The Planting of English America1500 - 1733

Chapter 2

Protestant Reformation

• Martin Luther Ninety-five Theses (1517)– Condemned many practices of Catholic

church including indulgences– Did not believe people could win grace

through good deeds– Wanted to reduce role of clergy– Bible, not Church was focus of faith

• Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain sought to imprison Luther, but German princes protected him– Spark for religious conflict in Europe

England’s Imperial Stirrings

• Henry VIII then Elizabeth I made England leader of Protestant Europe– Creates Anglican Church (Church of England) in 1534– Establishes England as religious rival to Catholic Spain

• Virgin Queen Elizabeth (ascend to throne 1558)– Reinforced Protestant beliefs and opposition to Catholicism

Some believed she kept too many “anti-Christian” practices– Wanted to make England powerful– Attacked Irish– Built up England’s navy

• Authorized pirates to attack Spanish settlements as a way to spread Protestantism and gain revenue for England

• Sea Dogs– British pirates who raided Spanish galleons– Sir Francis Drake was most famous

First British Attempts at Colonization

Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1583)•Attempted settlements in Newfoundland to help English trade and give jobs to unemployed

– failed in attempt to create a colony

Sir Walter Raleigh (1585)•Roanoke created in North Carolina

– Disappeared by 1590• “Croatoan”

• Early failures led to creation of joint stock company to fund colony– people buy shares of stock in investment– allows more money available for exploration

England Eclipses Spain• Spanish Armada (1588)

– Philip II of Spain wanted to restore Catholicism to England– Navies fought in English Channel

• “Protestant Wind” blows and scatters Spanish Navy– British defeat Spanish Armada– Led to decline of Spain and rise of Britain

• England becomes dominant North American power

• Dutch Independence (1566-1581)– Britain supported revolt of Dutch against Spain

• Treaty of London (1604)– Peace established between England and Spain– Creates sense of optimism and confidence in England

• Spread Protestant Christianity, especially Puritanism

• Price Revolution• Inflation spurred by American

gold and silver• Support British navy and merchant

marine• Economic depression in late 1500s

led to homeless and unemployed to move

Reasons for Colonies• Booming population • Land enclosure movement• Raw materials for British industry• Government supported industry• Markets for British goods• Little Ice Age (1350-1850)

– Coldest time 1620-1660 led to crop failures, famine, social unrest

Hampshire, England

Richard Hakluyt (1584 -1600)•Wrote books encouraging exploration•Argued for “planting” settlements in New World•Lobbied for approval of charter for Virginia Company

Virginia Company of London• Also known as London Company

– King James I gave charter in 1606 to create a colony

– Given land between modern NJ and SC

– Settlers told to find gold or lose funding

– Guaranteed same rights as Englishmen

• Sent 3 ships to Virginia– Susan Constant, Godspeed,

Discovery

Jamestown• May 24, 1607

– Created Jamestown along James River in Virginia

– Poor choice of land – swampy, mosquitoes, bad water

– Most settlers were “gentlemen” or looking for gold, so could not produce their own food through hunting, fishing or farming

• Half settlers died in first winter– Company kept sending more settlers

• Captain John Smith– “He who shall not work shall not eat”– Pocahontas and Powhatan

• “Starving Time” Winter 1609-1610 440 of 500 settlers died

Conflict with Powhatan

• Powhatan Confederacy– Loosely allied group of tribes

• Lord De La Warr (1610) sent to Jamestown by Virginia Company to defeat Indians

• First Anglo-Powhatan War (1614)– Indian homes and fields burned– Ended with marriage of Pocahontas to John

Rolfe• Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1644)

– Indians try to force whites from land and lose– Defeated Indians were banished from their

lands• 1685 Powhatan people considered extinct• English win because Indians were not united and

disease destroyed Indian communities

Indians New World• Ways of life changed

– Horses created Indian migration and offered new hunting opportunities

• Disease– Destroyed entire cultures,

sometimes in advance of white settlement

– Eliminated elders and social stability

• Trade– Barter system moved to

commercial trade– Increased competition between

tribes for European goods, especially guns

• Algonquians– United with other tribes to increase

power vis a vis Europeans

Tobacco

• John Rolfe began growing tobacco (1612)– gave British a cash crop to keep settlement going– Increased demand for new land

