Virginia:

John Rolfe married Pocahontas in 1614, ending the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

In 1619, self-government was made in Virginia. The London Company authorized the settlers to summon an assembly, known as the House of Burgesses.

King James I didn't trust the House of Burgesses and so in 1624, he made Virginia a colony of England, directly under his control.

Maryland was formed in 1634 by Lord Baltimore.

Maryland was made for a refuge for the Catholics to escape the wrath of the Protestant English government.

The Act of Toleration, which was passed in 1649 by the local representative group in Maryland, granted toleration to all Christians.

West Indies:

By the mid-17th Century, England had secured its claim to several West Indian Islands.

Sugar was, by far, the major crop on the Indian Islands.

To support the massive sugar crops, millions of African slaves were imported.  By 1700, the ratio of black slaves to white settlers in the English West Indies was 4:1. In order to control the large number of slaves, the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 denied even the most fundamental rights to slaves.

The Carolinas:

Civil war plagued England in the 1640s.

In 1707, the Savannah Indians decided to end their alliance with the Carolinians and migrate to the back country of Maryland and Pennsylvania, where a new colony founded by Quakers under William Penn promised better relations.  Almost all of the Indians were killed in raids before they could depart - in 1710.

Rice became the primary export of the Carolinas.

Georgia:

The English founded Georgia to primarily serve as a buffer to protect the Carolinas from the Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana.

Georgia was founded in 1733.

The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism:

German friar Martin Luther denounced the authority of the priests and popes when he nailed his protests against Catholic doctrines to the door of Wittenberg's cathedral in 1517.  He declared that the Bible alone was the source of God's words.  He started the "Protestant Reformation."

John Calvin of Geneva elaborated Martin Luther's ideas.  He wrote his basic doctrine in Latin in 1536, entitled Institutes of the Christian Religion.  These ideas formed Calvinism. Calvanism supported the idea of predestination.

When King Henry VIII broke his ties with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s, he formed the Protestant Church.  There were a few people who wanted to see the process of taking Catholicism out of England occur more quickly.  These people were called Puritans.

A tiny group of Puritans, called Separatists, broke away from the Church of England (Protestant).  Fearing that his subjects would defy him both as their political leader and spiritual leader, King James I, the head of state of England and head of the church from 1603-1625, threatened to kick the Separatists out of England.

The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth:

Losing their identity as English, a group of Separatists in Holland came to America in search for religious freedom.  The group settled outside the domain of the Virginia Company and, without legal permission, settled in Plymouth Bay in 1620.

Captain Myles Standish- prominent among the non-belongers of the Mayflower who came to Plymouth Bay; an Indian fighter and negotiator.

Before disembarking from the Mayflower, the Pilgrim leaders drew up and signed the Mayflower Compact.  This was a simple agreement to form a crude government and to submit to the will of the majority under the regulations agreed upon.  It was signed by 41 adult males.  It was the first attempt at a government in America.

In the Pilgrims' first winter of 1620-1621, only 44 of the 102 survived.

In 1621, there was the first Thanksgiving Day in New England.

William Bradford- elected 30 times as governor of the Pilgrims in the annual elections; a self-taught scholar who read Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and Dutch; Pilgrim leader.

Charles I dismissed English Parliament in 1629 and approved of anti-Puritan persecutions of Archbishop William Laud.

In 1629, an energetic group of non-Separatist Puritans, fearing for their faith and for England's future, secured a royal charter to form the Massachusetts Bay Company.  (Massachusetts Bay Colony)

During the Great Migration of the 1630s, about 70,000 refugees left England for America.  Most of them were attracted to the warm and fertile West Indies, especially the sugar-rich island of Barbados.

John Winthrop- the Bay Colony's first governor - served for 19 years.

Bay Colony:

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was not a democracy because its governor (Winthrop) did not like Democracy. He did not think that the "commoners" could rule.

The colony's religious residents (freemen) annually elected the governor and his assistants and a representative assembly called the General Court. Non-religious residents could not vote.

Visible Saints was another name for the Puritans.

John Cotton- a very devoted Puritan.

Michael Wigglesworth wrote the poem, "The Day of Doom," in 1662.

Anne Hutchinson- an intelligent woman who challenged the Puritan orthodoxy; was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of her challenges to the Church.

Roger Williams- popular Salem minister who also challenged the Church; an extreme Separatist; was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Rhode Island:

Roger Williams fled to the Rhode Island area in 1636.  There, he established religious freedom for all kinds of people.

New England Spreads Out:

Hartford was founded in 1635.  Boston Puritans settled into the Hartford area lead by Reverend Thomas Hooker.

In 1639, the settlers of the new Connecticut River colony drafted a document known as the Fundamental Orders.  It was basically a constitution.

New Haven was established in 1638.

Part of Maine was purchased by Massachusetts Bay in 1677 from the Sir Ferdinando Gorges heirs.

In 1641, New Hampshire was absorbed by the greedy Massachusetts Bay.  The king took it back and made New Hampshire a royal colony in 1679.

