American Stories
Historical Discussions 1 and 2
Historical Discussions 1, 2 and 3
– Leif Ericson Explores Vinland
– Columbus Reaches the Shores of
the New World
– The Columbian Exchange
– John Cabot leads the first English
exploration of North America
– Amerigo Vespucci and the naming of
the Americas
– The Encomienda System
– The Founding of St. Augustine by
Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez
de Aviles
– Roanoke Becomes the “lost Colony”
– Jamestown is Founded
– Henry Hudson Looks for the
Northwest Passage
– The First African Slaves are Sold to
Virginia Planters
– Pilgrims Settle at Plymouth
– The May Flower Compact
– Puritans Settle The Massachusetts
Bay
– John Winthrop, Manifest Destiny,
and “A City Upon a Hill”
– Roger Williams is Exiled to Rhode
Island
– Anne Hutchinson Stands Trial
– Thomas Hooker and Connecticut:
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
– Maryland and the Calverts
– New Amsterdam becomes New York
– Indian Chief King Philip Goes to War
– William Penn is Granted a Charter
for Pennsylvania
– Salem Puts Accused Witches on Trial
– James Oglethorpe is Granted a
Charter for Georgia
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http://www.history.com/topics/leif-eriksson
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Basics: Leif Ericson
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Born: 970 AD, Iceland or Greenland
Died: 1020, Greenland, Denmark
Full name: Leif Ericson
Nationality: Icelandic, Norwegian
Father: Eirik Thorvaldsson, known as Eirik the Red,
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Leif Ericson Explores Vinland
Christopher Columbus
and The Columbian Exchange
Founder of Greenland – 986 CE
The first European to set foot on the shores of North
America, and the first explorer of Norwegian extraction
now accorded worldwide recognition.
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Lived in 11th century CE
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Founder of New Foundland and Vineland
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In 1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson, backed by a
unanimous Congress, proclaimed October 9th "Leif
Ericson Day" in commemoration of the first arrival of a
European on North American soil.
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Columbus
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http://www.history.com/topics/christopher-columbus
Born: October 31, 1451, Genoa, Italy
Died: May 20, 1506, Valladolid, Spain
Full name: Cristoforo Colombo
1492 Sailed for Spain
4 voyages to the New World
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Settlement on Hispaniola
3rd voyage he reached Trinidad and South America and
then arrested and returned to Spain in chains.
In 1502, cleared of the most serious charges but stripped
of his noble titles, he takes one last trip across the
Atlantic. This time, Columbus made it all the way to
Panama--just miles from the Pacific Ocean--where he had
to abandon two of his four ships in the face of an attack
from hostile natives. Empty-handed, the elderly explorer
returned to Spain, where he died in 1506.
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The Columbian Exchange
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Erickson vs. Columbus:
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http://www.history.com/topics/leif-eriksson/videos#leiferickson-vs-christopher-columbus
1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502
-His journeys marked the beginning of centuries of transAtlantic conquest and colonization.
Disease and environmental changes resulted in the
destruction of the majority of the native population over
time, while Europeans continued to extract natural resources
from these territories.
History of Colonial America 1497 1763
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History of Colonial America 1497 - 1763
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Y1jsD3
QHE&feature=related
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The Original Thirteen Colonies:
This is a fun little video….future teachers of young
student might enjoy…either way:
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The Original 13 Colonies:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGdUDK8qSuw
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/cha
rts/blcolonial13.htm
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What did the colonists eat?
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The British empire settled its first permanent
colony in the Americas at Jamestown,
Virginia in 1607.
This was the but the first of 13 colonies in
North America.
The 13 colonies can be divided into three
regions:
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New England
The Middle Colonies or Chesapeake
The Southern Colonies
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The animal bones from food supplies found in a pit
dating prior to 1610 reveal that the 104 men and boys
who landed at Jamestown survived primarily on fish
and turtles!
Sturgeon was the most common fish.
A sturgeon may live up to 60 years, weigh up to 800
pounds and reach lengths of up to 15 feet.
Archaeologists have found the bony plates which
cover the heads of sturgeon and the bony shields, or
scutes, which cover the body.
The sturgeon is an anadromous (returning to rivers to
breed: describes fish such as salmon and shad that
return from the sea to the rivers where they were
born in order to breed) fish, which means that it
spends most of its life in brackish or salt water, but
migrates into coastal rivers to spawn.
The Jamestown colonists report that the sturgeon
were plentiful in the James River from May until
September.
A New World in British America
• http://www.scarborough.k12.me.us/wis/teac
hers/dtewhey/webquest/colonial/13_original
_colonies.htm
• The original thirteen colonies were:
– Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New York, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia
American Literature Meets American
History
• The four voyages of Columbus (1492-93; 1493-96; 14981500; 1502-04) opened the way for the exploration,
exploitation, and colonization of the Americas by Europe.
• There are no surviving manuscripts in Columbus' own hand
describing these voyages.
• Instead, historians have relied upon the following
documents:
– Letters
– Journals : The journal that Columbus kept of his first voyage to
America and presented to Ferdinand and Isabella upon his
return to Spain has not survived in its original form.
– The journal is known to us today only in the abridgement of
Bartolome de las Casas, a partly quoted and partly summarized
version of the original.
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John Cabot
John Cabot’s explorations
– 1. Giovanni Caboto (Italian – sailed for the English – reached •
N.A.)
– 2. He was the first European since the Vikings to explore the
mainland of North America and the first to search for the
Northwest Passage.
Search for the Northwest passage:
– Cabot sailed out of Bristol with his ship, the
Matthew, on May 2, 1497.
– He landed in the New World, believing that he
had landed on the east coast of Asia.
– Even now, we don’t know exactly where he
landed - He may have landed in Maine or
Newfoundland, Canada.
– Wherever he landed, he claimed it in the name
of King Henry VII.
– Cabot became the first European explorer to
discover the mainland of North America
(Canada and the United States).
– He sailed further north, making the first recorded
attempt to find the Northwest Passage, only to
find ice-crusted waters.
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John Cabot’s Discovery of North America (1497): http://www.bartleby.com/43/4.html
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John Cabot:
– Born in Genoa, Italy around 1450
– His name was actually Giovanni Caboto, but he would be
remembered by the English translation, John Cabot.
– In 1476, Cabot lived in Venice, Italy, the main trading center for
the entire Mediterranean region.
– He worked there as a merchant and a navigator.
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The Letters Patents of King Henry the Seventh Granted unto Iohn Cabot and
his Three Sonnes, Lewis, Sebastian and Sancius for the Discouerie of New and
Unknowen Lands. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/15th_century/cabot01.asp
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Search for the Northwest Passage:
– In 1483, Cabot moved to Bristol, England.
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Final Voyage:
– He believed that Asia could be reached by sailing west.
– When Cabot arrived back in England, he was
– In 1493, when word of Columbus’ reports of his
given a hero’s welcome for (supposedly) reading
successful journey to the New World arrived, Cabot
the "Land of Spices.“
convinced King Henry VII that England did not have to sit
– He was made an admiral and sent immediately
still while the Spaniards helped themselves to the New
back to find Japan.
World.
