HOW WERE THE FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS

FOUNDED?

Settling the Chesapeake Region

E Pluribus Unum

I. Early Spanish, French, & Dutch Land Claims

Spain Ponce de Leon – Florida (1513) Cortes – Mexico (1520) Pizarro – Peru (1532)

France Cartier – St. Lawrence River Champlain – Quebec (1608)

Netherlands Hudson – Hudson River -> New Amsterdam (1609)

II. EARLY ENGLISH ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION

John Cabot - NewfoundlandSir Humphrey Gilbert attempts to found a colony in

Newfoundland, but fails and drowns on the ride home

Sir Walter Raleigh sends men to Roanoke Island in Virginia (named for virgin Queen Elizabeth)—present-day NC—this eventually fails as second group of settlers disappears

Table 2.1 p26

III. REASONS FOR ENGLAND’S DESIRE TO EXPAND TO AMERICA

Economic Depression Enclosure System

Population ExplosionPrimogenitureCompetition for overseas coloniesDefeat of Spanish Armada (1588)Joint-Stock Companies provide financial supportRichard Hakluyt

Empty prisons; put “idle men” to work Spread Christianity Claim natural resources Find NW Passage

IV. SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN

Problems: (Kupperman article) Settled in 1607 on a marshland

malaria “starving time” Powhatan Indians

Governor John Smith demanded that everyone work, but many English “gentlemen” resisted Replaced by Gov. William Berkeley

V. Cultural Clashes in the Chesapeake

In 1607 Chieftain Powhatan dominated the James River area.

In 1610 Lord De La Warr arrived from England with orders to deal with the Indians.

In 1614 the First Anglo-Powhatan War ended, sealed by Pocahontas’s marriage to colonist John Rolfe—the first known interracial union in Virginia.

Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1644) was Indians’ last attempt to dislodge Virginians.

The Powhatans’ misfortune was the three Ds: disease, disorganization, and disposability.

VI. The Indians’ New World

Indigenous people’s destinies had changed.The shock of large-scale European

colonization disrupted Native American life.Horses, diseases, trade, and the expanding

Atlantic economy transformed Indian life.A new middle ground compelled both

Europeans and Native Americans to accommodate each other.

VII. Virginia: Child of Tobacco

In 1612 John Rolfe perfected tobacco culture.

Virginia’s prosperity was built on this “bewitching weed,” but King Nicotine depleted the soil.

Besides land, tobacco required lots of labor.In 1619 a Dutch warship landed at

Jamestown and sold some twenty Africans, planting the seeds of North American slavery.

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VII. Virginia: Child of Tobacco (cont.)

In 1619 representative self-government was born in primitive Virginia.

The House of Burgesses was an assembly or miniature parliament in the New World.

James I grew increasingly hostile to Virginia.In 1624 he revoked the company’s charter

and Virginia became a royal colony.

V. MARYLAND

Proprietary colony – King granted charter to Lord Baltimore

Catholic refugeTobacco-based economyConflict b/w Protestants and CatholicsMaryland Act of Toleration

Tolerated Christians but persecuted Jews and Atheists

Maryland Toleration Act (1649)

“That whatever person or persons withinthis Province and the Islands belonging

to it shall from henceforth (now on)blaspheme God, or deny that our SaviorJesus Christ is the Son of God, or shall

deny that the holy Trinity is the unity ofthe Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, orshall use or utter any reproachful

speeches, words, or languageconcerning the said Holy Trinity, or anyof the said three persons thereof, shallbe punished with death, and all his or

her lands and goods will be given to theLord Proprietary and his heirs.”

Map 2.2 p36

VI. The Carolinas and Georgia

Carolinas Est. 1670 as a Royal Colony Had close economic ties w/ English West Indies

(Barbados) Sugar Enslaved Indians

Main exports: rice, tobacco N. Carolina separated in 1712

More democratic, independent-minded; less aristocratic

Georgia Est. in 1733 as a buffer colony b/w the S. Carolina and

Spanish Florida Penal colony for English debtors

VII. The Plantation Colonies

England’s southern mainland colonies shared:– Devotion to exporting agricultural products, mainly

tobacco and rice– Slavery– Slow growth of cities– Religious toleration– A tendency to expand

VIII. The Tobacco Economy

Chesapeake hospitable to tobacco growing: It quickly exhausted the soil. It created an insatiable demand for new land. Commercial growers moved farther up the river

valleys, provoking Indian attacks.

