Did Columbus discover
America?
Colonial Beginnings
Themes of Colonial America
■ Exploration leading to colonization
■ The emergence of American Cultural Traits
■ Regional economic, social, and political patterns and how they
evolved
■ The push-pull factors bringing colonists to the new world
■ Comparison and contrast of regional economic, social, and
political patterns
■ Puritanism, Anglicans, and religious freedom
■ Evolution of democracy, legacy of undemocratic practices
Causes for Colonization
■
Fall of Spanish Armada
■
Changes in English economy
■
Protestant Reformation
Spanish Armada
Spain defeated in 1588
■
England could now plant, supply, and protect
colonies
Changes In English Economy
■ Rise of merchant class provides business leadership and $ for
colonial investment
■ Joint-stock company allowed for pooling of capital with limited
risk.
■ Surplus population in cities as farmers were pushed off lands
converted to sheep herding
Protestant Reformation
■
■
■
Puritans felt the Anglican
Church was not Protestant
enough
Persecution of Puritans,
Catholics, and Quakers led
to conflict with religious and
political authority.
America was quickly
recognized as a haven.
Epidemics
• Minimum 5-10 million
inhabitants of North America
prior to 1492
• Exchange of infectious
disease was one sided with
syphilis being most
noteworthy experienced by
Europeans
• Transmission was by breath,
blood, and sweat
New France
New Amsterdam
Jamestown and Virginia
■
Virginia Company received charter from
King James I for settlement in America
(1607)
– Goals --- Three G’s:
• 1. God -- Convert Indians to Christianity
• 2. Gold
• 3. Glory -- Find a passage to the Indies
The Jamestown Colony
■Growing tobacco finally made Jamestown profitable.
■John Rolfe was the first settler to grow tobacco.
■Rolfe and Pocahontas married. Their marriage secured peace
between the settlers and the Powhatans.
■Conflicts with Powhatans arose by 1622. Both Pocahontas and
Powhatan were dead.
■The English farmers were taking over more Indian lands to farm
tobacco.
■In 1622 the Indians launched a surprise attack on Jamestown,
killing many settlers, including John Rolfe.
More
Jamestown
Information
Cultural Exploration
John Smith and Pocahontas
■ Captain John Smith helped trade for food with the Native Americans,
built houses, and explored the area.
■ When the Powhatans captured him? and were about to kill him,
Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas, intervened.
■ In 1608 Smith became the leader of Jamestown.
– Imposed a law that if a man wanted to eat, he had to work
■ More settlers came in 1609. That winter was called the starving time
because the Indians, who were angry about the food raids, killed the
settlers’ livestock and prevented them from hunting.
■The
Virginia Company offered headrights, 50-acre grants
of land. There were various ways to obtain them. Majority of
workers were indentured servants.
■ The company also sent 100 women to marry the colonists
and make society more stable
■The
Virginia Company formed America’s first legislature, the
House of Burgesses. Members were white male landowners.
■This group had the power to raise taxes and make laws.
The Colony’s by Region
Economics of the Colonies
New England Colonies
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New Hampshire
shipbuilding, fishing, lumbering,
subsistence farming,
manufacturing
Middle Colonies
Pennsylvania, New York,New Jersey, Delaware, small-scale farming, shipbuilding,
trade, middle class
Maryland
Southern Colonies
plantations (tobacco, rice, indigo,
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia cotton) near the coast, hunting,
trading and farming in the
mountains
Slave Trade
In the triangular trade route, sugar from the West Indies was sent to New England.
The sugar was used to make rum. Rum was sent to Africa and exchanged for slaves.
The slaves were then taken to the West Indies to work in the cane fields.
Puritans Flee to Freedom
■ Puritans wanted to “purify” the Church of England.
– Wanted simpler church service
– Objected to the wealth and power of bishops
■ Separatists were more strict Puritans.
– Wanted to remove all traces of Catholicism from their religion
– Wanted total separation from the Church of England
■ Church of England was the official church of the land.
– English subjects required to attend services and pay taxes to
support the church
– Dissenters were fined and put in prison
Puritans Flee to Freedom
Plymouth Colony
■
Some English Separatists moved to the
Netherlands in 1608.
■ Led by William Bradford, 35 Separatists
joined 66 others on the Mayflower in 1620.
■ Their sponsor, the Virginia Company,
intended they land near the Hudson River.
They landed instead at Cape Cod.
■ Founded Plymouth Colony south of
present-day Boston
■ Colony never grew very large
Massachusetts Bay Colony
■ Puritan merchants formed the Massachusetts
Bay Company.
■ In 1630 John Winthrop set out with 11 ships
and 700 people for New England.
■ This colony grew faster than Plymouth. Other
towns were established nearby.
■ Success of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay
colonies inspired the Great Migration.
Dissent among the Puritans
■ Thomas Hooker, a Puritan minister, and his congregation settled
in the Connecticut River Valley. They adopted America’s first
written constitution: the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. It
extended voting rights to all free men, not just church members.
■ Roger Williams, a Separatist minister who believed in religious
tolerance and the separation of church and government. Bought
land from the Narragansetts to establish Providence, now Rhode
Island
■ Anne Hutchinson believed that people did not need a minister’s
teachings to be spiritual. Was imprisoned, tried, and banished from
the Massachusetts Bay Colony
New England Life
■ Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Connecticut,
Rhode Island
■ Developed a “carrying
trade”. Small farms
■ Government was very
localized frequently with
church undertones.
■ Stocks common punishment
Quakers settle Pennsylvania
Of all the Nonconformist groups, the Quakers upset people the
most.
They believed in direct, personal communication with God; they
had no ministers or hierarchy of priests and bishops.
They had simple meetings where their members rose to speak.
They believed in the equality of all men and women.
They were pacifists who refused to fight in wars.
They were only welcomed in Rhode Island.
A tolerant colony
■ William Penn named his colony Pennsylvania and named the
city Philadelphia, Greek for “City of Brotherly Love.”
■ Penn offered refuge for Quakers and others suffering religious
persecution. He offered opportunities and land at reasonable
prices.
■ German Protestant sects such as the Amish and Mennonites
moved to Pennsylvania.
New York
■Had a diversified population:
■Grew and prospered under English rule
■A treaty with the Iroquois protected the fur trade.
■The Duke of York gave the land south of the Hudson River to two
of his political allies. They named it New Jersey.
■By early 1700s, New York and New Jersey became royal
colonies.
The Founding of Maryland
• George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, converted to
Catholicism, and it ended his career.
• He wanted land in America, as a haven for Catholics
and for personal wealth.
Because of clashes between Catholics and
Protestants, the Toleration Act was passed to
protect the right of all Christians to practice
their religion in Maryland.
New Southern Colonies
Georgia
The Carolinas
• Had a port in Charles Town
■ James Oglethorpe, humanitarian
and member of English Parliament,
wanted debtors to have a new start
in life instead of going to prison.
• Had prosperous estates of
aristocrats
■ In 1733 he founded city of
Savannah,
■ Was co-owned by eight men
■ Southern Carolina
• Plantation owners from West ■ Georgia’s population included
former debtors, religious refugees
Indies moved there with their
from Germany and Switzerland.
enslaved Africans.
■ By 1770 nearly half of the
■ Northern Carolina settlers were
population was made of enslaved
small farmers without slaves.
Africans.
■ They did not have a good harbor.
North America, 1750
French-Indian War
■
Also known as
Seven Years war
which was also
conducted in
Europe.
■
French vs English
with Natives helping
each side.