New - Netherlands and the Haudenosaunee

• dutch traders arrive 1614

• trade alliance with Mohawks (part of Haudenosaunee)

  • cheaper, better goods, more guns

  • Haudenosaunee power grows

• contested borderland between french/huron and dutch/haudenosaunee alliances

  • escalating war between long time native enemies

  • trade, disease, guns, and access to global markets transform Native conflicts

Haudenosaunee Mourning Wars, 1648-50

• haudenosaunee mourning wars waged to take captives to replace lost kin

• 1600s, heavy haudenosaunee losses to diseases

• launch massive series of mourning wars against Huron and others, 1648-50

• haudenosaunee territory expands; rival groups displaced or absorbed

The English: Fashionably Late

• social and political turmoil in 16th century

  • protestant reformation

  • population boom

  • “enclosure of land”

    • private estates replace shared-use feudal system

    • displaced peasants flood cities

  • low wages, high land prices, widespread poverty

• new merchant class eager to start colonizing

  • the “west country men” leading promoters

• mercantile capitalism emerges

  • private colonial ventures backed by the crown

  • joint stock companies: share risks among many investors with Crown backing

• false-starts through late 1500s

• peace with spain 1604 widens opportunities