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The American Colonies:
Introduction
This chapter begins with a description of Captain John Smith's capture by the warriors of
Powhatan, the chief of about fourteen thousand Algonquian peoples who lived along the coast of
Virginia. Smith believed that Powhatan had been ready to kill him by smashing his head with
rocks but that he was fortuitously saved by Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas. However, it is far
more likely that she was playing a part in a ceremony designed to express Powhatan's power of
life and death over a subordinate chief. Relations broke down between English settlers and the
Algonquians though. Captured, Pocahontas eventually married John Rolfe, had a son, and
moved to England where she was celebrated with a great deal of pomp and circumstance.
Powhatan's world of hunters and gatherers was gradually replaced by one of settlers with
weapons, tools, and ideas foreign to the Native Americans. As a thriving tobacco trade grew
between the Chesapeake Bay colony and Europe, Native American lands were usurped and their
ways of life irreparably challenged.
An English Colony on the Chesapeake, pp. 71-80
In 1603, King James I of England, impressed by Spain's successes in the New World, was eager to
establish colonies of his own in North America. England's success in defending itself from the
Spanish Armada suggested that England might now succeed in defending new colonies in North
America on land claimed by Spain. Thus, in 1606, the king granted a charter to the Virginia
Company of London, a joint stock company of adventurers, authorizing their occupation of over
six million acres in North America. These men and other proponents of colonization hoped
settlements would benefit the empire, both by yielding goods and by providing a convenient
destination for masses of unemployed English people. Virginia Company investors dreamed
about the quick and easy profits they could reap, but they failed to appreciate the difficulties of
adapting European desires and expectations to the New World environment, particularly in
regard to Native American peoples. Within twenty years the Jamestown settlement somehow
managed to survive, but the English government replaced the private Virginia Company, which
was never profitable.
The Fragile Jamestown Settlement
In December 1606, 144 Englishmen sailed for Virginia aboard three ships. In May 1607, the
survivors of the journey put ashore on a small peninsula in the James River in the heart of
Powhatan's chiefdom. They hastily built a fort as protection from the Indians and Spanish and
named the settlement Jamestown, but skirmishes with the Indians were frequent. The settlers
soon discovered that disease and famine were greater threats than the Indians' spears and arrows
or attacks by the Spanish. Despite Powhatan's eventual overtures of peace and delivery of much
needed foodstuffs and John Smith's forays to trade with the Indians, by January 1608, only 38 of
the original settlers remained alive to welcome the Virginia Company's supply ships and 120 new
colonists. Although the Virginia Company sent hundreds of new settlers each year to Jamestown,
few survived these early years.
Cooperation and Conflict between Natives and Newcomers
Given the colonists' vulnerability, it is surprising perhaps that Powhatan did not attack
Jamestown and drive the English out of the Chesapeake. Several factors probably contributed to
his hesitation. The Indians were impressed by the English God, whom they felt must be very
powerful, and even more by English goods. They were eager to trade corn to get these valuable
items. Moreover, Powhatan and his werowances probably concluded that such powerful strangers
would make better allies than enemies, especially in regard to other Native American tribes.
Notwithstanding, more than once the Indians refused to trade their corn to the settlers, but the
English brutally broke that boycott by attacking the uncooperative Indians, pillaging their
villages, and confiscating their corn. Despite receiving or taking food from the Indians,
Jamestown failed to thrive not only because of the settlers' weakened physical condition, but also
because the majority were gentlemen and their servants, who considered cultivating the land
beneath them. Nevertheless, over time, the colony slowly expanded. Its continued existence
changed Indian society, introducing new tensions over resources as well as European diseases
that decimated Indians in epidemic proportions. In 1622, after fifteen years of an uneasy truce,
Opechancanough, Powhatan's brother and successor after his death, launched an all-out assault
on the colony, killing 347 settlers— nearly one-third of the English population. The attack failed
to drive the English out. From this point on, the colonists no longer deemed the Indians necessary
for their survival; instead, they concluded that their settlement's existence depended on the
destruction of all Indians in the vicinity.
