Albion Ascendant: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)

Spanish & Portuguese Dominance

Mystery of Roanoke (1585-1590)

Survival at Jamestown

Life in 17th Century Chesapeake

• High mortality rate for much of the century• Plantation-based economy with tobacco as

cash crop• Indentured servitude system increasingly

unpopular• Widespread importation of slaves following

Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)

Bacon’s Rebellion – catalyst in creation of permanent black underclass

Early New England

Puritan “City Upon a Hill”

Early New England Life

• More immigration by entire family units than seen in Chesapeake

• Settlers generally of at least modest means• Much less indentured servitude and slavery

than in Chesapeake• No heavy reliance on cash crops• Puritanism allowed for economic prosperity as

long as spiritual life was sound

Puritan “Family Values”

• Children being “broken in” through such practices as kneeling on sharpened sticks and being tied up and rolled in a ball

• “Bundling” as courtship ritual• Bachelors being forced to move in with

families• Death penalty for sons 16+ who disobeyed

parents

Salem Witchcraft Trials (1692-1693)

Early New York

Iroquois Confederacy

Iroquois “Mourning” War

• Combat designed primarily to replenish population and grieve for lost loved ones

• Consequently a reliance on small unit hit-and-run raids

• Some prisoners ritually tortured and executed• Unable to maintain practice as European wars

came to dominate the continent

William Penn & Quakerism

Quakerism – Society of Friends

Lower South Colonies (Carolinas & GA)

Stono Rebellion (1739)

Colonial Social Hierarchy

• Gentry/Commoners/Slaves• Vertically Integrated Society• Rituals and symbols built into day-to-day life

to reinforce the pecking order• Gentry had responsibilities of spending and

loaning money to support local economy• No single path guaranteed access to gentry

class

First Great Awakening (1730s-1740s)

Great Awakening Supporters

• Included “New Light” Congregationalists (Puritans), “New Side” Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists

• Believed in “born again” experience• Concerned that religious life was more about form

and ritual than substance• Spread a dire message, but informal style of delivery

encouraged notion that all souls mattered equally to God

• George Whitefield as first intercolonial hero

Great Awakening Opponents

• Included “Old Light” Congregationalists (Puritans), “Old Side Presbyterians, Anglicans, Quakers, and Catholics

• Concerned with itinerant preachers often uneducated and not ordained

• Research has found some correlation between opponents and loyalism while supporters of Awakening tended towards patriots

Thirteen Colonies in 1750s

Useful Primary Sources

• “A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia” by Thomas Hariot (1588)

• Mayflower Compact (1620)• “City Upon a Hill” sermon by John Winthrop

(1630)• Nathaniel Bacon’s Declaration in the Name of

the People (1676)• “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon

by Johnathan Edwards (1741)