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The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675
From an acclaimed historian of early America, a compelling account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to the British colonies of North America and their involvements with each other and the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard.
The immigrants were a mixed multitude—coming from England, the Netherlands, German and Italian states, France, Africa, Sweden and Finland. They moved to the western hemisphere for different reasons, from different social backgrounds and cultures. Even the majority that came from England fitted no distinct socioeconomic or cultural pattern. They came bearing their diverse life styles: from commercialized London and southeast; from isolated farmlands in the north; from Midlands towns south and west. They represented a spectrum of religious attachments. They came hoping to re-create these diverse lifestyles in a remote and, to them, barbarous environment. In the early years, their stories are mostly ones of confusion, failure, violence, and the loss of civility as they sought to normalize situations and recapture lost worlds. And in the process, they tore apart the normalities of the people whose world they had invaded.
Later generations often gentrified these early years of the peopling of British North America, but there was nothing genteel about it. Bernard Bailyn shows that it was a thoroughly brutal encounter—not only between the Europeans and native peoples and between Europeans and Africans, but among Europeans themselves, as they sought to control and prosper in the new configurations of life that were emerging around them. It is these vivid, compelling stories that Bailyn gives us in this extraordinary, fresh account of the early years of our nation.
The immigrants were a mixed multitude—coming from England, the Netherlands, German and Italian states, France, Africa, Sweden and Finland. They moved to the western hemisphere for different reasons, from different social backgrounds and cultures. Even the majority that came from England fitted no distinct socioeconomic or cultural pattern. They came bearing their diverse life styles: from commercialized London and southeast; from isolated farmlands in the north; from Midlands towns south and west. They represented a spectrum of religious attachments. They came hoping to re-create these diverse lifestyles in a remote and, to them, barbarous environment. In the early years, their stories are mostly ones of confusion, failure, violence, and the loss of civility as they sought to normalize situations and recapture lost worlds. And in the process, they tore apart the normalities of the people whose world they had invaded.
Later generations often gentrified these early years of the peopling of British North America, but there was nothing genteel about it. Bernard Bailyn shows that it was a thoroughly brutal encounter—not only between the Europeans and native peoples and between Europeans and Africans, but among Europeans themselves, as they sought to control and prosper in the new configurations of life that were emerging around them. It is these vivid, compelling stories that Bailyn gives us in this extraordinary, fresh account of the early years of our nation.
614 pages, Hardcover
First published November 6, 2012
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About the author
Bernard Bailyn
102 books134 followersBernard Bailyn is an American historian, author, and professor specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1953. Bailyn has won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice (in 1968 and 1987). In 1998 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities.
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April 21, 2025
Famed Harvard professor and historian Bernard Bailyn tackles the settling of the North American continent yet again, in which his latest account follows immigrants from France, Finland, Africa, the Netherlands, England, and the provinces of Germany and Italy in the seventeenth century. The book is full of a treasure trove of facts and meticulous research, and while granted this is necessary for any full-length history, it unfortunately is so dense in detail from page after page that the reader tends to lose focus—as Bailyn’s writing style is more in the tone and flow of a textbook.
Focusing on the various Native inhabitants and their experiences with the newfound culture of their European and African neighbors, Bailyn keeps to a structured methodology in developing each chapter on a different colony or territory—in what was then a vast and richly unconquered North America. He discusses the various populations of each of these areas, bringing about the various religious influences and sects, their customs, values, and even the distinct skill sets brought over from the Old World. Apart from the overwhelming display of facts and dryness mentioned, Bailyn does excel in providing descriptive information on just about every participant in the New World’s colonization and transformation—from the infamous, to the oft-remembered—such as John Winthrop the Younger, whose education and characteristics make it beyond evident that he was one of the early pioneers of the Enlightenment:
…his world was broader than his father’s, more complex, more closely attuned to the new and exciting intellectual waves that were sweeping across Europe and the entrepreneurial possibilities they inspired. So broad were his interests, so serious his commitment to advancement in whatever form, that in the end he could not avoid deviating from his revered father on the question of toleration, and indeed he became an outspoken advocate of liberty of conscience, so long as it did not lead to social or political unrest.
The title of the book does not go unanswered, as The Barbarous Years makes it clear that these were truly cruel and trying times—with acts of violence and brutality being displayed by Europeans, Africans, Native Americans, neighbors, countrymen, and those previously thought to be trusted alike. To conclude that the book fails in providing a comprehensive history of the North American continent and its immigration in the seventeenth century would be unjustifiable—as it delivers on this and so much more. However, it feels as if Bailyn’s style and genius were ideal for the twentieth century audience, and that present day historians—for instance, Alan Taylor—have already mastered this task in bringing academic research to the written page in a way that’s both engaging and memorable. Ten unique maps are provided, as well as over twenty illustrations.
Focusing on the various Native inhabitants and their experiences with the newfound culture of their European and African neighbors, Bailyn keeps to a structured methodology in developing each chapter on a different colony or territory—in what was then a vast and richly unconquered North America. He discusses the various populations of each of these areas, bringing about the various religious influences and sects, their customs, values, and even the distinct skill sets brought over from the Old World. Apart from the overwhelming display of facts and dryness mentioned, Bailyn does excel in providing descriptive information on just about every participant in the New World’s colonization and transformation—from the infamous, to the oft-remembered—such as John Winthrop the Younger, whose education and characteristics make it beyond evident that he was one of the early pioneers of the Enlightenment:
…his world was broader than his father’s, more complex, more closely attuned to the new and exciting intellectual waves that were sweeping across Europe and the entrepreneurial possibilities they inspired. So broad were his interests, so serious his commitment to advancement in whatever form, that in the end he could not avoid deviating from his revered father on the question of toleration, and indeed he became an outspoken advocate of liberty of conscience, so long as it did not lead to social or political unrest.
The title of the book does not go unanswered, as The Barbarous Years makes it clear that these were truly cruel and trying times—with acts of violence and brutality being displayed by Europeans, Africans, Native Americans, neighbors, countrymen, and those previously thought to be trusted alike. To conclude that the book fails in providing a comprehensive history of the North American continent and its immigration in the seventeenth century would be unjustifiable—as it delivers on this and so much more. However, it feels as if Bailyn’s style and genius were ideal for the twentieth century audience, and that present day historians—for instance, Alan Taylor—have already mastered this task in bringing academic research to the written page in a way that’s both engaging and memorable. Ten unique maps are provided, as well as over twenty illustrations.
June 10, 2012
I'm proud to have copyedited this fine book.
December 4, 2013
This book was impressive and eye-opening. Certainly much different from the whitewashed history of American colonization I read. Of course you get the general idea that the Native Americans got the short end of the stick etc. -- but this book is horrifyingly descriptive in what specific populations did to each other -- native tribe to English tribe, English tribe to Dutch tribe, Puritan tribe to themselves, etc. Loved the nitty gritty details but also the very textbooky approach. Definitely not a casual read -- you'll need your dictionary handy and maybe even a notepad to keep track of all the religious sects and specific terms/people -- but worth the effort.
June 9, 2013
I was primarily interested in reading this book as further background for my part-time job as an historical interpreter at Pioneer Village in Salem, MA. This is a great curative for books that make our history sound like one long, glorious march of progress.
This is a scrupulously-researched, very detailed account of how the "good old days" were never really that good especially for the people who were convinced or coerced into risking a venture to the new world and the Virginia colony. Corporate greed, political intrigue, poor planning and management and sheer stupidity are not modern inventions. I also appreciated that Native Americans do not get a free pass in these accounts either. Although there is an entire section detailing the Native American spiritual worldview, the author's vivid descriptions of their inter-tribal warfare, political maneuvering and propensity for horrifically torturing their captives smash the rosy-tinted revisionism of the politically-correct. It is refreshing to read a historical account of people being the kind of people you would recognize, not paragons of imagined virtue. There were virtuous people for sure, but then as now, they were generally in very short supply. Basically most everyone was awful and deserved whatever horrible fate they came to. They aren't called the barbarous years for nothing.
I enjoyed this book, although it is not an easy read, especially the second half which largely details the demographics of the people who came to the new world, from where in England, and why.
My favorite section of the book was the description of the Pilgrim unique social experiment. Out of all the groups that came to the new world described in this book, (the Puritans, the Dutch, Catholics) the Pilgrims arguably stand as the most admirable (if not actually heroic). They appear to have been driven by the purer motives of preserving their faith, and holding their community together, rather than by commercial opportunities, greed, political ambition, arrogance, or the desire to evangelize both their countrymen and the natives. Their efforts to survive against incredible odds and preserve the integrity of their beliefs is the most poignant, partly because political changes back in England, appear to make their achievements superfluous, their leaders not realizing the huge impact that their experience would make to posterity.
Another section that I found particularly enlightening, if chilling was his account of the evolution of slavery in the new world. It goes from an almost incidental acquisition of African slaves from a captured Spanish ship, to the realization that the drive to make money and the nature of growing and harvesting tobacco practically demanded a new system of slavery. The way that rich white landowners and lawyers, unquestioningly convinced of their natural superiority implemented and fine-tuned this system over the decades, deciding the fates of entire generations of human beings is as casually chilling as anything you will ever read and strangely resonant with our current corporate mindset.
If you are interested in a deeper analysis of 17th century history, this book is for you.
This is a scrupulously-researched, very detailed account of how the "good old days" were never really that good especially for the people who were convinced or coerced into risking a venture to the new world and the Virginia colony. Corporate greed, political intrigue, poor planning and management and sheer stupidity are not modern inventions. I also appreciated that Native Americans do not get a free pass in these accounts either. Although there is an entire section detailing the Native American spiritual worldview, the author's vivid descriptions of their inter-tribal warfare, political maneuvering and propensity for horrifically torturing their captives smash the rosy-tinted revisionism of the politically-correct. It is refreshing to read a historical account of people being the kind of people you would recognize, not paragons of imagined virtue. There were virtuous people for sure, but then as now, they were generally in very short supply. Basically most everyone was awful and deserved whatever horrible fate they came to. They aren't called the barbarous years for nothing.
I enjoyed this book, although it is not an easy read, especially the second half which largely details the demographics of the people who came to the new world, from where in England, and why.
My favorite section of the book was the description of the Pilgrim unique social experiment. Out of all the groups that came to the new world described in this book, (the Puritans, the Dutch, Catholics) the Pilgrims arguably stand as the most admirable (if not actually heroic). They appear to have been driven by the purer motives of preserving their faith, and holding their community together, rather than by commercial opportunities, greed, political ambition, arrogance, or the desire to evangelize both their countrymen and the natives. Their efforts to survive against incredible odds and preserve the integrity of their beliefs is the most poignant, partly because political changes back in England, appear to make their achievements superfluous, their leaders not realizing the huge impact that their experience would make to posterity.