From Private Company to Royal Government
The shocking mortality rate and evidence of mismanagement led to the Virginia Company's
dissolution in 1624; Virginia became a royal colony governed directly by the crown. The king
now appointed the governor, but most features of local government established under the
company remained in effect, such as the House of Burgesses, first convened in 1619. By 1624, it
was evident that English settlers were in Virginia to stay: New settlers were still arriving, the
crown was committed to the colony, and steady progress was being made in the cultivation of
tobacco.
A Tobacco Society, pp. 80-87
Tobacco grew wild in the New World where Native Americans had been using it for thousands
of years. During the sixteenth century, Spanish colonists in the New World sent tobacco to
Europe where it was an expensive luxury but, during the following century, English colonists in
North America sent so much tobacco to European markets that it became quite affordable and
was used widely. In 1612, John Rolfe's experiments with West Indian tobacco seeds showed that
the plant could be cultivated successfully in Virginia. The first shipment of Virginia-grown
tobacco arrived in England in 1617 and sold for a handsome price. Ironically, the same Virginia
colonists who could not or would not grow food for themselves quickly learned how to harvest
as much tobacco as possible. Tobacco cultivation proved a crucial turning point for the Virginia
colony, as the crop changed the aimless settlers into a community of dedicated planters.
Tobacco Agriculture
A demanding crop, tobacco required close attention and a great deal of hand labor year-round.
Primitive tools and planting methods made this intensive cycle of labor more taxing. Fields were
cleared by girdling trees, and the tree-stump-studded fields were hoed instead of plowed.
Colonists also had to grow food crops in the midst of the tobacco production cycle, leaving little
time for idleness. But in spare moments, they enjoyed the fruits of their labor. English settlers,
however, were willing to work hard because they could expect to do much better in the
Chesapeake than in England. A hired laborer in a Virginia tobacco field earned in one year what
it took his counterpart in England to earn in two to three years. More important, land was so
plentiful in Virginia that even laborers could hope to obtain it. New settlers to the area who paid
their own passage received fifty acres of free land known as a headright. This policy, begun by the
Virginia Company, was continued by the royal government to attract settlers.
A Servant Labor System
The seventeenth-century Chesapeake was fundamentally a servant society, with about 80 percent
of new arrivals working as indentured servants. As indentured servants, English workers
contracted their labor for a period of four to seven years in return for passage to Virginia and the
chance to acquire land and wealth. The planter paid the cost of transportation and provided the
servant with food and shelter. As many as half of the indentured servants died before their
servitude ended, but those who survived were likely to acquire their own farms. More than twothirds of the servants were young, unskilled males between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.
Only about one servant in four was a woman because employers preferred men for fieldwork.
Servant life was very harsh by the standards of England and the Chesapeake. Servants who ran
away or female servants who became pregnant had additional time added on to their contract.
For some servant women, premarital pregnancy was a path out of servitude: The father of an
unborn child sometimes purchased the indenture of the servant mother-to-be, freed, and married
her. Notwithstanding, indentured servitude was not an easy road for those who chose to work it.
Cultivating Land and Faith
Dispersments of the Chesapeake settlements were determined by the demands of tobacco.
Because tobacco exhausted the land of its nutrients quickly, farms consisted of cultivated land
surrounded by virgin forest. Moreover, planters preferred land on navigable rivers to ease
transporting the tobacco onto ships. Most Chesapeake settlers nominally were Protestants, but
few were very observant. Even the colony of Maryland, which was founded by Lord Baltimore
and intended as a haven for persecuted English Catholics, devoted more attention to tobacco
cultivation than to religion.
The Evolution of Chesapeake Society, pp. 87-93
Tobacco cultivation propelled the evolution of Chesapeake society. The varying degrees of
success among tobacco growers created a hierarchical society, in which wealth and status among
colonists were quite disparate. Social stratification led to political polarization that climaxed in
1676 with Bacon's Rebellion. Amid this political and social change, tobacco cultivation remained
a constant.
