The Idea of the Covenant

God of Israel is among us,

make others' conditions our own and rejoice together, mourn together,

we must be willing to rid ourself of our excesses to supply others' necessities;

we must hold each other in brotherly affection

he Lord will surely break out in wrath against us and be revenged on such a perjured people, and He will make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.

so that the rich and mighty might not eat up the poor, nor the poor and despised rise up against their superiors and shake off their yoke

many rural laborers were thrown off the land

But if they broke the covenant, the entire community would feel God's wrath.

the Puritan had made a covenant with God to establish a truly Christian community

In each seventeenth-century New England colony, government itself rested on consent

Even marriage itself was regarded as a covenant

-were envisioned in terms of a covenant or contract which rested on consent and mutual responsibilities.

Puritan social and theological life was the notion of the covenant

Race War in Virginia

invade the country, and destroy them who sought to destroy us

.so that we, who hitherto have had possession of no more ground

contrary to the laws of God and man

not sparing either age or sex, man, women or child;

they came unarmed into our houses, without bows or arrows, or other weapons, with deer, turkeys, fish, furs, and other provisions to sell and truck with us for glass, beads, and other trifles

which God of his mercy (by the means of some of themselves converted to Christianity) prevented

they borrowed our own boats to convey themselves across the river

Yea, such was the treacherous dissimulation of that people who then had contrived our destruction

Opechcanough was captured and shot and the survivors of Powhatan's confederacy, now reduced to just 2,000, agreed to submit to English rule.

347 settlers, or about a third of the English colonists, died in the attack.

Two Indian converts to Christianity warned the English

encroaching on Indian hunting grounds.

ideal place to cultivate tobacco, which had been recently introduced into Europe.

it appeared that Jamestown was an economic failure.

Despite the lamentations of the Mathers and other Puritan leaders of their failure, they left an enduring mark on New England culture and society that endured long after the region’s residents ceased to be called “Puritan.”

The population spread and grew more diverse as New England prospered.

They tended to focus their disappointment on the younger generation. “But alas!” Increase Mather lamented, “That so many of the younger Generation have so early corrupted their [the founders’] doings!”

people who did not conform to community norms were punished or removed.

corrected before coercion.

All male property holders could vote in town meetings

The town’s inhabitants collectively decided the size of each settler’s home lot based on their current wealth and status

In contrast to other English colonists who had to contend with powerful Native American neighbors, the Puritans confronted the stunned survivors of a biological catastrophe. A lethal pandemic of smallpox during the 1610s swept away as much as 90 percent

The majority of New England immigrants were small landholders in England, a class contemporary English called the “middling sort.”

the Puritans gained an implacable foe that cast English Puritans as excessive and dangerous

But Puritans understood themselves as advocating a reasonable middle path in a corrupt world

obscured God’s message

Calvinists (and Puritans) believed that mankind was redeemed by God’s Grace alone, and that the fate of an individual’s immortal soul was predestined.

work for only a set number of years before becoming free landowners themselves.

A negro will always be a negro, carry him to Greenland, feed him chalk, feed and manage him

Early English settlers from the Caribbean and Atlantic coast of North America mostly imitated European ideas of African inferiority

eft the English feeling entitled to indigenous lands and resources

War and disease destroyed the remnants of the Chesapeake Indians

He launched a surprise attack and in a single day (March 22, 1622) killed 347 colonists, or one-fourth of all the colonists in Virginia. The colonists retaliated and revisited the massacres upon Indian settlements many times over

Dutch slave ship sold 20 Africans to the Virginia colonists. Southern slavery was born

any person who migrated to Virginia would automatically receive 50 acres of land and any immigrant whose passage they paid would entitle them to 50 acres more

of years in return for passage across the ocean

high price in Europe and the tobacco boom began in Virginia and then later spread to Maryland. Within fifteen years American colonists were exporting over 500,000 pounds of tobacco per year.

the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe eased relations with the Powhatan

The settlers ate everything they could, roaming the woods for nuts and berries. They boiled leather. They dug up graves to eat the corpses of their former neighbors. One man was executed for killing and eating his wife.

He that will not work shall not eat.” He navigated Indian diplomacy, claiming that he was captured and sentenced to death but Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas

Would rather starve than work.”7 And so they did. Disease and starvation ravaged the colonists. Fewer than half of the original colonists survived the first nine months.

Without plows, manure, or draft animals, the Powhatan achieved a remarkable number of calories cheaply and efficiently.

