• Improvements in technology (Renaissance era -- late 1400s and early 1500s). Sailing compass, gunpowder, printing press, shipbuilding, mapmaking.

• Political motives. Nation-states develop in Europe (the majority of people share a common culture and common political loyalty to a central government – the king). To maintain their hold on power, monarchs need trade to bring in money and the Church to justify their right to rule.
• Economic motives. Fierce competition for trade with India and China. Portugal controlled the sea route around Africa; Spain sought another sea route to Asia.
• Religious motives. (Protestant reformation early 1500s). Catholics of Spain and Portugal and Protestants and England and Holland wanted their own version of Christianity adopted by people in Africa, Asia and America. They used religion to justify taking land from “heathens.”

• French traders cooperated with Indians in the fur trade. France established forts at key points along the rivers.
• The French who came were single men. Because France was not interested in establishing farming colonies, there was little conflict with the Indians and quite a bit of intermarriage.

• Defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 established its sea power.
• Original hope: gold. The “gold” they found in North America was natural resources.
• New foods from America have led to rapid growth in English population. Now it needs more food than English farms can produce. Also desire tobacco, lumber, dried fish.
• New idea of joint-stock companies creates capital to support trading ventures.

• Aim: gold. Nearly starve looking for it. Also die of dysentery and malaria.

• John Smith takes forceful leadership.
• John Rolfe develops sweet strain of tobacco. Creates a profitable trade, but also creates a huge need for labor.
• Virginia Company commissions (1610) Lord De La Warr to use “Irish tactics” against the Powhatan Indians. Raided villages, burned houses, set fire to cornfields.
• 1622 – VA Company adopts policy of genocide against the Powhatans. Declares “perpetual war” to “prevent them from being any longer a people. 
• By 1685, the Powhatan tribe is extinct.
• Meanwhile, important pro-democracy measures.
• To encourage colonization, the Virginia Company promises colonists the same rights they had in England – including representation in a legislature.
• 1619 – Virginian colonists establish the House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in America. Only male property owners can vote.
• Indentured servants recruited from England.
• 1619 – indentured Africans brought to Jamestown. Before long, their masters declare they have a right to keep them as slaves, because they are heathens.

• Pilgrims – first group of Puritans – travel to new world on the Mayflower.
• While still aboard, the men draw up and sign the Mayflower Compact, pledging themselves to make decisions by the will of the majority. Important because:
  1. It establishes an early form of colonial self-rule.
  2. It’s a sort of written constitution, establishing the powers and duties of the government.

• A thousand Puritans led by John Winthrop, who declares a lasting ideal for America: “We shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all mankind are upon us.”
• They establish Boston and other towns.
• 15,000 more settlers soon arrive in Massachusetts due to English Civil War.

• All male members of the Puritan church can vote (whether or not they have property) for governor and legislative assembly.
• Predestination creates a problem with morale. This life is difficult. But the next life could be worse.
• The elect. The chosen few. The religious and civic leaders were believed to be among the elect, the chosen few. The fact that they were leaders was evidence of that. This ensured their power.
• Little separation of church and state.
• No freedom of religion. Was this hypocritical?
• Puritan infighting arises over issues of predestination and religious authority.

• Puritans hang four dissenters in Boston Common and drive out others. The banished dissidents found RI and CN.

Native Americans	Europeans
Land is to be shared.	Land is to be owned.
Wealth belongs to the tribe. We succeed or fail as a tribe.	Wealth belongs to the individual. We succeed or fail as individuals.
Land is to be protected and preserved.	Land is to used for profit.
Enough is enough.	More is better. (Greed is good.)

Noble	Savage
Friendly Helped settlers survive – taught them how to plant and harvest Physically attractive Cooperative Curious but not hostile	Technologically primitive Inferior Godless Nearly naked Promiscuous (an English assumption)

• Most Indians had died of disease before the English arrived. Within 100 years of Columbus, 90% of Indians in North and South America were dead of smallpox, measles, etc.
• English have advantage of steel and guns.
• More settlers keep arriving.

