Sir Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English explorer, soldier and writer.

At age 17, he fought with the French Huguenots and later

studied at Oxford. He became a favorite of Queen Elizabeth

after serving in her army in Ireland. He was knighted in 1585,

and within two years became Captain of the Queen's Guard.

Between 1584 and 1589, he helped establish a colony near

Roanoke Island (present-day North Carolina), which he named

Virginia. Accused of treason by King James I, Sir Walter Raleigh

was imprisoned and eventually put to death.

Roanoke

The Roanoke Island colony, the first English settlement in the

New World, was founded by English explorer Sir Walter

Raleigh in August 1585. The first Roanoke colonists did not

fare well, suffering from dwindling food supplies and Indian

attacks, and in 1586 they returned to England aboard a ship

captained by Sir Francis Drake. In 1587, Raleigh sent out

another group of 100 colonists under John White. White

returned to England to procure more supplies, but the war

with Spain delayed his return to Roanoke. By the time he

finally returned in August 1590, everyone had vanished.

Including his daughter and grand-daughter Virginia Dare, the

first British child born in America. The only clue left was the

word “CROATOAN” carved into a fence post.

Charter

Royal document granting a specified group the right to form a

colony and guaranteeing settlers their rights as English

citizens.

Joint-stock Company

The joint-stock company was the forerunner of the modern

corporation. In a joint-stock company, stock was sold to

investors who provided the money to start the colony and

then would be paid back and receive a portion of any profits

made by the colony. The Virginia Company used funds raised

by selling its stock to create the colony of Jamestown. At first

the colony nearly failed but then began to boom as it started

to produce tobacco.

Headright

A "headright" is a legal grant of land to settlers. Headrights are

most notable for their role in the expansion of the thirteen

British colonies in North America; the Virginia Company of

London gave headrights to settlers, and the Plymouth

Company followed suit. Most headrights were either 50 or

100 acres.

burgesses

The English kings who ruled the 13 original colonies reserved the

right to decide the fate of their colonies, but not alone. The

colonists drew upon their claims to traditional English rights and

insisted on raising their own representative assemblies or

burgesses. Such was the case with the VIRGINIA HOUSE OF

BURGESSES, the first popularly elected legislature in the New World

created in 1619.

John Smith

English adventurer John Smith is elected council president of

Jamestown, Virginia–the first permanent English settlement in

North America. Smith, a colorful figure, had won popularity in

the colony because of his organizational abilities and

effectiveness in dealing with local Native American groups. He

had been captured by the Powhatan Indian confederacy but

was spared from death and released (according to a 1624

account by Smith) because of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan’s

13-year-old daughter who begged that he be spared.

Royal colonies

A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal

colony, was a type of colonial administration of the British

overseas territories. Crown, or royal, colonies were ruled by a

governor appointed by the monarch (king or queen).

Proprietary colonies

Proprietary colonies were grants of land in the form of a

charter, or a license to rule, for individuals or groups. They

were used to settle areas rapidly with British subjects at the

proprietors' expense during the costly settlement years. Also,

they could be used by the Crown to repay a debt to, or bestow

a favor upon a highly placed person.

The land was titled in the proprietors' name, not the king's.

The proprietors could appoint all officials; create courts, hear

appeals, and pardon offenders; make laws and issue decrees;

raise and command militia; and establish churches, ports, and

towns. Proprietors had the opportunity to recoup their

investment by collecting quitrents—annual land fees—from

the settlers who had purchased land within these colonies.

Charter colonies

Charter colonies were governed by corporations called joint

stock companies. Individuals hoping to make a profit

purchased stock in these companies to finance colonization.

When a company had enough money, it applied to the King

for a charter, which is an agreement between the monarch

and a colony that lays out the rights and responsibilities of

both parties. If the King granted a charter, the company

recruited colonists, set up a government, and founded a

colony.

Charter colonies often enjoyed a higher level of self-

government than other colonies. The joint stock company

controlled land distribution and took an active role in colonial

government. Colonists tended to prefer this form of colonial

government because of the freedom it allowed.

Puritans

The name "puritan" came to be used to describe members of

the Church of England who wished to purify it of all

semblances to the Roman Catholic Church. The Puritans

emphasized that they did not wish to destroy the Church of

England, nor did they want to separate from it. Their sole aim

was to restore it to its original purity.

A radical minority within the Puritan movement, the

Separatists, wanted to remove itself from the tainted English

church and worship in its own independent congregations.

A group of Puritans sailed to the Massachusetts Bay in 1630,

wanting to establish "a city upon a hill" as an example of how

godly people should live.

Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 English colonists on the

ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620, was the first written

framework of government established in what is now the

United States. The compact was drafted to prevent dissent

amongst Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims who had landed

at Plymouth a few days earlier. When the ship arrived at Cape

Cod, several hundred miles north of its planned destination in

Virginia owing to storms at sea, the passengers realized they

were outside the bounds of the governmental authority they

had contracted with in England and created their own.

tolerance

The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular

the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not

necessarily agree with. Some colonial groups such as the

Puritans were not tolerant of religious differences. Other

groups such as the Quakers were.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

The first constitution in the American colonies, the

“Fundamental Orders,” was adopted by representatives in

1639. Roger Ludlow, a lawyer, wrote much of the

Fundamental Orders, and presented a binding and compact

frame of government that put the welfare of the community

above that of individuals. It was also the first written

constitution in the world to declare the modern idea that “the

foundation of authority is in the free consent of the people.”

