Chapter Two

EARLY ENGLISH AMERICA (1590 TO 1675)

SPANISH COLONIZATION IN 1600• Spain was the only empire to have successful colonies at the turn of the 17 th century

• However, the defeat of the Spanish Armada and a surge in Dutch trade made expansion and colonial reinforcement difficult

• Issues in North America

• The Spanish believed that the New World was of no value

• They realized that they overestimated how much gold and silver was actually there

• However, they still held on to New Mexico and Florida believing that they would find fortunes similar to the Aztec Empire in Central America

• Catholic missionaries were sent to both locations and started more than 50 missions

• The missionaries believed the Native Americans would readily adopt European dress, customs, food, and farming methods.

• In the North, the Spanish crown grew tired of funding poor expeditions and proposed that all who wished to colonize the North use their own funding

SPANISH COLONIZATION IN 1600• Interaction with Native Americans

• Spanish and Native Americans frequently intermingled, leading to a class of Spanish citizens known as Mestizos

• Half Spanish, Half Native American

• The Spanish crown took this seriously, gave the Mestizos a decent amount of rights as Spanish citizens

• They also began a series of preventative measures to ensure Spanish explorers and colonists did not further exploit Native Americans

ENGLISH COLONIZATION IN IRELAND• The British’s involvement in Ireland cost the empire an enormous amount of money that could

have been used to fund expeditions to the New World

• Religious Justification

• The British needed to subdue the Catholic threat in Ireland in order to protect Protestant rule in England

• Sort of a passive-aggressive of showing force against the Spanish/Catholic threat

• Pacification Approaches

• Military conquest, slaughter of civilians, seizure of land

• England sought to conquer, not absorb the ethnic Catholic Irish

• English writers at the time frequently compared the ethnic Irish to Native Americans

• Why?

ENGLISH COLONIZATION IN IRELAND• The English easily confused liberty with license

• The Irish were “too free” (sound similar to their views towards the Native Americans?)

• If the Irish did not convert to Protestantism, they were problematic barbarians and had to be dealt with appropriately

• Convert to the ‘correct religion’ or be annihilated

• This mentality is important because it gets transplanted wholesale to North America with English colonization

• Why did the English give up on annihilating Ireland?

• Queen Elizabeth I turned their attention to North America

• After defeating the Spanish Armada, they scrambled to stake their claims in the New World

ENGLAND’S MOTIVES FOR EXPANSION• Spreading Protestantism

• The quintessential P.R. reasoning

• Anti-Catholicism was the norm in England and they wanted to do anything to stop Catholicism in the rest of the world

• Furthermore, it was a win-win situation if they could destroy Catholicism and Spain at the same time

• The 5 Gs

• Gold, Glory, God, Greed, and Gold

• National glory, profit, and missionary zeal

• Trade

• The English knew the Spanish were fighting a losing battle looking for mineral wealth in North America

• They believed the best way to make a fortune was to exploit resources in North America, make goods, and trade!

• Dealing with the English social crisis

ENGLAND’S SOCIAL CRISIS• England’s decline economy (brought on by frequent drought and war) led to an increasing number of

poor that strained the economy and led to a social crisis

• Population grew from 3 million in 1550 to 4 million in 1600

• A significant change for the time

• “Enclosure movement”

• Rich landlords wanted to make a profit by raising sheep to expand wool trade

• They introduced modern farming techniques such as crop rotation and as a result, they evicted small farmers and took away common land

• (common land was communal land that was frequently used by poor, subsistent, farmers)

• This caused thousands of unemployed farmers to flood the cities in search of jobs

• Crime rates rise as a result

• The English crown did little to alleviate the problem

• Henry VIII stated those without jobs could be whipped, branded, forced into military service, or executed

ENGLAND’S SOCIAL CRISIS• Elizabeth I offered two solutions:

• Force vagrants and vagabonds to accept any job offered

• Go to America!

