Unit 1 (Part 1)

Chapters 1-3

Exploration & the Rise of

English America

(33,000BC-1733)

Assessment Date: Friday 9/4/15

CHAPTER 1

New World Beginnings, 33,000 B.C.E.–1769 C.E.

CHAPTER THEMES Theme: The first discoverers of America, the ancestors of the American Indians, were small bands of

hunters who crossed a temporary land bridge from Siberia and spread across both North and South

America. They evolved a great variety of cultures, which ranged from the sophisticated urban

civilizations in Mexico and Central and South America to the largely seminomadic societies of North

America.

Theme: Europe’s growing demand for Eastern luxuries prompted exploration in the hopes of reducing the

expense of those goods with new trade routes. Exploration occurred incrementally, beginning with the

Portuguese moving around the coast of Africa and establishing trading posts. Awareness of the New

World and its wealth pushed exploration across the Atlantic. Spanish exploration continued in the same

fashion, first in the Caribbean islands then expanding into South and North America.

Theme: Portuguese and Spanish explorers encountered and then conquered much of the Americas and

their Indian inhabitants. This “collision of worlds” deeply affected all the Atlantic societies—Europe, the

Americas, and Africa—as the effects of disease, conquest, slavery, and intermarriage began to create a

truly “new world” in Latin America, including the borderlands of Florida, New Mexico, and California,

all of which later became part of the United States.

CHAPTER SUMMARY Millions of years ago, the two American continents became geologically separated from the Eastern

Hemisphere land masses where humanity originated. The first people to enter these continents came

across a temporary land bridge from Siberia about 35,000 years ago. Spreading across the two continents,

they developed a great variety of societies based largely on corn agriculture and hunting. In North

America, some ancient Indian peoples like the Pueblos, the Anasazi, and the Mississippian culture

developed elaborate settlements. But on the whole, North American Indian societies were less numerous

and urbanized than those in Central and South America, though equally diverse in culture and social

organization.

The impetus for European exploration came from the desire for new trade routes to the East, the spirit and

technological discoveries of the Renaissance, and the power of the new European national monarchies.

The European encounters with Africa and America, beginning with the Portuguese and Spanish explorers,

convulsed the entire world. Biological change, disease, population loss, conquest, African slavery,

cultural change, and economic expansion were just some of the consequences of the commingling of the

Old World and the New World.

After they conquered and then intermarried with Indians of the great civilizations of South America and

Mexico, the Spanish conquistadores expanded northward into the northern border territories of Florida,

New Mexico, and California. There they established small but permanent settlements in competition with

the French and English explorers who also were venturing into North America.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 1. How did Indian societies of South and North America differ from European societies at the time the

two came into contact? In what ways did Indians retain a worldview different from that of the

Europeans?

2. What role did disease and forced labor (including slavery) play in the early settlement of America?

Is the view of the Spanish and Portuguese as especially harsh conquerors and exploiters valid—or is

this image just another version of the English black legend concerning the Spanish role in the

Americas?

3. Are the differences between Latin America and North America due primarily to the differences

between the respective Indian societies that existed in the two places, or to the disparity between

Spanish and English culture? What would have happened if the English had conquered densely

settled Mexico and Peru, and the Spanish had settled more thinly populated North America?

4. In what ways are the early (pre-1600) histories of Mexican and the present-day American Southwest

understood differently now that the United States is being so substantially affected by Mexican and

Latin American immigration and culture? To what extent should this now be regarded as part of our

American history?

5. Why was the Old World able to dominate the New World? What were the strengths and weaknesses

of the Old World? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the New World?

READING

Bartolomé de Las Casas, "Of the Island of Hispaniola" (1542)

God has created all these numberless people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity,

most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the

most humble, most patient, most peaceful and calm, without strife nor tumults; not wrangling,

nor querulous, as free from uproar, hate and desire of revenge as any in the world. . . .

Among these gentle sheep, gifted by their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered

as soon as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tiger and lions which had been starving for

many days, and since forty years they have done nothing else; nor do they afflict, torment, and

destroy them with strange and new, and divers kinds of cruelty, never before seen, nor heard of,

nor read of. . . . .

The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practice strange

cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country and spared neither children nor the aged,

nor pregnant women, nor those in child labour, all of whom they ran through the body and

lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold.

They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they

opened up his bowels. They tore the babes from their mothers' breast by the feet, and dashed

their heads against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers,

laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they exclaimed: "boil body of so and so!"

They spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them,

on their swords.

They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens,

in honour and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath

and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive.

They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it;

and so they burned them. They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive, made them

carry them fastened on to them, and said: "Go and carry letters": that is; take the news to those

who have fled to the mountains.

They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of

stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath; thus the victims gave up the spirit

by degrees, emitting cries of despair in their torture. . . .

*See next page for details on how to fill out each category.

Author

Place & Time

Prior Knowledge

Audience

Reason (Purpose)

The Main Idea

Significance

APPARTS: An acronym of prompts for the analysis of primary sources

AUTHOR

Who created the source? What do you know about the author? What is the author’s

point of view?

PLACE AND TIME

Where and when was the source produced? How might this affect the meaning of

the source?

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

What else do you know that would help you understand the primary source? For

example, do you recognize any symbols?

AUDIENCE

For whom was the source created and how might this affect the reliability of the

source?

REASON (Purpose)

Why was this source produced when it was produced?

THE MAIN IDEA

What point is the source trying to convey?

SIGNIFICANCE

Why is this source important? What inferences can you draw from this document?

Ask yourself, “So what?” in relation to the question asked.

CHAPTER 2

The Planting of English America, 1500–1733

CHAPTER THEMES Theme: The English hoped to follow Spain’s example of finding great wealth in the New World, and that

influenced the financing and founding of the early southern colonies. The focus on making the southern

colonies profitable shaped colonial decisions, including choice of crops and the use of indentured and

slave labor. This same focus also helped create economic and cultural ties between the early southern

colonies and English settlements in the West Indies.

Theme: The early southern colonies’ encounters with Indians and African slaves established the patterns

of race relations that would shape the North American experience—in particular, warfare and reservations

for the Indians and lifelong slave codes for African Americans.

Theme: After a late start, a proud, nationalistic England joined the colonial race and successfully

established five colonies along the southeastern seacoast of North America. Although varying somewhat

in origins and character, all these colonies exhibited plantation agriculture, indentured and slave labor, a

tendency toward strong economic and social hierarchies, and a pattern of widely scattered, institutionally

weak settlements.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The defeat of the Spanish Armada and the exuberant spirit of Elizabethan nationalism finally drew

England into the colonial race. After some early failures, the first permanent English colony was

established at Jamestown, Virginia. Initially it faced harsh conditions and Indian hostility, but tobacco

cultivation finally brought prosperity and population growth. Its charter also guaranteed colonists the

same rights as Englishmen and developed an early form of representative self-government.

The early encounters of English settlers with the Powhatans in Virginia established many of the patterns

that characterized later Indian-white relations in North America. Indian societies underwent their own

substantial changes as a result of warfare, disease, trade, and the mingling and migration of Indians from

the Atlantic coast to inland areas.

Other colonies were established in Maryland and the Carolinas. South Carolina flourished by establishing

close ties with the British sugar colonies in the West Indies. It also borrowed the West Indian pattern of

harsh slave codes and large plantation agriculture. North Carolina developed somewhat differently, with

fewer slaves and more white colonists who owned small farms. Latecomer Georgia served initially as a

buffer against the Spanish and a haven for debtors.

Despite some differences, all the southern colonies depended on staple plantation agriculture for their

survival and on the institutions of indentured servitude and enslaved Africans for their labor. With widely

scattered rural settlements, they had relatively weak religious and social institutions and tended to develop

hierarchical economic and social orders.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 1. What did England and the English settlers really want from colonization? Did they want national

glory, wealth, adventure, a solution to social tensions, and/or new sources of goods and trade? Did

they get what they wanted?

2. How did Spanish success in the New World influence the English colonial efforts? How did

England’s earlier experience in Ireland influence its colonial efforts in the New World? How did

different events in England (and Europe) affect England’s southern colonies in the New World?

3. Were the English colonizers crueler or more tolerant than the Spanish conquistadores? Why did the

Spanish tend to settle and intermarry with the Indian population, whereas the English killed the

Indians, drove them out, or confined them to separate territories? How did this pattern of interaction

affect both white and Indian societies?

4. Was the development of enslaved Africans in the North American colonies inevitable? (Consider

that it never developed in some other colonial areas, for example, Mexico and New France.) How

would the North American colonies have been different without slavery? What role did the Spanish

encomienda system and British sugar colonies play in introducing slavery to the southern colonies?

