European Colonization of the Americas (1607-1754) 🌎

Motives and Methods

The major themes of this unit revolve around comparing the different motives and methods that Europeans used to colonize the Americas.

Spanish Colonization

• Established colonies: to extract wealth (cash crops and gold/silver) and to subject the native population to their rule

• Conversion to Christianity: attempted to convert the native population to Christianity with mixed success

• Caste system: introduced a caste system that reorganized society based on racial ancestry

French Colonization

• Interested in trade: more interested in trade than conquest, especially the fish and fur trade

• Trading settlements: established trading settlements around North America

• Marriages with Native American women: some French traders married Native American women to further advance their economic goals and keep kinship ties alive with their Native trading partners

• Mutual benefit: there was mutual benefit in these alliances, with the French introducing iron cookware and manufactured cloth, and the Native Americans benefiting from the French preparation of beaver skins for sale at market

Dutch Colonization

• Fur trading center: established a fur trading center on the Hudson River in 1609

• Economic goals: goals for colonizing were mainly economic, like the French

• New Amsterdam: established New Amsterdam in 1624, which facilitated and advanced their economic goals

• Hub of trade: New Amsterdam became a hub of trade that attracted large populations of traders, merchants, fishermen, and farmers

British Colonization

Motivations

• Economic opportunities: new economic opportunities and lands on which they could seek those opportunities

• Religious freedom: some wanted to venture across the Atlantic to seek religious freedom and improved living conditions

• Inflation: the British economy was experiencing inflation, which made prices rise, and their money worthless

British Colonial Settlements

Chesapeake Region

• Jamestown: established Jamestown in 1607, their first permanent colonial settlement in North America

• Joint stock company: financed by a joint stock company, a private business entity in which several different investors put money into a pot and then collected profits when the entity was successful

• Profit-seeking venture: Jamestown was a profit-seeking venture, with colonists searching for gold and silver and building military force to defend their finds

• Tobacco cultivation: discovered tobacco cultivation, which led to a complete reversal of their fortunes

• Indentured servants: most people doing the work on the cultivation of these crops were indentured servants, who signed a labor contract that paid for their passage from Britain to the New World and agreed to work for usually seven years before going free

New England Colonies

• Pilgrims: settled by pilgrims who migrated in family units to establish a society, not a profit-seeking enterprise

• Christian religion: goals were bound up in their Christian religion

• Family economies: created family economies as farmers

• Rough time: had a rough time, with fevers and disease killing about half the original settlers

British West Indies and Southern Atlantic Coast Colonies

• Caribbean colonies: established permanent colonies in the Caribbean in places like Saint Christopher, Barbados, and Nevis

• Year-round growing seasons: the warm climate afforded year-round growing seasons

• Tobacco and sugarcane: grew tobacco, but by the 1630s, falling tobacco prices led to the introduction of a new crop, sugarcane

• Labor-intensive: sugarcane was a very labor-intensive crop, leading to an increase in demand for African slaves to grow it

• Laws governing enslaved people: laws were passed to govern the black population, defining enslaved people as property and governing every little detail of their lives

Middle Colonies

• Diverse population: in New York and New Jersey, there was a diverse population

• Sea and rivers: the area was on the sea and was shot through with many rivers## Regional Characteristics of the British Colonies 🗺

Middle Colonies

• Founded by William Penn, a Quaker and pacifist

• Recognized religious freedom for all

• Land obtained from Indians through negotiation, not force

Governance in the Colonies

• Unusually democratic due to Britain's distance and lack of interference

• Self-governing structures established by colonial leaders

• Examples:

  • Mayflower Compact: organized government on the model of a self-governing church congregation

  • House of Burgesses in Virginia: a representative assembly that could levy taxes and pass laws

The Atlantic Trade System 🌊

Triangular Trade

• A three-part journey:

  1. Merchant ships carried rum from New England to West Africa

  2. Traded rum for enslaved people

  3. Shipped enslaved people to the West Indies, trading for sugar cane

  4. Returned to New England, selling sugar cane to make rum

Mercantilism

"Measuring wealth by gold and silver, each state's goal was to gain as much of that wealth as possible"

• Maintaining a favorable balance of trade (more exports than imports)

• Establishing colonies to obtain raw materials

• British government's Navigation Acts:

  • Required merchants to engage in trade with English colonies and English-owned ships

  • Certain valuable trade items had to pass through British ports, where they could be taxed

Slavery in the British Colonies 👥

• Between 1700 and 1808, 3 million enslaved Africans were carried on British ships across the Middle Passage

• Majority sold to planters in the British West Indies

• Every British colony participated in the slave trade

• Strict slave codes introduced in Virginia, Carolinas, and Barbados, defining slaves as chattel (property)

• Enslaved blacks resisted and rebelled, using covert strategies (e.g., secretly maintaining cultural customs, breaking tools) and overt strategies (e.g., the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, 1739)

Relations with Native Americans 🌎

• Metacom's War (King Philip's War) in 1675: British encroachment on Native American lands led to conflict between the Wampanoag and the British

• British allied with the Mohawk Indians, eventually ambushing and killing Metacom, ending the movement

Colonial Society and Structure 🏛

Religion

• Enlightenment: a movement emphasizing rational thinking over tradition and religious revelation

• Ideas spread through a robust transatlantic print culture

• Key concepts:

  • Natural rights: people have inborn rights given by a creator, not by government

  • Social contract: people are in a contract with their government, which must protect natural rights

  • Three-branch government: legislative, executive, and judicial

The Great Awakening

• A massive religious revival sweeping through all the colonies (1720s-1740s)

• Leaders: Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield

• Result: a large-scale return to the Christian faith, binding the colonists together and sowing the seeds for the rejection of British rule

Anglicanization

• Colonies becoming more English-like, developing autonomous political communities similar to those in England

• Rising frustration with the British, leading to resistance