• Settlers have big families. Grown sons need new farms.
• When Indians resist further encroachments, settlers use atrocious violence. They wipe out whole villages.

• Meanwhile, violence between tribes escalates. With European guns, they compete with each other for prime hunting grounds, so they’ll have skins and pelts to trade for more guns.
• Failure to ally severely weakens Indians’ ability to hold back the settlers.

• New England – MA, CN, RI, NH
• Middle states – PA, NY, Del, NJ
• Chesapeake – MD, VA
• Southern – NC, SC, GA

• Minister Roger Williams, in Boston, criticizes his fellow Puritans for stealing Indian land.
• He also says an individual’s conscience is more important than church authority. Therefore, neither church or government leaders have a right to regulate religious behavior.
• Banished, Williams founds settlement of Providence (1636).
• Under Williams’ government, Native Ams have rights and must be paid for their land.
• Williams institutes complete religious toleration, welcoming Catholics, Quakers, and Jews.
• Dissident Anne Hutchinson banished (1638) for believing that faith alone, not deeds, is necessary for salvation (antinomianism).
• She founds Portsmouth, near Providence, but later moves to Long Island, where she’s killed in an Indian raid.
• English government combines Providence and Portsmouth into colony of RI, under Roger Williams.
• Rhode Island develops tradition of stubborn independence.

• Minister Thomas Hooker leads dissenting group from Boston (1636) and founds Hartford.
• Hartford settlers draw up first written constitution in North America, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639).
• Settlement of New Haven joins with Hartford to create CT.

• Charles II wants more control over MA Bay Colony. Splits off New Hampshire and makes it a royal colony. (1679)

• From 1643-1684 (41 years), the four New England colonies form this military alliance, with two representatives from each colony. Has powers to settle border disputes, return runaway servants, and deal with Indians.
• Confederation ends in 1684 because of rivalries and antagonism from king.
• But sets precedent for colonial cooperation.

• Confederation successfully fights King Philips’s War (1675-1676).
• Pequot leader Metacom (“King Philip”) unites many tribes against settlers throughout New England.
• Vicious war. Thousands on both sides killed, towns and villages burned.
• Puritans win war. They draw and quarter Metacom and cut off his head.

• They put his head on a stick in Boston Common, where they display it for 25 years.
• They sell his wife and son into slavery in the West Indies.
• Native American resistance is basically over in New England.

• James II becomes King of England and wants increased control of the colonies.
• New York, New Jersey and the New England colonies are combined in 1686 into the Dominion of New England.
• The colonies’ legislative assemblies are closed.
• Sir Edmund Andros, sent to govern the dominion, imposes taxes, limits town meetings, and restricts the courts, the press, and schools.
• Andros also tries to enforce the Navigation Laws.
• Dominion of New England collapses in 1688 because the English overthrew King James in the Glorious Revolution.
• England begins period of “salutary neglect.” Weak enforcement of Navigation Acts.

• Dutch colony of New Netherland separates New England and Chesapeake.
• It’s a polyglot trading colony. But most land is in the hands of wealthy aristocrats.
• English navy easily conquers the Dutch (1664), rename it New York.
• Colony continues aristocratic and undemocratic attitudes. In Revolutionary War, most of New York will support the British.

• King James II gives two pieces of New York to two friends. These combined in 1702 to create New Jersey.

• King gives land grant (1681) to William Penn, a Quaker (because govt indebted to Penn’s father).
• Quakers believed in:

• Penn gave three southern counties their own assembly (1702). They become Delaware. (Duke of York gave him these additional counties after PA was already established.)

• Virginia divided 1632, with northern part given to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a Catholic nobleman. He intends it to be a haven for Catholics; rich Catholic Englishmen immigrate, but so do Protestants.
• 1649 – assembly passes Act of Toleration, granting religious freedom to all Christians. (Death penalty for non-Christians.)
• Late 1600s – civil war between Catholics and Protestants. Protestants win; they repeal the Act of Toleration. Catholics lose right to vote.

