Chapter 2

Lecture Preview

• England and the New World• The Coming of the English• Settling the Chesapeake• The New England Way• New Englanders Divided• Religion, Politics, and Freedom

England and the New World

Focus Question:

What were the main contours of English colonization in the seventeenth century?

England and the New World: History

• Unifying the English Nation• England and Ireland

Why did England not attempt to compete with Spain in colonizing America during the 1500s?

• They were allies during the first half of the 16th century, but Spain was more powerful.

• During the second half of the 16th century, England was distracted by a civil war with Ireland and a war with Spain.

What events led England to finally challenge the power of Catholic Spain?

• Henry VIII broke with Catholic Church • English Protestant Reformation • Protestant Elizabeth I took the throne• Elizabeth encouraged “sea dogs” (ex: Francis

Drake) to attack/loot Spanish ships• England defeated Spanish Armada in 1588• English nationalism and self-confidence• Thirst for adventure; eagerness to expand!

England and the New World: North America

• England and North America• Spreading Protestantism

Sir Richard Hakluyt after England had defeated the Spanish Armada:

“…under our noses the great...country of Virginia; …so sweet and wholesome a climate, …a better and richer country than Mexico itself. If it shall please the Almighty to stir up her Majesty’s heart to continue with transporting one or two thousand of her people, she shall by God’s assistance,… increase her dominions, enrich her coffers, and reduce many pagans to the faith of Christ.”

-- Encouraging Elizabeth to colonize in his Discourse on Westerne Planting

First English attempts at colonization:

• Newfoundland - 1583 - Sir Humphrey Gilbert (died at sea) - failed.

• Roanoke Island (today North Carolina) - 1585 - Sir Walter Raleigh - failed. Colony

disappeared. “Lost Colony.”

England and the New World: Social Problems

• The Social Crisis• Masterless Men

England on the Eve of Empire:

• Overpopulated cities

• “Enclosure” of croplands forgrazing forced farmers out and into poverty and/or homelessness.

• Primogeniture - elder sons got everything; younger sons sought fortunes elsewhere.

The Coming of the English

Focus Question:

What obstacles did the English settlers in the Chesapeake overcome?

The Coming of the English: Emigration

• English Emigrants• Indentured Servants• Land and Liberty

CHESAPEAKE REGIONChesapeake region (Virginia

and Maryland):• Lives shortened by

disease.• Family ties were weak.• Social hierarchy.• African peoples developed

a mixed culture: African

& New-World elements. • Slave society grew through

natural reproduction.

The Unhealthy Chesapeake

• Life was short and hard! * Malaria, dysentery, typhoid * Half died before age 20

• Most immigrants were young, single men; outnumbered women 6 to 1

• Family structure weak * Few two-parent households; at least one died;

almost no grandparents * High rate of unwed pregnancies

• Settlers eventually gained immunity to diseases; colonies started growing on their own birthrate.

Tobacco Economy

• Chesapeake climate perfect for tobacco

• Constant tobacco cultivation depletes soil Constant demand for virgin soil Conflict with Indians on frontier!

• More tobacco = need more labor. From where? * Not families (too small) * Not American Indians (often died from disease) * Not African slaves (too costly)

Answer: Indentured servants…………..

• Indentured servants (“white slaves”) * England had surplus of displaced farmers who needed work * Worked contracted number of years for

Chesapeake masters in exchange for: 1. Passage to America 2. Room and board 3. Eventual “freedom dues” (corn, suit of clothes, & hopefully a small plot of land)

• Headright System – to encourage importation of indentured servants * Whoever paid the passage of a laborer received the right to acquire 50 acres of land.

The Coming of the English: Indians

• Englishmen and Indians• The Transformation of Indian Life• Changes in the Land

Settling the Chesapeake

Focus Question:

How did Virginia and Maryland develop in their early years?

Settling the Chesapeake: Jamestown

• The Jamestown Colony• From Company to Society

Map of Settlements in Chesapeake Bay

Map 2.1 English settlement in the Chesapeake, ca. 1650. Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th EditionCopyright © 2013 W.W. Norton & Company

• Jamestown - 1607 - first “successful” (permanent) English colony.

• Charter from King James I.

• Financed by Virginia Co. (joint-stock company).

Shares were sold to raise money needed for travel and establishing the colony.

Who were the first Jamestown settlers?

• 100 men and boys - no women

• “Gentlemen” settlers – more interested in finding gold than food/shelter.

• Swampy; mosquitoes (malaria).

• Had little/no regard for Indians.

• Capt. John Smith saved Jamestown (“He who does not work does not eat!”); made friends with Chief Powhatan and his daughter, Pocahontas.

• Indians taught settlers how to survive.

The Starving TimeThe Winter of 1609 - 1610

Jamestown settlers are reduced to eating “Dogges, Catts, Ratts, and Myce.”

