Chesapeake Bay Notes

The Beginning of Jamestown

• a party of 144 British men set sail for America in 1607

• Only 104 men would survive after reaching the coast that spring

• Established the British colony of Jamestown on a peninsula — the choice of location was thought to protect the British forces from the Natives

Early Issues

• swampy location surrounded by thick woods led to the easy spread of diseases to the Eng. — esp. malaria

• Community building was ignored — English wanted gold

• No women were on the ship —> community building was virtually impossible

• Eng. had no real households or stakes in their settlement

Native Help

• The English settlers only survived with help from the natives

• They showed the settlers their agricultural techniques, the advantages of growing corn & beans, & how to hunt & fish

• Natives also helped the settlers to transport themselves around the settlement — made canoes by chopping down trees & burning the middle to hollow it out

• Within a few months in Virginia, only 38 out of the original 144 survived

• Despite the help from the natives, the English still considered them to be “savage” and “uncivilized”

Reorganize & Expand

• The London Company (Virginia Company) obtained a new charter from the king in 1609

• This charter allowed them to increase their power & enlarge their territory

• Also offered stocks to planters willing to migrate & a free passage to Virginia for poorer people who would agree to serve the company for 7yrs

• After the initial arrival of the English, a fleet of 9 vessels was dispatched into Jamestown w/ 600 more people

  —> This included women & children

• Disasters followed — 1 ship was lost in a hurricane, & another ran aground in the Bermuda Islands, unable to sail for months

The Starving Time

• Many new settlers succumbed to fevers before winter came

  —> Winter of 1609-1610 — natives realize that settlers were a threat & they stopped them from moving further inland

  —> Natives barricaded the Eng. within a small palliside, leaving them unable to hunt for food

• When the migrants who’d been stranded in Bermuda reached Jamestown, they found 60 emaciated people still alive

  —> they took the 60 survivors back home to England

  —> as they sailed the James River, they met another English ship that was coming up

  —> this ship was part of a fleet bringing supplies & the colonies’ first governor Lord De La Warr

Tobacco

• also known as “brown gold”

• Jamestown planter John Rolfe began the cultivation of this plant in 1612 — other planters soon followed

• the first profitable crop in Jamestown

  —> very labor & land intensive

  —> caused planters to start planting on Native territory

• expansion was ultimately capable because of this plant

Lord De La Warr

• Jamestown's first governor

• successors were Sir Thomas Dale & Sir Thomas Gates

• imposed harsh regime on the colony of Jamestown

  —> he organized settlers into work gangs & sentenced offenders to harsh punishment

• settlers began evading work

• Governor Dale concluded that settlers needed a personal incentive to work —> began to permit the private ownership & cultivation of land

• helped with the expansion & survival of Jamestown through harsh discipline & increased military assaults on Native peoples

Tobacco Economy

• its cultivation spread up the James River

  —> its profitability, uncertainty, & its land & labor demands transformed the Chesapeake economy in many ways

• required territorial expansion — growers needed large areas of farmland to grow their crops

  —> this high-demand crop exhausted the soil after only a few years — demand for land increased

  —> English farmers began establishing plantations deeper into the interior, moving into Native territory

• by 1616, no profits were gained — only land & debt

Headright System

• launched in 1618 to attract new settlers/workers to Jamestown in the hopes of making the colony more profitable

• granted 50 acres of land that new settlers could acquire in many ways

  —> those already living in the colonies got 100 acres apiece

  —> encouraged families to migrate together — the more family members that migrated to America, the bigger their landholdings

  —> people who paid for the trips of other settlers earned land — the more people they paid, the more land they earned

• the Virginia Company received a small quitrent (1 shilling annually) per 50 acres

Native Suppression

• one of the main reasons for the Jamestown expansion

• Sir Thomas Dale led unrelenting assaults against the Powhatan peoples

  —> he kidnapped the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, converted her to Christianity & forced her to marry John Rolfe in 1618

• The chief’s brother, Opechancanough, became head of the native confederacy

  —> recognized that the tribe’s position was rapidly deteriorating, he resumed efforts to defend tribal lands

The Native Uprising of 1622

• tribesmen called on white settlements as if there were goods for sale — settlers bought into this & were attacked

