanoag called ewáchim-neash) was the most important staple food grown by the Wampanoag.

Winthrop wrote: “Nature hath delighted itself to beautify this Corne with a great variety of colours.” The chief variety of native corn (they sometimes called it ‘Indean Corne’) in the Cape Cod area was the northern flint variety usually in either white or yellow colors.

In the northern flint each plant only bore two, relatively short ears with only about eight rows of kernels and 30 to 40 kernels in a row. As Winthrop noted, there was “a great variety of colors including white corn, black corn, cherry red corn, yellow, blue, straw-colored, greenish and speckled.”

These were added to soups and other dishes such as nasaump, a thick and filling food made of corn. Some of the nuts and berries were eaten fresh, while others were dried and stored for future use.

Corn

Archaeologists and botanists long puzzled over the origins of corn domestication, and there were lively debates throughout the early 20th century. Now, the evidence seems clear that corn derives from a wild grass, teosinte.

Around 9,000 years ago, indigenous people in Central America (Mexico and Guatemala) figured out how to modify the wild grass to get it to produce larger seed kernels, finally producing an edible version of the plant. 

Fairly rapidly (in evolutionary terms), the first domesticators shared seeds along their trade routes and corn traveled both north and south. Archeologists have dated the first evidence of corn in the Southwestern United States at about 4,000 years ago. It is thought to have reached the Northeastern United States about 2,100 years ago. 

So by the time the Pilgrims arrived from England on the Mayflower, the Native Americans they met had long been engaged in extensive trade networks that spanned the entire continent.

But the remarkable fact is that the first humans to settle the Americas not only domesticated native plants like corn, squash, beans, tomatoes and more, but they also shared their knowledge of these plants with each other across vast distances.

For the most part, foods were eaten when they were available. Some foods, however, were preserved by drying or smoking. At harvest time, beans would be picked and eaten fresh, or dried and saved for winter food or for seeds. 

All corn would be dried on the cob. Some dried kernels would be removed to parch over a fire and then were pounded into nokehig, a fine corn flour used for a traveling food as well as thickening for soups.  Seeds were saved from all the best plants for planting the following year.

Corn has always been a versatile crop. Easily stored and preserved, it was an essential crop for the Native Americans.

Every part of it could be used, generating no waste at all. The corn itself could be ground into cornmeal for cornbread, corn syrup, and corn pudding. It could be dried out and used to make hominy, where the dried kernels are soaked in a wood ash lye and water solution until they split open, then drained and cooked over a fire.

The husks could be woven into mats or baskets or used to create dolls and other figures. Even the cobs found a use as fuel to burn, as ceremonial rattling sticks, or carved to create darts. Across the Americas, Native peoples bred different varieties and invented literally hundreds of recipes and ways to use corn. Today, corn cultivation is global, and the US is the single largest producer.

The Pilgrims Arrive at Plymouth

When the Wampanoag watched the Mayflower’s passengers come ashore at Patuxet, they did not see them as a threat.

“The Wampanoag had seen many ships before,” explained Tim Turner, Cherokee, manager of Plimoth Plantation’s Wampanoag Homesite and co-owner of Native Plymouth Tours.

“They had seen traders and fishermen, but they had not seen women and children before. In the Wampanoag ways, they never would have brought their women and children into harm. So, they saw them as a peaceful people for that reason.”

But they did not greet them right away either.

Squanto Saved the Pilgrims by Teaching them to Farm and Fish

The first direct contact was made by Samoset, a Monhegan from Maine, who came to the village on March 16, 1621.

Samoset told the Pilgrims that he knew of a Patuxet who could speak better English than he and that he would bring him and others to them.

The next day, he returned with Tisquantum (Squanto), a Wampanoag who befriended and helped the English that spring, showing them how to plant corn, fish and gather berries and nuts.

In the next few days the colonists were visited by several representatives of the Wampanoag, the main Native people in the area.

Squanto was the sole survivor of the Patuxet people, having been abducted by Hunt in 1614 to be sold into slavery in Spain. He had jumped ship and gone to England where he found employment on a trip to Newfoundland and other parts, before returning home in 1618, only to find all his people dead.

Without Squanto’s help and guidance, the Plymouth Colony would not have survived.

