The Spectrum of Settlement

The Diversity of British Colonization of North America

I. Diverse Motives for Migration

• Purer form of worship• Acquiring wealth, land, and better social status• Escape jail, bad marriage or life-long poverty• Sense of adventure• No single motivation adds to diversity of British

colonization• Diversity of environmental factors encountered by

colonists creates American subcultures from the outset

II. The Chesapeake

A. Virginia

• Settlement at Jamestown in 1607

• Initially, no cooperation and no planting

• Colony saved by the leadership of Captain John Smith

• Land offered after 7 years of labor = indentured servanthood

• The winter of 1609-1610 = “starving time”

• John Rolfe experiments with tobacco in 1612

A. Virginia (cont.)

• Reorganization of the colony in 1618

--economic diversification urged

--House of Burgesses created

--headright system introduced• Significant arrivals in 1619:

women and slaves• Many more men than women at

first• Lots of death in the early days• Native American uprisings in

1622 and 1644

A. Virginia (cont.)

• No shared sense of purpose in early days and Company officials were embezzling funds and exploiting indentures

• Virginia becomes a royal colony in 1624

• Isolation becomes a fact of life for these colonists due to geography, land policy and tobacco economy

• Leads to importance of county government

• Isolation retarded the growth of cities, schools, and churches

B. Maryland

• Founder (Proprietor) = Second Lord Baltimore

• Meant to stop Dutch influence to the north in New Netherlands

• Large estates imagined by proprietor for colonists who would become lords of their manor—headright system adopted instead

B. Maryland (cont)

• Meant to be a refuge for Catholics offering some measure of religious toleration—Act for Religious Toleration (1649)

• Great political instability

• Built around a tobacco economy

III. New England

A. Pilgrims and Plymouth Plantation

• Separatists• First fled to Holland (1608-

1609)• Traveled to America on the

Mayflower (1620)--Led by William Bradford-- “Mayflower Compact”

• Significance of Squanto and Samoset

• Limited economic opportunities• Absorbed by Massachusetts

Bay colony in 1691

B. Puritans and Massachusetts Bay

• Desire to reform English (Anglican) Church, not separate from it

• Sparked the English Civil War in 1642

• Political and religious crisis in 1629 led to Puritan exodus to America

• John Winthrop leads Puritans to the Boston area in 1630

• “ The Great Migration”: 1630-1642

B. Massachusetts (cont.)

• Believed in predestination and the covenant of grace

• Unified vision and holy mission: “city on a hill”

• Entire community included in God’s covenant

• Disorder was considered very sinful

• The significance of the “conversion relation”

• Congregational form of church government

• Conflict between ministers and laity

B. Massachusetts (cont.)

• Came as nuclear families• Much less death than the

Chesapeake colonies• Fairly wide franchise for era• Town = center of public life

with the meeting house at its center

• Compact villages enhanced church attendance and spiritual surveillance

• Agricultural practices• Villagers paid taxes to support

minister and participated in the local militia

B. Massachusetts (cont.)

• Harmony, unity and rule of law were emphasized

• Certain individuals challenged this order

--Roger Williams--Anne Hutchinson--Quakers like Mary

Dyer• Puritans established four other

colonies: New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Haven and Rhode Island

IV. Middle Colonies

A. New York

• First settled by the Dutch in 1624

• Great ethnic diversity—most heterogeneous colony in North America

• Colony was easily conquered by the English in 1664 and given by the King to his brother, James, Duke of York

• Somewhat of a royal attempt to surround the Puritans

• Closest thing to manorialism evolves here along the Hudson River– New York Patroons

B. New Jersey

• Also carved out of New Netherlands—awarded to a group of proprietors by Duke of York

• Great ethnic diversity• Tremendous religious diversity:

Quakers, Anglicans, Puritans, Scottish Presbyterians, Dutch Calvinists and Swedish Lutherans—leads to real political instability

• Colony splits in two temporarily• Becomes a royal colony in 1702• No major ports and limited

economic advantages

C. Pennsylvania

• Established as a refuge for Quakers

• Founder = William Penn• Relations with Native

Americans were good• Penn bought the 3 lower

counties of New York from the Duke of York in 1682—becomes Delaware

• Penn granted colonists religious toleration and no taxation without representation

• Philadelphia = one of the first planned American cities

C. Pennsylvania (cont.)

• Penn promoted his colony with great success throughout Europe—leads to tremendous ethnic diversity in Pennsylvania

• Penn’s stay in America was short and unhappy--Mason-Dixon Line

• Colony prospers agriculturally (wheat) but suffers political instability

• Delaware becomes separate colony in 1704

• Penn dies in 1718—broken and in prison for debt

V. Carolina

• No “Solid South” even in the colonial era

• Carolinas = political plum given to Stuart faithful following the English Civil War

• Generous land policy, representative assembly and religious toleration offered--John Locke’s Fundamental Constitution

V. Carolina (cont)

• Another failed attempt to create a conservative American pseudo-feudalism

• Poor land, poor climate and no good harbor discouraged settlement

• Key proprietor in the ultimate success of this colony = Ashley Cooper

V. Carolina (cont.)

• Search for a money-making crop consumed the early history of this region

• Half of the population before 1680 came from an overpopulated Barbados—so this colony is more like the West Indies than any other mainland colony

• Colonists engaged in Native American slave trade

• Only British colony with a Black majority

V. Carolina (cont.)

• Key city = Charles Town

• Proprietary government overthrown in 1719

• Area divided and two royal colonies were created in 1729: South Carolina and North Carolina

• Carolinas were fairly tolerant religiously