102 The Causes and Consequences of the Peopling of North America

1660–1763

The century following the Stuart Restoration was a period of dynamic growth, witnessing a massive movement of peoples to and within the North American colonies. The resulting demographic diversity in the colonies is attributable to the migration of both Europeans and unwilling Africans who joined the existing Native American populations. This mingling of diverse peoples and their distinctive cultures profoundly shaped each in the process of forming a new British North American world.

The American Indian population felt the effect of these migrations of people most keenly as their communities were impacted by warfare with European colonists and the spread of unfamiliar germs. The spread of disease to native peoples decimated their numbers, leaving them vulnerable to the geographical ambitions of Europeans. The peopling of North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries enriched some, but destroyed others. Through these migrations, no one was left untouched, as the sources in this document set show.