Despite these setbacks, the English built Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in the present-day United States.

close enough to many Indian villages and their potentially lucrative trade networks. But the location was a disaster. Indians ignored the peninsula because of its terrible soil and its brackish tidal water that led to debilitating disease

glass, iron, furs, pitch, tar, and anything else the country could supply

Historians presume the colonists, short of food, may have fled for the nearby island and its settled native population

England more often simply seized land through violence and pushed out the former inhabitants, leaving them to move elsewhere or to die.

model of forcible segregation

England stood ready to embark upon its dominance over North America

But then a fluke storm, celebrated in England as the “divine wind,” annihilated the remainder of the fleet.

Spain launched the largest invasion in history to destroy the British navy and depose Elizabeth

Tensions worsened after the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic.

Queen Elizabeth sponsored sailors, or “Sea Dogges,” such as John Hawkins and Francis Drake, to plunder Spanish ships and towns in the Americas

landless “vagabonds.” Expanded trade, he argued, would not only bring profit, but also provide work for England’s jobless poor

offered obvious economic advantages. Trade and resource extraction would enrich the English treasury

He promised that English colonization could strike a blow against Spanish

“Virgin Queen,” Elizabeth I

Moreover, promoters promised that the conversion of New World Indians would satisfy God

They claimed to be doing God’s work.

evicted tenants from the land and created hordes of landless, jobless peasants

fewer than three million in 1500 to over five million by the middle of the seventeenth century.

“golden age.”

England eyed the enormous wealth that Spain gleaned from the new World

the powerful Spanish Armada would be destroyed

The reliance on new imports of slaves increased the likelihood of resistance, however, and escaped slaves managed to create several free settlements, called quilombos

Gold and silver mines dotted the interior of the colony, but two industries powered early colonial Brazil: sugar and the slave trade.

both Portugal and Spain were instructed to treat the natives with Christian compassion and to bring them under the protection of the Church.

This rivalry created a crisis within the Catholic world as Spain and Portugal squared off in a battle for colonial supremacy.

Some enslaved Africans, for instance, successfully sued for back wages. When several company-owned slaves fought for the colony against the Munsee Indians, they petitioned for their freedom and won a kind of “half freedom”

at least 500 African slaves in the colony

Profit and peace, it seemed, could not coexist.

patroon system granted large estates to wealthy landlords

Wampum became a currency that could buy anything from a loaf of bread to a plot of land.

wampum

Like the French, the Dutch sought to profit, not to conquer

both the Dutch attempt to find a more peaceful process of colonization

a legal philosopher who believed native peoples possessed the same natural rights as Europeans.

He failed, of course, but nevertheless found the Hudson River and claimed modern-day New York for the Dutch.

The Dutch advanced the slave trade and brought African slaves with them to the New World. Slavery was an essential part of Dutch capitalist triumphs.

Although the Dutch offered liberties, they offered very little democracy—power remained in the hands of only a few

the Dutch embraced greater religious tolerance and freedom of the press than other European nations.

Dutch women maintained separate legal identities from their husbands and could therefore hold property and inherit full estates.

t allowed for native and European interaction, negotiation, and accommodation

The Huron, for instance, were decimated by the ravages of European disease, and entanglements in French and Dutch conflicts proved disastrous. Despite this, some native peoples maintained distant alliances with the French.

the French worked to cultivate cooperation with Indians

but all non-Catholics were forbidden in New France

Few Frenchmen traveled to the New World to settle permanently

French fur traders placed a higher value on cooperating with the Indians

investment from private trading companies

Catholicism had always justified Spanish conquest, and colonization always carried religious imperatives.

There, they traded with and exploited the local Puebloan peoples

Thus, the Spanish never achieved a commanding presence in the region

the Spaniards slaughtered nearly half of its roughly 1,500 inhabitants, including women and children. Oñate ordered one foot cut off of every surviving male over 15 and he enslaved the remaining women and children

Apalachee farmers grew an abundance of corn and other crops.

The Apalachee, one of the most powerful tribes

granted missionaries the right to live

In the first half of the sixteenth century, Spanish colonizers fought frequently with Florida’s native peoples as well as with other Europeans

in the hopes of establishing religious and economic dominance in a new territory.

New empires would emerge from these tenuous beginnings, and by the end of the seventeenth century, Spain would lose its privileged position to its rivals.

responses ranging from welcome cooperation to aggressive violence,

Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and England all raced to the New World, eager to match the gains of the Spanish

enabled a European population boom.

New diseases wiped out entire civilizations in the Americas

will lose the aforementioned goods

if your subjects feel offended, as theyclaim to be

And as soon as they are taken by the white men they are immediately ironedand branded with fire

take them to be sold to the white men

o satisfy their voracious appetite

nconvenience which isof little service to God

Why do you think that King Affonso let the Portuguese enslave his subjects at first? Inthe letter below, why does the king now request regulations?

