American Colonial Empires: French and England

Jose Rizo

American Colonies: 6-Virginia Expansion escalated formation between the English colonist and the Algonquian

Indians- Defended their lands and culture against the intruders PROMOTERS: English queen lacked finance and govern an overseas colony

◦ 16th century England, less than 5%= the elite (wealth and power). Below them: common people, about 95% of population

◦ Executive power belonged to the monarch, ordinarily a king, sometimes a queen ◦ Only about 25% adult men qualified for the vote. It mattered greatly that England

colonization of north Florida England was in economical problems and their crime rates went up. They

exported people to a new colony in Virginia In Virginia, the English employed the same language and meted out the same

treatment whenever Indians violated the initial role cast for them: grateful innocents eager to submit to their superior benefactors. ◦ Unwilling to play along, Indians faced the formidable fury of their uninvited guests.

ROANOAKE: It was difficult to land English ships in Roanoke For months on end the colonist lacked supplies from and contact with England,

Naturally they begged to be taken away on the rare occasions when ships did happen to pass by

POWHATAN: English tried again, this time at Chesapeake Bay, better harbors, navigable rivers and more fertile land◦ Abounded in fish, shellfish, edible plants, and game animals it had the western shore, four

major rivers. Employing dugout canoes, natives exploited the river system to conduct a small

scale but long distance trade with the Indians of the a interior, Virginia Indians divided tasks almost exclusively along gender lines.

◦ Woman cultivated crops, gathered nuts and fruits, and tended the village or camp, putting up lodges and preparing the skins to make clothing

American Colonies: 6-Virginia Men hunted, fished, cleared land for crops, and made dugout canoes. Only

specialists were a few shamans. Set apart by their supernatural knowledge, they combined the roles of healer, conjure, and priest.

Lacking property the plunder, Indians primarily fought for scalps or captives, both to boost their own honor and to degrade that of their enemies◦ The natives wages short raids intended to kill a few warriors◦ In Virginia, veteran English commanders initially saw the Indian way of war cowardly

and ineffective. The English mode of total war shocked the Indians of Virginia as pointless and wasteful

ENCOUNTER: The natives were intrigued by the technology of the visitors, especially their metal tools and weapons, far sharper, stronger, and more durable than stone implements. ◦ They did not fight them but turn them into allies to fight their enemies.

Algonquians wanted to contain the colonist but they did not know that many more would come to destroy their land and the Indian world ◦ Algonquians recoiled in horror to adopt the European way of life. ◦ For Men to forsake war and adopt the female role of agricultural laborer

English colonizers had a peculiar confidence that their economic self-interest served God.

JAMESTOWN: They tried to impede form Indians seeing white men die, but it was impossible. They died in large amounts.

VIOLENCE: They believed that they would get far more corn from the other Indians by making one especially horrifying example of those who failed to obey English orders.

Conflict settled in 1613 when English captured Pocahontas, Powhatan accepted peace

American Colonies: 6-Virginia TOBACCO: Transported more than 17 hundred people to the Chesapeake and spent over

50,000 Euros, ◦ An immense amount in that time, unprofitable town of 350 diseased and hungry colonist ◦ Deeply in debt, the Virginia Company teetered toward bankruptcy, first the company gave

up directly controlling the laborers and instead permitted the colonist to own and work land as their own

◦ Colonist showed much greater initiative and effort in cultivating the corn, squash, and beans that ensured their subsistence, they still needed a commercial crop to market in England

Planters learned to raise tobacco in 1616, became popular in England and Europe Consumers would pay high prices to satisfy their craving, it thrived in Virginias long, hot, and

humid growing season Virginias tobacco production surged from 200,00 pounds in 1624 to 3,000,000 in 1638,

Chesapeake beat the West Indies for the main supplier of tobacco to Europe◦ It was sold 5-10 time more than sold in Europe, this drove increased immigration

Colonial leaders felt delighted by the opportunity to disposes and exterminate the Indians after giving them a reason from a response to an attack

Virginias attacked Indians right before the winter, made them have little food and starve◦ Some were poisoned with fake peace treaties in their cups of alcohol ◦ English outnumbered the Indians, Disease and war killed and reduced Algonquians from

24,000 in 1607 to 2,000 by 1669. Colonials grew from 13,000 in 1650 to 41,000 in 1670. By end of 1660’s, annual shipment of

ten millions pound of tobacco to England. ◦ Later Maryland rapidly prospered as a tobacco colony

American Colonies: 7-Chesapeake Colonies

17th century, the Chesapeake’s leading men lacked the mystique of a traditional ruling class◦ During the 1660’s and 1670s as tobacco prices fell and good land

became scarce Colonial Virginians developed the American interdependence of elite rule,

popular politics, and white racial supremacy. COMMON WEALTHS: Wealthiest planters also dominated the county system

of local government. In theory, Chesapeake colonist lived in a political hierarchy with 4 tiers

◦ Distant King governing the realm in collaboration with Parliament◦ Colonist answered to the provincial government: the governor, council,

and assembly ◦ County court and parish vestry followed next down the political ladder◦ Family household

Chesapeake’s skewed sex ratio; many men never found the wives they needed to form family households

LABOR :Chesapeake demanded too much labor from too few colonists◦ Replication and expansion of profitable tobacco fields demanded more

laborers who could be driven to work under harsh conditions◦ Beginning in 1619 slavery was not yet economical because slaves were

too expensive to risk where few newcomers, either black or white, survived more than 5 years

American Colonies: 7-Chesapeake Colonies

PROSPERITY: With land abundant and tobacco profitable, most new producers prospered. Entry cost of tobacco planting were modest: set of hand tools, a year’s provision, a few head of cattle and pigs, some seed, and about 50 acres of land.

