EARLY ENGLISH COLONIES AND
JAMESTOWN
 After the defeat of the Spanish Armada,
England is ready to start colonizing the New
World
Richard Hakluyt says:
 We should colonize
the New World
because…
 It’s a source of raw
materials
 We can increase trade
 We can build up a
gold supply
Plus…
 We can convert the Indians to Christianity
 England is overcrowded, dirty, and dangerous
 There are stories of gold mines in the New
World
 The English colonists are off to a rough start
The Roanoke Island colony
 Named the colony “Virginia” after Queen
Elizabeth
 Started by Sir Walter Raleigh
 The colonists at Roanoke rely on the Native
Americans for food
 Their greed for land angers the Indians, and
they cut off the food supply
 The survivors return to England
 A year later, Raleigh tries again.
 1587, Roanoke, again
 Raleigh runs back to England for supplies and
more colonists, when he comes back, the
colony is deserted
 The word CRO is carved into a tree, and
Croatan is carved into a door post
 Were they killed by Native Americans?
 Did they leave to another island?
Sagadoc colony
 Most of the settlers were convicts
 They fought wit the Indians, stole from them,
and eventually were starved into returning to
England
The joint-stock company
 Joint stock companies are backed by people
investing in a new project
 Everyone gets a piece based on how much
they put into the project
 King James of England wries a charter, or
contract for two new joint stock companies
1607 - Virginia
 Settlers arrive in Virginia to set up the first
permanent English colony
 Off to a bad start
 Diseases nearly wiped out Jamestown
 They camped in a swamp
 Spent their time looking for gold
 The Indians also made things hot
 By the end of the first year, only 38 out of 100
colonists are still alive
Enter John Smith
 He gets the settlers
focused on building
shelters, growing food,
and work
 You don’t work, you
don’t eat
Pocahontas
 She meets John Smith,
and it’s love at first
sight
 She teaches him about
tobacco
 Highly addictive
 Never seen by
Europeans before
BY THE WAY, HE’S IN HIS
LATE 30’S…
 so Pocahontas meets another guy, John Rolfe
 Rolfe takes the secret of tobacco back to
England
 Tobacco allows Jamestown to survive, and
grow
 Tobacco makes
Jamestown and
Virginia successful
 Chesapeake bay
becomes known as the
tobacco coast
 The founding of Jamestown marks the
beginning of the Colonial Period (1607-1776)
 Virginia is the first English colony
 By the beginning of the Revolutionary Era
(1776), there will be 13
 Colonists want a piece of the profits from
tobacco
 Everybody gets 50 acres if they can pay to get
to Virginia
 More labor is needed, so the rich folks come
up with the idea of indentured servants
 Poor people can come to America for free if
they agree to work for someone for X amount
of years
 Regular people want more freedom in the
decisions of the colony
 House of Burgesses – created in 1619; first
representative assembly in the colonies
 More and more tobacco plantations are
moving onto Indian land
 The Indians strike back
 The Indians are attacking former indentured
servants, poor people moving into Indian
lands
 Nathanial Bacon asks Governor William
Berkeley to declare war on the Indians to take
their land
 Berkeley refuses
 Conflict with Native Americans, poor people
with no land, and a governor with too much
power leads to Bacons Rebellion in 1676.
 Bacon and his men take over the House of
Burgesses and burns Jamestown in 1676
 Later, Bacon dies of disease, and the House of
Burgesses passes laws to prevent a governor
from becoming too powerful
CHAPTER 3 SECTION 2: THE
NEW ENGLAND COLONIES
The Seperatists seek refuge
 A. Seperatists or
Pilgrims wanted to
separate from the
Church of England
 They want a
tougher church
 B. To escape persecution, they go to Leyden
(Netherlands)
 After 12 years of hard work and poverty,
Seperatists decide to go to the New World
 Jamestown was started for money, but the
Pilgrims are coming for religious freedom
 The Pilgrims come over on their boat the
Mayflower
 They were headed for Virginia, but get blown
off course
 They arrive in Massachusetts in 1620
The Mayflower Compact
 Before landing in America, the colonists were
faced with the need to establish a
government of their own
 Everyone must obey the laws agreed upon for
the good of the colony
 They Mayflower Compact, signed by 41
Pilgrims, agreed to consult each other about
laws for the colony and promised to work
together
 This is the first example of self-rule in the
colonies
THINGS DO NOT START OFF
WELL…
Hard Times = Success!
