Fluent Essays

You will choose 2 of the 4 questions to answer. Your answers should be thoughtful, in depth and fully explain your understanding of the information. Remember, this is your opportunity to show what you know and understand. Make sure to give examples and evidence from the textbook and readings to justify or explain your answers.  Your answers should be about 150-200 each. If your answer is less than 150 words or does not fully answer the question, points will be taken off.   1.Explain the causes and effects of Bacon's Rebellion. How and why did the rebellion start? What was the outcome and lasting impact of the rebellion? Was the rebellion justified? Explain.   4. What were the causes and effects of Metcaom's or King Phillip's War? How did the war impact the colonies, the native settlements, and the relationship between colonists and natives? Explain. · Why America’s First Colonial Rebels Burned Jamestown to the Ground · Jamestown  had once been the bustling capital of the Colony of  Virginia . Now it was a smoldering ruin, and Nathaniel Bacon was on the run. Charismatic and courageous, he had spent the last several months leading a growing group of rebels in a bloody battle against William Berkeley, the colonial governor, and he wasn’t about to stop now. Forces would be coming soon from England in an attempt to take his militia down. But Bacon and his men couldn’t surrender. Hunker down, he  told them . Hide in the woods for the time being, but keep up the fight when they arrive. Soon Bacon would be dead and his militia defeated. The rebellion he led is commonly thought of as the first armed insurrection by American colonists against Britain and their colonial government. A hundred years before the  American Revolution , Bacon and his armed rebels ransacked their colonial capital, threatened its governor and upended Virginia’s social order. Many were executed for their actions.  Right after the Revolutionary War,  Thomas Jefferson  and others  upheld the event  as a brave stand by embattled colonists. Today, though, historians see it as a tussle over the ownership of the colonial frontier and an effort to further drive  Native Americans  off their lands.  Lean Times Lead Up to Bacon's Rebellion Settlers roll barrels of tobacco up a ramp and onto a ship in preparation for export from Jamestown, Virginia. MPI/Getty Images At the time, wealthy settlers had built profitable tobacco plantations and used their crops to pay high colonial taxes. But for poorer Virginians, times were  lean . Only people who owned land could vote, and the indentured servants and poorer Virginians who did not felt disenfranchised. Poor farmers had been hit hard by falling tobacco prices, and many on the borders of the colony’s frontier wanted to expand westward. There, they faced threats from Native Americans intent on protecting their ancestral lands. When the colonists called on their governor for military support, he refused. Berkeley had long tried to balance his colonists’ wishes against those of the tribes on Virginia’s borders. But his attempts to appease all sides failed, especially when he used new trade rules to increase his wealthy friends’ fortunes. Bacon, who had recently arrived in Virginia and was Berkeley’s cousin by marriage, was disgusted by what he viewed as the governor’s disloyalty and unfairness. In March 1676, after attacking a friendly tribe and falsely accusing them of stealing his corn, Bacon insisted that the governor finance and support a militia to  attack  Native Americans on the colony’s border. Berkeley refused, infuriating Bacon. He began to amass a militia of his own.  Drunk on brandy  and the prospects of the land to which they thought they were entitled, Bacon and his men headed south. There, they met a group of Occaneechi people, whom they enlisted to help them fight a group of Susquehannocks. The Occaneechi helped, but met with a brutal reward. After the skirmish, Bacon and his men turned on them,  slaughtering  most of the Occaneechi and decimating their village. Bacon Declared a Rebel by Virginia Governor Nathaniel Bacon (right) and his rebel followers confront Virginia governor Sir William Berkeley with his failure to protect them from Native American attacks. MPI/Getty Images In response, Berkeley declared Bacon a rebel and scheduled elections for a new assembly to solve the problem for good. But Bacon was immediately elected to that legislative body, and when he headed to Jamestown to begin his tenure there, was met with a chilly welcome. Recommended for you Salem Witch Trials What Was Life Like in Jamestown? Jamestown Colony As the assembly convened, Bacon got on his knees and  apologized  to the governor. His supporters erupted with cries for the governor to let him lead a new campaign. The governor eventually kicked him out of the assembly. Humiliated and furious, Bacon gathered his troops. A few weeks later, he marched toward Jamestown with 500 supporters and another demand to lead the colony into war against the Native Americans. As Bacon’s men stood off with Berkeley’s, the governor opened his shirt and showed Bacon his bare chest. “Here, shoot me!”  yelled  Berkeley, daring Bacon to shoot. Instead, Bacon retreated and began traveling throughout Virginia, recruiting other disgruntled rebels. Berkeley accused him of rebellion and treason, and Bacon responded with heated proclamations of his own,  accusing  the governor of having sold “his [friends], country and the liberties of his loyal subjects to the barbarous heathen.”  