Social and Economic Polarization
Until mid-century, societal divisions in the Chesapeake were less between rich and poor planters
than between free farmers and indentured servants, and a rough frontier equality characterized
free families. After 1650, however, three developments contributed to a growing social
polarization. First, tobacco prices declined as production increased, making it more difficult for
freed servants to save enough to become landowners. Second, as the mortality rate of freed
servants decreased, the number of freed men seeking land increased. Finally, the drop in
mortality also contributed to a rising planter elite class whose members were living longer,
acquiring more land, and making more money. By the 1670s, Chesapeake society had become
polarized: Landowners-the planter elite and the more numerous yeoman farmers-made up one
group; landless settlers, mostly freed servants, made up another group. Each looked upon the
other with mistrust.
Government Policies and Political Conflict
In general, government and politics intensified rather than reduced socioeconomic distinctions.
Discrepant laws governed masters and servants. Moreover, the planter elite dominated the
government, from membership in the House of Burgesses to the governor's council. In the late
seventeenth century, the franchise became more restricted, with voting limited to landowners
and householders. Colonial officials not only administered government but profited from it as
well, especially through revenue collecting. Beginning in 1660, the Navigation Act allowed the
crown to extract revenue from the Chesapeake, and subsequent acts would be applied to other
colonies. These measures were designed to give English merchants, shippers, and even seamen a
monopoly on the colonial import trade. The acts reflected English mercantilist assumptions— the
idea that the colonies existed to benefit the mother country. Hierarchy and stratification defined
not only the relationship between king and colonies but also that between the planter and the
lower classes.
Bacon's Rebellion
In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion erupted as a dispute over Indian policy. As the Chesapeake population
grew, the land-hungry poor whites encroached on Indian land and violence between settlers and
Indians erupted. The government tried to maintain the peace, but frontier settlers, led by the
ambitious Nathaniel Bacon, wanted revenge. They saw the colonial government, headed by
William Berkeley, as run by corrupt officials who were as much their enemies as the Indians.
Governor Berkeley pronounced Bacon a rebel, threatened to punish him for treason, and called
for new elections of burgesses, which Bacon and his supporters swept. They passed Bacon's
Laws, which gave local settlers a greater voice in the government and cracked down on
corruption. When the king learned of the turmoil in the Chesapeake and its devastating effect on
tobacco exports and customs duties, he ordered an investigation. The royal officials replaced
Berkeley with a governor more attentive to the king's interests, nullified Bacon's Laws, and
instituted an export tax on every hogshead of tobacco as a way of paying the expenses of
government without having to obtain the consent of the tightfisted House of Burgesses. After
Bacon's Rebellion, political stability slowly returned to the Chesapeake.
Toward a Slave Labor System, pp. 94-98
African slavery was introduced to the New World by the Spanish and Portuguese during the
sixteenth century when European diseases decimated Native American populations. In the
seventeenth century, West Indian English planters followed the Iberian example and developed
sugar plantations with slave labor. However, in English North America, African slavery was not
adopted until the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Beginning in the 1670s, slavery slowly
made its way out of the English Caribbean and, by the end of the century, slave labor systems
were found in the Chesapeake as well as in the Carolinas.
The West Indies: Sugar and Slavery
England's most profitable seventeenth-century colonies were established not on the North
American mainland but in the Caribbean. English planters developed a profitable sugarcane
industry that, by the end of that century, had exported nearly 50 million pounds a year to the
mother country. Sugar plantations demanded a large initial investment; poor farmers could not
afford the expensive machinery. The successful planters' immense profits came from the sweat
and toil of African slaves. By 1700, the island of Barbados was literally a slave society controlled
by white men. The plantation regime was extremely brutal for slaves, who were often worked to
death. Although sugar plantations never developed on the North American mainland, the West
Indies nonetheless exerted a powerful influence on the introduction of slavery in North America.
