Chapter 1: Early America
European Settlement : Colonization
The Founding of Jamestown, Virginia
• Dec. 1606, 3 small ships (Susan Constant, the
Godspeed, and the Discovery) left the England
carrying 105 men and boys; which sailed more
than 4 months across the Atlantic.
• The voyage was financed ($) by a group of private
investors known as the Virginia Company of
London.
• The goal of the investors was to establish a colony,
convert Native Americans to Christianity, and
return a considerable profit of gold.
The Founding of Jamestown, Virginia
 In 1607 the colonists chose a marshy location 40 mi.
up the James River (named for King James I) as the
site for the new colony, and called it Jamestown.
 Reason for Jamestown location:
1. suitable area to trade with Native Americans (N.A.)
2. good vantage point for guarding against an attack
by the Spanish.
The Founding of Jamestown, Virginia
 Many in the group had military experience.
 Great Hardship occurred
1. illness
2. lack of food and fresh water
3. skirmishes with Native Americans
4. misguided hunt for gold
5. discontent among the settlers
 By January 1608, only 38 of the original settlers
remained alive.
The Founding of Jamestown, Virginia
 In 1609, the Virginia Company of London became a
joint –stock company. This allowed it to sell shares
in the settlement to the public. The British crown
granted shareholders substantial control over the
colony.
 More settlers arrived to Jamestown hoping to find
their fortunes.
 From 1609-1610, the “starving time,” the colony
almost perished.
The Founding of Jamestown, Virginia
• For almost 2 years, the people
who lived and worked in
Jamestown functioned under
the leadership of Capt. John
Smith.
• During this time, Smith
forged a friendship with
Powhatan, the powerful chief
of the Powhatan empire.
• Smith also gained friendship
of Powhatan daughter
Pocahontas.
• The NA offered supplies
needed by the colony.
•
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/fa
moushistoricalfigures/pocahontas/
The Founding of Jamestown, Virginia
• Soon hostilities resumed with the colonists and NA.
• By winter’s end, the 60 settlers who remained alive
contemplated abandoning the struggling settlement.
• In 1614, Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an English
tobacco grower. The marriage est. a sense of good will,
temporarily, between the colonists and the Powhatan.
Rolfe introduced a new strand of tobacco that grew
well in Virginia.
• Expansion on the Powhatan lands to grow highly
profitable tobacco brought renew conflict between
Powhatan and colonists.
• The economy of Virginia quickly became dependent on
tobacco, which continued even after tobacco prices
began to fall.
Jamestown Becomes a Self-Ruling
Colony
• In 1619, the Virginia Company of London allowed
Jamestown to est. its own gov’t with the right to
create colonial laws.
• Residents of settlements along the James River
elected representatives, each called a burgess, to
the House of Burgesses.
• It met for the 1st time in the Jamestown Church on
July 30,1619.
• The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first
representative government in America.
Jamestown Becomes a Self-Ruling Colony
• House of Burgesses: Governor was appt. by
Virginia Company of London, 15 of the 22
members were elected by the colony.
• Elected members had to be over 17 years of age and
own property.
• All laws passed by the House of Burgesses required
the approval of the governor and the Virginia
Company of London.
• House of Burgesses became an elected body,
representative of the colonists and acting on their
behalf.
Jamestown Becomes a Self-Ruling
Colony
• In 1619, a Dutch ship presented 20 Africans to
Jamestown, selling them as indentured servants.
(an individual who worked for others for a specific
# of years in exchange for payment for transport
from another country.)
• By the 1630s, some Africans were enslaved while
others remained indentured servants. By the 1640,
blacks in Jamestown were not allowed to carry a
gun. In 1692, blacks no longer could own horses or
cattle. By the early 1700s, enslaved Africans and
indentured servants composed half of Virginia’s
labor force.
Jamestown
 James I rescinded (withdrew) Jamestown’s charter
and took control of the colony in 1624, making it
the first royal colony in America. House of
Burgesses continued to meet, though no longer as
an official governing body. A royal colony is a
colony ruled by the king's appointed officials.
 In 1639, the colony’s governor reestablished the
House of Burgesses.