He accused Berkeley of trying to force the colonists into a civil war—while fomenting one of his own. Bacon and his men began conducting their own raids around the colony, attacking friendly tribes like the Pamunkey people, and gathering more supporters as they went. Among the mob were black and white indentured servants. In September, matters came to a head. Governor Berkeley had been traveling throughout Virginia to recruit supporters of his own, and returned to Jamestown to issue a final proclamation condemning Bacon. In response, Bacon and his men rushed into Jamestown, burning and pillaging as they went. On the night of September 19, they torched the entire town, burning it to the ground. As the embattled governor fled, Bacon’s supporters  terrorized  what remained of the town and the governor’s supporters. Rebellion Fizzles Upon Bacon's Death Finally, the Crown intervened. News had taken months to travel to England, and Charles II took until late October to respond. By then, Bacon’s rebellion was falling to pieces. The day before Charles II’s proclamation about the rebellion, Bacon died of dysentery. Without their leader, the rebels floundered. Berkeley, assisted by an English naval squadron, soon defeated the remainder of the rebels, and Berkeley returned to Jamestown. There, he exacted his final revenge against Bacon. At Berkeley’s insistence, 23 of Bacon’s supporters were  hanged . “The governor would have hanged half the country, if they had let him alone,”  remarked  one observer. Berkeley didn’t get the chance. Charles II’s commission clashed with the governor, whose authority had been undermined and whose 27 years of governance were now ending in disgrace. After arguing with the commissioner, who had been given authority to end Berkeley’s governorship, Berkeley went to England to beg Charles II to let him keep his post. “Sick, and weakened by the crossing, six weeks later Berkeley landed in London a broken man,”  writes  historian Warren M. Billings. “Gone were his allies at court. The old governor's one desire was to clear himself with the king. There was no opportunity.” Berkeley died before he ever saw the king. How Bacon's Rebellion Planted the Seeds of Race-Based Slavery In the aftermath of the rebellion, white planters reacted with alarm to the anger they had seen among the black Virginians who had joined Bacon’s rebellion. “The planters had not been able to control this rowdy labor force of servants and slaves,” historian Ira Berlin  told  PBS. “But soon after Bacon's Rebellion they increasingly distinguish between people of African descent and people of European descent. They enact laws which say that people of African descent are hereditary slaves.” Planters feared what their white indentured servants could do, so they slowly eliminated the system, relying instead on enslaved black people to work their plantations. Backlash from Bacon’s rebellion is credited with helping kick off the racial distinctions that defined the colonies and the United States that followed. As for the Native Americans caught in the crosshairs of Bacon and Berkeley’s feud, after the massacre, the few Occaneechi people who remained  fled  their traditional lands. Eventually, they merged with another tribe. In 2004, a small group of Occaneechi descendants  bought back  a 25-acre parcel of their traditional lands—the first time Occaneechi people have owned land as a tribe for over 250 years. Puritan Massachusetts “A city upon a hill” A much larger group of English Puritans left England in the 1630s, establishing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the New Haven Colony, the Connecticut Colony, and Rhode Island. Unlike the exodus of young men to the Chesapeake colonies, these migrants were families with young children and their university-trained ministers. Their aim—according to John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay—was to create a model of reformed Protestantism, a “city upon a hill,” a new English Israel. The idea of a “city upon a hill” made clear the religious orientation of the New England settlement, and the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony stated as a goal that