English Settlement Chapter 2

Background to English Colonization

• Population transfer• No centralized Empire• Experience in Ireland

– Gave them model for planting settlements, transplanting their familiar way of life and subjugate the Indians as they had the Irish.

– Only, where they settled was sparsely populated.

Jamestown, Virginia: May 6, 1607

• First Permanent English Settlement in North America

• Virginia Company (Joint-Stock)– 104 men and boys (2 women arrived the next

year)

• Disastrous Beginning– Location = malaria– Mostly soldiers, townsmen, “gentlemen”

adventurers, and servants•Little knowledge of how to exploit the

area’s resources•Knew nothing about growing crops =

malnutrition

Jamestown’s Problems

• Captain John Smith helped keep the colony alive by establishing trade with the Indians (Algonquian-speaking tribes) and by imposing strict discipline.– “he that will not work shall not eat”– Smith was injured and returned to England in

1609.

• The colony fell apart and suffered the “starving time” of the winter of 1609-1610. – Only 60 of 500 inhabitants survived the winter of

1609-1610– One man by “dining on his wife”

• Finally imposed martial law in 1611.

Reform and aBoom in Tobacco

• John Rolfe and Tobacco– Married Pocahontas, the daughter of chief

Powhatan.– Cultivated tobacco, which could be sold to

Europe.– Virginia adopted the “headright” system for

granting land to individuals.

• Key Year – 1619– House of Burgesses

• A representative assembly to make laws for the colony.

– 90 Young Women arrived and sold to likely husbands for the cost of transportation.

– 20 Black Forced Laborers brought by the Dutch.

Tobacco Boom – 1620s

• Between 130,000 and 150,000 immigrants came to the Chesapeake over the 17th century.– 3/4ths of all immigrants came as indentured

servants.– An estimated 40 percent of servants did not

survive to the end of their indentured terms.– Mortality rate—over 14,000 English arrived since

1607, but the population in 1624 was only 1,132.

• As more land was cleared for tobacco, skirmishes with the Indians became more brutal and frequent.

• In 1624, James I dissolved the Virginia Company and made it a royal colony.

Maryland (1632)

• Maryland was founded by a single aristocratic family, the Calverts (Lord Baltimore).– 1st Proprietary

Colony

• The Calvert family was Catholic.

The Carolinas (1663)

• North- Lacked good harbors and navigable rivers, thus had no way of marketing its produce.

• South—Charles Town established in 1670.– First exports were furs, Indian slaves, and

cattle.– Staple crop was found in the 1690s with the

introduction of rice (cash crop).– Demand for rice in Europe made South

Carolina the richest colony and South Carolina planters the richest people on the mainland of North America.

– South Carolina became a separate royal colony in 1719.

Georgia (1732)

• James Oglethorpe– Defensive

buffer zone between British North America and Spanish Florida.

– Recruited paupers from Europe.

– Became a royal colony in 1753.

Savannah, Georgia in 1734

The Founding of New England

• The Puritan Movement– James I, shortly after succeeding Elizabeth I

in 1603 vowed to purge England of radical Protestant reformers. (Puritans)

• The Pilgrims (or Separatists)– Always a minority within the Puritan

movement.– Concluded that the Church of England was

too corrupt.– Suffered persecution: fines, imprisonment,

and in a few cases, execution.– Many fled to Holland because the Dutch

government permitted complete freedom of religion.

PlymouthColony

• Founded by Pilgrims• Voyage on the Mayflower (1620)

– 101 men, women, and children– Led by William Bradford– Mayflower Compact - consensual government

• Long winter– Had arrived too late to plant crops.– By the spring of 1621, half had died.

• Samoset and Squanto showed them how to grow maize.– Thanksgiving

The Massachusetts Bay Colony

• Plymouth was quickly overshadowed by another colony, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which absorbed it in 1691.

• The Puritans– Non-Separating Congregationalists– Hoped the Church of England could be

reformed

• Founding – 1630 – Led by John Winthrop– “We shall be as a city on a hill.”– 17 ships and more than 1,000 colonists– Included merchants, landed gentlemen, and

lawyers.

The Founding ofNew England

• Beginning of the Great Migration– Some 21,000 came in a cluster between 1630

and 1642.• Most arrived in family groups.