Another section that I found particularly enlightening, if chilling was his account of the evolution of slavery in the new world. It goes from an almost incidental acquisition of African slaves from a captured Spanish ship, to the realization that the drive to make money and the nature of growing and harvesting tobacco practically demanded a new system of slavery. The way that rich white landowners and lawyers, unquestioningly convinced of their natural superiority implemented and fine-tuned this system over the decades, deciding the fates of entire generations of human beings is as casually chilling as anything you will ever read and strangely resonant with our current corporate mindset.
If you are interested in a deeper analysis of 17th century history, this book is for you.
February 25, 2013
Very scholarly but engrossing work about those colonists you read about in the first chapter of your middle school history textbook . . . and why the one-dimensional images you were given are almost entirely wrong.
Hostility to native peoples was rampant, yes; but colonists were also hostile to any immigrant who had come from a town, city or hamlet other than their own. Starvation, often because of colonists' unwillingness to adapt to the crops that best grew in their new environment,was a constant. Violent crime was continual. Disease killed so many that a third of all children were dead before they were five and few marriages lasted a decade before one partner was deceased.
People who left England or the Netherlands or Sweden to escape religious persecution established communities in America in which they were intolerant not only to those of different denominations - but also to members of their own. Rancorous relationships with neighbors led many families to move again and again. And again.
It is especially interesting to learn about something your history textbook more certainly didn't tell you: that many Puritan colonists who left England because of political repression, returned "home" when the monarchy fell and Cromwell came to power. This, even though these Puritans had lived in America for a number of years, building families and communities and establishing homesteads. So many young people returned "home" that New England actually suffered something of a brain drain as "old England became new and New England became old."
It's instructive if sobering to learn the unvarnished story of early European Americans, but learning it makes for a richer, more compelling understanding of our country's history.
Hostility to native peoples was rampant, yes; but colonists were also hostile to any immigrant who had come from a town, city or hamlet other than their own. Starvation, often because of colonists' unwillingness to adapt to the crops that best grew in their new environment,was a constant. Violent crime was continual. Disease killed so many that a third of all children were dead before they were five and few marriages lasted a decade before one partner was deceased.
People who left England or the Netherlands or Sweden to escape religious persecution established communities in America in which they were intolerant not only to those of different denominations - but also to members of their own. Rancorous relationships with neighbors led many families to move again and again. And again.
It is especially interesting to learn about something your history textbook more certainly didn't tell you: that many Puritan colonists who left England because of political repression, returned "home" when the monarchy fell and Cromwell came to power. This, even though these Puritans had lived in America for a number of years, building families and communities and establishing homesteads. So many young people returned "home" that New England actually suffered something of a brain drain as "old England became new and New England became old."
It's instructive if sobering to learn the unvarnished story of early European Americans, but learning it makes for a richer, more compelling understanding of our country's history.
May 6, 2017
This is not a book to be devoured in my usual fashion. It is a book that requires a fair bit of time to read, with over 500 pages of material, and also requires at least a little bit of reflection to digest it. Being fond of reading material about the colonial period of my country as well as material about the regional cultures that developed in British North America [1], this book proved to be an immensely detailed account of the first three-quarters of the seventeenth century in the area from Virginia to New England, and how the desire to both overcome the problems of home and replicate what they were familiar with ended up proving to be impossible in the face of the pressures of continual anxiety and threat. In writing this book, Bailyn appears to be wrestling with the darkness at the heart of American culture by looking at the origins of our own violent history and pervasive sense of anxiety in our history and specifically in the turmoil of our founding, where violence was at the heart of so much that went on all over the colonies of North America that later became part of the United States.
In terms of its organization and structure, the book is both chronological and regional in its approach. The book opens with a chapter on the worldview of the indigenous people and their native cultural beliefs as well as the pervasive violence in which they lived their lives even before the arrival of the Europeans. There are no noble savage myths here to be found. The vast majority of the book is spent on the second part, exploring the behavior of the Europeans along the Atlantic seaboard during the 17th century and their own hopes and wishes and tensions and disappointments. Four chapters look at the difficulties of early Virginia, including the threat of starvation and disease as well as the brutal warfare conducted between the Virginians and their Powhatan neighbors. After that the author looks at the founding of Maryland and its failed hopes for a Catholic refuge and the new world that was created on the shores of the Chesapeake. A couple of chapters about the Dutch farrago of New Netherlands follows and then a chapter about the struggles of New Sweden and the importance of some obscure and forgotten Finnish settlers who more or less went native. A chapter about Plymouth and three chapters about Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island follow, showing the internal contradictions of the New England experiment, the absence of a firm Puritan orthodoxy and the struggle between the desire to preserve the social experiment of New England and the desire for profit that ended up having disastrous spiritual consequences. The third part of the book ties all of these thoughts together in a single chapter that points out the violence and insecurity that was faced by all of the early colonists, among whom I can count many of my own ancestors, none of whom (alas) are mentioned here.
If you are reading this book you probably know what you are getting--a learned and highly quotable history of the American colonial period that is thought-provoking and that is based on sound insight as well as a deep knowledge of the relevant statistical and historical materials. Either this book will seem to be an interminable chore for someone who does not like reading long and heavily detailed books or it will be, like everything else I have read from this author, a wonderful and amazing book that will be among the best books about its subject one has ever read. The more I read from this author, the more I wonder why I never heard about him before and only stumbled upon by accident in looking at the history of colonial America. Clearly, this historian needs a better marketing team to let everyone know about him, because once you take the time to read this material one finds much to appreciate and even a great deal of insight in understanding ourselves when we see those not very different from us in the past struggle with the contradictions of living their ideals while pragmatically dealing with unpleasant and difficult aspects of reality in hostile territory.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
February 5, 2016
"They were provincials, listening for messages from abroad, living in a still barbarous world, struggling to normalize their own way of life, no less civil, they hoped, than what had been known before." This sentence from page 529 ends this great book. I couldn't put it down.
I have two minor complaints with this magisterial work.
This is not the best summary of knowledge of Native American chiefdoms and culture conflict, though it's very good on the Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland) struggles. In fact this is the only writing on Maryland's founding I have read since high school! But the tumultuous King Phillip's War appears only at end of this period; description of that barbarous New England conflict does not appear, but only the earlier and consuming Pequod War, with its horrors. Bailyn partially attributes frontier violence to the traumatic experience of the battle-hardened veterans of European conflict such as the Thirty Years War.
As a Georgia resident, I missed any focus at all on the Southeast colonies. South Carolina appears in 1670, and I think North Carolina is right in there. Florida was a force England had to counter, especially in this period. I'll have to read Bailyn's earlier Voyagers to the West to learn if he addressed this in an earlier work in his long career! He cites a publication of his own in this 2012 book from his own writing in 1950: (!)
Highly recommended.
I have two minor complaints with this magisterial work.
This is not the best summary of knowledge of Native American chiefdoms and culture conflict, though it's very good on the Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland) struggles. In fact this is the only writing on Maryland's founding I have read since high school! But the tumultuous King Phillip's War appears only at end of this period; description of that barbarous New England conflict does not appear, but only the earlier and consuming Pequod War, with its horrors. Bailyn partially attributes frontier violence to the traumatic experience of the battle-hardened veterans of European conflict such as the Thirty Years War.
As a Georgia resident, I missed any focus at all on the Southeast colonies. South Carolina appears in 1670, and I think North Carolina is right in there. Florida was a force England had to counter, especially in this period. I'll have to read Bailyn's earlier Voyagers to the West to learn if he addressed this in an earlier work in his long career! He cites a publication of his own in this 2012 book from his own writing in 1950: (!)
Highly recommended.
September 15, 2013
I know it was bit of a slog, and took months to finish, but don't judge a book by how long it takes one to read it. This is a masterpiece of historical writing. If you want to know how it felt to be a part of the European settlement of the New World, you can trust Dr. Bailyn to be the one to give an accurate account of life in America in the early 1600's. ILife in the colonies was not the often told celebratory tale of Thanksgiving cooperation, (which, oddly, is not covered in this book) but rather terrifying, brutish, costly beyond imagination, and short. The deeply researched book shares letters telling of savagery, failure, and unrelenting racial conflicts. According to the author, life in the colonies was "replete with bitter rivalries,scandalous accusations, violent encounters, assassination attempts, executions, and above all bloody massacres of the native Indians and earth-scorching raids."
As in his other books, Professor Bailyn, a two-time Pulitzer winner, writes masterfully. A wonderful book that will sure join the ranks of scholarly works relied upon for generations.
As in his other books, Professor Bailyn, a two-time Pulitzer winner, writes masterfully. A wonderful book that will sure join the ranks of scholarly works relied upon for generations.
December 12, 2012
There aren't many history books I can read in 100+ page chunks. This was one. Usually the only thing that stopped me reading was my eyes refusing to focus any longer. I thought Bailyn did an excellent job of showing both the big picture and details of individual colonists.
His structure is geographical, moving roughly north from Virginia to Massachusetts. Sometimes this can make it difficult to keep track of how events correspond chronologically. Also, it felt like Rhode Island and Connecticut got a little shortchanged. But it was nice to see so much attention paid to the colonies outside of New England.
While there were conflicts between colonists and native tribes throughout this period, there isn't a lot of information about the tribes in this book. The 'conflict of civilizations' of the subtitle is as much colonists in conflict with other colonists as with natives. Americans have apparently been obstinate, anti-authoritarian, and argumentative since day one.
His structure is geographical, moving roughly north from Virginia to Massachusetts. Sometimes this can make it difficult to keep track of how events correspond chronologically. Also, it felt like Rhode Island and Connecticut got a little shortchanged. But it was nice to see so much attention paid to the colonies outside of New England.
While there were conflicts between colonists and native tribes throughout this period, there isn't a lot of information about the tribes in this book. The 'conflict of civilizations' of the subtitle is as much colonists in conflict with other colonists as with natives. Americans have apparently been obstinate, anti-authoritarian, and argumentative since day one.
January 3, 2013
Dr Bailyn has created another masterpiece detailing the European settlement of what is now the United States. I found the title particularly of note, in that it extends to not only the physical violence of the clash between European and native cultures, plus the extraordinary survival challenges faced by European immigrants (as well as by the native Americans), but also to the religious and philosophical conflicts dominating the Massachusetts and other New England settlements in these early years.
Dr Bailyn ends his treatise in 1675, just prior to the New England conflict called King Philip's War. That war had a dramatic impact on both the European and native cultures. As far as I can see, he fails to mention this signal episode in American history, not even foreshadowing it in the 500+ pages of this monumental text.
I also found the detail on the Swedish-Finnish settlements in "middle America" to be most enlightening, and was gratified to see the treatment of the New Netherlands settlements as well. Readers interested in pursuing the latter are encouraged to review Russell Shorto's "The Island at the Center of the World" for even more detail on the impact of the New York area settlements on the development of the idea of America.
