The Early English Colonies
I.
England and the New World
 Reasons for England’s late entry
 Protracted religious strife
 Continuing struggle to subdue Ireland
 Awakening of English attention to
North America
 Early ventures
 Humphrey Gilbert’s failed Newfoundland
colony
 Walter Raleigh’s failed Roanoke colony
I. England and the New World
(cont’d)
 Impetus for North American
colonization
 National rivalry
 Opposition to (Spanish)
Catholicism
 Spain’s attempted invasion of
England
 Desire to match Spanish and
French presence in the New World
I. England and the New World
(cont’d)
B. Awakening of English attention to
North America
2. Impetus for North American
colonization
b. Sense of divine mission
 Image of Spanish brutality in the New
World ( The Black Legend- Las Casa)
 England’s self-conception as beacon of
freedom
I. England and the New World
(cont’d)
b. Material possibilities
 Prospects for trade-based empire
in North America
 Solution to English social crisis
 Chance for laboring classes to
attain economic independence
I. England and the New World
(cont’d)
C. English social crisis of late sixteenth
century
 Roots of
 Population explosion
 Rural displacement
 Elements of
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Urban overcrowding
Falling wages
Spread of poverty
Social instability
I. England and the New World
(cont’d)
 Government answers to
 Punishment of dispossessed
 Dispatching of dispossessed to the
New World
II.
Overview of seventeenthcentury English settlement in
North America
 Challenges of life in North America
 Magnitude of English emigration
 Chesapeake
 New England
 Middle colonies
 Indentured servitude
 Similarities to slavery
 Differences from slavery
II. Overview of seventeenth-century
English settlement in North America
 Significance of access to land

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As
As
As
As
basis of English liberty
lure to settlement
resource for political patronage
source of wealth
II. Overview of seventeenthcentury English settlement in
North America (cont’d)
E. Englishmen and Indians
 Displacement of Indians
 Preference over subjugation or
assimilation
 Limits of constraints on settlers
 Recurring warfare between colonists
and Indians
 Trading
 Impact of trade and settlement on
Indian life
Joint Stock Company
A corporate venture to
settle Virginia – The
Virginia Company
Merchants formed the
company for a profit, but
the King also wanted to
Christianize the natives
III. Settling of the
Chesapeake
 Virginia
 1. Initial settlement at Jamestown
 2. Rocky beginnings
 High death rate
 Inadequate supplies
 Inadequate labor
III. Settling of the Chesapeake
(cont’d)
 3. Virginia Company measures to
stabilize colony
 Forced labor
 Headright system
 2 grants for colonist already there
 1 grant per new male settler that paid
their own way
 “Charter of grants and liberties”
 4. Indians and Jamestown settlers
 Initial cooperation and trade
III. Settling of the
Chesapeake (cont’d)
a. Key figures in early Indian-settler
relations
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Powhatan
John Smith
Pocahontas
John Rolfe
b. Sporadic conflict
c. War of 1622
 Opechancanough attack on settlers
 Settlers’ retaliation
 Aftermath
Settling of the Chesapeake (cont’d)
e. War of 1644
 Defeat of Opechancanough rebellion
 Removal of surviving Indians to
reservations
f. Continuing encroachment on Indian
land
III. Settling of the
Chesapeake (cont’d)
5. Take-off of tobacco cultivation
 Introduction and spread
 Effects
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Issuance of royal colonial charter
Rise of tobacco planter elite
Spread of settler agriculture
Rising demand for land and labor
III. Settling of the
Chesapeake (cont’d)
 Virginia
6. Emerging strata of white Virginia
 Wealthy gentry
 Small farmers
 Poor laborers
 Indentured servants
 Free
7. Women settlers
 Quest for
 Status of
 Hardships
Richard Frethorne
An Indentured Servants letter
Home
Richard Frethorne
 “My most humble duty remembered to you, hoping in
god of your good health, as I myself am at the
making hereof. This is to let you understand that I
you child am in a most heavy case by reason of the
country, [which] is such that it causeth much sic
kness, [such] as the scurvy and the bloody flux and
diverse other diseases, which maketh the body very
poor and weak. And when we are sick there is nothing
to comfort us; for since I came out of the ship I never
ate anything but peas, and loblollie (that is, water
gruel). As for deer or venison I never saw any since I
came into this land. “
Richard Frethorne
 “For we came but twenty for the
merchants, and they are half dead just;
and we look every hour when two more
should go. Yet there came some four other
men yet to live with us, of which there is
but one alive; and our Lieutenant is dead,
and [also] his father and his brother. And
there was some five or six of the last year’s
twenty, of which there is but three left, so
that we are fain to get other men to plant
with us; and yet we are but 32 to fight
against 3000 if they should come.”
Richard Frethorne
 “And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there
nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death,
except [in the event] that one had money to lay out in
some things for profit. But I have nothing at all – no,
not a shirt to my back but two rags (2), nor clothes
but one poor suit, nor but one pair of shoes, but one
pair of stockings, but one cap, [and] but two bands
[collars]. My cloak is stolen by one of my fellows, and
to his dying hour [he] would not tell me what he did
with it; but some of my fel lows saw him have butter
and beef out of a ship, which my cloak, I doubt [not],
paid for. So that I have not a penny, nor a penny
worth, to help me too either spice or sugar or strong
waters, without the which one cannot live here.”
Richard Frethorne
 “Any eating meat will yield great profit. Oil a nd
vinegar is very good; but, father, there is great loss in
leaking. But for God’s sake send beef and cheese and
butter, or the more of one sort and none of another.