the colony’s people “may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as their good Life and orderlie Conversacon, maie wynn and incite the Natives of Country, to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Saulor of Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth.” To illustrate this, the seal of the Massachusetts Bay Company shows a half-naked Native American who entreats more of the English to “come over and help us.” The 1629 seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. On the seal, a Native American dressed in a leaf loincloth and holding a bow is depicted asking colonists to “Come over and help us.” The 1629 seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Image credit:  Wikimedia Commons(Opens in a new window) Like their Spanish and French Catholic rivals, English Puritans in America took steps to convert native peoples to their version of Christianity. John Eliot, the leading Puritan missionary in New England, urged Native Americans in Massachusetts to live in “praying towns” established by English authorities for converted Native Americans and to adopt the Puritan emphasis on the centrality of the Bible. In keeping with the Protestant emphasis on reading scripture, he translated the Bible into the local Algonquian language and published his work in 1663. Eliot hoped that as a result of his efforts, some of New England’s native inhabitants would become preachers. Religion and culture in Puritan New England Puritan New England differed in many ways from both England and the rest of Europe. Protestants emphasized literacy so that everyone could read the Bible. This attitude was in stark contrast to that of Catholics, who refused to tolerate private ownership of Bibles in the vernacular language. The Puritans placed a special emphasis on reading scripture, and their commitment to literacy led to the establishment of the first printing press in English America in 1636. Four years later, in 1640, they published the first book in North America, the Bay Psalm Book. As  Calvinists , Puritans adhered to the doctrine of predestination, whereby a few elect would be saved and all others damned. No one could be sure whether they were predestined for salvation, but through introspection, guided by scripture, Puritans hoped to find a glimmer of redemptive grace. Church membership was restricted to those Puritans who were willing to provide a conversion narrative telling how they came to understand their spiritual estate by hearing sermons and studying the Bible. Like many other Europeans, the Puritans believed in the supernatural. Every event appeared to be a sign of God’s mercy or judgment, and people believed that witches allied themselves with the Devil to carry out evil deeds and deliberate harm such as the sickness or death of children, the loss of cattle, and other catastrophes. Hundreds were accused of witchcraft in Puritan New England, including townspeople whose habits or appearance bothered their neighbors or who appeared threatening for any reason. Women, seen as more susceptible to the Devil because of their supposedly weaker constitutions, made up the vast majority of suspects and those who were executed. The most notorious witchcraft cases occurred in Salem Village in 1692. Many of the accusers who prosecuted the suspected witches had been traumatized by the Indian wars on the frontier and by unprecedented political and cultural changes in New England. Relying on their belief in witchcraft to help make sense of their changing world, Puritan authorities executed 19 people and caused the deaths of several others. 1876 engraving depicting the events of the Salem Witch Trials. The engraving shows a young woman writhing on the floor of a court room while shocked townspeople stare. Another woman raises a hand to testify in front of two judges. 1876 engraving depicting the events of the Salem Witch Trials. William A. Crafts, Pioneers in the settlement of America: from Florida in 1510 to California in 1849. Boston: Published by Samuel Walker and Company.  Image  courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Religious intolerance in Massachusetts Bay Although many people assume Puritans escaped England to establish religious freedom, they proved to be just as intolerant as the English state church. When dissenters, including Puritan minister Roger Williams and midwife Anne Hutchinson, challenged Governor Winthrop in Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s, they both were banished from the colony. Roger Williams questioned the Puritans’ theft of Native American land. Williams also argued for a complete separation from the Church of England, a position other Puritans in Massachusetts rejected, as well as the idea that the state could not punish individuals for their beliefs. Although he did accept that nonbelievers were destined