Lastly, I note with amusement (and not criticism in any way), that this treatment of the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth makes no mention at all of the "Thanksgiving" tradition now so popular and beloved in American culture.
Dr Bailyn ends his treatise in 1675, just prior to the New England conflict called King Philip's War. That war had a dramatic impact on both the European and native cultures. As far as I can see, he fails to mention this signal episode in American history, not even foreshadowing it in the 500+ pages of this monumental text.
I also found the detail on the Swedish-Finnish settlements in "middle America" to be most enlightening, and was gratified to see the treatment of the New Netherlands settlements as well. Readers interested in pursuing the latter are encouraged to review Russell Shorto's "The Island at the Center of the World" for even more detail on the impact of the New York area settlements on the development of the idea of America.
Lastly, I note with amusement (and not criticism in any way), that this treatment of the Pilgrim settlement at Plymouth makes no mention at all of the "Thanksgiving" tradition now so popular and beloved in American culture.
January 6, 2025
Several of the cited reviews from various authors and publications defined “The Barbarous Years” as “magisterial”. I can’t disagree with this assessment, as Bailyn demonstrates a depth of knowledge of the 17th Century British colonization of North America in a way few historians could rival. His primary emphasis is on the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, New Netherlands, New Sweden, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay. While most are familiar with Jamestown and Plymouth, very few are intimately acquainted with the stories of the Dutch and Swedish colonies in North America, near the modern cities of New York and Philadelphia. Bailyn painstakingly traces the development of these colonies from their origins in Europe, through the initial voyage and landing in the “New World”, and the early years of settlement. His descriptions of the people, land, and building styles are all extremely helpful in picturing what these colonies would have looked like at the time.
A great deal of the narrative is spent on the religious causes for many of these colonization attempts, but by far the greatest amount of detail expended in that effort is in that of Massachusetts Bay and the Puritans. My only criticism of this work is that while the other colonies received a holistic treatment, detailing all aspects of settlement, Massachusetts Bay seems nearly exclusively a treatise on the religious schisms between the Puritans and other sects. Despite being amazingly well researched and documented, it seemed strangely incongruous with the tone of chapters on the other colonies. I simply wish that Professor Bailyn had applied the same format to Massachusetts Bay(which arguably takes up the largest attention in the book) as he had to the others.
Despite my complaints, it is a wonderful history of an era of American development that has been largely overlooked or nimbly skipped over. There is a significant scholarship on both Jamestown and Plymouth, with Massachusetts Bay also having significant studies available. Yet, this is one of the best assessments of the development of Maryland I have encountered. Also, likely due to the language barrier, New Netherlands and New Sweden have received precious little attention, an error that Professor Bailyn thankfully corrected here.
He does speak frequently of Native Americans, but they are definitely secondary characters in this work. The Powhatan people of Virginia get the greatest spotlight. However, his treatment of them is generally well balanced…neither praising them as “noble savages”, nor portraying them as “ignorant savages”.
This work is highly important for a scholarly understanding of the early colonial days of American settlement, and any history enthusiast will enjoy the knowledge gained by reading “The Barbarous Years”.
A great deal of the narrative is spent on the religious causes for many of these colonization attempts, but by far the greatest amount of detail expended in that effort is in that of Massachusetts Bay and the Puritans. My only criticism of this work is that while the other colonies received a holistic treatment, detailing all aspects of settlement, Massachusetts Bay seems nearly exclusively a treatise on the religious schisms between the Puritans and other sects. Despite being amazingly well researched and documented, it seemed strangely incongruous with the tone of chapters on the other colonies. I simply wish that Professor Bailyn had applied the same format to Massachusetts Bay(which arguably takes up the largest attention in the book) as he had to the others.
Despite my complaints, it is a wonderful history of an era of American development that has been largely overlooked or nimbly skipped over. There is a significant scholarship on both Jamestown and Plymouth, with Massachusetts Bay also having significant studies available. Yet, this is one of the best assessments of the development of Maryland I have encountered. Also, likely due to the language barrier, New Netherlands and New Sweden have received precious little attention, an error that Professor Bailyn thankfully corrected here.
He does speak frequently of Native Americans, but they are definitely secondary characters in this work. The Powhatan people of Virginia get the greatest spotlight. However, his treatment of them is generally well balanced…neither praising them as “noble savages”, nor portraying them as “ignorant savages”.
This work is highly important for a scholarly understanding of the early colonial days of American settlement, and any history enthusiast will enjoy the knowledge gained by reading “The Barbarous Years”.
August 26, 2019
The United States is not the generator of Americanism, but a futile and superficial attempt at its political crystallization. Americanism is an old thing; it floats above our terrestrial laws and institutions, preceding, infusing, and transcending them. The United States is the outward circumference of Americanism, as for Blake reason was the outward circumference of energy. America’s no cartographical concept, but an aeon of God, immanentized in the human oversoul and concretized in our most reckless endeavors. Americanism is a divine and daemonic wind; one sees not the wind itself, but the things it carries in its wake.
Bernard Bailyn’s history chronicles the fortunes of the first of those who rode that wind across the Atlantic and established themselves on the North American coast. They were a pluriform lot, of many nations, tongues, and creeds; each settlement an ethnically cacophonous conglomerate of idealists, scoundrels, and marauders. The pretentions of their founders were continuously undermined by fratricidal squabbles among themselves and with their colonial proprietors, genocidal race wars with the indigenous peoples, and fresh waves of migrants ejected from Europe’s darkest corners of desperation. Their best-laid utopian schemes were subject to the meanest dictates of mercantile and military necessity: the colonists of Jamestown, under the corporate-military dictatorships of men like Lord De La Warr and John Smith, were awakened to the fife and drumbeat and marched out to the tobacco fields like soldiers, while the men of Plymouth colony were harshly disciplined if they arrived at morning prayers without weapons. The precariousness of their lives and the meagerness of their subsistence transformed their enterprises into monstrous fiefdoms with hybrid corporate, military, and administrative rulership.
The Virginia Company’s adventure in the Chesapeake began as a romance of second-born sons of English nobility seeking independent wealth befitting their status and the advancement of the civilizing and Christianizing mission of English imperialism, but quickly deteriorated into a desperate struggle for survival and a near-total reliance on the cultivation of tobacco, the province’s only profitable export. Devastated by disease, famine, and Indian raids—the most notorious of which was carried out by the Powhatan Confederacy in 1622 and killed over 300 Englishmen, or a quarter of the colony’s entire population—the proprietors emptied London’s prisons, snatched its orphans and paupers off the streets, and conscripted them all into the company’s service, sending them in waves to Virginia to buttress the atrophying population. The Powhatan wars took on the tenor of a crusade, with devastating cycles of mass murders and revenge killings. Some 8,000 colonists were sent to the Chesapeake after the founding of Jamestown; by 1625, roughly 1,200 were still alive.
Maryland was an attempt by the crypto-Catholic Calvert family to recreate an idyllic medieval manorial society in the New World, with harmonious hierarchies of class and title and freedom for unreformed manor lords to publicly practice their faith. Population needs compelled the Catholic aristocrats to import a sizeable underclass of protestant servants and, later, black slaves from the Caribbean and West Africa. Even so, the colony’s meagre human and material resources left Maryland’s aspiring gentlemen with the ignoble task of working their own fields, and religious and class tensions in this neo-feudal society boiled over as the puritanical fervor of the Cromwellian interregnum in England radiated outward to her colonies and the Calverts were temporarily overthrown in 1655 by a plundering evangelical mob. They recovered their colony, but the Catholic footprint in Maryland was thereafter lightened under an atmosphere of cautiously undiscerning religious toleration.
New Netherland, the Dutch colony on the site of present-day New York, was a multilingual, multinational, and multi-confessional enterprise from its beginnings. A product of the Dutch Golden Age, during which the Netherlands harbored dissident peoples from all over Europe and provided a credible challenge to English maritime supremacy in the Atlantic while keeping the Spanish forces in present-day Belgium at bay, the fledgling New Amsterdam sported populations of Walloons from the Spanish Netherlands, French Huguenots, English religious separatists (including the congregation that founded Plymouth colony), German anabaptists, Poles, Italians, and Jews. Sporting a proud humanistic tradition and smarting from recent cultural memories of oppression at Spanish hands, New Netherlandish leaders like the indomitable Peter Stuyvesant were among the only Europeans of the age to question the legitimacy of total warfare against the Indian nations. Relations with the interior tribes were further benefitted by the fact that the Dutch had little interest in acquiring massive land grants, but were mostly content to operate a coastal trading hub and act as middlemen between the indigenous people who produced valuable pelts and the European markets that craved them.
New Sweden, established on both sides of the Delaware River beginning in 1638, was part of a fruitless effort by the Swedish Empire, then one of the great powers of Europe, to establish itself on the Atlantic seaboard. Created under the auspices of the South Swedish Company and staffed and financed in part by Dutch speculators, about half of the colony’s population were Finns hailing from the northern reaches of Scandinavia, whose seminomadic way of life had become a nuisance to Sweden’s growing landed aristocracy. The environmental adaptability of the Finns, as well as their experiences in relating with the pseudo-animistic Sami people of the northern wastes, made them surprisingly culturally compatible with the Lenape and Susquehannock people they encountered on the Delaware. Destitute even by the standards of the other fledgling North American colonies, the Finns of New Sweden were probably the first Europeans in the new world to begin ditching their European attire and dressing in the furs and buckskins that would later become the iconic garb of American frontiersmen. The political dimension of the New Swedish experiment was a short-lived one—the colony was conquered by the Dutch in 1655—but the folkways established on the Delaware lived on, relatively unmolested by the sudden change in rulership.
The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay are likely the best-known community of the early colonial period. Seeking to establish an enclave for what they understood to be primitive Christianity and to foster a community of saints, the Puritan elders suffered from the same crises of authority that plagued the other colonial proprietors in a new world whose privations made it fundamentally democratic. Religious and political sectarianism bound together and rended the fabric of New England society. Bailyn’s narrative ends in 1675, just before the onset of the most devastating Indian war in North American history—King Philip’s War—during which a confederation of New England Indians under the Sachem Metacom of the Wampanoag launched a desperate assault on the English colonists in an attempt to drive them back to the coast, much as the Powhatan had done in the 1622 Virginia Massacre.
It was this hopelessly diverse collection of European settlers on the North American coast who would, in future generations, congeal into the first iteration of a distinctly American identity.
Bernard Bailyn’s history chronicles the fortunes of the first of those who rode that wind across the Atlantic and established themselves on the North American coast. They were a pluriform lot, of many nations, tongues, and creeds; each settlement an ethnically cacophonous conglomerate of idealists, scoundrels, and marauders. The pretentions of their founders were continuously undermined by fratricidal squabbles among themselves and with their colonial proprietors, genocidal race wars with the indigenous peoples, and fresh waves of migrants ejected from Europe’s darkest corners of desperation. Their best-laid utopian schemes were subject to the meanest dictates of mercantile and military necessity: the colonists of Jamestown, under the corporate-military dictatorships of men like Lord De La Warr and John Smith, were awakened to the fife and drumbeat and marched out to the tobacco fields like soldiers, while the men of Plymouth colony were harshly disciplined if they arrived at morning prayers without weapons. The precariousness of their lives and the meagerness of their subsistence transformed their enterprises into monstrous fiefdoms with hybrid corporate, military, and administrative rulership.
