Page 14 - Jupiter West - October '19

Page 14, Jupiter West
Book Review

American Colonies: The Indians throughout North America had far more valuable than any of the 13 we
think of today. It was to fill their needs
died of smallpox and other such plagues!
Settling Of North America In this way, the author traces the that the West African slave trade began
history of every territory in North and grew rapidly, often encouraged by
By Nils A. Shapiro America. The Dutch established the the African chieftains who eagerly sold
This is not the book I colony of New Netherland, which their own people to enrich themselves.
thought it would be when I became New York when the English took Soon, the colonization of the
purchased it online. Instead, it over. French fur traders began working Chesapeake, Carolinas and Georgia,
it turned out to be very with native Indians on the Atlantic coast ideal for the growing of rice and tobacco
different ... and so much of Canada, then slowly built small so much in demand by Europe, increased
better! settlements further into the interior the need for slaves to the point where in
As regular readers of until, finally, turning south they built a many places blacks outnumbered whites
this book review column settlement and named it in honor of their and colonists devised a policy of pitting
have come to know over the king: Louisiana. But each of these was Indians against blacks, and vice versa,
past 13 years and more than sparsely populated, and overwhelmingly in order to prevent either from joining
150 issues, I tend toward outnumbered by the many Indian tribes forces in an uprising.
preferring nonfiction, and I find early American history that surrounded them. With English, French and Spanish
particularly interesting. The numerous such books I have By then, the Indians had come to naval fleets competing for the rich
read, and reviewed here, included such bestsellers as depend upon the Europeans for guns, Caribbean and southern Atlantic coast
Mayflower, 1776, John Adams, Founding Brothers, as ammunition and such other trade goods trade, the European royal crowns
well as such lesser known but equally informative and as alcohol, cloths and other items, in return for the beaver, sponsored pirates to interfere with their enemies’ ships.
fascinating works as Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions otter, deer and other fur skins that they are adept at hunting Such famous buccaneers as Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan,
of Jane Franklin (Benjamin Franklin’s sister), and Reporting and skinning. By tradition in constant war against other often thought of today as “the bad guys,” had crews that were
the Revolutionary War, an oversized, lavishly illustrated tribes, each cannot afford to lose a trading relationship actually comprised of mariners who had deserted royal ships
contemporary view of the war as seen through the pages of with one or another European partner. Knowing this, the whose captains were loose with their whips and meager with
the colonies’ newspapers of that time. English and French compete for Indian allies to help defend their pay. Pirates instead enjoyed a genuine camaraderie, and
All of these but Mayflower focused on the period of themselves, and to have when planning war against the other. shared their loot equally.
the Revolutionary War and events leading to it, while that But the Indians were wise enough to know this, and they From coast to coast, the author presents the vast panorama
volume provided a brilliant background to the founding of took full advantage of their own long-established custom of of a story that takes us up through Spain’s and Russia’s
the Plymouth colony in 1620. giving presents as part of every negotiation, then demanding exploration of California in the 1800s.
So when American Colonies came to my attention as a presents from the Europeans, as well as competitive prices As late as 1760, New England colonists volunteered to
history of all of the American colonies by Pulitzer prize- for trade goods and payments for furs. fight alongside British Redcoats in battle against the French
winning author Alan Taylor, I assumed it would be somewhat As for the New England Pilgrims who had come to seek and their Indian allies in Canada and the northern territories.
similar in covering the 13 original colonies from early tolerance, when their number grew to the point that they Yet a scant 15 years later – because the English crown had
settlement through the Revolution. Wrong! needed more land for farms, they sent to the West Indies as vastly outspent its financial resources on the American
The true content of this book is described in its sub-title: slaves the Indians who had initially welcomed and helped continent and began to increase taxes on the colonists – they
The Settling of North America. For this story begins about them through their first winters by teaching them which would be declaring their own independence and facing those
15,000 years ago, when a land bridge formed by the Ice Age foods to plant, how to hunt and fish the local animals and same Redcoats in the Revolutionary War. This sweeping
allowed humans and animals to cross over from what is now crustaceans, and shared their first Thanksgiving. narrative is one that leaves you with a greater understanding
Siberia to Alaska and, over time, into present-day North, One especially interesting aspect of early American history of our nation’s history, and – while it does not touch upon
Central and South America. is the importance that the Europeans placed, beginning in the Revolution itself, nor the Founding Fathers – it makes
The development of these humans over thousands of the 1600s, on the West Indies, with their Caribbean colonies more abundantly clear than ever the steps that led to it. This
years into countless diverse cultures and civilizations – of Barbados, Jamaica and others for their sugar crops, often is a marvelous and thrilling read.
living in different climates; establishing different languages;
some as hunter-gatherers, others learning to grow food – is
covered in the book’s opening chapter, and sets the stage for
what is to come: As the Age of Exploration from England,
Spain, France and Holland beginning in the 15th century
overturns the lives of these native, indigenous Americans, the
Europeans will often find, in underestimating the shrewdness
and determination of the Indians, that their own attitudes of
superiority and mistreatment will prove costly.
Apart from the numerous wonderfully helpful maps that
enhance understanding by showing important places and the
areas of influence of Indian tribes described in the text, every
one of the 477 pages in the paperback edition offers at least
a half dozen interesting facts that I had not known, many of
them deserving of considerable provocative thought.
One such example was my learning that the English
captured from France the major fortress of Louisburg in
1745, which effectively meant that Nova Scotia became part
of the English colonies. But Britain returned it to France
in 1748 as a bargaining chip during another negotiation,
to the consternation of the New England colony. If not
for this casual decision, Nova Scotia, just off the coast of
Maine, might well have been the 14th U.S. state after the
Revolutionary War.
What you are most certain to take away from this
awesomely comprehensive volume is a view of American
history – indeed, in a sense, world history – that is rather
different from the one we all learned in our school textbooks.
The explorers, and even many of our own Pilgrim colonists,
do not come off as “heroes” when the facts are laid bare.
In 1521, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan had a population
of 200,000 compared to the 70,000 in Spain’s largest city,
Seville. When Hernan Cortes’s army entered the city at
the invitation of Aztec emperor Moctezuma – who was
impressed by these new kind of men with their strange beasts
(horses), cannons, muskets, steel armor, swords – the Spanish
soldiers were awed by the cleanliness, the architecture, the
fresh water canals, the overall beauty and organization of
the civilization. But Cortes’s greed for gold resulted in his
arranging with nearby Indian tribes to attack the Aztecs, arrest
and murder Moctezuma and destroy the city. The relevance
of this to America is its role as the foothold for Spain’s
subsequent reach into what later became New Mexico, and
then Baja (Lower/Southern) and Alta (Upper/Northern)
California.
Even more harmful than firearms in the long run was the
fact that native peoples had no immunity to the germs and
diseases brought by the Europeans. By the time the Pilgrims
arrived in the early 17th century, about 90 percent of the