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Chapter 02 - American Beginnings, 1607-1650

  1. England and the New World
    1. Reasons for England's late entry
      1. Protracted religious strife
      2. Continuing struggle to subdue Ireland
    2. Awakening of English attention to North America
      1. Early ventures
        1. Humphrey Gilbert's failed Newfoundland colony
        2. Walter Raleigh's failed Roanoke colony
      2. Impetus for North American colonization
        1. National rivalry
          1. Opposition to (Spanish) Catholicism
          2. Spain's attempted invasion of England
          3. Desire to match Spanish and French presence in the New World
        2. Sense of divine mission
          1. Image of Spanish brutality in the New World
          2. England's self-conception as beacon of freedom
        3. Material possibilities
          1. Prospects for trade-based empire in North America
          2. Solution to English social crisis
          3. Chance for laboring classes to attain economic independence
    3. English social crisis of late sixteenth century
      1. Roots of
        1. Population explosion
        2. Rural displacement
      2. Elements of
        1. Urban overcrowding
        2. Falling wages
        3. Spread of poverty
        4. Social instability
      3. Government answers to
        1. Punishment of dispossessed
        2. Dispatching of dispossessed to the New World
  2. Overview of seventeenth-century English settlement in North America
    1. Challenges of life in North America
    2. Magnitude of English emigration
      1. Chesapeake
      2. New England
      3. Middle colonies
    3. Indentured servitude
      1. Similarities to slavery
      2. Differences from slavery
    4. Significance of access to land
      1. As basis of English liberty
      2. As lure to settlement
      3. As resource for political patronage
      4. As source of wealth
    5. Englishmen and Indians
      1. Displacement of Indians
        1. Preference over subjugation or assimilation
        2. Limits of constraints on settlers
        3. Recurring warfare between colonists and Indians
      2. Trading
      3. Impact of trade and settlement on Indian life
  3. Settling of the Chesapeake
    1. Virginia
      1. Initial settlement at Jamestown
      2. Rocky beginnings
        1. High death rate
        2. Inadequate supplies
        3. Inadequate labor
      3. Virginia Company measures to stabilize colony
        1. Forced labor
        2. Headright system
        3. "Charter of grants and liberties"
      4. Indians and Jamestown settlers
        1. Initial cooperation and trade
        2. Key figures in early Indian-settler relations
          1. Powhatan
          2. John Smith
          3. iii Pocahontas
        3. Sporadic conflict
        4. War of 1622
          1. Opechancanough attack on settlers
          2. Settlers' retaliation
          3. Aftermath
        5. War of 1644
          1. Defeat of Opechancanough rebellion
          2. Removal of surviving Indians to reservations
        6. Continuing encroachment on Indian land
      5. Take-off of tobacco cultivation
        1. Introduction and spread
        2. Effects
          1. Issuance of royal colonial charter
          2. Rise of tobacco planter elite
          3. Spread of settler agriculture
          4. Rising demand for land and labor
      6. Emerging strata of white Virginia
        1. Wealthy gentry
        2. Small farmers
        3. Poor laborers
          1. Indentured servants
          2. Free
      7. Women settlers
        1. Quest for
        2. Status of
        3. Hardships
    2. Maryland
      1. Similarities to Virginia colony
      2. Distinctive features
        1. Proprietary structure
          1. Cecilius Calvert
          2. Absolute power of proprietor vs. rights of colonists
          3. Resulting conflict
        2. Religious and political tensions
          1. Calvert's Catholic leanings vs. settlers' Protestant leanings
          2. Reverberations of English Civil War
        3. Diminishing prospects for the landless
  4. Settling of New England
    1. Puritanism
      1. Emergence in England
      2. Variations within
      3. Common outlooks
        1. Central importance of the sermon
        2. John Calvin's ideas
          1. The elect and the damned
          2. Salvation
          3. Worldly behavior
        3. Zealousness
    2. Puritan separatists
      1. Growth under Charles I
      2. Aims
      3. Conceptions of freedom
        1. Denunciation of "natural liberty"
        2. Embrace of "moral liberty"
    3. Founding of Plymouth Colony
      1. The Pilgrims
      2. Arrival at Plymouth
      3. Mayflower Compact
      4. Rocky beginnings
      5. Help from Indians
      6. Thanksgiving
    4. Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony
      1. Massachusetts Bay Company
      2. Great Migration
      3. Unique features of New England settlement
    5. The Puritan family
      1. Elements of patriarchy
      2. The place of women
    6. Government and society in Puritan Massachusetts
      1. Attitudes toward individualism, social unity
      2. Organization of towns
        1. Self-government
          1. Civic
          2. Religious
        2. Subdivision of land
        3. Institutions
      3. Colonial government
        1. Emphasis on colonial autonomy
        2. Principle of consent
        3. "Visible Saints"
      4. Lines of hierarchy
        1. Access to land
        2. Status within church
        3. Social stature
        4. Claim to "liberties"
      5. Relation of church and state
    7. New Englanders divided
      1. Prevailing Puritan values
        1. Emphasis on conformity to communal norms
        2. Intolerance of individualism, dissent
      2. Roger Williams
        1. Critique of status quo
        2. Banishment
        3. Establishment of Rhode Island
          1. Religious toleration
          2. Democratic governance
      3. Other breakaway colonies
        1. Hartford
        2. New Haven
      4. Anne Hutchinson
        1. Challenge to Puritan leadership
        2. Challenge to gender norms
        3. Trial and banishment
    8. Puritans and coastal Indians
      1. Balance of power
        1. Settlers' numerical supremacy
        2. Indians' lack of central political structure
      2. Settlers' views of Indians
        1. As savages
        2. As dangerous temptation
        3. As obstacle to be removed
      3. Rising frontier tensions
      4. Settler war with and extermination of Pequots
      5. Aftereffects of Pequot War
        1. Opening of Connecticut River valley to white settlement
        2. Intimidation of other Indians
        3. Affirmation of Puritan sense of mission
    9. New England economy
      1. Economic motives behind New England settlement
        1. Aspiration for a "competency"
          1. Land ownership
          2. Craft status
        2. Aspiration for mercantile success
        3. Blending of religious and profit motives
      2. Emerging New England economy
        1. Family-based agriculture
          1. Chiefly subsistence orientation
          2. Broad distribution of land
        2. Exports to other colonies and Europe
        3. Rise of Boston merchant elite
      3. Tensions within political/religious order
        1. Merchant challenge to Puritan policies
        2. Old-guard Puritan concern over "declension"
        3. Half-Way Covenant
  5. Religion, politics, and freedom
    1. Gradually expanding "rights of Englishmen"
      1. Magna Carta
      2. English Civil War
        1. Parliament vs. Stuart monarchs
        2. Commonwealth and restoration
        3. Levellers and Diggers
    2. Repercussions of English Civil War in colonial North America
      1. In New England
        1. Ambivalence of Puritans
        2. Quakers
          1. Emergence of
          2. Persecution of
      2. In Maryland
        1. Religious-political crisis
        2. Initiatives to stabilize colony
          1. Calvert's pre-Protestant gestures
          2. Enactment of religious toleration measure

 

Subject: 
US History
Subject X2: 
US History

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