Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  Figure 31 A draught of the Creek nation, 1757. National Archives.

  The largest nation in the Southeast, and probably the most successful of all in retaining their autonomy after 1715, were the Creeks. “Creek,” like “Catawba,” was a term of convenience to describe a number of tribes, some of which did not even speak a Muskogean language. After the Yamasee War they would incorporate remnants of the Guales of northern Florida and the Yamasees of South Carolina, and after the late 1720s they would incorporate Natchez refugees who had been driven from their homes by the French. However, the heart of the confederacy comprised two groups of Muskogean-speaking settlements on the Alabama and Chattahoochee rivers, usually referred to as the Upper and Lower Creeks, though the latter were known as the Apalachicolas by the Spanish. The principal settlements of the Upper Creeks were Abeika, Okfuskee, and Okchai; those of the Lower Creeks, Coweta, Cussita, and Oconee. Estimates of the Creek population varied from 15,000 to 20,000 people, distributed between some 60 settlements. What is not in doubt is that their readiness to accommodate other groups had made them one of the most powerful confederacies in eastern North America.

  The Creeks managed more successfully than any other southern nation to keep their options open by playing the British against the Spanish and the French. Although the Creeks had traded with the British since shortly after the founding of Carolina, they learned to be wary of British traders for their sharp dealing and unreliability. In 1715 the Creeks supported the Yamasees in their war with South Carolina. Nevertheless the British wanted their continued assistance against the Spanish and the French, and patched up relations with the Creeks in 1716. After the founding of Georgia in 1733, contacts were further increased and British traders from Charleston, Augusta, and Savannah kept the Creeks well supplied with trade goods like cloth and metal tools which they brought into Creek towns on packhorse trains. The problem for the British was that this method of transport was an expensive one for heavier goods such as firearms. The Upper Creeks therefore went to the French post at Fort Toulouse at the convergence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers to buy guns, since the French could transport them here by water at a significantly lower cost.13

  The Creeks experienced very little European acculturation other than the import of tools, weapons, and cloth. After the Spanish had been expelled from Apalachicola in 1681, no missionaries had been allowed to establish their value systems or challenge traditional Creek religious practices. Even in economic matters the Creeks felt able to deal with the Europeans on an equal footing. Signs of change became evident only around 1760 when white-tailed deer became scarce through overhunting and some Creek chiefs began to keep cattle.

  4 Adaptation or Decline?

  It is clear that Native Americans in every region made vigorous efforts to retain their autonomy and their distinctive identities as peoples, though some were obviously more successful than others. Two factors helped those groups who succeeded: a favorable location that allowed them to avoid losing their lands to European colonizers, and an ability to manipulate relationships between two competing colonial powers to their own advantage. Meanwhile even those who were the most successful in retaining their independence experienced cultural changes as a result of their relationships with Europeans.

  Thanks to their eagerness to trade with Europeans, virtually all Native Americans from the Atlantic coast to the Great Plains became caught up in the consumer revolution that was sweeping through the Atlantic world during the eighteenth century. Indians adopted European-made objects including firearms and ammunition, iron hatchets and brass kettles, cloaks made out of English woolens, ready-made shirts, scissors, fishhooks, and spoons. It would be a mistake to imagine them as pawns of British traders, for Indians were selective consumers and refused to purchase things they could not use. In fact they asserted their desires so effectively that manufacturers sometimes changed their product lines in order to meet indigenous North American demand. Nor did traditional expectations of reciprocity in trade disappear simply because Indians' trading partners now included Europeans. Eighteenth-century Native Americans still expected the mutual exchange of gifts to lead to friendship and peaceful relations. They found it offensive that Europeans expected to bargain and to sell goods at higher than customary prices when they became scarce in the marketplace.

  Even though the Indians retained considerable autonomy as consumers and showed no interest in becoming part of a capitalist European culture, purchasing items in the marketplace inevitably brought about changes in their economic behavior. In order to obtain the European goods they coveted, Native Americans needed to produce something that Europeans valued, whether furs, deerskins, or slaves. Before contact with the Europeans, the local inhabitants generally killed only enough game to provide meat and clothing for themselves. Once Europeans arrived, however, local peoples had new incentives to hunt more intensively. Now men spent more of their time hunting for furs or going on slaving raids instead of hunting for meat. Women spent more of their time preparing skins for sale. Time that had once been spent in food and clothing production was often reallocated to producing products for sale in the marketplace. One result of the realignment of labor was that Indians began to neglect traditional skills like pottery-making and weaving. Having lost the ability to produce cooking pots and cloth for themselves, they had to produce more furs so that they could buy what they needed. Meanwhile another unintended side effect of this increased reliance on trade with Europeans was to lower the status of women, since the furs produced by men commanded a higher value in the marketplace than the food and other products made by women. While the horticultural revolution had produced greater equality in gender relations within Native American societies, the consumer revolution had the opposite effect.14

  Commercial hunting also put pressure on the Indians' ecosystems. Traditional hunting practices limited the amount of game that was killed. Now Indians often hunted the game to extinction. This in turn disrupted relationships between tribes. Once a tribe had killed all of the beaver in its hunting grounds, its members had an incentive to conquer other tribes so that they could hunt in their lands instead. The Iroquois' many wars during the seventeenth century were partly driven by this desire to gain more land for hunting beaver once their own supplies were depleted. It was deeply ironic that Native Americans were placing more pressure on their woodland ecosystems at the very same time that British American farmers were shrinking the amount of available forest. By the eighteenth century over-hunting combined with the clearing of land had already resulted in an environmental calamity for all the east coast peoples.

