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