for eternal damnation, Williams did not think the state could compel true orthodoxy. Puritan authorities found Williams guilty of spreading dangerous ideas, but he went on to found Rhode Island as a colony that sheltered dissenting Puritans from their brethren in Massachusetts. In Rhode Island, Williams wrote favorably about native peoples, contrasting their virtues with Puritan New England’s intolerance. Anne Hutchinson also ran afoul of Puritan authorities for her criticism of the evolving religious practices in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In particular, she held that Puritan ministers in New England taught a shallow version of Protestantism emphasizing hierarchy and actions—a “covenant of works” rather than a “covenant of grace.” Literate Puritan women like Hutchinson presented a challenge to the male ministers’ authority. Indeed, her major offense was her claim of direct religious revelation (that she spoke directly with God), a type of spiritual experience that negated the role of ministers. Because of Hutchinson’s beliefs and her defiance of authority in the colony, especially that of Governor Winthrop, Puritan authorities tried and convicted her of holding false beliefs. In 1638, she was excommunicated and banished from the colony. She went to Rhode Island and later, in 1642, sought safety among the Dutch in New Netherland. The following year, Algonquians killed Hutchinson and her family. In Massachusetts, Governor Winthrop noted her death as the righteous judgment of God against a heretic. Puritan relationships with native peoples Tensions had existed from the beginning between the Puritans and the native peoples who controlled southern New England. Relationships deteriorated as the Puritans continued to expand their settlements aggressively and as European ways increasingly disrupted native life. These strains led to King Philip’s War—from 1675 to 1676—a massive regional conflict that was nearly successful in pushing the English out of New England. This is a map of New England indicating the domains of New England’s native inhabitants—including the Pequot, Narragansett, Mohegan, and Wampanoag—in 1670. This map indicates the domains of New England’s native inhabitants in 1670, a few years before King Philip’s War. Image credit: " English Settlements in America " by OpenStaxCollege,  CC BY 4.0 . When the Puritans began to arrive in the 1620s and 1630s, local Algonquian peoples viewed them as potential allies in the conflicts already simmering between rival native groups. In 1621, the Wampanoag, led by Massasoit, concluded a peace treaty with the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In the 1630s, the Puritans in Massachusetts and Plymouth allied themselves with the Narragansett and Mohegan people against the Pequot, who had recently expanded their claims into southern New England. In May 1637, the Puritans attacked a large group of several hundred Pequot along the Mystic River in Connecticut. To the horror of their Native American allies, the Puritans massacred all but a handful of the men, women, and children they found. By the mid-17th century, the Puritans had pushed their way farther into the interior of New England, establishing outposts along the Connecticut River Valley. There seemed no end to their expansion. Wampanoag leader Metacom or Metacomet, also known as King Philip among the English, was determined to stop the encroachment. The Wampanoag—along with the Nipmuck, Pocumtuck, and Narragansett—went to war to drive the English from the land. In the ensuing conflict, called King Philip’s War, native forces succeeded in destroying half of the frontier Puritan towns; however, in the end, the English—aided by Mohegans and Christian Native Americans—prevailed and sold many captives into slavery in the West Indies. The severed head of King Philip was publicly displayed in  Plymouth . The war also forever changed the English perception of native peoples; after King Philip's War, Puritan writers took great pains to vilify Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages. A new type of racial hatred became a defining feature of Native American-English relationships in the Northeast. America’s Most Devastating Conflict: King Philip’s War Attack on the Narragansett fort on December 19, 1675. Wood engraving, mid-1800s - Connecticut Historical Society By Mike Messina for Your Public Media August 12 is the anniversary of the death of the Wampanoag sachem Metacom, also known as Metacomet or King Philip,the name given to him by the English. His death in 1676 essentially ended King Philip’s War, a violent and bloody conflict between the Wampanoag and English colonists. While most of the fighting took place in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, people from Connecticut took part in the many of the battles and had an important