5. How did the reliance on plantation agriculture affect the southern colonies? Were their societies

relatively loose because they were primarily rural or because they tended to rely on forced labor

systems?

READING

Excerpt from Works, 1608-1631

John Smith

Captain John Smith’s Generall Historie includes a letter from John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys, the secretary

of the Virginia Company. Rolfe’s letter details the conditions in the fledgling colony after its first decade

of tenuous existence. Rolfe is a significant figure in Virginia history for his introduction of tobacco

cultivation and for his marriage to the Indian princess, Pocahontas. John Smith’s use of the letter is a

reminder that the captain was no longer in the colony by 1619. Indeed, despite Smith’s prolific career as

a promoter of New World settlement in both Virginia and New England, after he was forced out in 1609,

he never again set foot in America.

Letter on tobacco culture and the introduction of slavery by John Rolfe

The gouernment surrendred to Sir George Yearley.

For to begin with the yeere of our Lord, 1619. there arriued a little Pinnace priuatly from

England about Easter [Easter Sunday 0. S. was 28 Mar. in 1619] for Captaine Argall; who taking

order for his affaires, within foure or fiue daies returned in her, and left for his Deputy, Captaine

Nathaniel Powell.

On the eighteenth of Aprill, which was but ten or twelve daies after, arriued Sir George

Yearley, by whom we understood Sir Edwin Sand[y]s was chosen Treasurer, and Master Iohn

Farrar his Deputy; and what great supplies was a preparing to be sent vs, which did rauish us so

much with ioy and content, we thought our selves now fully satisfied for our long toile and

labours, and as happy men as any in the world. Notwithstanding, such an accident hapned

Captaine Stallings, [that] the next day his ship was cast away, and he not long after slaine in a

priuate quarrell.

Sir George Yearly to beginne his gouernment, added to be of his councell, Captaine

Francis West, Captaine Nathaniel Powell, Master Iohn Pory, Master Iohn Rolfe, and Master

William Wick[h]am, and Master Samuel Macocke, and propounded to haue a generall assembly

with all expedition.

Vpon the twelfth of this Moneth [April 1619], came in a Pinnace of Captaine Bargraues;

and on the seventeenth [April 1619] Captaine Lownes, and one Master Euans, who intended to

plant themselves at Waraskoyack: but now 0phechankanough will not come at vs, that causes us

[to] suspect his former promises.

In May [1619] came in the Margaret of Bristoll, with foure and thirty men, all well and in

health; and also many deuout gifts: and we were much troubled in examining some scandalous

letters sent into England, to disgrace this Country with barrennesse, to discourage the

adventurers, and to bring it and vs to ruine and confusion. Notwithstanding, we finde by them of

best experience, an industrious man not other waies imploied, may well tend foure akers of

Corne, and 1000. plants of Tobacco; and where they say an aker will yeeld but three or foure

barrels, we haue ordinarily foure or fiue, but of new ground six, seven, and eight, and a barrell

of Pease and Beanes, which we esteeme as good as two of Corne, which is after thirty or forty

bushels an aker, so that one man may prouide Corne for fiue; and apparell for two by the profit

of his Tobacco. They say also English Wheat will yeeld but sixteene bushels an aker, and we

haue reaped thirty: besides to manure the Land, no place hath more white and blew Marble [?

marl] than here, had we but Carpenters to build and make Carts and Ploughs, and skilfull men

that know how to vse them, and traine vp our cattell to draw them; which though we indeuour to

effect, yet our want of experience brings but little to perfection but planting Tobaco. And yet of

that, many are so couetous to have much, they make little good; besides there are so many

sofisticating Tobaco-mungers in England, were it never so bad, they would sell it for Verinas,

and the trash that remaineth should be Virginia: such devilish bad mindes we know some of our

owne Country-men doe beare, not onely to the businesse, but also to our mother England her

selfe; could they or durst they as freely defame her.

The 25. of Iune [1619] came in the Triall with Corne and Cattell all in safety, which tooke

from vs cleerely all feare of famine; then our governour and councell caused Burgesses to be

chosen in all places, and met at a generall Assembly, where all matters were debated [that were]

thought expedient for the good of the Colony, and Captaine Ward was sent to Monahigan in new

England, to fish in May, and returned the latter end of May, but to small purpose, for they

wanted Salt. The George also was sent to New-found-land with the Cape Merchant: there she

bought fish, that defraied her charges, and made a good voyage in seuen weekes.

