CHAPTER 2

• European crops and livestock began to alter the landscape in the 1700s.

• Tierra Del Fuego in the SOUTH, to the Hudson Bay in the NORTH.

• Disease & armed conquest disrupted the native people.

• Most of the New World was controlled by imperial Spain.

ENGLAND’S IMPERIAL STIRRINGS

• Religious disruption occurred in England (Mid 1500s) because King Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church, launching the English Protestant Reformation. Resulted in a rivalry with Catholic Spain.

• Protestant Elizabeth rose to power in 1588. Protestantism became dominant in England.

ELIZABETH ENERGIZES ENGLAND

• Sir Francis Drake was a pirate sailed around in the 1500s with Spanish loot.

• Sir Walter Raleigh Landed in 1585 on North Carolina Roanoke Island. The region was known as virgin queen.

• The route of the Spanish armada marked the beginning of of the end of Spanish imperial dreams. Holland would gain his independence eventually and take over the Spanish Caribbean from Spain.

• Lead to the downfall of Spain. Helped ensure England’s naval dominance in the north Atlantic.

ENGLAND PLANTS THE JAMESTOWN SEEDLING

• Law of primogeniture decreed that only eldest sons religion to inherit landed estates.

• The joint stock company known as the Virginia company of London received a charter from King James the first of England for a settlement in the New World in 1606.

• The charter of the Virginia company is a significant document in American history.

• It guaranteed that overseas settlers are the same rights of English men.

• In the late 1606 the Virginia’s company launched three ships that landed near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay where they were attacked by American Indians. They were pushed up the bay and landed near the James river which was named after King James the 1st. on May 24, 1607 they landed on a place they called Jamestown.

• Captain John Smith ended up saving Virginia in 1608. He made the rule “he who shall not work shall not eat”. he was literally kidnapped in December and subjected to a mock execution by the chieftain Powhatan, But he was saved by the daughter of the chief interfering with the execution. Due to desperate hunger during the winter Lord De Pa Warr forced the settlers back to Jamestown. by 1625 Virginia contained only some 1200 survivors of the 8000 who came to start a new life.

• The Virginia company declared a war against the American Indians in the Jamestown region. He burnt houses rated villages and burned everything. The Anglo-Powhatan War ended when John Rolfe married Pocahontas.

• The second Anglo-Powhatan War took place in 1644. Only 10% of American Indians population remained by 1607. European diseases killed a lot of people, specifically American Indians. Lotta trade was happening as well. They traded firearms from the Europeans. John Rolfe became the father of the tobacco industry by 1612. People were more desperate for tobacco than they were for food

THE INDIANS’ NEW WORLD

• Tobacco killed the soil of the Americas.

• Representative self government and slavery were established in the same year 1619. The Virginia company also assembled an assembly called the House of Burgesses.

MARYLAND: CATHOLIC HAVEN

• Maryland was the fourth English colony and was founded in 1634 by Lord Baltimore.

• Maryland prospered in acres of tobacco. The Act of toleration was developed and passed in 1649 by the local representative assembly in Maryland. Marilyn was pretty tolerant to all Christians but they had death penalty for those who do not believe in Jesus like the Jewish and Atheist's.

THE WEST INDIES: WAY STATION TO MAINLAND AMERICA

• Spain was distracted by the Dutch and lost grip on much of the Caribbean in the early 1600s. England access to the West Indian islands in 1655 including Jamaica. tobacco was considered a poor man crop and sugar was considered a rich man’s crop. Sugar plantations were expanded to the western Indies in the 17 century.

• They also deported a lot of enslaved of Africans to work on those plantations. The Barbados slave code of 1661 denied even the most fundamental rights to slaves and gave masters virtually completely control over the laborers including the right to inflict vicious punishments for slight infractions.

THE EMERGENCE OF NORTH CAROLINA

• Newcomers were called squatters who were without legal rights to soil and raised tobaccos and other crops on small farms, with little need for slaves.

