GO rD hIll 500 Years of Indigenous resistanceIn contrast, the Europeans who began colonizing North America
found a lower population density and the lands, though fertile for crops
and abundant in fur-bearing animals, contained little in precious metals
accessible to 17th century European technology.
The exploitation of North America was to require long-term activi-
ties which could not rely on Indigenous or Afrikan slavery but which in
fact which required Indigenous participation. Maintaining colonies thou-
sands of miles away from Europe and lacking the gold which financed the
Spanish armada, the colonial forces in North America would have to rely
on the gradual accumulation of agricultural products and the fur trade.
In this way, the initial settlements relied largely on the hospitality
afforded them by the Native peoples. Earlier attempts at European settle-
ments had failed for precisely this reason, as the Europeans found them-
selves almost completely ignorant of the land.
The growing European colonies quickly set about acquiring already
cleared and cultivated land, and their expansionist policies led to fierce
competition between the colonies. This bitter struggle for domination of
land and trade frequently began and ended with attacks against Indig-
enous communities. One of the first of these ‘strategic attacks’ occurred
in 1622 when a force from the Plymouth colony massacred a group of
Pequots. In retaliation, Pequote warriors attacked a settler village at Wes-
sagusset, which was then abandoned and subsequently absorbed into the
dominion of the Plymouth colony, which had coveted the trade and land
enjoyed by the Wessagusset settlers.
By 1630, the Massachusetts Bay colony had been established, and
‘New England’, once only a vague geographical expression, came to apply
in practise to the colonies of New Plymouth, Salem, Nantucket, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New Haven and others.
The expansionist drives of the Massachusetts colonists consisted of
massacres carried out against first the Pequot and eventually the Narra-
gansetts between 1634 and 1648.
It was in this period that the transition between European depen-
dence on Native peoples began to be reversed. Through the establishment
and expansion of European colonies, increased contact with First Nations
brought extensive trading, as well as disease epidemics and conflict.
Trade gradually served to break up Indigenous societies:
Indian industry became less specialized and divided as it entered
into closer relations of exchange with European industry. For the