Early European Exploration and Colonization

Early European Exploration and Colonization

Economic institutions in the colonies developed in ways that were either typically European or were distinctively American.

Climate, soil conditions, and other natural resources shaped regional economic development. 

A strong belief in private ownership of property and free enterprise characterized colonial life.

Colonial Trade Routes - "triangular trade" between Europe, Africa, and North America, involving

slaves, raw materials, and manufactured goods

New England Colonies

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island

In 1629 approximately 20,000 Puritans emigrated to New England and formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Puritans were a religious group that believed the Anglican Church should purify itself by abandoning much of the ritual and ceremony kept from the traditional Roman Catholic rituals - they were not tolerant of other religions!

The Anglican Church = Church of England. An extreme group of Puritans, known as Separatists,

believed that the Anglican Church could never be purified and called for a total break with it. The Separatist settled at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1620.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

The arrival of Winthrop and the first of the " Great Migration " in Boston Harbor, 1630.

John Winthrop was the most distinguished of the early Massachusetts Bay leaders; he was elected governor 12 times, and set the tone for much of its sense of religious mission into the wilderness. He is most famous for his “City on a Hill” speech.

Puritans/Separatist

Came seeking freedom from religious persecution and economic opportunity.

Practiced a form of (“Athenian”) direct democracy through town meetings for the operation of government which centered around the church.

The Separatists formed a “covenant community” based on the principles of their religious beliefs and the Mayflower Compact. A covenant is a promise or agreement.

The Pilgrims' charter entitled them to settle in Virginia, but where they landed in New England they had no legal authority. So the Separatist drew up a secular document, the Mayflower Compact, which provided a basis for order and government until the settlers could legalize their status.

New England Colonies

Economy based on shipbuilding, fishing, lumbering, small-scale subsistence farming, and eventually, manufacturing.

Subsistence farming is growing only enough food to feed one’s family.

Economy prospered, reflecting the Puritans’ strong belief in the values of hard work and thrift.

New England Colonies

Society was based on religious standing. Intolerant of dissenters who challenged the

Puritans’ beliefs concerning religion and government.

Rhode Island was founded by dissenters fleeing persecution by Puritans in Massachusetts.

In 1635, Roger Williams angered the General Court by preaching for a separation of church and state in the Massachusetts Bay government and he escaped to Narragansett Bay where he was sheltered by his Indian friends. He purchased lands from them and founded the community of Providence, accepting all settlers regardless of their beliefs.

Anne Marbury Hutchinson believed that the Holy Spirit spoke directly to the souls of believers, a view which challenged the Puritan doctrine that God had spoken to men through the Scriptures, and endangered the Biblical foundation of the colony. In 1638 she fled to Roger Williams' Rhode Island area, and founded the village of Portsmouth.

Middle Colonies

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware

Settled chiefly by English, Dutch, and German-speaking immigrants seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity.

Economies based on shipbuilding, small-scale farming, and trading. Cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore began to grow as seaports and commercial centers.

William Penn (1644-1718), the founder of Pennsylvania, the last of the Proprietary colonies,

landing at New Castle, Delaware

Middle Colonies

Home to multiple religious groups who generally believed in religious tolerance, including Quakers in Pennsylvania, Huguenots and Jews in New York, and Presbyterians in New Jersey

More flexible social structures and began to develop a middle class of skilled artisans, entrepreneurs (business owners), and small farmers.

Incorporated a number of democratic principles that reflected the basic rights of Englishmen

Middle Colonies

Primary crops grown in the middle colonies:WheatCornRye

These crop grew well in the areaThey were exportedGave the region the nickname “The

Breadbasket”

Southern Colonies

Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Were settled by people seeking economic opportunities.

Virginia “cavaliers” were English nobility who received large land grants in eastern Virginia from the King of England.

Poor English immigrants also came seeking better lives as small farmers or artisans and settled in the Shenandoah Valley or western Virginia, as indentured servants.

Southern Colonies

Farther inland, in the mountains and valleys of the Appalachian foothills, the economy was based on small-scale subsistence farming, hunting, and trading.

This society was characterized by people of Scot-Irish and English descent.

Southern Colonies

Social structure was based on family status and the ownership of land.

Large landowners in the eastern lowlands/planters played a leading role in colonial representative legislatures

Maintained an allegiance to the Church of England and closer social ties to England than in the other colonies.

Maryland was settled by Catholics

A woodcut of puritans and cavaliers. A study in contrast in 17th century England.

Southern Colonies

Jamestown, established in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London as a business venture, was the first permanent English settlement in North America.

The Virginia House of Burgesses, established by the 1640s, was the first elected assembly in the New World. It has operated continuously and is today known as the General Assembly of Virginia.

Landing at Jamestown, Virginia, 1607.

Southern Colonies

Virginia and the other Southern colonies developed economies based on large plantations that grew “cash crops” such as tobacco, rice, and indigo. (Virginia produced mostly tobacco)

Plantations required cheap labor on a large scale.

Some of the labor needs, especially in Virginia, were met by indentured servants, mostly poor people from England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Southern Colonies

Eventually the labor needs were filled by the forcible importation of Africans.

The first Africans were brought against their will to Jamestown in 1619 to work on tobacco plantations.

Southern Colonies

Some slaves worked as indentured servants, earned their freedom, and lived as free citizens during the Colonial Era.

Larger and larger numbers of enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the Southern colonies

This was known as the Middle Passage – the sea journey undertaken by slave ships from West Africa to the West Indies.

This arrangement was similar to the model made by abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833) to show to the House of Commons as evidence of how the slaves lay "like rows of books on a shelf" during the notorious "middle passage" across the Atlantic.

Early European Exploration and Colonization

The development of a slavery-based agricultural economy in the Southern colonies would lead to eventual conflict between the North and South and the American Civil War.

In time, colonization led to ideas of representative government and religious toleration that over several centuries would inspire similar transformations in other parts of the world.