Chapter 3 - Creating New Social Orders: Colonial Societies, 1500–1700 (Video Notes)
3.1 Spanish Exploration and Colonial Society
KEY CONTEXTS
In the 1500s–1600s, Spain expanded from the Caribbean/Florida into the Americas and the Philippines, imagining mountains of gold and silver and converting thousands of Native Americans to Catholicism.
Spanish colonial society was highly hierarchical (patriarchy): men ruled family, society, and government; women occupied a lower status; Native peoples and Africans were positioned below Spaniards.
Disease devastated indigenous populations far more than direct warfare: e.g., smallpox caused massive losses across regions where the Spanish settled.
Encomienda system: authorities assigned Native workers to mine or work plantations with a promise of defense and Christian instruction; in reality, it exploited Native labor. It was later replaced by the repartimiento, which required Native towns to supply labor pools for Spanish overlords.
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA: First permanent outpost after earlier 1513 claim by Juan Ponce de León (Pascua Florida). Fort Caroline (French Huguenot settlement) was attacked in 1562, leading to Spanish consolidation.
The Florida contest illustrates how European rivalries spilled into the Americas and intersected with Catholic–Protestant conflict.
Timucua populations suffered catastrophic declines due to disease and conquest; by 1590 Timucua populations fell from ~200,000 to ~50,000, and by 1700 only ~1,000 remained.
Castillo de San Marcos (constructed 1672–1695) became the stone fort intended to defend St. Augustine.
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO: Founded in 1610 as the capital of the Kingdom of New Mexico, part of New Spain. Franciscans led religious conversion among Pueblo peoples; the Pueblo resisted and revolted in 1680 (Pueblo Revolt), briefly expelling the Spanish before 1692 reassertion.
Pueblo Revolt (1680): coordinated uprising led by Popé; killed over 400 Spaniards and drove settlers south to Mexico. Reassertion of control in 1692 by the Spanish.
The Pueblo Revolt is framed in terms of conflict between Native autonomy and Spanish religious and political control.
The Spanish faced English pressure in Florida; Drake’s 1586 attack demonstrated vulnerability, prompting later fortifications (e.g., Castillo de San Marcos).
DETAILED NARRATIVE POINTS
The Timucua, Timucua displacement from Seloy during the 1560s–1570s, and success of Catholic conversion efforts amid devastating demographic losses.
The interwoven goals of religious conquest and political control shaped colonial policy and local resistance.
The role of missionaries (Catholic) in the Spanish approach to colonization and their documentation (e.g., Jesuit Relations for New France; Franciscans for Spanish territories).
SIGNIFICANCE & CONNECTIONS
The Spanish model establishes the pattern of empire-building that foregrounded religious legitimation, hierarchical social structure, and extractive labor systems.
The encounter with Native polities and the introduction of European diseases reshaped Indigenous societies and demographic landscapes.
The Florida theater foreshadows the broader pattern of colonial competition among Iberian, English, and other European powers in the Atlantic world.
NOTES ON ETHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
The encomienda and repartimiento systems reflect early modern justifications for coerced labor and racialized hierarchies.
Religious conquests often legitimated political rule and exploitation, while also catalyzing cross-cultural contact, exchange, and resistance.
NUMERICAL REFERENCES AND DATES (LaTeX format)
Fort Caroline attacked in 1562; St. Augustine founded in 1565.
Timucua population declined from ~200{,}000 pre-contact to ~50{,}000 by 1590; ~1{,}000 remaining by 1700.
Castillo de San Marcos constructed between 1672 and 1695.
Drake attack on St. Augustine occurred in 1586.
Ponce de León named Pascua Florida in 1513.
3.2 Colonial Rivalries: Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions
OVERVIEW
Seventeenth-century French and Dutch colonies were relatively small compared to Spain; both empires focused on fur trade and missionary activity.
New France: primarily along the St. Lawrence; beaver fur trade extended into interior regions; Jesuit missionaries attempted conversions; Jesuit Relations documented interactions and conversions with Algonquian and later Iroquois.
New Netherland: centered on Manhattan Island, the Hudson River Valley, Long Island, and later parts of New Jersey; fur trading under the Dutch West India Company; Fort Amsterdam and New Amsterdam; Wall Street originates from a defensive wall built by enslaved Africans and local laborers.
Dutch contact extended to New Sweden along the Delaware River (later acquired by Stuyvesant in 1655); religious tolerance in New Netherland allowed a diverse settler population, including Jews.