About the last of August [1619] came in a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty Negars

[this was the first introduction of Negro slavery into Virginia]: and lapazous King of

Patawomeck, came to Iames towne, to desire two ships to come trade in his Riuer, for a more

plentifull yeere of Corne had not beene in a long time, yet very contagious, and by the trechery

of one Poule, in a manner turned heathen, wee [127] were very iealous the Saluages would

surprize us.

The Gouernours have bounded foure Corporations; which is the Companies, the

Vniuersity, the Gouernours and Gleabe land: Ensigne Wil. Spencer, and Thomas Barret a

Sergeant, with some others of the ancient Planters being set free, weare the first farmers that

went forth; and haue chosen places to their content: so that now knowing their owne land, they

striue who should exceed in building and planting.

The fourth of Nouember [1619], the Bona noua came in with all her people lusty and well;

not long after one Master Dirmer sent out by some of Plimoth for New-England, arriued in a

Barke of fiue tunnes, and returned the next Spring.

Notwithstanding the ill rumours of the vnwholsomnesse of Iames towne, the new commers

that were planted at old Paspaheghe, [a] little more then a mile from it, had their healths better

then any in the Country.

In December [1619], Captaine Ward returned from Patawomeck, the people there dealt

falsly with him, so that hee tooke 800. bushels of Corne from them perforce.

Captaine Woddiffe of Bristol came in not long after, with all his people lusty and in health:

and we had two particular Gouernours sent vs, vnder the titles of Deputies to the Company, the

one to haue charge of the Colledge Lands, the other of the Companies.

Now you are to vnderstand, that because there haue beene many complaints against the

Gouernors, Captaines, and Officers in Virginia: for buying and selling men and boies, or to bee

set ouer from one to another for a yeerely rent, was held in England a thing most intolerable; or

that the tenants or lawfull seruants should be put from their places, or abridged their Couenants,

was so odious, that the very report thereof brought a great scandall to the generall action. The

Councell in England did send many good and worthy instructions for the amending [of] those

abuses, and appointed a hundred men should at the Companies charge be allotted and prouided to

serue and attend the Gouernour during the time of his gouernment, which number he was to

make good at his departure, and leaue to his Successor in like manner; fifty to the Deputy-

Gouernour of the College land, and fifty to the Deputy of the Companies land, fifty to the

Treasurer, to the Secretary fiue and twenty, and more to the Marshall and Cape merchant; which

they are also to leaue to their successors; and likewise to euery particular Officer such a

competency, as he might liue well in his Office, without oppressing any vnder their charge:

which good law I pray God it be well obserued, and then we may truly say in Virginia, we are

the most happy people in the world.

By me Iohn Rolfe.

1. How did agricultural yields in early Virginia compare with those in Europe?

2. Why was the arrival of ships so important to the colony?

3. How was the "buying and selling men and boies" in Virginia viewed back in England?

CHAPTER 3

Settling the Northern Colonies, 1619–1700

CHAPTER THEMES Theme: Religious and political turmoil in England shaped settlement in New England and the middle

colonies. Religious persecution in England pushed the Separatists into Plymouth and Quakers into

Pennsylvania. England’s Glorious Revolution also prompted changes in the colonies.

Theme: The Protestant Reformation, in its English Calvinist (Reformed) version, provided the major

impetus and leadership for the settlement of New England. The New England colonies developed a fairly

homogeneous social order based on religion and semicommunal family and town settlements.

Theme: Principles of American government developed in New England with the beginnings of written

constitutions (Mayflower Compact and Massachusetts’s royal charter) and with glimpses of self-rule seen

in town hall meetings, the New England Confederation, and colonial opposition to the Dominion of New

England.

Theme: The middle colonies of New Netherland (New York), Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware

developed with far greater political, ethnic, religious, and social diversity, and they represented a more

cosmopolitan middle ground between the tightly knit New England towns and the scattered, hierarchical

plantation in the South.

CHAPTER SUMMARY The New England colonies were founded by English Puritans. While most Puritans sought to purify the

Church of England from within, and not to break away from it, a small group of Separatists—the

Pilgrims—founded the first small, pious Plymouth Colony in New England. More important was the

larger group of nonseparating Puritans, led by John Winthrop, who founded the Massachusetts Bay

Colony as part of the great migration of Puritans fleeing persecution in England in the 1630s.

