Chapter 02 - The Planting of English America

Most of the new world had been changed profoundly as the seventeenth century dawned. North America was largely unclaimed (the area over Mexico). And the Spanish had set up much of the control in Central and South America.

I. England’s Imperial Stirrings

 

1. England didn’t put in much effort to colonize as the Spanish did.
2. After King Henry VIII broke with Church he launched the English Protestant reformation. At first England and Spain were allies but after the Protestant Elizabeth ascended to the English throne a rivalry with Catholic Spanish intensified. Catholic Ireland, originally under English rule sought help from Spain but they failed and England put protestants there. Many English developed contempt for the “savage” Irish.

 

II. Elizabeth Energizes England

 

1. Elizabeth encouraged English raiding the Spanish. The most famous seadog was Sir Francis Drake. Elizabeth knighted him, and that angered the Spanish.
2. When English attempted colonization they had many failures. The first one was Roanoke Island which mysteriously vanished swallowed by the wilderness. The Spanish had better luck colonizing.
3. King Philip II of Spain sent an armada to invade England but the English fought back. The English inflicted heavy damage and a storm arose which scattered the crippled Spanish.
   • The year 1588 marked the beginning of Spain’s downfall. Spanish Caribbean slipped from Spain, and Holland got independence.
   • England’s victory dampened Spain’s fighting spirit and increased England’s naval dominance. England was a strong, united nation under a popular monarch, nationalism.
4. The Golden age of literature dawned with William Shakespeare. English had a thirst for adventure & curiosity.
5. England and Spain finally signed a peace treaty in 1604.

 

III. England on the Eve of an Empire

 

1. Population was growing when economic depression hit the woolen trade and thousands of farmers left.
2. Laws of primogeniture - Only the eldest sons were eligible to inherit estates.
3. In the early 1600’s Joint Stock Companies let investors pool money and share losses/profits.
4. New Enclosure policies (which means fencing in land) meant that there was less or no land left over for the poor.

 

IV. England Plants the Jamestown Seedling

 

1. Virginia Company got a charter from King James I; they wanted gold and passages to the Indies. Stock holders wanted to form the company, get profit and then quickly sell it.
2. The charter of the Virginia Company was a significant document in American history and guaranteed overseas settlers the same rights of Englishmen in Britain.
3. Settlers arrived on May 24, 1607 to Jamestown. It was an unhealthy and mosquito infested place.
   • There were about 100 men who disembarked and 40 additional colonists perished on the voyage.
   • On the shore they died of disease, malnutrition and starvation. They were “gentlemen” who didn’t want to do any work. Problems a) swampy site – poor drinking water – mosquitoes causing malaria and yellow fever. B) men wasted time looking for gold. C) There were 0 women. D) The supply ship that was supposed to come was wreaked in the Bahamas in 1609.
   • The colonists were saved from collapse by John Smith he said “he who shall not work, shall not eat.”

 

V. Maryland: Catholic Haven

 

1. Maryland was founded in 1634 by Lord Baltimore for religious diversity- It was the second plantation colony and fourth overall colony to be formed.
2. It was to be a place for persecuted Catholics to find refuge of safe haven. Lord Baltimore gave huge estates to his catholic relatives.
   • However, the poor people who were needed to settle there were mostly Protestant, creating friction.
3. Maryland prospered with tobacco sales like Virginia.
   • It depended on labor = White indentured servants. In later years of the 17th century. Black slaves started to be imported.
4. Catholics of Maryland passed the Act of Toleration in 1649 which grated toleration to all Christians. Gave the death penalty to those who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, (The Jews & Atheists) actually made the colonies less tolerant, but the catholic were protected.