• Sharp class division between wealthy planters and landless or poor farmers.
• Economic and political control held by large planters in eastern part of state.
• Anglican Church dominates.

• Charles II (in 1663) gives land grants that become North and South Carolina.

• First settled by poverty-stricken outcasts and religious dissenters from other colonies.
• Joined by many Scotch-Irish immigrants, who despised the British government.
• They create small tobacco farms.
• Along with Rhode Island, the most democratic, unaristocratic society. Lots of resentment for British authority

• 1670 – planters from island of Barbados found city of Charleston.
• By 1700, it has large rice-growing plantations worked by African slaves.
• The colony is like the West Indies in its economy, culture, where slaves are expected to last only 3 years.
• So. Carolina adopts (1696) the Barbados Slave Code:

• A major export of So. Carolina: manacled Indians, sold as slaves to West Indies.
• When Savannah Indian tribe decided to move west, the colonists decided to “thin” them first (1707).
• In the next three years, their bloody raids killed nearly all the Indians along the Carolina coast.
• Frequent battles between colonists and Spaniards + Indians from Florida.

• The last colony, founded 1732, about 50 years after the others.
• Created for two reasons:

• Swamps, heat and mosquitoes created high rates of malaria, yellow fever, dysentery and typhoid.
• Half the people born there died before their 20^th birthday.
• Most men died before age 50. Most women before age 40.
• Most marriages ended within 7 years due to the death of a partner.
• Few children grew up with both parents alive.
• Women are so likely to become widows with small children to support that the southern colonies allow them to inherit their husband’s property.
• A woman with property can maintain ownership of it even after she marries.

• Death rate way exceeds birth rate.
• People die quickly, due to disease and Indian attacks.
• How to address labor shortage? Try to get workers to emigrate from England.
• Colonies give 50 acres to any immigrant who pays his own passage. Few do – it costs a year’s wages.
• Colonies give 50 acres to any planter who pays an immigrant’s passage. Many planters do, enabling them to own huge plantations.

• ¾ of immigrants are single men and indentured servants.
• Hardly any women.
• In return for passage, they had to contract for 3-7 years of labor.
• Hard labor, miserable conditions; only 60% will survive to freedom.
• Those who do survive likely to end up working for low wages from the same master.
• Others become squatters on frontier land, where they have to battle Indians.
• Few are able to find wives.

• If it was such a lousy deal to be an indentured servant, why did thousands of people do it? Even worse chances of survival at home.
• England has population explosion and depression. Lots of landless, hungry, unemployed people.

• Sharp class divisions.
• Economic and political control held by large planters in eastern part of state.
• Discontent and anger among the thousands of former indentured servants, who are barely surviving and can’t find wives.
• In 1670, the Virginia assembly declares that only landowners vote.
• Royal governor William Berkeley curries to the rich planters. When the subsistence farmers on VA’s frontier beg him to send the state militia against attacking Indians, he ignores them.
• Berkeley is getting rich in the fur trade with the Indians.
• Nathaniel Bacon leads rebellion in 1676. Frontier farmers raid Indian villages for three months and massacre inhabitants.
• Governor declares Bacon a traitor and sends militia to stop the attacks.
• Bacon and followers fight off the militia, chase Berkeley out of Jamestown and torch the city.
• Bacon suddenly dies of dysentery, and the rebel army collapses. Governor hangs other leaders and destroys the farms of the rebels.

• By late 1600s, planters have plenty of land, but not enough workers.
• Life in England has improved, and few are willing to come as indentured servants.
• Planters are fed up anyway with the poor whites. They could rebel again.
• Besides, as Englishmen, indentured servants have rights. They can sue their masters in court. There are limits on how far they can be exploited.
• The perfect solution to the labor shortage: Slavery.
• Endless supply in Africa.
• Their skin identifies them as a slave, preventing successful escape.
• They’re not English and have no rights.
• They’re seen “savages” – sub-human. No limits on exploitation.