The Pilgrims Formed a Plantation

The colonists at Plymouth called their town a “plantation,” a word that comes from the word “plant.”

Farming was a major part of the Pilgrims’ lives.

They grew crops in large open fields. Women planted and tended vegetables and herbs in small gardens behind their houses. Because many of them had come from cities or towns in England with markets, many of the colonists had never farmed or gardened before coming to Plymouth. They were learning to feed themselves.

In Plymouth Colony the colonists’ diet was more varied. In New England, supplies of fish and shellfish were plentiful. Without hunting restrictions, deer, wild fowl, rabbits and other small animals were available to anyone who wanted to hunt them.

The Pilgrims also brought farm animals with them, including pigs, chickens, goats, and later, sheep and cows. These animals provided meat, eggs and dairy products for the colonists.

Families in Plymouth planted enough in their fields to feed themselves. Their main crop was a kind of corn they had never seen before.

The combination of available meat and shellfish, Indian corn and other field crops and garden plants made the Pilgrims’ diet a rich and varied one through most seasons of the year. Like the Wampanoag, however, the colonists experienced seasonal variations. Not all foods were available at every season of the year.

The Pilgrims tried to extend the life of their foods through preservation. Salting, the most common method of preservation, worked well for pork (meat from pigs) and fish. This method was sometimes combined with smoking for meats. Drying was also common. Vinegar pickles and sugar were also occasionally used to preserve foods.

Their lives depended on a good harvest.

Corn Used as Barter

As the years passed, the Pilgrims began to grow more food than they needed to eat.  Farming was not just a way to eat, then, but also a way to get goods that they could trade for sugar, spices, oil, vinegar, clothes, shoes, baskets and gunpowder.

The colonists also traded their extra Indian corn with Native People to get furs. The furs were then sent back to England to be sold. The money they made from selling furs was used to buy many of the goods they imported from England.

Later Construction of Grist Mill

“As also how they did pound their corne in morters, as these people were forcte to doe many years before  they could get a mille.”  (Bradford)

After more than a decade of laboriously grinding corn by hand in wooden mortars, the colony authorized the construction of a water-powered corn grinding mill on Town Brook in 1636.

Colonist John Jenney (who came in on the Little James in 1623) was given permission to run the mill and to take a portion of the corn that was brought for grinding as a payment or “toll.” After his death in 1644 John Jenney left the mill to his wife Sarah. Sarah, and later their son Samuel, ran the mill until 1683.

Nestled alongside Town Brook, and just a short walk from the waterfront and Mayflower II, the Plimoth Grist Mill (aka the Jenney Mill) tells the story of the grist (corn grinding) mill built by the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony.  (The Mill burned down in 1837 and was rebuilt on its original site in 1970.)

Click the following link to a general summary about Corn:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Corn.pdf

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Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers

The English Civil Wars (Great Rebellion (1642-1651)) involved fighting on the British Isles between supporters of the monarchy of Charles I (and his son and successor, Charles II) and opposing groups in each of Charles’s kingdoms, including Parliamentarians in England, Covenanters in Scotland, and Confederates in Ireland.  It was a time when many people were interested in radically reshaping religion, politics and society. (Britannica)

The wars were primarily due to disputes between the Crown and Parliament about how England, Scotland and Ireland should be governed. But they also had religious and social dimensions as people sought answers in a time of turmoil. The wars witnessed the creation of the first national standing army, which had important implications for domestic politics. (British National Army Museum)

The first war was settled with Oliver Cromwell’s victory for Parliamentary forces at the 1645 Battle of Naseby. The second phase ended with Charles I’s’ defeat at the Battle of Preston and his subsequent execution in 1649. Charles’ son, Charles II, then formed an army of English and Scottish Royalists, which prompted Cromwell to invade Scotland in 1650.

The following year, Cromwell shattered the remaining Royalist forces and ended the “wars of the three kingdoms.”  Cromwell, a devout Puritan, was particularly intolerant of Catholics and Quakers, though he is also credited by others for helping to lead Great Britain toward a constitutional government.