  —> 347 whites died

  —> native warriors finally retreated, and the surviving whites mercilessly struck back at the Natives

The Demise of the Virginia Company

• By the end of 1644, the Virginia Company was defunct

• the company had poured all its funds into the profitless Jamestown venture

  —> they would face imminent bankruptcy in the aftermath of the 1622 Native Uprising

• In 1624, King James I revoked the charter, and the colony came under the control of the Crown

William Berkley

• arrived in Virginia in 1642, appointed by King Charles I

• remained in control of the gov. until the 1670s

• organized the force that stopped the 1644 Native Uprising — defeated the natives & ceded a large area of land to the Eng.

• he agreed to ban white settlement west of a line he negotiated w/ the tribes

Failure

• William Berkley’s attempt at protecting native land failed — this was mostly due to the rapid population growth in Virginia

  —> Oliver Cromwell’s victory in the English Civil War (1649) & the flight of his many opponents to the colony contributed to the population increase

• between 1640-1650, Virginia’s population doubled from 8,000—>16,000; by 1660, it more than doubled again to 40,000

• More people started to move westward

  —> by 1652, Eng. settlers had established 3 counties in the land promised to the Natives

  —> frequent clashing occurred between the whites and the natives

Autocracy

• By the 1660s, Berkley had gradually become an autocrat in the colony

• when the first burgesses were elected in 1619, men of 17yrs or > could vote

  —> by 1670, the vote was restricted to only landowners — elections became rarer

  —> the same burgesses stayed in office year after year

• each country continued to have 2 representatives — even though some of the new counties of the interior were more populated than the other ones

  —> this left more recent settlers of the “backcounty” underrepresented, or in some cases, completely unrepresented

More Conflicts

• along w/ the conflict of underrepresentation in Virginia was the system of indentured servants

• By the 1670s, many young men had finished their terms as indentured servants & found themselves homeless & poor

  —> many went around the colony working, begging, or stealing

  —> they would soon become a factor in what became known as Bacon’s Rebellion

Nathaniel Bacon & Conflicts

• caused by backcountry unrest & political rivalries

• a wealthy young graduate of Cambridge University arrived in Virginia in 1673

  —> purchased a substantial farm in the west, & won a seat on the governor’s council

• The new & influential western landowners were soon arguing w/ leaders of the tidewater regions of the east

  —> they disagreed on many things, esp. the policies regarding Natives

  —> western settlers were under constant attack from the Natives since many established themselves on lands reserved for tribes by the treaty

  —> resented Berkley’s attempt to hold lines of settlement steady

  —> resented his exclusion from the inner circle of the governor’s council

  —> fumed about Berkley’s refusal to allow him a piece of the Indian fur trade

• these grievances made him a natural leader of the opposing faction

Bacon’s Rebellion

• In 1675, some Doeg Natives — angry about white intrusion into their lands — raided a plantation, killing a white servant

  —> groups of whites struck back haphazardly

  —> they attacked not only the small Doeg Tribe but also the powerful Susquehannock Tribe as well

• fights escalated — Bacon & other landholders were angered by Berkley’s cautious response to their demands for help

  —> they defied Berkley & fought back

  —> started as an unauthorized assault, then became a military challenge to the colonial govt.

• Bacon led his army to Jamestown twice

  —> 1st time: he won a temporary pardon from the governor

  —> 2nd time: after the governor reneged on the agreement, Bacon burned Jamestown down & drove Berkley into exile

• in the midst of chaos, Bacon almost took over Jamestown — he didn’t & died of dysentery

• Berkley regained control w/ the help of the military

• In 1677, Natives hesitantly signed a treaty that opened new lands to white settlement

The Significance of Bacon’s Rebellion

• showed how unwilling the English sett;ers were to abide by the agreements made w/ the Natives

  —> also revealed Native unwillingness to tolerate further white movement into their land

• something unintentional that was revealed: the potential for instability in the colony’s huge population of free, landless men

  —> freed indentured servants were eager for land — Bacon himself knew this

  —> Bacon long maintained his popularity among them by exploiting their hatred toward natives

• showed the hatred of the landless men toward the landed gentry