Carolina: A West Indian Frontier
In 1663, a Barbadian planter named John Colleton and seven other men obtained a charter from
King Charles II to colonize the region south of Virginia. The proprietors planned to siphon
settlers from Barbados and other colonies and encourage them to develop an export crop. They
established a permanent English beachhead in the southern part of the colony at Charles Towne
(later Charleston) in 1670. The Barbadian immigrants brought their slaves with them, thus
establishing African slaves in South Carolina. During the first generation of the colony, Carolina
served primarily as an economic colony of Barbados, exporting everything from livestock to
timber back to the island. In the mid-1690s, the colonists hit upon a hardy strain of rice that
thrived in the region; thereafter, rice became the industry that dominated Carolina.
Slave Labor Emerges in the Chesapeake
By 1700, more than eight out of ten persons in England's mainland southern colonies lived in the
Chesapeake, and one out of eight was black. In 1650, slavery was still a relatively minor
institution in Virginia and Maryland but, beginning in the 1670s, tobacco planters began a
transition from servant to slave labor that portended slavery's full adoption and
institutionalization in the American South. Africans were favored over indentured servants as
laborers for a number of reasons. First, because they and their descendants would be slaves for
life, they constituted a potentially never-ending and self-perpetuating labor supply for planters.
Further, unlike indentured servants, African slaves could be controlled politically. Whereas
servants came to the Chesapeake with expectations of eventual liberty and ownership of land,
slaves had no hope of attaining the privileges of freedom. Unlike the previous labor system
divided between landless colonists on the one hand, and planter elites and yeoman planters on
the other, this change from a servant to a slave labor system polarized Chesapeake society along
lines of race and status. Although there were still large economic differences among whites, the
rights enjoyed by poor white farmers made them feel that they too had a stake in the existence of
slavery, even if they could not afford to own slaves themselves.
Conclusion: The Growth of English Colonies Based on Export Crops and Slave Labor, p. 98
By the end of the seventeenth century, the English colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina
were established firmly in North America, producing staples such as tobacco for export. Export
crops made a handful of colonists wealthy and provided a livelihood for many. Southern colonial
society differed significantly from that of England, yet the colonists considered themselves
English subjects, claiming the rights and privileges of English citizens. The English believed
themselves superior to Indians and Africans; thus colonists did not hesitate to deny these groups
English rights and privileges. The English colonies differed from New Spain as well. The English
did not seek to convert the native population to Christianity, the Chesapeake did not harbor gold
or silver mines, and the encomienda system did not develop because Indians were too few and
too hostile and their communities too small and decentralized to be organized effectively.
However, the Chesapeake developed its own system of forced labor and racial distinctions. Only
a remnant of Powhatan's powerful confederation existed by 1700. The English colonists were in
North America to stay.
Introduction
Chapter Four begins with a discussion of Roger Williams, a critic of the Puritan leaders who ran
the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the seventeenth century. Williams, a well-educated English
Puritan minister who came to Massachusetts to preach, criticized how Puritans worshipped and
the way they governed their colony. English Puritans traveled to America to provide a model of
Christian community that would be a guide to their fellow Englishmen. Williams thought the
Massachusetts experiment failed to live up to its ideals. He criticized Puritans for abusing
Indians, coveting riches, and persecuting Christians who disagreed with their doctrine. In return,
Puritan leaders denounced Williams and banished him from Massachusetts. Williams fled south
to found the colony of Rhode Island, on the principle of liberty of conscience. Williams's dissent
from Puritan orthodoxy showed that faith mattered intensely to seventeenth-century colonists. It
also revealed tensions inside of Massachusetts that would cool Puritan zeal by 1700, a time when
all the North American colonies had become more integrated into the English Empire.
