Ch 2: The Planting of English America (1500-1733)
A) England Background
Rivalry w. Spain
B) Jamestown → Virginia
VA Company received charter (guaranteed rts) from James I for settlemt
Why it wouldn’t have survived
C) Maryland: Catholic Haven
D) Colonization of West Indies: How Slavery Started
E) Colonizing the Carolinas
F) North Carolina: “Vale of Humility b.w Two Mountains of Conceit”
1. Started by poverty-stricken outcasts & rel dissenters from VA; squatters who planted tobacco
2. Isolated from neighbors by raw wilderness & stormy Cape Hatteras
3. Like RI, most democratic, independent-minded, and least aristocratic
4. Conquest of Yamasee Indians signified end of all coastal Ind tribes in South
G) Last but not Least: Georgia, the Buffer Colony
Rivalry w. Spain
- Catholic England was Spain’s ally and did not seek to create colonies
- Henry VIII broke w. Roman Catholic Church → Protestant reformation
- Protestant Elizabeth ascends throne (1558) → Protestantism dominant
- Prot vs Cath rivalry. Irish sought Spanish aid to throw off queen, failed
- English pirates (supported by queen) raided Spanish ships & settlemts
- Philip II of Spain amassed “Invincible Armada” to invade Eng, but Eng used swifter crafts that inflicted heavy damage on Spanish ships (1588)
- Spanish defeat dampened fighting spirit & insured Eng naval superiority → start of Eng imperial dreams & end of Spain’s
- Newfoundland: failed when promoter, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, died (1583)
- NC’s Roanoke(1585): Sir Walter Raleigh started, mysteriously vanished
- To get rid of ‘surplus popn’ (unemployed farmers who crowded cities)
- Law of primogeniture: only eldest sons eligible to inherit landed estates → younger sons had to start businesses elsewhere → joint-stock co
- Adventure, markets, religion, gold, find passage to Indies
B) Jamestown → Virginia
VA Company received charter (guaranteed rts) from James I for settlemt
Why it wouldn’t have survived
- Indian attacks forced settlers to choose easily defendable, but malaria-infested location
- Colonists died- only 60/400 survived 1609-1610
- Although they could have survived by hunting & fishing, the “gentlemen” panned for gold instead
- Capt John Smith whipped colonists into line
- Governor De La Warr imposed harsh military regime & destroyed Powhatan Indians
- Lucrative tobacco industry started by John Rolfe, caused colonists to thirst for more land & expand
C) Maryland: Catholic Haven
- founded by Lord Baltimore, of prominent Eng Cath family, who wanted to provide Cath refuge (discriminated against in Eng)
- Tobacco industry depended on white indentured servants
- Prot threatened to place restrictions on Cath (like in Eng), so Act of Toleration passed → guaranteed tol’n to all Christians, prosecuted Jews & atheists
D) Colonization of West Indies: How Slavery Started
- Sp’s weakness allowed Eng to take over West Indian islands
- Sugar cane as main crop, requiring much more effort & money than tobacco, so 25+ mn slaves were imported by the rich farmers
- Slave popn exceeded whites 4 to 1, so Eng authorities devised formal codes to control slaves; gave masters complete control of slaves
- smaller Eng farmers squeezed out by sugar barons moved to Carolinas and brought slaves & Barbados slave code → start of slavery in US
E) Colonizing the Carolinas
- King Charles II granted Carolina to court favorites, the “Lords Proprietors”
- Sons of rich Eng families (no inheritance) gave Charleston aristocratic flavor
- Economy:
- Rice as main export crop. Rice was originally only grown in Afr
- Produced non-English products (e.g. wine, silk, olive oil)
- Active trade w. West Indies by growing food to provision sugar islands
- Indian slavery exported to W Indies and New Eng (Inds annihilated)
- Charles Town busiest seaport in South
F) North Carolina: “Vale of Humility b.w Two Mountains of Conceit”
1. Started by poverty-stricken outcasts & rel dissenters from VA; squatters who planted tobacco
2. Isolated from neighbors by raw wilderness & stormy Cape Hatteras
3. Like RI, most democratic, independent-minded, and least aristocratic
4. Conquest of Yamasee Indians signified end of all coastal Ind tribes in South
G) Last but not Least: Georgia, the Buffer Colony
- Protected more valuable Carolinas agnst vengeful Sp (FL) and hostile French
- Launched by philanthropists, as James Oglethorpe, to save debtors
- Produced silk & wine, but plantation econ was thwarted by unhealthy climate, restrictions on black slavery, and Spanish attacks
- Non-Cath enjoyed religious toleration, missionaries arrived to preach to debtors & Indians; e.g. John Wesley, who founded Methodist church
- MD, VA, NC, SC, GA
- Exported commercial agricultural products, e.g. tobacco & rice, though to lesser extent in small-farm NC
- Slavery in all, though only after 1750 in GA, whose founders disliked slavery
- Immense acreage in hands of favored few → aristocratic atmosphere, except in NC
- Wide scattering of plantations & farms retarded growth of cities, making est of churches & schools difficult & expensive
- Permitted some religious toleration; Church of Eng dominant faith, weakest in NC
- Expansionary mindset - soil butchery drove settlers westward + long rivers invited penetration of continent (and confrontation w. Nat Ams)
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