Resistance in the Americas

COLONIZATION AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION HIST 1301 | History Resistance in the Americas The first to rebel were the Indigenous people of New Spain. The Indigenous inhabitants of Hispaniola destroyed Columbus's first colony, La Navidad, in 1493, marking the beginning of resistance. Upon his second journey back to Hispaniola, Columbus found that every one of the thirty-nine men he had left behind had perished. The Spanish colonisation of some areas of North America was almost completely destroyed by acts of resistance. A Tewa Pueblo religious leader known as Popé (Po'pay) led his tribe in an insurrection against Spanish religious, economic, and cultural injustices in New Mexico in 1680, together with other Pueblo people and the Apache tribe. The remaining Spanish departed the area, leaving 400 dead. It took twelve years for the Spanish to make a major comeback to the area. The Pueblo Revolt influenced Spain's colonial policy in the area but ultimately did not succeed in giving Native Americans permanent independence. Despite taking back control of the area in 1692, Spain gave the Pueblos property and designated representatives to stand up for the tribes' rights in Spanish courts. The Pueblos assimilated many aspects of Spanish culture, such as Christian customs, but unlike previously, Spanish priests did not try to eradicate the Pueblos' native religion. As a result, a significant portion of the Pueblo tribes' way of life was preserved, helping to preserve their distinctive cultures even now. Tribes in North America that were under English sovereignty faced the possibility of losing their way of life, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Virginia and Maryland where tobacco was the primary cash crop. The rapid depletion of soil nutrients caused by tobacco farming prompted English colonists to extend their westward migration in pursuit of fresh agricultural land. Indigenous populations faced pressure from the need for farmland even in areas where colonists did not cultivate economic crops. In an attempt to enslave Native Americans, colonists tried to produce tobacco with their labour. Native American tribes occasionally sold them battle prisoners, and occasionally the English would capture Native Americans during raids on their settlements. Native American tribes had a practice of absorbing prisoners from other groups into their own before the coming of the European settlers. These individuals may now be bought as slaves and sold to the English. Native Americans were frequently enslaved, while this practice was also prevalent in English colonies in the north. English settlers and Native American tribes frequently clashed. Virginia colonists engaged in a series of conflicts with the Powhatan Confederacy, an alliance of tribes speaking Algonquin languages, between 1609 and 1646. King Philip's War began in New England as a result of long-standing complaints by Indigenous people about English land appropriation, dishonest traders who defrauded them, attempts to convert them to Christianity, and English officials' unwillingness to let them exact revenge on Europeans who had harmed them. Joined in the summer of 1675 by the Wampanoag chief Metacomet, known to the English as King Philip, Native American tribes assaulted English colonies across New England, destroying some and threatening to drive the English out of their territories completely. With the aid of Native Americans who had become Christians, the English launched a counteroffensive, killing Metacomet's adherents. When Metacomet was also slain in 1676, the war came to an end. In Plymouth, English colonial officials put Metacomet's severed head on display as a gory memento of their triumph. Captured Wampanoags and others who had sided with Metacomet were sold into slavery and forced to work on English sugar plantations in the Caribbean in order to deter further attacks. A union of Native American tribes in the Carolinas known as the Yamasee waged war against British colonists between 1715 and 1717, motivated by many of the same concerns that had caused strife in New England. Like Metacomet's adherents, the Yamasee perished or were sold into slavery. The surviving either left the area or merged with other tribes.