One man was executed for killing, salting, and eating his wife.

Only 60 survived the winter.

How were the American Indians affected by English settlement?

• War with settlers pushed them westward, destroying Powhatan’s Confederacy of tribes.

• Indian cultures changed/destroyed

– Disease killed hundreds of thousands.– Elders were not there to pass on oral traditions and

history.– Horses/firearms led Indians to move to the Great

Plains; huge cultural change.– Competition among tribes for European trade led to

increased Indian-on-Indian violence.

Chief Powhatan

Settling the Chesapeake: economics

• A Tobacco Colony• Women and the Family

The “Stinking Weed” Saves Jamestown

Good news:• John Rolfe perfected a sweeter variety of

tobacco; appealed to Europeans.• Jamestown settlers planted it

everywhere; the settlement survived and prospered.

Bad news:• Plantation system & indentured

servants. Would slaves be next?• Constant growth depleted the soil.• Dependence on single crop.

1619 was a notable year for Jamestown:

• A Dutch ship dropped off 20 African slaves to be sold – the first on the North American mainland.

• The Virginia House of Burgesses was formed -- the first representative assembly on the North American mainland.

House of

Burgesses

Settling the Chesapeake: Indians

• Powhatan and Pocahontas• The Uprising of 1622

Pocahontas

Daughter of Chief Powhatan. Married

John Rolfe, had one son, and moved to England,

but died withintwo years. Her son eventually settled in

Virginia.

King James I hated tobacco:

“A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose,harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit [Hades] that isbottomless.”

He also hated the House of Burgesses: “It is a seminary of sedition.”

In 1622 a bloody attack by the Powhatans who suffered increasing colonial encroachment on their land resulted in the deaths of 347 colonists

By 1624, he had revoked the Virginia Company’s charter and made Virginia a royal colony. The Crown was in control, but for how long?

Settling the Chesapeake: Maryland

• The Maryland Experiment• Religion in Maryland

Maryland - Lord Baltimore

* Founded in 1634 as a haven forCatholics from Protestant persecution. Also founded for profit.

* Tobacco - main crop; labor force mostly indentured servants.

* Act of Toleration - law passed to assure religious freedom for Catholics and Protestants. Death penalty for atheists & Jews.

The New England Way

Focus Question:

What made the English settlement of New England distinctive?

The New England Way: Puritans

• The Rise of Puritanism• Moral Liberty

The Protestant Reformation, in its English Calvinist form, provided the major impetus and leadership for the settlement of New England.

The New England colonies developed a relatively homogenous social order based on religion and closely-knit towns.

The Religious Factor in the Northern Colonies

Background:

* 1517- Martin Luther 1. Critical of Roman Catholic Church 2. Nailed list of his “95 Theses” on the door of church in

Wittenberg, Germany. 3. He and his followers protested (“Protestants”) actions of the Catholic Church, such as priests selling indulgences, and excessive church wealth. 4. Declared that only the Bible was the source of God’s

word, not declarations of priests and bishops. 5. Called for the church to be reformed…

The Protestant Reformation

John Calvin expanded Luther’s view. Preached that:

* God is all-powerful and all-good.

* Man is weak and wicked.

* An “elect” group of souls were “predestined” for salvation.

* Since no one knows for certain if we are among the elect, we must constantly strive for conversion to know we have received saving grace from God. Afterwards we must live sanctified (good) lives to show we are one of the “visible saints.”

How did the Protestant Reformation in England affect the settlement of North America?

• Henry VIII broke with Catholic Church.

• Made himself head of Church of England (Anglican Church); kept many excesses of Catholicism.

• Calvinist reformers tried to purify church (Puritans). 1. Wanted to “de-catholicize” Church of England. 2. Small group wanted to separate (Separatists)

from Catholic church. Moved to Holland - 1608. Feared children were becoming “too Dutch;" made pilgrimage to New World, far away from English authorities (Pilgrims).

The New England Way: Pilgrims

• The Pilgrims at Plymouth• Puritans and Massachusetts Bay Colony• The Great Migration

• 1620 – Mayflower landed at

Plymouth Rock when blown off course on the way to Virginia. • Were outside of authority of English law, so the men

signed an agreement - Mayflower Compact.• Agreed to form a government and submit to the will

of the majority. (Major step toward self- govt.) • Plymouth's first governor - William Bradford. • 1691 – Plymouth absorbed by larger Mass. Bay Colony.