• (The ‘unruly poor’ was highly encouraged to venture to the New World to find riches)

• Propaganda campaigns

• The crown and colonizing companies appealed to the poor by stating they could become “Masterless Men” in the New World

• A man could control his own labor, gain independence from the English “man”, and own land.

• Thomas Moore’s Utopia describes this in detail and encouraged the ‘unruly poor’ to go to America to escape the inequities of Europe

ENGLAND’S INITIAL PUSH TO AMERICA• How many people left?

• Between 1600 and 1700, over half a million people left England

• Sustained immigration was vital for a colony’s success (and survival)

• Lower class “unruly poor” and indentured servants represented 2/3 of those that left England

• Indentured servants did not enjoy liberties while under contract (essentially another form of slavery)

• Dealing with Land

• Land was the basis of liberty for the English

• It was also a source of wealth and power for colonial officials

• Taking land from Native Americans was needed to expand the English crown’s mission

ENGLAND’S INITIAL PUSH TO AMERICA• Interaction with Native Americans

• Bottom line: English wanted Native American land at any cost

• This sparked over a century of frequent, bloody warfare between colonists and Native Americans

• The English knew how to fight and had superior weapons

• This gave this another sense of ‘authority’ over the savages

• Unlike the Spanish, the English could care less for how the Native Americans were treated

• English interaction essentially reshaped Indian society and culture

• The English also transformed the natural environment by fencing in land and introducing disease, crops, and livestock

• Paradox of colonial land entitlement:

• The English recognized Native American sovereignty to land based on their occupancy on that land

• However, the English forcibly took the land surrounding the Native Americans based on vacuum domicilium (land not actively in use by the natives was up for grabs)

ENGLISH COLONIES• Roanoke (Failure)

• Jamestown

• 1st attempt – Failure

• 2nd attempt – Success

• Virginia

• Maryland

• Structural success

• Religious/Cultural failure

• Plymouth (limited success)

• Massachusetts Bay

• Rhode Island Connecticut

ROANOKE

ROANOKE• Sir Walter Raleigh (English pirate) sent 100 colonists to set up a colonial base on Roanoke

Island, off the coast of North Carolina.

• Why? He wanted to keep pressure on Spanish ships in the area

• The initial push to colonize was abandoned and most of first 100 returned to England

• In 1586, he sent another 100 colonists to try to establish a permanent colony

• Those 100 disappeared when a supply ship came in 1590

• More than likely, they assimilated with the local Indian tribes

• The only evidence left was the word “Croatoan” scrawled on a tree

• Raleigh quickly lost his enthusiasm for colonization and gave up

• Moral of the story: England really needed to plan better before attempting to colonize

JAMESTOWN

JAMESTOWN• The first successful English colony (1607)

• The colony was located in the middle of a swamp in present-day Jamestown, Virginia

• They thought it was safe from Spanish attack

• Big mistake from the beginning

• There were no riches to be found in the swamp

• However, there were many mosquitos

• Led to malaria and typhoid fever

• Local resources were non-existent

• The colonists did not want to work or trade with anyone

• None of the original settlers were farmers

• Occupations: blacksmith, jeweler, goldsmith, perfumer, and indentured servants

JAMESTOWN• In the first year, disease and lack of food killed over 50 of the original 104 settlers

• 400 more settlers came the next year

• After the winter of 1610, only 65 settlers remained

• Basically, 1 in 10 survived

• Most died of starvation and disease

• Moral of the story:

• This is similar to Roanoke

• Failure to plan and take advantage of economic resources

• Very poor planning on the type of laborers that were sent over initially

• Geographic planning was not the greatest either

JAMESTOWN RELIGIOUS SERVICE

JOHN SMITH

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH SAVES JAMESTOWN• Tough, professional soldier that saved Jamestown by instilling martial law

• Also a statutory rapist

• Made everyone an ‘employee’ of the colony

• Death penalty for all

• Rape, adultery, theft, lying, slander against the company or crown, blasphemy, laziness, stealing an ear of corn, etc.

