European colonization effort in North America stimulated intercultural contact and intensified conflict between the various groups of colonizers and native peoples. 

 

Important Events:

• Bacon's Rebellion

• Pueblo Revolts

• King William's War

• Stono Uprising (Cato Rebellion)

 

Important People:

• Nathaniel Bacon

• William Berkely

 

Important Vocabulary:

• Mercantilism

 

Notes:

- Spain: tended to conquer and enslave the native inhabitants of the regions it colonized. The Spanish also made great efforts to convert Native Americans to Catholicism. They were overwhelmingly male, and many had children with native women, so the settlements were largely populated with meztizos (people who were born in Latin America, and their ancestry is mix European and Native American).

 

-France: had significantly friendlier relations with indigenous tribes, tending to ally with them and adopt native practices. The French had little choice in this: French settlements were so sparsely populated that taking on the natives head-on would have been very risky. 

 

-The Netherlands: attempted to build a great trading empire, and while it achieved great success elsewhere in the world, its settlements on the North American continent, which were glorified trading posts, soon fell to the English... like most of its possessions. 

 

- England: differed significantly from the three countries when interacting with the Native Americans. English colonies attempted to exclude Native Americans as much as possible. The English flooded to the New World in great numbers, with entire families arriving in many of the colonies rather than with just young men  (though they did this first for 'glory, God, and gold'), and intermixing between settlers and natives was rare. Instead, when English colonies grew to the point that conflicts with nearby tribes became inevitable, the English launched wars of extermination.