  The Indians' trade relationships with Europeans also drew them into new military conflicts that changed the practice of warfare. Before 1607 Native American conflicts had been limited, since their prime purpose had mostly been to avenge earlier losses and not to conquer entire tribes. Now the Europeans introduced them to a more destructive style of warfare. European guns were far more lethal than bows and arrows when used for fighting. European wars were also fought on a larger scale, since their purpose was to conquer territory by destroying its inhabitants' claims to the land. The Europeans therefore urged their Indian allies to destroy entire towns and enslave entire confederations. The escalation of warfare in turn heightened competition over resources, exacerbating antagonisms already provoked before the arrival of Europeans by climate-induced scarcity. Nations now felt compelled to secure a monopoly of the game in their area so that they could be assured access to European guns and ammunition, which they needed so as to protect themselves from attacks by their rivals. Perhaps one-quarter of the native population perished because of the violence unleashed by these mutually destructive struggles.15

  Despite all of these damaging consequences of increased involvement with Europeans, some consequences of that involvement had the potential to strengthen Native Americans' ability to resist. The new place of sustained warfare in the lives of many Native American groups had produced significant changes in custo
mary practices of political organization. Indian political structures had traditionally been organized around highly autonomous villages or clans. However, as communities were disrupted by disease and warfare and their members regrouped, they often developed more effective techniques for coordinating the actions of multiple villages and clans. As we have seen, tribal leaders in the pays d'en haut after 1700 became more skilled at negotiating so as to hold together their broad coalition. Similarly the Catawbas created tribal councils in order to bring together their disparate members into a more unified group. Another adaptation was to enlarge existing coalitions or confederacies, as the Iroquois did with their incorporation of the Tuscaroras. By 1750 Native Americans had become considerably more likely to perceive themselves as having interests in common with other Native Americans than before European contact began, although old rivalries (along with European alliances) continued to play a central role in shaping relationships between Indian nations.16

  Thus the situation of many Native American societies east of the Mississippi was fairly secure by the 1750s. They were relatively strong, despite the ravages of disease, because of the presence of three competing imperial powers: Britain, France, and Spain. France's economic and military strategy in North America required the maintenance of trade ties and alliances with the Indians so as to contain the British. Meanwhile the British and Spanish colonies' fears of their European rivals ensured that they would maintain trade ties and alliances with other Indians so as to protect themselves. Many Indians had come to see themselves as sharing common interests with peoples from other tribal groups. If the Indians were to come together into a unified coalition, if they could learn to exploit the divisions between the various Europeans on the continent, they might still turn themselves into a major military force with which Europeans would have to reckon.

  1. This approach was prevalent in the 1970s and early 1980s. For examples, see Calvin Martin, “The European Impact on the Culture of a Northeastern Algonquian Tribe: An Ecological Interpretation,” William and Mary Quarterly, 31 (1974), 3–26; Kenneth M. Morrison, “‘That Art of Coyning Christians’: John Eliot and the Praying Indians of Massachusetts,” Ethnohistory, 21 (1974), 77–92; Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Lincoln, Nebr., 1983).

  2. The emphasis on adaptation and persistence has become more common since 1990, and can be seen in works such as Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York, 1991); Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill, 1992); Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore, 1992); Colin G. Calloway, New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (Baltimore, 1997), and Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, Mass., 2001).

  3. For population statistics, see James David Drake, King Philip's War: Civil War in New England (Amherst, 1999), 169, 182.

  4. For the persistence of Indian identity in Massachusetts, see Daniel R. Mandell, Behind the Frontier: Indians in Eighteenth-Century Eastern Massachusetts (Lincoln, Nebr., 1996); and Jean M. O'Brien, Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1790 (Cambridge, 1997). For the feminization of Indian poverty, see Ruth Wallis Herndon and Ella Wilcox Sekatau, “The Right to a Name: Narragansett People and Rhode Island Officials in the Revolutionary Era,” in Colin G. Calloway, ed., After King Philip's War: Presence and Persistence in Indian New England (Hanover, NH, 1997), 113–40.

  5. See, for example, Theodore Stern, “Chickahominy: The Changing Culture of a Virginia Indian Community,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 96 (1952), 157–225.

  6. This meant in practice that the Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga nations maintained their links with the French, while the Oneida and Mohawk peoples continued their traditional friendship with the British. The fullest study of the Iroquois' evolving strategies for dealing with Europeans is Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse.