The Virginia Company’s adventure in the Chesapeake began as a romance of second-born sons of English nobility seeking independent wealth befitting their status and the advancement of the civilizing and Christianizing mission of English imperialism, but quickly deteriorated into a desperate struggle for survival and a near-total reliance on the cultivation of tobacco, the province’s only profitable export. Devastated by disease, famine, and Indian raids—the most notorious of which was carried out by the Powhatan Confederacy in 1622 and killed over 300 Englishmen, or a quarter of the colony’s entire population—the proprietors emptied London’s prisons, snatched its orphans and paupers off the streets, and conscripted them all into the company’s service, sending them in waves to Virginia to buttress the atrophying population. The Powhatan wars took on the tenor of a crusade, with devastating cycles of mass murders and revenge killings. Some 8,000 colonists were sent to the Chesapeake after the founding of Jamestown; by 1625, roughly 1,200 were still alive.
Maryland was an attempt by the crypto-Catholic Calvert family to recreate an idyllic medieval manorial society in the New World, with harmonious hierarchies of class and title and freedom for unreformed manor lords to publicly practice their faith. Population needs compelled the Catholic aristocrats to import a sizeable underclass of protestant servants and, later, black slaves from the Caribbean and West Africa. Even so, the colony’s meagre human and material resources left Maryland’s aspiring gentlemen with the ignoble task of working their own fields, and religious and class tensions in this neo-feudal society boiled over as the puritanical fervor of the Cromwellian interregnum in England radiated outward to her colonies and the Calverts were temporarily overthrown in 1655 by a plundering evangelical mob. They recovered their colony, but the Catholic footprint in Maryland was thereafter lightened under an atmosphere of cautiously undiscerning religious toleration.
New Netherland, the Dutch colony on the site of present-day New York, was a multilingual, multinational, and multi-confessional enterprise from its beginnings. A product of the Dutch Golden Age, during which the Netherlands harbored dissident peoples from all over Europe and provided a credible challenge to English maritime supremacy in the Atlantic while keeping the Spanish forces in present-day Belgium at bay, the fledgling New Amsterdam sported populations of Walloons from the Spanish Netherlands, French Huguenots, English religious separatists (including the congregation that founded Plymouth colony), German anabaptists, Poles, Italians, and Jews. Sporting a proud humanistic tradition and smarting from recent cultural memories of oppression at Spanish hands, New Netherlandish leaders like the indomitable Peter Stuyvesant were among the only Europeans of the age to question the legitimacy of total warfare against the Indian nations. Relations with the interior tribes were further benefitted by the fact that the Dutch had little interest in acquiring massive land grants, but were mostly content to operate a coastal trading hub and act as middlemen between the indigenous people who produced valuable pelts and the European markets that craved them.
New Sweden, established on both sides of the Delaware River beginning in 1638, was part of a fruitless effort by the Swedish Empire, then one of the great powers of Europe, to establish itself on the Atlantic seaboard. Created under the auspices of the South Swedish Company and staffed and financed in part by Dutch speculators, about half of the colony’s population were Finns hailing from the northern reaches of Scandinavia, whose seminomadic way of life had become a nuisance to Sweden’s growing landed aristocracy. The environmental adaptability of the Finns, as well as their experiences in relating with the pseudo-animistic Sami people of the northern wastes, made them surprisingly culturally compatible with the Lenape and Susquehannock people they encountered on the Delaware. Destitute even by the standards of the other fledgling North American colonies, the Finns of New Sweden were probably the first Europeans in the new world to begin ditching their European attire and dressing in the furs and buckskins that would later become the iconic garb of American frontiersmen. The political dimension of the New Swedish experiment was a short-lived one—the colony was conquered by the Dutch in 1655—but the folkways established on the Delaware lived on, relatively unmolested by the sudden change in rulership.
The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay are likely the best-known community of the early colonial period. Seeking to establish an enclave for what they understood to be primitive Christianity and to foster a community of saints, the Puritan elders suffered from the same crises of authority that plagued the other colonial proprietors in a new world whose privations made it fundamentally democratic. Religious and political sectarianism bound together and rended the fabric of New England society. Bailyn’s narrative ends in 1675, just before the onset of the most devastating Indian war in North American history—King Philip’s War—during which a confederation of New England Indians under the Sachem Metacom of the Wampanoag launched a desperate assault on the English colonists in an attempt to drive them back to the coast, much as the Powhatan had done in the 1622 Virginia Massacre.
It was this hopelessly diverse collection of European settlers on the North American coast who would, in future generations, congeal into the first iteration of a distinctly American identity.
January 28, 2014
A well written comprehensive survey of the historical literature on the first 3-4 generations of European settlement on the Atlantic coast from Virginia to New England - highly recommended.
The book does an excellent job of providing the European background, who were the investors, where did the settlers come from, what were their motivations, what forces back home were helping or hindering their success, how did those supporters fit into the tumultuous politics of 17th century Britain and Holland. At the same time it paints a compelling picture of the enormous difficulties faced by these earliest immigrants. In many settlements, the term barbarity is fully appropriate. The level of mortality in Virginia was astonishing.
That being said, the book does not in fact describe a uniformly barbarous world. After reading about Virginia, Maryland, New Sweden, New Netherlands, the Plymouth plantation, and a more or less continuous saga of rarely mitigated failures, one comes to the Massachusetts Bay colony and a radically different picture. They really were better - morally and practically - than everyone else. Compared with Virginia, their preparations for their voyage were more thorough and better executed, and therefore the mortality upon arrival was a fraction of that experienced elsewhere at the same time, the level of internal political conflict was minimal, the educational level was unmatched, and there was very little of the nakedly brutal exploitation of the weak and defenseless which was a primary feature of Virginia and Maryland society. Virginia was a vicious exploitative world, ruled by the shrewdest and most ruthless of the survivors, and whose race to the bottom was further accentuated by the stream of royal appointees and their 'get rich quick' followers who descended on the colony after the Restoration in 1660. A system of recruiting indentured servants which was itself barbarous, was superseded by an even more barbarous, yet new and modern, system of capitalistic chattel slavery. My superficial understanding of the differences between 'Cavalier' Virginia and 'Puritan' New England has been deepened, to the detriment of Virginia. There could probably be no starker natural experiment demonstrating that 'culture matters' than this one.
They all eventually warred with the natives, pushing them from their lands, while resorting to indiscriminate terror. But even here, the New England record does not contain the same kind of duplicitous and calculated extermination policies as those carried out in Virginia.
Although I was struck most by the contrast between Virginia and New England, the story of all the other settlements and personalities is thorough and fascinating. The experience of the semi-pagan Finns and their relations with the Delaware Indians provides food for thought. They were considered only half civilized by their Swedish overlords, but the Finns in turn were the most successful of all the immigrants in developing peaceful relations with the Indians - precisely because they were in fact culturally closer to a neolithic mindset. Fascinating as well was to see 'Dutch toleration' in practice in New Netherlands. The local Dutch leadership would have loved to be intolerant, casting out Congregationalists, Jews and Anabaptists. And they tried. But they were consistently overruled by the Directors of the West Indies Company for simple mercantile reasons - strife doesn't pay, and a half populated colony is better than an empty one. I learned also that Roger Williams was not a wild radical cast out by fanatics of limited intelligence. He was in fact one of the most well respected of the first generation intellectuals, famously diplomatic, logical and persuasive, well known to his Cambridge educated peers. It was the very strength of his arguments and personality that made him dangerous. However, one also sees in this volume the reasoning and background of those who eventually made him unwelcome in the Bay Colony. And given the state of strife and discontent, not only in the other colonies, but in mother England, perhaps the Puritan leadership was correct in their assessments of what was appropriate to their time and situation.
Though the subsequent cultural development of New England and its successor regions would not follow long in the precise path of the early generations, it was such a strongly marked and successful undertaking that it continues to this day to leave positive traces in its wake.
The book does an excellent job of providing the European background, who were the investors, where did the settlers come from, what were their motivations, what forces back home were helping or hindering their success, how did those supporters fit into the tumultuous politics of 17th century Britain and Holland. At the same time it paints a compelling picture of the enormous difficulties faced by these earliest immigrants. In many settlements, the term barbarity is fully appropriate. The level of mortality in Virginia was astonishing.
That being said, the book does not in fact describe a uniformly barbarous world. After reading about Virginia, Maryland, New Sweden, New Netherlands, the Plymouth plantation, and a more or less continuous saga of rarely mitigated failures, one comes to the Massachusetts Bay colony and a radically different picture. They really were better - morally and practically - than everyone else. Compared with Virginia, their preparations for their voyage were more thorough and better executed, and therefore the mortality upon arrival was a fraction of that experienced elsewhere at the same time, the level of internal political conflict was minimal, the educational level was unmatched, and there was very little of the nakedly brutal exploitation of the weak and defenseless which was a primary feature of Virginia and Maryland society. Virginia was a vicious exploitative world, ruled by the shrewdest and most ruthless of the survivors, and whose race to the bottom was further accentuated by the stream of royal appointees and their 'get rich quick' followers who descended on the colony after the Restoration in 1660. A system of recruiting indentured servants which was itself barbarous, was superseded by an even more barbarous, yet new and modern, system of capitalistic chattel slavery. My superficial understanding of the differences between 'Cavalier' Virginia and 'Puritan' New England has been deepened, to the detriment of Virginia. There could probably be no starker natural experiment demonstrating that 'culture matters' than this one.
They all eventually warred with the natives, pushing them from their lands, while resorting to indiscriminate terror. But even here, the New England record does not contain the same kind of duplicitous and calculated extermination policies as those carried out in Virginia.
Although I was struck most by the contrast between Virginia and New England, the story of all the other settlements and personalities is thorough and fascinating. The experience of the semi-pagan Finns and their relations with the Delaware Indians provides food for thought. They were considered only half civilized by their Swedish overlords, but the Finns in turn were the most successful of all the immigrants in developing peaceful relations with the Indians - precisely because they were in fact culturally closer to a neolithic mindset. Fascinating as well was to see 'Dutch toleration' in practice in New Netherlands. The local Dutch leadership would have loved to be intolerant, casting out Congregationalists, Jews and Anabaptists. And they tried. But they were consistently overruled by the Directors of the West Indies Company for simple mercantile reasons - strife doesn't pay, and a half populated colony is better than an empty one. I learned also that Roger Williams was not a wild radical cast out by fanatics of limited intelligence. He was in fact one of the most well respected of the first generation intellectuals, famously diplomatic, logical and persuasive, well known to his Cambridge educated peers. It was the very strength of his arguments and personality that made him dangerous. However, one also sees in this volume the reasoning and background of those who eventually made him unwelcome in the Bay Colony. And given the state of strife and discontent, not only in the other colonies, but in mother England, perhaps the Puritan leadership was correct in their assessments of what was appropriate to their time and situation.
