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Chapter 4
The English Colonies
(1605 – 1735)
Chapter 4
The English Colonies
(1605 – 1735)
Section 1
The Virginia Colony
Settlement in Jamestown
 Investors formed joint-stock company – London
Company – to settle Virginia
 April 26, 1607 – 3 ships arrived off Virginia coast; 105 male
colonists
 Jamestown – named after English king
 Men poorly prepared to start settlement; most
adventurers interested in making their fortune
(searching for gold)
 Very few had farming experience
 Poor site for settlement; surrounded by marshes; water too salty
to drink
 By the time winter arrived, 2/3 of colonists had died; the few
survivors = hungry and sick
 Captain John Smith took control in September 1608 –
forced settlers to work and build better housing –
biggest contribution was strong leadership
The Powhatan Confederacy
 Powhatan Confederacy – alliance of Algonquian Indians;
brought food to colonists; taught them to grow corn
 Not always peaceful; sometimes colonists took food by force
 1609 – approx. 400 more settlers arrived in Jamestown; John
Smith had to leave due to injury
 Winter, disease and famine hit again – “starving
time;” by spring of 1610 only 60 colonists still alive –
John Rolfe helped Virginia grow stronger
 Important changes:
 John Rolfe introduced West Indian variety of tobacco – grew
well in Virginia; made a lot of money – colony began to thrive
 Land ownership shifted from London Company to individuals;
possibility of owning land attracted new settlers
War in Virginia
 John Rolfe married Pocahontas – Powhatan leader’s
daughter; helped colony form more peaceful relations
with Powhatan
 Pocahontas died in 1617; father died the next year;
colonists no longer relied on Powhatan for food
 Colonists wanted to grow tobacco on Indian lands; as
the colony grew, so did conflict
 1622 colonists killed a Powhatan leader; Powhatan
attacked settlers killing hundreds; settlers then burned
Indian villages – fighting continued approx. 20 years
 War showed Virginia that London Company could not
help its colonists
 Short on supplies; company did not send military support
 English Crown cancelled London Company’s charter –
Virginia became a royal colony under governor chosen
by king
Daily Life in Virginia
 Lived on scattered farms rather than towns
 Tobacco plantations formed – made possible
in part by use of the headright system
colonists who paid their own way to Virginia
received 50 acres of land – could earn 50 acres for
each additional person brought from England
 Raising a family difficult
 Men outnumbered women 7 to 1
 No schools and few churches
Labor in Virginia
Indentured servants – signed a contract
to work for 4 – 7 years for those who
paid their ship fare to America
approx. 75% of early colonists arrived as
indentured servants
Living conditions were poor, sickness was
common; many died before term ended
Those who survived gained freedom and could
claim land
Labor in Virginia (continued)
Africans
First brought by Dutch in 1619
Some were indentured servants – worked and
lived with white indentured servants; some
became successful farmers at end of contracts
Enslaved – became more common as
demand for indentured servants greater
than the supply and as prices fell
Planters – wealthy farmers with large plantations
By late 1600s most Africans in Virginia were being
kept in lifelong slavery
Helped some tobacco plantation owners become rich
Bacon’s Rebellion
 Mid-1600s many colonists grew increasingly unhappy with
conditions
 Angered by governor’s tight control over the colony and refusal to call
elections
 Poor colonists believed their concerns were being ignored
 Higher taxes and lack of available farmland
 Began farming land belonging to Natives – broke treaties between
government and local American Indians
 Bacon’s Rebellion – former indentured servants led by
Nathaniel Bacon – wealthy frontier planter and relative of
the governor
 Attacked and burned Jamestown
 At one point, he controlled much of the colony; he died, the rebellion
ended, and 23 of the remaining rebels were hanged
 Difficult to make peace with American Indians; fear of future
uprisings by former indentured servants made many planters rely
more on slavery
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Chapter 4
The English Colonies
(1605 – 1735)
Section 2
The Pilgrims’ Experience
Puritans and Pilgrims
 Puritans – wanted to reform, or purify, the
Church of England
Bishops and priests had too much power over church
members
The Bible was the most reliable source of authority
Most extreme sect wanted to separate from the Church of
England
 Separatists founded their own churches and cut all
ties with the Church of England; punished by
English leaders
 Pilgrims – separatists who left England in 1608
and moved to the Netherlands
Pilgrims happy to be able to practice faith but not
happy that children were learning Dutch language and
culture; feared they would forget English traditions
Formed joint-stock company and returned to England to
apply for permission to settle in Virginia
