New England Bound

Extractive Colonialism is when a small population of colonists moves to a new area with the goal of extracting wealth from the landscape, usually through the labor of the indigenous inhabitants or another workforce. English colonies in the West Indies were extractive colonies.

Warren uses the term “Indian” to refer to the Indigenous people of the New England region. This is the same term the English colonists used in their literature and laws.

The Puritans were a denomination of English Protestants who were dissatisfied with the Church of England. They believed that the Church continued too many Roman Catholic traditions and was corrupt. Many Puritans felt that their theology and style of worship was restricted in England, and establishing their own community in New England allowed them to enjoy religious freedoms they were denied in their homeland. While Puritans had problems with the Church of England, they hoped to reform it and stay within the church.

The Pilgrims were the first English settlers in New England. This Protestant group had a similar theology to that of the Puritans, since they also wanted the Church of England to reject Roman Catholic rituals and embrace a style of worship practiced by early Christians. However, Pilgrims were “separatists,” as they wanted to formally separate from the Church of England. In England, Pilgrims were persecuted by the monarchy for not attending church services and moved to New England to establish their own independent community, theology, and style of worship.

Settler Colonialism is when a large population of people move to a new area with the primary goal of controlling the land rather than the labor of its original inhabitants. In settler colonialism, colonists displace, assimilate, or kill the indigenous population in order to successfully make a permanent community. Warren shows that New England was a settler colony.

Warren borrows historian Christopher Tomlin’s definition of a “slave regime” to refer to New England in the late 17th century. By this time the colonies had developed laws which specifically dealt with slavery as a practice, granting certain rights and responsibilities to enslavers and mandating certain behaviors from enslaved people. Warren argues that these laws around slavery, slave ownership, and enslaved people cemented New England’s status as a slave regime.