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PLYMOUTH COLONY“THANKSGIVING”

• The Pilgrims were aided in survival by a local Indian named Tisquantum (called Squanto by the Pilgrims) who spoke English

• Taught the Pilgrims best places to fish, and what to plant and how to cultivate it

• After first successful harvest, Pilgrims treated Indian neighbors to a Thanksgiving feast

• Bradford claimed to treat the Indians fairly but they yielded land mainly because many had died as a result of disease

• By 1650, still fewer than 1000 settlers

Sketch of plymouth harbor

Samuel de Champlain’s 1605 sketch of Plymouth Harbor.Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Edition

Copyright © 2013 W.W. Norton & Company

The Great Migration 1629-1639

• 1629 - Charles I anxious to get rid of Puritans; gave charter to Massachusetts Bay Co to settle in New England.

• Thousands followed during the 1630s.

• John Winthrop - Mass. Bay’s first governor.

• Economy was based on fishing, shipbuilding and commerce; largest, most influential colony in NE.

• Who could vote? Adult males; must be property holders & belong to Congregational Church (Puritans).

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MIGRATION

The New England Way: society

• The Puritan Family• Government and Society in

Massachusetts• Church and State in Puritan

Massachusetts

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MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONYA CITY ON A HILL

• After getting permission from the General Court, a group of colonists who wished to form a new church would select a minister and conduct their spiritual matters as they saw fit

• Membership was restricted to those who could present satisfactory evidence of having experienced “saving grace”

• In the 1630s, the majority of people were members

John Winthrop

• Saw Massachusetts Bay as a model of what society should be…. a “City upon a hill.”

• Believed that the purpose of the colonial government was to enforce God’s laws (as Puritans saw them).

• The people had to pay taxes for the government-supported church.

• The local form of government was the town meeting.

New Englanders Divided

Focus Question:

What were the main sources of discord in early New England?

New Englanders Divided: Religion

• Roger Williams• Rhode Island and Connecticut• The Trials of Anne Hutchinson

Trouble in Massachusetts Bay

• No “freedom of religion.”• Quakers were persecuted.• Anne Hutchinson taught

antinomianism (“the elect are saved no matter what they do”). Said she had direct revelation from God … heresy.

• Roger Williams - extreme Separatist. 1. Challenged authority of Bay Colony’s charter; criticized leaders for not paying Indians for land.

2. "Gov't should not regulate religious behavior."

Before freedom of speech or separation of church and state…….

Hutchinson banished from Mass. Bay for her radical teachings. The mother of 14 children, she was eventually killed by Indians in New York. John Winthrop said, “God had a hand in her death because of her heresy.” Williams banished from Mass. Bay Colony. He founded Rhode Island and built a Baptist Church there, probably the first in the New World.

More New England Colonies

Connecticut - Beginning of the westward movement! Thomas Hooker led group of

Puritans west from Boston in 1636. They drafted New World’s first constitution - Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.

Maine - Had fishermen among the very earliest settlers, but remained part of Massachusetts for 150 years.

New Hampshire - Separated from Massachusetts in 1679; became a royal colony.

Thomas Hooker

Map of new england settlements

Map 2.2 English Settlement in New England, ca. 1640.Give Me Liberty!: An American History, 4th Edition

Copyright © 2013 W.W. Norton & Company

New Englanders Divided: indians

• Puritans and Indians• The Pequot War

Puritans vs. Indians

• By 1620, ¾ of New England Indians were dead from disease.

• Massasoit, a Wampanoag, signed treaty with Plymouth Pilgrims (First Thanksgiving 1621)

• More English settlers moving in led to friction between Indians & whites. Ex: Pequot War... Pequot are destroyed.

New Englanders Divided: Economics

• The New England Economy• The Merchant Elite• The Half-Way Covenant

Early Settlers Days and Ways

• In both regions (New England & Chesapeake) – most settlers farmed (either subsistence or for cash crops)

• Women wove, cooked, cleaned and cared for children

• Men cleared land & fenced, planted, & harvested it

• Children helped with all tasks, picking up such

schooling as they could

• Compared to most 17th century Europeans, Americans lived in relative abundance.

The New England Way of Life

• In many ways, a hard life

1. Geography

-- Thin, rocky soil

-- Rivers short and fast

-- Tough to scratch out farming, crops

2. Climate – harsh extremes

• Climate/geography did not favor cash crops/slavery; small farms were the norm

• Tough times made them industrious and frugal

• Using the Sea

-- New England was blessed with great

natural harbors

1. Used timber from

abundant forests to build ships - lumbering

2. Trade (commerce) became New England’s biggest economic force

3. Fishing - a major industry

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A MERCHANT’S WORLD

• As maritime trade became the driving force in New England, port towns like Portsmouth, Salem, Boston, New Port, and New Haven became larger and faster growing than interior towns

• 1720: Boston was the commercial hub of the region with a population of 10,000 making it the third largest city in the British Empire– More than one quarter of Boston’s adult male

population had either invested in shipbuilding or were directly employed in maritime commerce

