Settling The Chesapeake

2.2

Jamestown Colony

• Inadequate labor– gold over farming– “would rather starve than work”

• Inadequate supplies

• High death rate– Malaria, dysentery, typhoid – 1607 (104-50)– 1609 (400-65) winter “starving time”

VA Co. Stabilizes Colony

• 1607 John Smith autocratic rule

• Forced labor– “He that will not work, shall not eat”

• 1618 Headright System– 50 acres anyone pays way over or servants

way– Large estates

“Charter of Grants & Liberties”

• Replaced military style gov’t

• 1619 House of Burgesses – 1st elected assembly – Landowner can vote– Company picks Gov. & has veto power– Other colonies follow

• 1619 20 slaves arrive

• VA dominated by slave-owning planters

Powhatan’s World

• 15k – 25k

• 2 yrs VA Co. & Smith kind to Indians & trade

• 1610 settlers massacre villages & destroy crops

• 1614 peace restore John Rolfe married Pocahontas– Died 1617 England

War 1622

• English permanent expanding colony

• Opechancanough kill 1/3 VA pop.

• Settlers retaliate

• Indians forfeited any claim to land

• Trade continued

• Power shifted to English

War 1644

• Opechancanough defeated again

• Indians moved to reservations west – Separation

• VA now a Royal Colony– Investors made no money– London ignores it for yrs– Local elite govern selves

Tobacco

• West Indian – John Rolfe

• Rise of Planter elite (get rich quick)

• Small farmers (ex-servants)

• Demand for land & labor

White VA Society

• Wealthy gentry (Planters)

• Small farmer

• Poor laborers (3/4)– Indentured servants– Ex-servants

Women & Family

• VA lacked women-“tobacco brides”

• Indentured servants– Families mid 20’s– Hard work & early death– Abuse

• Femme sole

• Widows poverty

Maryland

• Tobacco planter society

• Cecilius Calvert

• Absolute power of proprietor vs. rights of colonists

• Generous headright system – 50 acres

• High death rate

• Land prospects diminish

Religious-Political Tensions

• Calvert’s Catholic leanings vs. settler’s Protestant leanings

• English Civil War (1640’s)– Verge of anarchy– Protestant majority seize power

Reforms

• Calvert appoints Protestant Gov.

• Refuge for Dissenters (VA & England)

• Act Concerning Religion (1649)– Religious toleration– Only Christians are free