influence on the outcome of the war. King Philip of Pokonoket. Wood engraving, mid-1800s, based on an engraving by Paul Revere – Connecticut Historical Society The underlying cause of the war was the colonists unrelenting desire for more and more land, but the immediate cause for its outbreak was the trial and execution of three of Metacom’s men by the colonists. Metacom and his men began attacking and destroying English settlements and kidnapping and killing English settlers. For a while, it looked like the colonists might have to abandon the frontier and withdraw into a handful of fortified seaside towns. Connecticut troops, together with members of the Pequot and Mohegan tribes who served as an auxiliary force with the Connecticut militia, played a prominent role in the Great Swamp Fight, near South Kingston, Rhode Island, in December 1675. Fearing that the Narragansett tribe was going to join with Metacom, the colonists, including five companies from Connecticut, marched through freezing conditions to attack the Narragansett camp, a fortified village of five acres housing about 1,000 men, women, and children. After hours of battle, the colonists gained control of the fort and burned all wigwams. Nearly all of the inhabitants died including women, children, and elders. Skirmishes and massacres continued into the spring of 1676. Metacom’s men attacked Simsbury on March 26. According to legend, Metacom sat in a cave on Avon Mountain and watched the burning of the town. Other attacks that spring took place at Plymouth and Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Providence, Rhode Island, was burned on March 29. But by summer, Metacom’s support was beginning to melt away. In June, Connecticut troops repelled an attack on Hadley, Massachusetts, and Major John Talcott of Simsbury began capturing large numbers of Metacom’s followers, transporting them from New England, and selling them as slaves. Captain Benjamin Church pursued Metacom to a hiding place in Mount Hope, Rhode Island, where he was killed on August 12. King Philip’s War has been called United States’ most devastating conflict. One in 10 soldiers on both sides was killed, 1,200 colonists’ homes were burned, and vast stores of foodstuffs destroyed. The effects of the carnage and property damage were felt for years by colonists. The war’s ramifications for Native populations of southern New England included not only loss of life and, for some, enslavement but the continued erosion of sovereignty, land rights, and communities as well. {The losses were far worse for the natives though. Out of the total population of 20,000 Native-Americans in southern New England at the time, an estimated 2,000 were killed, another 3,000 had died of sickness and starvation, around 1,000 were captured and sold into slavery, and an estimated 2,000 fled to join the Iroquois in the west or the Abenaki in the north. This adds up to a loss of between 60 to 80 percent of the native population in the region. The war also ruined New England’s economy by nearly halting the fur trade, killing 8,000 head of cattle, interrupting the importing and exporting of goods and causing a decline in the fishing industry. In addition, wartime expenses of around 80,000 pounds led to high taxes. As destructive as it was, King Philip’s War was a turning point in American history though because it gave the colonists control of southern New England and cleared the way for English expansion in the area.} Mike Messina is the Interpretive Projects Associate at the Connecticut Historical Society. © Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network and Connecticut Historical Society. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared on Your Public Media. The Growth of the Tobacco Trade in America An 1878 depiction of tobacco cultivation at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1615. Photo from Wikimedia Commons  By USHistory.org, adapted by Newsela staff Published:04/13/2017 The first joint-stock company to launch a lasting venture to the New World was the Virginia Company of London. Joint-stock companies were the original companies, like the corporations of today. Shares of ownership in the companies, or stock, were sold to rich investors in England. The money they provided went to set up the colonies. These rich investors took on the risk that the colonies might fail and they might lose their money.  