A strong sense of common purpose among the first settlers shaped the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Because of the close alignment of religion and politics in the colony, those who challenged religious

orthodoxy, among them Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, were considered guilty of sedition and

driven out of Massachusetts. The banished Williams founded Rhode Island, by far, the most religiously

and politically tolerant of the colonies. Other New England settlements, all originating in Massachusetts

Bay, were established in Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire. Although they shared a common way

of life, the New England colonies developed with a substantial degree of independence.

The middle colonies took shape quite differently. New York, founded as New Netherland by the Dutch

and later conquered by England, was economically and ethnically diverse, socially hierarchical, and

politically quarrelsome. Pennsylvania, founded as a Quaker haven by William Penn, also attracted an

economically ambitious and politically troublesome population of diverse ethnic groups.

With their economic variety, ethnic diversity, and political factionalism, the middle colonies were the

most typically American of England’s thirteen Atlantic seaboard colonies.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 1. Did the Puritans really come to America seeking religious freedom? How did they reconcile their

own religious dissent from the Church of England with their persecution of dissenters like

Hutchinson and Williams? Does their outlook make them hypocrites?

2. How were government and religion—or church and state—related in New England and the middle

colonies? How does the colonial view of these matters compare with more recent understandings?

3. Was an American Revolution, separating the colonies from England, inevitable after the Glorious

Revolution had encouraged colonists to end the Dominion of New England, England’s serious

attempt at enforcing royal authority? Did England’s “salutary neglect” contribute to future problems

in its empire? How might have England been able to successfully enforce its rule on the colonies

without causing rebellion?

4. Dutch colonization efforts in New Amsterdam most closely resembled English colonization efforts

in which region: New England, the middle colonies, or the southern colonies? The Dutch had a

powerful presence in the East Indies, so why were the Dutch less successful in the West Indies and

North America? What is the lasting influence of the Dutch in English North America?

5. How does the founding of the New England colonies compare with the origin of the middle

colonies? In what ways were New England and the middle colonies each like the South, and in what

ways were they different?

6. In what ways were the middle colonies more open and diverse than New England? In what ways

were they less democratic?

7. How did different events in England affect the New England and middle colonies in the New

World? Which was the most affected and least affected by events in the Old World: New England,

middle colonies, or southern colonies?

8. What were the push and pull factors for immigrants coming to each region of English colonies (New

England, the middle colonies, and the southern colonies)?

READING

The Mayflower Compact (1620)

The Mayflower Compact, is the central document in the mythologized version of New England’s

history, and is cited as evidence of the desire of the Pilgrims to create a constitutional

government, but it should not be simply dismissed as such. The Compact was drawn up by people

who had little in common — “saints” and “strangers” — who wanted to establish a form of

government that would be supported by both groups until a new charter, recognizing their new

location beyond the limits of the Virginia Company, could be obtained. As such, the Compact

was effective.

“In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread

Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King,

Defender of the Faith, e&.

Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the

Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of

Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another,

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; unto

which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of

November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the

eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620.”

There followed the signatures of 41 of the 102 passengers, 37 of whom were members of

the “Separatists” who were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. This compact established the

first basis in the new world for written laws. Half the colony failed to survive the first winter, but

the remainder lived on and prospered.

1. Why would the colonists likely refer to the area in which they had landed the "northern

parts of Virginia"?

2. Why was this a temporary document?

3. Why can the Mayflower Compact be considered a "social contract" binding the signers?

4. In what ways was the Mayflower Compact a forerunner of later forms of self-government in

the colonies?

CONTEMPORARY ARTICLE

Jamestown and the Founding of English America by James Horn

Shortly before Christmas 1606, three small ships left London’s Blackwall docks to establish a settlement on Chesapeake Bay, in North America.

The largest of the ships, the heavily armed, 120-ton merchantman Susan Constant, carried seventy-one passengers and crew, including the

experienced commander of the fleet, Captain Christopher Newport; a highly successful privateer during the sea war with Spain, he had made

many voyages to the Caribbean in the 1590s and early years of the seventeenth century and knew as much about American waters as any

Englishman alive. The Godspeed followed with fifty-two men on board, while bringing up the rear was the tiny pinnace Discovery, which

carried twenty-one men crammed together wherever they could find space in between provisions and equipment. Altogether, thirty-nine mariners

and 105 adventurers set out to found what would be England’s first permanent colony in America.

The Jamestown expedition was not the first attempt to establish a colony on the mid-Atlantic

coast. In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored a colony on Roanoke Island, off the mainland of

North Carolina, which ended the following year with the abandonment of the settlement.

