Massachusetts Bay Company
Virginia Company
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast
of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the
present-day cities of Salem and Boston. In 1628 a group of Puritans, led by
John Winthrop and Thomas Dudley, persuaded King James to grant them an
area of land between the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River in North
America. That year the group sent John Endecott to begin a plantation in
Salem.
The main party of 700 people left Southampton in April 1630. The party
included John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, William Pynchon, Simon Bradstreet
and Anne Bradstreet. Before they left John Cotton gave a sermon where he
emphasized the parallel between the Puritans and the God's chosen people,
claiming it was God's will that they should inhabit all the world. During the
1630s over 20,000 people emigrated to Massachusetts.
John Winthrop was the first governor of Massachusetts Colony. He chose
Boston as the the capital and the seat of the General Court and the
legislature. Thomas Dudley was appointed his deputy and on four occasions
(1634, 1640, 1645 and 1650) he served as governor.
Massachusetts was virtually independent of the Britain. Its government
was representative, although the franchise was restricted to church members.
Non-Puritans were allowed to reside in the colony but were forbidden
participation in the government
The Colony of Virginia (also known frequently as the Virginia Colony, the
Province of Virginia, and occasionally as the Dominion and Colony of Virginia)
was the English colony in North America that existed briefly during the 16th
century, and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution (as a
British colony after 1707). The name Virginia was first applied by Sir Walter
Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I in 1584. After the English Civil War in the mid
17th century, the Virginia Colony was nicknamed "The Old Dominion" by King
Charles II for its perceived loyalty to the English monarchy during the era of
the Commonwealth of England.
After independence from Great Britain in 1776 the Virginia Colony
became the Commonwealth of Virginia, one of the original thirteen states of
the United States, adopting as its official slogan "The Old Dominion". After the
United States was formed, the entire states of West Virginia, Kentucky,
Indiana and Illinois, and portions of Ohio were all later created from the
territory encompassed earlier by the Colony of Virginia.
Jamestown (or James Towne or Jamestowne) was a settlement located on
Jamestown Island in the Virginia Colony. Founded as "James Fort" on May
14, 1607,[1] it was the first permanent English settlement in what is now the
United States of America, following several earlier failed attempts, including
the Lost Colony of Roanoke. It was founded by the London Company (later to
become the Virginia Company), headquartered in England. Jamestown was
the capital of the colony for 83 years (from 1616 until 1699).
1. Motivations
a. Had a spiritual/religious motivation for colonization
b. Wanted to reform the Church of England by providing an
example
c. They were not poor per se, but more English ‘middle class’.
d. They wanted to put their beliefs into earthly practice, but not
form a theocracy.
e. Their society was exclusively puritan
f. It was a covenanted society, with members bound together
under an ethos of love under god
g. They had a utopian spiritual vision
h. Society was disciplined, idealistic, and orderly.
i. Members could be fairly liberal and moderate.
1. Motivations
a. Did not have a spiritual motivation, were secular
b. Came for the opportunity to own land
c. Potential for social mobility
d. Largest source of immigrants were unemployed,
underemployed people with few prospects in the old world
e. They were people of low SES seeking improvement
f. Many came as indentured servants with an indentured
contract
g. Mostly young men, and would show up poor.
2. Family
a. Came to America as cohesive family units—little
commonwealths.
b. Stability: Strong families made for strong communities
c. Large families: Kids were labor. Average women had 8-13 kids.
d. Sex was good.
e. Courts even allowed for divorce in the case of dissertation or
husband’s impotence.
f. Children did not rebel
3. Labor
a. Children worked at an early age for parents and others in the
mixed-economy.
b. Kids were hired out for the day.
c. Men typically worked outside.
d. Women even worked, maintaining large 1 acre kitchen
gardens.
e. Gender-based divisions of labor where present.
f. Work structure reinforced the social order of stability.
g. They also felt that only when working could you experience
“god’s caress’, or revelation of the divine knowledge that you
were predestined to be saved.
h. Hard work therefore, was the way to be saved.
2. Family
a. Centered on young male individuals
b. Mostly started out as indentured servants.
c. The few women that were around had their pick, and could
marry into money.
d. Young women married older men, and many inherited
plantations. They would remarry and repeat this process.
In effect, serial widows.
e. The life expectancy was very low due to disease—around 45.
f. Few couples, few children, lots of women owning property.
g. This was a distortion of traditional family values.
h. Families didn’t last long (instable)
i. 60% of children born out of wedlock, or to people with the
intentions of getting married.
3.Labor
a. The economy led to explosive wealth for a few.
b. Few slaves in 1600s, most laborers were indentured servants.
c. Traded seven years of hard work for 50 acres of land.
d. About 60 percent of indentured servants survived the 7 years
to get their own land.
e. Masters did not want to up 50acres, so it was in their interest
to work a servant to death in year 5 or 6.
f. There were many court cases for 6 year servants
g. Often, when the servants did survive, they were given the least
productive, most infertile land. Sometimes as a buffer against
the Indians.
4. Economics
a. Mixed-Economy: A diversified economy based upon a variety
of endeavors.
b. Gardens – Livestock –Grain—Industry—Cod Fishing—Timber—
Ship Building—Forestry—Fur Trades
c. Didn’t generate huge amounts of wealth.
d. Didn’t concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. It was more
equal, with less disparity.
e. Varied industry required communication and
interdependence.
f. Had rocky soil, and therefore needed to be industrious.
4. Economics
a. Dedicated to a single cash crop—Orinoco Tobacco.
b. Fertile land along the James and Potomac rivers. Geography
and climate was right for a cash crop.
c. Soil was fertile.
d. Tobacco growing provided tremendous wealth.
e. They lacked a communal ethos, and the economy became
competitive instead of cooperative. Agrarian society.
f. There was a growing social division between wealthy land
owners and poor commoners.
g. Plantations isolated people.
h. Society was more independent and individualistic.
i. Virginia plating elite developed a taste for nice things, social
status, as had English gentry. They went to these festival-like
Court Days where they would show off their wealth, and
interact with the commoners.
j. Didn’t have a real city, until Baltimore in the 1740s.
5. Politics
a. General Court = served a colony
b. Town Elders = managed local issues
c. Representative form of government.
d. Small densely populated towns contributed to a sense of
community and involvement.
e. Each town sent representatives to the general Court.
f. The more informal town governments, presided over by elders
responded to small scale issues such as livestock disputes,
fences, over fishing with nets, etc.
g. Consensus politics, because everyone, even women, got their
say.
5. Politics
a. Virginia was more individualistic, less focused on consensus.
b. Nevertheless, had a representative government for land
owners.
c. House of Burgesses was made up of members from the
Virginia Counties.
d. Government of the planters, for the planters, and by the
planters.