Promoting Colonies

Early attempts by England to establish colonies failed. A colony at “Roanoke” on the Carolina coast failed when most of the settlers returned to England after a difficult winter. The group left behind simply disappeared. Plans for other attempts collapsed for want of funds.

Richard Hakluyt, an English promoter of colonies, collected accounts of English explorations and published these in the 1580s in an attempt to maintain momentum for a colony supported by the government.

How Colonies Began

A successful colony required funding, ships and supplies, trained soldiers for protection and a willing group of settlers.

The English economy was growing in the late 1500s was growing so few wanted to colonize for economic reasons. War with Spain also slowed the colonization plans.

The Crown did not wish to pay for colonies, so instead offered ‘charters’ (legal and economic privileges) to private investors who would establish a colony.

The most likely groups for finding colonists were religious dissenters – Protestants who felt the Church of England (Anglican Church) was not sufficiently “reformed” from Catholicism. Dissenters found a ‘new world’ to be a chance for creating a new religious community.

British Society

• British society in 1600 was highly structured, with very distinct social classes.

•The earliest settlers (at Jamestown in 1607) were “gentlemen,” members of the British gentry class. A few brought servants with them, and the rest of the group were primarily soldiers, hired to provide protection.

•At Jamestown, may of the gentlemen hired Native Americans to do their heavy labor.

•Later Jamestown settlers were made up of a wider range of social types – laborers, farmers, artisans, merchants, and more gentry. Most others treated the gentry with deference (respect and politeness).

Pilgrims-Puritans

Two groups of potential colonists were the Pilgrims and the Puritans. The Pilgrims were a Protestant group who had emigrated to Holland, but were considering a further move to American because they found the Dutch culture too “liberal.”

The Puritans were a much larger group. Their leaders were largely gentlemen with some wealth and influence in English society. They believed the Church of England was “too Popish.” Neither the Puritans nor the Pilgrims believed in the tolerance of other faiths (or each other).

Jamestown

The first successful English colony was Jamestown, a purely economic venture by young English gentlemen who hoped to find land and wealth in “Virginia.” With charter from King James I, they landed in 1607 and built a fort along the James River. Few had any experience in exploration or living off the land.

Remnants of Jamestown

Archaeologists have found much evidence at Jamestown to indicate the importance of defense – remains of pikes (left) and a bullet mold (right) that suggest that John Smith, one of the military leaders was right when he wrote that fear of the Natives was a prime concern.

Starvation

Smith also described the first winter, when hunger led to disease and death among the first colonists. Remains of Indian pottery at the site substantiate Smith’s accounts of seizing food from local Indians. A turtle shell also shows that the English adopted native diets to supplement their food.

New Agriculture

Attempts to grow foods and other crops from English seed largely failed at Jamestown. The colony had many lead and hard years before a Native American plant – tobacco– provided the ‘cash crop’ that the settlers needed to sell for a profit in Europe. Unfortunately, slavery grew along with tobacco.

Colonizing New England

In 1620, the Pilgrims, having returned to England from Holland, obtained a charter to establish a colony near Virginia. Their leaders deliberately sailed to New England instead to create a separate community in what is now southern Massachusetts.

Mayflower Compact – First Civil Government.

“covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony”

Because the Separatists had violated the King’s charter by settling further north, it was necessary to create an agreement for the group to live and work together.

Intolerance

William Bradford (left) wrote the most detailed account of the first years of Plymouth colony. He recorded numerous examples of the Pilgrim’s intolerance towards others. When Thomas Morton sailed to New England in 1624, he used liquor to entice the Algonquin Indians to trade for furs:“They ... set up a May-pole,” [Bradford wrote] “drinking and dancing about it many days together, inviting the Indian women [to be] their consorts, dancing and frisking together, (like so many fairies, or furies rather,) and worse practices.”

Miles Standish, the Pilgrim military commander, led an armed party to seize Morton and send him back to England. They destroyed Morton’s makeshift camp and his Maypole.

