The Planting of English America 1500-1733

1. The Planting of English America1500-1733 Chapter 2

2. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyA. England’s Imperialist Stirrings • Aside from John Cabot’s voyages in 1497-1498, and Martin Frobisher’s expedition in 1576, England took little interest in exploration or establishing overseas colonies – consumed as it was with religious conflict • King Henry VIII • Elizabeth I • James I

3. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyA. England’s Imperialist Stirrings (cont.) • By the 1580s, she supported plunder by British sea captains of Spanish settlements and treasure ships, and efforts to establish colonies in North America Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I

4. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyA. England’s Imperialist Stirrings (cont.) • In 1585- Sir Walter Raleigh organized an expedition to establish a colony on Roanoke Island off Virginia’s coast – in 1587 approx. 100 settlers landed there

5. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyA. England’s Imperialist Stirrings (cont.) • Enclosure Movement- created a landless population of workers • England’s rapidly growing population, produced a ‘surplus population’ • Between 1550 and 1600, England’s population grew from approximately 3 million to over 4 million

6. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyA. England’s Imperialist Stirrings (cont.) • England’s laws of ‘primogeniture’ stipulated that only eldest sons were eligible to inherit landed estates - forcing younger sons to seek their destinies elsewhere • Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, & Sir Humphrey Gilbert

7. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyA. England’s Imperialist Stirrings (cont.) • Hakluyt argued that colonization would: • (1) reduce England’s surplus population and the risks they posed to social order • (2) provide England with sources of raw materials and markets for finished goods • (3) increase England’s possessions • (4) enrich her treasury • (5) help spread Christianity to the pagan Indians

8. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyB. The Fragile ‘Chesapeake’ Virginia Colony • King James I succeeded to the throne and was influenced by Haklyut’s and other arguments for colonization • In 1606, a group of investors formed the Virginia Company – a ‘joint-stock company’ • Composed of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants who pooled financial resources for the purpose of sharing the financial risks (and potential profits) associated with colonization in North America

9. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyB. The Fragile ‘Chesapeake’ Virginia Colony (cont.) • Early settlers at Jamestown suffered attacks from Powhatan Indian, disease, starvation, malaria and internal dissension amongst themselves

10. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyB. The Fragile ‘Chesapeake’ Virginia Colony (cont.) • Pocahontas saved Smith’s life, and perhaps Jamestown

11. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyB. The Fragile ‘Chesapeake’ Virginia Colony (cont.) • In one of these raids the settlers captured Pocahontas – holding her hostage to prevent further attacks • Within a year she converted to Christianity and married John Rolfe – the man who developed tobacco into a marketable cash crop which saved Virginia economically

12. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyD. Tobacco & the ‘Chesapeake’ Colonies • By 1612, John Rolfe, had perfected techniques of growing and curing what essentially had been a wild weed • Tobacco could be grown virtually anywhere there was adequate water – a fact that created tensions between whites and Indians who already occupied prime land in the river valleys

13. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyD. Tobacco & the ‘Chesapeake’ Colonies (cont.) • By 1700, approx. 100,000 settlers in the Chesapeake colonies [Virginia, Maryland, and northern Carolina] were growing tobacco – producing 35 million pounds for export using the labor of indentured servants and African slaves

14. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyD. Tobacco & the ‘Chesapeake’ Colonies (cont.) • King James I detested tobacco and Virginia’s legislative assembly [the ‘House of Burgesses’] - he used the results of a royal investigation into Opechancanough’s 1622 uprising to revoke Virginia’s charter • That investigation concluded the high death rate from those Indian attacks was due to mismanagement by the Virginia Company - in 1624, he made Virginia a royal colony under the crown’s control through a royal governor and council appointed by the king • The House of Burgesses was left intact – however, laws passed by that body were subject to approval by Virginia’s royal governor and the King’s privy council

15. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyE. Maryland – A ‘Chesapeake’ Catholic Haven • In 1634, Lord Baltimore founded Maryland at St. Mary’s – the fourth English colony, it was settled as a financial venture for profit and to create a refuge for fellow Catholics

16. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyE. Maryland – A ‘Chesapeake’ Catholic Haven (cont.) • Maryland enjoyed religious freedom from the beginning – Lord Baltimore, concerned about potential threats from large numbers of Protestant settlers, codified this into law • In 1649, Maryland’s legislative assembly approved the ‘Act of Toleration’ – a religious statute guaranteeing religious freedom to all Christians – not Jews or atheists • Both Catholics and Protestants prospered in Maryland but, despite the ‘Act of Toleration’, tensions remained and finally erupted into open rebellion by the end of the century

17. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyF. Colonizing the Carolinas • Establishment of the Carolina colony came after the English Civil War, the ‘Interregnum’, & the ‘Restoration’ eras • In 1629, King Charles I dismissed Parliament for what he considered mutinous opposition to his policies and military escapades

18. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyF. Colonizing the Carolinas • In 1640, Charles I recalled Parliament, trying to force it to pass new taxes to finance his agenda – creating an opportunity which the Puritan opposition within Parliament seized • Oliver Cromwell, the great Puritan-soldier, then led Puritan armies against the King in the ‘English Civil War’

19. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyF. Colonizing the Carolinas (cont.) • In 1670, Charles II granted a charter to eight of his court favorites known as the ‘Lords Proprietors’ - men who had remained loyal to him during the ‘Interregnum’ period • The charter granted these men a vast expanse of wilderness south of the Virginia Colony – an area stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans

20. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyF. Colonizing the Carolinas (cont.) • The proprietors sought to establish Carolina as a profitable venture with an exportable crop – comparable to Chesapeake tobacco or West Indian sugar • The early settlers in Carolina were primarily immigrants from Barbados – those who could not compete successfully with the large sugar planters

21. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyG. Colonizing Georgia – The ‘Buffer Colony’ • Founded in 1733, Georgia [named after England’s King George II by its proprietors] became a haven for people imprisoned for debt, a source of silk and wine, and served as a buffer between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida

22. The Southern Colonies in the 17th CenturyG. Colonizing Georgia – The ‘Buffer Colony’ (cont.) • Georgia was the least populous of the colonies on the eve of the Revolutionary War – because: • (1) its original founders slowed its economic growth by forbidding slavery [until 1750] • (2) because of its unhealthy climate • (3) because of Spanish attacks against it

23. England’s West Indian Colonies in the 1600sA. The West Indies: Sugar & Slavery • During the 17th century, England’s West Indian colonies developed sugar plantations utilizing African slave labor • England’s West Indian colonies in the 17th Century – not her North American colonies – were the most profitable in the empire

24. England’s West Indian Colonies in the 1600sA. The West Indies: Sugar & Slavery • Sugar production required, (1) expensive machinery for sugar mills, (2) vast acres to make it economically profit-able, and (3) an extensive labor supply – which only the wealthiest planters could afford • By the mid-17th century, annual sugar exports from the British Caribbean approximated 150,000 pounds – by 1700 exports had risen to approximately 50 million pounds • This phenomenal increase was produced by African slave labor – by 1680 the average planter on Barbados owned 115 slaves

25. England’s West Indian Colonies – 1600sA. The West Indies: Sugar & Slavery (cont.) • By 1700, African slaves outnumbered whites by nearly four to one - a fact that alarmed white planters anxious about the potential for slave revolts • Consequently, English authorities established formal ‘codes’ to define their legal status and their masters’ power over them

26. England’s West Indian Colonies – 1600sA. The West Indies: Sugar & Slavery (cont.) • Barbados Slave Code - 1661, denied basic rights to slaves and gave masters total control over their labor and the right to inflict severe punishments for infractions • For slaves on a Caribbean sugar plantation, life was short, brutal, and the labor unremitting – in the West Indies the slave population did not increase by natural reproduction