– Ships captains and merchants held most public offices

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TRIANGULAR TRADE

• In 1643 five New England vessels packed their holds with fish which they sold in Spain and the Canary Islands, taking payment in sherry and madeira which were tradable in England – one took payment in slaves

which they sold in West Indies

Slaves to theAmericas

Sugar, tobacco, andcotton to Europe

Textiles, rum andmanufacturedgoods to Africa

TRIANGULAR TRADE

The New England Family

• New England colonies “healthier”

* Clean water & cooler temps =

less microbes = less disease

* Living there actually added ten years to avg. lifespan (70 yrs)

• Children learned obedience from parents and grandparents

• Migrated as families

• Lower premarital pregnancy rates

• New England women

* Early marriage encouraged

large families; families were the cornerstone of

New England life

* A New England woman could

expect up to 10 pregnancies & to rear as many

as 8 surviving children

* Child-rearing was the

primary occupation of women

* A New England woman usually gave up rights to

her own property when she married.

* Women could not vote.

* Were considered morally weaker than men.

• Divorce rare; adultery - grounds for divorce.

* Adulterers (esp. women) were whipped in public

* Forced to wear an “A” on their clothing

forever (Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter)

Life in New England Towns

• Tightly knit society made up of villages & small farms

-- Puritanism = concern about moral health of the community

• New towns given charters by colonial government

-- Land entrusted to proprietors (town fathers) who planned the village & distributed the land.

-- Each family usually received a woodlot for fuel, small farmland, and a pasture for animals.

-- House was on a small plot in the village itself

.

New England villages usually had:

-- A meetinghouse for church & town meetings (pure democracy – “the best school of political liberty…” [Jefferson])

-- A "village green" for militia drills -- Houses

-- Some kind of village store or commercial endeavor.

• New England Education

-- Towns of 50+ families were required to provide elementary education

-- Majority of adults knew how to read & write

-- By 1636 (8 years after founded), Massachusetts established Harvard College; purpose was to train local boys for the ministry.

(Contrast: It took Virginia 86 years to establish its first college: William and Mary.) Old Harvard College

• New England Religion

-- Puritans ran their

own churches; no central church authority

-- Democracy in

church political democracy

-- The church was the moral authority of

New England society.

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PROSPERITY UNDERMINES PURITANISM

• Puritans were suspicious of prosperity– laws against usury (loan with interest) and

profiteering in scarce commodities• Early Puritan leaders resisted arguments

that business was a socially useful calling• They believed differences in wealth should

be modest and should favor community leaders

• The Half-Way Covenant

* Moral/church crisis

-- Puritan fervor dying down

-- 2nd/3rd generation Puritans more into making money than religious zeal

-- Only “visible saints” could take communion & vote

-- Growing population meant more families on outlying farms, away from control by church & neighbors.

-- New kind of sermon – the jeremiad; scolded congregation for its weakness.

• Half-Way Covenant – attempt to increase church membership by allowing children of church members to be baptized without a declared “conversion” experience.

-- Still could not take full communion….but… -- Could receive baptism.

Increase Mather

Influential Puritan Minister who advocated the Half-Way Covenant

Salem Witch Trials

• Possible causes

1. Mass hysteria; over- zealous religious faith;

fueled by superstition, panic, and rumor. 

   2.  Rye mold with chemical basis for LSD (foundduring wet summers & extremely cold winters).

  3.  Economic jealousy and class envy. -- Accused: from Salem’s growing market- economy class.

-- Accusers: from subsistence farming families.

“Witch-hunt” has come to describe the searching out and deliberate harassment of those (such as

political opponents) with unpopular views.

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SALEM BEWITCHED

• While everyone’s reputation suffered, ministers suffered the most– Increase Mather comes off best having urged the governor

to stop the trials– His son, Cotton, actively and enthusiastically participated

in the hunt• The event shows the anxiety Puritans had about

women since many of the accused were – widows of high status– older women who owned property– women who lived apart from the daily guidance of men

• All potentially subverted the patriarchal authorities of church and state

Religion, Politics, and Freedom

Focus Question:

How did the English Civil War affect the colonies in America?

Religion, Politics, and Freedom: rights

• The Rights of Englishmen– Restriction of King’s power– Rights of Individuals

• Against arbitrary imprisonment• Seizure of Property without due process• Habeas corpus (determine legality of detainment)• Trial by Jury

Religion, Politics, and Freedom: england

• The English Civil War– King vs Parliament (taxation)

• England’s Debate over Freedom– Levellers & Diggers ideas

• English Liberty– Common rights (individual)

Religion, Politics, and Freedom: English civil

war• The Civil War and English America

– Mass. Dispute over religion

• The Crisis in Maryland– Catholics vs Protestants

• Cromwell and the Empire– Expansion of Protestantism– Navigation Acts of 1651 (control colonial trade)