• In the early 18th century, North Carolina was settled by a group of outcasts and religious dissenters who were fleeing Virginia’s elite, plantation-dominated society. These new settlers, often squatters without official land rights, established small farms and grew tobacco with minimal use of slaves.

• North Carolinians quickly developed a reputation for being rugged and independent. They were seen as irreligious and somewhat rowdy, partly because they lived in a remote and harsh environment, isolated by wilderness and the dangerous Cape Hatteras. This isolation helped them develop a strong resistance to authority. Their location between the more aristocratic Virginia and South Carolina led to North Carolina being called “a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit.” After years of friction with colonial governors, North Carolina split from South Carolina in 1712 and became its own royal colony.

• North Carolina, like Rhode Island, was known for being particularly democratic and independent, and less aristocratic compared to other English colonies.

• Despite not having many African slaves in its early years, North Carolina was involved in violent conflicts with Native American tribes. In 1711, the Tuscarora tribe attacked a settlement in Newbern, leading to a brutal retaliation where many Tuscaroras were enslaved and others fled north to join the Iroquois Confederacy. The Yamasee tribe faced a similar fate in 1715-1716 when they were defeated and scattered by South Carolinians.

• By around 1720, most of the coastal tribes in the southern colonies had been destroyed, but powerful tribes like the Cherokees, Creeks, and Iroquois, living in the Appalachian Mountains, managed to hold their ground and keep British settlers from moving further inland for another fifty years.

LATE COMING GEORGIA: THE BUFFER COLONY

• Georgia, with its pine forests and the harbor of Savannah, was officially established in 1733. It was the last of the thirteen colonies to be founded, coming 126 years after Virginia and 52 years after Pennsylvania. While it’s the newest in terms of founding, it fits geographically with the other Southern colonies.

• The British had a clear plan for Georgia: it was meant to act as a buffer. This new colony was supposed to protect the Carolinas from potential threats by the Spanish in Florida and the French in Louisiana. Because of its strategic importance, Georgia received financial support from the British government in its early days, which was unique among the original thirteen colonies.

• Named after King George II of England, Georgia was established by a group of philanthropists with high ideals. They wanted to create a haven for people imprisoned for debt and produce goods like silk and wine. Initially, they also aimed to keep slavery out of Georgia. One of the most influential founders was James Oglethorpe, a soldier and reformer who was inspired to help after a friend died in a debtor’s jail. Oglethorpe defended the colony from Spanish attacks and played a major role in its survival, even using his own money to support it.

• Savannah, like Charleston, became a diverse community with settlers from various backgrounds, including German Lutherans and Scots Highlanders. The colony practiced religious tolerance for all Christians except Catholics. Many missionaries, including a young John Wesley—who later founded the Methodist Church—came to work with debtors and Native Americans.

• Despite these efforts, Georgia’s growth was slow. By the end of the colonial period, it was one of the least populous colonies. Factors like an unhealthy climate, early restrictions on slavery, and repeated Spanish attacks hindered its development.

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

• Agricultural Focus: These colonies were primarily devoted to agriculture, with a focus on exporting profitable crops. Tobacco was a major staple in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, while rice was crucial for South Carolina. North Carolina had smaller farms and grew crops to a lesser extent.

• Slavery: Slavery was prevalent in all the plantation colonies, though it only began in Georgia after 1750. Large plantations in these regions created a strong aristocratic atmosphere, except in North Carolina and Georgia, where the social structure was somewhat different due to smaller farms and debtors.

• Geographical and Social Challenges: The extensive land holdings and scattered nature of plantations and farms, often located along rivers, hindered urban development. Establishing churches and schools was challenging and costly. For instance, in 1671, the governor of Virginia expressed relief that the colony lacked free schools and printing presses.

• Religious Tolerance: While all these colonies allowed some degree of religious freedom, the Church of England was the official and dominant religion, though it was weaker in North Carolina compared to the others.

• Expansion and Conflict: The colonies were expansionist, driven westward by soil depletion from excessive tobacco farming and motivated by the navigable rivers. This expansion led to ongoing conflicts with Native American tribes as settlers moved further into the continent