American History - King William's War

By the close of the seventeenth century, France and England were the two dominant powers remaining in North America.  Of the two, the English were by far the more numerous, numbering some 155,000 colonists who controlled nearly the entirety of the Atlantic coast.  In comparison the French were much less numerous, with only around 14,000 colonists, but they controlled a vast trade network made up of forts and native allies stretching in a broad arc up the Saint Lawrence River to the Great Lakes, and then down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.  This network allowed them to dominate the fur trade, especially as Iroquois Confederacy, England’s primary native ally, found itself increasingly cut off from ever more distant supplies, though new English trade networks along Hudson’s Bay barred France from gaining complete control.  Though not officially at war, both provided arms to natives who fought proxy wars on their behalf.  The English supplied the Iroquois who attacked the French along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence, and the French supplied the Wabanaki Confederacy, who attacked the English is what is today Maine.

This proxy war shifted into a real war in 1688, as it became one front of many in a larger European conflict.  A series of war between France and first Spain, and then the Dutch, over the preceding decades had led to France becoming the most powerful nation in Europe, a state of affairs which led to France attacking the Holy Roman Empire, which quickly snowballed into England, the Dutch Republic, Portugal, and Sweden all joining in against France.  What became the Nine Year’s War spread to colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India, killing over a million people before fizzling out in 1697. 

In North America, the conflict was known as King William’s War.  With neither side able to spare professional troops for the colonies, the war was one fought by small groups volunteer militias and native allies using raids and hit and run tactics.  For the French, their primary goals were to keep the English from claiming what is today Maine and to end English competition in the northern fur trade.  They were successful in both objectives.  Thanks to the New England colonies being distracted by their growing revolt against the Dominion of New England, the French and Wabanaki were able to destroy nearly all of the English settlements in Maine, opening up New Hampshire and Massachusetts to further raids.  Meanwhile, in the north, they managed to secure all of the English trading posts along Hudson’s Bay.  For the English, the primary war aims were to have the Iroquois disrupt the French fur trade, would they did quite successfully, and to capture Quebec and other key settlements along the Saint Lawrence River, which they failed at dramatically due to poor leadership and issues with disease and supply lines. 

Following the initial successes and failures of both sides, the war collapsed into one of attrition, with both sides primarily engaged in defensive operations, skirmishes, and retaliatory raids.  Neither side had the might to strike a significant blow, so they contented themselves with a slap fight that did little but cause fear and leave handfuls of people dead.  As a result, the frontier between the two sides became largely burned out and depopulated.  This continued until 1697, when the war ended in Europe.  The treaty signed by England and France left the borders between them in North America the same as they had been before the war, except for France controlling Hudson’s Bay, with none of the disputes about exactly where the border should be resolved. 

Of course, it was both sides native allies who got the most shitty end of the stick.  For the Wabanaki, numerous villages had been destroyed in the tit-for-tat actions which characterized the war in Maine and famine caused by destroyed food supplies killed even more.  The Iroquois in many ways fared even worse.  When the French began to retaliate by attacking Iroquois lands, the Iroquois expected help to come from the English, but so such help ever appeared.  The sense of being betrayed only grew when England ended the war with France, but still continued to encourage the Iroquois to carry on their attacks.  The Iroquois signed their own treaty with the French in 1701.

American History - The Dominion of New England

Now it should probably be mentioned that England didn’t exactly turn a blind eye to the fact that the colonies in New England were pretty much functioning as independent governments.  It was just that for awhile the were pretty busy with other things, such as the English Civil War, which tended to divert their attention.  However, when King Charles II took the throne on 1660, work began to better bring the colonies under control.  From the English standpoint, its colonies existed only to ship needed resources to England.  As such, between 1660 and 1673, the English parliament passed a series of what became known as the Navigation Acts, which required the colonies to only export and import goods to and from England, which could only be carried by English owned ships crewed by a majority of English sailors, and restricted trade between the colonies.  These acts rather sucked for all of the English colonies, in that it restricted trade, raising costs and lowering profits, but they were especially unpopular in New England. 

Over the past several decades New England had increasingly become a center of manufacturing; especially textiles, leather goods, and ironware; and merchant shipping in the New World.  While this was pretty good for the colonies, it was bad for England, which formerly made a lot of money from this trade.  The Navigation Acts were meant to ensure England continued to profit from its colonies.  However, instead of kowtowing as they were supposed to, many of the New England ship owners just did what they had always done, trading with whomever they damn well pleased, just now technically illegally.  As one can probably imagine, this infuriated the English, who demanded that the colonial governments do something about it, which they of course promised to do, though also of course totally didn’t do.  Things only became worse after King Philip’s War, with many of the New England colonists feeling England had failed to help them in their time of need, which they totally had, hoping that the devastation of the New England colonies would fix the issue.  The fact that the Puritans had been staunchly opposed to the royalists during the English Civil War and were actively also thumbing their noses at demands that they not persecute everyone who wasn’t Puritan didn’t help matters any either.

