Studied by 12 people
Corporate Colony Definition
Operated by joint-stock companies
Corporate Colony Example
Jamestown, at least during these colonies’ early years
Royal Colony Definition
Colony under the direct authority and rule of the king’s government.
Royal Colony Example
Virginia after 1624
Proprietary Colony Definition
Under the authority of individuals granted charters of ownership by the king.
Proprietary Colony Example
Maryland and Pennsylvania
Jamestown
King James I chartered the Virginia Company in 1606.
The Virginia Company founded the first permanent English colony in America at Jamestown in 1607.
Early problems: settlers suffered due to swampy location, dysentery, and malaria.
Settlers were inexperienced gentlemen and gold hunters, hindering farming and survival.
Trade with Native Americans provided goods, but conflicts halted trade and caused starvation.
By 1624, Virginia colony faced collapse with a population drop to 1,300 from 5,000.
Disease and conflicts with Indians were major issues.
Virginia Company neared bankruptcy.
King James I took direct control, revoking the company's charter.
The colony transitioned to a royal colony and was renamed Virginia.
Captain John Smith
Leader of Jamestown: Through his leadership, Jamestown survived its first five years
John Rolfe (Not On Vocab)
Name: John Rolfe
Significance: English settler in Jamestown, Virginia
Marriage: Married Pocahontas, a Native American princess
Tobacco: Introduced the cultivation of tobacco in Virginia
Economic Impact: Tobacco became a profitable cash crop
Peace Treaty: Rolfe's marriage to Pocahontas helped establish peace between English settlers and Native Americans
Headright System
Virginia offered 50 acres of land called a headright to attract White settlers.
Headright system rewarded settlers or sponsors of settlers with land.
Indentured servants were sponsored by landowners using the headright system.
Initial colonization decades saw White laborers mainly employed by planters.
Transition occurred by the late 17th century.
Landowners shifted towards relying on enslaved Africans for labor.
Plymouth Colony/Separatists (Pilgrims)
Northern colonies: Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay founded north of Jamestown.
Economic opportunity attracted indentured servants to these colonies.
Religious motivation was a defining factor in these colonies.
English Protestants dissented from the Church of England, seeking religious freedom.
Dissenters influenced by Swiss theologian John Calvin's teachings.
King James I saw dissenters as a threat and had them arrested.
Plymouth Colony: Separatists sought an independent church, became known as Pilgrims.
Pilgrims went to Holland first, then to America under Virginia Company's operation.
In 1620, Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower, established Plymouth in Massachusetts.
After a harsh first winter, survivors aided by local Native Americans.
First Thanksgiving celebrated in 1621 after a successful harvest.
Leaders like Captain Miles Standish and Governor William Bradford shaped Plymouth's growth.
Economy centered on fish, furs, and lumber.
Massachusetts Bay Colony
A group of more moderate dissenters, called Puritans, believed that the Church of England could be reformed, or purified. The persecution of Puritans increased when a new king, Charles I, took the throne in 1625. Seeking religious freedom, a group of Puritans gained a royal charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company (1629).
John Winthrop
In 1630, a thousand Puritans led by John Winthrop sailed for Massachusetts and founded Boston.
Great Migration
Religious and political conflict in 1630s England drove 15,000 settlers to Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Puritans from Massachusetts Bay established multiple settlements in New England.
Unlike Virginia's plantations, New England settlements were a mix of small towns and family farms.
Economy in New England blended commerce and agriculture.
Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore)
The first Lord Baltimore died and Maryland passed to his son, Cecil Calvert—the second Lord Baltimore. The son set about implementing his fathers plan in 1634 to provide a haven for his fellow Catholics, who faced persecution from Protestants in Britain.
Maryland Act of Toleration
Ordered by Lord Baltimore after Catholic farmers were outnumbered by Protestant farmers. The act guaranteed religious freedom to all Christians. However, there was a penalty of death to anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.
New England
Strong religious convictions sustained settlers in their struggle to establish the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies. However, Puritan leaders showed intolerance of anyone who questioned their religious teachings, often banishing dissidents from the Bay Colony. These dissidents formed settlements that became Rhode Island and Connecticut
Roger Williams
One well-respected Puritan minister who moved from England to Boston was Roger Williams, who arrived in 1631. He believed that the individual’s conscience was beyond the control of any civil or church authority. His teachings placed him in conflict with other Puritan leaders, who ordered his banishment. Leaving Boston, Williams fled southward to Narragansett Bay, where he and a few followers founded the community of Providence in 1636, and Williams started one of the first Baptist churches in America.
Anne Hutchinson
She believed in antinomianism—the idea that since individuals receive salvation through their faith alone, they were not required to follow traditional moral laws. Banished from the Bay colony, Hutchinson and her followers founded Portsmouth in 1638. A few years later, Hutchinson migrated to Long Island and was killed in an American Indian uprising.
Halfway Covenant
To be a full member of a Puritan congregation, individuals needed to have a confirmed religious experience, a conversion. However, fewer members of the new native-born generation were having such experiences. To maintain the church’s influence and membership, a halfway covenant was offered by some clergy so that people could become partial members even if they had not felt a conversion. Nevertheless, as the years passed, strict Puritan practices weakened in most New England communities in order to maintain church membership.
William Penn
Founder of Pennsylvania and a prominent Quaker leader in the 17th century. He advocated for religious freedom and fair treatment of Native Americans.
Quakers
they were considered radical by most people in Britain and the colonies. They believed that religious authority was found within each person and not in the Bible nor in any outside source. This led them to support equality among all men and women and to reject violence and resist military service. Because their beliefs challenged authority, the Quakers of England were persecuted and jailed for their beliefs.
James Oglethorpe/Georgia
the colony’s first governor, put into effect a plan for making the colony thrive. There were strict regulations, including bans on drinking rum and slavery. Nevertheless, partly because of the constant threat of Spanish attack, the colony did not prosper. By 1752, Oglethorpe’s group gave up. Georgia was taken over by the British government and became a royal colony. Restrictions on rum and slavery were dropped. The colony grew slowly, adopting the plantation system of South Carolina. In 1776, Georgia was the smallest of the 13 colonies that rebelled against the British.
Virginia House of Burgesses
A Representative Assembly in Virginia The Virginia Company encouraged settlement by guaranteeing to settlers the same rights as residents of England had, including representation in lawmaking. In 1619, Virginia’s colonists organized the first representative assembly in America, the House of Burgesses.
Mayflower Compact
It was dominated by elite planters. Representative Government in New England Aboard the Mayflower in 1620, the Pilgrims drew up and signed a document in which they pledged to make decisions by the will of the majority. Known as the Mayflower Compact, this was an early form of self-government and a rudimentary written constitution.
Note
Flashcard