– Rapid settlement = Stability and Order • Common past of persecution and a strong

desire to create an ordered society modeled on Scripture.

• Lived to an average age of 70– Twice as long as Virginians.– 10 years longer than in England.

• By 1700, New England and the Chesapeake both had populations of approximately 100,000.

Puritanism (Puritans)

• We have a false image.– Puritans, especially those of the upper class,

wore colorful clothing, enjoyed secular music, and drank rum (but did not get drunk).

– Moderation in all things except piety was the Puritan guideline

• Separation of Church and State?– The Puritan was dedicated to seeking not the

will of the people but the will of God.– Civil laws obliged everyone to attend worship

services on the Sabbath and to pay taxes to support Congregationalist ministers.

Covenant Theology

• Man and God have interacted through a succession of explicit agreements or contracts.

• The idea of mutual obligation is fundamental.• Puritan’s practically do away with the

conception of God as merely promising, and substitute a legal theory of God’s delivering to man a signed and sealed bond.

• The contract between God and man, once entered into, is ever afterwards binding—a treaty of mutual obligation.

• The covenant theology becomes the foundation for the state and the church in New England.

Mass. Becomes Staging Area for all of New England

• Rhode Island (refuge for dissenters) – Roger Williams

• He believed in complete separation of church and state (to protect the church).

• He was banished and founded the town of Providence in 1636 – the first permanent settlement in America to legislate freedom of religion.

– Anne Hutchison• Believed in direct revelations from the Holy Spirit.• Challenged the legitimacy of the ministerial

community.• Banished in 1638 and went to Rhode Island. Later

moved to Long Island and killed in an Indian attack.

Mass. Becomes Staging Area for all of New England

• Connecticut (1637)– Founded by Mass. Puritans seeking better lands

and access to the fur trade farther west.– Thomas Hooker organized the self-governing

colony.– Government similar to Massachusetts except

more democratic – voting was not limited to church members

– Hooker and Connecticut becomes a blueprint for political democracy

• New Hampshire and Maine (1622)– Slowly settled by Puritan immigrants. Consisted

of scattered and small settlements. Maine splits off in 1629 but remains sparsely populated.

The Middle Colonies

• New York (1664)– Originally the Dutch colony of New

Netherlands, 1614 (New Amsterdam was capital in 1626).

– Cultural differences hampered the prospects for a stable social and political life.

– Captured by the English in1664 without firing a shot—King Charles II granted the region to James, the duke of York, later King James II.

• New Jersey (1664)– Duke of York gave 5 million acres to two of his

friends.– Became royal colony in 1702.

The League of the Iroquois

• Composed of 5 different tribes welded together into a coherent political unit.– Actually gained greater strength from

its contacts with whites.• The Indians of northern New York became

important suppliers of furs to white traders.

• As the favored clients of the English, they became opponents to the French.

The Middle Colonies: Pennsylvania

• Quaker beliefs – Founded in 1647 by George Fox as the Society

of Friends.– Named in ridicule: “tremble at the word of the

Lord”– No original sin, no predestination, believe in

goodness, equality, and the doctrine of individual spiritual inspiration and interpretation –the “inner light.”

– They discarded all formal sacraments and formal ministry, refused deference to persons of rank, and embraced simple living and pacifism.

– Their toleration extended to complete religious freedom for all and the equality of the sexes.

The Middle Colonies:

Pennsylvania• Successful Settlement (1681)

– William Penn, a converted Quaker, inherited a substantial estate and was given the proprietary rights for Pennsylvania by Charles II in 1681.

– He recruited religious dissenters from England and the Continent—Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Moravians, Baptists

– By 1700 its population stood at 21,000.

• Delaware (1701)– At first was part of Pennsylvania.– After 1701 allowed to have own assembly

but same governor as Penn. until American Revolution.

Conclusion

• Although the English colonization efforts did not start off as well as the French and Spanish, they eventually became a greater success because the lack of centralized control gave free rein to a variety of human impulses.

• The English preferred private investment. Not a single colony was begun by the crown. – Poor immigrants were more likely to obtain land

in the English colonies and settlement was more concentrated.