Norton Media Library
Give Me Liberty!
AN AMERICAN HISTORY
THIRD EDITION
by
Eric Foner
Norton Media Library
Chapter 2
Beginnings of English
America, 1607–1660
Eric Foner
Beginnings of English America
• 1607 Virginia company sponsors voyage that lands in
Jamestown hope to find gold and exploit resources
• 104 settlers all men
• Jamestown charter gives colonists all liberties of those
residing in the realm of England
• Colonization spurred by national and religious rivalries,
growth of merchant class investing in overseas expansion
for world trade money
The Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Unifying the English Nation:
• 1485 Henry 7 unifies England after bloody civil war
• Henry 8 severs nation from Catholic church when
pope won't grant him a divorce
• Under Edward 6 government persecuted catholics
• Elizabeth 1 executes over 100 catholic priests
Mary Tudor, the queen who tried to restore
Catholicism in England
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
England & Ireland:
• Irelands catholic population is deemed as a threat to
Protestant England
• Money is spent on pacifying Ireland that would have gone to
overseas expansion
• Irish are treated the way the Indians in NW would later be
treated and viewed as barbaric
• Early English colonies known as plantations - a community
planted abroad among an alien population
England and North America:
• Crown grants charters (exclusive rights) to Sir Humphrey
Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh to establish NA colonies at
their own expense
• Both failed with little help from the crown. Their failures
show colonization would require more planning and
money then anyone individual could provide
Spreading Protestantism:
• Reformation heightens sense that Catholic Spain is mortal
enemy of Protestant England
• 1588 Spanish Armada fails to invade England leaving England
as the masters of the sea
• Want to liberate NW from the tyranny of the pope
• La Casas writing is translated in English "popery truly
displayed"
Motives for colonization:
• Liberate Indians
• National glory and power
• Open new markets for English products
• Supply England with goods only available
in NW
An engraving by Theodorde Bry
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
William Hogarth’s well-known engraving Gin Lane
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The Social Crisis:
• America would be refuge for England's surplus population
• Economy can not keep up w growing population 3 mil in 1550 to 4
mil in 1600
• New farming practices like crop rotation and need for sheep for
wool market lead to many peasants being evicted from their land
by tenants
• Flood into England's cities causing wages to fall dramatically
while prices rise because of influx of gold from Latin American
mines
• Half of population lived at or below poverty line. Those with out
jobs could be whipped, hanged, enlisted in army
• Encouraged to head to new world
Masterless Men:
• 1516 Thomas Moore publishes Utopia which depicts the new world as a place
were the poor could escape the inequality of England
• In England working for wages had been thought of as a loss of liberty and
servitude
• Only one who controlled his own labor could be truly thought of as free
• John Smith writes 1607 that in America "Everyman may be the master and
owner of his own land and labor"
• Chance of owning land and passing it along to ones children was the greatest
motivation for English people moving to the NW
English Emigrants:
• North America at the time was unstable and dangerous place
• Disease and Indian attacks
• Sustained e gnomic and military help was needed from mother
country along with sustained emigration which England could
provide due to population and awful economic situation
• Between 1607 and 1700 over half a million people left England
• Most settled in Ireland and west indies
Indentured Servants:
• Nearly 2/3 of settlers come as indentured servants
• Surrender freedom for a certain amount of time 5 to 7 years in
order for passage to America
• They were treated as slaves bought sold, only marry if owner
permits it, punished physically
• Females had their time of servitude lengthen if they got
pregnant
• High death rates and meager "freedom dues" made
indentured servitude no guarantee to economic autonomy
An indenture (a contract for labor for a period of
years) signed by James Mahoney
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Land and Liberty:
• English settlers view land as basis of liberty
• Control over ones own labor and in many colonies land
was need to have the right to vote
• Each colony was launched by crown granting a huge
piece of land to a company or an individual
• With out labor land is useless and since English settlers
wanted to work their own land many property owners
turn to slaves as work force
An engraving by John White of an Indian village
surrounded by a stockade.