Bacon’s Rebellion
• In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon, a wealthy
VA planter, led Virginians in raids
against NA living in western VA.
This was against the orders of Sir
William Berkeley, the colony’s
governor.
• When Berkeley criticized the raids,
Bacon and his followers stormed
Jamestown and set it on fire, driving
the governor into exile. Bacon’s
sudden death from illness, along
with the presence of British troops,
restored order to Jamestown.
• Yet the incident showed that
settlers would resist orders to
restrict their movement
westward.
New England Settlement
• In 1620, some 102 individuals, including about 50
Pilgrims seeking religious freedom, set sail from
England to America.
• Some of the Pilgrims were Separatists who wanted
to est. their own church, independent of the
constraints of the Anglican Church, the official
church of England.
• The Virginia Company had agreed to allow the
Pilgrims to settle in Virginia in return for half of all
future profits.
New England Settlement
• Caught in a storm off Cape Cod, the colonists
dropped anchor where they could, eventually
settling in Plymouth, near Cape Cod Bay.
• B/C they were outside the jurisdiction of any
chartered area, they believed they had the right to
est. laws for themselves.
• 41 men signed the Mayflower compact. This
governing document first pledged loyalty to king
James I of England. (an agreement by several to
abide by laws made for the colony as a whole.)
New England Settlement
 Mayflower Compact “a civil
Body politick, for our better
Ordering and Preservation….”
 The men also elected the
colony’s first governor, John
Carver, and later, William
Bradford.
 The Plymouth Colony
continued to be governed by
the principles est. by the
Mayflower Compact, until it
was absorbed into the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in
1691.

http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/cultu
re/thanksgiving/

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/ma
yflower.asp
New England Settlement
• In 1629, a group of non-Separatist
Puritans formed their own joint
stock company, the Massachusetts
Bay Company, and secured the charter
from King Charles I for land north of the
Plymouth Colony.
• Puritan leader John Winthrop saw the
Mass. Bay Company as an opportunity
for a new puritan settlement in America.
Make the new colony(Mass. Bay Colony)
a model Puritan settlement.“A city on a
Hill”
New England Settlement
• The charter allowed for a civil gov’t, called the
General Court, which had the power to levy taxes
and elect the governor and his assistants.
• Originally made up of “freemen” (stockholders),
the General Court later replaced stockownership
with church membership as the condition for
being a freeman.
• General Court became a 2 house representative
body, with 2 to 3 deputies representing each town
in Mass.
New England Settlement
 1684, the Mass. Bay Colony lost its charter when
Mass. openly violated the Navigation Acts, passed
by England in 1660, 1663, and 1673, all meant to
impose trade restrictions on the colonies.
New England Settlement
 In 1636, Thomas Hooker
led a small congregation
to Connecticut, where
the land seemed far
more suitable for
farming than the rocky
soil of Mass.
 They est. a series of laws
called the Fundamental
Orders of Connecticut to
govern the new colony.
New England Settlement
 In the 1630s, the colony
of Rhode Island began
with the banishment
of Roger Williams,
Anne Hutchinson, and
other religious
dissidents from Mass.
 It soon became a
refuge for individuals
who believed in the
separation of church
and gov’t.
New England Settlement
• Puritans came to America to est. religious
freedom, yet they had little tolerance for those who
did not share their beliefs.
• Puritans were under pressure to change. In 1662,
church ministers agreed to the “Half-Way
Covenant.” With this, children of church
members were admitted as “half-way” members,
allowing them to be baptized into the church but
denying them the right to vote or take
communion.
•
http://www.answers.com/topic/half-way-covenant
New England Settlement
• A fear of witchcraft pervaded
New England during the late
1660s. The hysteria over
witchcraft reached its height
in the Puritan village of
Salem.
• 1n 1692, dozens of men,
women, and children were
accused of witchcraft and
placed in the Salem jail.
Before the hysteria ended
some 10 months later, 19
people were found guilty of
practicing witchcraft during
the Salem Witch Trials and
were hanged.
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU8G
vfeaOMo
New England Settlement
• New England settlers
depended on NA for trade
and for learning ways to
adapt to the new land.
