Founding the Colonies
Roanoke Island:
Established as an Economic Venture in 1587.
As governor, John White hoped to establish the first permanent
English settlement in the New World by developing a selfsufficient economy and agriculture.
Settled on Roanoke Island.
August 1587 John White left to get more supplies from England.
He could not return for 3 years do to England’s war with Spain.
When he got back the colony was gone. Only Croatoan carved
into a tree.
Croatoan was the name of a friendly Indian Tribe to the south, but
bad weather prevented White from going to look.
Called the Lost Colony.
In 1709 an explorer claimed to have met English speaking natives
with European traits in the area who claimed to be descended
from white people. This is one theory of what happened to them.
Jamestown:
The London Company of Virginia set up a joint stock company for a
new venture in the Americas in 1607. A joint stock company is
where investors pooled their resources in hopes of striking it rich
but at the same time sharing in the losses.
Jamestown was an economic venture to collect gold and natural
resources to sell for $$ back in England.
Gentlemen were brought to oversee gold collection. And few knew
how to work. Little food and fresh water meant the colonists were
dependent on the Indians.
Smith’s no work no eat policy made the gentlemen mad.
Winter of 1609-1610: called the Starving Time. (one of worst
droughts VA had experienced, poor harvest, rats in food stores, led
to cannibalism)
http://historicjamestowne.org/archaeology/jane/history/
Only 60/500 survived the winter. They tried to go home but more
supplies came. Yay!
Cash Crop
John Rolfe married Pocahontas and began experimenting with
native plant- tobacco!
English loved it, and it became as good as gold.
The plantation economy depended on a steady supply of
cheap labor. Before African Slaves were introduced, they
needed people willing to sell their labor in exchange for a free
ride across the Atlantic. These came to be known as
Indentured Servants.
By 1700, slavery became the backbone of the southern
plantation economy, which could set the colonies on different
paths that would eventually lead to the American Civil War in
1860.
Colonists Escape Religious Persecution:
http://www.history.com/topics/us-states/massachusetts/videos/puritans-vs-pilgrims
Plymouth:
After the Reformation, (people breaking away across Europe from the Catholic
Church and its authority) some people believed that the Church of England was still
too Catholic.
Pilgrims wanted to separate their beliefs from the Church of England but maintain
their cultural identity as Englishmen. They established a colony in Plymouth, Mass.
A member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by the explorer John
Smith and taken to England, only to escape back to his native land, Squanto acted as
an interpreter and mediator between Plymouth’s leaders and local Native Americans.
In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims famously shared a harvest feast with the Pokanokets;
the meal is now considered the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 English colonists on the ship Mayflower on
November 11, 1620, was the first written framework of government established in
what is now the United States. The compact was drafted to prevent dissent amongst
Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims who had landed at Plymouth a few days earlier.
Religious Persecution: Massachusetts Bay Colony
While the Pilgrims were occupied with the problems of
survival, the better organized and provisioned Puritans who
founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony came with a mission, to
establish their own shining ‘citty [sic] upon a Hill,’ free of the
sin and corruption of the land and society they were leaving.
Religion and government were deeply intertwined in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony and only the most devout Puritans
could participate in governmental affairs.
The Puritans were highly intolerant of other religions and
came to the New World specifically to escape religious
persecution and create their own community where they
could live only among like-minded people.
The company could erect a self-governing religious
commonwealth. It would allow the leaders to create the kind
of society they wanted, a ‘City of God in the wilderness
Religious Freedom- Pennsylvania
The middle colony of Pennsylvania was
granted to an English Quaker named
William Penn in 1681.
Quakers disagreed with the beliefs and
ceremonies of other churches.
The democratic principles that he set forth
served as an inspiration for the United
States Constitution.
Ahead of his time, Penn also published a plan
for a United States of Europe including a
democratic system with full freedom of
religion, fair trials, elected representatives
of the people in power, and a separation of
powers — again ideas that would later form
the basis of the American constitution.
Economic Freedom: Georgia
Georgia was started in 1732 .
Created to help English debtors improve their lives.
At the time of the charter, British prisons were being overcrowded by people in debt. Oglethorpe spent much of his time in
England working with the poor and insisted that the formation of
a new colony would allow debt-ridden people a fresh start. His
idea was to create an asylum for the poor and the persecuted
Protestants.
King George was unconcerned about English debtors. Instead, he
saw Georgia as an attractive opportunity to create a buffer zone
between Spanish-owned Florida, French-owned Louisiana and
the English colonies farther north. He approved the Georgian
experiment, and thousands of debtors moved to the colony.