EARLY COLONIES

“Discovery” and Settlement

I. The Colonizers:

Remember, colonies=tensions.

            (Anglo-Indian, Anglo-French, etc.)

                        French: (mainly Jesuit priests)

Giovanni da Verazzano: 1524

French priest: "It is you women who are the cause of all our misfortunes... it is you who keep the demons among us. You are lazy about going to prayers; when you pass before the cross you never salute it; you wish to be independent. Now, know that you will obey your husbands."

                        Quebec: 1608

A.         The Dutch:1609-1644:

Hudson River Valley

Peter Stuyvesant

                        New Amsterdam: 1624

                        Dutch West India Company

By 1700:

Manhattan=5000 inhabitants

--mostly Dutch, but quite religiously and ethnically diverse:

15% African (overwhelmingly slaves), also some Jews, Dutch Reformed, Walloon, British Anglicans, Presbyterians,  French Protestant, Roman Catholics, Quakers, singing Quakers, ranting Quakers, Sabbatarians and anti-Sabbatarians, Anabaptists

B.         The English:

Why colonize?

Ø  Religious Reasons

Ø  Social Reasons

Ø  Economic Reasons

                        1. Virginia

North—New England—Massachusetts

South—Chesapeake—Virginia

Founding Pains

A.    Settlement

B.    Headright

C.    House of Burgesses

D.   Royal Colony

Economy: “The Crop that Cureth”

A.             The Chesapeake

B.             Labor trouble

Indentured Servitude

Slavery

Social and Political Life:

Cavalier Culture

A.             Violence

B.             Bacon’s Rebellion

2. Pilgrims:      Plymouth, 1620

Mayflower Compact: Why is this considered the first

document that establishes American democracy?

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11 of November, the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord James; of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Ano Dom. 1620.

           

3. The Puritans

                                    a. Religious Life:

                                                            Puritan Theology

                                                Heresy:

                                                            Roger Williams

--complete separation of church and state

                                                                        --1635=banished

Anne Hutchinson

                                                                        --“you have rather

been a husband than a wife.”

                                                                        --1638: banished

                                                                        --1642=killed

                       

                        3. Danger in N.E.--Witchcraft

                                    Magic in Puritan society

The Witch Hunt Itself

--175 arrested, 28 convicted, 22 executed

4. Other Dangers:

                                                            King Philip’s War,

1675-1676

                                               

Historian Bernard Bailyn:

“Borderland violence and bizarre distensions of normal European culture patterns had become fused with a growing civility into a distinctive way of life.”

KEY AMERICAN CONTRADICTION:

            SLAVERY/FREEDOM

            BRUTALITY/KINDNESS

            PRIMITIVISM/CIVILIZATION

            SAVAGRY/COMPASSION

Bernard Bailyn: “What did it mean to Jefferson, slave owner and philosophe, that he grew up in this far western borderland world of Britain, looking out of Queen Anne rooms of spare elegance onto a wild, uncultivated land? We can only grope to understand.”

By 1710:

Virginia: 78,281

Massachusetts: 62,390

New York: 21,625

Pennsylvania: 24,450