Development of the English Colonies

Guiding Questions

Why did people settle in the British North American colonies?

What were their motivations?

Why and How did the British North American colonies develop into distinctively different societies and economies?

American Colonies at the End of

the Seventeenth

Century

Chapter 3:The Southern Colonies in the

Seventeenth Century,1601–1700

Back in Europe• Britain v. Spain

- Defeat of Spanish Armada in 1588- King James wants settlements- English merchants want settlements = The Virginia Company receives a land grant from King James

Virginia Company, Charter, 1606

Chesapeake Chesapeake BayBay

& &

JamestownJamestown

Chesapeake Chesapeake BayBay

& &

JamestownJamestown

An English Colonyon the Chesapeake

• The Fragile Jamestown Settlement

- Investors at first did not know how they would make money (Forests? Gold? Crops?)

- Early attack on settlers. Provoked?

- Powhatan tribe controlled the area and Spain wanted to dislodge the settlement

- Disease and starvation upon the settlers

- Infighting

- “Gentlemen” refused to do manual labor

- “Starving Time” winter of 1609-10. Only 60 of the 500 first settlers survived.

Jamestown video

Cooperation and Conflict between Natives and Newcomers

• Raids from both sides (British & Powhatan)

• Few Christian converts among Native Americans

• Some trade of European goods for corn

• Pocahontas and John Smith- Love?• New chief Opechancanough

organizes a big assault the settlers and kills 347. Settlers retaliate with an Indian extermination campaign.

Aftermath• King James revokes Virginia’s

charter, switches to a royal colony with appointed governor

Pocahontas and Society Presentation

Back to the question: Why are settlers still coming?

• Answer: Production of tobacco

Early Colonial TobaccoEarly Colonial TobaccoEarly Colonial TobaccoEarly Colonial Tobacco

16181618 — Virginia produces 20,000 pounds of tobacco.

16221622 — Despite losing nearly one-third of its colonists in an Indian attack, Virginia produces 60,000 pounds of tobacco.

16271627 — Virginia produces 500,000 pounds of tobacco.

16291629 — Virginia produces 1,500,000 pounds of tobacco.

Tobacco Prices1618-1710

A Tobacco Society• Tobacco Agriculture

- Grew wild in the New World- Really expensive “high society” luxury in Europe (high demand)- Great opportunity for the poor and middle class in the New World

• A Servant Labor System- Requires year-round labor - 80% of immigrants were indentured servants- 4 to 7 years of labor = passage to new world and when finished freedom dues (corn and clothes)

Cultivating Land and Faith

• New settlers pushed into the frontier to cultivate land

• Sunday church services attendance was required, however…

• This region was not very religious– few clergy– motivations of settlers were mostly

economic

– “Devotion to tobacco” textbook, 87

Bacon’s Rebellion

• After confrontations with the local Natives a treaty was signed; wilderness land beyond the English settlement belonged to the Natives

Guess what happens? Common theme for the next 200 years

• Nathaniel Bacon leads frontiersmen thirsty for land• Bacon also dislikes elite easterners and urges rebellion• Bacon and supporters branded as traitors• Short war- Bacon fought Indians, attacked Jamestown,

died of dysentery, rebellion crushed• Aftermath: Governor replaced, reduced taxes, transition

to slave labor

Nathaniel Bacon