1665- More competitive tobacco market gave the wealthiest planters and big advantage ◦ Land hoarding occurred

1675 war erupted between the settlers and the Susquehannock , war escalated as the settlers murdered chiefs who tried to negotiate◦ Infuriated settler demanded permission from the governor to exterminate all of the

natives on the frontier and the peaceable too. It was opposed, for the governor and his friends profited from the deer skin trade with the peaceable Algonquian Indians

◦ Bacon led indiscriminate attacks on the Indians, in open defiance of the governor. He was declared guilty of treason, led Bacon to march his army against the governor in Jamestown.

◦ To defeat Berkeley he needed more help, he promised to lower taxes and provide more and better lands to the freedmen.

◦ Sept 1676, Bacons men drove the governor and his supporters out of Jamestown and across Chesapeake Bay

◦ To discourage their return, Bacon burned Jamestown to the ground, a month later, Bacon suddenly died of dysentery

Virginias knew that their economical dependent colony could not survive in a world of hostile empires, Dutch, French, and Spain, without protection from England and without access to the English market

In England the crown authorities suspected that Berkley and his friends had caused troubles in Virginia, they dispatched in army to restore order in Virginia

American Colonies: 7-Chesapeake Colonies Taxes were reduced; Virginia reinvented themselves and

Virginia politics SLAVES: Tensions between the common whites and the great

planters also diminished as the numbers of indentured servants and new freedmen dwindled ◦ Faced with declining supply of white laborers, the Chesapeake

planters increasingly turned to African slaves for their plantation labor. The end of the 17th century, slaves became a better investment, as servants became scarcer and more expensive

◦ Armed whites became essential to its defense against slave rebellion At first colonial laws did not forbid blacks from progress,

blacks voted, baptized their children, testified in court, intermarried with whites and bought and sold property ◦ Late 17th century they restricted blacks from more liberties and

privileges◦ They had to use pain and fear to motivate blacks, they later forbid

interracial marriage. Raping a slave was not a crime but marrying her was.

Skin color started to be the key marker of identity and race.

American Colonies: 9-Puritans and Indians

Instead of viewing the pre-colonial landscape as beautiful, leading puritans perceived it as a hideous desolate wilderness full of wild beast and wild men. The New English saw the Indians and their opposite ◦ Suspecting that the wilderness was seductive as well as evil, Puritan

leaders also feared that their own people would degenerate into Indians from prolonged contact with native ways and the native land.

◦ A proponent of Puritan emigration, Puritan leaders worried that profit and religion were jumping apart.

◦ In two ways, the New England labored to reassure themselves that remained civilized Christians and resisted the temptations of an Indians life: by changing the land and by converting the Indians

◦ The Puritans also worked to subdue, convert, and transform the Indians into replicas of English Christians.

NATIVES ◦ Southern New England Indians possessed cultural, and especially linguistic,

affinities, but lacked political unity. ◦ Tribes were subdivided into many local bands, each consisting of few

hundred people sharing a settled village for a part of the year and a common hunting and gathering territory for the rest. These bands were porous, because extensive kin connections reached, through marriage

◦ Native’s highly productive horticulture supplied most their diet and belied the English insistence that all Indians were nothing more than hunters.

◦ There was no market in labor for Indians

American Colonies: 9-Puritans and Indians

PROPERTY- Puritans insisted that the Christian God meant for them to enjoy the land, in reward for their godly industry and to punish the Indians for their pagan indolence. ◦ The colonist needed much more cleared land, they deforested land in large acres.

Indians reacted by killing their domestic animals, they were charged with theft. PEQUOT WAR- First major conflict between the New English and the Indians

erupted in 1636◦ Only about ½ of the three thousand prewar Pequot survived the war, almost all were

killed. Colonial leaders formally declared the Pequot nation dissolved◦ In the next big war, in 1675-76,the Pequot helped the colonist attack the Narragansett◦ The various Indians bands were unable to unite, they became the minority. In 1670

England colonist outnumbered the Indians by three to one. PRAYING TOWNS-

◦ Permanent compacted “praying towns” the Indians could be kept under closer surveillance and under more constant pressure to change their behavior and appearance. In praying towns they could also be removed from friends and relatives who refused to change their traditional ways.

◦ Praying towns did appeal to small and weak band of Indians but not to the large clans of Indians

American Colonies: 9-Puritans and Indians KING PHILIPS WAR- New English called the bloodiest Indian war in their

history King Philips War Spring of 1675, Plymouth colonist provoked the confrontation by seizing,

trying, and hanging three Wampanoag for murdering a praying town Indian who had served as a colonial informant. ◦ Over the years the Indians had gradually acquired flintlock muskets from

traders, primary weapon in the time. ◦ When colonist counterattacked, the Indians took refuge in swamps and

repelled their foes, inflicting heavy losses. As Puritans saw it, their Bible Commonwealth was failing, consigned by

God to a scourging by the forces of Satan as a punishment for the sins of New England. To vindicate their God and prove their own worthiness, the Puritans felt compelled to destroy their Indian enemies

In early 1676, desperate colonial leaders realized they needed Indian allies. Their allies thought them how to avoid ambushes and how to track down and destroy the rebels in their refuges. ◦ In spring of 1676 the Indian rebels ran out of food and ammunition, just

when they faced increasing attacks, they ended up losing. VICTORY AND DEFEAT

◦ During the late 1670’s, Puritan settlers returned to rebuild their burned and ravages homes, while newcomers flocked into the lands left vacant by the death and exile of the defeated Indians.