• New policies in Jamestown

• Head-right system

• 50 acres of land for whoever pays their way over to Jamestown

• Established House of Burgesses and instilled new liberties

• However, the company could veto anything it wanted

• Established slavery in the colony in 1619

• Overall, the ends justify the means

• Jamestown survives by John Smith’s near totalitarian management

VIRGINIA COLONY• Founded in 1607 after England realized they could make a profit off of selling tobacco (the “stinking

weed”

• Ironically, King James I considered tobacco “harmful to the brain and dangerous to the lungs”

• However, he did not have any problem with selling it to make a profit

• Tobacco later becomes the ‘cure-all’ for medicinal purposes in the 17 th century

• By 1624, 200,000 pounds were grown and exported

• By 1680, 15 million pounds were grown and exported

• Essentially, tobacco becomes the new gold for English in North America

• The tobacco boom was partially responsible for the establishment of colonial government in Virginia

• This led to rich immigrants coming to stake their claim in Virginia

• Eventually, a social and political elite was established

VIRGINIA COLONY• Social Conditions

• Men outnumbered women 6 to 1

• Virtually no stable family life as most single men were out to “strike it rich” on tobacco

• At this point, it was better to be a single woman and keep an independent legal identity

• However, most married women received “dower’s rights”

• 1/3 of their husband’s estate upon his death

• Slavery in the colony

• The number of slaves slowly climbed during the mid-17 th century

• 1623 – 23 of 1200 Virginians were black

• 1660 – 900 of 24,000

• Before 1660, blacks were able to acquire freedom and land (similar to indentured servitude)

• Some freedmen became very wealthy and had property rights similar to whites

MARYLAND

MARYLAND• Established in 1632 as a proprietary colony

under Cecilius Calvert (Lord Baltimore)

• Land grants and governmental authority was organized under a single individual who had “full, free, and absolute power” over the colony; only answered to the King

• Most of the land was carved up from sections of Northern Virginia

• Maryland was the second Chesapeake Bay colony and developed like Virginia

• Tobacco became the dominate economic commodity

MARYLAND• Colonial Structure

• Essentially a return to the Middle Ages

• Calvert wanted Maryland to be a feudal domain where land was divided out into manors and the owners paid Calvert

• Any person who brought 5 laborers received 2000 acres

• Calvert believed representative government did not work

• Ordinary people should have nothing to do with politics and government

• Colonial Structure Loophole

• Calvert’s charter provided for “all privileges, franchise, and liberties to all Englishmen”

• This was vague enough to leave the government limited by its own law

• This was also a good recipe for conflict

MARYLAND• Religion and Conflict

• Calvert was a Catholic and fully expected Maryland to be a haven for his downtrodden Catholic brethren (particularly the wealthy)

• He imagined Maryland as a Catholic utopia where Protestants and Catholics could work together in peace and harmony

• However, Protestants quickly outnumbered Catholics

• The rich Catholics never showed up and Protestants gained enough strength to overthrow Catholic influence in Maryland by 1655

• Overall

• Maryland had a different foundation, but ended up like Virginia

• Tobacco plantations, some religious radicals, and mostly Protestant

• Structural success

• Religious/Cultural failure

PLYMOUTH BAY COLONY

PLYMOUTH BAY COLONY• Pilgrims

• Primarily religious separatists that fled England to Holland because of their animosity toward the Church of England

• They wanted nothing to do with the Church of England

• After staying in Holland, they believed their children were too influenced by the English, Dutch, and Satan

• They decided to go to the Virginia Colony

• However, they landed in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1620 aboard the Mayflower

• Mayflower Compact

• All adult men aboard the Mayflower signed a compact indicating that they would obey “just and equal laws” enacted by representatives of their choosing

• Why is this important?

