Old World Background.

The Europeans and Africans who came to the New World brought with them ideas and attitudes about religion, society, gender, race, and power. Europeans self-consciously tried to model their new societies after what they had known before, attempting to re-create the Old World as faithfully as possible while simultaneously trying to avoid what they considered to be the evils they had left behind. Europeans also brought with them an international context—a relationship between nations—that structured how they felt about one another and what their attitudes and behaviors would be once they got there. Rivalries among the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English that embroiled them in competitive trade and outright warfare in Europe played themselves out in America as well. Major conflicts after 1689 had American theaters that often involved Native Americans on both sides. Wars were not the only institutions that entwined the fates...