Though the subsequent cultural development of New England and its successor regions would not follow long in the precise path of the early generations, it was such a strongly marked and successful undertaking that it continues to this day to leave positive traces in its wake.
December 4, 2013
Do you enjoy curling up with a book filled with stories of torture, slaughter and all kinds of nastiness? Well, I have the book for you! And since it’s about American History you can feel like a patriot as you read it.
Now, there are many history books out there that cover America in the 1700s, but there aren’t that many covering the century beforehand when there weren’t really “American settlers” so much as some rag-tag groups of Brits, Finns, Dutch, et al, trying to find a new place to call home.
The popular myth we hear about American settlers is that they were escaping religious freedom. While that was true for some, the vast majority were over here to make a buck, or to make a buck for someone else. The ships were, after all, owned by businesses and those businesses needed to make money. In order to do that, they needed as many people as possible shipped to the new country and they took whomever they could throw on board – including criminals, homeless and orphaned children, along with religious clerics and college graduates.
When they first arrived they got on fairly well with the Native Americans, mingling and trading together. But then the Native Americans soon realized these new people were not just going to USE the land but were going to TAKE the land. That’s when all hell broke loose.
From indiscriminate slaughter to stomach-turning torture, the settlers and Native Americans set to one-upping one another on the violence scale. It seemed to be the one thing at which both groups excelled. Example: one of the Native American specialties was dismembering a settler digit by digit – starting with individual finger and toe joints – until all that was left was a still-living stump of a human, which could live up to three days (if taken care of properly).
There’s also an interesting story about settlers who decided to return to England after an overthrow of power there made the threat of religious persecution negligible. Around 12 percent of the settlers returned – including one-third of clerics and half of all college graduates. Many of those that stayed in North America did so BECAUSE of the all the killing. They thought to leave it now would have just made the venture seem pointless (of course, the Native Americans probably had other ideas).
Obviously, there is a lot of brutality in this book but it’s also an enlightening look at an era that is quite often ignored or brushed over in most history texts.
Now, there are many history books out there that cover America in the 1700s, but there aren’t that many covering the century beforehand when there weren’t really “American settlers” so much as some rag-tag groups of Brits, Finns, Dutch, et al, trying to find a new place to call home.
The popular myth we hear about American settlers is that they were escaping religious freedom. While that was true for some, the vast majority were over here to make a buck, or to make a buck for someone else. The ships were, after all, owned by businesses and those businesses needed to make money. In order to do that, they needed as many people as possible shipped to the new country and they took whomever they could throw on board – including criminals, homeless and orphaned children, along with religious clerics and college graduates.
When they first arrived they got on fairly well with the Native Americans, mingling and trading together. But then the Native Americans soon realized these new people were not just going to USE the land but were going to TAKE the land. That’s when all hell broke loose.
From indiscriminate slaughter to stomach-turning torture, the settlers and Native Americans set to one-upping one another on the violence scale. It seemed to be the one thing at which both groups excelled. Example: one of the Native American specialties was dismembering a settler digit by digit – starting with individual finger and toe joints – until all that was left was a still-living stump of a human, which could live up to three days (if taken care of properly).
There’s also an interesting story about settlers who decided to return to England after an overthrow of power there made the threat of religious persecution negligible. Around 12 percent of the settlers returned – including one-third of clerics and half of all college graduates. Many of those that stayed in North America did so BECAUSE of the all the killing. They thought to leave it now would have just made the venture seem pointless (of course, the Native Americans probably had other ideas).
Obviously, there is a lot of brutality in this book but it’s also an enlightening look at an era that is quite often ignored or brushed over in most history texts.
March 5, 2013
"How can won describe this [Indian] world? For those who experienced it, it was spiritually hyperactive and crowded; it was integrated, from the cosmos to every animate and inanimate object within it; it was diverse -- linguistically, ethnically, politically, and socially; and it was skillful in stone-age technology and competent in managing available resources and ensuring survival." (27)
"The most distinctive group [in the mid-Atlantic] were Finns -- forest folk, whose cultural and geographical origins lay close to Lake Lagoda near the Russian border -- the heart of Savo-Karelia -- and to Lappland in the north. Their way of life was peculiarly primitive by western European standards, and they proved to have a greater affinity to the culture of the native Americans than did any other Europeans in North America. It was they who would initiate a 'frontier' style of life that would spread across the continental borderlands for generations to come." (276)
"In this remote, uncultivated, disarrayed frontier world the educational level of New England's population in the 1630s was utterly distinctive, and discordant with the crudeness and primitiveness of everyday life. It was not simply that some 60 percent of the region's adult male population was fully literate (as opposed to 30 percent in rural England) and that perhaps 'a major part' of the rest could to some extent read ... [m]ore important was the cultural accomplishment of the settlements' leadership. At least 130 of the migrants to New England before 1646 had matriculated in Oxford or Cambridge university; eight had attended other European universities. And if the range of years is expanded to 1660 and the definition of 'university men' is broadened to include Harvard graduates and those 'informally tutored' in preparation for clerical careers, the number of highly educated men rises to 266. By 1640 there was probably one university educated man in New England for every thirty-two families, a ration similar to that of England itself and astonishing in a frontier world." (414)
"The most distinctive group [in the mid-Atlantic] were Finns -- forest folk, whose cultural and geographical origins lay close to Lake Lagoda near the Russian border -- the heart of Savo-Karelia -- and to Lappland in the north. Their way of life was peculiarly primitive by western European standards, and they proved to have a greater affinity to the culture of the native Americans than did any other Europeans in North America. It was they who would initiate a 'frontier' style of life that would spread across the continental borderlands for generations to come." (276)
"In this remote, uncultivated, disarrayed frontier world the educational level of New England's population in the 1630s was utterly distinctive, and discordant with the crudeness and primitiveness of everyday life. It was not simply that some 60 percent of the region's adult male population was fully literate (as opposed to 30 percent in rural England) and that perhaps 'a major part' of the rest could to some extent read ... [m]ore important was the cultural accomplishment of the settlements' leadership. At least 130 of the migrants to New England before 1646 had matriculated in Oxford or Cambridge university; eight had attended other European universities. And if the range of years is expanded to 1660 and the definition of 'university men' is broadened to include Harvard graduates and those 'informally tutored' in preparation for clerical careers, the number of highly educated men rises to 266. By 1640 there was probably one university educated man in New England for every thirty-two families, a ration similar to that of England itself and astonishing in a frontier world." (414)
November 27, 2016
I'm not sure where I first heard of this book. It's been on my list for a while, and they happened to have it at Barnes and Noble so I picked it up.
Overall it is an excellent book about a very tumultuous time period. It is a bit sobering just how, well, bad things were for the vast majority of people who came over to the colonies. And, of course, things go incredibly bad for the Native American tribes once the Europeans start showing up.
One thing I found very interesting is that it seemed like the entire thing backing the colonization efforts seemed to be one vast scam. The various companies all seem to start off banking that they'll get rich off of land development, and when most of their colonists end up dying the only money being made is in hoodwinking people to go to the colonies (or getting a bounty for the 'undesirables' that they can ship out to the colonies). Almost everybody arrives in debt, too far away from Europe to really rely on re-supply ships, but too close to Europe to escape the cycle of debt. Horrible!
I realize that the book is a scholarly work, but I could have done with a few more maps, maybe a timeline or two. Dr. Bailyn, if you're reading this you could probably cut some text, add some charts and graphs, and bang! General interest history book. You're welcome.
Overall it is an excellent book about a very tumultuous time period. It is a bit sobering just how, well, bad things were for the vast majority of people who came over to the colonies. And, of course, things go incredibly bad for the Native American tribes once the Europeans start showing up.
One thing I found very interesting is that it seemed like the entire thing backing the colonization efforts seemed to be one vast scam. The various companies all seem to start off banking that they'll get rich off of land development, and when most of their colonists end up dying the only money being made is in hoodwinking people to go to the colonies (or getting a bounty for the 'undesirables' that they can ship out to the colonies). Almost everybody arrives in debt, too far away from Europe to really rely on re-supply ships, but too close to Europe to escape the cycle of debt. Horrible!
I realize that the book is a scholarly work, but I could have done with a few more maps, maybe a timeline or two. Dr. Bailyn, if you're reading this you could probably cut some text, add some charts and graphs, and bang! General interest history book. You're welcome.
February 13, 2014
Okay, I actually feel a little bad for only giving three stars, because there are a lot of great things about this book. The prose style, for one; Professor Bailyn's writing is elegant, almost old fashioned at times, but always compelling. He has a gift for quick and deft character sketches, a gift many novelists and journalists would envy. And he has a lot of insightful things to say about the colonization of America. I particularly liked the second-to-last section, about the Puritans in New England.
One thing to keep in mind: this book rewards readers who have a high level of familiarity with 17th century Europe's factious religious (and political) environment. I know as much about that as the next guy -- which is to say, not enough. Anabaptists, yeah I kinda remember them. Antinomianism? Ummm.... Anyway, this isn't a criticism. Just be prepared to hit wikipedia sometimes.
So why three stars? Mostly because I felt the structure was confused. The contours of the book -- where it began and ended, what was included and excluded -- seemed arbitrary. There was no general theme to unite the work, except perhaps "look at all the crazy shit that happened in America during the 1600s."
One thing to keep in mind: this book rewards readers who have a high level of familiarity with 17th century Europe's factious religious (and political) environment. I know as much about that as the next guy -- which is to say, not enough. Anabaptists, yeah I kinda remember them. Antinomianism? Ummm.... Anyway, this isn't a criticism. Just be prepared to hit wikipedia sometimes.
So why three stars? Mostly because I felt the structure was confused. The contours of the book -- where it began and ended, what was included and excluded -- seemed arbitrary. There was no general theme to unite the work, except perhaps "look at all the crazy shit that happened in America during the 1600s."
August 18, 2016
What do most of us know about this period of U.S. history? Jamestown, Pocohantas, Pilgrims, Puritans, Lord Baltimore, Manhattan bought for $24. Before reading this book, it wouldn't doesn't take long for me to run out of even jumbled information. I can't claim to remember most of what I read, but this 529-page book provided amazing depth that was really quite interesting. Some readers will find it a little too detailed, but it's very well written and rich in detail and analysis.
The first chapter provides what to me seemed a nuanced view of the diverse Native American societies in 1600.
The sixteenth century saw one hell of a lot of brutality—drawing and quartering, beheading, flailing, burning alive—by almost all the groups (Dutch, British, Indian). It's horrifying, but good to know (if that makes sense).
