Study guide for Early Settlement of Colonial America
Jamestown founded in 1607 was created by the Virginia Company, a joint-stock company.
(Joint-stock company just means that a group of people came together to invest as a group in
order to accomplish something that no one person had the money to do).
The goal of the Virginia Company and Jamestown was to make money. Jamestown was the
first permanent English settlement in the New World. The area was not very hospitable with
poor soil and little fresh water. It was a swampy area which meant there were mosquitoes and
that meant disease). Most died from starvation, disease (malaria and dysentery) and little
food.
The colonist who took charge and saved Jamestown was John Smith. His motto for the
colonists was “no work, no food”. The Native American tribe that controlled that area was
called the Powhatan tribe, led by Chief Powhatan. His daughter was Pocahontas. The story
about Pocahontas and John Smith was partially true. She did save his life, but it was
ceremonial. The tribe wanted to adopt Smith and they did this by having a member, in this case
the Chief’s daughter, “save” his life. Smith and Pocahontas never were in love, Smith being in
his early 30’s and Pocahontas around 11, and Smith would go back to England where stories are
that he may have seen Pocahontas once more.
Pocahontas did eventually marry a man named John Rolfe who brought Spanish tobacco seeds
to the colony to mix with the native plant (it was too bitter) which made a better tobacco that
was liked in England and the colony grew rich from the sale of tobacco. Tobacco would be a
cash crop and that would lead to the plantation system. The plantation owners needed people
to work for them and the Virginia Company wanted to make money so they came up with what
we know as the Headright system: If the plantation owner paid membership in the Virginia
Company and then paid passage for their family members and/or servants they would be
granted 50 acres of land for each person over the age of 15. The more land they owned the
more tobacco they could grow and sale and thus make more money. With the extra money
they could purchase more land to grow more tobacco and thus more land = more money.
Indentured servants signed a 5-7 year agreement to work for a plantation owner who had paid
their fines and the cost of their transportation to the colonies.
At the end of the contract the indentured servants would be given tools, and seeds along with
50 acres of land. The 1st elected legislative body in the colonies was called the House of
Burgesses. It was run by the wealthy and today it is still in operation. Today it is known as the
Virginia General Assembly or the General Assembly of Virginia.
The wealthy plantation owners controlled the fertile land in the Tidewater area. That is the flat
area from the ocean to the piedmont or beginnings of the mountainous region. The land given
to the indentured servants who had completed their contract was in the western part of the
state. These backcountry farmers wanted more land to increase the size of their farms and
thus their wealth. The only land available to them would be the westward land belonging to
the Native Americans. They ask the government (wealthy landowners) to help but they refuse.
The poor farmers turn on the rich farmers and are led by the nephew of the Governor of
Virginia Nathaniel Bacon. He leads them against the Native Americans and then they go to
Jamestown, the capital and burn it. They chase Berkley out but he comes back and chases
Bacon and his men into the swamp where Bacon dies. This is known as Bacon’s Rebellion and
it scares the rich landowners and they decide the problem was the indentured servants which
led to the use of slaves for plantation work.
Some of the colonies were owned by private individuals or groups. These colonies which were
private land grants were known as proprietary colonies. Maryland was settled as a safe place
(haven) for Catholics. One of the reasons Maryland became settled was her desire to protect
religious freedom for all Christians. This was accomplished by a law known as the Toleration
Act.
The other type of colony was one where the king controlled the government. The Carolinas
were Royal colonies. Their purpose was to grow food for the West Indies and South Carolina
became very wealthy through trade. The largest southern city was Charles Town or Charleston
as we call it today. South Carolina’s two biggest cash crops were rice and indigo. North
Carolina’s cash crop was tobacco. The last of the original colonies was Georgia. It was founded
by James Oglethorpe as a buffer colony; to protect S.C. from Spanish Florida and it was a
debtor colony; where men could start over.
Politically, the southern colonies’ governments were run by rich plantation owners, only white
males who owned land were allowed to vote. The first legislative body in the English colonies
was known as Virginia’s House of Burgesses.
After Bacon’s Rebellion, plantation labor is satisfied by slavery. Some Africans come and work
as indentured servants, earning their freedom. These first Africans came to America in 1619
and became indentured because they were Christian. Slaves come to the colonies by way of
the Triangular Trade route. Africans would enslave their own people and then sell them to
Europeans on the western coast of Africa for rum, guns, and pots/pans. The Africans would be
loaded onto slave ships packed in like sardines and taken to the New World. The part of the
Triangular Trade route from Africa to the Americas was known as the Middle Passage. This was
a horrible part of the trade. Many Africans died during this journey from the horrible
conditions.
The Middle Colonies were also known as the colonial breadbasket because this area was so
fertile and they produced a lot of food products like beef and grains. One of the middle
colonies was a home for Quakers and it was the colony of Pennsylvania.
The northern area of English colonies was known as New England. Massachusetts was created
for religious purposes and had two groups of settlers; one known as Pilgrims and the other
known as Puritans. In 1620 Pilgrims arrive in Plymouth with their leader William Bradford.
They were known as Separatists because they left the Church of England never to return. A
legal document that established democracy in Plymouth Bay colony was known as the
Mayflower Compact. The second group that populated Massachusetts was known as NonSeparatists because they wanted to try to reform the Anglican Church. Their leader, John
Winthrop, wanted to create a “City on the hill” for all to see. The New England society was
based on religious standing. Roger Williams was a well- known dissenter from Massachusetts
who was kicked out for preaching Liberty of Conscience or Separation of Church and State.
The 1st written Constitution in the colonies is known as the Fundamental Orders of
Connecticut.
In New England they were very religious and made their living by fishing, shipbuilding, and
lumbering. Two words to describe the New England colonies might be cod and God.
Education was very important to the New England colonists because they felt everyone should
be able to read and understand the bible. They built elementary schools and the 1 st college in
America (Harvard). They held a revival of religious feeling in the colonies because they thought
people had fallen away from God. This became known as the Great Awakening. It was led
here by two Fire and Brimstone preachers from England; Jonathan Edwards and George
Whitefield. The effects of the Great Awakening was that it led more people to go to church, it
created new colleges, it created new denominations like the Baptists and Methodists. Because
of this new knowledge and belief people began to question authority in the Church as well as in
government. At the same time a European cultural movement began to challenge the authority
of the church in science and philosophy, this is known as the Enlightenment. An influential
Enlightenment writer was John Locke. He argued that all people had rights, and that society
can be improved.