 The Pilgrims start off their first winter on the
Mayflower
 Shelter was inadequate
 Starvation
 Disease
 The Pilgrims had strong religious faith
 They believed it was the will of God for them
to stay at Plymouth
 If it weren’t for the Indians, the Pilgrims
would have died
 Squanto and Samoset are two Indians that
help out
 The Indians teach the Pilgrims how to fish,
plant corn, and hunt
 Over the next few months, the Pilgrims find
their way around and learn to survive
 In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims hold a three
day festival of thanksgiving
 The Indians were invited to join them in a
celebration of plenty and peace
The First Thanksgiving
Developments in Plymouth
Colony
 Each settler acquired land of his own
 Pilgrims repaid merchants who had
sponsored their journey
Outcome of Plymouth
 A. Plymouth remained small
 B. 1691 – Plymouth merged with
Massachusetts Bay Colony
 C. Successful in furs, fish, and lumber
The New England Colonies
 Massachusetts, 1620
 Reasons for coming to America
 Get rich
 Improve their lives by owning land
 Freedom of religion
10 years later…
 The Puritans are another group that are
facing hard times in England
 1. They want to Purify the English church, not
separate from it
 They are really unpopular
 The Puritans were:
 A. powerful and well educated
 B. successful merchants
 C. landowners
 They receive a charter
to form the
Massachusetts Bay
Colony
The Great Migration
1629 to 1640 – 16-20,000
settlers land in
Massachusetts
 Massachusetts government was based on
God’s laws
 If laws were obeyed God would protect and
bring prosperity
John Winthrop – the Governor
The New England Way
 The basis of each town is the congregation, a
church group
 The meetinghouse is the base of law
Town meetings
 Only male members of the church have a
voice or a vote
 Everyone must attend church
 The Puritans were hard workers, honest, and
dutiful
 They called this the New England Way
 Because of their hard work, New England has
rapid growth
 The law required children to read (so they
could read the Bible
Rhode Island - 1636
 Settled by Roger
Williams
 The King has no right
to land to anyone
 The land belongs to
the Indians. It should
be bought, not taken
 Separate church and
state
 All white men could
vote, including non
church members
 People can worship as
1636
 Connecticut - 1636
 Settled by Thomas Hooker
Life in the Colonies
 New England
 Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New
Hampshire
 Hooker’s beliefs:
 1. Officials could mean well but govern badly
 2. Governors should have limited power
The Fundamental Orders of
Connecticut
 First constitution, a written plan of
government
 Limits the powers of the governor
 Established a government run by the people
New Hampshire
 Settled by John Mason
 Originally part of Massachusetts
 1661 – became a separate colony
 1679 – became a royal colony
 Portsmouth – main city
 Not everyone agrees with the New England Way
Anne Hutchinson
 A woman who spreads her own religious
beliefs
 She was kicked out of Massachusetts and
went to Rhode Island in 1638
The Quakers
 Another religious
group
 You don’t need the
Bible or ministers
 Treat Native
Americans fairly
 Slavery is evil!
 The Puritans don’t like them either
 They are whipped, tossed into prison or hanged
 Most flee to Rhode Island
King Phillips’ War
 More and more colonists are arriving, and
spreading out into Indian territory
 The Indians fight back under a leader named
King Phillip
 The Wampanoag Indians lose the war, and
most are killed or sold into slavery
The Salem Witch Trials
 Several young Puritan girls claim to have
been possessed by a slave woman
 They also accuse several others in the village
of witchcraft
 More than 100 people were taken to trial as
witches
 19 women and one man were convicted
 17 hangings, 2 were crushed to death
 Eventually, the town came to it’s senses
 Witches, or drugs?
Ergot