CREATING ANGLO-AMERICA
1660-1750
METACOM'S WAR• The Wampanoag and other native New England tribes
were being pressured off of their lands
• Metacom (“King Philip”) began negotiating against Plymouth's interests in 1662
• Spark: report from John Sassamon (a “Praying Indian”)
• Metacom launched an attack on Swansea in June 1675
• War officially declared in September 1675
• War effectively ends with Metacom's death in August 1676: beheaded, drawn, and quartered, and his head is displayed outside of Plymouth for 20 years
METACOM'S WAR• Reactions
• Counterattack in 1676 marked the end of Indian power in Massachusetts Bay
• Indians in area no longer trusted English colonists
• Small, insignificant Indian raids would often set off waves of paranoia in English settlements
• Marks the beginning of a greater American identity– in New England, at least
• Separate and distinct from subjects of Parliament and the Crown
•The memory of war
• “How does someone far from the scene of battle image “savage cruelty” except by thinking the worst?” -- Jill LaPore
PENN’S WOODS
PENNSYLVANIA• The last colony established in the 1600s
• Pennsylvania was established to alleviate a 16,000 pound debt owed by the Stuarts (Charles II’s family) to William Penn’s late father
• Penn got the land as a result
• Penn envisioned a colony of harmony between colonists and Indians
• Haven for spiritual freedom
• Penn was a member of the Quakers and Society of Friends (SoF)
• One of his primary motives was to establish a haven for those trying to escape religious persecution in Europe
• Penn owned all of Pennsylvania’s land and sold it at very low prices
• Very different because he did not grant land outright
QUAKERS• Known also as the Society of
Friends
• Principles
• Each man and woman could communicate directly with God
• Rejected the concept of predestination
• Believers emitted an ‘inner light’
• Regarding Liberty
• Believed that whites, blacks, and Indians were all entitled to liberty
• Religious freedom was a fundamental principle
• Strict moral code
• William Penn attempted to use this as the foundation for his first government in Pennsylvania
WILLIAM PENN
PENNSYLVANIA
• Land Owners
• 600 people initially bought land from Penn (roughly ¾ of a million acres)
• Most of the buyers were Quakers
• Penn recruited immigrants from England, Ireland, Germany, and Wales
• Government
• A majority of the male population could vote
• Males only had to own 50 acres of land to be eligible
• Criminal laws were lax
• Capital punishment for murder and treason only
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BACKCOUNTRYStretched 800 miles
from PA to GA
Migrants spread south and west-- Encouraged by colonial governments
Buffer population
90% of backcountry settlers were British
Nearly 10% German
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BACKCOUNTRYA quarter of a million people from Britain alone
Not a single migration, but waves
2/3 arrive between 1765 and1775
Motives: search for material betterment
Concerns of high rents, low wages, heavy taxes, and short leases given as causes for migration
– No. Ireland conditions so harsh, famine and starvation mentioned as leading causes
A movement of families
Migration organized by profit-seeking agents
Faced intense prejudice upon arrival
Some gentry (1%) and yeoman, but most farmers and laborers
Remarkably few came as servants
Different contemporary descriptions:
“Paying passenger of the middle class”
“Scum of two nations”/ “scum of the universe”
“Very poor”
Three forms of family-- nuclear, extended, and clan
Gender relationships-- decidedly male dominant
“STRANGERS WITHIN THE REALM”
• Germans
• Over 110,000 migrated
• Represented the largest group of non-British immigrants
• Tended to travel in families and greatly enhanced the ethnic and religious diversity of the colonies