The Beginning of the Quakers

In the aftermath of the war, in 1647, 23-year-old George Fox was already a discerning critic of his culture. When human counselors could not fill his spiritual void, he turned to Bible reading and prayer, often in the sanctuary of “hollow trees and lonesome places.”

On some of these occasions he received “openings,” e.g., that attending a university does not make a minister, that “the people, not the steeple, is the church,” and that the same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is their true interpreter.

Fox worked first as a cobbler and then as a partner with a wool and cattle dealer. His integrity brought him commercial success. But the spiritual conflict raged furiously within him until his experience of Christ brought peace. (George Fox University)

One day Fox climbed up desolate Pendle Hill (believed to be a haunt of demons) and saw “a people in white raiment, coming to the Lord.” The vision signified that proclaiming Christ’s power over sin would gather people to the kingdom.

From his spiritual epiphany until 1652, Fox engaged in itinerant ministry, preaching at the close of Puritan meetings, or outdoors before crowds.  (George Fox University)

Historians mark 1652 as the beginning of the Quaker movement.  Zealous young men and women (“the Valiant Sixty”) joined Fox in preaching at fairs, marketplaces, in the fields, in the jails, in the courts, and through the printing press. The Valiant Sixty were a group of early leaders and activists in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

These Quaker missionaries were unusual in their time. Most other preaching was done by well-educated ordained male clergymen, but most of the Valiant Sixty were ordinary farmers and tradesmen, and several of them were women. Although the number of these missionaries is given as 60 the actual number was likely a little higher.

At first these fired-up Christians called themselves “children of the Light,” “publishers of Truth,” or “the camp of the Lord.” (George Fox University)

This was the beginning of the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers.

Persecution of Quakers in England

Persecution in England was severe and swift.

Fox was thrown down church steps, beaten with sticks and once with a brass-bound Bible! He refused to be intimidated, and his courage and physical stamina gave credibility to a central theme of his preaching: the power through Christ to live a holy life. For such preaching, Fox spent six months in Derby jail. Offered release if he would accept a commission in Cromwell’s army, Fox refused, saying Christ had brought him into the “covenant of peace.” For this he was jailed another six months.

Quakers were jailed frequently during the Society’s first forty years. Some historians estimate that 15,000 had been imprisoned by 1689, when the Act of Toleration finally was passed.

If prison were not enough, Quakers would be whipped publicly or have to endure tongue borings and brandings in the government’s efforts to rid England of this sect.  Mutilation of religious rebels was commonplace in England, including cutting off of body parts.

Quakers Coming to the New World

The Quaker movement originated in England, but soon afterwards, the Quakers found their way to America where they were not at first welcomed. In spite of persecution, however, they stood fast and became firmly established during the last quarter of the century. Around 1700 there were already fifty to sixty thousand Quakers in America and about the same number in England. (Nobel Prize)

In 1656, members of the Religious Society of Friends first arrived in Boston from England. While springing from the same religious turmoil that gave rise to the Separatist movement, the Quakers lack respect for hierarchy and believe in man’s ability to achieve his own salvation. Tenets so contrary to orthodox Puritanism quickly turn most New Englanders against them.

Although they were victims of religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans supported the Old World theory that sanctioned it, the need for uniformity of religion in the state. Once in control in New England, they sought to break “the very neck of Schism and vile opinions.” (LOC)

The first known Quakers to arrive in Boston were two women, Ann Austin and Mary Fisher who landed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Quakers believed in the equality of men and women, and they believed that women had a right to preach.

Shortly after they arrived in Boston, eight more Quakers arrived on a ship from England. This group of eight was imprisoned and beaten. While they were in prison, an edict was passed in Boston that any ship’s captain who carried Quakers into Boston would be fined heavily.

The Puritan establishment forced the captain, who had brought the group of eight Quakers to Boston, to take them back to England, under a bond of £500. (Swathmore College)

To the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, Quaker teachings were not just heretical but a direct threat to the authority of the magistrates who governed the colony.

Meanwhile, Quakers had also made their way to neighboring Plymouth Colony. Lawmakers there responded by prohibiting the transporting of Quakers into the colony and authorizing punishment for residents who provided shelter to a Quaker or attended a Quaker meeting.

