Bisher Kunbargi
11/03/2015
Professor Salinger
History
Virgina vs Massachusets
When America was still in its beginnings the first two major colonies were The Virginia Colony, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These were two different colonies founded for different reasons, The Virginia Colony founded by members of the Angelican faith which was the official Church of England was funded by the joint stock company founded with an economic mind behind it, its purpose like any other corporation was for it to become profitable. The Massachusetts Bay Colony on the other hand were dissenters of the Church of England founded by pilgrims who fled from persecution and landed at Plymouth Rock in hopes of finding religious freedom. Both of these colonies …show more content…
Based off previous relations with Spanish Conquistadors the Native Americans were wary of the new englishmen that made their way to the new land, yet soon after they began to offer food and native american hospitality to the englishmen. The people of the Virginia colony with displays of short sightedness failed to plant crops and prepare for the winter, and began to rely more on the food provided by the native americans. The settlement was slowly deteriorating, many colonists had the mindset of avoiding work and searching for instant riches. Under John Smith's leadership the settlement was able to turn it around, but this came at the expense of the natives. John Smith followed the line of thinking of the Spaniards which was to subjugate the natives to work and slavery and profit off of their labor, sometimes taking food by force if the Natives didn’t agree to trade. This problem was only exasbarted with Virginias booming tobacco industry; its leading cash crop, tobacco required a lot of land and after 3-4 years the soil was generally no longer farmable so as a solution the colonists began to enroach more on the land of the natives burning crops and settlements in their path. This continued until the natives could take no more and attacked the settlements in what became known as the massacre of 1622 the precursor to the Powhatan …show more content…
At the time of their arrival many natives had already died because of the new disease that been introduced to them, but those that survived attempted to befriend and assist the colonies. This peace was to be short lived as well though, the puritan settlers and the natives had many differing fundamental views which slowly built up tensions. The fact that the puritans were a religious group affected their interactions with the natives, seeing them as inferior for not accepting christianity and those that did were expected to sever ties with their kin, the natives found this to be culturally insensitive. The puritans also had very different philosophies over land ownership, the natives believed in a more harmonious way of life, not enclosing their territories. Many english settlers began to encroach on that land under the belief that it was not being utilized properly by the natives, more tension is added. This tension eventually erupted into the Pequot War, with various tribes aligning with different