DUTCH COLONY DETAILS
Peter Stuyvesant (1647–1664) expanded New Netherland; governance by the Dutch West India Company; importation of enslaved Africans (~450 enslaved individuals between 1626 and 1664) due to labor shortages.
Population remained small; by 1664 about 9{,}000 residents; labor shortage addressed via enslaved labor and immigration from other regions (German, Swedish, Danish, English).
Bead and fur trade linked to European markets; furs sent down the Hudson to New Amsterdam; fur trade networks extended into interior routes via Native linkages.
Why the patroon system mattered: large land grants (patroons) with obligations to bring in settlers (e.g., Kiliaen van Rensselaer; land holdings around Albany). Pattern created a wide disparity between wealthy patroons and tenant farmers.
FRENCH COLONY DETAILS
Cartier and Champlain initiated early French contact and settlements; Quebec established as a fur-trading outpost by Champlain.
The Beaver Wars (mid-17th century) linked to competition with Iroquois and reliance on Algonquian alliances; Native and European powers often supported rival Indigenous groups with European weapons.
Jesuits in New France: small in number (around 40 priests by the late 17th century), documented progress via Jesuit Relations; notable figure: Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk convert later canonized in 2012; the process illustrates colonial religious ambitions and Native responses.
COMMERCE & CONVERSION IN NEW FRANCE
French reliance on Algonquian partners for fur trade; Algonquian allies aided by French firearms against Iroquois; Iroquois aligned with Dutch trade networks.
The Jesuits’ missionary work included detailed annual reports on conversion progress and Native life.
SIGNIFICANCE & CONNECTIONS
French and Dutch colonial strategies illustrate competition over beaver pelts and trade networks in North America, shaping imperial boundaries before major English expansion.
European religious orders (Jesuits for France, Catholic missionaries elsewhere) played central roles in cultural contact and conflict, producing primary-sourced narratives (Jesuit Relations).
NOTES ON ETHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
Trade-driven colonization created complex cross-cultural relations, often leveraging Native political structures and weapons; violence (e.g., Beaver Wars) shaped Indigenous power dynamics.
Religious conversion remained a double-edged tool: spiritual aims coexisted with political and economic objectives.
IMPORTANT TERMS AND DATES (LaTeX)
New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island; Fort Amsterdam; Stuyvesant era: 1647--1664.
New Sweden acquisition by New Netherland: 1655.
Beaver Wars centered in the 17th century.
Champlain’s Quebec established in the 1608 timeframe (noted in context of early French fur trade).
3.3 English Settlements in America
OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS
The English settled in the Chesapeake Bay colonies (Virginia, Maryland) for economic opportunity (notably tobacco) and in New England for religious motives (Puritans seeking to build a model Protestant society).
By the 1640s–1650s, the English faced internal religious and political upheavals at home that affected governance in the Atlantic colonies.
CHESAPEAKE COLONIES: VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND
Early Jamestown struggles: food shortages, disease, and conflict with Powhatan; John Smith asserted strong, near-dictatorial leadership; starvation winters (the “ starving time” in the winter of 1609--1610).
Joint-stock backing by the Virginia Company of London; emphasis on profit for shareholders; initial focus on gold rather than sustainable agriculture.
1619: arrival of enslaved Africans (initially treated as servants rather than lifelong slaves); a pivotal moment in the development of race-based slavery.
Tobacco economy becomes the foundation for economic stability: export to England begins in 1614; tobacco becomes the primary cash crop.
Growth of the headright system: 50 acres to settlers who paid their own passage; an additional 50 per servant or family member they brought.
Labor systems: early reliance on indentured servitude (periods typically 5–7 years) with “freedom dues” including land in some cases; indentured servants faced harsh conditions and legal vulnerability; women often faced unique dangers in the bachelor-dominated colonies.
Anglo-Powhatan Wars: First (1609--1614) and Second (1620s) wars; Pocahontas (also known as Matoaka) married to John Rolfe in 1613, a turning point in easing tensions; she later visited England and died there; evidence circulated via contemporary portraits (e.g., Pocahontas engraving, 1616).
The Third Anglo-Powhatan War (1644–1646) culminated in Powhatan defeat and submission to colonial authority.
The Rise of Slavery in the Chesapeake: transition from indentured servitude to chattel slavery by the late 17th century, with 1680s laws restricting Black freedom and legitimizing lifelong slavery; Bacon’s Rebellion (led by Nathaniel Bacon, 1674 onward) accelerated this transition by increasing fear of armed White and Black laborers forming alliances against colonial elites.