– This time he sailed with five ships, but instead of
– Even though the Pope had given Spain control of all the
finding Asian spices, he found dark forests and
new lands in the New World, King Henry VII wanted in:
horrible rivers.
• He paid for Cabot to begin an exploration of the
– Some historians believe that Cabot returned
New World because Cabot convinced him that it
from his second expedition and died around
was possible to reach Asia on a more northerly
1499 in England.
route than Columbus had taken, and this route
– Others believe that he never returned from his
would be even shorter!
second voyage and was never heard from again.
Amerigo Vespucci
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Born in Florence, Italy in 1454 and Moved to
Spain in 1491
After his explorations in 1501-1502, he was one of the
first explorers to come up with the idea that these places
he had visited were not part of Asia (as Columbus
thought) but rather were part of a "New World In 1507, a
pamphlet was published called "The Four Voyages of
Amerigo" and the author suggested that the new land
that Amerigo had explored be named in his honor.
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He might have been there when Christopher
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Columbus returned from his first journey to the
New World – but he helped Columbus get ships
ready for his second and third voyages to the New
World.
At first, the name of America was only meant to apply to
South America, but later on, both continents of America
became known by his name.
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Early Explorer of the New World
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The continents of North and South America were
named in his honor.
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Vespucci was a skilled navigator.
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As a trader, he was very interested in finding a
quicker way to sail to Asia.
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He went on at least two, and possibly four,
voyages to Central and South America between
1497 and 1504 for Spain and Portugal.
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He went to many places, including Venezuela and
Brazil.
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After his explorations, Amerigo returned to Seville and
became its Master Navigator - He stayed in that job until
he died in 1512.
Amerigo Vespucci’s Account of His First Voyage (1497) :
http://www.bartleby.com/43/3.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1497vespucciamerica.asp
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His name was given to the American continents by
Waldsmuller in 1507.
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If his claims are accurate he reached the mainland of the
Americas shortly before Cabot, and at least 14 months
before Columbus. "The Four Voyages of Amerigo”
The Encomienda System
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It should be noted that this system was not hugely
different from the feudal system then in place in
Spain and much of the rest of Europe; but the
Spanish treatment of the Native Americans was far
harsher than a Spanish peasant would tolerate,
primarily because most Spanish colonists on
Hispaniola were, in our modern context, unbridled
racists.
The establishment of the encomienda system and
subsequent decline of the Native American
population did not escape the notice of the
Spanish clergy, who by 1511 began preaching
against the harsh conditions under which the
Native Americans were forced to work.
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Although a number of Spanish clerics advocated
for humane treatment of the Indians, by far the
most eloquent and prolific spokesman for the
rights of Native Americans during the 16th century
was Bartolome de las Casas (1474 - 1566).
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This system established a serfdom for the Native
Americans, with the Spanish acting as the
"nobility", entitled to the fruits of their labor.
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Under this system, many Native Americans were
simply worked to death.
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However, Columbus himself had no role in the
establishment of this system; in fact, he viewed all
Spanish territory in the New World as his personal
demesne, and was bitterly disappointed when the
Spanish Sovereigns relieved him of his role as
governor of Hispaniola in 1500.
His masterwork, the Historia de las Indias, still has
never been completely translated into English; and
his better-known indictment of Spanish treatment
of the Native Americans (known as the
Apologetica Historia) remains a primary source for
most of what we know of this period. It is worth
mentioning in this context that Las Casas was a
lifelong friend of the Columbus family.
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Thanks to the work of Las Casas and others, the
encomienda system was officially abolished by the
"New Laws" of 1542, but sadly, these laws were
never actually enforced.
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Columbus's successor, Francisco de Bobadilla, who
established the encomiendas.
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The Founding of St. Augustine by Spanish explorer
Pedro Menendez de Aviles
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The oldest permanent European settlement in
North America was not Jamestown, but rather
St. Augustine
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Saint Augustine was established by a Spanish
Admiral and Governor named Pedro
Menendez de Aviles on September 8, 1565.
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The mainland of the North American continent was first
sighted by the Spanish explorer and treasure hunter:
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The French, having witnessed the wealth Spain was
gaining from the New World were becoming interested in
establishing a foothold there themselves.
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The French King, being Catholic, had a small problem of
Papal recognition of the Spanish as the rightful owners of
all the lands there, even those they had not attempted to
settle.
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One such area was “Florida.” To the Spanish, this name
applied to basically all the lands north of Cuba.
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Taking advantage of the “heretic” status of French
Huguenots in the eyes of the Pope, the French King (or
more likely his scheming de Medici mother) made secret
arrangements for a colony of these protestant Frenchmen
in “Florida.”
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St. Augustine was founded forty-two years
before the English colony at Jamestown,
Virginia, and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims
landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts making it the oldest permanent European
settlement on the North American continent.
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Don Juan Ponce de Leon on Easter, March 27, 1513.
He claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida,
meaning "Land of Flowers".
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Between 1513 and 1563 the government of Spain
launched six expeditions to settle Florida, but all failed.
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The French succeeded in establishing a fort and colony on
the St. Johns River in 1564 and, in doing so, threatened
Spain's treasure fleets which sailed along Florida's
shoreline returning to Spain.
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As a result of this incursion into Florida, King Phillip II
named Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spain's most
experienced admiral, as governor of Florida, instructing
him to explore and to colonize the territory.
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Menendez was also instructed to drive out any pirates or
settlers from other nations, should they be found there.
Roanoke Becomes the “Lost Colony” 1590
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• In 1590 a shipload of settlers,
hoping to join a colony
established (1857 – 107 men,
women, and children) a few
years earlier by Sir Walter
Raleigh ( the 31 yr old favorite
of Queen Elizabeth I), arrived at
Roanoke Island on present day
North Carolina’s Outer Banks to
find that the village and its
inhabitants had vanished,
leaving behind only some
rusted debris and the
“Croatoan” carved on a tree
trunk.
The Roanoke Colony
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Primary Source:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HARIOT/1590titl.html A
briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, Sir
Walter Raleigh
A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia ,
1590 by Thomas Hariot
http://manybooks.net/titles/hariotthetext038nflv10.html
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Present-day North Carolina - A late 16th-century attempt
to establish a permanent English Settlement - The
enterprise was financed and organized by Sir Walter
Raleigh and carried out by Ralph Lane and Richard
Grenville, Raleigh's distant cousin.
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The final group of colonists disappeared during the AngloSpanish War, three years after the last shipment of
supplies from England.
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The settlement is known as "The Lost Colony," and the fate
of the colonists is still unknown.
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First person of English descent born in North America…
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Virginia Dare - @ August 18, 1587
born to Ananias Dare and his wife, Elinor White.
Virginia's grandfather was John White, a scientific
illustrator and painter who had previously been to
Roanoke as part of a failed expedition in 1585.
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Under the authority of Walter Raleigh, the elder White acted
as governor of the new colony.
Nine days after his granddaughter was born, White returned
to England for supplies.
His return was delayed by England's war with Spain, and when
he reached Roanoke again in 1590 the settlement had been
abandoned and there was no trace of the colonists.
The First Permanent English Settlement: Jamestown 1607
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In May 1607, a group of English settlers under the
command of Captain Christopher Newport breached the
Chesapeake Bay and sailed 30 miles up the James River to
densely wooded area boarding a swamp, where they
founded Jamestown, the first permanent English colony.
