Teaching American History:
Leadership in Early Florida, Virginia, and Massachusetts Bay
Dr. Sean Condon
June 20 & 29, 2009

Themes for the day
• Atlantic Context: Protestant Reformation &
Spanish colonization
• Early colonization efforts are extremely difficult and dangerous
• Importance and complexity of motivation
• The goals of colonization always crash into the realities
• In these situations, leadership is a lot about responding to a new environment

Leaders we will focus on:
• Florida: Pedro Menéndez de Avilés &
Francisco Pareja
• Virginia: Powhatan & John Smith
• Massachusetts Bay: John Winthrop & Anne
Hutchinson

Themes for Florida
• For the Spanish, Florida was of marginal interest
• The experience of Cortes in Mesoamerica shaped many of the decisions
• The fragility of the settlements
• Mission system made effort to Hispanicize & pacify native groups in the Southeast

Florida timeline
1513: Ponce de Leon’s travels
1519-21: Cortes conquers the Mexica (Aztec)
1528-36: Cabeza de Vaca’s travels
1539-43: De Soto in Southeast
1564: French establish Ft. Caroline
1565-71: Pedro Menendez de Aviles establishes St.
Augustine & seven other forts
1574: death of Menendez de Aviles and movement toward mission system
1595: Franciscan priest Francisco Pareja arrives in Florida
1675: mission system reaches its height

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de
Vaca (1528-36)

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés named adelantado in 1565

St. Augustine

Virginia Timeline
• 1585-87 Roanoke Colony
• 1607: Founding of Jamestown
• 1609-10: “Starving time”
• 1616: First tobacco shipment sent to London
• 1622: Opechancanough’s Uprising

Themes for Virginia
• Powhatan’s challenges and opportunities
• Virginia dreams vs. realities
• The European context for the Virginia colony
• English short term failure vs. long term success

Powhatan’s Confederacy in 1607

Hakluyt’s Document
• Why should the English colonize North
America?
• How would you describe the author?
• Who would go to colonize?
• What part of his vision seems Realistic?
Unrealistic?

Jamestown

Pocohontas in England

Chesapeake from 1650 to
1700

Opechankanough
Powhatan’s brother
Takes over confederacy in late 1610s
Leads uprising in 1622 & again in 1644

THE Chesapeake in 1640

Chesapeake from 1650 to
1700

Massachusetts Bay timeline
1517: Martin Luther sparks Protestant
Reformation
1534: Henry VIII establishes Church of England
1620: Pilgrim Separatists found Plymouth Colony
1625-49: Reign of Charles I
1630: Puritans found Mass Bay Colony

John Winthrop

Mass Bay themes
• Role of Gods’ Providence
• Sense of mission
• Importance of community
• Notion of a “calling”
• The Puritan paradox

• This court being informed that John Littehale of
Haverhill, liveth in a house by himself contrary to the law of the country whereby hee is subject to much sin which is the consequence of a solitary life…[within six weeks he must] settle himself in some orderly family…and be subject to the orderly rules of family government” [Hampton Court, 1672]