The Founding of Plymouth
 Mayflower left England Sept. 16, 1620 with more
than 100 men, women and children
not all were Pilgrims, but Pilgrim leaders were in charge –
William Bradford
 Landed far north of present-day Virginia; Plymouth
Rock – present-day Massachusetts
Realized they were outside of boundaries of English charter
decided to establish basic laws and social rules to govern their
colony
Mayflower Compact – social covenant or contract between
members of society; set out rules by which Pilgrims
agreed to govern themselves – one of first attempts at selfgovernment in the English colonies
Pilgrims and American Indians
 Most of the local American Indians killed by
diseases brought by previous European visitors
(fishermen)
 Occasionally came across deserted villages and
empty cornfields
Used empty fields to plant their crops
 According to Bradford in March 1621, an American
Indian walked into the settlement and spoke
English
Samoset of a Pemaquid tribe; introduced them to Squanto –
had lived in Europe and spoke English
Taught them to fertilize the soil with fish remains
 First Thanksgiving – Pilgrims and Wampanoag
The Pilgrim Community
 Tried farming but land around settlement was
poor; fishing and hunting conditions not good
 Not wealthy enough to form strong community
 Different from Virginia in that families were
common
Most hoped to have many children (needed to help work)
 Taught children to read and offered some
education to indentured servants
 Family served as center of religious life, health
care and community well-being
 Women cooked, spun and wove wool, sewed
clothing; made butter and soap, carried water, dried
fruit, cared for livestock
 Men repaired tools, worked in fields, chopped wood
and built shelters
The Pilgrim Community (continued)
In Plymouth, women had more legal rights
than they did in England
had the right to sign contracts and bring certain
cases before local courts
Widows could own property
Married and widowed women could get licenses to
run inns and to sell liquor
Chapter 4
The English Colonies
(1605 – 1735)
Section 3
The New England Colonies
The Massachusetts Bay Colony
 Charles I became king in 1625
Raised taxes during period of economic downturn
 Church of England began punishing Puritans
because they were dissenters
Charles I refused to allow Puritans to criticize church
actions
 Great Migration – 10 year period in which tens
of thousands of men, women and children left
England; because of economic, political and
religious problems
More than 40,000 to Caribbean and New England
The Massachusetts Bay Colony
(continued)
 King Charles I had granted a charter to Puritans to
establish a colony in New England – they formed the
Massachusetts Bay Company
 Hoped to have freedom to practice their religion freely
 John Winthrop wrote speech about their goals – reflected belief
that they had made a covenant with God – agreed to build and
ideal Christian community
 Well prepared to start colony – people were neither
wealthy or poor, but brought tools, livestock; trade with
Plymouth helped
 Established towns of Salem, Mystic, Newton, Watertown,
and Dorchester; Puritans built Boston – chief city and
capital of Massachusetts Bay
 New Hampshire became a royal colony in 1679
Church and State in New England
 Massachusetts subject to English laws
 Company charter
 provided more independence than the royal charter of Virginia
 Created a General Court to help run the colony – type of selfgovernment
 John Winthrop was the first governor of Massachusetts
 General Court became a two-house (bi-cameral)
legislature in 1644 – main political body of New England
(Massachusetts)
 Politics and religion were closely linked
 Government leaders were church members
 Male church members were the only colonists who could vote
 Could only become full members in the church by become what
Puritans called God’s “elect” or chosen
Church and State in New England
(continued)
Thomas Hooker (minister) and his
followers left Massachusetts to help
found Connecticut
Helped draft the Fundamental Orders of
Connecticut – set of principles that made
Connecticut’s government more democratic
Some have called Hooker “the father of
American democracy”
Daily Life and Customs
 Lives centered around religion, family duties,
and public work
 Sundays – 2 sermons; brought all members of
community together
 Community life more stable than in Virginia
Colonists in Virginia were either wealthy or poor
People who came to New England were more middle
income; skilled workers or experienced farmers; some
had success with fishing or fur trading
Grew food mainly for own use; little need for
indentured servants or slaves
Daily Life and Customs (continued)
 Most came in family groups
 Parents helped choose children’s marriage
partners
 Women had three main duties to fulfill in
marriage – obey husband, have children and run
the household
 Education was important; wanted children to
be able to read the Bible
 Massachusetts Bay Colony passed some of
the first law requiring parents to provide
education
Literacy much lower in Virginia
Dissent in Massachusetts