* Capt. James Smith
*The Powhatan Indians
*Pocahontas - Rebecca
*John Rolfe
* “The Starving Time” 1609-10
*Tobacco – 1610-1612
* The First Indentured Servants/Slaves brought to an
English colony 1619
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The colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of
London, a group of investors who hoped to profit from the
venture.
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Chartered in 1606 by King James I, the company also
supported English national goals of counterbalancing the
expansion of other European nations abroad, seeking a
northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the
Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion.
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Primary Sources:
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The First Virginia Charter 1606
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1600-1650/the-firstvirginia-charter-1606.php
The Second Virginia Charter 1609
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1600-1650/the-secondvirginia-charter-1609.php
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Jamestown was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony,
founded in 1607, and served as capital of Virginia until
1699, when the seat of government was moved to
Williamsburg.
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The founding of Jamestown, America’s first permanent
English colony, in Virginia in 1607 – 13 years before the
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts – sparked a
series of cultural encounters that helped shape the nation
and the world.
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The government, language, customs, beliefs and
aspirations of these early Virginians are all part of the
United States’ heritage today
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The Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, carrying
105 passengers, one of whom died during the voyage,
departed from England in December 1606 and reached the
Virginia coast in late April 1607.
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Initially, the colony was governed by a council of seven,
with one member serving as president.
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Virginia was started for profit…by men…Unlike New
England that was founded by families for permanent
change:
The first two English women arrived at Jamestown in 1608,
and more came in subsequent years.
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Men outnumbered women, however, for most of the 17th
century.
Tobacco Saves Virginia
• The economic solution to Virginia's problem grew on vacant lots of Jamestown.
• Only Indians bothered to cultivate tobacco until John Rolfe realized the future of
this weed.
• In order to make a profit for the Virginia Company, settlers tried a number of small
industries, including glassmaking, wood production, and pitch and tar and potash
manufacture.
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However, until the introduction of tobacco as a cash crop about 1613 by colonist
John Rolfe, who later married Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas, none of the
colonists’ efforts to establish profitable enterprises were successful.
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Tobacco cultivation required large amounts of land and labor and stimulated the
rapid growth of the Virginia colony.
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Settlers moved onto the lands occupied by the Powhatan Indians, and increased
numbers of indentured servants came to Virginia
The Head right System: System of land distribution through which
settlers were granted a 50-acre plot of land from the colonial government for
each servant or dependent they transported to the New World. The system
encouraged the recruitment of a large servile labor force.
• How Virginia is settled: Sir Edwin Sandy’s (stockholder in
the Virginia Company that sponsored Jamestown) method
of distributing land: Colonists who covered their own
transportation costs to America were guaranteed a
HEADRIGHT, a 50-acre lot for which they paid only a small
annual rent.
• Adventures were granted additional head rights for each
servant they brought to the colony.
• The procedure allowed prosperous planters to build up
huge estates while they also acquired dependent laborers.
The First African Slaves are Sold to Virginia Planters
• The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in 1619.
• They were from the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola, West
Central Africa, and had been captured during war with the
Portuguese.
• While these first Africans may have been treated as
indentured servants, the customary practice of owning
Africans as slaves for life appeared by mid-century.
• The number of African slaves increased significantly in the
second half of the 17th century, replacing indentured
servants as the primary source of labor.
The First Representative Government`
• The first representative government in British America began at
Jamestown in 1619 with the convening of a general assembly, at the
request of settlers who wanted input in the laws governing them.
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After a series of events, including a 1622 war with the Powhatan
Indians and misconduct among some of the Virginia Company
leaders in England, the Virginia Company was dissolved by the king
in 1624, and Virginia became a royal colony.
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Jamestown continued as the center of Virginia’s political and social
life until 1699 when the seat of government moved to
Williamsburg.
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Although Jamestown ceased to exist as a town by the mid 1700s,
its legacies are embodied in today’s United States.
Henry Hudson Looks for the Northwest
Passage - 1609
• In 1609, Henry Hudson – an English sea dog in the hire of the Dutch
– sailed the Half Moon out of Amsterdam for the Atlantic coast in
search of the fabled Northwest Passage and discovered instead the
river that bears his name, launching the Dutch settlement of New
Amsterdam….later named New York
• New Amsterdam: A settlement established in 1624 by the Dutch at
the mouth of the Hudson River on the southern end of Manhattan
Island. It was the capital of New Netherland from 1626 to 1664,
when it was captured by the British and renamed New York.
Pilgrims Settle at Plymouth 1620
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http://www.ushistory.org/documents/mayflower.htm
In 1620, rough seas off the coast of Nantucket - forced
The Mayflower Compact:
Captain Christopher Jones of the Mayflower to alter his•
– In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are
course from the mouth of the Hudson river toward Cape
underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread
Cod, where he deposited his passengers – including some
Sovereigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of
35-50 members of a religious sect who would soon come to
Great Britaine, France and Ireland king, defender of
be called “Pilgrims” – outside the jurisdiction of Virginia,
the faith, etc. having undertaken, for the glory of
making many of the non-Pilgrims not happy.
God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and
honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the
The two groups settled their differences by signing a brief statement of
first colony in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by
self-government drafted by the Pilgrims, which became known as the
Mayflower Compact, the first written constitution of North America –
these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence
but signed on the Atlantic Ocean.
of God and one of another, covenant and combine
ourselves together into a civill body politick, for our
The MayFlower Compact: William Bradford, a leader of the Separatist
better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of
congregation who wrote the still-classic account of the Mayflower
the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enacte,
voyage and the founding of Plymouth Colony. While still on board the
constitute, and frame such just and equall laws,
ship, a group of 41 men signed the so-called Mayflower Compact, in
ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time
which they agreed to join together in a "civil body politic." This
to time, as shall be thought most meete and
document would become the foundation of the new colony's
convenient for the generall good of the Colonie unto
government
which we promise all due submission and obedience.
In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed
The SEPERATISTS:
our names at Cape-Codd the 11. of November, in the
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September 1620 included 35-50 members of a radical
year of the raigne of our sovereigne lord, King James,
Puritan faction known as the English Separatist Church
of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and
– who had illegally broken from the Church of England
of Scotland the fiftie-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.
in 1607.
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Bradford and the other Plymouth settlers were not
originally known as Pilgrims, but as "Old Comers." This
changed after the discovery of a manuscript by
Bradford in which he called the settlers who left
Holland "saints" and "pilgrimes."
The MayFlower Compact
Mayflower Compact – What is it?
The Mayflower Compact is a written agreement composed by a
consensus of the new Settlers arriving at New Plymouth in
November of 1620. They had traveled across the ocean on the ship
Mayflower which was anchored in what is now Provincetown
Harbor near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Mayflower Compact
was drawn up with fair and equal laws, for the general good of the
settlement and with the will of the majority. The Mayflower’s
passengers knew that the New World’s earlier settlers failed due to
a lack of government. They hashed out the content and eventually
composed the Compact for the sake of their own survival.