Being essentially secular, it's fascinating to read about people who were as invested in religious doctrine as the Puritans. Golly did they care about who believed what! I had to work to wrap my head around the idea Quakers as crazy, radical, dangerous, scary invaders. And they were so committed that they kept coming back, even after being branded (literally!) and facing execution!
The first chapter provides what to me seemed a nuanced view of the diverse Native American societies in 1600.
The sixteenth century saw one hell of a lot of brutality—drawing and quartering, beheading, flailing, burning alive—by almost all the groups (Dutch, British, Indian). It's horrifying, but good to know (if that makes sense).
Being essentially secular, it's fascinating to read about people who were as invested in religious doctrine as the Puritans. Golly did they care about who believed what! I had to work to wrap my head around the idea Quakers as crazy, radical, dangerous, scary invaders. And they were so committed that they kept coming back, even after being branded (literally!) and facing execution!
October 24, 2017
Based on scholarship the book is no doubt a five but, uff-da, it takes an effort to plow through. Began this book September 16 and finished somewhere around October 16. Finally done with the cranberry harvest and now I'm done with Barbarous.
THE BARBAROUS YEARS The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675
Bernard Bailyn born 1922. The Barbarous Years published 2012. Bernard was 90? That is impressive.
Peopling a new world was a tough go for the pioneers as their weapons, cumbersome matchlocks, were in many ways inferior to the native’s bow and arrow. That would change soon enough. Just not soon enough for the first arrivals. Although they did have “murderers” … “a small breech-loading cannon, invented in the 14th century. It was equipped with a swivel for easy rotation and was loaded by inserting a mug-shaped device called a chamber, filled with gunpowder and projectiles. It had a high rate of fire, as several chambers could be prepared in advance and quickly fired in succession and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles. It was used for centuries by many countries of Europe, Asia and Africa.” From Wikipedia and I did not know that. When it comes to killing our own kind, we are so inventive!
On arrival; no food, no shelter, no clothing suitable for a cold climate, no period of recuperation from a debilitating 2-month voyage in hellish conditions. Disease, exhaustion, malnutrition killed most settlers within their first few years.
Infant mortality of 30% accounted for some of the slow process of peopling the colonies from coastal N. E. to Virginia.
Live to 15 years and 35 was probable. Much as was the case in Europe.
The first driver of greed was furs.
And on and on it goes. The book offers much to learn. Most was all new to me. Mythology is a pale substitute for reality. The harrowing process of grubbing a living from a new land. The natives were doomed. They never had the technology but coveted it, so the Europeans were allowed a foothold. Barbarism was all around. No one had to teach the other how to be cruel, ruthless, duplicitous (OK, maybe that was ours more than theirs. The original Art of the Deal or How to Poison 200 Warriors whilst drinking a toast to their health.) Torture and gruesome execution were standard procedure for both the Europeans and the Indians.
This was also about the same time that the English were busy subjugating the Irish. To the Brits the Irish were as much uncivilized brutes as were the Indians. And, naturally enough, annihilating the Indian and the Irish was all good work, honoring an Englishman’s God.
BB is an ace at paleography. His work is based on primary sources. BB is a cut above.
First furs, then came the greed for tobacco, the sot-weed. This time the natives definitely had to go and the African arrive in greater numbers to replace the costly and troublesome Irish, the London poor and transported.
...to be continued...maybe. Going through my 20 pages of notes (I am only on page 5) feels as laborious as reading the book.
Besides, I have at hand my new copy of Grant by Ron Chernow. That should prove a more toothsome treat.
THE BARBAROUS YEARS The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675
Bernard Bailyn born 1922. The Barbarous Years published 2012. Bernard was 90? That is impressive.
Peopling a new world was a tough go for the pioneers as their weapons, cumbersome matchlocks, were in many ways inferior to the native’s bow and arrow. That would change soon enough. Just not soon enough for the first arrivals. Although they did have “murderers” … “a small breech-loading cannon, invented in the 14th century. It was equipped with a swivel for easy rotation and was loaded by inserting a mug-shaped device called a chamber, filled with gunpowder and projectiles. It had a high rate of fire, as several chambers could be prepared in advance and quickly fired in succession and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles. It was used for centuries by many countries of Europe, Asia and Africa.” From Wikipedia and I did not know that. When it comes to killing our own kind, we are so inventive!
On arrival; no food, no shelter, no clothing suitable for a cold climate, no period of recuperation from a debilitating 2-month voyage in hellish conditions. Disease, exhaustion, malnutrition killed most settlers within their first few years.
Infant mortality of 30% accounted for some of the slow process of peopling the colonies from coastal N. E. to Virginia.
Live to 15 years and 35 was probable. Much as was the case in Europe.
The first driver of greed was furs.
And on and on it goes. The book offers much to learn. Most was all new to me. Mythology is a pale substitute for reality. The harrowing process of grubbing a living from a new land. The natives were doomed. They never had the technology but coveted it, so the Europeans were allowed a foothold. Barbarism was all around. No one had to teach the other how to be cruel, ruthless, duplicitous (OK, maybe that was ours more than theirs. The original Art of the Deal or How to Poison 200 Warriors whilst drinking a toast to their health.) Torture and gruesome execution were standard procedure for both the Europeans and the Indians.
This was also about the same time that the English were busy subjugating the Irish. To the Brits the Irish were as much uncivilized brutes as were the Indians. And, naturally enough, annihilating the Indian and the Irish was all good work, honoring an Englishman’s God.
BB is an ace at paleography. His work is based on primary sources. BB is a cut above.
First furs, then came the greed for tobacco, the sot-weed. This time the natives definitely had to go and the African arrive in greater numbers to replace the costly and troublesome Irish, the London poor and transported.
...to be continued...maybe. Going through my 20 pages of notes (I am only on page 5) feels as laborious as reading the book.
Besides, I have at hand my new copy of Grant by Ron Chernow. That should prove a more toothsome treat.
October 14, 2018
white americans have been crazy since day one
>“You promised to fraught [freight] my ship ere I departed,” he declared, “and so you shall, or I meane to load her with your dead carcasses.”
>“scumme of the people … vagrants and runnewayes … debauched, idle, lazie squanderers, jaylbirds, and the like”
>Forever drunk, Fongersz, De Rasière wrote, “shows his villainous heart, and wishes to defy me” as a person not deserving respect. “I cannot put up with much from such a drunkard and idiot,” De Rasière wrote, and he begged the company “to clip the wings and check the insolence of such a half-senseless person.”
>“It would be impossible,” Ridder wrote, “to find more stupid people in all Sweden” than those he was forced to work with.
>Iver—or Evert or Ivert or Ivar—Hindricksson had arrived in 1641 as a convicted criminal with a reputation as an “abandoned villain” and a “turbulent man” which he quickly justified. Hired as a farmhand, he was soon charged with violent assault—with sticks, knives, and an ax—and with threatening murder, stoning a canoeist, committing bigamy, and fornicating with the wife of another Finn.
>The message of that remarkable “treatise”—a plan for an ideal, Christian, semicommunistic community that anticipated the later Delaware settlement—is entirely contained in its sprawling title: A Way Propounded To Make the Poor in These and Other Nations Happy, by Bringing Together a Fit, Sutable, and Well-Qualified People into One Household-government, or Little Common-wealth, Wherein Every One May Keep His Propriety, and Be Imployed in Some Work or Other, As He Shall Be Fit, without Being Oppressed. Being the Way Not Only To Rid These and Other Nations From Idle, Evil, and Disorderly Persons, but Also from All Such As Have Sought and Found Out Many Inventions, To Live upon the Labour of Others.
>under one of the strangest, most flamboyant, and most belligerently impious people ever to wander into the coastal scene.
>“You promised to fraught [freight] my ship ere I departed,” he declared, “and so you shall, or I meane to load her with your dead carcasses.”
>“scumme of the people … vagrants and runnewayes … debauched, idle, lazie squanderers, jaylbirds, and the like”
>Forever drunk, Fongersz, De Rasière wrote, “shows his villainous heart, and wishes to defy me” as a person not deserving respect. “I cannot put up with much from such a drunkard and idiot,” De Rasière wrote, and he begged the company “to clip the wings and check the insolence of such a half-senseless person.”
>“It would be impossible,” Ridder wrote, “to find more stupid people in all Sweden” than those he was forced to work with.
>Iver—or Evert or Ivert or Ivar—Hindricksson had arrived in 1641 as a convicted criminal with a reputation as an “abandoned villain” and a “turbulent man” which he quickly justified. Hired as a farmhand, he was soon charged with violent assault—with sticks, knives, and an ax—and with threatening murder, stoning a canoeist, committing bigamy, and fornicating with the wife of another Finn.
>The message of that remarkable “treatise”—a plan for an ideal, Christian, semicommunistic community that anticipated the later Delaware settlement—is entirely contained in its sprawling title: A Way Propounded To Make the Poor in These and Other Nations Happy, by Bringing Together a Fit, Sutable, and Well-Qualified People into One Household-government, or Little Common-wealth, Wherein Every One May Keep His Propriety, and Be Imployed in Some Work or Other, As He Shall Be Fit, without Being Oppressed. Being the Way Not Only To Rid These and Other Nations From Idle, Evil, and Disorderly Persons, but Also from All Such As Have Sought and Found Out Many Inventions, To Live upon the Labour of Others.
>under one of the strangest, most flamboyant, and most belligerently impious people ever to wander into the coastal scene.
January 23, 2025
it's miraculous that the united states managed to exist.
dry and too detailed at points, but very informative, and the last portions brought the whole perspective together in a way that made the details feel mostly worthwhile.
there were a lot of people mentioned throughout that i lost track of who they were, it would've been nice to have some sort of guide or better reminders.
dry and too detailed at points, but very informative, and the last portions brought the whole perspective together in a way that made the details feel mostly worthwhile.
there were a lot of people mentioned throughout that i lost track of who they were, it would've been nice to have some sort of guide or better reminders.
December 18, 2012
This was an interesting book but quite long. I was not actually able to finish it. It was more detail than I was willing to invest the time to absorb. I was most fascinated by the accounts of the conflicts between the settlers and the native Indians. It led me to conclude that there was an inevitability in the deadly struggles between two incompatible cultures. Even when there was an initial intent to coexist, the situation devolved into war, time after time.
There was a continuous state of conflict between the Indians and the Jamestown settlers. “Two weeks after the Jamestown settlement was established, 200 warriors had assaulted the half-built fort, killing two and wounding ten. Only the guns on the docked vessels had kept the encampment from complete destruction. Random skirmishes to confine and contain the settlement had continued – attacks on exploring teams distant from the fort, ambushes of individuals working outside the palisades or wandering in the woods.” The English had arrived during a severe drought. For their part, faced with starvation, the settlers sent out foraging parties to raid Indian villages and take food, much needed by the Indians for their own survival.
