Beginnings of English America, 1607–1660 – Condensed Bullet-Point Notes

Elizabethan expansion and religious conflict set the stage for colonization (1590s–1600s).
Hakluyt’s Discourse Concerning Western Planting argued for colonies to rival Spain, promote trade, spread Protestantism, and provide refuge for England’s surplus population.
Motives for colonization: national glory, economic opportunity, religious freedom, and social relief for masterless men.
England’s social crisis (enclosure, poverty, vagrancy) fed emigration as a safety valve and labor supply in the New World.
Indentured servitude became the main route for many settlers; ownership of land promised freedom and political rights.
Land = liberty: access to land allowed control over labor and voting rights in many colonies.
Native peoples occupied land, leading to conflict and displacement as English settlements expanded.

Jamestown (1607) founded by the Virginia Company on the James River; initial goal of gold and resources, not immediate farming.
Early colony faced high death rates, disease (malaria), and food shortages; “starving time” 1609–1610.
John Smith imposed discipline: "He that will not work, shall not eat."
Powhatan Confederacy engaged in trade and diplomacy; Pocahontas acted as intermediary; marriage to John Rolfe (1614) helped temporary peace.
1619: first enslaved Africans arrive in Virginia; establishment of the House of Burgesses (elected assembly) signaling political development.
1622: Powhatan’s uprising (Opechancanough) kills a large portion of settlers; colony retaliates and Indian power declines.
1624: Virginia becomes a royal colony; Crown-appointed governors replace company control.

English demand for land led to displacement of Native communities; trade altered Indian life but resistance persisted.
Tobacco emerges as the economic backbone, transforming settlement patterns and social structure.
Headright system (1618) granted land to colonists who financed passage for themselves or others; facilitated accumulation of land by a few.
Growth of a tobacco-based, plantation society with a hierarchical social order; concentration of land and labor.

1632: Cecilius Calvert (Baltimore) founded Maryland as a proprietary colony to provide a haven for Catholics and extend English influence.
Initially Catholic landowners and officials governed; Protestants soon formed the majority.
Land and headright system encouraged large estates and migration of indentured servants.
1649: Act Concerning Religion guaranteed liberty of worship to all Christians, a milestone for religious toleration.
1650s: Protestant control and anti-Catholic sentiment; 1657 Calvert authority restored; toleration limited in practice.

Puritans aimed to reform the Church of England; many sought to build a new society grounded in Biblical law.
Moral liberty vs natural liberty: true freedom meant obedience to God and civil authority, not unrestrained action.
Great Migration (1629–1640): about 21,000 Puritans migrated to Massachusetts and surrounding areas; families often came, not just single men.
Plymouth Colony (1620) founded by Separatists; Mayflower Compact established self-government and consent.
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) grew into a major Puritan settlement; education and religion central to society.
Harvard College established (1636) to train ministers; first printing press (1638–1639) in Cambridge.

Puritan towns self-governed; congregational churches tied to civil authority.
General Court formed; governor elected by freemen; consent principle central to governance.
Public education prioritized; literacy linked to Bible reading.
Church membership restricted to “visible saints”; voting restricted to church members with landholding.
Body of Liberties (1641) outlined rights; included sanctions against dissent but protected speech and assembly for many.
Slavery appears in Massachusetts by 1640; slavery exists alongside Puritan religious governance.

Roger Williams (arrived 1631) argued for separation of church and state and freedom of conscience.
Williams founded Rhode Island (Providence) with religious liberty, no established church, and broad toleration.
Rhode Island became a beacon of religious freedom and more democratic governance.
Connecticut founded by Thomas Hooker (1636) with Hartford as a base; later unified with New Haven and others under a royal charter (1662).
Anne Hutchinson challenged Puritan clerical authority (Antinomian Controversy); banished in 1637; helped shape legacy of religious dissent.

Tensions with Indians escalated; Pequot War (1637) culminated in the Mystic Massacre, devastating the Pequot and altering regional power.
War reinforced Puritan belief in a divine mission but also showcased brutal colonial military power.
Publications and captivity narratives (e.g., Mary Rowlandson) shaped perceptions of Indians and captivity.

Economy focused on family farms, fishing, timber, and maritime trade; less reliance on slavery than Chesapeake.
Merchants in Boston and the wider port towns grew powerful; began to influence colonial policy.
By mid- to late 17th century, economic activity increasingly driven by trade with the West Indies and Europe.
The Half-Way Covenant (1662) eased church membership for grandchildren of early settlers to maintain church influence while addressing declining piety.

Magna Carta and common law laid groundwork for a broader concept of English liberties.
English Civil War (1642–1649) and Interregnum expanded debates about liberty, authority, and the rights of freeborn Englishmen.
Milton, Levellers, and other groups pushed for broader political rights and religious toleration; early ideas of democracy and universal rights influenced later American thought.
Cromwell’s empire-building and the Navigation Acts (mid-1650s) extended imperial reach and regulated colonial trade.
After the Restoration (1660), tension persisted between expanding liberty and maintaining social order in the colonies.

Virginia Company, Jamestown, headright system, House of Burgesses, Powhatan, Pocahontas, Uprising of 1622, tobacco colony, dower rights
Puritans, moral liberty, Mayflower Compact, Great Migration, Congregationalists, Harvard College, Body of Liberties, Half-Way Covenant
Roger Williams, Rhode Island, separation of church and state, Connecticut, Anne Hutchinson, antinomianism
Pequot War, Mystic Massacre, captivity narratives, fishing and timber economy, merchant elite
Act Concerning Religion (Maryland), toleration, Cromwell, Navigation Acts, English liberty