The Planting of English
America 1500-1733
England’s Imperial Stirrings
• North America in 1600
was largely unclaimed
• In the 1500s, Britain
failed to effectively
colonize due to internal
conflicts
– King Henry VIII broke
with the Roman Catholic
Church in the 1530s
– In Ireland, the Catholics
sought Spain’s help in
revolting against
England
English colonizers in Ireland
Elizabeth Energizes England
• Francis Drake pirated
Spanish ships for gold
and circumnavigated
the globe
• 16th century English
attempts at
colonization in the
New World failed
embarrassingly
• Britain’s defeat of the
Spanish Armada
opened the door for
Britain to cross the
Atlantic
Sir Francis Drake
Elizabeth I
Sir Walter Raleigh
England on the Eve of the Empire
• New policy of enclosure
(fencing in land) for farming
meant there was less or no
land for the poor
• The woolen districts fell upon
hard times economically and
the workers lost jobs
• Tradition of primogeniture
caused younger sons of rich
folk to try their luck with
fortunes elsewhere
• By the 1600s, the jointstock company was
perfected
England Plants the Jamestown
Seedling
• In 1606, a joint-stock
company, known as the
Virginia Company of
London, received a charter
from King James I
• The company landed in
Jamestown on May 24, 1607
• In 1608, Captain John
Smith took over the town
and forced the settlers into
line
• By 1609, of the 400 settlers
who came to Virginia, only
60 survived the "starving
winter" of 1609-1610
King James I
John Smith
Seal of the Virginia Company
Cultural Clash in the Chesapeake
• Colonists raided Indian food
supplies and relations
deteriorated leading to the
First Anglo-Powhatan War
• The First Anglo-Powhatan War
ended in 1614 with a peace
settlement sealed by the
marriage of Pocahontas to
colonist John Rolfe
• The Indians were again
defeated in the Second
Anglo-Powhatan War in 1644
Pocahontas
Virginia: Child of Tobacco
• Jamestown’s gold is found
and it is tobacco
• In 1619, the London
Company authorized the
settlers to summon an
assembly, known as the
House of Burgesses
• The first Africans to arrive in
America also came in 1619
• In 1624, King James I made
Virginia a colony of
England, directly under his
control
The first known image of a man
smoking a pipe, from Chute's
Tabaco (1595)
Maryland: Catholic Haven
• Maryland was founded in
1634 by Lord Baltimore
• Maryland was made for a
refuge for the Catholics to
escape the wrath of the
Protestant English
government
• The Act of Toleration,
which was passed in 1649
by the local representative
group in Maryland, granted
toleration to all Christians
Lord Baltimore
Early Maryland
and Virginia
Colonizing the Carolinas and Georgia
• Carolina flourished by
developing close economic
ties with the West Indies,
due to the port of Charleston
• Rice emerged as the
principle crop in Carolina
• Georgia (1733) was intended
to be a buffer between the
British colonies and the
hostile Spanish settlements
in Florida and the enemy
French in Louisiana
• Georgia was also meant to
be a second chance site for
wretched souls in debt
Early Carolina and Georgia
Settlements
The Plantation Colonies
• Plantation colonies
included: Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and
Georgia
• Creation of plantations
stunted growth of cities
• Slavery was found in all
the plantation colonies
• In the South, the crops
were tobacco and rice,
and some indigo in the
tidewater region of SC