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Englishmen and Indians:
• Land was already occupied by Indians
• Unlike Spain and France the English don't want to
conquer or partner with native population their
main goal is to displace them and take their land
• No interest in intermarriage or organizing Indian
labor or making Indians subjects of the crown
• Land acquired by purchase usually forced on
Indians after a military defeat
The only known contemporary portrait of a
New England Indian
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The Transformation of Indian Life:
• Initially Indians welcome newcomers and appreciate the goods they
brought with them
• Metal goods change their hunting farming and cooking practices
• Hunting beaver now becomes an economic pursuit
• Alcohol abuse becomes disruptive
• Learn to bargain and trade with Europeans
• Interaction with newcomers causes wars amongst tribes
• Disease decimates Indian population
Changes in the Land:
• Fenced in land, new crops, and livestock change the land
and hurt Indian way of life
• Forests depleted for wood hurt Indian hunting
• Fur trade depletes the animal life which Indians we reliant
A pamphlet published in 1609 promoting
emigration to Virginia.
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Jamestown:
• Early years not good high death rate many changes in leadership
• Company was looking for quick profit so they prospect for gold rather then
farm
• Disease spreads and starvation by end of first year half of 104 settlers dead
• Starving time: after 400 new settlers arrive they hit a tough winter which
bring the number of survivors down to 65
• First decade 80 percent die
• John Smith military discipline, forced labor, "he who will not work shall not
eat"
• Must shift to a society to survive
Jamestown
• Headright system - reward 50 acres of land for any Settler
who paid for their own passage Or another's passage
• Large estates for this that could afford to bring them selves
and servants
• House of Burgesses Americas first elected assembly Setting an
important precedent
• Only landowners vote and company appointed governor could
nullify any law made by the body
• Virginia becomes economically and politically dominated by
slave owning planters
Map 2.1 English settlement in the Chesapeake, ca. 1650
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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A portrait of John Smith
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Powhatan and Pocahontas:
• When English land Jamestown inhabited 20k Indians living in small
agricultural villages
• Powhatten leader of a group of tribes who realizes advantages of trade
w English
• Settlers rely on Indians for food
• John Smith captured and threatened with execution till Powhatan
daughter Pocahontas saves him and become intermediary between
Indians and Settlers
• When John smith leaves for England in 1609 hostilities begin between
groups Pocahontas is captured she converts to Christianity and marries
John Rolfe which puts end to disputes In 1614
The only portrait of Pocahontas
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Powhatan, the most prominent Indian leader in the
original area of English settlement in Virginia
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Peace Ends 1622
• Peace ends in 1622 Powhatan brother and successor Opechancanough leads
surprise attack that wipes out 1/4 of Virginia settler population
• 900 remaining survivors form militias and Virginia policy becomes the
expulsion of the Indians
• Virginia company seizes it's charter 1624 and Virginia becomes first royal
colony with governor now appointed by crown BUT for years London is
preoccupied with events in Europe and pays little attention to Virginia which
becomes dominated by local elite of tobacco farmers
• 1644 Indians last ditch effort is defeated and they are forced to sign a treaty
that acknowledges their subordination to the Jamestown government and
forces them off land and into Indian reservations to the west
Theodor de Bry’s engraving of the 1622
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
An advertisement for tobacco includes images
of Slaves with agricultural implements.
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
A tobacco colony:
• King James says tobacco is "harmful to the brain and dangerous to the lungs"
but still Europeans enjoy it and think it had medicinal use
• Tobacco = Virginia substitute for gold
• Crown profits from custom duties
• Elite take advantage of headlight system to gain large estates. Tobacco planters
become the political and social elite of Virginia
• Plantations = need for labor which was mostly indentured servants during 17th
century
• 3/4 of immigrants to Virginia during 17th century were servants
• Planter elite at top, small farmers in middle, landless laborers at bottom of
society
Processing tobacco was as labor-intensive
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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Women and the Family:
• During 7th century men outnumber women in Chesapeake 5/1
• Large number of single men, widows, and orphans due to servitude
and high death rate
• Women have rights to 1/3 of husbands property but when widow
women passed property went to the male heirs of husband
• Widows take advantage of legal identity to make contracts and
conduct business
• Many women came as indentured servants and face harsh work,
sexual abuse, and early death
Maryland Experiment:
• Tobacco dominates economy and planters dominate society
• Cecilius Calvert is given individual grant of land and government power w full
control over trade and right to innate all legislation with an elected assembly
only able to approve or disapprove
• Charter guarantees full privileges and liberties of Englishman to the colonists
Which Calvert does not believe in ... Recipe for conflict
• Calvert is a catholic and views Maryland as a refuge for the sons of English
catholic gentry who had few opportunities in England, protestants always made
up majority
• Death rate very high ... 70% die before reaching the age of 50 While half
children born don't reach adulthood
• Planters take best land and prospects for landless men diminish
The first book printed in the English mainland colonies
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
• Rise of Puritanism
New England:
• Very different society the planter aristocracy formed in Virginia and
Maryland
• Puritans believe church of England is too close to the catholic church
• They believed only local congregations could choose clergy and modes of
worship
• Puritans called "congregationalist"
• Urge believers to read the bible and listen to sermons by educated ministers
• Sermon = central part of Puritan practice
Puritans
•
Follow beliefs of theologian John Calvin
•
Calvin taught that world was divided between the elect and the damned
•
Elect predestined by god and nothing one did on earth could change ones fate
•
Leading a good life and prospering economically were signs of gods grace while idleness and
immoral behavior were signs of damnation
•
Separatists abandon church of England completely to for own churches
•
In 1620s and 1630s Charles 1 begins to to dismiss puritan ministers and censor their writing many
puritans begin to emigrate
•
Puritans blame many of England's problems on wandering poor who were deemed lazy and
ungodly
•
They believe they will create a new godly society a "city upon a hill" whose influence would flow
across the Atlantic and save England from godlessness and social decay
John Calvin
Puritans
• Wish to govern themselves and practice religion in way they
sought fit
• Freedom = self government and self denial
• John Winthrop - "natural liberty" is acting without restraint to
do evil while "moral liberty" is to that which is only good
• Winthrop says true freedom. Is "subjection to authority"
• The Elect or chosen had right to establish churches and govern
society And no one had right to challenge their authority
A portrait of John Winthrop
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
An early seventeenth-century engraving shows the
English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Samuelde Champlain’s 1605 sketch of Plymouth Harbor
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Pilgrims of Plymouth:
• 1620 Group of separatists
• Voyage of the Mayflower was financed by investors looking to set up
overseas trade was meant to land in Virginia but lands on Cape Cod
• Mayflower Compact - males on board agree to obey just and equal laws
enacted by a representative government of their choosing ... First written
frame of government in what is now the US
• Pilgrims arrive in area where Indian natives had recently been decimated
by smallpox
• Half settlers die before the first winter those who do survive only do so with
the help of local Indians who taught them were to fish and how to plant
corn
Great Migration:
• 1629 Massachusetts Bay Company founded by investors hoping to
further Puritan cause and establish trade with Indians
• 21,000 immigrate between 1629 and 1642 and establish a basis for
a stable and thriving society
• Unlike Virginia and Maryland most settlers arrive in
Massachusetts as families
• Come to escape religious persecution, anxiety about future if
England, and prospect of economic betterment
• Because of equal number of men and women and less harsh
climate the population grows more rapidly then in Virginia
The Savage Family, a 1779 painting by the
New England artist Edward Savage
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The Puritan Family:
•
Believe in male authority in household along with severe limitations to a women's legal rights
•
Fathers authority over his family is essential in a farming society that lacks a large number of slave or indentured
servants
•
Women were considered spiritual equals to men and could be full members of church though clergy were all men
•
Marriage was based on reciprocal affection and companionship and divorce was legal
•
Moderate " correction" discipline of wives was considered appropriate for women who disobeyed husbands will
•
Winthrop said that women achieved freedom by fulfilling prescribed social role and embracing subjection to
husbands authority
•
Family central to society and unmarried adults were viewed as a danger to social fabric
•
Typical New England Women married at 22 and gave birth 7 times
•
Healthy environment meant more children survived infancy and women time was spent bearing and rearing
children
Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Government and Society in Mass:
• Puritans fear excessive individualism and lack of social unity
• Unlike dispersed plantation society of Virginia ... New England is based on
self governing towns
• Settlers received a land grant from the company and then subdivided it
with house lots in central area and outskirts for farming
• Each town has own congregational church
• According to 1647 law each was required to establish a school since reading
bible was central to Puritan way of life
• Harvard established in 1636 to train ministry and first English American
printing press in Cambridge in 1638
• Government is run by shareholders of Mass Bay company who
emigrated to NE they then create a body of elected landowning church
members into a single ruling body known as the General Court which is
divided into two legislative bodies
• Freemen (landowning church members) elected the governors of
Massachusetts unlike in Virginia whose were chosen by crown
• Principle of consent of governed is important to puritans
• No important church decision with out agreement of adult male
members
• Towns governed themselves and officials were locally elected
• But Puritans were far from an equal society
• Anyone could worship at a church (meeting house) but to be a full
member one had to be a "visible saint" who could prove a conversion
moment
• Voting in colony wide elections was limited to full members of the
church
• What was at first a broad electorate gets smaller and more elite over
time
Puritan Liberties:
•
Prominent families given best land and most desirable seats in church
•
Winthrop "some must be rich and some poor" part of gods plan
•
1641 "Body of Liberties" which outlined rights and responsibilities of Mass colonists
adopts understanding that ones liberties are derived from one place in the social order
•
Inequality = sign of gods will
•
Body of Liberties allows for slavery who arrive in Mass Bay in 1640
•
Ministers could not hold office but at same time ministers were the ones who decided
who were visible saints and only visible saints could vote in all elections so still have
strong power
•
Law required each town to establish a church and levy tax to pay minister
•
Freedom of speech but death for witchcraft blasphemy or worshipping any god that was
not " the true lord"
Roger
Williams
and
“Rouge
Island”
New Englanders Divided:
• Residents carefully monitor one another and expel those who live outside
social norms
• Banishment for criticizing church or government
• Tolerance of difference was not high on list of Puritan values
• Roger Williams insists congregations withdraw from Church of England
and that church and state be separated
• Williams believed citizens should be allowed to practice any religion they
choose And believes genuine religious faith is voluntary
• Williams is banished from Mass in 1636 he and followers move south and
establish Rhode Island "rouge island"
New England
• RI becomes beacon of religious freedom
• No established church, no qualifications for voting until
18th century, no laws requiring citizens attend church
• More democratic the rest of NE with Assembly elected
twice a year, governors annually and town meetings held
more frequently
• Religious dissenter Thomas Hooker establishes settlement
at Hartford with Fundamental Orders based on Mass laws
with exception that men did not have to be church
members to vote
Thomas Hooker
Trials of Anne Hutchinson:
•
Began having religious meetings and discussions in her house in 1634 some who
attended were prominent members of society
•
She preached that the ministers of Mass were giving people visible saint status not based
on inner state of grace but on church attendance and moral behavior
•
Mass church and state intertwined and wanted to silence any voices that questioned
them
•
Denounce Hutchinson for Antinomianism (putting ones own opinions above human law
and teachings of the church)
•
Put on trial for sedition (expressing opinions dangerous to authority) seals her own fate
when she says god talked to her directly
•
Banished from Mass her and her followers moved to NY where they died in Indian wars
Puritans and Indians:
• Colonists quickly outnumber natives
• Roger Williams looks to befriend Indians says crown has no right to take their
land and that settlements should not begin until land was purchased
• NE leaders believe Indians represent savagery and temptation
• They represent what Winthrop described as "natural freedom" not "moral
freedom" believe Indian society might prove attractive to lazy colonists lacking
moral fiber
• 1642 CT General Court set 3 year hard labor penalty for any colonist who
abandons godly society to live w Indians
• Publish captivity narratives
• Puritans see Indians as obstacle to be pushed aside not as potential converts
Pequot Wars:
• Indians in NE lack leader like Powhatan seek to make
alliances with newcomers
• As population expands and new towns spread out conflict
becomes unavoidable
• Fur trader killed by Pequot in 1637
• Mass an CT troop surround Pequot village in Mystic and kill
all 500 men women and children
• By end of war Pequot exterminated or sold into Caribbean
slavery
• Opens CT river valley to rapid white settlement and convinces
other Indian groups not to resist the newcomers
• Most Puritans view as proof of gods will that they are on
religious mission
An engraving from John Under hill’s News from America
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Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The New England Economy:
• Weavers tailors farmers
• Most came from middle ranks of society and paid for family passage
• Success is viewed as a sign of divine grace
• Fishing and timber exports are main exports
• Economy centered around family farms supplying for own use and small
marketable surplus
• Few slaves and indentured servants in 17th century
• Households rely on labor of their own families women and children in fields
• Need for land becomes primary reason for NE expansion
The Merchant Elite:
• Hard work and commercial success is considered a central
Puritan value
• Social inequality
• NE growing role in British empire based on trade
• NE ships and markets staples of other colonies to Europe and
Africa as early as 1640
• Profitable trade w West Indies supplying plantations w fish
timber and produce
• Merchant class arises and challenges Puritan idea of economics
for common good
• Fight for right to conduct business as they please with no limits
on prices and wages
• By 1640 Mass repeals many of economic regulations
The Half Way Covenant:
• Puritan leaders begin to worry about commercialization and declining piety
of Mass society
• By 1650 less then half population of Boston admitted to full membership in
church
• How to deal with 3rd generation who were less religious and not full
members what would happen to their children
• Half Way makes ancestry not religious conversion the pathway to inclusion
among the elect
• Church membership remains stagnant
• Crop failures and disease were said to be gods disapproval of the lack of
religious rigor
Religion, Politics, & Freedom:
• Rights of Englishmen
• Magna Carta of 1215 - agreement between King John and group of barons it
listed a series of liberties granted to all free men "in the realm"
• Magna Carta protects against seizure of property and arbitrary punishment
without due process of law
• Later habeas corpus, right to face accuser, and trial by jury are added
• At the time of it's writing it mainly benefited the barons because so many in
England were living as serfs. But over time it applies to more and more
people as serfdom comes to an end
• Those living in the colonies were living in the realm of the empire and
therefore it applied to them
The English Civil War:
• 1640s: Battle for power between parliament and Stuart monarchs James 1
and Charles 1
• Leads to expansion of the concept of English freedom
• House of Commons accuses Stuart kings of imposing taxes with out
parliaments consent , imprisoning political foes and leading country back to
Catholicism
• Parliament is victorious in the Civil War and Charles 1 is beheaded and the
monarchy is abolished
• England was now a Commonwealth and Free State which would be ruled by
the will of the people
• Oliver Cromwell rules for a decade as head of Parliament until Charles 2
restores the crown in 1660
Freedom Movement
• Between 1640 and 1660 idea of freedom takes on new importance
• Calls for freedom of speech and press
• Calls for more religious tolerance and end for state support for
Anglican Church
• Levellers (first democratic political movement) calls for a written
constitution "Agreement of the People"
• Document call for abolishment of the house of lords and the monarch
and an expansion of the right to vote
• This is revolutionary at the time When democracy was thought of as
anarchy
Freedom
• These movements are crushed in England and driven underground by
their beliefs about freedom were brought with English emigrants to
America
• Most New Englanders support Parliament during the Civil War, it is
revolutionary Parliament that grants Roger Williams charter of Rhode
Island in 1644
• Quakers are a new religious sect that springs up during the civil war,
they believe in the inner spirit of Christ and not learning from bible or
clergy teachings
• When Quakers arrive in Mass they are greatly persecuted some are
hung
• Charles 2 orders Mass to recognize liberty of conscience of all
Protestants
Freedom
• Unlike New England Virginia sides with Charles 1 during the civil war
• 1640s Maryland has its own civil war between Catholics and
Protestants and teeters on the edge of anarchy
• To stabilize the colony Calvert appoints a Protestant Governor and
offers refuge to protestants who were being prosecuted in Virginia
which was run by Anglicans and allowed no other religions to be
practiced
• 1649 Maryland passes Act Concerning Religion that gives Christians
free exercise of religion but still does not allow religions that deny the
divinity of Christ or the Holy trinity
• Jews still can not openly practice religion But document is huge
milestone in history of religious freedom in the colonies
An embroidered banner depicting the main
Building at Harvard
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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Map 2.2 English Settlement in New England, ca. 1640
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The title page of a translation of the Bible into the
Massachusett language
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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A self-portrait from around 1680, painted
by Thomas Smith.
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Mrs.Elizabeth Freake and BabyMary.
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The Court of Common Pleas
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The execution of Charles I in 1649
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A 1629 portrait by John Aubrey depicts John Milton
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Meeting of the General Council of the Army at Putney
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A portrait of Oliver Cromwell
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Give Me Liberty!
AN AMERICAN HISTORY
THIRD EDITION
by
Eric Foner