By 1630s the Chesapeake shipped 1.5 million pounds of tobacco, and by 1700 almost 40 million pounds.

Overproduction depressed prices.

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The Tobacco Economy (cont.)

More tobacco required more labor, but from where? Natural population increase was too slow. Indians often died on contact with whites. African slaves were expensive. England still had a “surplus” of displaced workers and

farmers desperate for employment.

Virginia and Maryland used the headright system to encourage importation of laborers.

The Tobacco Economy (cont.)

Chesapeake planters recruited some 100,000 indentured servants to the region by 1700.

These “white slaves” represented more than three-quarters of all European immigrants. Indentured servants led a hard life but looked forward

to becoming free and acquiring land. After freedom, they often had to work for former

masters at low wages because few received land as part of “freedom dues.”

IX. Frustrated Freemen

Impoverished freedmen were increasingly frustrated with broken hopes and failure to find single women to marry.

1670: Virginia assembly disfranchised most landless whites.

Governor Berkeley faced Bacon’s Rebellion (1676) led by Nathaniel Bacon.

Bacon’s Rebellion (cont.)

Because of Berkeley’s friendly policies toward Indians, he refused to retaliate against a series of brutal Indian attacks.

Bacon and his frontier followers took matters into their own hands.

After Bacon died from disease, Berkeley brutally suppressed the rebellion.

Afterwards, planters sought a less troublesome source of labor for tobacco.

X. Colonial Slavery

In late 17th century slavery expanded: 7 million brought to New World over 300 years. 400,000 came to North America, most after 1700. 1619: First Africans were brought to Jamestown. 1670: Africans = 7% of southern population. Colonists could not afford high prices for slaves. White servants were less costly initially, but less so

by late 1600s and seemed more dangerous after Bacon’s Rebellion.

Colonial Slavery (cont.)

Mid-1680s: More black slaves than white servants came into plantation colonies.

1698: Royal African Company lost monopoly.

Thus Americans, especially Rhode Islanders, entered the lucrative slave trade.

Most slaves came from west coast of Africa, present-day Senegal to Angola (see Map 4.1).

Most came via gruesome middle passage.

Colonial Slavery (cont.)

In the early 1600s, the legal difference between African slaves and white servants was unclear, but that changed as the number of Africans greatly increased.

1662: Virginia statutes began to define the iron conditions of slavery for blacks.

“Slave codes” marked blacks and their children as property (“chattels”) for life.

Colonial Slavery (cont.)

Some colonies made it a crime to teach a slave to read or write.

Not even conversion to Christianity could qualify a slave for freedom.

As the 1600s ended, racial discrimination clearly molded the American slave system.

Slavery then shaped race relations throughout the English colonies.

Colonial Slavery (cont.)

Slavery, Race, and Economics

Although slavery is adopted for economic reasons, it becomes justified on basis of race

Slave Codes make racism official policy of all Colonial governments

B. Ensure racial discrimination; slave status is inherited.

C. By 1775, there were 500,000 Blacks in North America, 90% of whom were slaves in South

Map 4.1 p67

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Estimates of Blacks as a Percentage of the Population, by Southern Colony, 1680-1770

1680 1700 1720 1750 1770Delaware 5.2 5.5 13.2 5.2 5.2Maryland 9.0 10.9 18.9 30.8 31.5Virginia 6.9 28.0 30.3 43.9 42.0North Carolina 3.9 3.9 14.1 25.7 35.3South Carolina 16.7 42.8 70.4 60.9 60.5Georgia 19.2 45.2

Total in South 5.7 21.2 27.7 38 39.7Thirteen

Colonies4.6 11.1 14.8 20.2 21.4