• Europeans brought great
change, loss of land and
home, and illness in the
form of smallpox to NA.
• 1675, the Wampanoag
people hoped to clear their
homeland of European
settlers. Led by Metacomet
(known to settlers as King
Phillip) they waged war
on the expanding
settlements in Southern
New England.
New England Settlement
 Settlers found allies in the expanding Mohawks to the west,
who attacked the Wampanoag. A New England Indian
fighting on the side of the settlers killed Metacomet in 1676,
effectively ending King Phillip’s War. This paved the way
for further expansion of colonial settlements in New
England.
Mid-Atlantic Colonies
(Middle)
• In 1624, the Dutch West India
Company, formed by a group of
Dutch merchants, est. trading
posts along the Hudson River.
• In 1626, the Dutch settlement of
New Amsterdam was founded
after purchasing Manhattan
Island from the Manhattan
people for beads and other
goods. It quickly became a
major trading port.
• The Dutch governor Peter
Stuyvesant turned the colony
over to England in 1664. It
was renamed New York after
the Duke of York, the brother
of King Charles II.
Mid-Atlantic Colonies (Middle)
• In 1681, William Penn
secured a large tract of land
from King Charles II and
founded Pennsylvania.
• Penn was a member of the
Quakers, a group of people
who practiced tolerance
toward others, pacifism,
religious equality for women,
and who did not have an est.
church ministry.
• The Quakers often were
persecuted for their way of
life.
• In 1683, PA est. a legislative
assembly.
Mid-Atlantic Colonies (Middle)
 Delaware, which formed from a section of
Pennsylvania, created its own legislature in 1703.
Settlement of Quebec
• To the North of New England lay settlement like
Quebec, founded by the French explorer Samuel de
Champlain, in 1608.
• Settlers in “New France” encouraged NA to embrace
Catholicism and become allies against the expansion
of English settlement. They built up an important fur
trade with the NA.
• The FR explored the Great Lakes region and traveled
down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. They
named the area Louisiana to honor King Louis XIV.
Closing Questions
1.
Why was the House of Burgesses significant?
a. It sat as court in the Salem Witch Trials.
b. It created a series of trade laws for the colonies
c. It imposed and collected British taxes.
d. It was the start of representative gov’t in VA.
What crop allowed Jamestown to
prosper?
A. Cotton
B. Wheat
C. Tobacco
D. Corn
Use the information below to answer
the question:
 Acknowledged themselves as British subjects
 Established a unit of gov’t
 Determined the right to create mutually beneficial laws
 Agreed to abide by the laws created
Which document does the information describe?
A. The Mayflower Compact
B. The Declaration of Independence
C. The Treaty of Paris 1783
D. The Treaty of Ghent
What was the significance of Bacon’s
Rebellion?
A. Colonist were now able to settle west of the
Mississippi.
B. Colonist would resist orders to restrict their
movement westward.
C. Native American attacks would be persistent and
violent.
D. Colonist no longer would be able to elect their
own legislative bodies.
Closing Questions
 The Mayflower Compact served to establish
A. religious freedom throughout the colonies
B. the possibility of self government
C. trade agreement with England and France
D. a covenant between Separatists and nonSeparatists.
Activity
Complete map activity of the 13 colonies on page 67.
1. Include title on map
2. Label colonies and the year it was established.
3. Classify the 13 colonies into 3 sections: New England,
Middle and Southern. Use a different colored pencil to
illustrate each section.
4. label the Appalachian MTs with a different colored
pencil.
5. Label the settlement of Quebec
6. Label the Atlantic Ocean
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/thirteencol
onies/
Economy and Society: 13 colonies
• Btwn 1607 and 1732, 13 diverse colonies were est. along
America’s eastern coast. (3 types of colonies est.)
1. Charter colonies: The British parliament granted
rights and privileges to the charter colonies. They could
elect governors and members of a legislature.
2. Proprietary Colonies: individuals or groups granted
land by Great Britain. They had the power to appoint
the governor and certain members of legislature.
3. Royal colonies: Britain directly ruled these colonies.
The British Parliament appointed the governor and
upper house of the legislature, which usually followed
the wishes of the King. The people of the colonies
elected the lower house.
