I.
England’s Imperial Stirrings
North America in 1600 was largely unclaimed, though the Spanish had much control in
Central and South America.
Spain had only set up Santa Fe, while France had founded Quebec and Britain had
founded Jamestown.
In the 1500s, Britain failed to effectively colonize due to internal conflicts.
King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s and launched the
English Protestant Reformation.
After Elizabeth I became queen, Britain became basically Protestant, and a rivalry
with Catholic Spain intensified.
In Ireland, the Catholics sought Spain’s help in revolting against England, but the
English crushed the uprising with brutal atrocity, and developed an attitude of
sneering contempt for natives.
II. Elizabeth Energizes England
After Francis Drake pirated Spanish ships for gold then circumnavigated the globe,
Elizabeth I knighted him on his ship. Obviously, this reward angered the Spanish
who sought revenge.
Meanwhile, English attempts at colonization in the New World failed embarrassingly.
Notable of these failures was Sir Walter Raleigh and theRoanoke Island Colony,
better known as “The Lost Colony.”
Seeking to get their revenge, Spain attacked Britain but lost in the Spanish
Armada’s defeat of 1588. This opened the door for Britain to cross the Atlantic.
They swarmed to America and took over the lead in colonization and power.
Victory also fueled England to new heights due to…
Strong government/popular monarch, more religious unity, a sense of nationalism
Golden age of literature (Shakespeare)
Beginning of British dominance at sea (which lasts until U.S. tops them, around
1900)
Britain and Spain finally signed a peace treaty in 1604.
III. England on the Eve of the Empire
In the 1500s, Britain’s population was mushrooming.
New policy of enclosure (fencing in land) for farming. This meant there was less or
no land for the poor.
The woolen districts fell upon hard times economically. This meant the workers lost
jobs.
Tradition of primogeniture = 1st born son inherits ALL father’s land. Therefore,
younger sons of rich folk (who couldn’t inherit money) tried their luck with
fortunes elsewhere, like America.
By the 1600s, the joint-stock company was perfected (investors put money into the
company with hopes for a good return), being a forerunner of today’s corporations.
IV. England Plants the **Jamestown Seedling**
In 1606, the Virginia Company received a charter from King James I to make a
settlement in the New World.
Such joint-stock companies usually did not exist long, as stockholders invested
hopes to form the company, turn a profit, and then quickly sell for profit a few
years later.
The charter of the Virginia Company guaranteed settlers the same rights as
Englishmen in Britain.
On May 24, 1607, about 100 English settlers disembarked from their ship and founded
Jamestown.
Forty colonists had perished during the voyage.
Problems emerged including (a) the swampy site of Jamestown meant poor drinking
water and mosquitoes causing malaria and yellow fever. (b) men wasted time looking
for gold rather than doing useful tasks (digging wells, building shelter, planting
crops), (c) there were zero women on the initial ship.
It didn’t help that a supply ship shipwrecked in the Bahamas in 1609 either.
Luckily, in 1608, a Captain John Smith took over control and whipped the colonists
into shape.
At one point, he was kidnapped by local Indians and forced into a mock execution by
the chief Powhatan and had been “saved” byPowhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas.
The act was meant to show that Powhatan wanted peaceful relations with the
colonists.
John Smith’s main contribution was that he gave order and discipline, highlighted
by his “no work, no food” policy.
Colonists had to eat cats, dogs, rats, even other people. One fellow wrote of
eating “powdered wife.”
Finally, in 1610, a relief party headed by Lord De La Warr arrived to alleviate the
suffering.
By 1625, out of an original overall total of 8,000 would-be settlers, only 1,200
had survived.
V. Cultural Clash in the Chesapeake
At first, Powhatan possibly considered the new colonists potential allies and tried
to be friendly with them, but as time passed and colonists raided Indian food
supplies, relations deteriorated and eventually, war occurred.
The First Anglo-Powhatan War ended in 1614 with a peace settlement sealed by the
marriage of Pocahontas to colonist John Rolfe. Rolfe & Pocahontas nurtured a
favorable flavor of sweet tobacco.
Eight years later, in 1622, the Indians struck again with a series of attacks that
left 347 settlers, including John Rolfe, dead.
The Second Anglo-Powhatan War began in 1644, ended in 1646, and effectively
banished the Chesapeake Indians from their ancestral lands.
After the settlers began to grow their own food, the Indians were useless, and were
therefore banished.
VI. Virginia: Child of Tobacco
Jamestown’s gold is found and it is tobacco.
Rolfe’s sweet tobacco was sought as a cash crop by Europe. Jamestown had found its
gold.
Tobacco created a greed for land, since it heavily depleted the soil and ruined the
land.
Representative self-government was born in Virginia, when in 1619, settlers created
the House of Burgesses, a committee to work out local issues. This set America on a
self-rule pathway.
The first African Americans to arrive in America also came in 1619. It’s unclear if
they were slaves or indentured servants.
VII. Maryland: Catholic Haven
Religious Diversity
Founded in 1634 by Lord Baltimore, Maryland was the second plantation colony and
the fourth overall colony to be formed.
It was founded to be a place for persecuted Catholics to find refuge, a safe haven.
Lord Baltimore gave huge estates to his Catholic relatives, but the poorer people
who settled there where mostly Protestant, creating friction.
However, Maryland prospered with tobacco.
It had a lot of indentured servants.
Only in the later years of the 1600s (in Maryland and Virginia) did Black slavery
begin to become popular.
Maryland’s statute, the Act of Toleration, guaranteed religious toleration to all
Christians, but decreed the death penalty to Jews and atheists and others who
didn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
VIII. The West Indies: Way S
