9/14/07 Class Notes

• New England (1970s)

-No real boundaries between colonial settlements and Indian territory

- Most Indian tribes on coastal areas were devastated by European diseases so the tribes

needed captives which led to fighting between the tribes

- Many settlers tried to preserve the peace with the Indians- limited trade and contact with

the Indians led to frequent clashes

• Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay

-Tried to convert Indians to Protestant style Puritanism which caused the Indians to resist

-English hunger for Indian land led Indians to know their lives are in danger

• Metacom's (King Phillip's) War

-Breaks out in 1675 after the Plymouth colony executed three Indians for the murder of a

Harvard graduated minister

- The Indians won most of the battles until the Massachusetts Bay Colony and

Connecticut helped out

• After Metacom's War

- English wanted all Indians annihilated, even the converted ones

- New England is nearly broken apart

- The Puritan clergy breaks apart - they can't decided upon which side to take- some say

god is punishing them, others say he is testing them

• Virginia Problems

- Caused by envious whites of Indian lands

- No real lines defining territory (like New England)

- Couldn't distinguish between friendly and hostile Indians

-1670- dispute breaks between a planter and an Indian near Potomac River- results in

the death of an Indian and a planter- the Indians were then chased into Maryland and

the Virginia militia murders both groups of Indians they stumble upon - Virginia and

Maryland militia combine to not them go and don't give them any food, some months

30 Virginians are killed

- Governor Berkeley- represents the crown- wants to do a defensive strategy and builds

a Fall Line -forts on the major rivers- which keeps Indians west/north west of the forts

- He wants to distinguish between friendly and hostile Indians- the frontiersmen

disagree because they want to fight- to reduce contact the governor bans fur trade

but allows his friends to continue with it

- Nathaniel Bacon ignores Berkeley and with a band of whites marches against the

Indians- he arranges for the friendly Indians to wipe out the hostile Indians and then

kills the friendly ones- he is outlawed by Berkeley but comes back when elected for

the House of Burgesses

- Bacon is forced into giving a public apology to Berkeley- he retaliates by putting

Berkeley to gunpoint and forcing him to commission him to general and allow him to

fight the Indians

- Berkley retreats to the eastern shore- Bacon confiscates Berkley's lands- he finds

followers and government is collapsing- when Berkley returns to Jamestown Bacon

burns it down before troops could come to Virginia- he then dies from dysentery and

Berkley returns to England and dies there