By 1675, many American Indians were aware of the European invasion of the Americas. European trade goods—metal artifacts, glass beads, cloth, and guns—were already having an impact on Native cultures; refugees, displaced from their ancient homelands, were seeking new homes, and bringing with them tales of the invaders’ inhospitality; and finally European diseases, such as smallpox, were infecting Native people long before actual physical contact between Indians and Europeans.
Briefly described below are a few American Indian events of 350 years ago, in 1675.
English Colonists
In his book Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, Edward Spicer summarizes the English approach to American Indians this way:
“In contrast with Spain, England had conceived of the Indians of North America as continuing to exist as separate nations outside the political organization of Britain. The British government organized no campaign for conversion of Indians to Christianity. It proposed to acquire land for colonization by purchase, by simple appropriation of unoccupied or sparsely settled areas, or by conquest and treaty where necessary.”
The first English colonies included Jamestown (1607), Plymouth (1620), Massachusetts Bay (1630), and the Colony of Maryland (1634).
One of the conflicts between the English colonists and the Indians centered around land and the different cultural views regarding land. In their book Native American Heritage, Merwyn Garbarino and Robert Sasso write:
“To the Indian, land was a free good, to be used but not owned. But for the English, owning their very own land was the goal that drew many, perhaps most, across the ocean. Most of the British immigrants were the poor, the dispossessed, and the younger sons of nobility who had no rights in land back home. They had dreamed of finding cheap real estate subject to complete private ownership, and that was what they came after.”
In Massachusetts, the Wampanoag population had decreased from 12,000 in 1600 to only 1,000 by 1675. The declining population was the result of European diseases, murder/war by the English colonists, slavery (Wampanoags being taken as slaves to be sold in the Caribbean slave markets), and the loss of their farmlands, hunting lands, and fishing areas to the English colonists.
The Wampanoags did not always respond passively to English aggression. In 1675, two Plymouth settlers killed an Indian they found in an abandoned house. In retaliation, Wampanoag warriors killed the two settlers and seven others.
In Rhode Island, English troops from Massachusetts and Connecticut attacked and burned the village of Niantic leader Queen Quaiapen. They destroyed 150 wigwams, killed seven Indians, and captured nine others.
Niantic leader Quaiapen was also known as Magnus, Matantuck, and Sunke Squaw. She was the sister of Ninigret and the widow of Makanno. She was described as one of the most influential sachems among the Narragansetts (the Niantic were one of the Narragansett tribes).
Spanish
By 1675, the Spanish colonization efforts focused primarily on Florida and what later became the Southeastern United States, the Southwest (which would become Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona), and California.
In Florida, in response to the declining Apalachee population, the Spanish moved a number of Indians from other tribes—Chacato, Tama, Chine, Tocobaga, Amacano—into the Apalachee region.
In Texas, Spanish explorers, including a group of Franciscan missionaries, traveled northward from Eagle Pass to present-day Edwards County. They encountered three tribes (we don’t know today which tribes) and noted that smallpox had already decimated tribal numbers. Some of the tribes were hunting buffalo and making jerky.
Oneota
In Iowa, the Oneota established a settlement along the banks of the Big Sioux River. As many as 10,000 people would eventually live at this site.
Apache
In Kansas and Nebraska, Apaches began living in permanent villages. They were raising corn and making pottery. The addition of farming to the economy was not caused by a scarcity of food. According to archaeologist James Gunnerson, in his chapter in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 13, Part 1: Plains:
“Rather, it was a dietary matter—a desire to assure a supply of the corn they had learned to like as supremely successful bison hunters who had been trading their surplus to the village dwellers for garden produce.”
James Gunnerson goes on to say:
“The spur to Apachean horticulture was probably the disruption of this trade brought about when the Apacheans began taking slaves from the Caddoans to sell in the Spanish Southwest.”
More Seventeenth-Century American Indian histories
Indians 101: American Indians and Christianity 350 years ago, 1675
Indians 101: American Indians and English colonists 350 years ago, 1675
Indians 101: American Indians in the Southeast 350 years ago, 1674
Indians 101: American Indians in New England 350 years ago, 1674
Indians 201: American Indians and New Sweden
Indians 201: The Spanish search for the mythical American Indian cities of Cibola
Indians 101: The French and American Indians in the 17th century
Indians 101: The Dutch and American Indians in the 17th century
