Colonial America: Virginia and Maryland

Establishment: Initially managed by the Virginia Company, focusing on trade and resource extraction.
- The company instructed its colonists to treat local Indians kindly and to try to convert them to Christianity.
Headright System: A land grant program that incentivized immigration by awarding land to those who financed the passage of new settlers.
- Anyone who brought in a sizable number of servants would immediately acquire a large estate.
House of Burgesses (1619): The first elected assembly in colonial America.
- Limitations: Only landowners could vote, and the company-appointed governor could nullify its measures.
- Significance: Established a political precedent for English colonies.
Arrival of the First Blacks (1619): Twenty blacks arrive in Virginia on a Dutch vessel, marking the beginning of slavery.
Transition to Royal Colony: Due to the Virginia Company's failures, Virginia became a royal colony, with its governor appointed by the crown.
- Investors had not turned a profit, and although the company had sent 6,000 settlers to Virginia, its white population numbered only 1,200 when the king assumed control.
- The local elite controlled the colony's development.

Powhatan: Leader of 15,000 to 25,000 Indians in the Jamestown area.
- Realized the advantages of trade with the English newcomers.
Initial Relations: Mostly peaceful and based on equal exchange.
John Smith and Pocahontas: Smith was captured by the Indians and saved by Pocahontas, which was likely a ceremony to assert Powhatan's power rather than a romantic event.
Pocahontas' Role: She served as an intermediary, bringing food and messages to Jamestown.
Increased Tensions: Smith's return to England led to conflict, with massacres and crop destruction.
Pocahontas' Capture and Conversion (1613): She was held hostage, converted to Christianity, and married John Rolfe in 1614.
Visit to England: Pocahontas, now called Rebecca, visited England and was presented as a symbol of Anglo-Indian harmony.
- She died of disease in 1617.

Opechancanough's Attack: Powhatan's brother led a surprise attack that wiped out one-quarter of Virginia's settler population.
Colonist Retaliation: Surviving colonists massacred Indians and devastated their villages.
Shifting Policy: Governor Francis Wyatt declared that the Indians had forfeited their land, leading to a policy of expulsion.
Uprising of 1644: A final rebellion led by Opechancanough was crushed.
Treaty with Indians: The surviving coastal Indians were forced to acknowledge subordination to the government and move to tribal reservations.

Economic Shift: Tobacco became Virginia's substitute for gold, enriching planters and the colonial government.
Tobacco Production: By 1624, over 200,000 pounds of tobacco were grown, with production increasing to 15 million pounds by the 1660s and doubling again by the 1680s.
Social Impact: The spread of tobacco farming led to a dispersed society with little social unity and a get-rich-quick attitude.
Influx of Wealthy Immigrants: Sons of merchants and English gentlemen acquired large estates through the headright system.
Labor: Expansion of tobacco cultivation increased the demand for field labor, primarily met by young, male indentured servants.
- Approximately 120,000 English immigrants entered the Chesapeake region during the seventeenth century, with three-quarters as servants.
Social Hierarchy: Virginia's white society resembled that of England, with a wealthy landed gentry, small farmers, and poor laborers.
- By 1700, the region's white population had grown to nearly 90,000.

Imbalance: Men outnumbered women due to demand for male servants in tobacco fields.
- The ratio was four or five to one for most of the seventeenth century.
Women's Roles: Most women came as indentured servants and formed families later in life.
Demographic Constraints: High death rate, unequal sex ratio, and late marriage age retarded population growth.
Weakened Patriarchy: Traditional authority of husbands and fathers was weakened due to low life expectancy.
Dower Rights: A married woman possessed certain rights before the law, including a claim to $1/3$ of her husband's property if he died before she did.
- When the widow died, however, the property passed to the husband's male heirs.
Femme Sole: Widows and unmarried women took advantage of their legal status to make contracts and conduct business.
- Margaret Brent acquired land, managed her plantation, and acted as a lawyer.
Vulnerability: Indentured servants faced hard labor, sexual abuse, and poverty.

Establishment: Founded in 1632 as a proprietary colony granted to Cecilius Calvert.
- Calvert was granted "full, free, and absolute power," including control of trade and the right to initiate all legislation.
Feudal Vision: Calvert imagined Maryland as a feudal domain with manors and quitrents.
Land Distribution: Calvert disliked representative institutions and prioritized land distribution among select individuals.
Religious Toleration: Calvert, a Catholic, intended Maryland as a refuge for persecuted Catholics.
Demographics: Protestants always formed a majority of the settlers, many of whom came as indentured servants.
Mortality: The death rate remained very high, with most marriages lasting fewer than eight years due to death.
- Almost 70 percent of male settlers in Maryland died before reaching the age of fifty, and half the children born in the colony did not live to adulthood.
Land Ownership: Maryland initially offered servants greater opportunity for land ownership than Virginia, including fifty acres of land as freedom dues.
Religious Tolerance: Only Christians believed in the concept of the Trinity could live in the colony of Maryland, and those who violated certain religious expectations could be whipped, jailed, or fined.