 

VI. The West Indies: Way Station to Mainland America

 

1. As the British were colonizing Virginia they were also colonizing the West Indies colonies that weakening Spain was letting go- along with Jamaica in 1655.
2. Sugar formed West Indian economy.
   • Tobacco was poor man’s crop. Sugar was rich man’s crop.
   • The rich grew lots of sugar on brutal plantations. Only the wealthy owners could succeed in sugar.
   • They brought in African slaves. ¼ of a million slaves were brought in 50 years time.
3. Blacks were more abundant than whites 4 to 1, even today the region’s population is predominantly black.
4. To control slaves the English made “codes” that defined slave’s legal statues.
   • The Barbados slave code of 1611 denied most fundamental rights to slaves and gave masters control.
   • West Indies depended on America for foodstuffs.
   • At first Indians were intended to be used as slaves but disease killed about 90 % of all natives.
   • A group of English settlers from the West Indies brought enslaved Africans and the model of slave code. Carolina adapted one like it in 1690.

 

VII. Colonizing the Carolinas

 

1. In England, King Charles I, had been beheaded. There was a civil war in the 1640’s.
2. Oliver Cromwell ruled for 10 very strict years.
3. Englishmen restored Charles II to the throne in “the restoration” of 1660.
4. Carolina was named for Charles II.
   • The king granted land to court families who hoped to grow foodstuffs.
5. Carolina prospered by developing close economic ties with English West Indies. Many settlers came from Barbados and established a slave trade in Carolina. Native Indians were looked for to be slaves.
   • Lord Proprietors in London protested against Indian slave trading. Indian slaves were sent to the West Indies to work. Others were sent to new England.

   In 1707 Savannah Indians ended allegiance with Carolinas and migrated back to Maryland and

   • Pennsylvania where a Quaker colony promised better relations between Indians and Whites. Carolinians killed a lot of them before they left though.
   • Rice emerged as the principal export crop. Africans knew how to grow it, and had a relative immunity to malaria which made them ideal laborers on hot and swampy rice plantations.
6. In Charlestown Jews and others were attracted by religious tolerance despite violence with Spanish and Indians. Carolinas were too strong to be wiped out.

 

VIII. The emergence of North Carolina

 

1. Newcomers to North Carolina were called squatters. They were people from Virginia and owned no land.
   • North Carolinians regarded them as riff-raff. They were also hospitable to pirates, and they developed resistance to authority. They existed in graphical isolation.
2. North Carolina separated from South Carolina in 1712.
3. Aristocratic and wealthier people were down south around plantations. The strong willed and independent minded lived up north. North Carolina and Rhode Island were the most independent and least aristocratic.
4. They had bloody relations with Indians. Aided by south Carolinians they crushed the Indians in Tuscarora War, where they sold hundreds into slavery. South Carolina also defeated Yamasee Indians. Virtually all Indian southern tribes had been devastated by 1720.

 

IX. Late-coming Georgia: The Buffer Colonies

 

1. Georgia- The last of 13 colonies was formed 126 years after the first colony and 52 years after the 12th colony.
   • It was intended to be a buffer to protect the Carolinas from the in Spaniards in Florida and buffer against French from Louisiana. They got money from the British.
   • Georgia was named in honor of King George II. It was launched by philanthropists made silk and wine, haven for wretched souls imprisoned for debt, the founders wanted to keep slavery out of Georgia.
2. James Oglethorpe was the ablest of the founders and a dynamic soldier. He was a statesman, repelled panish attacks and saved the “charity colony” by his energetic leadership and by using his own fortune to help with the colony,.
3. Georgia was a melting pot community.
   • All Christian worshippers except Catholics enjoyed religious tolerance.
   • Many missionaries arrived in Savannah to work among debtors and Indians, they tried to convert them. John Westley was one of them who later returned to England and founded the Methodist church.
4. Georgia grew very slowly it was the least populous. It had an unhealthy climate, slavery restrictions and Spanish attacks.

 

X. The plantation colonies

 

1. Slavery was found in all the plantation colonies devoted to exporting commercial agriculture products and profitable staple crops.
   • Growth of cities was often stunted by forests. Wide scattering of plantations and rivers slowed the development of cities as well. Rivers drove settlers west.
2. All plantation colonies permitted some religious toleration.
   • In the south crops were tobacco and rice. In south Carolina there was “soil butchery” because of tobacco.