Puritan Origins: The English Reformation, pp. 105-106
The English Reformation began less so as a result of doctrinal revolts and more so because of a
political dispute between the king and the pope. In 1534, King Henry VIII, angered by the power
and interference of the Catholic Church, broke England's ties with Rome and established himself
as head of his nation's Christian faith. Henry made relatively few other changes in his "new"
church, which remained very Catholic in theology and worship. Many English Protestants
clamored for reforms that would "purify" the church of its Catholic trappings; these Protestants
came to be called Puritans. The fate of Protestantism waxed and waned under the monarchs who
succeeded Henry VIII. The survival of English Protestantism was still in doubt when Elizabeth I
came to the throne (in 1558) and attempted to consolidate a position midway between the
extremes of Catholicism and Puritanism. Puritan agitation for further reform of the church
continued during the reigns of Elizabeth's successors— James I and Charles I— neither of whom
were receptive to Puritan ideas. Indeed, both monarchs' anti-Puritan policies made many
Puritans believe that if they were to be free to live and worship in peace, they would have to
leave England. For example, King Charles I's dissolution of Parliament (in 1629) caused great
anxiety among English Puritans who, now without political representation, could not defend
themselves legally against Charles's anti-Puritan policies.
Puritans and the Settlement of New England, pp. 107-111
The sixteenth-century religious and political turmoil engendered by the English Reformation led
many Puritans to emigrate to New England. The colonies they established were shaped by their
faith and desire to create a new society that conformed to their interpretation of God's plan for
humankind.
The Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony
Plymouth colony was settled by the Pilgrims, Separatist Puritans who had emigrated to escape
persecution in England. They moved first to Holland, in 1608, but by 1620 they found they could
not live and worship as they had hoped. Believing that America was a place where they might
protect their children's piety and preserve their community, the Separatists obtained permission
to settle in the extensive lands granted to the Virginia Company. They left for the New World
aboard the Mayflower in August 1620, landing offcourse at Cape Cod in present-day
Massachusetts in November. To provide order, security, and legitimacy for the new colony, the
Pilgrims created their own government by consent, drawing up the Mayflower Compact. They
also elected William Bradford as their governor. Although survival was difficult in the early
years, the Pilgrims were fortunate in their Indian friends— for example Squanto and Chief
Massasoit— who showed them how to gather seafood and cultivate corn. After the first harvest
in the fall of 1621, the settlers invited the Indians to celebrate a thanksgiving feast. Plymouth
remained a small colony, attracting few immigrants, but that did not bother the Pilgrims, who
wanted to live quietly and simply according to their faith.
The Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony
Shortly before Charles I dissolved Parliament in 1629, a number of Puritans formed the
Massachusetts Bay Company and were granted a charter for colonization in New England. In
1630, this group sailed for the New World with elected governor John Winthrop to lead them and
a key provision in their charter that would allow them self-government in Massachusetts. Aboard
the ship Arbella, Winthrop delivered a sermon to his followers about the significance of their
journey and their duty as settlers to follow a righteous path and to adhere strictly to God's laws.
He and his followers established the settlement that would become Boston and others near it in
1630 and, despite early hardships, the Massachusetts Bay Colony enjoyed a steady stream of
migration during its first decade. Unlike the Virginia colonists, most immigrants to New England
were farmers or tradesmen of middle-class origin who paid their own passage to Massachusetts
and came as part of a family. The immigrants' family ties reinforced their religious beliefs
through the interlocking institutions of family, church, and community.
The Founding of the Middle Colonies, pp. 121-126
The English colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania originated as proprietary
colonies. Before the 1670s, few Europeans settled in any of these middle colonies. The most
important European outpost in the region north of the Chesapeake and south of New England
was the relatively small Dutch colony of New Netherland. By 1700, however, the English
monarchy had seized New Netherland, renamed it New York, and encouraged the creation of a
Quaker colony led by William Penn.
From New Netherland to New York
The Dutch settled New York after the voyages of Henry Hudson in 1609. The colony became the
property of the Dutch West India Company, which struggled to govern the settlement and sent
officials who set policies that many colonists deeply resented. New Netherland was Dutch in
little more than ownership because few immigrants came from Holland, and the population
remained small. It was a linguistically and religiously diverse colony. Immigrants from Sweden,
France, Germany, Holland, and many other countries made up sizable minorities in the colony,
and these people felt no loyalty to the Dutch West India Company. When England sent a fleet to
take New Netherland in 1664, the Dutch colony fell and New Netherland became New York.
