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60 PERIOD 2 Colonial America amid Global Change: 1607–1754

fifty families who were expected to work for the landowner. Tensions increased as
Dutch colonists carved out farms north of New Amsterdam where large communities
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of Algonquian- speaking American Indians lived. In 1639, conflict escalated when
the Dutch demanded an annual tribute in wampum beads or grain. Local Algonquins
resisted, raiding farms on the frontier and killing at least two colonists. In 1643, the
Dutch launched a surprise attack on an American Indian encampment on Manhattan
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Island, killing eighty people, mostly women and children. Outraged Algonquins burned
and looted homes north of the city, slaughtered livestock, and killed settlers in response.
Strictly for use with its products. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.
For two years sporadic warfare continued, but eventually, the Algonquins were defeated.
At the same time, the Dutch eagerly traded for furs with Mohawk Indians along
the upper Hudson River. The Mohawk Indians, rivals to the Algonquin, were a power-
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) ful tribe that had the backing of the even more powerful Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)
Confederacy Confederacy. Their ties to American Indian nations farther west allowed them to
A group of allied American provide beaver skins to Dutch traders long after beavers had been overhunted in the
Indian nations that included Hudson valley. From this trade, the Mohawk and Haudenosaunee allies sought guns.
the Mohawk, Oneida, They hoped to secure captives from other American Indian tribes to restore their pop-
Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca,
and later the Tuscarora. The ulation, which was reduced by European diseases. Moreover, they hoped to fend off
Confederacy had largely economic competition from rival tribes. Still, the Mohawk people did not deceive them-
dissolved by the final decade selves. As one treaty proposition declared in 1659, “The Dutch say we are brothers and
of the 1700s. that we are joined together with chains, but that lasts only so long as we have beavers.”
Meanwhile, reports of atrocities in the conflicts between the Dutch and Algonquin
circulated in the Netherlands, damaging New Amsterdam’s reputation and dramati-
cally slowing migration to the colony. A series of wars between 1652 and 1674 with
England further weakened Dutch power in North America. In 1664, England sent a
naval convoy to take New Amsterdam. More focused on the profitable Asian trade and
colonial projects in Southeast Asia, the Dutch had little choice but to surrender their
lightly populated colony to the English.

REVIEW

■ How did the economic relationship between the Dutch and American
Indians compare to the French relationship with American Indians?

Spain’s Fragile North American Empire

In the early decades of the sixteenth century, Spain continued to push north from
Mexico in an attempt to expand its empire. As the French, Dutch, and English separately
challenged Spain for North American colonies throughout the seventeenth century, the
Spaniards were spread dangerously thin on the northern reaches of their American hold-
ings. Even as they tried to maintain a firm hold on Florida and the West Indies, staving off
growing resistance from the Pueblo people caused Spain to struggle to maintain its hold-
ings in Nuevo México, now part of the American Southwest. Thus, as other European pow-
ers expanded their reach into North America, the Spaniards were left with few resources
to protect their northern and eastern frontiers.
Spain’s use of the mission system, directed by Franciscan priests, to extend its con-
trol into Nuevo México provoked resistance from the Pueblo nations (see Module 1.4).
Following Pueblo resistance, which led to both the Acoma massacre and the flight of
Spanish settlers, the Spanish crown developed a new plan for the region. In 1610, the
Spanish returned with a larger military force, founded Santa Fe, and established a new
network of missions and estates owned by encomenderos.

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