Another attempt made in 1587 under the leadership of John White also ended in failure and the

disappearance of 117 men, women, and children (known since as the Lost Colony of Roanoke).

On the eve of Jamestown’s founding, the English still had not succeeded in establishing a single

colony in America.

In some respects, Jamestown was a belated continuation of Raleigh’s Roanoke ventures. In the

winter of 1586, a small exploratory party had been dispatched from Roanoke Island to survey the

Chesapeake Bay. The men had returned with highly favorable reports of the land and deep-water

rivers that would make superb harbors for ocean-going ships and privateers, which could then

plunder Spanish treasure fleets on their way across the Atlantic.

By the time planning began to establish a colony on the Chesapeake Bay, James I of England had

already concluded a peace treaty with the Spanish and would not tolerate piracy, but he was

prepared to allow the planting of English settlements in North America as long as they were

located in lands uninhabited by other Europeans. On April 10, 1606, the king granted a charter to

the Virginia Company to create two colonies, one to the south between latitudes 34º and 41º

North (from modern-day North Carolina to New York), and the other between 38º and 45º (from

the Chesapeake to northern Maine). The Virginia Company of London was responsible for

promoting and governing the southern colony. Owing to the practical difficulty of overseeing

day-to-day affairs in Virginia, the Company created a local council to rule the colony headed by

an annually elected president.

The aims of the Jamestown expedition were to establish England’s claim to North America,

search for gold or silver mines, find a passage to the Pacific Ocean (the “Other Sea”), harvest the

natural resources of the land, and trade with Indian peoples. The settlers arrived off the Virginia

capes on April 26 and the ruling council chose Edward Maria Wingfield, one of the prime

movers of the expedition and a veteran of wars in the Netherlands and Ireland, as the colony’s

first president. After reconnoitering lands along the James River for a couple of weeks, the

council selected a site on a peninsula about fifty miles from the entrance to Chesapeake Bay,

where they landed on May 14. They named the settlement Jamestown in honor of their king.

The English had settled in a region ruled by a powerful chief named Powhatan. Powhatan’s

domains (called by the Indians Tsenacommacah) stretched from south of the James River to the

Potomac River, and included more than thirty tribes numbering approximately 14,000 people.

The colonists had been instructed by the Company to be cautious in their dealings with the

Indians but to try to keep on good terms so as to encourage trade. Initial contacts indicated that

some peoples were friendly but an attack on the English settlement by several hundred warriors

at the end of May persuaded the colony’s leaders to construct a sturdy fortification. Work began

on a triangular fort facing the James River, and was completed within three weeks.

Early explorations confirmed the area’s natural abundance, and information passed on by Indians

hinted at great wealth to be found in the piedmont and mountains to the west. Secure within the

palisades of their newly constructed fort, the settlers’ prospects appeared rosy, but after Newport

returned to London in June 1607, the colony suffered a number of setbacks. During the summer

and fall a combination of disease, sporadic Indian attacks, polluted drinking water, and poor diet

led to the deaths of about two-thirds of the men. By December, only thirty-eight of the original

104 colonists who arrived at Jamestown survived. The colony was on the brink of collapse.

Reinforced by more colonists and fresh supplies early in 1608, the English continued to search

for precious minerals and a river passage through the mountains that would lead them to the

Pacific. Captain John Smith carried out two explorations of the Chesapeake Bay and its major

rivers, revealing the extensiveness of the region, but found no evidence of mineral deposits or a

passage. When he took over leadership of the colony in September 1608, he urged the colonists

to give up the search for gold and silver and concentrate instead on producing goods and

manufactures to return to England.

Meanwhile, the London Company, now led by the powerful merchant and financier Sir Thomas

Smythe, had decided to thoroughly reform the colony to attract new investors and make the

venture profitable. Emphasis was given to strengthening the colony’s leadership, producing

manufactured goods and commodities, continuing the effort to find precious minerals, and

bringing about the conversion of the Powhatans to Christianity.

The arrival of several hundred colonists during 1608 and 1609 led to a steady deterioration in

relations with the Powhatans. Full-scale hostilities broke out in the fall of 1609 and in the winter

the Powhatans sealed off Jamestown Island in an effort to starve the colony into submission.

During the siege, later called by colonists “the starving time,” the colony’s numbers dropped

from about 280 to ninety. Only the arrival of Sir Thomas Gates followed by Lord Delaware,

along with hundreds of new settlers, in the spring of 1610 saved the settlement from

abandonment.