In spite of these harsh measures, two Quakers began teaching in Sandwich; about 18 families joined what became the first Friends’ Meeting in America. As word spread, Sandwich became a gathering place for Quakers. Colonial authorities responded by seizing any vessel that was headed for Sandwich with Quakers aboard.

As the Quaker presence grew, the governors of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth both took legal steps to prevent Quakers from entering their colonies. Under the Massachusetts Bay charter, the governor had no authority to imprison Quakers.

In late 1656 and 1657, the General Court rectified this situation when it passed a series of laws that outlawed “the cursed sect of heretics commonly called Quakers.”

Captains of ships that brought Quakers to Massachusetts Bay were subject to heavy fines; so was anyone who owned books by Quakers or dared to defend the Quakers’ “devilish opinions.”

As the movement continued to gain adherents, Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth passed even harsher laws. Quakers who persisted in entering the colony were imprisoned, publicly whipped till they bled, and had ears chopped off. Finally, in October of 1658, the Massachusetts General Court passed a law that barred Quakers from the colony “under pain of death.” (MassMoments)

Beginning in 1659 Virginia enacted anti-Quaker laws, including the death penalty for refractory Quakers. Jefferson surmised that “if no capital execution took place here, as did in New England, it was not owing to the moderation of the church, or the spirit of the legislature.”  (Library of Congress)

William Penn’s Colony

William Penn, born in 1644, was the son of a wealthy Admiral in the Royal Navy.  As a young man he joined the Quaker religion, which was illegal since any person who was not a part of the Church of England, the official religion of England, was persecuted as a religious dissenter. This caused Penn to be jailed several times and fight for the right to religious toleration.

After his father’s death, Penn took over the family estate. In May of 1680, Penn petitioned King Charles II for land in the New World.  Persecuted in England for his Quaker faith, Penn wanted to establish a place where people could enjoy freedom of religion.  It was  a “holy experiment” – intended for Quakers but open to everyone. (LOC)

The crown owed William’s late father, Admiral Sir William Penn, for using his own wealth to outfit and feed the British Navy.

Penn approached the King with an offer: Penn would forgive the debt in exchange for land in America. King Charles agreed and granted Penn a Charter on March 4, 1681. Penn wished to call the land “New Wales,” or simply “Sylvania,” Latin for “woods.”

King Charles II insisted that “Penn” precede the word “Sylvania”, in honor of William’s late father to create “Pennsylvania”, or “Penn’s Woods.”

This is where the dream of a colony where Quakers could practice their religion freely became a reality with the founding of Pennsylvania. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

By 1690, the population of the colony numbered about 11,500, that of the principal city, Philadelphia, about 2,000.  Ten years later, the colony had close to 18,000 inhabitants, and Philadelphia over 3,000.

The Society of Friends was never established as the official religion of the colony and Quakers were always a minority, although their influence was predominant in both the government and the early society.

Penn’s hope for a “Holy Experiment” – where Pennsylvanians did well economically while doing good morally and religiously – failed to materialize. Landed gentleman investors did not, in general, emigrate, and their investments went badly. The Society of Free Traders was bankrupt within a few years. Penn, himself, never achieved the profits he expected.

The colony was taken away from Penn in 1693 on suspicion of treasonable association with James II, but returned to him in 1695, initiating yet another charter in 1696.

Although Penn lived until 1718, he only spent four years in Pennsylvania (1682-84 and 1699-1701).

He was bedeviled by personal and financial problems and had to remain in England to attempt to resolve them. He actually spent time in debtors prison. (Philadelphia Encyclopedia)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Quakers.pdf

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King Philip’s War

After coming to anchor in what is today Provincetown harbor in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts, a party of armed men under the command of Captain Myles Standish was sent to explore the immediate area and find a location suitable for settlement.

In December, they went ashore in Plymouth, where they found cleared fields and plentiful running water; a few days later the Mayflower came to anchor in Plymouth harbor, and settlement began.

When the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Harbor on December 16, 1620, the Pilgrims settled in an area that was once Patuxet, a Wampanoag village abandoned four years prior after a deadly outbreak of a plague, brought by European traders who first appeared in the area in 1616.  The plague, however, killed thousands, up to two-thirds, of them.