All 41 of the adult male members on the Mayflower signed the
Compact. Being the first written laws for the new land, the Compact
determined authority within the settlement and was the observed
as such until 1691. This established that the colony (mostly
persecuted Separatists), was to be free of English law. It was devised
to set up a government from within themselves and was written by
those to be governed.
Mayflower Compact – What did it say?
The original document is said to have been lost, but the writings of
William Bradford’s journal Of Plymouth Plantation and in Edward
Winslow’s Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
are in agreement and accepted as accurate.
When creating the Mayflower Compact, the signers believed that
covenants were not only to be honored between God and man, but
also between each other. They had always honored covenants as
part of their righteous integrity and agreed to be bound by this
same principle with the Compact. John Adams and many historians
have referred to the Mayflower Compact as the foundation of the
U.S. Constitution written more than 150 years later.
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The Mayflower Compact reads:
"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are
underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread
Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of
England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the
Faith, e&. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and
Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of
our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first
colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these
presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of
God and one of another, covenant and combine
ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our
better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of
the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact,
constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws,
Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time
to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient
for the General good of the Colony; unto which we
promise all due submission and obedience. In Witness
whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at
Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of
our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and
Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fiftyfourth. Anno Domini, 1620."
The Pilgrim Legacy in New England
http://www.history.com/topics/pilgrims
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Repressive policies toward religious nonconformists in England under King James I and his
successor, Charles I, had driven many men and women to follow the Pilgrims' path to the
New World. Three more ships traveled to Plymouth after the Mayflower, including the
Fortune (1621), the Anne and the Little James (both 1623). In 1630, a group of some 1,000
Puritan refugees under Governor John Winthrop settled in Massachusetts according to a
charter obtained from King Charles I by the Massachusetts Bay Company. Winthrop soon
established Boston as the capital of Massachusetts Bay Colony, which would become the
most populous and prosperous colony in the region.
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Compared with later groups who founded colonies in New England, such as the Puritans,
the Pilgrims of Plymouth failed to achieve lasting economic success. After the early 1630s,
some prominent members of the original group, including Brewster, Winslow and
Standish, left the colony to found their own communities. The cost of fighting King Philip's
War further damaged the colony's struggling economy. Less than a decade after the war
King James II appointed a colonial governor to rule over New England, and in 1692,
Plymouth was absorbed into the larger entity of Massachusetts.
•
Bradford and the other Plymouth settlers were not originally known as Pilgrims, but as
"Old Comers." This changed after the discovery of a manuscript by Bradford in which he
called the settlers who left Holland "saints" and "pilgrimes." In 1820, at a bicentennial
celebration of the colony's founding, the orator Daniel Webster referred to "Pilgrim
Fathers," and the term stuck.
5 Things You May Not Know About the Pilgrims
•
1. Not all of the Mayflower’s passengers were motivated by religion.
–
•
2. The Mayflower didn’t land in Plymouth first.
–
•
Several of the Mayflower’s crew had made the journey at least once before, on either fishing or exploration trips. One notable figure, Stephen
Hopkins, had even tried to settle in the New World 10 years earlier, in the Jamestown colony of Virginia. On his way to join the settlement, his
ship was wrecked off the coast of Bermuda, stranding him and his fellow passengers for several months. The story of the Virginia settlers’
shipwreck and rescue made waves back home in England, and William Shakespeare freely admitted that he based his play “The Tempest” on the
tale. He even may have named one of the characters, Stephano, after Stephen Hopkins, who was once one of Shakespeare’s neighbors. Hopkins
eventually returned to England and later joined the Mayflower as a member of the sympathetic group of supporters from London.
5. The Pilgrims were relatively tolerant of other religious beliefs.
–
•
In fact, the Pilgrims didn’t name Plymouth, Massachusetts, at all. It had been dubbed that years earlier by previous explorers to the region, and
was clearly marked as Plymouth (or Plimoth—spellings varied somewhat) on maps that the Mayflower’s captain surely had on hand. It’s sheer
coincidence that the Mayflower ended up sailing from a town called Plymouth in England and then landing in a town called Plymouth in America.
And it’s unlikely that the Mayflower’s passengers felt any emotional connection to Plymouth, England, at all. Most of the Separatists had been
living in exile in Holland for 10 years before sailing for America, and the rest of the passengers were drawn from the greater London area. The
Mayflower only ended up departing from Plymouth because bad weather and misfortune had prevented the settlers from making the crossing
on two earlier attempts—first from Southampton and then from Dartmouth—before they finally succeeded in sailing from the port of Plymouth.
4. Some of the Mayflower’s passengers had been to America before.
–
•
The Mayflower first landed at the tip of Cape Cod, in what is now Provincetown. The settlers had originally hoped to make for the mouth of the
Hudson River and find fertile farmland somewhere north of present-day New York City, but bad weather forced them to retreat. They intended
to try again for the Hudson, but the approaching winter and dwindling supplies eventually convinced them to continue on across Cape Cod Bay
to Plymouth.
3. The Pilgrims didn’t name Plymouth, Massachusetts, for Plymouth, England.
–
•
The Mayflower actually carried three distinct groups of passengers within the walls of its curving hull. About half were in fact Separatists, the
people we now know as the Pilgrims. Another handful of those on board were sympathetic to the Separatist cause but weren’t actually part of
that core group of dissidents. The remaining passengers were really just hired hands—laborers, soldiers and craftsmen of various stripes whose
skills were required for both the transatlantic crossing and those vital first few months ashore. Community leader John Alden, for instance, was
originally a cooper, brought along to make and repair barrels on board the ship. Myles Standish, who would eventually become the military
leader of Plymouth Colony, was a soldier hired for protection against whatever natives the settlers might encounter.
The Puritans, who settled the region north of Plymouth, were known for their strict approach to how religion was practiced within their borders.
The Pilgrims, on the other hand, never made any attempts to convert outsiders to their faith, including the Native Americans they encountered
in America and the nonbelievers who’d joined them as laborers in England. Generally speaking, they didn’t even try to impose their unique
observances on their friends and neighbors. For instance, while the Pilgrims themselves didn’t themselves Christmas, they didn’t stop others
from taking the day off and celebrating it as they wished. They also allowed men who were not part of their faith to hold public office, and they
apparently had no problem with the intermarriage of believers and nonbelievers. As a matter of fact, they didn’t consider marriage to be a
religious matter at all, preferring instead to view it as a civil contract outside the church’s jurisdiction.
http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-pilgrims?cmpid=INT_Outbrain_HITH_HIS&obref=obnetwork
Puritans and The Great Migration
1630-1642
•
Members of reformed Protestant sects in
Europe and America who insisted on
removing all vestiges of Catholicism from
popular religious practice.
•
Migration of 16,000 Puritan men and women
from England to the MA Bay Colony during
the 1630s.
•
•
In 1629, five English ships bursting with
Puritans émigrés sailed into Massachusetts
Bay, the first of many that would bring to
Britain's newest colony the 20 thousand –
odd settlers who participated in the Great
Puritan migration
•
John Winthrop – The Arabella – the Arabella
Covenant – “City Upon a Hill” – A Model of
Christian Charity
•
Puritans vs. Pilgrims: How did the
differences between Pilgrims and Puritans
help shape the states of New England?
http://www.history.com/shows/how-thestates-got-their-shapes/videos/puritans-vspilgrims
A “New” England in America:
–
The Mayflower Compact: Agreement among
the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 to
cerate a civil government at Plymouth Colony.