Gates, Delaware, and another influential leader of this period, Sir Thomas Dale, all men with

extensive military experience, introduced a severe code of martial law to maintain order among

the colonists and prosecute the war. The “Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall,” as they were later

known, set out the duties and obligations of settlers as well as penalties for transgressions.

Officers were required to ensure all those under their command attended divine service twice

daily and to punish anyone who blasphemed “Gods holy name” or challenged the authority of

any preacher or minister. Serious crimes such as murder, treasonous acts and speeches, theft,

trading with the Indians without permission, and embezzlement of Company goods were all

punishable by death, while lesser offences such as slandering the Virginia Company or the

colony’s leaders carried the penalty of whippings and galley service (serving at the oars of

longboats).

War dragged on for four years before ending inconclusively in 1614. The marriage of

Pocahontas, one of Powhatan’s favorite daughters, to John Rolfe, a prominent gentleman, was

interpreted by the English as a diplomatic alliance and heralded an uneasy truce between the two

peoples. Rolfe had been experimenting with the cultivation of tobacco for a couple of years and

introduced a new type of leaf from the West Indies that was sweeter than the native Virginia

plant and more palatable to English tastes. Settlers enjoyed a rapidly expanding market for

tobacco in England leading to the rapid expansion of English settlement along the James River

Valley. The Company proceeded with the establishment of a range of industries including glass

blowing, iron smelting, and manufacture of potash, soap ashes, pitch, and tar. Settlers also

produced a variety of timber goods, as well as attempting unsuccessfully to cultivate grapes for

wine-making and mulberry trees for silk production.

In 1618, the Company introduced sweeping reforms designed to replace martial law with laws

more like those of England. Land reforms permitted the acquisition of private property

(previously all land and profits belonged to the Company). The following year the first

representative legislative assembly in America, convened in Jamestown’s church at the end of

July 1619, underlined that colonists would have some say in running their own affairs.

Just a few weeks later, in August of 1619, The White Lion, a privateer carrying about two dozen

Africans, sailed up the James River. The Africans had been captured by Portuguese colonists in

Angola and put on board a slave ship, the St. John the Baptist, bound for Vera Cruz in Spanish

America. The White Lion had attacked the ship in the Gulf of Mexico and plundered her cargo.

In Jamestown, the Africans were exchanged for provisions. Their status as slaves or indentured

servants is uncertain but their arrival was an early forerunner of the tens of thousands of enslaved

Africans who would follow over the next century and a half, and who would be the main source

of labor in Virginia’s tobacco fields.

By the early 1620s the colony was booming. The white population, which had never been more

than a few hundred in the early years, had risen to well over a thousand. As tobacco exports

increased, profits multiplied and planters sought more laborers. The first mass migration to

English America occurred between 1618 and early 1622 when at least 3,000 settlers arrived. Yet

the spread of English settlement and taking of Indians’ lands brought misery and bitterness to

local peoples. Led by Opechancanough (who had succeeded his elder brother, Powhatan, as de

facto paramount chief on the latter’s death in 1618), Indian warriors attacked settlements all

along the James River on March 22, 1622, killing about 350 settlers—one-quarter of the colony’s

white population. The uprising and further losses of life and property over the next year were

devastating blows to the Company, which, after a government investigation, collapsed in 1624.

Following the demise of the Company, the crown took control of Virginia, which became

England’s first royal colony in America. The war with the Powhatans lingered on for the rest of

the decade, but colonists quickly rebuilt plantations in response to the continuing demand for

tobacco. The success of tobacco cultivation and defeat of the Powhatans secured the colony’s

future after 1625.

At Jamestown the English learned the hard lessons of sustaining a colony. All successful English

colonies followed in its wake, but Jamestown also presents two sides of America’s founding. On

the one hand, England’s New World offered many settlers opportunities for social and economic

advancement unthinkable at home; while on the other, colonization unleashed powerful

destructive forces that were catastrophic for Indian peoples, whose lands were taken by colonists,

and for enslaved Africans and their posterity, whose labor enabled Jamestown, and indeed

America, to flourish.

James Horn is Colonial Williamsburg’s vice president of research and historical interpretation. He is the author of numerous books and articles on colonial America, including A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America (2005).

Based on Horn’s account of the founding of Jamestown, what were the positive and negative

impacts of the settlers’ actions upon the New World?