The English, in fact, did not see the Wampanoag that first winter at all, according to Tim Turner (Cherokee, manager of Plimoth Plantation’s Wampanoag Homesite and co-owner of Native Plymouth Tours), “They saw shadows,” he said.  The first direct contact was made by Samoset, a Monhegan from Maine, who came to the village on March 16, 1621.

Peace Treaty between Wampanoag and the Pilgrims (1621)

In the spring of 1621, Ousamequin, the Massasoit (a title meaning head chief) of the Wampanoag Indians, made a treaty with the Pilgrims who settled at Patuxet (in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts).

Massasoit, who led the Wampanoags for about a half-century, is best remembered for this diplomatic skill and for his successful policy of peaceful co-existence with the English settlers.

The Pilgrim-Wampanoag Peace Treaty was drafted and signed on March 22, 1621 CE between governor John Carver of the Plymouth Colony and the sachem (chief) Ousamequin (better known by his title Massasoit) of the Wampanoag Confederacy.

The main terms of the treaty: the Wampanoag promised to defend the Plymouth settlers against hostile tribes. The settlers promised to step in if the Wampanoag were attacked.

The treaty established peaceful relations between the two parties and would be honored by both sides from the day of its signage until after the death of Massasoit in 1661 CE.  The peace treaty lasted for more than 50 years.

Then, War …

After Massasoit’s death in 1661, his eldest son Wamsutta, later named Alexander, succeeded him. In 1662, the English arrested Alexander on suspicion of plotting war. During questioning, he died, and Metacom (also known as Philip) came to power.

In January 1675, Christian Indian John Sassamon warned Plymouth Colony that Philip planned to attack English settlements. The English ignored the warning and soon found Sassamon’s murdered body in an icy pond.

A jury made up of colonists and Indians found three Wampanoag men guilty for Sassamon’s murder and hanged them on June 8, 1675. Their execution incensed Philip, whom the English had accused of plotting Sassamon’s murder, and ignited tensions between the Wampanoag and the colonists.

“This affair was the signal of war. The two parties had suspected each other so long, that all ties of friendship had been dissolved.”

“A second cause of war was the frequent demands of the settlers for the purchase of his lands. Philip was too wise not to discover that if these continued he would not have a home in all the territories which his father had governed. From a period long before the death of Massasoit, until 1671, no year passed in which large tracts were not obtained by the settlers.”

Between June 20 and June 23, 1675, the Wampanoag carried out a series of raids against the Swansea colony of Massachusetts, killing many colonists and pillaging and destroying property. English officials responded by sending their military to destroy Philip’s home village of Mount Hope, Rhode Island.

The war spread during the summer of 1675 as the Wampanoag, joined by Algonquian warriors, attacked settlements throughout Plymouth Colony.

On September 9, 1675, the New England Confederation declared war against “King” Philip and his followers.

A week later, around 700 Nipmuc Indians ambushed a militia group escorting a wagon train of colonists. Almost all colonists and militia were killed in the fighting, known as the Battle of Bloody Brook.

Hoping to prevent a spring Indian onslaught, Plymouth Colony’s Governor Josiah Winslow gathered the colonial militia and attacked a massive Narragansett and Wampanoag fortification near the Great Swamp in West Kingston, Rhode Island.

“Of the English, there were killed and wounded about two hundred and thirty; and of the Indians, one thousand are supposed to have perished.”  (The History of the United States of North America)

Attacks and counterattacks continued into 1676.

Fear of Enslavement

“In early January 1676, during the height of King Philip’s War in New England, colonial magistrates sent two Christianized Indians into enemy territory as spies. The war had dragged on for more than half a year, and both sides were tired and possibly ready for peace.”

“In particular, the English magistrates wanted these spies to suggest to enemy native groups the possibility of peace and submission to the English, to gauge their openness to such an arrangement.”

“Accordingly, Christian Indians James Quannapaquait and Job Kattenanit set out on a dangerous, month-long trek from Deer Island in the Boston Harbor west into native territory. When they returned, they were full of information regarding the provisions of the “enemy” Indians, their numbers, and their whereabouts.”

“But with regard to the question of surrender, the news did not favor the English.”