–
Puritan: Members of reformed Protestant
sects in Europe and America who insisted on
removing all vestiges of Catholics from
popular religious practices.
–
John Winthrop: The Arabella, First Gov. of MA
BAY – Manifest Density…”City Upon a Hill” A
Model of Christian Charity.
•
PURITAN BELIEFS
•
•
TYPOLOGY:
The belief that God’s intentions are present in human action
and in natural phenomenon.
•
* Puritans viewed the Bible as God’s covenant with them;
they saw themselves as a Chosen People and identified
strongly with the tribes of Israel in the Book of Exodus.
•
Failure to understand these intentions are human limitation.
•
•
Puritans believe in cyclical or repetitive history; they uses
“types”- Moses prefigures Jesus, Jonah’s patience is reflective
in Jesus' ordeal on the cross, and Moses’ journey out of Egypt
is played out in the Pilgrim’s crossing of the Atlantic.
In reading both Testaments, they included that God, though
sometimes arbitrary in his power, is neither malicious nor
capricious.
•
* Doers of evil suffer and are destroyed; true believers and
doers of good may suffer as well, as worldly misfortune as
both a test of faith and a signifier of God’s will.
•
God wrath and reward are also present in natural
phenomena like flooding, bountiful harvest, the invasion of
locusts, and the lightening striking a home
•
•
•
The Style of Their Writings:
1. Protest – against ornateness; reverence for the Bible
* Covenant theology taught that although no human being
can ever know for certain whether or not he or she is among
the saved, the only hope lay in rigorous study of Scripture;
relentless moral self-examination, and active, whole-hearted
membership in these congregations
•
2. Purposiveness – there was a purpose to Puritan writing :
The Function as described in the previous slide
•
3. Puritan writing reflected the character and scope of the
reading public, which was literate and well-grounded in
religion
Manifest Destiny
• The concept of manifest destiny is as old as
the first New England settlements. Without
using the words, John Winthrop articulated
the concept in his famous sermon, the
Arabella Covenant (1630), when he said:
“…for we must consider that we shall be as a
city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are
upon us;…
Social Stability: New England Colonies
of the 17th Century
• 17th century New Englanders successfully replicated in
America a traditional social order they had known in
England.
• The transfer of a familiar way of life to the new World
seemed less difficult for these Puritan migrants than it
did for the many English men and women who settled
in the Chesapeake colonies.
• Their contrasting experiences, fundamental to an
understanding of the development of both cultures,
can be explained, at least in part, by the extraordinary
strength and resilience of New England families.
Immigrant Families and New Social Order
•
Early New England believed God ordained for human
benefit.
•
The New Englanders’ concern about the character of the
godly family played a central role in their society.
•
It was essential to the maintenance of social order, since
outside the family, men and women succumbed to carnal
temptation.
•
In contrast to those who migrated to Virginia and
Maryland, New Englanders crossed the Atlantic within
nuclear families.
•
The godly family, at least in theory, was ruled by a
patriarch, father to his children, husband to his wife, the
source of authority and object of unquestioned obedience.
•
This comforting presence of immediate family reduced the
shock of adjusting to a strange environment 3,000 miles
from home.
•
The wife shared responsibility for the raising of children,
but in decisions of importance, especially those related to
property, she was expected to defer to her spouse.
•
Even in the 1630s, the ratio of men to women in New
England was fairly well balanced, about three males for
every 2 females.
•
Puritan Women:
•
Early N E marriage patterns did not differ substantially
from 17th century England. The average age for men in a
1st marriage = mid20’s, wives were slightly younger @ 22.
•
New England males lived longer – to see their
grandchildren. This may have been one of the 1st societies
in recorder history in which a person could reasonably
anticipate knowing his grandchildren, a demographic
surprise that contributed to social stabiliy
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
New England relied heavily on the work of women.
Women usually handled separate tasks form men: cooking,
washing, clothes making, dairying, gardening
Their production of food was absolutely essential to the
survival of most households.
Some wives – and the overwhelming majority of adult 17th
century women were married – raised poultry – which gave
some an economic independence.
Women joined churches – within a few years, the women
outnumbered the men 2 to 1
Politically and Legally: society sharply curtained women’s
rights…according to English common law, a wife exercised no
control over property. – she could not sell land.
Divorce existed but was extremely difficult to obtain in an
colony before the American Revolutionary War.
MA BAY COLONY
•
Once settled, the Bay colonists developed
a highly innovative form of government
known as Congregationalism:
–
Under the system, each village church was
independent of outside interference.
– The American Puritans wanted nothing of
bishops, etc.
– The people were the church, and as a body,
they pledged to uphold god’s law.
MA BAY COLONY Exhibited these characteristics:
– 1. it was more Puritan than Separatist
– 2. it included family groups from the onset
– 3. it quickly produced several settlements
– 4. it developed a small fur trade w the local
Indians
•
The government of MA was neither a
democracy nor a theocracy:
–
The magistrates elected in MA did not
believe they represented the voters, much
less the whole populace.
– They ruled in the name of the electorate, but
their responsibility as rulers was to God.
•
JOHN WINTHROP:
– In 1638, Winthrop warned against overly
democratic forms, since “the best part [of the
people] is always the least, and of that best
part the wiser is always the lesser.”
– And second, the Congregational ministers
possessed no formal political authority in MA
BAY.
– They could not even hold civil office, and it
was not unusual for the voters to ignore
recommendations of a respected minister
– Dominated colonial politics: 1630 Sails for
New England; writes first journal entry of Bay
Colony; delivers his lay-sermon, "Modell of
Christian Charity," aboard the Arbella.
– 1634 Voted out of the governorship.
– 1637 Reelected governor.
– 1640 Voted out of governorship.
– 1642 Reelected governor.
– 1645 Stands trial, having been accused for
overstepping authority.
– 1646 Reelected governor and serves until his
death.
Establish a New Social Order
• During the 17th century, N E colonists gradually sorted themselves
into distinct social groups.
• Persons who would never have been “natural rules” in England
became provincial gentry in the various northern colonies.
• Wealth and Education helped, but these attributes alone could not
guarantee a newcomer would be accepted into the ruling elite.
• In MA and CT, Puritan voters expected their leaders to join
Congregational churches and defend orthodox religion.
• Most Northern colonists were yeomen ( independent farmers) who
worked their own land.
YEOMEN: Independent farmers
• Their daily lives, especially for those who settled in New England,
centered on scattered little communities where they participated in
village meetings, church-related matters, and militia training.
• Possession of land gave agrarian families an independence.
• It was not unusual for northern colonists to work as servants at
some point in their lives.
• This system of labor differed greatly from VA and Maryland. New
Englanders seldom recruited servants from the Old World. The
forms of agriculture practiced in this region, mixed cereal and dairy
farming, made employment of large gangs of dependent economic
workers uneconomic.
