Chapter 2: The Planting of English America

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While south america and profoundly transformed, North America remained largely unexplored and claimed by Europeans in the 1600. However 3 european powers had planted outposts in 3 distant corners: The Spanish in Santa Fe in 1610, the French at Quebec in 1608, and the English at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

ENGLAND's IMPERIAL STIRRINGS
England had little interest in establish its own overseas colonies. However, religious conflic disrupted England in mid-century after after King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s beginning the English Protestant Reformation. Catholics battled Protestants for decades and when Protestant elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1558, protestantism became dominant in England and rivalry with Catholic Spain intensified.

Iredland had been under English rule since the 12th century was an early scene of that rivalry when they sought help from Spain to throw the yoke of the new Protestant English queen. However, spanish aid never mounted to much and in 1570s and 1580s, Elizabeth's troops crusehd the irish uprising. The english crown confiscated catholic irish lands and planted them with enw protestant landlords from scotland and england.

ELIZABETH ENERGIZES ENGLAND
English buccaneers were encouraged by Queen Elizabeth to seek to promote the twin goals of protestantism and plunder by seizing spanish treasure ships and raiding spanish settlements. Francis Drake was one of these "sea dogs".

The coast of Newfoundland was the scene of the first English attempt and colonization. Its promoter Sir Humphrey Gilbert losts its life at sea in 1583 and the effort collapsed. However his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh organized an expedition in 1585 on North Carolina's Roanoke Island of the coast of Virginia, a region name in honor of Elizabeth, the "virgin queen". However, it later disappeared

In Spain, Phillip II amassed an Armada of ships for an invasion of England. In 1588 the spanish flotilla hoved in the English Channel but the english sea dogs fought back. The Protestant wind crippled spanish fleet. The defeat of the spanish marked the beginning of the end of spanish imperial dreams. Much of the spanish caribbean would slip from spain's grasp.

England now had a vibrant sense of nationalism and national destiny. When england and spain finally signed a treat of peace in 1604, the english were poised to plunge headfirst into the planting of their own colonial empire in the new world.

ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF EMPIRE
England's population was growing during that time and many small farmers were forced off the land. In eastern and western england, puritanism had taken strong root. Economic depression hit the woolen trade in the late 1500s and thousands of farmers took to the roads. They were unemployed and ended up as beggers and paupers. Laws in england declared that only eldest sons were eligible to inherit landed estates. Ambitious younger sons were forced to seek fourtunes elsewhere. In the early 1600s, joint-stock company was perfected and enabled a number of investors called adventurers to pool their capital.

Peace w/ spain provided england the opportunity for colonization. Unemployment as well as the thirst for adventure, markets, and religious freedom provided motives. Joint-stock companies provided finanical means.

ENGLAND PLANTS THE JAMESTOWN SEEDLING
In 1606, the hand of destiny beckoned toward Virginia. The Virginia Company of London,a joint-stock company, received a charter from King James I for a settlement in the New World. The main attraction was the promise of gold and desire to find a passage through America to the Indies. Because the Virgnia Comapny was intended to endure for only a few years, after which its stockholders hoped to liquidate it for a prfit, luckless colonists were threatened w/ abandonment in the whilderness if they didn't strike it rich quickly. Few thought in terms of long-term colonization.

The charter of the Virginia company guaranteed to the overseas settlers the same rights of Englishment that would have enjoyed if they had stayed at home. In the late 1606, the Virginia's Company's 3 ships landed near Cheasapeake Bay where they were attacked by Indians. They eventually chose a location on the wooded and malarial banks of the James River (in honor of King James I). It was mosquito-infested and unheathful and many disembarked. They called the place Jamestown.

Jamestown was a nightmare. Many died and many were shipwrecked. Settlers died of disease, malnutrition, and starvation. The woods rustled w/game and the rivers flopped with fish but the settlers were unaccustomed to that way of living because most were "gentlemen" who wasted time grubbing for nonexistant gold.

Capt John Smith forced the gold-hungry colonists to work because "he who shall not work shall not eat." In 1607, he was kidnapped by Powhatan ut was saved by Pocahontas who soon became an intermediary between the indians and the settlers helping to preserve a shaky peace. STill many colonists died. During the "starving time" of 1609 - 1610, only sixty survived.

CULTURAL CLASH IN THE CHESAPEAKE
When the english arrived in 1607, powhatan dominated the native people and asserted supremacy over a few small tribes called the powhatan's confederacy. Relations between the indians and the english was tense especially as colonists took to raiding indian food supplies.