Economy and society:13 colonies
 New England food and income
1. New England terrain was rougher than other
areas and its long winters made farming difficult.
2. Crops like corn were cultivated, but the primary
source of food was fishing.
Economy and society:13 colonies
 Mid-Atlantic Colonies food and income
colonial breadbasket, producing wheat, corn, oats,
rye and barley used domestically or exported from
ports such as New York and Philadelphia.
Economy and society:13 colonies
 Southern Colonies food and income
1. tobacco dotted southern Colonies
2. Also grew indigo and rice
3. These labor intensive crops demanded a constant
and plentiful labor source- supplied by the Atlantic
slave trade. http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/ushistory/slavery/
Economy and society: Mercantilism
 British laws affecting the colonies were part of an
economic policy called mercantilism- a belief that the
colonies existed for the financial good of the mother
country.
 The Navigation Acts: attempted to control the transAtlantic trade of British and colonial goods, including a
duty (or tax) paid to the British government on items of
trade.
Economy and society: Mercantilism
 Triangular Trade routes
took goods to and from
British colonies in the
Americas, GB and the
coast of Africa.
1. British colonies
transport: rum, tobacco,
cotton, molasses.
2. G.B. transports:
manufactured goods
3. Africa transports: slaves
and ivory
Economy and society: Mercantilism
• Middle passage: the transport of enslaved people from
Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas.
1. unknown thousands died under the horrible
conditions of the trip.
2. The trade of enslaved Africans primarily involved the
British islands in the West Indies, where most enslaved
Africans were traded to work in the region’s sugar cane
fields.
3. Most of the remaining human cargo was taken to the
13 colonies.
4. Once traded, the enslaved Africans toiled from sun up
to sundown, most of them in southern plantation fields.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr4.html
Economy and society: Mercantilism
• Congress banned the Atlantic slave trade in 1808.
1. Slavery had been banned in the northern states.
G.B. and France also banned slavery.
2. Yet, by that time millions of Africans had been
captured, first from Africa’s coastal regions and
later from its interior.
3. Africans torn from their homelands, they
brought with them their rich traditions, songs,
languages and religions.
Economy and society: Mercantilism
4. Enslaved Africans were a large % of the
population in the southern states and even
outnumbered whites in South Carolina and the
West Indies.
5. Southern states became more and more
dependent on slavery for their economic success.
6. The practice of slavery continued long after the
Atlantic slave trade was banned.
Economy and State: Enlightenment
 Enlightenment period: a scientific revolution swept
across Europe during the late 17th and early 18th century,
and with it came new ways of thinking, termed
Enlightenment, based on reason.
1. John Locke and others talked of the natural rights of
individuals, in particular that government is based on a
social contract with the people.
Economy and State: Enlightenment
2. Important among Enlightenment thinkers in
America was Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706.
a. From early on, Franklin’s keen interest in
meteorology, physics, and other areas of
science led to several inventions, including
the lightning rod.
b. From humble beginnings he became a
respected and admired statesman. (the
greatest example of social mobility in
America.)
http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/famoushistoricalfigures/benjaminfranklin/
Economy and State: Enlightenment
 Countering the Enlightenment was a religious revival
that stressed divine inspiration and communion.
Termed the Great Awakening, it swept through the
colonies during the 1730s and 1740s, resulting in a
religious diversification in the colonies, as well as an
increase in church attendance.
Closing Questions
1. Which phrase best describes the 13 colonies?
A. socially and politically alike
B. relatively similar geographically
C. politically and economically diverse
D. economically independent of Britain
Closing Questions
2. What was the purpose of the Navigation Acts?
A. to stop the Middle Passage
B. to control the trans-Atlantic trade
C. to end the Atlantic slave trade
D. to halt the triangular trade
Closing Questions
3. What effect did the 1808 ban on the Atlantic slave
trade have on slavery in America?
A. it ended slavery in the south
B. It resulted in a gradual end to slavery in America
C. It had little effect
D. It slowed the expansion of slavery
Closing Questions
4. What was part of the Enlightenment?
A. Government as a social contract
B. Restrictions on freedom
C. A distrust of science
D. Religious equality