The Empire was Unique
The Empire was Unique
This chapter explores English and Dutch relationships with native peoples in Atlantic North America. In practice, these relationships were violent ones, though there were important differences. The chapter shows that only English settlement became the basis for a long-term, large-scale trans-Atlantic transfer of people and culture. This necessitated expropriation not only of resources but territory, a process executed where necessary with savagery, assisted by the impact upon native peoples of introduced diseases, especially smallpox. This made possible the later explosive eighteenth-century settler population growth which would be a key stimulant of the Industrial Revolution. To this extent the Anglo-Dutch-American archipelago was mapped in blood.
Keywords: native peoples, North America, English settlement, settler population, population growth, diseases, trans-Atlantic transfer, Industrial Revolution
Yale Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