Puritans versus Indians:

The Wampanoag chieftain, Massasoit, signed a treaty with the Plymouth Pilgrims in 1621.  The Wampanoag helped the Pilgrims have the first Thanksgiving in that same year.

In 1637, hostilities exploded between the English settlers and the powerful Pequot tribe.  The English militiamen and their Narragansett Indian allies annihilated the Pequot tribe.

In 1675, Massasoit's son, Metacom (also nicknamed King Philip by the English) launched a series of attacks and raids against the colonists' towns.  The war ended in 1676.

English Interference:

In 1643, 4 colonies banded together to form the New England Confederation.  It was made to defend against foes or potential foes.  The confederation consisted of only Puritan colonies - two Massachusetts colonies (the Bay Colony and small Plymouth) and two Connecticut colonies (New Haven and the scattered valley settlements).

Each colony had 2 votes, regardless of size.

As a slap at the Massachusetts Bay Colony, King Charles II gave rival Connecticut in 1662 a sea-to-sea charter grant, which legalized the squatter settlements.

In 1663, the outcasts in Rhode Island received a new charter, which gave kingly sanction to the most religiously tolerant government yet devised in America.

In 1684, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's charter was revoked by London authorities.

In 1686, the Dominion of New England was created by royal authority.  Unlike the homegrown New England Confederation, it was imposed from London.  It embraced all of New England until in 1688 when it was expanded to New York and East and West Jersey.

The leader of the Dominion of New England was Sir Edmund Andros - an able English military man.  He established headquarters in Puritanical Boston.

Andros stopped the town meetings; laid heavy restrictions on the courts, the press, and schools; and revoked all land titles.

In 1688-1689, the people of old England engineered the Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution.  They dethroned Catholic James II and enthroned the Protestant rulers of the Netherlands, the Dutch-born William III and his English wife, Mary, daughter of James II.

In 1691, Massachusetts was made a royal colony.

There was unrest in New York and Maryland from 1689-1691, until newly appointed royal governors restored a semblance of order.

Pennsylvania:

A group of dissenters, commonly known as Quakers, arose in England in the mid-1600s.  Officially, they were known as the Religious Society of Friends.

Quakers were especially offensive to the authorities, both religious and civil.  They refused to support the Church of England with taxes.

William Penn was attracted to the Quaker faith in 1660.  In 1681, he managed to secure from King Charles II an immense grant of fertile land, in consideration of a monetary debt owed to his deceased father by the crown.  The king called the area Pennsylvania.

The Quakers treated the Indians very well.  Many immigrants came to Pennsylvania seeking religious freedom.

"Blue Laws" prevented "ungodly revelers" from staging plays, playing cards, dice, games, and excessive hilarity.

By 1700, Pennsylvania surpassed all but Massachusetts and Virginia as the most populous and wealthy colony.

William Penn was never fully liked by his colonists because of his friendly relations with James II.  He was arrested for treason thrice and thrown into prison.

In 1664, New Netherland, a territory along the Hudson River, was taken by the English and granted to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. This grant that was given to Carteret and Berkeley divided the region into East and West New Jersey, respectively.

Berkeley sold West New Jersey in 1674 to a William Penn and his group of Quakers, who set up a sanctuary before Pennsylvania was launched.

In 1681 (the same year that Penn was given the region of Pennsylvania from King Charles II), William Penn and his Quakers purchased East New Jersey from Carteret's widow.

In 1702, the proprietors of East and West New Jersey voluntarily surrendered their governmental powers over the region to the royal crown after confusion began to arise over the large number of landowners and growing resentment of authority. England combined the two territories (East and West New Jersey) into one colony in 1702.

The Middle Colonies:

The middle colonies New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, were known as the "bread colonies" because of their heavy exports of grain.

These colonies were more ethnically mixed than any of the other colonies.  The people were given more religious tolerance than in any other colonies.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1706. He moved to Philadelphia at the age of 17.

Chronology

1517: Martin Luther begins Protestant Reformation

1536: John Calvin of Geneva publishes Institutes of the Christian Religion

1620: Pilgrims sail on the Mayflower to Plymouth Bay

1629: Charles I dismisses Parliament and persecutes Puritans

1630: Puritans found Massachusetts Bay Colony

1635-1636: Roger Williams convicted of heresy and founds Rhode Island colony

1635-1638: Connecticut and New Haven colonies founded

1636-1638: Pequot War

1638: Anne Hutchinson banished from Massachusetts colony

1639: Connecticut's Fundamental Orders drafted

1642-1651: English Civil War

1643: New England Confederation formed

1649: Act of Toleration in Maryland.

1650: William Bradford completes Of Plymoth Plantation

1670: Carolina colony created

1675-1676: King Philip's War

1681: William Penn founds Pennsylvania colony

1686: Royal authority creates Dominion of New England

1688-1689: Glorious Revolution overthrows Stuarts and Dominion of New England

1711-1713: Tuscarora War in North Carolina

1712: North Carolina formally separates from South Carolina

1715-1716: Yamasee War in South Carolina

1733: Georgia colony founded