SIGNING OF THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT

PLYMOUTH BAY COLONY• The Mayflower Compact is the first written frame of government that transferred to the United States

• Society

• The Pilgrims wanted to build a society based on the early Christian saints that was founded on government based on consent

• Voting would not be restricted to only male church members

• Land would be common, but could be divided among settlers

• Initial Problems

• They faced a similar situation to Jamestown; starvation

• They arrived 6 weeks before winter with no food or animals

• Half of the settlers died that first winter

• Squanto and a band of Native Americans taught the Pilgrims where to fish, plant corn, and helped them form an alliance with a local chief

• In the autumn of 1621, the Plymouth settlers invited their Native American allies for a feast of Thanksgiving (harvest festival)

• Plymouth remained independent until 1691 when it was absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay colony

PILGRIMS

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY• Chartered in 1629 by Puritans (another religious separatist group) from England

• Puritans were upset over the Protestant reformation, but were still very nationalistic toward England

• They believed the best way to remedy the religious issues was to create a perfect society in the New World that England could model itself after

• They believed religion was complex and they wanted to create a Bible Commonwealth governed by “moral liberty”

• Moral liberty kept the Puritans close knit and prompted more families to come to the colony

• They essentially wanted to be the “City on a Hill” to serve as a prime example for how religious life should be

• King Charles I granted the Puritans charter while he decided to rule England without Parliament’s consent

• Another one of the various reasons why Charles got the axe (literally)

• Massachusetts Bay became the second great English colony

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY• Religion, Politics, and Law

• Law revolved around a combination of English Common Law, Biblical Law, and statutes fit to specific colonial needs

• They allowed for slaves however

• Statutes were created to instill a sense of fear with potential offenders

• They would rather scare than carry out harsh punishments

• Puritans organized into self-governing towns with no large-scale colonial government

• Think of the states without a federal government (or the Articles of Confederation)

• Each town had a Congregational Church and a school

• Harvard College was created in 1636 to train ministers

• Church government was decentralized, but full church membership was required to vote in elections

• Church and colonial governments were closely connected

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY• Economy

• Per capita, wealth was pretty evenly distributed (significantly better than Virginia)

• The economy was primarily centered on farming

• Fishing and timber exportation were large industries though

• A merchant class that traded with England rose gradually

• This did not bode well for some of the most conservative Puritans

• Merchants that continually clashed with Puritan authorities left to establish Portsmouth, New Hampshire

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY• Family Life

• Structurally patriarchal

• Women were expected to be subordinate to their husbands at all times

• True freedom for Puritan women meant submission to authority

• Reasoning:

• Biblical in nature

• Eve was the evil temptress that caused man to fall into sin

• However, women were allowed full church membership and could divorce

MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY• Liberty

• Liberty was defined by social class

• A rigid hierarchal structure that was justified by God’s will

• Bodies of Liberties set the rights for free speech, assembly, and equal protection for all

• Basically, liberties were decided by a body of men

• No true sense of “natural rights” just yet

• Ministers were forbidden from holding political office

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PURITANS AND PILGRIMS?• Puritans

• Wanted to fix and reform the Church of England

• They felt it was worth salvaging and wanted to use their utopian colony to lead by example

• They believed the Church had too many trappings of Catholic influence, but it could be remedied

• Pilgrims

• They were the true separatists

• They had enough of the Church of England and wanted nothing to do with it

RHODE ISLAND

RHODE ISLAND• Founded by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson

• Williams was a young, liberal Puritan minister that preached any citizen should be able to practice whatever religion they choose

• Believed in separation of church and state

• Hutchinson was a well-educated, articulate woman who charged all Puritan ministers of preaching falsely

• Believed she was directly inspired by the Holy Sprit

• This did not make her popular with most Puritans

• Put on trial for sedition and banished from the Massachusetts Bay colony

• Both wanted to create a society based on true religious toleration

Roger Williams Anne Hutchinson

RHODE ISLAND• Government

• Separation of church and state

• Participation in government by all male property owners

• An early view of voter’s rights expressed in the Constitution

• Overall, Rhode Island is probably the best example of religious freedom and democratic government in the early colonies

• Religious toleration

• Did the treatment of Hutchinson and Williams go against Puritan’s ideal of religious freedom?

