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Chapter 2
Colonizing America
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• In 1519 the Spanish
government asked Hernán
Cortés to lead an expedition
to the Yucatán Peninsula to
find new people who could be
forced to work on the farms
and mines of Cuba. Cortés
also wanted to investigate
reports of a wealthy
civilization there.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• Equipped with swords, crossbows, guns, and
cannons, the Spanish had a technological advantage
over the people they encountered in the Yucatán
Peninsula.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• After learning that the Aztec
were at war with many groups
in the region, Cortés recruited
the help of the Tlaxcalan people
against the Aztec. Montezuma,
the Aztec leader, failed to stop
the Spanish advance, and
Cortés marched into
Tenochtitlán, the capital of the
Aztec empire.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• In 1520 the Aztec
priests organized a
rebellion against the
Spanish and drove them
out of the capital.
However, in 1521 Cortés
launched another attack
and this time defeated
the Aztec.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• After destroying Tenochtitlán, Cortés ordered a new
city, named Mexico, to be built in its place. It
became the capital of the Spanish colony of New
Spain. Cortés sent other expeditions into what is
present-day Mexico and Central America.
• The people who led the expeditions became known
as conquistadors, or “conquerors.” One
conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, explored Peru and
conquered the Inca empire.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• Other Spanish conquistadors explored other parts
of America, searching for rumored wealthy cities.
Pánfilo de Narváez search for a fabled city of gold in
what is today northern Florida. Francisco Vásquez
de Coronado led an expedition in search of the
rumored Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. His
explorations led him throughout the southwestern
area of what is today the United States. Hernando
de Soto led a large expedition and explored the
area north of Florida.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• The Spanish gave the name New Mexico to the
territory north of New Spain. They built presidios,
or forts, throughout the region as trading posts and
protection for the settlers. Spanish priests also built
missions throughout the region to spread the
Christian faith among the Native American people
there.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• Most conquistadors were low-ranking nobles, called
hidalgos, or working-class tradespeople. Their main
motive for coming to America was to acquire wealth
and prestige.
• After Cortés defeated the Aztec empire, he
rewarded his men by granting them control over
some part of the empire. This was called the
encomienda system.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• The people in the Spanish colonies in the Americas
formed a highly-structured society. Aperson’s position
in society was determined by birth, income, and
education. The highest level of society consisted of the
peninsulares—those born in Spain. Below this level
were the criollos—those born in the colonies of
Spanish parents. Next were the mestizos—those born
of Spanish and Native American parentage.
• The lowest level of society included Native Americans,
Africans, and people of mixed Spanish and African or
African and Native American ancestry.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• The Spanish king divided the empire in America into
regions called viceroyalties. A viceroy ruled each region
as a representative of the king.
• Although the Spanish did not find vast deposits of gold
in the Americas, they did discover huge deposits of
silver. Mining camps emerged all across northern
Mexico. To feed the miners, the Spaniards created large
ranches for their herds of cattle and sheep. These
ranches were called haciendas. The men who worked
the ranches were called vaqueros. Cowhands in the
United States later adopted many of the ways of the
vaqueros.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• In 1524 the French king sent Giovanni da Verrazano
to map the North American coastline. The king was
interested in finding the Northwest Passage—the
northern route through North America to the
Pacific Ocean.
• Although Verrazano found no such passage, he did
map a large area of North America’s east coast.
Jacques Cartier, another explorer, discovered and
mapped the St. Lawrence River.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• By 1600 fur, particularly beaver fur, had become
very fashionable in Europe. As the demand for fur
increased, French merchants became interested in
expanding the fur trade. In 1602 the French king
authorized a group of merchants to establish
colonies in North America.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• The merchants hired
geographer Samuel de
Champlain to help them
colonize North America.
Champlain established a
French colony in what is
present-day Nova Scotia, and
he founded Quebec, which
became the capital of the new
colony of New France.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• New France was founded for the fur trade. Settlers
were not needed to clear land or start farms.
Consequently, the population grew slowly. Most of
the fur traders, known as coureurs de bois, did not
live in the colony but among the Native Americans
with whom they traded.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• In 1663 New France became a royal colony. The
French government then introduced a series of
projects designed to increase the colony’s
population. The government also began exploring
North America. Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette
explored the Mississippi River. René-Robert
Cavelier de La Salle then followed the river to the
Gulf of Mexico and claimed the region, which he
named Louisiana, for France.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• Settlements were established in
Louisiana over the next few
decades. The French soon
realized that crops suitable for
the region required hard manual
labor, which few settlers were
willing to do. By 1721 the French
in Louisiana had imported
enslaved Africans and forced
them to work the plantations.