BACON’S REBELLION AND ITS AFTERMATH
1675: Susquehannock attack Virginia frontier settlements; 1676: Bacon’s forces attacked Susquehannock without Berkeley’s authorization; Bacon forced the governor to flee, Jamestown burned; Bacon died in 1676, ending the rebellion.
Rebellion highlighted class tensions and fears of Native conflicts; influenced royal intervention and eventually the shift toward racialized slavery to stabilize labor forces and divide White and Black laborers.
PURITAN NEW ENGLAND
Puritans sought to reform the Church of England and create a model Protestant society in New England; Plymouth (1620) and Massachusetts Bay (1629 onward) as core colonies.
The Mayflower Compact (1620) established a civil body politic with self-governance, later cited as a foundational document in American political development: 1620.
Massachusetts Bay’s charter and framing language envisioned a religiously governed society; Winthrop’s vision of a “city upon a hill” (John Winthrop, leader of the colony) expressed the aim of moral exemplary governance.
Literacy and printing: Puritans emphasized literacy to read the Bible; Bay Psalm Book (1640) as the first book published in English America; printing press established in 1636.
Internal religious dissent and governance: Roger Williams founded Rhode Island after banishment for questioning land acquisition and church-state boundaries; Anne Hutchinson banished for challenging church doctrine; Hutchinson died with Algonquian allies in 1642–43.
Salem Witch Trials (1692): mass accusations and executions; connections to social disruption and religious extremism in the late colonial period.
NATIVE-ENGLISH RELATIONS IN NEW ENGLAND
John Eliot’s missionary work aimed at translating the Bible into Algonquian and establishing praying towns (1663 missionary Bible translation).
King Philip’s War (1675–1676): Metacomet/King Philip led a major Native alliance against English expansion; Puritans prevailed but at great cost; many captives trafficked to the West Indies.
The war reshaped colonial attitudes toward Native peoples and contributed to later racialized tropes and policies.
MARY ROWLANDSON AND CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES
Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative (1682) documented experiences during King Philip’s War; the narrative became a sensational and influential genre in colonial America.
RELIGION, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
Puritan emphasis on literacy, religious discipline, and covenant theology shaped social organization, schooling, and gender roles.
Dissenters challenged Puritan governance and led to the establishment of Rhode Island as a more tolerant colonization model.
The Puritans viewed Native peoples through a lens of moral and religious conflict, often legitimizing conquest and dispossession.
LABOR SYSTEMS AND ETHNIC RELATIONS (LAWS AND PRACTICES)
Indentured servitude vs slavery: indentured servants faced fixed terms; after term, many were able to acquire land; enslaved Africans faced lifelong servitude with hereditary slavery in many jurisdictions; evolving legal codes steadily restricted Black freedom post-1670s.
The transition to racialized slavery consolidated control over labor and helped unify elite interests by curtailing cross-racial alliances.
KEY FIGURES AND DOCUMENTS (LaTeX)
Mayflower Compact: 1620; Plymouth Colony leadership under William Bradford (Separatist).
Pocahontas (Matoaka) marriage to John Rolfe (1613); conversion to Christianity and travel to England; 1616 engraving.
John Winthrop (Massachusetts Bay Governor); Bay Psalm Book (1640); the 1636 printing press milestone.
Roger Williams (Rhode Island founder); Anne Hutchinson (banishment; 1638–1642–1643 events).
Metacom/King Philip (Wampanoag leader); King Philip’s War (1675--1676 ).
SIGNIFICANCE & CONNECTIONS
The English Atlantic world developed distinct regional cultures: Chesapeake’s economy centered on cash crops (tobacco) and indentured labor; New England emphasized religious reform, education, and a near-homogeneous social order.
The early presence of enslaved Africans in the Chesapeake (arrived 1619) initiated a legacy of slavery that would reshape social and political structures across British America.
The Mayflower Compact and Puritan settlements contributed foundational ideas about self-government, religious motive in colonization, and early forms of social contract theory.
NUMERICAL REFERENCES AND DATES (LaTeX format)
Plymouth landing: 1620; Mayflower Compact: 1620; Puritans to Massachusetts Bay: 1629.
Jamestown starving time: 1609--1610; tobacco export begins: 1614; 1619: arrival of Africans as servants (early enslaved labor force).
King Philip’s War: 1675--1676; Rhode Island (founded by Roger Williams after banishment in the 1630s–1640s).
Printing of Bay Psalm Book: 1640; First English-language book in North America: 1640.