Cultural Baggage

“Cultural Baggage” is s term used for the cultural habits and values that a group of immigrants brought with them from their old home to their new home – in the case of early American colonists, the cultural baggage was primarily English culture from the 1500s and 1600s.

These early colonists discovered that they would have to adapt their European cultural heritage to the environment of North America.

Cultural Exchange

The Pilgrims would not have survived in the New World without the aid of the local Native Americans aided them. Because English seed did not at first thrive in the soil of New England, the Pilgrims had to obtain food from the natives, and also learn to cultivate local food.

The Pilgrim-native relationship was an example of “cultural exchange.” The Pilgrims learned to grow maize (corn), squash, pumpkins, and beans from the Algonquians and also were allowed to hunt game on their lands. In return the Pilgrims exchanged trade goods (cloth, tools, etc.) for furs trapped by the natives.

The Dark Side of Exchange

Because they feared the natives might try to destroy them if they knew the extent of their death rate, the Pilgrims hid the graves of many who died in the first year.

The microbes (germs) from Europe devastated native populations in New England – with small pox, diphtheria and other European illnesses killing thousands.

Early colonial villages were built in the open fields left by tribes wiped out by disease (Springfield, Deerfield, etc.)

The “City Upon a Hill”

The Puritans, another Protestant group, carried out a well- organized colonization of what is now Massachusetts, between 1630 and 1645. Entire communities that were supplied and supported, established Boston and several nearby villages.

Once again, the object was to create a separate, “Godly community of Saints.”

Again, Intolerance

Puritans were no more willing to practice tolerance than the Pilgrims. In the latter 1600s, Puritan communities banned Quakers from living anywhere nearby. Quakers who refused to accept this law were hanged.

Puritans were very strict within their own families.

In the 1680s, Connecticut, a Puritan-dominated colony created as the need for land grew, passed a series of ‘blue laws,” or restrictions on personal behavior. On of the laws permitted parents to ask the courts to execute any of their children who failed to obey the parents.

Walking a Fine Line

John Winthrop, the principal leader of the early Puritans in America, wanted to carefully adhere to British law so as to keep the King from interfering with the growth of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. When several of the early settlers wanted to haul down the British flag at the port (because it had a Church of England cross on the design) Winthrop refused, saying that would draw the attention of the British navy.

No Democracy

None of the early colonies was in any sense a democratic society. The Puritans banned Roger Williams from the Massachusetts Bay Colony when his interpretations of the Bible disagreed with the prevailing view. Going south, Williams established the colony of Rhoda Island, which allowed a greater measure of religious toleration than other colonies – and worked to establish friendlier relations with the Indians. But government remained in the hands of a few ‘gentlemen.’

Witchcraft

In this rough woodcut image, Satan presents his book to a witch. Puritans believed that the devil required individuals to renounce their covenant with God and sign a new contract with Satan.

White-Red Tensions

In the middle 1630s, Puritan soldiers virtually exterminated the Pequot Indians after an argument over furs and trade goods led to warfare. The Puritan leaders argued that they had “God’s blessing” to wipe out the heathen Pequots.

Like many other wars to come, other Native American bands helped the Puritans destroy the Pequots – this eliminated a rival in the fur trade and enabled other bands to take Pequot land. Disunity plagued the Native Americans as they faced European expansion.

Non-British Colonies

By the late 1600s, other Europeans were coming to North America in larger numbers. The Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam was seized by the British in 1664 to eliminate a fur trade rival. In 1682, William Penn (right) obtained permission to create the Pennsylvania Colony as a haven for Quakers. But within 50 years large numbers of German families came to Pennsylvania to establish farms

Middle Colonies

New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland were the “middle colonies.”

Their population was mixed – Dutch, Swedish, German, Scots, British

Religion was also mixed – Puritan, Church of England, Presbyterian, Mennonite, Catholic.

Economies were a mix of trade, farming, and early industry.