Chapter 2, Southern Colonies

1588, Spanish Armada

England's defeat of Spain's fleet in 1588, establishing England as a dominant naval power capable of establishing colonies.

Protestant

The official religion of England following the Protestant Reformation, distinguishing its colonizers from Catholic Spain.

Types of colonies

The three administrative and economic structures used to establish English settlements: Joint Stock, Proprietorship, and Royal.

Joint Stock

A company (such as the Virginia Company) where stockholders pool capital and share in the profits or losses of the colony.

Proprietorship

Land granted by the King to an individual or group of individuals to govern and manage.

Royal

A colony directly financed and governed by the English monarchy.

Roanoke

England's first, unsuccessful colonization attempt in 1587 led by Sir Walter Raleigh off the coast of present

Chesapeake

The geographic region surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, encompassing the colonies of Virginia and Maryland in the Upper South.

Jamestown, 1607

The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in Virginia by the joint

Virginia Company

The joint

Starving Period

A initial period in Jamestown where many settlers died from disease, starvation, and lack of preparation due to poor location and reluctance to perform hard labor.

John Smith

The leader who saved Jamestown by establishing military discipline and enforcing the rule: "You don't work, you don't eat".

John Rolfe

The Jamestown colonist who introduced the cultivation of tobacco as a profitable cash crop and married Pocahontas.

Tobacco

The major cash crop of colonial Virginia that created a plantation economy and fueled a continuous demand for land and labor.

Colonial Virginia Plantation System

An agricultural economy centered around large

Indentured servants

Men and women who bound themselves to labor for a master for 4 to 7 years in exchange for passage to America and potential freedom/land upon completion.

Headright System

A policy granting 50 acres of land to anyone who paid for an indentured servant's passage to the colony, enriching wealthy landowners.

House of Burgesses

Established in 1619 in Virginia, the first representative assembly/elected government in the English North American colonies.

Problems arise

Tobacco destroyed the soil, causing colonists to encroach westward onto Native American lands and sparking violent conflicts.

Powhatan Tribe

The Confederacy of Native American tribes in the Chesapeake region led by Chief Powhatan, which initially clashed with expanding English settlers.

Anglo

Powhatan Wars 1610

1619

A key year in Virginia's history marking both the establishment of the House of Burgesses and the arrival of the first African captives via a Dutch ship.

Jamestown, 1624

The year Jamestown became a royal colony directly under crown control after the Virginia Company went bankrupt.

1646, Powhatan Confederacy defeated

The subjugation of the Powhatan people, caused primarily by European disease, disorganization among tribes, and English land expansion.

Early primary labor source

Indentured servitude, which provided the bulk of labor in the Chesapeake before the widespread transition to enslaved African labor.

Gov. Berkeley

The Royal Governor of Virginia who angered landless former indentured servants by restricting westward expansion and preserving a lucrative fur trade with Native Americans.

Nathaniel Bacon

A wealthy backcountry planter who led a 1676 rebellion of aggrieved ex

Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676

An uprising of poor farmers and former indentured servants who attacked Native Americans and burned Jamestown to protest government policies and lack of land/protection.

Impact of Bacon’s Rebellion

Highlighted social/economic class tensions and accelerated the Chesapeake's transition from indentured servitude to racialized, lifelong chattel slavery.

Maryland Colony (Chesapeake)

A Chesapeake colony founded as a proprietary colony that relied on tobacco plantations and served as a refuge for English Catholics.

Lord Baltimore

George Calvert (and his heir), who was granted a proprietary charter by the King to found the colony of Maryland.

Act of Toleration, 1649

A Maryland law granting religious freedom to all Christians (protecting Catholics), though it mandated the death penalty for non

South Carolina

A Southern colony with a plantation economy reliant on rice production, long growing seasons, a wealthy aristocratic elite, and heavy dependence on enslaved African labor.

North Carolina

A Southern colony primarily inhabited by small

Caribbean

British island colonies (e.g., Barbados and Jamaica) centered on sugar cane plantations using harsh, heavily enforced slave labor systems that heavily influenced South Carolina's model.

Georgia

Founded in 1733 by James Oglethorpe as a buffer colony against Spanish Florida and a penal colony for debtors; later became a royal plantation colony using enslaved labor.