Europeans Crossing the Atlantic

Massachusetts Bay Colony, Virginia and North American Settlement

Context

• 1492: Columbian Encounter• 1519: Spanish Conquest of Aztecs• 1533: Spanish Conquest of Incans• 1580s: Founding of Roanoke in Current

Virginia (colony did not survive)• 1607: Founding of Virginia (Jamestown)• 1620: Founding of Plymouth Colony

(current Massachusetts)

Context, continued

• 1626: Founding of New Amsterdam (Dutch), later New York, 1664 (English)

• 1630: Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston)

• 1663: Carolina Colony Founded

• 1681: Pennsylvania Founded

Models of Development

• Massachusetts Bay– Family migrations

– Religious consensus

– Village or Town settlement structure

– Community centered governance

– ***NOT DEMOCRATIC***

• Virginia– “Adventurer” migration in

search of riches

– Men predominated in colony

– A volatile mixture of rich and poor men

– Little interest in permanent settlement or civic activity

– ***NOT DEMOCRATIC***

Leaders: John Winthrop and John Smith

Winthrop: Massachusetts Smith: Virginia

John Winthrop (1587-1649)

• Governor of Massachusetts Bay colony for most of its first twenty years.

• “Middle Class” background in England.• Devout Puritan• Goal was to build a "City on a Hill" as a model for

world. • Arrived in the summer of 1630, with eleven

vessels, more than 1,000 passengers.• 20,000 more migrated in next decade.

John Smith (1580-1631)

• Long career as adventurer, writer, and publicist.• Saw military action in France, the Mediterranean,

Hungary• 1602: Captured and sold as a slave to a Turk,

escaped, returned to England, ca 1604• 1607: Landed with colonists in Virginia, became

governor• 1609: Returned to England, never to return to

Virginia• Spent his remaining life promoting the colonies.

Smith’s Map of Virginia

Sudbury, Massachusetts

Watertown, Massachusetts

Mt. Vernon, Virginia

Mt Vernon Slave Cabin: Restored

Population Growth of the 13 Colonies

• 1630: 4,600

• 1650: 50,000

• 1700: 250,000

• 1750: 1,170,000

• 1780: 2,780,000

• 1790: 3,900,000

American Revolution

• Seven Years War (French and Indian Wars): 1756-1763

• Challenge to British Rule: 1763….

• Declaration of Independence: 1776

• War for Independence: 1776-1783

• U.S. Constitution: 1787

• National Government convened: 1789.

American Revolution

• Based on the notions of “liberty”…”freedom” … “equality”…

• ????

Virginia, Massachusetts, South Carolina, 1630-1780

• Virginia: 2,500 to 538,000• Massachusetts: 500 to 268,627• South Carolina: 0 to 180,000

• Percent African American in 1780:– Virginia: 41%– Massachusetts: 1.8%– South Carolina: 54%

Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonial U.S

• Trade flourished from 15th to 19th Centuries.

• 10 million Africans transported to New World

• Proportion of the trade to British North American colonies: ~ 4%.

• Slave trade banned in U.S. in 1808.

• Abolition of Slavery: 1865.

Peculiarities of US Slave System

• Only New World Slave system sustained by “natural increase” rather than continued importation.– 400,000 “imports.”– 4,000,000 slaves freed in 1865

• One of the last slave economies to end– U.S. Civil War – Last nation: Brazil (1888).