The Pros And Cons Of The English Colonists

As the English colonists set foot in the New England area, they disturbed the already 100,000 indigenous people making this place their home. Though having the English over in the Americas brought many new ideas and some positive outcomes, it also brought drastic changes to the lifestyle and number of Indians in New England. While some Indian tribes thrived and worked in harmony with the English, others were not as lucky and would soon face the struggle of surviving.

Differing greatly from the French and Dutch colonies, the English handled the problem of dealing with the Indians much more harsh. The French and Dutch established a solid fur trade instead of worrying necessarily about the amount of gold and silver they gained from the land.

Living in Maine, the Abenakis hunted and gathered. They depended on the natural offerings of the land. The Massachusetts, Nausets, Pequots, and Wampanoags tribes were agriculturally developed and centered their crops on corn, beans and pumpkins. The Coastal Indians helped the English established a solid economy and created a burgeoning trade. The different Indians of New England vulnerable to the settlers due to the disunity of the tribes. If they could have somehow united, the Indians would have been more capable to resists the arrival of the English. Not only vulnerable to the power of the English, the Indians were vulnerable to the diseases brought over from Europe. Had they been united, the tribes would have had more ability to fight off the infectious diseases. For example, the spread of smallpox severely decreased the population of the Indians. These epidemics left the coastal area open and

However, the growth of the white population and decline of animal populations caused the eastern tribes to diminish to poverty. The English continued to force the Indians to follow new laws and customs. The time of peacefulness came to a bloody end near the 1670s. Different tribal leaders despised the English for their effort to establish new laws in the tribes. In 1674, John Sassamon, a Christian Indian, warned the colonists about the preparation of war by the Wampanoags and their chief Metacomet, also known as King Philip. Enraged by the conviction of three Indians for the murder of Sassamon, the Wampanoags attacked farms of the Puritans in the summer of 1675. An Englishman shot a Wampanoag three days later, and the Wampanoags reacted by assaulted a group of Puritans. Both the Indians and English suffered greatly from King Philip’s