Affonso pleads for his country

Portuguese slave trade

Huge expeditions, resembling vast moving communities, composed of hundreds of soldiers, settlers, priests, and slaves, with enormous numbers of livestock, moved across the continent

Virgen de Guadalupe

wrought a hybrid culture

Mestizo mothers, for instance, might insist that their mestizo daughters were actually castizas, or quarter-Indians, who, if they married a Spaniard, could, in the eyes of the law, produce “pure” criollo children entitled to the full rights and opportunities of Spanish citizens

They were not quite Indios, or Indians, but their lack of limpieza de sangre, or “pure blood,” removed them from the privileges of full-blooded Spaniards

Indians, however, always outnumbered the Spanish and the Spaniards, by both necessity and design, incorporated native Americans–unequally–into colonial life

spread over the people as great destruction

The people sacrificed some goats

Eshu demanded sacrifice be made to Obatala

Olokun summoned the great waves of her vast oceans and sent them surging across the land.

became a city.

The next day he realized what he had done, and swore never to drink again, and to take care of those who were deformed, thus becoming Protector of the Deformed

He decided to create beings like himself to keep him company.

The mature palm tree dropped more palm nuts on the ground, each of which grew immediately to maturity and repeated the process.

pour the sand from the snail's shell

All the gods contributed what gold they had, and Orunmila supplied the articles for the bag.

went to Olorun for permission to create dry land

only the sky above, water and marshland below.

The Yoruba tribe of West Africa has a myth about how they where created:

How did human beings arrive in the world? • How were animals helpful? • What did twins do to create the world?

The inspection of each other’s work resulted in a deadly disagreement between the brothers, who finally came to grips and blows, and Othagwenda was killed in the fierce struggle.

saying that the people who were about to come would live too easily and be too happy

displeased

t Djuskaha had made a large number of animals which were so fat that they could hardly move; that he had made the sugar-maple trees to drop syrup; that he had made the sycamore tree to bear fine fruit; that the rivers were so formed that half the water flowed upstream and the other half downstream.

He also modified some of the other animals which his brother had made

causing him to become very small

necessary for them to increase the size of their island

The Grandmother of the twins liked Djuskaha and hated the other; so they cast Othagwenda into a hollow tree some distance from the lodge.

breath of the West Wind had entered her person, causing conception

Her mother reproved her, saying that she had violated the injunction not to face the east, as her condition showed that she had faced the wrong way while digging potatoes

she must face the West at all times.

she built herself a shelter, in which she lived quite contentedly

once both began to grow in size and depth

Finally it was decided to prepare the earth

It is not at all right to destroy this tree. Its fruit is all that we have to live on.

chief

A long time ago human beings lived high up in what is now called heaven

wherein there is life, I have given

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day

God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth

And God said, Let us make man in our image, 1 Cor. 11.7 after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth

beast of the earth after his kind

God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also

whose seed is in itself

Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so

firmament

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth

Wave after wave of disease crashed relentlessly. Disease flung whole communities into chaos. Others it destroyed completely.

But without the rich gold and silver mines of Mexico, the plantation-friendly climate of the Caribbean, or the exploitive potential of large Indian empires, North America offered little incentive for Spanish officials

They were not quite Indios, or Indians, but their lack of limpieza de sangre, or “pure blood,” removed them from the privileges of full-blooded Spaniards

declared that any child with Spanish blood “to the half” was entitled to certain Spanish rights

225,000 migrated during the sixteenth century alone, and 750,000 came during the entire three centuries of Spanish colonial rule

After two years of conflict, a million-person strong empire was toppled by disease, dissension, and a thousand European conquerors

Aztecs constructed by dredging mud and rich sediment from the bottom of the lake and depositing it over time to form new landscapes.

Much of the city was built on large artificial islands

long-lasting civilization with a written language, advanced mathematics, and stunningly accurate calendars.

Encomenderos brutalized their laborers with punishing labor.

encomienda

Motives were plain: said one soldier, “we came here to serve God and the king, and also to get rich.

Europeans arrived, carrying smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, measles, and hepatitis, plagues decimated native communities. Death rates tended to be highest near European communities who traveled with children, as children tended to carry the deadliest diseases.

The Indian population collapsed.

They love their neighbors as themselves, and their speech is the sweetest and gentlest in the world, and always with a smile

They are very gentle and without knowledge of what is evil; nor the sins of murder or theft

On October 12, 1492, after two months at sea, the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and their ninety men landed in the modern-day Bahamas.

Columbus underestimated the size of the globe by a full two-thirds and therefore believed it was possible

Spain, too, stood on the cutting edge of maritime technology

African leaders traded war captives—who by custom forfeited their freedom in battle—for Portuguese guns, iron, and manufactured goods

Sugar, a wildly profitable commodity originally grown in Asia, had become a popular luxury among the nobility and wealthy of Europe. The Portuguese began growing sugar cane along the Mediterranean, but sugar was a difficult crop