While Europe was fighting and burning, the New World was having its own trouble: the colonies were growing bigger. This would have been a good thing if nobody else had been living in the whole of North America. But as it was, there were already very many people who had made their home there: the Native Americans. The kings in Europe were glad to see their colonies growing, but the Indians were not. The colonists were taking over more and more of their land, and they were not happy about it. The Indians who had once been the settlers’ friends were now their enemies.
It was the Wampanoag tribe who fought back first. Metacom, the leader of that tribe, gathered together other tribes to fight against Plymouth Plantation. At first, Plymouth ignored the warning a friendly Indian had given them, but when they found out that the Indian had been murdered by his own tribe shortly after, they began to consider what he had said. Soon after, a war began.
The Indians were good at surprise attacks, but the English had guns. Eventually they defeated Metacom and his army. This war lasted for months and months. It was called “King Philip’s War” because the English called Metacom “King Philip.” But there was still another war going on in a different part of North America, but for a different reason. This time it was the Indians who wanted more land.
Down in New France, the Europeans and the Huron Indians were friends. But this friendship was not always good for the Hurons. Besides the gifts the French gave them, the Indians also got a disease called small pox. They became weak from sickness and rashes. This made them a good target of another Indian tribe nearby, the Iroquois. The Iroquois captured the land the Hurons lived on and killed many of their people.
Then, they turned towards the colonies. The French settlers were afraid of the Iroquois and their attacks. As more raids on their village happened, more of them left to go back to Europe. King Louis XIV didn’t want his New France colony to be lost. He sent a lot of soldiers over to America. The soldiers were not able to totally defeat the Indians, but they did force them to retreat back onto their own land.
King Louis XIV had promised the soldiers land in return for their help fighting the Iroquois. When they settled down, however, there was another problem. All the soldiers were men, and they wanted to start families. But for every six men in the colonies there was only one woman. King Louis XIV to the rescue again!!! He paid women from France grand amounts of money so that they would travel to New France. This plan worked, and soon New France was growing bigger than ever.
The Iroquois did not give up, however, and soon they started another war on the French colonies. One fourteen year old girl, Marie-Madeleine de Vercheres was walking through her father’s fields when she saw them running and shooting at her. She screamed for help to the guards, but the guards were all hidden away in fear in the fort. Finally, she ran into the fort, and cried to the soldiers to fight the Iroquois who were trying to get into the fort. Realizing no one else would lead them; Marie-Madeleine took off her bonnet and commanded her two younger brothers to help her guard the fort. They shot cannons which frightened the Iroquois. The children and an old man held the fort for eight days, before French soldiers finally came to help them. Marie-Madeleine is still regarded as a French Canadian Heroine.
At this time, the French and English colonies were colonies of war. One man, named William Penn, wanted to build a colony of peace. William was a Quaker. Quakers were often persecuted throughout England and other parts of Europe. King Charles II owed William’s family money that they had loaned him. After his father’s death, William reminded the king of this, and suggested that he pay back the debt with land in North America, rather than with money. The king agreed and gave William a portion of land in North America almost as big as England itself!
William organized the way the government in his new land would work. It was almost like the way the USA government works today. He also made plans about being friendly to the Indians there. He sent messages to them telling them that he would pay for any land that the colonists took from the Indians. The colony prospered. More and more Quakers came from Europe to live in Pennsylvania. But the Maryland governor, whose colony was right next to William’s, thought that Maryland should have the land that Pennsylvania had. William had to go to court with him back in England. William didn’t return to America for fifteen more years. But when he returned, he was very happy to see that colony had prospered greatly.
While William Penn was in England, an important event happened. Charles II, who had given William the land, died. His brother, James II became king. But the people of England were worried. James was Catholic, and he had married a Catholic woman and had a Catholic son. Most of England did not want to become a Catholic country. So the Protestants sent a message to James’s daughter and her husband who were both Protestants. The soon-to-be monarchs agreed to seize the throne and to sign a message saying that they would never pass any laws without the approval of Parliament. The people of England were happy, (but William Penn was arrested several times because he was suspected of being loyal to the former king.) England was at peace at last.
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