Unit 2 European Colonization in the Americas

Unit 2: European Colonization in the Americas [1607-1754] 

French Colonization [1524]

  • Samuel De Champlain [1608] established the first Spanish settlement called Quebec. 

  • The French established trading settlements throughout North America.

  • French traders married Native American women for kinship ties to trading networks. 

Dutch Colonization 

  • Henry Hudson [1624] established the first Dutch settlement, New Amsterdam. 

  • Goals: mainly economic–attracted traders and farmers. 

  • They had no interest in converting Native Americans to Christianity.

British Colonization

  • Motivations: economics–English economy drastically changed due to the Columbian Exchange, war costs, and conquests. 

British Colonies (Topic 2.3)

  • First established colony: Jamestown [1607], financed by a JOINT-STOCK Company 

  • Joint-Stock Companies: These companies allowed multiple investors to pool their resources for the purpose of establishing colonies, thereby spreading the financial risk associated with overseas ventures.

  • Cultivation of Tobacco saved Jamestown during the first two years: indentured servants were the main labor source.

  • Native Americans started to retaliate against the encroachment of European settlers.

    • William Berkely: A colonial governor of Virginia whose policies favored wealthy planters and led to tensions with poorer settlers, culminating in Bacon's Rebellion.

    • Nathenial Bacon: a settler led angry farmers against Native Americans.

  • Elite-Planters feared that more uprisings may occur, so they found enslaved people from Africa to be the solution.

Topic 2.4 Trans-Atlantic Trade

  • The Triangular Trade: A three-way system of trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, involving the exchange of goods and enslaved people between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

  • Middle Passage: The forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, characterized by overcrowded and inhumane conditions.

  • Slave Trade Act [1788]: passed by British Parliament to regulate the conditions aboard slave ships and improve the treatment of enslaved Africans during their transport.

  • Mercantilism: dominant economic system in Europe

    • There is a fixed amount of wealth (gold & silver): maintain a favorable balance of trade—more exports than imports. The goal of mercantilism was to increase national wealth through accumulating resources and establishing colonies, which supplied raw materials and served as markets for manufactured goods.

  • Navigation Acts: required merchants to engage in trade with English colonies exclusively in English ships, thereby ensuring that a significant portion of colonial trade profits would benefit England, ultimately reinforcing the mercantilist framework.

  • Consumer Revolution: a period during the 17th and 18th centuries marked by an increase in the consumption and variety of goods available to the public, which was fueled by overseas trade and the influx of wealth from colonies.

Topic 2.5 Interactions Between American Indians and Europeans

  • Spain introduced a Caste System—reorder people based on their racial ancestry.

English

  • As British population grew, they encroached on Native land for resources

    • Metacom’s War (King Phillips War) [1675] Metacom was the chief of the Wampanoag Indians —> Metacom allied with other Indian groups and led an attack on colonists.

    • In retaliation, The British ambushed and killed Metacom.

French

  • The French saw the Natives as trade allies and would marry them for access to trade networks.

Topic 2.6 Slavery in the British Colonies

  • Chattel Slavery: enslaved people were treated as property (farm tool or domesticated product).

  • Slave Laws

    • Legally Defined African laborers as chattel

    • Slavery was made a perpetual institution from one generation to the next

    • These laws became harsher and harsher.

Slave Resistance

  • Covert Resistance: practiced cultural customs from homeland, maintained belief systems, spoke native languages, kept naming practices, from home, slowed the pace of work by breaking tools and damaging crops.

  • Stono Rebellion [1739], enslaved Africans in South Carolina started to burn plantations as well as their oppressors.

    • Most rebellious slaves were either killed in battle or hung later.

Topic 2.7 Colonial SOCIETY and CULTURE

How and why did the movement of ideas and people across the Atlantic contribute to the development of an American culture?

Enlightenment: enlightenment thinkers awakened American colonists to ideas about liberty and rights and democratic government.

  • John Locke: Two Treatises on Government gave the colonies the idea of natural rights.

Great Awakening [between 1720s and the 1740s]: a religious revival that emphasized individual piety and a personal relationship with God, which fostered a sense of shared identity among colonists.

  • Jonathan Edwards: A prominent preacher during the Great Awakening, known for his fire-and-brimstone sermons that urged sinners to seek salvation.

    • Sinners of the Hands of an Angry God

  • George Whitefield: A leading figure in the Great Awakening, Whitefield was an Anglican cleric whose itinerant preaching style captivated large crowds and inspired many colonists to embrace evangelical faith.

  • Result: Large scale return to the Christian faith and an experience that bounded the colonists together.

Anglicization (influenced by the culture of England)

  • Colonies were developing autonomous political communities to those in England.