3.4 The Impact of Colonization
INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY
Global labor demand for cash crops (sugar, tobacco) spurred enslaved labor systems.
Royal African Company chartered in 1672 granted monopoly on the transport of enslaved Africans to English colonies; approximately 350{,}000 Africans were transported in the four decades that followed.
By 1700, chattel slavery was codified in many American colonies, especially in the Chesapeake, where tobacco farming required large-scale labor.
The Atlantic slave trade dramatically affected West Africa; local rulers and merchants participated in the trade in exchange for European goods.
The Middle Passage: the forced transatlantic voyage lasting typically 1–2 months for enslaved Africans.
While slavery existed in Africa before Europeans, the form of hereditary, lifelong, racially defined slavery became dominant in the New World.
CHANGES TO NATIVE LIFE
Europeans introduced goods (glass beads, copper kettles, metal utensils) which Native communities adopted and repurposed; Native peoples incorporated European metal for tools and weapons.
The influx of European goods transformed Native economies, clothing, cooking, and warfare; Native groups acquired firearms and munitions via trade networks, reshaping regional power dynamics (e.g., Algonquian–Iroquois rivalries).
The disappearance of certain animal populations (e.g., beaver) and changes to animal habitats due to hunting pressure and introduced species.
Indigenous warfare intensified with access to European weapons; alliances shifted as tribes acquired firearms and trading goods.
Some Native communities adopted European technologies and adapted to the new environment; others resisted through warfare or relocation.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES
Beaver hunting for hats in Europe led to extensive beaver depletion in the Northeast; beaver ponds and ecological habitats were lost.
Pigs introduced by Europeans roamed freely, competing with native species for food and habitat.
Private property practices: Europeans introduced a privatized land-use system (private property and fences) in contrast to many Native concepts of land as a common or usufruct resource; this undermined seasonal and communal land-use practices.
Disease introduction: Old World microbes caused catastrophic losses among Indigenous populations; epidemics devastated communities and altered social and political structures.
Epidemics: on the New England coast, epidemics killed about 75\% of Native populations between 1616 and 1618; by the 1630s, half of the Huron and Iroquois populations around the Great Lakes died of smallpox.
CULTIVATION OF PLANTS AND BOTANY
Transatlantic exchange of crops and plants transformed economies and cuisines: tobacco and sugar among the most impactful cash crops.
The plant exchange spurred the birth of botany as a science; English naturalist Sir Hans Sloane documented plants in Jamaica (1687) and helped popularize chocolate in England.
Beverages and medicines: chocolate (cacao) and other plants circulated in Europe; enslaved Africans and Native Americans contributed knowledge about medicinal uses of New World flora.
DISEASE, MOURNING WARS, AND CULTURAL INTERACTIONS
Native peoples sometimes perceived disease as a weapon associated with spiritual forces, leading to mourning wars to absorb captives or exact ritual acts.
The interactions produced new cultural forms, art, and material culture (e.g., wampum from shell beads became currency and ceremonial objects).
ETHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
The expansion of European empires caused profound ecological changes, new social hierarchies, and evolving labor systems that entrenched racialized labor markets.
The interplay of disease, conquest, trade, and cultural exchange redefined indigenous and European lives and their relationships to land and resources.
NUMERICAL REFERENCES AND CONCEPTS (LaTeX format)
Royal African Company charter: 1672; enslaved Africans transported over four decades: 3.5\times 10^5 (approx. 350,000).
Barbadian and Jamaican slave economies: population growth in enslaved communities to support sugar production by late 17th century (e.g., Barbados and Jamaica as notable examples).
Epidemics: Native mortality rates included 75\% loss on the New England coast between 1616 and 1618; about half of the Huron and Iroquois population died in the 1630s from smallpox.
SYNTHESIS AND CONNECTIONS
The growth of slavery and the intertribal networks of trade linked Europe, Africa, and the Americas in a single interconnected system that reshaped labor, culture, and politics.
The environmental impacts of colonization—overhunting, habitat loss, and disease—changed the long-term viability of many Indigenous communities and the ecological balance of North America.
The shift from a relatively diverse Indigenous–European world to one dominated by racialized chattel slavery and European private-property norms laid the groundwork for long-term social and economic inequality in the Atlantic world.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES TO PRIMARY DOCUMENTS AND FURTHER READING
Jesuit Relations (New France): annual reports detailing conversions and Native responses.
Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative (1682) as a primary window into Puritan perceptions of Native peoples and frontier warfare.