“In this short report, Quannapaquait captured one of the most difficult realities of King Philip’s War for native populations fighting against the English: slavery, whether actual or threatened.”

“Unlike most enslaved Africans, who were largely unaware of their destination when they were shipped out from the West African coast, New England Indian captives not only knew where they might be sent, but they often stated it outright: Barbados.”

“And Barbados was not the only destination. … Being shipped out of the country as a slave was perhaps the worst possible fate, but even local slavery and servitude struck fear into the hearts of Indians and threatened to undermine the entire social fabric and kinship networks of regional communities.”

“The threat of enslavement weighed heavily on the psyche of New England’s natives, particularly during King Philip’s War. Far from being a minor consideration, the threat of enslavement was one of the key factors when it came to natives fighting and – later in the war – surrendering.”

Summer 1676 Sees the End of King Philip’s War

By the summer of 1676, fighting was slowly drawing to a close but King Philip still remained at large and the war would not end until he was captured.

Then, in August of 1676, an Indian deserter told Church and his troops that Philip had returned to an old Wampanoag village called Montaup near Mount Hope.

On August 12, Church led a company of soldiers to the area and found Philip’s small camp of warriors near the spot that later came to be known as King Philip’s seat.

Philip tried to flee but a native named John Alderman, an Indian soldier under Church, opened fire on Philip … “the Indian presently shot him through his venomous and murderous heart …”

The war didn’t immediately end with the death of Philip though. In the summer of 1676, the war had spread to Maine and New Hampshire, where the Abenakis attacked some of the towns where colonial traders had cheated them.

Random raids and skirmishes continued in northern New England until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678.  (Fisher)

Scope and Scale of the Impacts of King Philip’s War

“The Pilgrims had come to America not to conquer a continent but to re-create their modest communities in Scrooby and in Leiden. When they arrived at Plymouth in December 1620 and found it emptied of people, it seemed as if God had given them exactly what they were looking for.”

“But as they quickly discovered during that first terrifying fall and winter, New England was far from uninhabited. There were still plenty of Native people, and to ignore or anger them was to risk annihilation.”

“The Pilgrims’ religious beliefs played a dominant role in the decades ahead, but it was their deepening relationship with the Indians that turned them into Americans. By forcing the English to improvise, the Indians prevented Plymouth Colony from ossifying into a monolithic cult of religious extremism.”

“For their part, the Indians were profoundly influenced by the English and quickly created a new and dynamic culture full of Native and Western influences. For a nation that has come to recognize that one of its greatest strengths is its diversity, the first fifty years of Plymouth Colony stand as a model of what America might have been from the very beginning.” (Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War)

“Without Massasoit’s help, the Pilgrims would never have survived the first year, and they remained steadfast supporters of the sachem to the very end. For his part, Massasoit realized almost from the start that his own fortunes were linked to those of the English.” (Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War)

“Philip’s local squabble with Plymouth Colony had mutated into a regionwide war that, on a percentage basis, had done nearly as much as the plagues of 1616–19 to decimate New England’s Native population.”  (Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War)

“During the forty-five months of World War II, the United States lost just under 1 percent of its adult male population; during the Civil War the casualty rate was somewhere between 4 and 5 percent; during the fourteen months of King Philip’s War, Plymouth Colony lost close to 8 percent of its men.”

“But the English losses appear almost inconsequential when compared to those of the Indians. Of a total Native population of approximately 20,000, at least 2,000 had been killed in battle or died of their injuries; 3,000 had died of sickness and starvation, 1,000 had been shipped out of the country as slaves, while an estimated 2,000 eventually fled to either the Iroquois to the west or the Abenakis to the north.”

“Overall, the Native American population of southern New England had sustained a loss of somewhere between 60 and 80 percent.”  (Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War)

Click the following link to a general summary about King Philip’s War:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/King-Philips-War.pdf

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

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English Civil Wars

Queen Elizabeth was followed to the throne by James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. James believed in the absolute power of the monarchy, and he had a rocky relationship with an increasingly vocal and demanding Parliament.

James I was a firm protestant, and in 1604 he expelled all Catholic priests from the island. This was one of the factors which led to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A group of Catholic plotters planned to blow up Parliament when it opened on November 5. However, an anonymous letter betrayed the plot and most of the plotters were captured and executed.