Anne Hutchinson
•
•
Deeply fascinated by intricate theological issues, Hutchinson began to hold weekly discussion groups in her
home following Sunday services. Attendance at these meetings grew rapidly and included young governor
Henry Vane as well as several of the colony’s other leading citizens. After establishing her skill as the discussion
leader, Hutchinson revealed her support of the efficacy of faith alone (the covenant of grace) as they key to
salvation, as opposed to the standard Puritan emphasis on good works (the covenant of works). She also
expressed her belief that God revealed himself to individuals without the aid of clergy.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h577.html
•
John Winthrop was leery of Hutchinson’s views and cautioned that women could do irreparable damage to
their brains by pondering deep theological matters — a view not uncommon for the day. Winthrop and John
Cotton led the opposition to Hutchinson and charged that she and her followers were guilty of the antinomian
heresy. She was brought to trial before the General Court in 1637, found guilty and banished from the Bay
Colony.
•
Hutchinson joined other dissenters in the establishment of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Following her husband’s
death, she moved to Long Island and finally to Pelham Bay. In 1643, Hutchinson and other family members
were killed in an Indian attack.
•
Anne Hutchinson’s religious views were a threat not only to the Puritan clergy, but also to the civil authorities
of Massachusetts Bay. If an individual's beliefs and conduct were strictly matters between that person and God,
then what was the need for ministers and government officials? Hutchinson ranks with Roger Williams as a
leading voice of dissent in early New England.
Antinomianism
• Religious belief rejecting traditional moral law as
unnecessary for Christians who possess saving
grace and affirming that an individual could
experience divine revelation and salvation
without the assistance of formally trained clergy.
• Anne Hutchinson 2 very tense days in 1637… “by
an immediate revelation…By the voice of his own
spirit to my soul.”
The 13 Original Colonies
• http://www.timepage.org/spl/13colony.html
• Roger William’s founded Rhode Island: 1636
– Roger Williams: Religious Ideas - created controversy –
preached extreme separatism…said MA Bay was impure as
long as they remained even nominal member of the
Church of England.
– Believed it was God who would punish…not the men of
MA Bay
• Thomas Hooker founded Connecticut: 1636
– The father of Connecticut was Thomas Hooker, who
arrived in boston in 1632.
Roger Williams is Exiled to Rhode Island
•
•
Banished in his time, beloved in ours, Roger Williams represents
•
a paradoxical early expression of the American ideals of
democracy and religious freedom
VOICES OF THE PAST:
–
–
–
William Bradford described him as “godly and zealous...but
very unsettled in judgment” with “strange opinions.”
John Winthrop said Williams held “diverse new and dangerous
opinions.”
Cotton Mather vilified him as a kind of Don Quixote, the
“first rebel against the divine-church order in the
wilderness” with a “windmill” whirling so furiously in
his head that “a whole country in America [is] like to be
set on fire.”
•
Founder of: Providence, Rhode Island, which prospered under
his tolerance, became a haven for heretics, runaways, and
malcontents, a “Rogue’s Island.”
•
Symbolizes: Since the nineteenth century, Americans have
enshrined Roger Williams as a symbol of liberty of individual
conscience and toleration of racial and religious differences, an
apostle of civil and spiritual freedom.
•
•
BUT IS HE A HERO?
–
Williams’ liberal inclusiveness was paradoxical, since it was
based on his own rigid adherence to the doctrine of
separatism.
–
He was a friend of the Narragansett Indians and defender
of religious dissenters because he was a devout
Separatist Puritan, whose political ideas were founded on
his belief that Christianity must be free from the “foul
embrace” of civil authority.
Rather than liberalism, it was his literalism—his literalminded reading of Christian scripture—that led him
toward policies of religious tolerance.
–
HIS PATH:
–
–
Williams grew up in the Smithfield district of London, a center of
Separatist activity – he graduated from Cambridge University with a
Master’s degree
And then…..it is said that he: Having “forsaken the university”
for Puritanism, he became a chaplain in 1629
His religious beliefs grew increasingly radical.
He met John Winthrop and John Cotton, who would become
his chief adversary.
–
On December 10, 1630, Williams sailed with the Great
Migration on the LYON.
– His unorthodoxy started trouble almost as soon as the
Puritans arrived in February 1631.
– Called to be minister of Boston’s First Church, he told the
community he “durst not officiate to an unseparated people.”
– He insisted that they separate and repent worshiping with
the Church of England.
– Also, he denounced magistrates for punishing violations of the
Sabbath, arguing that they had no authority to enforce the
first four Commandments, thus beginning a battle with the
Puritan leaders over separation of church and state.
Moving first to Plymouth and then to Salem, he continued to
preach three extreme positions:
–
(1) the Puritans should become Separatists (a position that
endangered the Massachusetts Bay Company charter and
the relative freedom it granted);
– (2) the charter was invalid because Christian kings had no
right to heathen lands (a position based on separation of
spiritual and material prerogatives);
– and (3) the civil magistrates had no jurisdiction over matters
of conscience and soul, only material and social matters (a
position that undermined the Puritan oligarchy).
–
–
Roger Williams
•
•
The governor and magistrates saw the
dangerous implications of Williams’s positions,
and on July 8, 1635, he was indicted for heresy
and divisiveness, then sentenced to
banishment on October 9.
To avoid deportation, Williams fled south to an
Indian settlement in January 1636. Roger and
Mary Williams arrived at Boston on February 5,
1631,
– he was welcomed and invited to become
the Teacher (assistant minister) in the
Boston church
– He said no…. it was "an unseparated
church“
– He asserted that the civil magistrates may
not punish any sort of "breach of the first
table [of the Ten Commandments]", such
as idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, false
worship, and blasphemy, and that every
individual should be free to follow his own
convictions in religious matters. Right from
the beginning, he sounded three principles
which were central to his subsequent
career:
• Separatism, freedom of religion, and
separation of church and state.
•
As a Separatist:
– concluded that the Church of England was
irredeemably corrupt
– one must completely separate from it to
establish a new church for the true and
pure worship of God.
– His search for the true church eventually
carried him out of Congregationalism, the
Baptists, and any visible church.
– From 1639 forward, he waited for Christ to
send a new apostle to reestablish the
church, and he saw himself as a "witness"
to Christianity until that time came.
– He believed that soul liberty freedom of
conscience, was a gift from God, and that
everyone had the natural right to freedom
of religion
– Religious freedom demanded that church
and state be separated.
– Williams was the first to use the phrase
"wall of separation" to describe the
relationship of the church and state. He
called for a high wall of separation
between the "Garden of Christ" and the
"Wilderness of the World".
Thomas Hooker 1636 and the
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
•
Thomas Hooker (July 5, 1586 – July 7, 1647) was a prominent Puritan religious
and colonial leader, who founded the Colony of Connecticut after dissenting with
Puritan leaders in Massachusetts.
•
He was known as an outstanding speaker and a leader of universal Christian
suffrage.
• Called today “the Father of Connecticut,” Thomas Hooker was a towering figure in
the early development of colonial New England.
• He was one of the great preachers of his time, an erudite writer on Christian
subjects, the first minister of Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the first settlers
and founders of both the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut, and cited
by many as the inspiration for the "Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," cited by
some as the world's first written democratic constitution that established a
representative government.
– http://www.constitution.org/bcp/fo_1639.htm
Thomas Hooker
vs.
