1492 - Columbian Exchange begins with Columbus’s discovery of the New World

• Columbus sailed for Spain seeking a path to the Indies

• Exchange of crops and disease between old and New World

• From Europe: horses and domesticated livestock, disease, coffee, grain

• From the New World: potato, squash, maize, tobacco, quinine

1512 - Encomienda system created

• Native labor granted in exchange for promise to Christianize

• Similar to slaver - unfair treatment of Natives

• Worked on large haciendas of Spanish landowners

1520 - Smallpox begins to decimate native population

• Close to 90% of population killed

• Natives were not effective laborers as they were dying due to lack of immunity - beginning of slave trade

• Europeans had immunity due to transcontinental exchanges

1552 - Bartolome De Las Casas popularizes the idea of the “Black Legend”

• Showed cruelty of the Spanish system

• Depicted the natives as gentle lamb and Spaniards as wolves

• He was a member of the church (a friar)

• Led to end of the encomienda system

1607 - Jamestown established

• Joint stock company intended to turn a profit for investors

• Most settlers wanted to look for gold instead of farm - “starving time” many didn’t survive the winter

• John Rolfe introduces tobacco - married Pocahontas

• John Smith says “those who do not work do not eat”: advertised and promoted Jamestown

1609 - 1613 - Anglo - Powhatan War

• Conflict between del la Warr and Powhatan Confederacy

• Virginia Colony

• Rolfe’s marriage to Pocahontas ended the first war

• Series of 3 wars

1618 - Headright system

• To get more indentured servants, 50 acres were given to anyone who sponsored the voyage of an indentured servant

• Indentured servants, usually poor white males - would be free after their term of indenture

• Primary source of labor before Bacon’s Rebellion switched to slavery

1619 - Virginia House of Burgesses created

• First representative assembly in the colonies

• All planters’ interests were represented

1620 - Plymouth established

• Separatist Pilgrims set out to establish a “city upon a hill” - Winthrop

• Opposed the Anglican church and didn’t want toleration for non-Puritans

• Mayflower compact agreed to follow laws and create a godly community

• Families settled in New England unlike mostly single men in Chesapeake

1632 - colony of Maryland established

• Lord Baltimore

• Haven for Catholics - offered religious toleration

1635 - Roger Williams exiled

• Shows intolerance of the Puritans in New England

• Spoke out for separation of church and state and for fair treatment of Native Americans - banished from Massachusetts

• Formed Rhode Island

1637 - Anne Hutchinson banished

• Called a heretic and considered inappropriate for a woman to preach and hold meeting in her home

• Claimed God spoke to her

• Was killed by Native Americans

1639 - Fundamental Orders created

• Connecticut Constitution - first written constitution in America

• Set up structure and powers of government with the goal of protecting trade

1643 - New England Federation established

• Established for collective security of New Englanders

• First step toward (limited) colonial unity

• Protection from Native Americans

1651 - Navigation Laws/Mercantilism

• Mercantilism

  • The goal was to enrich the mother country, create a favorable balance of trade, increase bullion in treasury, and extract resources from colonies

• Navigation Laws limited the trading partners of the colonies, but were loosely enforced

1676 - Bacon’s Rebellion

• Freed indentured servants rebelled against Virginia governor Berkeley

• Wanted to be able to expand west and attack Native Americans

• Saw Eastern elites as unconcerned with those on the frontier

• Rebellion put down and slavery becomes preferred form of labor as they’d never be free, unlike indentured servants

1686 - Dominion of New England established

• Attempt by England to exert control over colonies

• Hated by colonists that were used to salutary neglect

• Ended after Glorious Revolution

1693 - Salem Witch Trials

• Women accused of witchcraft and put on trial

• Possible that the girls who accused them actually hallucinated because of a mold in the bread

• Ended when it became disruptive to the social order

1730s and 1740s - Great Awakening

• Religious revival with fiery sermons by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield

• Preached in fields - populist religious movement

• “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”

• Led to more challenging authority and free thought

• Conflict between old lights and new lights

1733 - Zenger Trial

• Accused of libel but acquitted

• Sets precedent of free press that you can print negative stories as long as they are true