During James I’s reign Protestant groups called Puritans began to gain a sizeable following. Puritans wanted to “purify” the church by paring down church ritual, educating the clergy, and limiting the powers of bishops. King James resisted this last. The powers of the church and king were too closely linked.  “No bishop, no king,” he said.

James i’s attitude toward Parliament was clear. He commented in 1614 that he was surprised his ancestors “should have permitted such an institution to come into existence …. It is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power”.

Charles, the third child and second son of James I, was born in Dunfermline Palace on November 19, 1600. After the death of his older brother, Henry, in 1612, Charles was given the title of Prince of Wales and became the heir to the throne.  James I died on March 27, 1625.

When Charles I ascended to the throne in 1625, the British Isles were divided with several religious, political and social factions that had been growing since the late Tudor period.

Within four years of Charles’s coronation, these had manifested into deep disagreements between king and Parliament. Charles I (1625-49) continued his father’s hostile relationship with Parliament, squabbling over the right to levy taxes. Parliament responded with the Petition of Right in 1628.

It was the most dramatic assertion of the traditional rights of the English people since the Magna Carta. Its basic premise was that no taxes of any kind could be allowed without the permission of Parliament.

Charles I finally had enough, and in 1629 he dissolved Parliament and ruled without it for eleven years.  Some of the ways he raised money during this period were of dubious legality by the standards of the time.  (Most in this section is from David Ross)

Ultimately, the conflict between the King and Parliament led to civil war.

Civil Wars

The English Civil Wars was three wars fought in England between those loyal to Charles I and those supporting Parliament, in 1642–6, 1648 and 1649–51.

They centered around a power struggle between King Charles I and Parliament, with battle lines drawn over deep-seated and complex divisions in politics, religion and economic policy. Families and communities at all levels of society were drawn into the conflict, and many suffered great losses.

At the heart of the upheaval was a radical challenge to the absolute power of the monarch – one which resulted in the only ever execution of a British monarch and the sole period of Republican rule in British history.

The wars forever altered the relationship between monarch and Parliament, stirring questions of power and democracy that led to the long, slow rise of Parliament as the main instrument of power in the land.  (English Heritage)

When Charles I ascended to the throne in 1625, the British Isles were divided with several religious, political and social factions.  There was no single cause of the wars, but three main sources of discontent emerged in the early years of Charles I’s reign, Politics, Religion and Economics.

King versus Parliament

Charles I extended the Ship Money levy from English ports to inland towns. This inclusion of inland towns was construed as a new tax without parliamentary authorization.

Over time, Parliament made increasing demands, which the king refused to meet. Neither side was willing to budge. Finally in 1642 fighting broke out.

The English Civil Wars are traditionally considered to have begun in England in August 1642, when Charles I raised an army against the wishes of Parliament, ostensibly to deal with a rebellion in Ireland. But the period of conflict actually began earlier in Scotland, with the Bishops’ Wars of 1639–40, and in Ireland, with the Ulster rebellion of 1641.

The war began as a series of indecisive skirmishes notable for not much beyond the emergence of a Parliamentary general from East Anglia named Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell transformed his erratic volunteer troops into the disciplined New Model Army.

Throughout the 1640s, war between King and Parliament ravaged England, but it also struck all of the kingdoms held by the house of Stuart – and, in addition to war between the various British and Irish dominions, there was civil war within each of the Stuart states.

For this reason the English Civil Wars might more properly be called the British Civil Wars or the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The wars finally ended in 1651 with the flight of Charles II to France and, with him, the hopes of the British monarchy.

it has been estimated that the conflict in England and Wales claimed about 85,000 lives in combat, with a further 127,000 noncombat deaths (including some 40,000 civilians). The fighting in Scotland and Ireland, where the populations were roughly a fifth of that of England, was more brutal still.

As many as 15,000 civilians perished in Scotland, and a further 137,000 Irish civilians may well have died as a result of the wars there.