Anne Hutchinson

Trained as a midwife and nurse, Hutchinson held small

meetings in her home to discuss her Puritan pastor’s sermons.

Over time the meeting drew more and more people. She then

claimed that God had communicated to her directly and

declared that she was capable of interpreting the Scriptures

on her own. In doing so she questioned the authority of the

church and their control of society. She was put on trial and

later banished from Massachusetts, seeking shelter in Rhode

Island.

Roger Williams

The political and religious leader Roger Williams (c. 1603-

1683) is best remembered for founding Rhode Island and

advocating separation of church and state in Colonial America.

His views on religious freedom and tolerance, coupled with his

disapproval of the practice of confiscating land from Native

Americans, earned him the wrath of his church and

banishment from the colony of Massachusetts. Williams and

his followers settled on Narragansett Bay, where they

purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and established

a new colony governed by the principles of religious liberty

and separation of church and state. Rhode Island became a

haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious

minorities.

King Philips War

Most colonist moved onto Native American lands without

permission or payment. Throughout the colonial period,

settlers and Native Americans competed fiercely for land.

In 1675 Wampanoag leader Metacomet waged war against

the New England colonies. Known to settlers as King Philip,

Metacomet enlisted the help of other Native American

groups. King Philip's War raged for 14 months. In the end, the

colonists defeated Metacomet. The war destroyed the power

of the Native Americans in New England and colonial

settlement expanded.

Patroons

The Dutch West India Company controlled New Netherland

(eventually New York). It wanted to increase the colony's

population. To do this, the company offered large grants of

land to anyone who could bring at least 50 settlers to work the

land. The landowners who received these grants were called

patroons. The patroons ruled like kings. They had their own

courts and laws. Settlers owed the patroons labor and a share

of their crops.

New Netherlands

Not all of the colonies in North America were British at first,

one was under Dutch control. This area was called New

Netherland. The main settlement of New Netherland was New

Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island. This location combined a

good seaport with access to the Hudson River. The river

served as a major transportation link to a rich land of farms,

forests, and furs. As a result, New Amsterdam became a

center of shipping to and from the Americas.

New Netherland's success did not go unnoticed. The English

wanted to gain control of the valuable Dutch colony. England

insisted it had a right to the land based on John Cabot's

explorations in the late 1400s. In 1664 the English sent a fleet

to attack New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the

colony, surrendered it to the English forces without a fight.

Quakers

The Quakers, a Protestant group that had been persecuted in

England, founded the colony of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania as a “holy experiment," a chance to put Quaker

ideals into practice. The Quakers, or Society of Friends,

believed that everyone was equal, no matter race or gender,

including Native Americans. People could follow their own

“inner light" rather than the teachings of a religious leader.

Quakers were also pacifists, or people who refuse to use force

or fight in wars.

William Penn

In 1680 William Penn, a wealthy English Quaker, received the

land in payment for a debt King Charles owed Penn's father.

Pennsylvania, or “Penn's Woods." The new colony was nearly

as large as England.

Penn was an active proprietor. In 1682 he sailed to America to

supervise the building of Philadelphia, a name that means

“city of brotherly love." Penn designed the city himself. He

also wrote Pennsylvania's first constitution.

Penn advertised his colony throughout Europe. By 1683, more

than 3,000 English, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, and German settlers

had arrived. In 1701, in the Charter of Privileges, Penn granted

colonists the right to elect representatives to the legislature.

Indentured servant

A person under contract to work for another person for a

definite period of time, usually without pay but in exchange for

free passage to a new country. During the seventeenth

century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia

came from England as indentured servants.

Bacon’s Rebellion

In the 1640s, Virginia governor William Berkeley made a

pledge to Native Americans. In exchange for a large piece of

land, he agreed to keep settlers from pushing farther into

their territory. Berkeley's goal was to prevent the outbreak of

a war with the Native Americans.

Nathaniel Bacon and others in western Virginia ignored the

pledge. In 1676 Bacon led attacks on Native American villages.

His army also marched to Jamestown to drive out Berkeley,

and they burned the town to the ground. Bacon seemed on

the verge of taking over the colony when he suddenly became

ill and died. With his death, the rebellion faded. England

recalled Berkeley and sent troops to restore order.

Debtors

Georgia, founded in 1733, was the last British colony set up in

America. James Oglethorpe received a charter from George II

for a colony where debtors and poor people could make a

fresh start. In Britain, debtors—those who had debts—could

be imprisoned if they were unable to pay what they owed.

The British also hoped Georgia would block any Spanish attack

on the colonies from Florida. Oglethorpe and his settlers built

the forts and town of Savannah to discourage such attacks.

Georgia did not develop as Oglethorpe planned. Hundreds of

poor people came from Britain, but few debtors settled there.