The Spanish & French Build Empires
• The Spanish had established the town of St.
Augustine, Florida, in 1565 to protect their claim to
the region after the French tried to settle the
Carolinas.
• The town became the first permanent settlement
established by Europeans in present-day United
States. After the French arrived at the mouth of the
Mississippi River, the Spanish established a mission
in eastern Texas to attempt to block French
expansion into the region.
Virginia Co. attracts settlers to
Jamestown
WAYS TO ATTRACT SETTLERS
English Colonies in America
• In 1497 the king of England
sent John Cabot to find a
western route to Asia. He
landed in what is today Nova
Scotia and explored the
region southward. However,
at that point England did not
attempt to colonize North
America.
English Colonies in America
• Several changes in England in the 1500s led to
renewed interest in colonization. One change was
the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther, a
German monk, published an attack on the
practices of the Catholic Church. The Reformation
spread across western Europe.
• In England the Reformation involved a
disagreement between King Henry VIII and the
pope, who refused to annul the king’s marriage.
The king then broke with the Church and declared
himself the head of the Anglican Church.
English Colonies in America
• Some English people wanted to keep the
organization of the Catholic Church in the Anglican
Church. Others, however, wanted to “purify” the
Anglican Church of all Catholic elements. These
people became known as Puritans.
• King James I refused to implement the changes to
the Anglican Church that the Puritans wanted. This
forced many Puritans to leave England for
America.
English Colonies in America
• Economic changes in England also led to
colonization. In the early 1500s, much of England’s
land was divided into large estates. The
landowners rented the land to tenant farmers.
• Then the demand for wool increased dramatically,
leading English landowners to convert their
estates into sheep farms by enclosing the land.
This enclosure movement resulted in the eviction
of tenants, who were left unemployed and poor.
Leaving England for America was a possible
economic opportunity.
English Colonies in America
• The English merchants
needed new markets
for their surplus wool.
Many organized jointstock companies,
pooling the money of
many investors for
large projects, such as
establishing colonies.
English Colonies in America
• After England emerged as the leading Protestant
power and Spain the leading Catholic power, the
two countries became enemies. When the Spanish
tried to check the spread of Protestantism in the
Netherlands, which was part of the Spanish
empire, the Dutch rebelled.
• England came to the aid of the Dutch. Queen
Elizabeth allowed privateers to attack Spanish
ships. Privateers are privately owned ships
licensed by the government to attack ships of
other countries.
English Colonies in America
• To more easily attack Spanish ships
in the Caribbean, England needed
to establish colonies nearby in
order to establish bases. Walter
Raleigh obtained a charter from the
queen to explore the American
coastline. His ships landed on
Roanoke, an island near presentday North Carolina, and he named
the land Virginia.
English Colonies in America
• In 1606 the king of
England granted the
Virginia Company a
charter to establish
colonies in Virginia.
The 144 men sent
to Virginia founded
the settlement of
Jamestown.
English Colonies in America
• Jamestown faced
many problems. The
leadership of Captain
John Smith and
assistance from the
Powhatan
Confederacy, the local
Native Americans,
helped the colony
survive.
English Colonies in America
• The Jamestown Company offered free land to
people who worked for the colony for seven years.
New settlers arrived in 1609, but there was not
enough food for them.
• The settlers stole food from the Native Americans,
who retaliated by attacking them. By 1610 only 60
settlers survived.
English Colonies in America
• John Rolfe, a
Jamestown colonist,
developed a strain of
tobacco that was
marketable in
England. The
Jamestown settlers
soon began growing
large quantities of
tobacco for profit.
English Colonies in America
• To attract more settlers to
Jamestown, the Virginia
Company gave the colony the
right to elect its own general
assembly. The elected
representatives were called
burgesses, and the legislative
body was called the House of
Burgesses.
English Colonies in America
• The Virginia Company also introduced the system
of headrights. Under this system, new settlers
who bought a share in the company or paid for
their passage were granted 50 acres. They
received more land for each family member or
servant they brought to Virginia.
• The Native Americans near Jamestown grew
alarmed at the increasing population. They
attacked the settlement, killing nearly 350 settlers.
