Although ships had been exploring the New World before Columbus's arrival in 1492, his Carribean landing was to be the beginning of a huge explosion of Western movement. These events can be observed in the first four readings of Retracing the Past. In "Imagining the Other: First Encounters" by James Axtell, we see the European's plans for conquest grow through an exploitation of the wonderment and kindness of the Natives, as well as a clever process of learning about the Indians which would allow the explorers to more easily accomplish their goal. Next, in "Looking Out for Number One: Conflicting Cultural Values in Early Seventeenth-Century Virginia" by T. H. Breen we are able to witness the drive behind coming to the New World as well as the hardships that these first settlers encountered. Breen gives us a clear picture of the economic value tobacco that brought the settlers to this land. He also shows how the naive notions of so many people cost them their lives. The hardships however did not stop the mass movement. Virginia Dejohn Anderson's "Migrants and Motives: Religion and the Settlement of New England, 1630-1640" tells of the 16,000 Puritans, mostly families, who set sail for New England between 1630 and 1641. After some debate, Anderson identifies a desire for the freedom of Puritan religion as one reason why so many established people would pack up and migrate to the New World. The second reason would be a familiar drive for economic success. In the last essay, "Patterns of Black Resistance" by Peter H. Wood, the colonies have seemed to have become economically and personally secure. A booming farm economy could no longer be supported by the colonists. Soon, thousands of Africans began arriving to work both as servants and workers. This essay deals with the social unrest caused mostly by the quiet disobedience and violence of these slaves toward their white captors.