• Tobacco ruins soil, so land needs to be replaced• Demand for more tobacco and wealth• Increased contact and confrontation with Indians

• Slavery introduced to Virginia (1619)– Early on slaves were too expensive to be

brought in large numbers

House of Burgesses• Colony established

– Company allowed more relaxed rules to attract settlers

• House of Burgesses (1619)– First elected assembly in

America– Allowed America

to make its own laws

• King James I did not trust it– 1624 revoked Virginia

Company charter and made Virginia a royal colony

Proprietorships

• King granted control of colony to a proprietor– Proprietor was usually friend of King

• Proprietor appointed governor, made laws, collected tax

• Ran colonies as business ventures

Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore

Maryland

JamesDuke of York

New York

William PennPennsylvania, New Jersey,

Delaware

James OglethorpeGeorgia

Maryland (1634)

• Founded by Lord Baltimore as haven for Catholics

Carte de la Virginie et du Maryland, ou de la Baie de

Chesapeack et Pays

Voisons, 1773 • Offered huge tracts of land to attract settlers

• Created resentment with the poorer farmers

• Relied on tobacco and indentured servants

• Act of Toleration – 1649– allowed religious toleration

• only for Christian faiths– First legislative act of toleration– Passed because Protestants began to outnumber Catholics

West Indies• By mid 1700s Britain takes many

Caribbean islands from Dutch

• Sugar plantations required huge estates, mills and investment of capital

– Required large numbers of slaves– Blacks outnumber whites 4 to 1– Britain create slave codes to

control population (1661 Barbados)

• Poor and small farmers from West Indies migrate to America for opportunity (e.g. Alexander Hamilton)– Bring slavery and slave codes

English Civil War 1642-1651• Conflict between King and Parliament

in 1640s

• 1649 King Charles I beheaded, Oliver Cromwell, Puritan, put in charge of Parliament

– Reduces flow of Puritans leaving England for New England

– Parliament did not focus on what was happening in colonies

• 1660 Charles II asked to be King

• 1685 James II becomes King, but angers people

Carolina• Charles granted land to supporters in

1670

• Made wealth from trading food with sugar plantations of Caribbean– Also traded Indian slaves to West

Indies and New England

• Rice becomes major export– Slaves from West Africa had the

expertise to allow growth of rice

• Charleston becomes busiest seaport in South– North was mostly discontented

Virginians, seen as independent and rebellious

– South was aristocratic, wealth, plantation driven

– 1712, Carolinas split

Georgia• Founded by James Oglethorpe in 1733

– Savannah was principle port

• Created as place to send criminals, drunk and idle poor

• Served as barrier to Spanish and French settlements

• Allowed religious toleration for Christians except Catholics

this map was published in 1733 in Benjamin Martyn's

"Reasons for Establishing the Colony of Georgia..."

• Mismanagement in Georgia– Prohibited alcohol, ownership of land,

slavery– Only allowed mulberry trees for silk –

didn’t work– Did not allow self government

• Never succeeded.

Plantation Colonies• Most relied on staple (cash) crop

– tobacco and rice most important in 1700s

• Tobacco required large amounts of land and labor

– Indentured servants were not sufficient

– Indians were not useful because they knew land so could run away

Plantation Colonies• Deep Rivers and peninsulas encouraged water

transport

– Reduced need for cities because trade happened directly from plantation to England

– South Carolina lacked deep rivers, and Charleston develops

– Limited influence and development of schools and churches

• Planters saw themselves as English country gentlemen, not Americans

• Were aristocrats, did not want education or press for the average citizen

Ocean Tied Some to England• Planters saw themselves as English

country gentlemen, not Americans

• South Carolina lacked deep rivers

– Led to development of Charleston as large trading points