Things finally came to a head in 1685 when Charles II died and his brother James II came to the throne.  Lacking the patience of his brother, James II just said fuck it and annulled the charters of all of the New England colonies, placing them all under the administration of Edmund Andros, the appointed governor of New York.  The new Dominion of New England included New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.  Andros quickly ended the elected assemblies, enforced the Navigation Acts, promoted the Anglican church, and threatened to not recognize any of the land titles granted by the colonial governments.  As one can imagine, this pissed off pretty much everyone it was possible to piss off, and a significant amount of unrest began to manifest, to which Andros responded by banning town meetings and threats of bringing in the English army.  Growing conflict between the colonists and French armed natives on the frontier only made the situation worse.

It's hard to say what might have happened next if things had continued going as they were, but we’ll never know because in 1688 the Glorious Revolution took place, wherein James II was deposed and replaced by King William III.  When word of this reached the colonies in early 1689, mobs formed in a number of cities and towns which seized and imprisoned Andros and his flunkies.  The former colonial assemblies were reconvened and took back control.  When word of this reached the newly crowned King William III, he was much less concerned than his predecessors.  Both he and the New England colonists had bigger fish to fry, namely a growing war with France.  As such, they agreed to a compromise.  All of the colonies could still have elected assemblies as long as they had governors appointed by the king and laws limiting rights and privileges to only Puritans were revoked.  In return, at least unofficially, England would not fully enforce the Navigation Acts on New England, which was less pertinent given the growing conflict with France was already curtailing the New England trade.  The compromise worked, and though it did cause a bit of a panic amongst the Puritan majority, which became part of the cause of the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692, it did end the crisis, at least for the foreseeable future.    

American History - King Philip's War

It should probably be generally understood that for the majority of the seventeenth century, the New England colonies were basically independent countries.  Though ostensibly under the protection of England, there was really no reason for England to give two shits about them.  They had very little access to the fur trade, especially as it moved westward, and the soil and climate didn’t allow for the growing of any cash crops, such as tobacco.  Basically, if it hadn’t been for the Puritans looking for a place to live out their own specific brand of Christianity, the areas would’ve likely not been settled at all, which is why the Puritans got to do basically whatever the hell they wanted as long as they didn’t bother anyone else.  In a lot of ways, this was a fairly positive turn of events.  Each of the colonies set up democratically elected assemblies, people were guaranteed certain inalienable rights, and overall the quality of life was not only better than England, but one of the highest in the world.  Unfortunately this was only true if you were a Puritan.  If you weren’t a Puritan you basically got no rights whatsoever and would most likely get the shit kicked out of you prior to being hanged.  It was an interesting mix of liberal democracy and theocratic autocracy.

Now say what you want about the Puritans, but they were industrious as all get out.  When the colony was first established, one of the few exports they had was shipping wood to England for shipbuilding.  Over time this shifted to them building ships themselves, which then shifted to them building up their own merchant fleets.  Similarly, tired of importing cloth from England, they began raising more sheep, which provided them with wool, which they then used to build up their own small textile industry, which let them then use their merchant ships to export cloth to other colonies.  This led to an economic boom, which resulted in a currency shortage, which the colonists solved by minting their own coins.  As you can imagine, all of this caused all sorts of troubles with England, which we will get into later, but for now we’re going to focus in on how this all affected the New England colonists’ relationship with the natives.

Now basically from the start the Puritans had made it a point to befriend various native groups in the area, the most powerful being the Wampanoag Confederacy.  For the Wampanoag, this friendship was seen as important as it gave them access to European goods, some protection against other more hostile tribes, and guarantees of territorial integrity.  Unfortunately, the colonists didn’t really agree regarding this last one.  The Puritans, did not view the natives as their equals, and as their population expanded, they began expanding deeper into the interior.  By 1675, the New England colonial population had reached some 65,000 people spread across some 110 towns.  In comparison, the native population was only around 10,000 to 20,000, their numbers thinned by epidemics and various tribes, such as the Pequot, getting into conflicts with the colonists.

As one can probably imagine, things steadily got worse for the native Algonquian peoples, with the colonists increasingly ignoring the old agreements made by their forefathers in favor of just forcing their will on everyone around them, including forcing the natives to live by colonial laws, demanding the return of all of their firearms, and pressuring them to convert to Christianity.  As a result, the various Algonquian tribes, deciding enough was enough already, set aside their differences and joined under a Wampanoag chief named Metacomet, whom the colonists called King Philip for some reason.  In 1675, they launched attacks across New England, sparking a bloody war which would last for the next three years.  Thousands died on both sides in raids, attacks, and wanton executions of prisoners.  Entire towns and villages were razed.  Already outnumbered, the Wampanoag and their allies became increasingly desperate as the Iroquois joined in on the side of the colonists.  Metacomet died in 1676, but the war drug on until 1678 in northern New England.

The war caused significant damage to all of the New England colonies, resulting in significant damage, towns being abandoned, and the death of some ten percent of the male population of fighting age.  Attempts to colonize what is today Maine were effectively ended for decades.  This was nothing compared to what happened to the native Algonquians.  Entire tribes ceased to exist, their members killed, enslaved, and scattered.  The few tribes which remained had no power left to resist, becoming an ever shrinking and silent minority in lands once their own.  The only exception to this was in the north, where the Algonquian tribes in what is today Maine and New Brunswick united into the Wabanaki Confederacy.  United by a common enemy, and armed by the French, they kept the New England colonists from expanding northward.