RHODE ISLAND• Religious Toleration

• Perhaps the Puritans had a very narrow view of what religious freedom meant

• True religious tolerance violated the Puritans’ view of moral liberty

CONNECTICUT

CONNECTICUT• Founded in 1633

• Puritanism was the only recognized religious organization and government model

• The Bible became the absolute basis for law

• Inerrancy of scripture

• Indian Relations

• Connecticut General Court punished anyone who chose to live with Indians

• The wilderness was perceived as the harborage of Satan and the Native Americans were his minions

• Colonists argued frequently over efficient ways to take land from the natives

• Sometimes they traded or paid them

CONNECTICUT• Pequot War

• The white population in Connecticut grew rapidly

• Conflict with natives became inevitable

• The war was sparked by a fur trader that was killed by the Pequot Indians

• They were a large tribe that controlled the fur trade and collected tribute from other Indian tribes

• Angered by the death of the fur trade, Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay soldiers combined with neighboring Indians to massacre the Pequot tribe.

• Over 500 men, women, and children died after their village was set on fire

• After a few months, the tribe was virtually eliminated

• Most were dead or sold into slavery

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR• Religion, Politics, and Freedom

• By 1600, commoners in England were insisting that all Englishmen had certain rights that applied to everyone in the kingdom

• This did not set well with the privileged social elite who believed rights were confined to those with money, influence, and power

• The tradition of English liberties goes back to the Magna Carta passed by King John in the 1200s

• Extension of certain liberties and rights to “all the free men of the realm”

• This was not bad in the 1200s as the majority of England worked as serfs (another form of indentured servitude)

• However, in 1600, many “free men” in England demanded that their liberties be respected

• This caused friction between the King, Parliament, and the people

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR• What were the rights?

• Right to oversee the King’s conduct (King is not above the law)

• Right to revolt if the King grossly violated his authority

• Right to subject the King to the rule of law

• Right to own property

• Right to security of their person (no illegal search and seizure, false imprisonment, etc.)

• Habeas Corpus (cannot be held without being formally charged for a crime)

• Right to face one’s accuser

• Right to a trial by jury

THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR• What sparked the war?

• King Charles I wanted to impose taxes without Parliament’s consent

• He also wanted to imprison political enemies

• Worst of all…he wanted to make England a Catholic nation

• Under the pretense of revolting against a King who grossly violated his authority, civil war broke out in 1642

• Charles loses his head literally

• Oliver Cromwell becomes the Lord Protector of England and the Commonwealth of England was founded

THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH• The general definition of freedom called for the “common rights of all individuals”

• Belief that freedom was the common heritage of all Englishmen

• Belief that England was the world’s guardian of liberty (another justification for warfare)

• They reasoned that the King of England ruled over a nation of free men

• Very different from the idea that the King granted a nation of men freedom

• The Colonies During the Commonwealth

• England was too busy with it’s own issues to pay attention to the colonies

• The New England colonies formed a confederation to serve as a means of protection against hostile natives

• The British army was too busy

THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH• What did Cromwell and the Commonwealth do for the colonies?

• Took an aggressive stance for colonial expansion

• Greatly promoted Protestantism

• Promoted trade and commerce in the Western Hemisphere

• End of the Commonwealth

• Cromwell dies, his son is an inept ruler, and Charles II (Charles I’s son) gets reinstated to the throne

• Charles II officially accepts the charter of Connecticut and Rhode Island during this period

THE NAVIGATION ACTS• A series of acts passed to ensure that the Dutch did not interfere with England’s commercial

empire

• It was illegal to trade with anyone other than English citizens

• Charles II figured this was the best way to confine colonial trade

• Additional importation taxes increased the crown’s revenue and helped keep some English merchants from bankruptcy

• However, these laws were fairly ineffective

• Most colonial governors ignored the laws