King James revoked the colony’s charter and
declared it a royal colony.
English Colonies in America
• Catholics were
persecuted in England
for their beliefs. Lord
Baltimore, a Catholic
member of Parliament,
decided to found a
colony in America where
Catholics could practice
their religion without
persecution.
English Colonies in America
• The king granted Baltimore
an area of land northeast of
Virginia, which Baltimore
named Maryland. Baltimore
owned Maryland, making it
the first proprietary colony.
Although Maryland was
founded as a Catholic refuge,
most of the colony’s settlers
were Protestant.
Virginia Co. attracts settlers to
Jamestown
WAYS TO ATTRACT SETTLERS
*Granting the colony the right to elect its
own general assembly to propose laws
*Introducing the system of headrights
*Providing opportunities for marriage
Graphic Organizer Section 3
Colony
Reason Founded
New England
• Some Puritans, called Separatists, broke away from
the Anglican Church to start their own
congregations. The king viewed the act as a
challenge to his authority and imprisoned them. In
1608 one group of Separatists, who became known
as Pilgrims, fled to Holland. Unhappy there, they
decided to immigrate to America.
New England
• The Pilgrims set sail for America on the Mayflower
in 1620 and settled in Plymouth, near
Massachusetts Bay.
New England
• Under the leadership of William
Bradford, the Pilgrims began
constructing homes immediately after
their arrival. A plague swept through
the colony, killing many settlers. The
remaining settlers survived in large
part because of the assistance of a
Native American named Squanto,
who taught them how to use the
environment to meet their needs.
New England
• Many Puritans stayed within the Anglican Church
and worked for reform. Like the Separatists, these
Puritans were also persecuted, and many were
willing to leave England.
• A depression in England’s wool industry caused
high unemployment, particularly among Puritans.
John Winthrop and other wealthy Puritans held
stock in the Massachusetts Bay Company, which
had received a charter from King Charles to
establish a colony in New England.
New England
• Winthrop used the charter to start a colony as a
refuge for Puritans. In 1630 several hundred
Puritans set sail for American and established the
Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• As conditions in England worsened, increasing
numbers of people left England in what was later
called the Great Migration. By 1643 Massachusetts
included about 20,000 settlers.
New England
• In Massachusetts, a General Court made the laws and
elected the colony’s governor. The General Court was
made up of “freemen”—the people who owned stock
in the Massachusetts Bay Company. Eventually the
General Court became a representative assembly.
• The government of Massachusetts required all
colonists to attend church, collected taxes to support
it, and regulated people’s moral behavior. The
government was intolerant towards differences in
religious beliefs. Heretics, those whose religious beliefs
differed from the majority’s, were considered a threat
to the community.
New England
• Roger Williams, a strict Separatist,
challenged Puritan authority in
Massachusetts. In 1635 the General
Court banned him from the colony.
Williams headed south, where he
founded the town of Providence.
• The government there had no authority
in religious matters, and religious
differences were tolerated.
New England
• Anne Hutchinson was
declared a heretic and
banished from
Massachusetts for her
challenge of Puritan
practices. She and her
followers also headed
south and founded the
town of Portsmouth.
New England
• Other Puritans were also banished from
Massachusetts. They founded the towns of
Newport and Warwick.
• These two towns joined with Providence and
Portsmouth to become the colony of Rhode Island
and Providence Plantations. The colony’s charter
included a total separation of church and state and
religious freedom.
New England
• Reverend Thomas Hooker opposed the
Massachusetts government’s policy of allowing
only church members to vote. He and his followers
left Massachusetts and founded the town of
Hartford, in the Connecticut River valley. Hartford
and two other towns in the region joined together
to create their own General Court.
• They adopted a constitution known as the
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut—the first
written constitution of the American colonies.
New England
• Two Massachusetts traders
were killed by the Pequot, a
Native American group in
the Connecticut River valley.
A war between the colonists
and Pequot developed.
Hundreds of Pequot were
killed, and many were sold
into slavery.
New England
• Some Puritans moved north of Massachusetts.
Much of this territory had been granted to two
men. One claimed the southern part, named New
Hampshire, and the other claimed the northern
part, named Maine.
• New Hampshire eventually became a royal colony,
while Massachusetts bought back Maine, which
remained part of Massachusetts until 1820.
New England
• The colonial governments’ demand that Native
American follow English law angered the Native
Americans, who believed that the English were
trying to destroy their culture.