The investors in the Virginia Company of London had one goal in mind: gold. They hoped to repeat the success of Spaniards who found gold in South America. In 1607, 144 English men and boys established the Jamestown colony in Virginia, named after King James I. Searching for new ways to make money The colonists were told that if they did not find ways of making money, financial support for their efforts would end. Many of the men spent their days vainly searching for gold. The Virginia Company of London began looking for new ways to make money. The company encouraged several business ventures by 1618. Jamestown settlers experimented with glassblowing, growing grapes for wine and even silkworm farming. Still, by the end of the 1620s, only one Virginia crop was fetching a fair market price in England: tobacco. "Drinking smoke" Tobacco was introduced to Europe by the Spanish. Spaniards had learned to smoke it from Native Americans. Despite some early criticism of "drinking smoke," tobacco became popular among the middle classes in England, as tobacco smoking was a sign that a person was in a high social class. Wealthy men indulged in tobacco at what was known as a "smoking club." Much of the tobacco smoked in England was grown in the West Indies of the Caribbean. Early English explorer Thomas Hariot describes tobacco use in the American colonies in his 1588 publication "A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia." He writes: "There is an herb called uppowoc, which sows itself. In the West Indies it has several names...but the Spaniards generally call it tobacco. Its leaves are dried, made into powder, and then smoked by being sucked through clay pipes into the stomach and head." He went on to say, "Its use not only preserves the body, but if there are any obstructions it breaks them up. By this means the natives keep in excellent health, without many of the grievous diseases which often afflict us in England." Not everyone liked tobacco. King James I of England was an early opponent of tobacco smoking, writing in one of the earliest anti-tobacco publications in 1604: "Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs."  Tobacco becomes an important asset English settler John Rolfe, known among his peers as "an ardent smoker," thought that Virginia might be a perfect site for tobacco growth. Early attempts to sell Virginian tobacco had fallen flat. Smokers felt that the tobacco of the Caribbean was much less harsh than Virginian tobacco. Rolfe reacted to consumer tastes and imported seed from the Caribbean and cultivated the plant in the Jamestown colony. Those tobacco seeds became the seeds of a huge economic empire. By 1630, over a million and a half pounds of tobacco were being exported from Jamestown every year. The plant had quickly become the foundation of the Virginia economy. The tobacco economy quickly began to shape society, as well as fuel the development of the colony. Growing tobacco takes its toll on the soil. Because tobacco drained the soil of its nutrients, only about three successful growing seasons could occur on a plot of land. Then the land had to lie empty for three years before the soil could be used again. This created a huge drive for new farmland. Settlers grew tobacco in the streets of Jamestown. The yellow-leafed crop even covered cemeteries. Because tobacco cultivation is hard, more settlers were needed. Indentured servants Tobacco cultivation was demanding work. Indentured servants became the first way to meet this need for labor. In return for a free boat ride to Virginia, a laborer worked for four to five years in the fields. Then he or she was granted freedom. The Crown rewarded planters with 50 acres of land for every inhabitant they brought to the New World. Keeping indentured servants and slaves was difficult for landowners. Servants and slaves often ran away from abusive masters. Other servants were lured away from neighbors attempting to steal labor. In response to these problems, Virginia lawmakers passed laws that established penalties and regulated the movement of servants and slaves. In March 1642, Virginia lawmakers passed a law on runaway slaves that read: "Whereas there are divers loitering runaways in the colony who very often absent themselves from their masters service, And sometimes in two or three months cannot be found, whereby their said masters are at great charge in finding them, And many times even to the loss of their year's labour before they be had, Be it therefore enacted and confirmed that all runaways that shall absent themselves from their said masters service shall be liable to make satisfaction by service at the end of their time by indenture double the time of service so neglected, And in some cases more if the commissioners for the place appointed shall find it requisite and convenient. And if such runaways shall be found to transgress the second time or oftener (if it shall be duly proved against them) that then they shall be branded in the cheek with the letter R. and pass under the statute of incorrigible rogues." Keeping the indentured servant labor in line with laws ensured that the colony of Jamestown would expand. That expansion was soon challenged by the Native American confederacy of 30 tribes formed and named after the leader Powhatan.