During the First Anglo-Powhatan War (August 1609 to April 1614) the English adopted the terror tactics used in “Irish wars of the late sixteenth century – specifically the use of deception, ambush, and surprise, the random slaughter of both sexes and all ages, the calculated murder of innocent captives, and the destruction of entire villages... [The attacks] neither discriminated between combatant and noncombatant victims nor between hostile and friendly tribes.” 350 Englishmen were killed and 250 Indians. The English justified their tactics by the belief that they were aiming to Christianize the savages. “So a civilizing end justified barbarous means.” The English were sensitive about the possibility of being accused of being like the Spanish in their treatment of the Natives.
During a truce the Powhatan chief planned his attack to confine and subjugate the English. “Early in 1622, Opechancanough's plan was in place. A combination of ten tribes in western areas, north and south of the James River, would produce an initial strike force, backed up by other groups in the north. The warriors would wander, casually and unarmed, with provisions to sell, into English settlements where they were well known, and then at a given time they would grab any object they could find – spade, ax, gun, knife, rock, log, tong – and murder every person they could reach, man, woman, or child, and they would burn all the buildings and crops... What would have happened if one or more semi-Christianized Indians had not warned the Jamestown villagers of Opechancanough's plan just before the attack can only be imagined. The warning probably saved Jamestown and also Paces's Paines and several other plantations nearby. But elsewhere the assault went much as planned... And the Indians' protectors and advocates among the settlers were, it seems, singled out for attack.” The dead bodies were dragged and mangled, cut to pieces and parts carried away. “The colony was devastated. In a few hours, in the western and central areas of the colony, between 325 and 330 English men, women, and children were killed... The scenes of individual struggles – frenzied, bloody, deadly hand-to-hand fights – would never be forgotten by those who survived them... But the devastation of the massacre was not only physical; it was psychological as well, and in the end political.”
The Europeans who engaged in wars with the Indians included veterans of the wars in Ireland, the Thirty Years War, and the Dutch rebellion. Barbarous tactics were used. Reciprocity invited the settlers to adopt the tactics of the Indians. “Dismembered body parts – heads, hands, scalps, and torn-off strips of skin – had become commonplace objects among such gentle people as the Pilgrims, as they had been for centuries among such militant people as the Narragansetts.”
There was a continuous state of conflict between the Indians and the Jamestown settlers. “Two weeks after the Jamestown settlement was established, 200 warriors had assaulted the half-built fort, killing two and wounding ten. Only the guns on the docked vessels had kept the encampment from complete destruction. Random skirmishes to confine and contain the settlement had continued – attacks on exploring teams distant from the fort, ambushes of individuals working outside the palisades or wandering in the woods.” The English had arrived during a severe drought. For their part, faced with starvation, the settlers sent out foraging parties to raid Indian villages and take food, much needed by the Indians for their own survival.
During the First Anglo-Powhatan War (August 1609 to April 1614) the English adopted the terror tactics used in “Irish wars of the late sixteenth century – specifically the use of deception, ambush, and surprise, the random slaughter of both sexes and all ages, the calculated murder of innocent captives, and the destruction of entire villages... [The attacks] neither discriminated between combatant and noncombatant victims nor between hostile and friendly tribes.” 350 Englishmen were killed and 250 Indians. The English justified their tactics by the belief that they were aiming to Christianize the savages. “So a civilizing end justified barbarous means.” The English were sensitive about the possibility of being accused of being like the Spanish in their treatment of the Natives.
During a truce the Powhatan chief planned his attack to confine and subjugate the English. “Early in 1622, Opechancanough's plan was in place. A combination of ten tribes in western areas, north and south of the James River, would produce an initial strike force, backed up by other groups in the north. The warriors would wander, casually and unarmed, with provisions to sell, into English settlements where they were well known, and then at a given time they would grab any object they could find – spade, ax, gun, knife, rock, log, tong – and murder every person they could reach, man, woman, or child, and they would burn all the buildings and crops... What would have happened if one or more semi-Christianized Indians had not warned the Jamestown villagers of Opechancanough's plan just before the attack can only be imagined. The warning probably saved Jamestown and also Paces's Paines and several other plantations nearby. But elsewhere the assault went much as planned... And the Indians' protectors and advocates among the settlers were, it seems, singled out for attack.” The dead bodies were dragged and mangled, cut to pieces and parts carried away. “The colony was devastated. In a few hours, in the western and central areas of the colony, between 325 and 330 English men, women, and children were killed... The scenes of individual struggles – frenzied, bloody, deadly hand-to-hand fights – would never be forgotten by those who survived them... But the devastation of the massacre was not only physical; it was psychological as well, and in the end political.”
The Europeans who engaged in wars with the Indians included veterans of the wars in Ireland, the Thirty Years War, and the Dutch rebellion. Barbarous tactics were used. Reciprocity invited the settlers to adopt the tactics of the Indians. “Dismembered body parts – heads, hands, scalps, and torn-off strips of skin – had become commonplace objects among such gentle people as the Pilgrims, as they had been for centuries among such militant people as the Narragansetts.”
January 2, 2021
The Barbarous Years is a rich and dense history of the early English and Dutch colonies in North America. Bailyn covers so much material and delves into details about the figures, economies, religious debates, politics, agriculture, trade, and community development that it was overwhelming at times, but very informative overall.
It's striking how brutal the environments of these early communities were. It's well known to the point of being obvious that relations with the Indian populations were set to be contentious and devastating from the start and the living conditions of creating a civilization from scratch were bound to have destitute beginnings. These circumstances were accelerated by the nature of the morally dubious adventurers, soldiers, surveyors, along with the religious separatists, reformers, and fundamentalists who risked much to set up shop in this exotic and harsh wilderness. These were the folks who could be considered medieval on the eve of the Enlightenment. Dangerously old school.
After reading this book, I think there is something to be said for groups of rough customers and zealots being the ones who set up shop in alien lands. They were definitely brutal and barbarous which appear to be among the required skillsets of surviving under those conditions. Their history is horrific and revelatory.
If folks plan to board spaceships and colonize or inhabit other planets in my lifetime, I think I'll sit the first few transports out. That's likely to be an unbalanced and tough crew of people.
It's striking how brutal the environments of these early communities were. It's well known to the point of being obvious that relations with the Indian populations were set to be contentious and devastating from the start and the living conditions of creating a civilization from scratch were bound to have destitute beginnings. These circumstances were accelerated by the nature of the morally dubious adventurers, soldiers, surveyors, along with the religious separatists, reformers, and fundamentalists who risked much to set up shop in this exotic and harsh wilderness. These were the folks who could be considered medieval on the eve of the Enlightenment. Dangerously old school.
After reading this book, I think there is something to be said for groups of rough customers and zealots being the ones who set up shop in alien lands. They were definitely brutal and barbarous which appear to be among the required skillsets of surviving under those conditions. Their history is horrific and revelatory.
If folks plan to board spaceships and colonize or inhabit other planets in my lifetime, I think I'll sit the first few transports out. That's likely to be an unbalanced and tough crew of people.
December 7, 2018
A very informative book, though a bit too detailed and lengthy for the general reader. I suspect many of us don't think all that much about US colonial history, being basically aware of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, and John Smith & Pocahontas down in Jamestown, and then our minds fast-forward to the Boston Tea Party and Declaration of Independence. But a whole lot of interesting things happened in-between those events, and this book doesn't even cover the entire colonial period but only the first 75 years of it.
The English and Dutch settlers in North America were veterans of savage wars in Europe. For the English, that included brutal conflicts with the Irish. Some English in Virginia considered the Irish even more barbarous than the Native Americans they encountered. The Dutch for their part had endured the violence of their revolt against the Spanish. Also this time period coincided with the Thirty Years War, one of the most violent in early modern European history. Also during this time period was the English Civil War, beheading of Charles I, Cromwell's protectorate, and the Restoration, and also a couple of Anglo-Dutch wars occurred - all of which had impacts on the settlements in British North America.
The author in his organization of chapters basically takes us up the Atlantic coast of what was to become British North America, from south to north, starting with Jamestown and Virginia, the Chesapeake, Maryland and Lord Calvert, then New Netherlands, also New Sweden and its Finnish settlers, then finally the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies of pilgrims and puritans, respectively.
The Dutch colony, centered in the town of New Amsterdam (later New York city) is of particular interest to read about. New Amsterdam, all of New Netherlands for that matter, was the most ethnically diverse area of North American settlement. There were Dutch, Germans, English, French, Walloons, Norwegians, Danes, Jews, African servants, then Swedes and Finns after the Dutch conquered New Sweden. A very cosmopolitan colony. Which indicates that New York City was never a purely English city that over time became more ethnically diverse with newer waves of immigrant arrivals. New York has always been diverse since day one. Also the Dutch seem to have had a somewhat less horrible way of legally classifying their African servants. They never went so far as to develop a legal theory of slaves as chattel property the way the English in Virginia did. In some ways the Dutch seemed to strike a healthier balance between commerce and religion, issues that the English - particularly the New England puritans - struggled with. It would be interesting to speculate what the United States would be like today if the Dutch had emerged as the masters of the continent instead of the English.
The small colony of the Kingdom of Sweden along the Delaware River was interesting to read about, if for no other reason than most of us tend to forget that it ever existed. Many of the settlers in this colony were Finns, I gather perhaps 30-40% were Finns. The Finns were rustic people of the forest and more than any other Europeans seemed to have an affinity with the Native American peoples they encountered. They seemed to "get" each other.
But, in general, relations between the European settlers and the Native Americans were as you might expect: sad and horribly violent, with atrocities committed on both sides. "Barbarous Years" all the way around, as the book title suggests.
I would certainly recommend the book to anyone with a solid interest in early colonial history of the region that evolved into the original 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.
The English and Dutch settlers in North America were veterans of savage wars in Europe. For the English, that included brutal conflicts with the Irish. Some English in Virginia considered the Irish even more barbarous than the Native Americans they encountered. The Dutch for their part had endured the violence of their revolt against the Spanish. Also this time period coincided with the Thirty Years War, one of the most violent in early modern European history. Also during this time period was the English Civil War, beheading of Charles I, Cromwell's protectorate, and the Restoration, and also a couple of Anglo-Dutch wars occurred - all of which had impacts on the settlements in British North America.
The author in his organization of chapters basically takes us up the Atlantic coast of what was to become British North America, from south to north, starting with Jamestown and Virginia, the Chesapeake, Maryland and Lord Calvert, then New Netherlands, also New Sweden and its Finnish settlers, then finally the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies of pilgrims and puritans, respectively.