• In 1675 the Plymouth Colony tried and executed
three Wampanaog for a murder, which led to
attacks by the Native Americans against the
colonists. The attacks marked the beginning of King
Philip’s War. The Wampanoag’s defeat by the
colonists in 1678 was a turning point. After the war,
few Native Americans were left in New England.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• Conflicts between Charles I and the English
Parliament intensified when the king sent
troops into Parliament to arrest several
Puritan leaders. Parliament, with mostly
Puritan members, then organized its own
army, and the English Civil War began.
• The Parliament’s army defeated and
captured the king in 1646. Oliver Cromwell,
the head of Parliament’s army, disbanded
Parliament and seized power for himself.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• Maryland’s governor and proprietor supported the
king against Parliament, which led to a Protestant
rebellion in that colony.
• To appease the Protestants, Lord Baltimore
appointed a Protestant governor and enacted the
Maryland Toleration Act. The act, which was
intended to protect the Catholic minority from the
Protestants, granted religious toleration to all
Christians.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• After 20 years of conflict,
England’s leaders wanted
stability. In 1660 Parliament
asked King Charles’s son, Charles
II, to take the throne—a move
that became known as the
Restoration. At this point,
England resumed colonization,
viewing colonies as a vital source
of raw materials and new
markets.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• In 1609 Dutch merchants hired an
English navigator named Henry
Hudson to find a route through North
America to the Pacific. Hudson
explored the Hudson River valley, and
the merchants claimed the region for
the Dutch, calling it New Netherland.
The Dutch established New
Amsterdam, their major settlement,
on Manhattan Island.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• Because fur trade was the major activity in New
Netherland, the colony grew slowly. To increase the
colony’s population, the Dutch opened settlement
in the colony to anyone who wanted to buy land
there.
• By 1664 the colony consisted of more than 10,000
people from many parts of Europe. Enslaved
Africans arrived in New Netherland in the 1620s.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• England wanted New Netherland as a link between
Virginia and Maryland and the New England
colonies. King Charles granted the land to his
brother James, who seized New Netherland from
the Dutch.
• James renamed the land New York and granted a
large portion of it to two of the king’s closest
advisers. The new colony was named New Jersey. In
an attempt to increase the colony’s population, the
proprietors offered generous land grants, religious
freedom, and the right to elect a legislative
assembly.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• In 1680 William Penn, a
friend of King Charles II
and a Quaker, received a
land grant between New
York and Maryland. Penn
intended this land as a
refuge for Quakers, who
were persecuted for their
beliefs by the government
and others.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• Quakers believed that
religion was a personal
experience that did not
need churches or
ministers. They
objected to all political
and religious authority
and advocated
pacifism—opposition
to war or violence as a
means of resolving
conflict.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• William Penn founded the colony
of Pennsylvania. The colony
granted religious and political
freedom to everyone. Penn
regarded the treatment of Native
Americans in other colonies as
unjust. A treaty signed with the
Native Americans living near
Pennsylvania created peace
between the colonists and Native
Americans for more than 70 years.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love,” became
the capital of Pennsylvania. Penn established a
charter that created a legislative assembly elected
directly by the voters. All colonists who owned 50
acres of land and were Christian had the right to
vote. The charter granted all Pennsylvanians the
right to practice their religion without interference.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• Penn purchased additional
land south of
Pennsylvania, which later
became the colony of
Delaware.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• King Charles II granted land south
of Virginia to his friends and
political allies. The land, known as
Carolina, developed as two
separate regions—North Carolina
and South Carolina.
• North Carolina grew slowly.
Farmers eventually grew tobacco
and began to export naval supplies,
such as tar, pitch, and turpentine.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• The proprietors believed that South Carolina would
be suitable for growing sugarcane. The first settlers
in South Carolina named their settlement Charles
Town, which became present-day Charleston.
• Sugarcane did not grow well in South Carolina. The
first major product for export was deerskin. The
colony also began to capture Native Americans and
ship them to the Caribbean as enslaved workers.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
• James Oglethorpe started the
colony of Georgia. He established
the colony as a place for English
debtors to start over rather than
to be imprisoned for their debts.
The colony attracted settlers
from all over Europe. Georgia
became a royal colony in the mid1700s, when control of the
colony reverted back to the king.
The Middle and Southern Colonies
The Middle and Southern Colonies