After Lord De la Warr arrived in 1610, he carried orders from the virginia company and declared war against the indians . His troops raided the indian villages and torched their properties. A peace settlement was sealed by the marriage of pocahontas and john rolfe. However, indians pressed by the whites and diseases struck back in 1622 but were eventually defeated in 1644. In 1646, the chesapeake indians were banned from their ancestral lands and by 1685, the powhatan peoples were extinct.

Powhatan had fallen victim to the three D's: disease, disorganization and disposability. native peoples were extremely susceptible to European-borne maladies. The powhatans lacked the unity to make effective oppostition and the powhatans served no economic function for the virginia colonists. As far as the virginians were converned, the natives could be disposed of without harm to the colonial economy but they frustrated the colonists desire for LAND.

THE INDIAN's NEW WORLD
Native american life was disrupted. Many Indians moved to the Great Plains which was also catalyzed by horses. They thrived and adopted life as mounted nomadic hunters. Disease was the biggest disrupter, extinguishing entire cultures and shaped new ones.

Trade also transformed inidan life. Desire for firearms from the eruopeans intensified competition among tribes for access to prime hunting groudns that could supply skins and pelts that european arms traders wanted. The result was a cycle of inidan-on-indian violence fueld by demands of european trade goods.

One band of indians, resentful at prices offered by british traders for deerskins loaded canoes with hides and tried to paddle to england and sell their goods but their cargo was lost after a storm and a few survivors were picked up by an english ship and solid into slavery.

Farther inland, native peoples had the advantages of time, space, and numbers as they adapted to european incursions. As a result, british or french trader wanting to do business with tribes had to conform to indian ways often taking an indian wife.

VIRGINIA: CHILD OF TOBACCO
John Rolfe became father of the tobacco industry and economic savior of the viriginia colony. European demand was nearly insatiable and corps were planted in the streets of Jamestown. Because tobacco demanded more land, they expanded their land edging against the indians.

Tobacco promoted the borad-acred plntation system and a demand for labor. In 1619, a dutch warship appeared off Jamestown and sold twenty africans. For decades, a few blacks were bought in viriginia and enslaved. With slavery, self-governemnt was also born into Virginia. The london company allowed the settlers to summon an assembly called the house of burgesses.

As time passed, James I grew hostile towards Virginia and destested tobacco and distrusted the house of burgesses. In 1624, he revoked a charter of bankrupted making virginia a royal colony under his control.

MARYLAnD: CATHOLIC HAVEN
Maryland was founded in 1634 by Lord Baltimore of a prominent English catholic company. He embarked upon the venture to reap financial profits and to create a refuge for his fellow chatholics. Many catholics were still being persecuted in England. Colonists proved willing to come if they received land of their own. Soon they were disperesed aroujn dthe chesapeake on modest farms. They were surrounded by protestant planters in virginia flaring into open rebellion. The baltimore family lost its proprietary rights.

Despite this it blossomed but depended on labor. Many indentured servants worked there but black slaves were imported later. Lord Baltimore allowed freedom of worship and hoped that this would purchase toleration but protestants threatened to submrege the catholics and place restrictions on them. The catholics of maryland threw support behind the Act of Toleration passed in 1649. Maryland's statue guaranteed toleratiosn to all Christians but decreed the death penalty for Jews and atheists who denied Jesus.

THE WEST INDIES: WAY STATION TO MAINLAND AMERICA
The English were also colonizing the west indies. Spain relaxed its grip on the caribbean because it was distracted by the dutch. By the mid-17th century, England secured its claim to several islands including jamaica in 1655. Sugar formed the foundation of the west indian economy. Tobacco=chesapeake=poor / Sugar=caribbean=rich . The need for land and labor made sugar cultibation capital-intensive business. Only wealthy growers could succeed in sugar. They imported many african slaves and by 1700, black slaves outnumbered white setlers in the west indies. To control the population, english authorities devised "codes" taht defined a slave's legal status and master's prerogatives. The barbados slave code of 1661 denied fundamental rights to slaves and gave masters vitually complete control ov3r laborers.

Sugar-plantation systems soon crowded out all toher forms of caribbean agriculture. The west indies increasingly depended on norther american mailand for food and other supplies. Small english farmers began to migrate to the newly founded southern mailand colonies. A group of displaced english settlers from barbadoes arrived in carolina in 1670 bringing along a few slaves as well as barbados slave code eventually inspring statutes governing slavery throughout the mainland colonies. In 1696, the code was adopted in Carolina. This is equal to the encomienda system that the spanish had brought to the caribbean islands and southern america.

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