But if you send cheese, it must be very old cheese;
and at the cheesemonger’s you may bu y very food
cheese for twopence farthing or halfpenny, that will
be liked very well. I hope all my brothers and sisters
are in good health, and as for my part I have set
down my resolution that certainly will be; that is, that
the answer of this letter will be life or death to me.
Therefore, good father, send as soon as you can; and
if you send me any thing let this be the mark.”
Richard Frethorne
 What problems were Richard facing?
 What was his solution?
 Was the New World a promise land
for Frethorne?
III. Settling of the
Chesapeake (cont’d)
B. Maryland
 Similarities to Virginia colony
 Distinctive features
 Proprietary structure
 Cecilius Calvert
 Absolute power of proprietor vs. rights of
colonists
 Resulting conflict
 Religious and political tensions
 Calvert’s Catholic leanings vs. settlers’
Protestant leanings
 Reverberations of English Civil War
IV.
Settling of New England
 Puritanism
 Emergence in England
 Variations within
 Common outlooks
 Central importance of the sermon
 John Calvin’s ideas
 The elect and the damned
 Salvation
 Worldly behavior
 Zealousness
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
B. Puritan separatists
 Growth under Charles I
 Aims
 Conceptions of Freedom
 Denunciation of “natural liberty”
 Embrace of “moral liberty”
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
B. Founding of Plymouth Colony
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The Pilgrims
Arrival at Plymouth
Mayflower Compact
Rocky beginnings
Help from Indians
Thanksgiving
New England
 Plymouth Colony 1620
 Separatist – against the Church of
England
 Governed by Mayflower Compact
 1st year lost half of the adults, most
children survived
 Easy going with land.
Plymouth Colony
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Came as family units
Here to stay
Few Indian problems
Government
 Representative self government
 Broad political rights
 No government interference in religious
matters
The Great Migration
 Persecution in
England led to an
exodus of 900
Puritans (wanted to
purify the Church of
England
 Led by John
Winthrop
 Massachusetts Bay
Colony – Boston –
Build a “City on the
Hill” A new
Jerusalem.
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
E. Government and society in Puritan
Massachusetts
 Attitudes toward individualism,
social unity
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
F. Government and society in Puritan
Massachusetts
2. Organization of towns
 Self-government
 Civic
 Religious
 Subdivision of land
 Institutions
3. Colonial government
 Emphasis on colonial autonomy
 Principle of consent
 “Visible Saints”
Settling of New England (cont’d)
G. New Englanders divided
 Prevailing Puritan values
 Emphasis on conformity to communal
norms
 Intolerance of individualism, dissent
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
G.New Englanders divided
2. Roger Williams
 Critique of status quo
 Banishment
 Establishment of Rhode Island
 Religious toleration
 Democratic governance
3. Other breakaway colonies
 Hartford
 New Haven
Settling of New England (cont’d)
4. Anne Hutchinson
 Challenge to Puritan leadership
 Challenge to gender norms
 Trial and banishment
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
H. Puritans and coastal Indians
 Balance of power
 Settler’s numerical supremacy
 Indians’ lack of central political
structure
 Settlers’ views of Indians
 As savages
 As dangerous temptation
 As object to be removed
Settling of New England (cont’d)
 Rising frontier tensions
 Settler war with and extermination
of Pequots
 Aftereffects of Pequot War
 Opening of Connecticut River valley to
white settlement
 Intimidation of other Indians
 Affirmation of Puritan sense of mission
 King Phillip's War
Changes to Indian Society
European Goods in exchange
for furs
 Drink
 Weapons
 Pots
Warfare
 Iroquois allied with the
British
 The rest in the North sided
with the French
 Constant warfare
 Tribes from the Ohio River
area displaced to
Wisconsin
 Kickapoo’s – started in
Ohio end up in Mexico
through displacement.
IV. Settling of New England
(cont’d)
I. New England economy
 Economic motives behind New
England settlement
 Aspiration for a “competency”
 Land ownership
 Craft status
 Aspiration for mercantile success
 Blending of religious and profit motives
New England Economy
 Agriculture – small farms – dominant
occupation
 Soil/climate limiting
 Cash crops sold internally – not for
export
 Cottage industries (textiles) part of
the economy
New England Economy
 Fishing – catch
sold primarily in
West Indies
 Wood products –
for exports and
domestic use
 Shipping and
shipbuilding
New England Economy
 Some industry (Saugus Iron Works)
 A strong Merchant class (Boston,
Hartford)
 New England’s economy not compatible
to mercantilist policies
New England’s Impact on the
American Identity
 The Puritan Impact
 America as an ideal (‘city upon a hill”)
 Education – colleges (Harvard 1636);
public education laws
 Puritan work ethic
 Intolerance/witch trials
The Salem Witch Trails
 With religion came
the offshoots of
evil lurking around
 Indian in the forest
 Salem mass
hysteria 175
arrest 20
executions
 Most women were
property owners.
Mercantilism
 An economic doctrine that flourished in
Europe from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth centuries. Mercantilists held
that a nation's wealth consisted
primarily in the amount of gold and
silver in its treasury. Accordingly,
mercantilist governments imposed
extensive restrictions on their
economies to ensure a surplus of
exports over imports
Mercantilism
 The colony exist for the good of
the mother country
 American colonies were to
produce raw material for the
manufacturers in England to
produce manufactured goods
that would be sold elsewhere
and the colonies
Navigation Acts
All trade had to be
conducted using English
shipping
European exports had to
pass through England before
going to the colonies
Colonist broke these laws
and flouted smuggling
“Salutary (Healthy) Neglect”
 Royal Government relaxes
supervision of internal colonial affairs
 The government concerned only
about the defense and trade
 Local government grows in
importance