European explorers and settlers of the 16th and 17th centuries did not discover a “New World.” People, in fact, have inhabited the region we now call “New England” for more than 12,000 years. The newcomers encountered Indigenous peoples whose cultures reflected an ancient and ongoing relationship with the land. The weather, the seasons, and the land itself determined how and when they hunted, gathered, planted, harvested, fished, and celebrated.
These societies made use of an abundance of natural resources. Surviving archaeological evidence provides some information about the earliest inhabitants of this region, but the record is incomplete. Of their intricate craftwork and tools, only stone, pottery, bone, and a few fragments of wooden objects have survived; most other organic objects decomposed after burial for thousands of years in acidic soil. Producing ceramic objects like these is a specialized process generally associated with sophisticated agrarian societies such as those inhabiting the northeast. The makers scratched in or imprinted designs with shells. They fired their pieces in a shallow pit covered with a slow burning fire. Pottery like this was relatively fragile and survives mainly as shards.
The consequences of contact between Europe and the Americas were profound on both sides. New trading partners and novel trade goods generated new relationships and destabilized old ones. Long-established trade routes transported European products far inland. These same trade routes also proved frighteningly efficient at transmitting diseases of European and Asiatic origin to which Native Americans lacked resistance. Epidemics of measles, smallpox, typhus, and tuberculosis wiped out entire communities. The death toll approached an unimaginable 97% in some areas. This event, referred to by one historian as a “demographic catastrophe,” had far-reaching cultural, economic, and political consequences. In this same period, the “Great Migration” of English people to New England began. They brought with them assumptions and beliefs that proved incompatible with those of the original inhabitants. This was especially true of beliefs concerning land transfer and ownership. Resulting conflicts over the land yielded tragic results.
