Early European Exploration
and Colonization
VSOL VUS.2 & .3
Early European Exploration
and Colonization
• Resulted in the redistribution of the world's
population as millions moved from Europe
and Africa voluntarily and involuntarily.
• Initiated worldwide commercial expansion
as agricultural products were exchanged
between the Americas and Europe
*(Columbian Exchange).
Early European Exploration
and Colonization
• The English settled in the American
colonies
• The Spanish settled in the Caribbean,
Central America, and South America.
• The French explored Canada but did
not have large-scale immigration.
Early European Exploration
and Colonization
• English and Spanish had violent conflicts with the
American Indians (First Americans or Native
Americans).
• Indians lost their traditional territories and fell
victim to diseases (like Small Pox) carried from
Europe.
• Unlike Europeans, Africans and American Indians
did not believe in land ownership.
• French relations with native peoples were more
cooperative.
Early European Exploration
and Colonization
• Economic institutions in the colonies developed
in ways that were either typically European or
were distinctively American.
• Climate, soil conditions, and other natural
resources shaped regional economic
development.
• A strong belief in private ownership of property
and free enterprise characterized colonial life.
Colonial Trade Routes - "triangular trade" between
Europe, Africa, and North America, involving
slaves, raw materials, and manufactured goods
New England Colonies
• Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut
and Rhode Island
• In 1629 approximately 20,000 Puritans emigrated to New
England and formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony
settled by Puritans
• Puritans were religious group that believed the Anglican
Church should purify itself by abandoning much of its
ritual and ceremony kept from the traditional Roman
Catholic rituals - they were not tolerant of other religions!
• The Anglican Church = Church of England.
• An extreme group of Puritans, known as Separatists,
believed that the Anglican Church could never be purified
and called for a total break with it. The Separatist settled
at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1620.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
John Winthrop was the most
distinguished of the early
Massachusetts Bay leaders; he was
elected governor 12 times, and set the
tone for much of its sense of religious
mission into the wilderness. He is most
famous for his “City on a Hill” speech.
The arrival of Winthrop and
the first of the " Great
Migration " in Boston Harbor,
1630.
Puritans/Separatist
• Came seeking freedom from
– religious persecution and
– economic opportunity.
• Practiced a form of (“Athenian”) direct democracy
through town meetings for the operation of
government which centered around the church.
• The Separatists formed a “covenant
community” based on the principles of their
religious beliefs and the Mayflower Compact.
(A covenant is a promise or agreement.)
The Pilgrims' charter entitled them to settle in Virginia, but
where they landed in New England they had no legal
authority. So the Separatist drew up a secular document,
the Mayflower Compact, which provided a basis for order
and government until the settlers could legalize their status.
New England Colonies
• Economy based on shipbuilding, fishing,
lumbering, small-scale subsistence
farming, and eventually, manufacturing.
• Subsistence farming is growing only
enough food to feed one’s family.
• Economy prospered, reflecting the
Puritans’ strong belief in the values of hard
work and thrift.
New England Colonies
• Society was based on religious standing.
• Intolerant of dissenters who challenged
the Puritans’ beliefs concerning religion
and government.
• Rhode Island was founded by dissenters
fleeing persecution by Puritans in
Massachusetts.
In 1635, Roger Williams angered the
General Court by preaching for a
separation of church and state in the
Massachusetts Bay government and he
escaped to Narragansett Bay where he
was sheltered by his Indian friends. He
purchased lands from them and founded
the community of Providence, accepting
all settlers regardless of their beliefs.
Anne Marbury Hutchinson believed
that the Holy Spirit spoke directly to
the souls of believers, a view which
challenged the Puritan doctrine that
God had spoken to men through the
Scriptures, and endangered the
Biblical foundation of the colony. In
1638 she fled to Roger Williams'
Rhode Island area, and founded the
village of Portsmouth.
Middle Colonies
• New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware
• Settled chiefly by English, Dutch, and Germanspeaking immigrants seeking
– religious freedom and
– economic opportunity.
• Economies based on shipbuilding, small-scale
farming, and trading. Cities such as New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore began to grow as
seaports and commercial centers.
William Penn (1644-1718), the founder of
Pennsylvania, the last of the Proprietary colonies,
landing at New Castle, Delaware
Middle Colonies
• Home to multiple religious groups, including
– Quakers in Pennsylvania,
– Huguenots and Jews in New York, and
– Presbyterians in New Jersey
who generally believed in religious tolerance.
• More flexible social structures and began to
develop a middle class of skilled artisans,
entrepreneurs (business owners), and small
farmers.
• Incorporated a number of democratic principles
that reflected the basic rights of Englishmen
Southern Colonies
• Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina and Georgia.
• Were settled by people seeking economic
opportunities.
• Virginia “cavaliers” were English nobility who
received large land grants in eastern Virginia from
the King of England.
• Poor English immigrants also came seeking better
lives as small farmers or artisans and settled in the
Shenandoah Valley or western Virginia, as
indentured servants.
Southern Colonies
• Farther inland, in the mountains and
valleys of the Appalachian foothills,
• the economy was based on small-scale
subsistence farming, hunting, and trading.
• this society was characterized by people
of Scot-Irish and English descent.
Southern Colonies
• Social structure was based on family status and
the ownership of land.
• Large landowners in the eastern lowlands/planters
played a leading role in colonial representative
legislatures
• maintained an allegiance to the Church of England
and closer social ties to England than in the other
colonies.
• accept Maryland which was settled by Catholics!!!
A woodcut of
puritans and
cavaliers. A study in
contrast in 17th
century England.
Southern Colonies
• Jamestown, established in 1607 by the Virginia
Company of London as a business venture, was
the first permanent English settlement in North
America.
• The Virginia House of Burgesses, established
by the 1640s, was the first elected assembly in
the New World. It has operated continuously
and is today known as the General Assembly of
Virginia.
Landing at Jamestown, Virginia,
1607.
Southern Colonies
• Virginia and the other Southern colonies
developed economies based on large
plantations that grew “cash crops” such as
tobacco, rice, and indigo. (Virginia produced
mostly tobacco)
• Plantations required cheap labor on a large
scale.
• Some of the labor needs, especially in Virginia,
were met by indentured servants, mostly poor
people from England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Southern Colonies
• Eventually the labor needs were filled by
the forcible importation of Africans.
• The first Africans were brought against
their will to Jamestown in 1619 to work on
tobacco plantations.
Southern Colonies
• Some slaves worked as indentured
servants, earned their freedom, and lived
as free citizens during the Colonial Era.
• Larger and larger numbers of enslaved
Africans were forcibly brought to the
Southern colonies (the “Middle
Passage”).
This arrangement was similar to the model made by abolitionist William
Wilberforce (1759-1833) to show to the House of Commons as evidence of
how the slaves lay "like rows of books on a shelf" during the notorious "middle
passage" across the Atlantic.
The Great Awakening
• Religious movement that swept both
Europe and the colonies during the mid1700s.
• Led to the rapid growth of evangelical
religions such as the Methodists and
Baptists and challenged the established
religious and governmental order.
• Laid one of the social foundations for the
American Revolution.
• George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were
two important preachers in this movement. They
preached “fire and brimstone” sermons designed
to make people recognize their sins and
experience a new spiritual birth.
Early European Exploration and
Colonization
• The development of a slavery-based agricultural
economy in the Southern colonies would lead to
eventual conflict between the North and South
and the American Civil War.
• In time, colonization led to ideas of
representative government and religious
toleration that over several centuries would
inspire similar transformations in other parts of
the world.