John Winthrop
•
The Rev. John Cotton became the Puritan pastor at
Boston
•
Hooker at the adjoining village of Newtown, now
Cambridge.
–
–
–
•
The Disagreement between Winthrop and Hooker:
–
–
–
–
•
Hooker was a great a preacher
Very powerful and influential
He was a great statesman
Governor Winthrop - was an aristocrat to the core.
He believed in the government of the many by the
few, and it was he that influenced the Bay colony to
create freemen out of the citizens but slowly, and to
limit the suffrage to members of the Church.
To this Hooker could not agree.
A sharp controversy ensured between him and the
governor of Massachusetts.
To Winthrop he wrote that, "In matters which
concern the common good, a general council
chosen by all, to transact business which concern
all, I conceive most suitable to rule and most safe
for relief of the whole."
•
Founds: Hartford, Connecticut
•
This disagreement with Winthrop led Hooker into
the wilderness and founding another colony Connecticut.
•
Old Connecticut Path:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1heUu2r8rM
•
Some Historians believe the overwhelming
popularity of John Cotton over Hooker contributed
–
–
Cotton, the pastor at Boston, was the leading
clergyman, the religious oracle of the colony;
while Hooker, conscious of equal power and
eloquence, believed that the insignificance of the
town in which he was located, away from the harbor,
in the midst of an unfertile region, had much to do
with curbing his influence.
Harvard University 1636
•
The oldest institution of higher learning in the
United States.
•
Founded 16 years after the arrival of the Pilgrims
at Plymouth
•
Began with nine students and a single master
•
Currently - an enrollment of more than 18,000
degree candidates, including undergraduates and
students in 10 principal academic units.
•
Seven presidents of the United States were
graduates:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
John Adams,
John Quincy Adams,
Theodore Roosevelt,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Rutherford B. Hayes,
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
George W. Bush, and
Our 44th president, Barack Obama
•
Harvard College was established in 1636 by vote of
the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony and was named for its first benefactor,
John Harvard of Charlestown, a young minister
who, upon his death in 1638, left his library and
half his estate to the new institution.
•
Harvard's first scholarship fund was created in
1643 with a gift from Ann Radcliffe, Lady Mowlson.
•
During its early years, the College offered a classic
academic course based on the English university
model but consistent with the prevailing Puritan
philosophy of the first colonists.
•
Founded by Puritans – but the College was never
formally affiliated with a specific religious
denomination.
•
An early brochure, published in 1643, justified the
College's existence: "To advance Learning and
perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an
illiterate Ministry to the Churches."
Maryland: A Catholic Refuge
•
•
•
Founded in 1634 by a Catholic Nobleman:
– Sir George Calvert, later Lord Baltimore.
– He was King James’ I Secretary of State but he was
CATHOLIC: In 1625, he publically declared his
Catholicism (persons who openly supported the
Church of Rome were immediately stripped of all
govt titles and positions).
– Forced to resign, but retained the Crown's favor
– Calvert sponsored a settlement on the coast of
Newfoundland - But after examining it…he said…
“ayre [is] so intolerably cold.” – and turned his
attention to the Chesapeake
• June 30, 1632, Charles I granted George
Calvert’s son, Cecilius, a charter for a colony
to be located north of VA.
A Colony for a Profit:
• Cecilius, the 2nd Lord Baltimore, wanted to create a
sanctuary of England's persecuted Catholics and
….He also intended to make $.
• He needs Protestant settlers for it to prosper
• Cecilius instructed his brother Leonard, the
•
colony's gov. to do nothing that would
frighten off Protestants.
• The gov was ordered to “cause all Acts of the
Roman Catholic Religion to be done as privately as
may be and...and to instruct all Roman Catholics to
be silent upon all occasions of discourse concerning
matters of religion.”
Baltimore 1634:
–
March 25, 1634, the Ark and Dove, carrying @ 150 settlers
– The colony’s charter made Lord Baltimore a proprietor with
royal powers- Settlers swore an oath of allegiance not to the
King of England but to Lord Baltimore.
– As the proprietor Lord Baltimore owned outright almost 6
million acres; he possessed absolute authority over anyone
living in his domain.
–
Members of a colonial ruling class, persons who purchased
6000 acres from Baltimore, were called lords of the manor.
– These landed aristocrats were permitted to establish local
courts of law.
–
People holding less acres enjoyed fewer privileges,
particularly in govt.
–
Baltimore figured that land sales and rents would adequately
finance the entire venture.
– Baltimore’s feudal system never took root in Chesapeake soil.
– People simply refused to play the social roles the lord
proprietor had assigned and These tensions affected
Maryland's govt.
– The 1st assembly convened in 1635, Baltimore allowed the
delegates and for 25 years legislative squabbling almost
destroyed Maryland.
Religious Strife:
– During the English Civil War Years, in 1649 “The Act
Concerning Religion” was drafted – which extended toleration
to all individuals who accepted the divinity of Christ.
– Baltimore championed liberty of conscience. But The act did
not heal religious division
– Local Puritans seized the colony’s government, they property
repealed the act.
Tobacco in Maryland
• Tobacco:
– Tobacco was the staple in Maryland
– It required a steady stream of indentured servants
– Eventually replaced by slaves at the end of the
17th century.
The Mason-Dixon line
• The boundaries of the settlement, named
Maryland in honor of Charles's queen, were so
vaguely defined that they generated legal
controversies not fully resolved until the 18th
century when Charles Mason and Jeremiah
Dixon surveyed their famous line between
Pennsylvania and Maryland.
New York
•
1664 - Peter Stuyvesant, director-general of the Dutch colony of New – surrenders to John
Winthrop, Gov. of CT
•
The colony’s origins dated to 1609, when Englishman Henry Hudson had charted the area on behalf of the
Dutch East India Company and the Dutch had laid claim to a wide swath of the East Coast.
–
–
New Netherland covered an area encompassing all or parts of five future states: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
The colony existed in a state of constant struggle.
•
•
–
A Mixed society: In the 1640s the 500 colonists in New Amsterdam communicated in 18 languages.
•
•
•
•
In the wake of the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, Charles II had set about reorganizing the American colonies.
He intended to restrict the power of the Puritans and also to make a play for the Dutch colony.
Charles granted his brother James, the Duke of York, title over the land that encompassed the Dutch colony.
•
•
•
To deal with this diversity, the city’s elders formulated an official policy of tolerance, a genuine anomaly in Europe at the time.
Along with tolerance, the Dutch also introduced 17th-century capitalism.
The inhabitants were vigorous traders: carpenters, wheelwrights, and even prostitutes bought shares in shipments of goods being
transported to the home country.
Restoration of the Stuart monarchy: Charles II
–
–
–
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Indians threatened it, and so did the English.
Thanks largely to the English Civil Wars, people had fled England in large numbers for the colonies in New England and Virginia, and as
their numbers swelled they encroached on the boundaries of New Netherland.
He sent four ships and 2,000 men.
As it happened, it was fortunate for the city—whose name was changed forthwith to New York after the duke’s
title—that it had gotten its start under the Dutch.
The Dutch imprinted their tolerance and free trading
New York would grow along a different trajectory from the rest of British North America.
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New York’s distinctively multiethnic, upwardly mobile culture.