The Dutch colony, centered in the town of New Amsterdam (later New York city) is of particular interest to read about. New Amsterdam, all of New Netherlands for that matter, was the most ethnically diverse area of North American settlement. There were Dutch, Germans, English, French, Walloons, Norwegians, Danes, Jews, African servants, then Swedes and Finns after the Dutch conquered New Sweden. A very cosmopolitan colony. Which indicates that New York City was never a purely English city that over time became more ethnically diverse with newer waves of immigrant arrivals. New York has always been diverse since day one. Also the Dutch seem to have had a somewhat less horrible way of legally classifying their African servants. They never went so far as to develop a legal theory of slaves as chattel property the way the English in Virginia did. In some ways the Dutch seemed to strike a healthier balance between commerce and religion, issues that the English - particularly the New England puritans - struggled with. It would be interesting to speculate what the United States would be like today if the Dutch had emerged as the masters of the continent instead of the English.
The small colony of the Kingdom of Sweden along the Delaware River was interesting to read about, if for no other reason than most of us tend to forget that it ever existed. Many of the settlers in this colony were Finns, I gather perhaps 30-40% were Finns. The Finns were rustic people of the forest and more than any other Europeans seemed to have an affinity with the Native American peoples they encountered. They seemed to "get" each other.
But, in general, relations between the European settlers and the Native Americans were as you might expect: sad and horribly violent, with atrocities committed on both sides. "Barbarous Years" all the way around, as the book title suggests.
I would certainly recommend the book to anyone with a solid interest in early colonial history of the region that evolved into the original 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard.
November 3, 2013
237 years old, America hasn't changed. It was founded on business, violence and religion and it still values these things as gods to be worshiped. Whereas the settlers first slaughtered the natives, we now kill innocent brown people overseas. Where they used guns and knives, we use robots from the sky. Where the settlers had religious wars amongst themselves, we now have ideological and political wars that are just as heated as they were and with the participants just as certain. Politics has replaced religion as faith. When the colonists destroyed the land they were trying to make money. Money is still the number one in this country. The colonists hated people who they thought were not workers, who were lazy. The current Republican party hates the working poor for that reason, and it has stripped people of their safety net.
Why am I mentioning now when this very good book is about then? Because I couldn't help but be reminded of now and how the real, actual values--the ones that are hidden behind the shibboleths---of this country had such an early start. But this isn't a polemical book. It's not a work of politics. It is a work of history about the first colonists in Virginia, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts. It goes into the way the various societies were structured, gives examples of the notable people therein, talks about their conflicts "within" and "without" Within their nascent communities there was a great deal of strife about what they wanted them to be: what religion they should follow, what kind of people they wanted to populate their colonies, and how they would recruit them. Because they needed people to make a viable settlement and make back their investment. But these people weren't homogenous. They came from all parts of England, and all parts of continental Europe, bringing different lifestyles and values. The "without" is the terrible relationship with the natives. The first chapter is Bailyn taking us into their world before the white men came. Their fate would be mass deaths by disease carried over, and wars where both sides didn't merely kill, but violently and brutally killed.
Some things that I liked: The story of the Pilgrims, who were not the same as the Puritans. The story of the Puritans and their great religious schisms. Of particular interest is the story of Anne Hutchinson. The story of the Dutch in New Netherlands, a supremely polygot and varied community that was taken over by the English and renamed New York. This is a quick read, because it is written so well. If you have any interest in how America began, even if you're not political like me, pick up this book.
Why am I mentioning now when this very good book is about then? Because I couldn't help but be reminded of now and how the real, actual values--the ones that are hidden behind the shibboleths---of this country had such an early start. But this isn't a polemical book. It's not a work of politics. It is a work of history about the first colonists in Virginia, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts. It goes into the way the various societies were structured, gives examples of the notable people therein, talks about their conflicts "within" and "without" Within their nascent communities there was a great deal of strife about what they wanted them to be: what religion they should follow, what kind of people they wanted to populate their colonies, and how they would recruit them. Because they needed people to make a viable settlement and make back their investment. But these people weren't homogenous. They came from all parts of England, and all parts of continental Europe, bringing different lifestyles and values. The "without" is the terrible relationship with the natives. The first chapter is Bailyn taking us into their world before the white men came. Their fate would be mass deaths by disease carried over, and wars where both sides didn't merely kill, but violently and brutally killed.
Some things that I liked: The story of the Pilgrims, who were not the same as the Puritans. The story of the Puritans and their great religious schisms. Of particular interest is the story of Anne Hutchinson. The story of the Dutch in New Netherlands, a supremely polygot and varied community that was taken over by the English and renamed New York. This is a quick read, because it is written so well. If you have any interest in how America began, even if you're not political like me, pick up this book.
June 26, 2017
Though at times dry and laborious to read, this is a very remarkable book. Bailyn is one of the leading scholars of Colonial America and is greatly responsible for understanding the era in an Atlantic context. In this book he visits the first settlements of the British colonies, their causes, effects, and people. He does a great job by not only discussing important people well known to us, but explains who the common people were, what they did, what they believed, and where they came from.
One of the themes he touches on that is important to understand why so many people left their more comfortable lives to a wilderness full of terrors was the desire and need for security. The Pilgrim story and their flight from persecution to New England is a well known example. However, so much more was at work in England during the early seventeenth century than religious upheaval. The economy and political situation was tense. Many people struggled under heavy rental dues and land was becoming scarce. Many longed for a situation in which they could peaceably live their lives, conduct commerce, worship as they desire, and raise their families.
This theme of security also helps us understand why so many atrocities and "barbarous" events transpired after these people landed on the North American coasts. The English (and Dutch) justified their actions against the natives because they saw their European culture at risk and superior to the original inhabitants. racial warfare with the Indians became a horrible cycle of bloodshed and retribution. The English justified these atrocities as a means of civilizing a unsophisticated people as they, the English, had long ago been civilized by the Romans. The Puritans banished Roger Williams, Hutchinson, the Quakers, etc. because the "city upon a hill" they had so carefully crafted was threatened. All were trying to build a more secure life, which is natural to all man kind, even to us today. In our present day what actions, and even "barbarous" responses do we justify for our own security?
One of the themes he touches on that is important to understand why so many people left their more comfortable lives to a wilderness full of terrors was the desire and need for security. The Pilgrim story and their flight from persecution to New England is a well known example. However, so much more was at work in England during the early seventeenth century than religious upheaval. The economy and political situation was tense. Many people struggled under heavy rental dues and land was becoming scarce. Many longed for a situation in which they could peaceably live their lives, conduct commerce, worship as they desire, and raise their families.
This theme of security also helps us understand why so many atrocities and "barbarous" events transpired after these people landed on the North American coasts. The English (and Dutch) justified their actions against the natives because they saw their European culture at risk and superior to the original inhabitants. racial warfare with the Indians became a horrible cycle of bloodshed and retribution. The English justified these atrocities as a means of civilizing a unsophisticated people as they, the English, had long ago been civilized by the Romans. The Puritans banished Roger Williams, Hutchinson, the Quakers, etc. because the "city upon a hill" they had so carefully crafted was threatened. All were trying to build a more secure life, which is natural to all man kind, even to us today. In our present day what actions, and even "barbarous" responses do we justify for our own security?
December 21, 2014
This is big history. The description "the peopling of North America" tells the scope of Bailyn's history, though he's writing solely about the European migration to the eastern seaboard of what became British North America. In the early 17th century social and economic innovations along with religious dissent stimulated a new mobility among the English and, to a lesser degree, the Dutch. England fell into economic depression. Religious pressure demanded a conformity some groups were unwilling to adhere to. The lands to the west were inviting. They were a social and political vacuum drawing those groups courageous and hardy enough to take the plunge into the wild Atlantic and forge new lives and more amenable societies in the New World. Those beginnings are Bailyn's story, from the business venture which was the Virginia settlement at Jamestown to the Catholic settlements along Chesapeake Bay, the Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam, and, of course, the Puritan move to New England.
It wasn't a bucolic paradise. The years of settlement were barbarous years in having to deal with the indigenous peoples they found there and felt the need to displace. They were also plagued with differences in their own transported societies, which was constantly shaken by political contentiousness and religious disputes, all of which caused upheavals threatening stability and a sense of secure future. The Indian threat was constant and dangerous. Their savagery was matched by that of the colonists. The Europeans brought their own barbarity to the New World. It was a barbarity which replaced the relatively unspoiled balance of the time before the European migrations.
It wasn't a bucolic paradise. The years of settlement were barbarous years in having to deal with the indigenous peoples they found there and felt the need to displace. They were also plagued with differences in their own transported societies, which was constantly shaken by political contentiousness and religious disputes, all of which caused upheavals threatening stability and a sense of secure future. The Indian threat was constant and dangerous. Their savagery was matched by that of the colonists. The Europeans brought their own barbarity to the New World. It was a barbarity which replaced the relatively unspoiled balance of the time before the European migrations.
June 13, 2013
Bailyn weaves new scholarship about the early colonial period into a dense but rich narrative. Proceeding geographically from south to north Bailyn illustrates how the early settlers from diverse backgrounds attempted to transplant their accustomed social and economic structures into the new world with frustrating consequences. Bailyn is a master historian, writing authoritatively about matters from agricultural patterns to religious controversies, and illustrates the trends he is writing about well. Overall, Bailyn's understanding of the "peopling of British North America" as a difficult, fractious, and anxious affair with brutal and "barbarous" consequences is a helpful antidote to the romantic and harmonious picture many Americans carry of their colonial origins. The historical figures are brilliantly drawn as well. "Iver the Finn" is worth a historical novel by himself. My only hesitation was Bailyn's method of illustrating trends and examples over chronological narrating, which made the book a little harder to read and process. A welcome addition to your American History library for the bibliography alone.
December 29, 2017
The fact that it took the better part of 8 months for me to finish this book should in no way suggest that it was not a compellingly good read. Tracking European settlement from south (Virginia) to north (Plymouth and Boston) the author ties together the disparate motivations, tribulations, accomplishments and failures of the various English, Dutch, Swedes, Africans and others as they moved back and forth across the Atlantic. As religion played such a key role in the 17th century world, he provides excellent analysis of the sects and confessionals that drove these movements and motivations. Given the necessary limitations of the study, less attention is given to the Native American groups and their conflicts with the Europeans and to the experiences of slaves, but as a history of the first European Americans, this volume is first rate.
August 17, 2018
Bernard Bailyn deftly weaves a story full of acts of barbarism, precarious beginnings, and squabbling colonizers. It amazes me how much he is able to put in one book (okay, maybe the nearly 600 pages helps) since he discusses the Chesapeake colonies, New England, the Middle Colonies, as well as Africans and Native Americans. However, I was disappointed in his treatment of Native Americans. He tends to over generalize the activities and cultures of the various Native tribes that the Europeans encountered, and he refers to the Native Americans as “the Americans.” While this term may be a useful way to distinguish between natives and colonizers/settlers, Bailyn ultimately dismisses the separate identities of the Native tribes and bands with this word choice. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book and the unfailing readability of Bernard Bailyn’s writing.
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