Mayflower Compact text and discussions of governance in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay.
Beverley, Robert: analysis of servitude vs. slavery in Virginia (1705 excerpt clarifies legal distinctions and social consequences).
might pop up & ask:
MCQs:
Q: Which colonial practice transformed Native economies and social structures due to European goods introduction?
A: The introduction of mercantilism and the resulting Columbian Exchange practices transformed Native American economies and social structures through the widespread trade of European goods and new resources. This influx of products, such as metal tools and weapons, disrupted traditional Native craft production, encouraged specialization in resource extraction like beaver pelts for the fur trade, and, combined with the introduction of diseases and forced labor, led to significant economic, demographic, and social shifts within Indigenous communities
Q: How did the introduction of European agricultural practices and animal species alter Indigenous land-use practices?
A: European agricultural practices and domesticated animals dramatically altered Indigenous land-use practices by introducing monoculture farming, deforestation, and soil degradation, leading to ecological damage and reduced biodiversity.
The Chesapeake (VA/MD) was commercial/tobacco-oriented, but New England was religious/family-oriented. Correct answer: B — Puritans came in families to build religious communities, unlike the young male settlers in VA/MD.
While Native forces destroyed half of frontier towns, the English ultimately won. The key historical significance = it ended Native power in New England and hardened English racial hostility. Correct answer: C.
The Anglo-Powhatan Wars stemmed from English encroachment + refusal to respect Powhatan diplomacy.
Headright system - Designed to encourage settlement → land for anyone who paid passage (plus land for each servant).
Native peoples sometimes perceived disease as a weapon associated with spiritual forces, leading to mourning wars to absorb captives or exact ritual acts.
Roger Williams (Q8) → Remember: Rhode Island = religious toleration + separation of church/state, NOT stricter Puritanism.
SAQs:
Explain ONE effect of the French reliance on Native alliances:
harsh Canadian climate, French Crown’s restrictions, or economic focus on fur not farming.
REMEMBER THESE:
JAMESTOWN
Why? Jamestown was established in search of wealth.
Who? Virginia Company was the founder. initially Joint-stock, later Royal colony (Jamestown → Chesapeake)
Where? Virginia
What?
Starving and diseases caused deaths. Escaped through w/ founding of tobacco & indentured slaves.
House of Burgesses - 1st self governance
PURITANS
Why? Religious motives
Who?
Where? New England
What?
Emphasized literacy to read the Bible.
Salem Witch Trials - mass accusations and executions; connections to social disruption and religious extremism
Anne Hutchinson banished for challenging church doctrine
KING PHILLIP’S WAR
Why? Puritan’s capture of native land
Who? Metacom/King Phillip w/ native alliance & Puritans
Where? New England
What? Conflict between English colonists and an alliance of Native American tribes led by the Wampanoag sachem Metacom
BACON’S REBELLION
Why? Growing resentment among settlers living on the colony's frontier (high taxes, failing tobacco prices, & lack of land for farmers)
Who? Nathaniel Bacon
What?
Transition from indentured servitude to chattel slavery
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
Why? Serve as a military outpost and a base for Catholic missionary
Who? Spain was the founder.
What?
Fort Caroline, Attacked by Spanish for religion and rivalry
Castillo de San Marcos (Defense wall) built to protect from rivals
PATROON SYSTEM
Why? Large land grants with obligations to bring in settlers
Who? Dutch Colony
What? Pattern created a wide disparity between wealthy patroons and tenant farmers.
THE BEAVERS WARS
Why? Competition over control of the lucrative fur trade.
Who? Iroquois Confederacy and their allies.
What? Fought over control of the lucrative beaver fur trade and hunting territories in the Great Lakes region
THE 3 ANGLO-POWHATAN WARS
Why? English colonists' encroachment on Powhatan territory for land to cultivate tobacco
Who? Powhatan Confederacy and the English settlers of the Virginia Colony
What?
The 1st war ended with the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.
The 2nd war was English burning Native villages and Powhatan raids and crop destruction
The 3rd war was English capture and a peace treaty that established a permanent boundary between the English and Powhatan lands.
Plymouth Colony (1620): Founded by Pilgrims seeking religious freedom.
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630): Established by Puritans, including John Winthrop, to create a model religious society.
Rhode Island (1636): Founded by Roger Williams and others as a haven for religious tolerance and freedom.
Connecticut: Formed by dissenters from Massachusetts Bay, including Thomas Hooker, who sought greater freedoms.
New Hampshire: Also founded by English settlers in the early 1620