In all nearly 200,000 people, or roughly 2.5 percent of the civilian population, lost their lives directly or indirectly as a result of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms during this decade, making the Civil Wars arguably the bloodiest conflict in the history of the British Isles.  (Britannica)

War’s Impact on the American Colonies

The outbreak of civil war between the King and Parliament opened an opportunity for the English state to consolidate its hold over the American colonies.  In 1642, no permanent British North American colony was more than 35 years old. The crown and various proprietors controlled most of the colonies, but settlers from Barbados to Maine enjoyed a great deal of independence.

This was especially true in Massachusetts Bay, where Puritan settlers governed themselves according to the colony’s 1629 charter. Trade in tobacco and naval stores tied the colonies to England economically, as did religion and political culture, but in general the English left the colonies to their own devices.

Older colonies like Virginia and proprietary colonies like Maryland sympathized with the crown. Newer colonies like Massachusetts Bay, populated by religious dissenters taking part in the Great Migration of the 1630s, tended to favor Parliament.

Between 1630-43 large numbers of people emigrated from England as Archbishop Laud tried to impose uniformity on the church. Up to 60,000 people left, one-third of them to the new American colonies. Several areas lost a large part of their populations, and laws were enacted to curb the outflow.

Yet during the war the colonies remained neutral, fearing that support for either side could involve them in war. Even Massachusetts Bay, which nurtured ties to radical Protestants in Parliament, remained neutral.  (American Yawp)

Parliament won the war, Charles I was executed, and England transformed into a republic and protectorate under Oliver Cromwell.

Charles I’s execution in 1649 altered that neutrality. Six colonies, including Virginia and Barbados, declared open allegiance to the dead monarch’s son, Charles II. Parliament responded with an Act in 1650 that leveled an economic embargo on the rebelling colonies, forcing them to accept Parliament’s authority.

England found itself in crisis after the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, leading in time to the reestablishment of the monarchy.

Charles II ruled effectively, but his successor, James II, made several crucial mistakes. Eventually, Parliament again overthrew the authority of their king, this time turning to the Dutch Prince William of Holland and his English bride, Mary, the daughter of James II. This relatively peaceful coup was called the Glorious Revolution.

English colonists in the era of the Glorious Revolution experienced religious and political conflict that reflected transformations in Europe. It was a time of great anxiety for the colonists. In the 1670s, King Charles II tightened English control over America, creating the royal colony of New Hampshire in 1678, and transforming Bermuda into a crown colony in 1684.

James II worked to place the colonies on firmer defensive footing by creating the Dominion of New England in 1686. Colonists had accepted him as king despite his religion but began to suspect him of possessing absolutist ambitions.

The Dominion consolidated the New England colonies plus New York and New Jersey into one administrative unit to counter French Canada, but colonists decried the loss of their individual provinces. The Dominion’s governor, Sir Edmund Andros, did little to assuage fears of arbitrary power when he impressed colonists into military service for a campaign against Maine Indians in early 1687.

In England, James’s push for religious toleration brought him into conflict with Parliament and the Anglican establishment. Fearing that James meant to destroy Protestantism, a group of bishops and Parliamentarians asked William of Orange, the Protestant Dutch Stadtholder, and James’s son-in-law, to invade the country in 1688.

When the king fled to France in December, Parliament invited William and Mary to take the throne, and colonists in America declared allegiance to the new monarchs. They did so in part to maintain order in their respective colonies. As one Virginia official explained, if there was “no King in England, there was no Government here.” A declaration of allegiance was therefore a means toward stability.

More importantly, colonists declared for William and Mary because they believed their ascension marked the rejection of absolutism and confirmed the centrality of Protestantism in English life. Settlers joined in the revolution by overthrowing the Dominion government, restoring the provinces to their previous status, and forcing out the Catholic-dominated Maryland government.

The biggest effect it had on the colonies was probably that it drove at least 3 separate waves of migration from England to America.

Before the war, the bulk of settlers were puritans from east of England came and settled in the northeast. After the war, most were former cavaliers, mostly from the south of England, who settled the Chesapeake and southern coasts.

After the restoration, there was as second wave of “puritans” but this time they were mostly from the north midlands, not east Anglia, who settled Pennsylvania and the surrounding area.  These three areas all had profoundly different cultural attitudes, and settling in America made them starker, not milder.  (American Yawp)

Click the following link to a general summary about English Civil Wars:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/English-Civil-Wars.pdf

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC