U.S. History Notes- Chapter 2





The Planting of English America
o By the early 1600s, the Americas already had European crops and livestock.
o Native American populations had been severely damaged.
o There were already several hundred thousand enslaved Africans in Brazil and the Caribbean.
o Spain owned from south to Florida and New Mexico.
o North America, though, was mostly unclaimed and unsettled.
 In the early 1600s, the Spanish (Santa Fe), French (Quebec), and English (Jamestown) all made
settlements in the North American area.
England’s Imperial Stirrings
o In the 1500s, the British couldn’t really compete with Spanish control over the Americas.
 In addition, they didn’t much care.
o However, things changed when religious disputes arose.
 King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s.
 This led to the English Protestant Reformation.
o For a while, Catholics and Protestants fought with each other.
o Protestantism became dominant in 1558.
o Ireland (owned by England) was a big arena for the fight.
 Catholic Irish wanted Catholic Spanish help, but the Protestant English
Queen Elizabeth killed them and took their land, giving it to protestant
farmers. This led to long-term conflict.
 This led to negative British perspectives on ‘natives’.
Elizabeth Energizes England
o The conversion to Protestantism led to the British going to the Americas.
 The goals were promoting Protestantism and stealing from the Spanish ships and colonies.
 (Note: England and Spain were NOT at war.)
 Note: this was piracy, basically. Frances Drake was an important pirate in 1580.
o The first English settlement was a failed attempt to settle in Newfoundland in 1583.
o Then, Sir Walter Raleigh tried to start one in Roanoke (NC), but it was evanescent.
 These failures looked bad.
 The Spanish decided to launch their armada into England with 130 ships.
 The English had faster boats, and a storm (the Protestant wind) helped them win.
o This was the end of Spanish dominance of colonization.
 They would lose the Netherlands and most of the Caribbean.
o The English were now in a position that Spain had once been in.
 They were unified, with popular monarch, some religious unity, and lots of nationalism.
 This nationalism led to strong desire to seize land and treasure for their country.
Why would people be willing to emigrate out of GB?
o Many were becoming unemployed- especially small farmers losing land in England.
o Population was growing at an intense rate- there wasn’t enough room.
o Some faced Religious intolerance and persecution in England; they sought freedom.
o Only eldest sons inherited estates, so some younger sons left to claim new land.
o Some believed the new world contained gold for them to collect.
o They were reassured of keeping their rights, even in the colonies.
o Some wanted adventure or wished to escape the common social predetermination in England.
o Some were nationalistic, and wanted to get land and treasure for England as well as convert people.
England on the eve of Empire
o


Population was growing immensely (33% in 50 years from 1550 to 1600).
 This was causing landlords to ‘enclose’ croplands for sheep grazing.
 This caused many small farmers to be out of land and work.
o Puritans especially were out of work, in areas with lots of sheep.
 An economic depression also led to many farmers being out of work.
 These farmers became aimless beggars in cities.
 This unemployment made people more aware of the overpopulation problem.
 Only the eldest sons inherited land estates, so younger sons had to go somewhere else.
o Early missions failed because they only had one benefactor.
o In the early 1600s, there was the first joint-stock company venture.
 ‘Adventurers’ pooled their money to set off.
 These allowed many normal, not as rich people to go.
o Since there was now peace with Spain (1604), England could colonize.
o There were plenty of means and motives for people to colonize, so they did.
England plants the Jamestown Seedling
o 1606- King James I gave the joint-stock Virginia Company of London a charter to make a colony.
 They wanted to go to find gold and to find a passage to the Indies.
 The company was set up to only exist for a few years.
 This meant the colonists had to get rich quick or they’d be left behind.
 NO ONE KNEW THIS WOULD BE LONG-TERM.
 This charter was important because it gave them the same rights as Englishmen.
o The VA Company’s three ships landed along the Chesapeake, were attacked by Indians, and then went up the
James River.
 They landed May 24, 1607.
 All the settlers (about 100) were men.
 The location was poor and full of malaria-ridden mosquitoes.
 Forty colonists had died on the way there.
o A later mission there in 1609 lost a bunch of supplies.
o First Jamestown Settlement was a Disaster Because:
 The location, and particularly the mosquitoes, caused severe negative health effects.
 The settlers had no survival skills for obtaining food. They starved.
 The settlers focused too much on finding gold instead of food and shelter.
 The 1609 expedition lost its provisions, leading to many early deaths.
 Malnourished settlers were more susceptible to diseases.
 Search for personal profit did not promote unity needed to survive.
o John Smith stabilized the Jamestown settlement.
 He took over in 1608 and said “He who shall not work shall not eat.”
 John Smith’s kidnapping (1607) affected colonist-Indian relations
 The colonists became aware of the power of Indians- they tried to be more peaceful.
 Pocahontas was an ‘intermediary’ between the Indians and the colonists.
o The Indians gave them food sometimes.
o People still died constantly and had to eat whatever they could find.
 Four hundred settlers had come to VA by 1609, but only 60 survived winter of 1609-1610.
o In 1610, the survivors were going to go home, but they ran into Lord De La Warr and he made them stay. He
was supposed to be a relief party.
 He imposed harsh military rule on them and tried to do so on the Indians as well.
o 1625- there were 1200 survivors when 8000 had come over.
Cultural Clash in the Chesapeake
o



1607- Chieftain Powhatan ruled natives in Jamestown area.
 This was a weak affiliation of tribes- called ‘Powhatan’s confederacy’.
 Powhatan thought the English could help him conquer more tribes.
 However, relations were still kind of tense. Englishmen raided Indian towns.
o 1610- Lord De La Warr declared war (First Anglo-Powhatan War) by raiding and burning.
 1614- War ended with a peace settlement and Pocahontas marrying John Rolfe.
o 1622- the Indians were fed up and attacked, killing 347 colonists.
 As a result, Virginia company declared eternal war.
 They wanted to eliminate Indians forever.
 They raided and drove them away.
o 1644- The Indians tried a final, failed time to kill the colonists (Second Anglo-Powhatan War).
 They were crushed.
 1646- Peace treaty banished the Indians and separated the societies.
 Powhatan’s died because they had three D’s:
 Disease- they got European diseases which killed many.
 Disorganization- they didn’t unify to fight the settlers.
 Disposability- they couldn’t do anything for the colonists, like work for them or trade with
them, and they were taking up land the English wanted.
The Indians’ New World
o Horses allowed for Indian migration onto the Great Plains. (Sioux, especially).
o Disease decimated the populations and stole culture by killing the elders.
 Many ended up banding together to make new tribes as a result.
o Indians became desperate to trade with settlers, and many bought guns.
 This led to intra-Indian violence.
o Indians farther inland had more time.
 For a while, the Algonquians had some power over colonists.
 This changed when many more settlers showed up.
Virginia- Child of Tobacco
o John Rolfe- was an enterprising entrepreneur and started up the tobacco industry.
 He made it perfect and marketable in 1612.
 It quickly boomed.
o The Effects of Tobacco on Jamestown:
 All available space (even in graveyards) was used for planting it.
 People planted tobacco instead of food, leading some to starve and have to import food.
 They needed more land, causing disputes with the Indians.
 They were constantly ruining the land by planting so much tobacco.
 It made the colony very prosperous.
 However, it was a fragile prosperity dependant on one crop.
 It made the colony need a lot of fresh labor.
o 1619- A ship showed up and sold Africans, but no one knows if they were slaves.
 Early on, not many slaves were gotten.
o 1619- The London Company let the settlers make their own assembly (House of Burgesses).
 Representative self-government is born!
o 1624- King James I hated tobacco and the House of Burgesses, so he revoked the charter and put the VA
colony under his personal control.
Maryland- Catholic Haven
o 1634- Catholic Lord Baltimore made the Maryland plantation colony:
 To become more prosperous



 To make a refuge for persecuted Catholics
o Lord Baltimore thought the colonists would make an aristocratic, feudal society with big estates.
 He gave his relatives lots of land for this purpose.
 However, there were some rich land owners surrounded by poorer Protestant farmers.
 This led to conflict and the Baltimores lost their land for a little while.
o The colony had a lot of tobacco, like VA.
o Lord Baltimore allowed freedom of religion from the start.
 But a lot of Protestants were showing up and threatening Catholics.
o The Catholics depended on the Act of Toleration (1649), passed by local representatives.
 The act guaranteed tolerance to all Christians.
 It gave the death penalty to anyone else (like Jews and Atheists!)
 It was less tolerant but more protective of Catholics.
At First, Indentured Servants Were Preferred Over Slaves:
o Slaves were too expensive for the colonies.
o The colonies didn’t need as much labor- they grew simpler crops.
o A few colonies were avoiding slaves on a moral basis.
o Most of the slaves were getting sold in the West Indies instead of being brought up the coast.
The West Indies- Way Station to Mainland America
o Concurrently, the British were colonizing the West Indies.
 They were able to do this because Spain was distracted by the Dutch.
 Mid-1600s: the British had several Caribbean islands, including Jamaica (1655).
o The West Indies’ economy was based on sugar.
 The difference between sugar and tobacco: tobacco was cheap and easy. Sugar cane required a lot
of land and a lot of effort, including mill processing.
 This meant the West Indies needed a lot of slaves.
o They got the slaves from Africa.
o By 1700, the ratio of blacks to whites was 4 to 1.
o English authorities made harsh slave codes that gave them no rights.
 1661- Barbados slave code.
 Sugar plantations took up all the land, so the Caribbean depended on the North American colonies to
send them food.
 Really rich plantation owners sent the small farmers packing for the Carolinas.
o 1670- The first farmers from Barbados showed up.
 Carolinas adopted the slave code.
o Like the Spanish testing out encomienda in the West Indies before doing in South America, the English tested
slavery in the West Indies before it showed up in North America.
Colonizing the Carolinas
o 1629- King Charles I dismissed parliament.
o 1640- Parliament was reinstated but rebellious.
 Civil war began.
o Puritan Oliver Cromwell led the movement, which led to Charles I losing his head.
o A decade later (1660), Charles II was put on the throne. This was ‘Restoration’.
o After this respite in colonization, it was resumed with fervor and royal involvement.
o 1670- Charles II created Carolina by giving eight ‘Lords Proprietors’ land (all the way to the Pacific!)
o The Types of People that Settled in the Carolinas:
 Displaced farmers from the Caribbean sugar colonies (like Barbados).
o The Relationship Between the Carolinas and the West Indies Was Close Because:
 Settlers were often from the West Indies.




 The Carolinas were created to help supply the West Indies with food.
o The close ties between the Carolinas and the West Indies helped the Carolinas survive.
o The settlers brought the slave trade with them and had coastal Savannah Indians help them enslave and sell
inland Indians.
 The Lords Proprietors protested but couldn’t do anything.
 A lot of Indians were sent to be slaves in the West Indies or even in New England.
o The Savannah Indians eventually didn’t want to help anymore and tried to escape to Quaker PA.
 But the settlers massacred them as they were leaving in 1710.
o Rice became the main crop in Carolina.
 Rice was an African crop, not a European Crop.
o African Slaves Were Preferred Over Native American Slaves When Rice Came Because:
 Africans were already experienced in growing the rice crop.
 African slaves were often malaria resistant, and didn’t die off like Native Americans.
o Charlestown became the biggest southern City- a port with lots of aristocrats.
o Spain originally tried to kick out the English from Carolina, but they failed.
The Emergence of North Carolina
o North Carolina developed out of VA rejects showing up on the land.
 They were outcasts and/or religious dissenters.
 They had small farms and didn’t need many slaves to grow tobacco.
 They were poor and had a poorer reputation.
 Like Rhode Island, North Carolina was democratic and independent-minded.
o 1712- North Carolina was separated from South Carolina and became a royal colony.
o Native American-Colonist Relations Were Poor:
 1711- after an encounter between Tuscarora Indians and the Newbern settlement, the Carolinas
massacred and enslaved most of the tribe.
 1715- South Carolina destroyed the Yamasee Indians in a similar manner.
Late-Coming Georgia: The Buffer Colony
o 1733- Georgia is formally founded as the last of the thirteen colonies.
o The Purpose of the “Georgia Settlement Experiment”:
 The royalty thought it could be a buffer between the profitable colonies and Spain’s lands.
 They thought it could defend against the Spanish and French.
o So Georgia got some extra support, unlike its neighbors.
 The founders were philanthropists and wanted to give debtors a new start.
o James Oglethorpe
 He was a soldier-statesman and he got Georgia going.
 He stopped Spanish invaders and used his own money to help debtors start over.
o The colony had religious tolerance (of all but Catholics) and great diversity.
 There were lots of missionaries, like John Wesley (Methodist Church founder).
o The colony grew VERY slowly.
Characteristics of the Plantation Colonies:
o All maintained prosperity by exporting a ‘staple crop’.
o Eventually, all the colonies had widespread slavery (Georgia last in 1750).
o Some religious tolerance existed in all of them.
o They had fewer large cities due to the need to space out plantations.
o The colonies had to expand due to abusive farming practices which hurt soil.
o The expansiveness caused those colonies to interact negatively with Indians.
Tribes that made up the Iroquois Confederation
o Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and later Tuscaroras.