 Roger Williams did not agree with the leadership
of Massachusetts
Called for his church to separate completely
Criticize General Court for taking land from American
Indians without paying
 Took his supporters to southern New England
and formed Providence – later became the
colony of Rhode Island
 In Providence, Williams supported separation of
the church from politics and promoted religious
tolerance; wanted to deal with American Indians
fairly
Dissent in Massachusetts (continued)
 Anne Hutchinson (Boston) angered Puritan
church leaders by discussing religious ideas
believed to be radical
Believed God speaks directly to people apart from the Bible
 Important community members met at her home for
religious discussions
 John Winthrop (Puritan leader) alarmed by her ideas
She was put on trial and forced out of the colony
She and followers settled the new colony of Portsmouth
(Rhode Island)
The Salem Witch Trials
Worst community conflicts in New
England were the witchcraft trials (early
1690s)
Largest number held in Salem,
Massachusetts
Girls accused people of casting spells on them
– mostly women
Court often pressured the suspected
witches to confess
19 people put to death
Chapter 4
The English Colonies
(1605 – 1735)
Section 4
The Southern and Middle
Colonies
Tolerant Maryland
 English Catholics faced persecution in England because
of their sympathies with foreign powers and their
opposition to England’s separation from the Roman
Catholic Church – not allowed to worship freely
 Lord Baltimore (Cecilius Calvert) given charter to start
Maryland as refuge for English Catholics; named in honor
of England’s queen Henrietta Maria
 Proprietary colony – owners controlled the government
 Spent time raising corn, cattle and hogs
 Like Virginia in that most settlers were men who raised
tobacco for profit
 Protestants began moving to Maryland causing religious
conflicts
 Toleration Act of 1649 – made restricting the religious
rights of Christians a crime; one of the first laws
supporting religious tolerance in the English colonies
The Carolinas
 Started by 8 proprietors who supported Charles
II during the English Civil War; originally one
colony
 Carolina – latin form of the name Charles
 North and South Carolina became separate
colonies because settlements widely divided,
making it hard to govern them all
 North Carolina – poor farmers who moved
south from Virginia
Few plantations
No towns and few churches until early 1700s
The Carolinas (continued)
 South Carolina
Port of Charles Town – Charleston
Attracted many settlers from other English colonies
(particularly from British West Indies) – brought
enslaved Africans with them (led them to rely on)
Rice production – required many workers
Only mainland colony with a higher population of
enslaved Africans than free whites
 Colonists unhappy with proprietors’
management of Carolinas – both became royal
colonies
Diversity in New York and New Jersey
 New Amsterdam – center of fur trade in New Netherland
 Generous land grants and religious tolerance attracted
Jews, French Huguenots, Puritans and others
 Peter Stuyvesant took control in 1647 – experienced soldier
ruled colony as dictator
 English took control of New Netherland and renamed it
New York (first of the middle colonies)
 Dutch settlers remained in colony; contributed words such
as boss, cookie and stoop to the English language
 Duke of York made Carteret and John Lord Berkeley
proprietors of New Jersey – diverse population (Dutch,
Swedes, Finns and Scots)
 New York and New Jersey produced large amounts of
wheat
The Pennsylvania Experiment
 Quakers (Society of Friends) – one of the largest
religious groups in New Jersey – Protestant sect
founded by George Fox in England
 Believed all people had an “inner light” that could help them
experience God
 Rejected formal religious practices and dressed plainly
 Supported nonviolence and religious tolerance
 William Penn founded Pennsylvania (west of New
Jersey) – provide safe home for Quakers
 Tried to create a government that was fair to all people
 Sold land to colonists at low prices, promised religious freedom to all
Christians
 Government would care for the poor
 Penn named the capital of his colony Philadelphia or
the City of Brotherly Love; became a model for city
planners in other colonies
 Delaware sold to Penn; remained part of Pennsylvania until
1776
The Ideal of Georgia
 James Oglethorpe received permission to
start a colony (Georgia) for poor English
citizens; among the group were people who
had been jailed for unpaid debts
 King hoped Georgia would serve as a shield
between South Carolina and Spanish Florida
 City of Savannah founded in 1733
 Oglethorpe wanted Georgia to be different; hoped
it would draw attract small farmers and avoid the
rise of a class of wealthy planters
He outlawed slavery and limited the size of land grants
Gave poor colonists free passage to Georgia
 Received cattle, land and food until they could provide their own
 Settlers grew tired of strict rules (wanted slavery and
larger farms)
 Became royal colony with new laws