  7. For the historiography of the Iroquois, see Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell, eds, Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600–1800 (Syracuse, 1987); and Dean R. Snow, The Iroquois (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).

  8. The northern front in King Philip's War is covered in Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest of Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia, 2005).

  9. Francis Parkman, France and England in North America, 7 vols (Boston, 1865–92). The contrary viewpoint is argued by Kenneth M. Morrison, The Embattled Northeast: The Elusive Ideal of Alliance in Abenaki–Euramerican Relations (Berkeley, 1984). For an analysis of Parkman's writings, see Francis Jennings, “Francis Parkman: A Brahmin among Untouchables,” William and Mary Quarterly, 42 (1985), 305–28.

  10. Colin Calloway discusses the early history of the Shawnee in The Shawnees and the War for America (New York, 2007).

  11. Allan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717 (New Haven, 2002), 298–9.

  12. For the Catawbas' story up to the 1840s, see James H. Merrell, The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal (Chapel Hill, 1989). Although the Catawbas had enjoyed remarkable success before 1755, their descent into reservation status occurred more quickly than anyone anticipated. In 1759 smallpox killed over half the tribe, reducing their number to 500. At the same time the defeat of the French and Cherokees meant that Catawba warrior skills were no longer marketable. The Catawbas responded by requesting that their lands be surveyed to distinguish and protect them from white claims, effectively establishing a reservation.

  13. For Creek relations with the French, see Chapter 15, section 4.

  14. Scholarly views on the effects of trade with Europeans on Native American economies have evolved over the past four decades. Historians writing in the 1970s tended to emphasize that it caused dependence and destroyed indigenous societies and cultures. See, for example, Calvin Martin, Keepers of the Game: Indian–Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade (Berkeley, 1978). Recent historical treatments emphasize that trade caused evolutionary change, but not rapid decline or dependency. See, for example, Kathryn E. Holland Braund, Deerskins and Duffels: The Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815 (Lincoln, Nebr., 1993); Matthew Dennis, Cultivating a Landscape of Peace: Iroquois–European Encounters in Seventeenth-Century America (Ithaca, 1993); Colin G. Calloway, New Worlds for All, ch. 4.

  15. Changes in Native American warfare are dealt with in Calloway, New Worlds for All, ch. 5.

  16. For a summary of findings on economic, military, and political changes in Indian societies during the eighteenth century, see Gary B. Nash, Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America, 5th edn (Upper Saddle River, 2006), 229–39.

  Chapter 17

  Immigration and Expansion in British North America, 1714–1750

  1685 The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV increases the Huguenot exodus from France.

  1704 The first sewer is built in Boston.

  1707 The Act of Union between England and Scotland opens the door to Scottish emigration to America.

  1709 Swiss Mennonites arrive at Pequea Creek, Pennsylvania.

  1710 Palatine Germans settle on the Schoharie River, New York.

  1717 The first Scots-Irish arrive in the Delaware and at Boston.

  1720 Massachusetts passes an act to discourage Irish immigration. Lutheran and German Reformed immigration into Pennsylvania begins.

  1730 The first settlements in the Shenandoah Valley are established.

  1732 A charter is issued for the establishment of Georgia.

  1735 The first Moravians arrive in Pennsylvania.

  1740 S
ettlers arrive in the North Carolina piedmont.

  1749 A lighting scheme is introduced on Philadelphia's streets.

  1750 Settlement begins in the South Carolina backcountry.

  1760 Philadelphia becomes the third largest city in the British empire. Fire destroys 400 houses in Boston.

  1 The Germans and Scots-Irish

  THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY is usually portrayed as a period of settlement, the eighteenth century as one of consolidation. Before 1700, English men and women streamed forth to found a series of colonies driven by economic and religious necessity. Thereafter immigration dried up. But while this portrait may have held true for New England, it is not correct for the rest of the colonies. The South greatly increased its importation of African slaves, while all the colonies outside New England attracted new sources of white settlement.

  What is true is that there was a relative decline in emigration from England after 1700. One reason was a lessening of religious persecution, another was an improvement in living standards there. A third was industrialization, which provided new opportunities at home. Even so, British North America continued to lure people from England, as the hope of a better existence still had considerable appeal, especially for those who had friends and relatives there. Others, perhaps 30,000, came as a result of the 1718 Transportation Act. It is likely that 75,000 persons of English extraction went to North America in the period 1700–60.

  A steady stream of Scots also crossed the Atlantic. The inhabitants of the northern kingdom had been excluded from England's overseas possessions during the seventeenth century. Some Lowland Scots did settle in East New Jersey around Perth Amboy, after its purchase by Scottish Quakers. But after the 1707 Act of Union the door was open. Some Scots left as a result of the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745; many more departed for economic reasons. In time these Scottish immigrants were to be especially important in commerce, not least the tobacco trade. Perhaps 20,000 Scots came to North America in this period.