British Colonies: Development of Distinct Societies

Chesapeake Colonies

  • First North American colony: Jamestown, established in 1607.
  • Financed by a joint stock company: Investors pooled money, shared financial risks.
    • Contrast with Spanish colonization funded by the crown.
  • Purpose: To seek profit (gold and silver).
  • Initial struggles:
    • Famine and disease killed nearly half the colonists in the first two years.
    • Resorted to cannibalism.
  • Turnaround: Cultivation of tobacco in 1612 by John Rolfe.
  • Labor: Primarily done by indentured servants.
    • Seven-year labor contract to pay for passage.
  • Consequences of tobacco demand:
    • Encroachment on Native American land.
    • Increased tensions and violent retaliation by Native Americans.
    • Governor William Berkeley's refusal to support the colonists led to Bacon's Rebellion.
  • Bacon's Rebellion:
    • Led by Nathaniel Bacon, an angry farmer.
    • Attack on Indians and plantations owned by Berkeley.
    • Rebellion was squashed, but it led to planters seeking a new source of labor: enslaved people from Africa.

New England Colonies

  • Settled by Pilgrims in 1620, followed by Puritan settlers.
  • Puritans sought to emigrate to live by their own conscience due to unhappiness with the Church of England.
  • Migrated largely as family groups to establish a society and family economies as farmers.
  • Economic reasons for emigration:
    • Initially settled in Holland for religious freedom, but struggled economically.
  • Initial hardships:
    • Fever and disease killed nearly half of the original settlers.
  • Later success:
    • Established a thriving society and economy centered on agriculture and commerce.

British West Indies and Southern Atlantic Coast

  • British established permanent colonies in the Caribbean in the 1620s (e.g., Saint Christopher, Barbados, Nevis).
  • Warm climate led to long growing seasons.
  • Initial Cash Crop: Tobacco
  • Sugarcane became the primary cash crop by the 1630s.
  • Demand for labor:
    • Sugarcane production is labor-intensive, leading to a spike in demand for African enslaved people.
    • By 1660, the majority of the population on Barbados was black.
  • Harsh slave codes:
    • Enacted to regulate the behavior of enslaved people.
    • Enslaved people were formally defined as property (chattel).
  • South Carolina:
    • Colonists replicated the British West Indies society on the mainland.

Middle Colonies

  • New York and New Jersey:
    • Located by the sea with many rivers and streams.
    • Developed an export economy based on cereal crops.
    • Diverse population with increasing inequality due to an emerging elite class.
    • Social structure:
      • Wealthy urban merchants at the top.
      • Middle-class artisans and shopkeepers.
      • Unskilled laborers, orphans, widows, and the unemployed.
      • Significant population of enslaved Africans at the bottom.
  • Pennsylvania:
    • Founded by William Penn, a Quaker and pacifist.
    • Religious freedom was recognized for all.
    • Negotiated with Indians for land holdings.

Democratic Systems of Governance in the Colonies

  • Due to distance from Britain, colonies developed their own systems of governance.
  • Virginia: House of Burgesses.
    • Representative assembly that levied taxes and passed laws.
  • New England: Mayflower Compact.
    • Organized government on the model of a self-governing church congregation.
    • Concentrated power into participatory town meetings.
  • Middle and Southern Colonies:
    • Had representative bodies dominated by the elite (merchants in the Middle Colonies, planters in the South).