Although he had no right to the land, Charles II of England gave the colony as part of an
enormous land grant to his brother James, the Duke of York.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania
New York's creation led indirectly to the founding of two other middle colonies: New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. New Jersey first belonged to the Duke of York, but he gave it to two friends who
became the colony's proprietors. Conflicts between these men and some preexisting settlers led
one of the proprietors to sell his interest to two Quakers. These Quaker proprietors themselves
had a conflict and called in English Quaker William Penn— a prominent public figure from an
eminent English family— who arbitrated an agreement whereby New Jersey was able to
maintain its proprietary government. Penn became interested in establishing a colony in the New
World to provide a safe haven for Quakers, an unpopular and persecuted sect whose members
were imprisoned and executed in great numbers. Penn intended to settle Pennsylvania as a
society based on Quaker principles. The Quakers believed that all individuals could
communicate directly with God. They refused to accept hierarchical status or deference to those
of rank and title since, in God's eyes, all humans were equal. They also permitted women to
assume positions of religious leadership. In 1681, Charles II, eager to rid England of this
troublesome religious minority, made Penn the proprietor of the new colony called Pennsylvania.
Toleration and Diversity in Pennsylvania
Between 1682 and 1685, almost eight thousand immigrants came to Pennsylvania, most of them
members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. Quaker ideals showed in the fair Indian policy
and the tolerance of religious diversity in the new colony. Pennsylvania and its capital,
Philadelphia, soon rivaled New York as a center of commerce, exporting flour and other
foodstuffs to the West Indies and importing textiles and manufactured goods. As the colony's
proprietor, Penn had extensive power, but he proposed a more representative government in
which property owners could vote for a council and an elected assembly, both of which were
subject to an appointed governor's veto. Penn believed that the form of government mattered less
than the people in it, but Quakers found points of disagreement. There were many struggles in
the assembly and, in 1701, a new Charter of Privileges gave the assembly extensive new powers.
The Colonies and the British Empire, pp. 127-130
Until the 1660s, the English crown largely ignored the colonies. The king then recognized that
profits could be realized by regulating colonial trade; he moved to consolidate royal control over
colonial governments.
Royal Regulation of Colonial Trade
The Navigation Acts of 1650, 1651, and 1660 were the heart of England's system of regulation.
They restricted trade within the empire to English (including American) ships and enumerated
certain colonial goods— such as tobacco— that could be shipped only to England or to other
English colonies. The Navigation Acts interfered less with the commerce of New England and the
middle colonies, whose principal exports— fish, lumber, and flour— were not enumerated and
could legally be sent directly to their most important markets in the West Indies. Another act, the
Staple Act of 1663, required that all goods imported into the colonies pass through England. By
the end of the seventeenth century, colonial trade flowed in and out of channels defined and
regulated by the British Empire.
King Philip's War and the Consolidation of Royal Authority
The monarchy took steps to exercise greater control over colonial governments. The middle
colonies, Maryland, and South Carolina were all proprietary colonies closely linked to the crown,
and Virginia had been a royal colony since 1624. The monarchy now directed its efforts toward
the New England colonies, which had developed their own distinctively independent Puritan
governments. A devastating war with the Indians (King Philip's War, 1675-1676) created the
pretext for a royal investigation of whether New England adhered to English laws. This resulted
in the crown's decision to revoke the Massachusetts Bay Company's charter and to incorporate all
the colonies stretching from Maine to Maryland into one entity called the Dominion of New
England, appointing Sir Edmund Andros as royal governor. When news reached America of
James II's ouster in the Glorious Revolution, a rebellion broke out in Boston, and Andros and his
followers were arrested. However, the days of Puritan independence and complete self— rule
were over.
Conclusion: An English Model of Colonization in North America, pp. 130-131
At the close of the seventeenth century, the English New World colonies were firmly established.
The English Empire in North America was quite different from its Spanish counterpart. The
settlers relied on agriculture and trade rather than precious metals. Religious, political, social,
and economic diversity could be seen throughout the settled areas; and free, white males enjoyed
an unusual degree of political influence for that time. Over the following half-century, the
colonies would experience surprising changes.