• A few Africans had been brought to Virginia as indentured servants in 1619.
• In 1660s, VA declares that incoming Africans and their children are slaves forever.
• Starting in 1672, the Royal African Company is the only one allowed to ship slaves to America.
• In 1698, they lost their monopoly. Colonial shippers eagerly take over the trade.
• Northerners as well as southerners become very rich in the slave trade.

• Show Triangle Trade on map. Ship rum to Africa. Pick up captured people to sell as slaves, mostly in the West Indies. (Only 5% of captured Africans were sold in British North America.)
• Bring sugar back to colonies to be made into rum.
• The middle passage – shippers routinely had deaths of 20 to 30 percent.

• There are some slaves in every colony. Even a few free black people own slaves.
• By 1750, half of Virginians are slaves.
• In South Carolina there are two slaves for every white person.
• Slaves’ death rate in South Carolina and Georgia is high due to climate and brutal labor growing rice and sugar cane. Like in West Indies, slaves only live a few years and are seen as “disposable.”
• In Chesapeake, tobacco work is not as brutal.
• Slaves lived long enough to have children, and owners begin to treat them as long-term investments.
• New slaves continue to be brought in until 1820.

• Slaves did try to rebel.
• In NYC in 1712, slaves killed a dozen whites. 21 blacks executed, some roasted alive over a fire.
• In South Carolina in 1739, 20 slaves gathered at the Stono River to plan an uprising. They began marching toward Spanish Florida, chanting and carrying banners that proclaimed "Liberty.”
• They gathered weapons and men, killed 20 whites, then lost a shootout with plantation owners on horseback.
• The captured slaves were then decapitated and their heads were spiked on every mile post between that spot and Charles Town.
• There were numerous other small, unsuccessful rebellions.
• Why didn’t slaves run away? Their skin identified them as a slave.
• Trapped, the slaves practiced day-to-day resistance. They worked only enough to avoid punishment. They practiced sabotage, such as breaking tools or setting fields on fire. They pretended to be stupid.

• Soil is rocky. Farms are small and worked by families. Slavery isn’t profitable on northern farms.
• Lumber, shipbuilding and trade are major industries.
• Huge numbers of codfish are called the “gold mine of New England.”
• Life in New England is better than in England.
• Lifespan 10 years longer than in England. Average 70 years.
• Puritan immigrants come as families, so no shortage of women.
• Booming birth rate. 80% of babies survive to adulthood.
• Women, however, have no property rights.

• People in New England, the Middle Colonies and the Chesapeake are the best fed people in the world.

• High value placed on education.
• Towns with >50 must have a school.
• Puritans in Mass Bay Colony found Harvard, just 8 years after they arrive, to educate ministers.
• Puritan congregations run their own churches, establishing a tradition of democracy that carries over into civil government.
• Towns make decisions in town meetings, in which all adult males can vote.
• Very concerned about having a moral society. First anti-slavery movements come out of New England.

• By mid-1600s, the Puritans’ children have become adults, and religion is less central to their lives. (Prosperity, no persecution by outsiders.)
• Many in younger generation say they have not had an intense conversion experience, which is necessary can’t make a declaration of total belief. Do they have to be excluded from the church?
• Some clergy create the Halfway Covenant. You don’t have to have a conversion experience to become a baptized member of the church.

• In late 1600s, witch-hunts were common in Europe. In 1692, there were several witch trials in Massachusetts, the largest one in Salem. Some girls apparently had seizures and said they’d been cursed by women who were secretly witches. One accusation led to another.
• 19 people were hung, most of them women.
• One man was pressed to death.
• Governor put a stop to it when his own wife was accused.
• Several theories for why it happened.

• Why does it matter?

• We’ll see this at several points in American history.