Dutch influence
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Massasoit
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King Philip’s War
Wampanoag,
had cultivated harmonious relations with the colonists,
being especially helpful to the Pilgrims in their early travails, but tribal lands diminished sharply as the colonists
expanded. In 1662, Metacom, a son of Massasoit and known to the colonists as King Philip, became sachem.
The Wampanoags` dependence upon English manufactured goods led them into ever-increasing land sales,
resulting in further resentment and tension.
The Beginning of the end:
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In 1675, three tribal members were tried and executed by the English for the murder of a converted Wampanoag,
touching off more than a year of hostilities.
Beginning in June 1675, the Wampanoag, outfitted with rifles and armor, attacked a series of settlements and took the
lives of dozens of colonial men, women and children.
English forces retaliated in kind by destroying native villages and slaughtering the inhabitants. Soon other tribes, including
the Narragansett, joined the fray and the entire region fell into conflict.
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The tide turned in April 1676, when the Narragansett were decisively defeated and their chief killed.
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Philip/Metacom:
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Philip was betrayed, captured and killed.
He was drawn and quartered and his severed head placed on a stake to be paraded through Plymouth Colony.
Philip`s son was sold into slavery in Bermuda and many other captives were forced into servitude in homes throughout
New England.
"Praying Indians," who had been converted to Christianity, but were distrusted by both sides.
The End:
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The colonists prevailed in King Philip`s War, but the cost was tremendous.
It would be more than two decades before all of the devastated frontier settlements could be reoccupied, and longer still
before they began further expansion in the West.
The New England Native Americans had been decimated to the extent that their impact on future events would be almost
nonexistent.
Quakers in America
• Members of a radical religious group, formally known
as the Society of Friends, who rejected formal theology
and stressed each person's “Inner Light,” a spiritual
guide to righteousness.
• William Penn’s Holy Experiment:
– The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as Pennsylvania
Colony, was a colony in British America founded by William
Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted
by King Charles II of England.
– Pennsylvania got its name for William Penn's father, Admiral
Sir William Penn and the Latin word silva, meaning "forest".
– The name itself means "Penn's Woods".
Salem 1692
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June- Sept 1692
19 men and women
Salem Village (Danvers)
Hundreds faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens languished in jail for
months without trials until the hysteria that swept through Puritan
Massachusetts subsided.
Samuel Parris
Elizabeth Parris
Abagail Williams
Tituba
Cotton Mather
Ann Putnam, Sr.
Spectral evidence
– Sarah Good and Sara Osborn
James Oglethorpe is Granted a Charter for Georgia
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Oglethorpe and Prison:
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Oglethorpe was a staunch defender of the rights of colonists and strongly against any kind of slavery.
Oglethorpe was noted as a philanthropist
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He ended up killing a man in a brawl and served five months in prison.
helping children and defending seamen against impressment (being forced into service against one's will).
It was his work on the Prison Discipline Committee that brought him in contact with the idea of creating a colony of debtors in the New World.
Proposed by a number of writers and in at least one book, the concept gained some acceptance before Oglethorpe became a driving force in the
group in 1728.
A friend of Oglethorpe's died in Fleet Debtor's Prison after contracting smallpox.
This event would change Oglethorpe's life.
Oglethorpe, along with other famous military men on the Prison Discipline Committee, like Admiral Edward Vernon and Field
Marshal George Wade, had witnessed first-hand the atrocities of both the Fleet and Marshalsea Debtors Prisons.
A group of 21 men (List of Georgia trustees), including Oglethorpe and Lord Percival, created a charter for the new colony
named Georgia (in honor of King George II).
The grant included all land between the Altamaha and Savannah Rivers and from the headwaters of these rivers to the "south
seas."
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The king signed the charter - June 9, 1732.
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When time came to choose the men and women who would establish the new colony none were from debtors prison because
enough non-debtor colonists were found.
Funds to pay for the trip across the Atlantic Ocean were raised, some even from the Parliament. Oglethorpe paid his own way.
Today he referred to as "resident trustee" by the state of Georgia although he held no position either elected or appointed.
After putting ashore in South Carolina in January, 1733, James Oglethorpe, William Bull (an engineer from Charles Town), Peter
Gordon and a group of the militia left the colonists and headed south and turned into the mouth of the Savannah River, sailing
18 miles upstream. They landed at the site of present-day Savannah. Oglethorpe was impressed with the area because
Yamacraw Bluff afforded protection against an assault from the river. Around the perimeter swampy areas added to the
defensive nature of the position.
Near the site selected for the settlers John and Mary Musgrove, the son of a former governor of South Carolina and his fullblooded Creek wife, made a living trading goods with local Creek Indians. Musgrove aided Oglethorpe in securing this land from
Tomochichi, leader of the nearby Creek village, prior to the arrival of the settlers.
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In Groups, Please pick a question to
report back to the class on:
• 1. What conditions explain the remarkable social stability achieved
in early New England?
• 2. What factors contributed to political unrest in the Chesapeake
region during this period?
• 3. How did African American slaves preserve an independent
cultural identity in the New World?
• 4. Why did England discourage free and open trade in colonial
America?
• 5. How did colonial revolts affect the political culture of Virginia and
New England?
Group Work
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Discuss the Chesapeake and New England colonies in a series of lectures that concentrate on the differences
between the cultures and societies established in each of the two regions.
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United States history and Literature is typically split at the Civil War ( Part 1 and Part 2); discuss the fundamental
differences between these two areas and introduce some distinctions between the two regions that will persist until
the Civil War.
Some topics for coverage:
– 1. The different characteristics of the populations that originally settled these regions - how did the cultures
and mores of these regions influence the societies that developed in North America?
– 2. The differences in how the original settlers of each region were motivated to come to the New World. To
what extent was the state of the British economy a factor? To what extent was religion a factor? How did the
differences in motivation impact the societies that emerged?
– 3. The differences in the socioeconomic characteristics of each region. Point out the distinction between the
plantation society of the Chesapeake and the freeholder society of New England, explain distinctions in how
land was distributed in each region and the impact that the systems of land distribution had on the nature of
each area’s social structure, and point out the diversity of the New England economy versus the one-crop
economy of the Chesapeake.
– 4. The difference in the level of importance placed on religion in each region. Explain the importance of
Calvinist theology in defining New England society and culture. Contrast this emphasis with the lower priority
placed on religion in the South (at least until the Great Awakening). How did these religious differences impact
the emergence of regional ethics?
– 5. The differences in the political systems that emerged in the Chesapeake and New England. Why did the
Chesapeake evolve into a political aristocracy while New England developed one of the most democratic
political systems in America?
– 6. In discussing fundamental differences between the North and the South prior to the Civil War, many
historians have emphasized the progressive nature of the nineteenth-century North and the conservative
nature of the Old South. Begin now to discuss the meaning of these terms. Was there already, during the
colonial period, a philosophical distinction between the settlers of New England and the Chesapeake? Was
there something progressive, even radical, about the decision of the Pilgrims and Puritans to come to the New
World? Were they seeking something new or trying to retain the old? Was there something conservative about
the decision of the early settlers of the Chesapeake to come to the New World? Were they seeking something
new or were they more intent on preserving the England they knew and loved