By synthesis culture, I meant the period of intense cultural exchange between the Anglos and the Iroquois during the great migration and beyond. Squanto taught

By synthesis culture, I meant the period of intense cultural exchange between the Anglos and the Iroquois during the great migration and beyond. Squanto taught the Plymouth crew agriculture, politics, and war along the Indian pattern, and he died a Christian. Roger Williams brought Christianity to the Indians, and Indian culture back to the Anglos. They were probably thousands of praying Indians. By 1636 there was already a pidgin language in the area (“What cheer, netop?”) You can still see the lasting effect of Indian culture on American culture with Iroquois loanwords or translated concepts like caucus, powwow, peace pipe, warpath, etc. Williams was a relative and some even say a mentor to Oliver Cromwell. Adam Smith realized that the laws of supply and demand apply to wages as well when he observed that Anglos on the North American continent were being paid more for the same kind of work that they did in England. The low labor supply was probably not due to a low population, but because the Indian gardening techniques had allowed the average household to be self-sufficient, taking the average colonist out of the labor market and allowing him to demand a higher wage for the same service. This Anglo-Iroquois synthesis culture was overwhelmed by the successive waves of Anglos, from southwest England, Scotland, and Ireland, who did not benefit from this cultural exchange. The Plymouth colony was absorbed into the Massachusetts Bay colony after 100 years. But I believe it was pivotal to forming a national identity for the United States, which is why we still referred to the Puritan colony as the formation of America, and not the Roanoke colony, the Jamestown colony, or the Charleston colony, all of which preceded the Puritan colony. I also believe it was a prototype for the dominant form of capitalism over the past 200 years in the United States, which is now receding in favor of older forms like feudalism, in the form of techno-feudalism, and mercantilism in the form of global trade deals.