English Colonies of North America

1. English colonies in north AmericaAmerican Colonies chapters 6 & 9 By: Aaron Bacon History 140 Dr. Michael T. Argüello Theme 4. Part 2

2. American Colonies-6VIRGINIA “That hee that commands the sea, commands the trade, and hee that is Lord of the Trade of the world is Lord of the wealth of the world”, this was the plan that Ralegh preached. The mid-Eastern seaboard deemed unsuitable for settlement by the French and Spanish, was left for the English. Sir Walter Ralegh Drained of finances from the war with Spain, the English and to rely on private investments to settle the new world. Private investors preferred to settle in a lesser area what became known as the Mid-Eastern seaboard.

3. American Colonies-6VIRGINASETTLEMENT(Roanoke & Jamestown) Sir Walter Ralegh attempted to settle Roanoke multiple times the first time in 1585. On his second attempt, Ralegh sent a second expedition to the New World in 1585, headed by Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Ralph Lane. Raleigh named the new colony Virginia, in honor of his benefactor, the Virgin Queen. A small settlement was planted, but the dispirited colonists returned to England the following year. Raleigh’s third attempt was made in 1587, and headed by John White. White sailed back to England for additional supplies, but because of growing warfare with Spain, was unable to return for three years. When he did, White found no trace of the settlers; the entire colony had vanished. In April, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers landed on Jamestown Island to establish the Virginia English colony on the banks of the James River, 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. While disease and famine took a tremendous toll on the population, some 10,000 people where transported to Jamestown, only 20% survived. Rather than prepare for the coming winters the settlers wanted to excavate for gold.

4. American Colonies-6VIRGINA(Powhatan) The broad coastal plain at Chesapeake Bay, sustained about 24,000 Indians, that were divided into thirty tribes. The tribes were ruled by paramount chief named “Powhatan”. During the cooler month the Powhatan Indians would congregate into villages, occupying twenty to thirty homes. In the warmer months they would return to their village to continue their way of life. Powhatan The Powhatan Indians divided their tasks almost exclusively along gender lines: Women: cultivated crops gathered nuts & fruits put up lodges prepared skins for cloths Men: hunted fished cleared land for crops made dugout canoes

5. American Colonies-6VIRGINIA(Tobacco) In Virginia, around 1615 the Virginia Company and the colonist made two great adjustments to the way commodities where made, gathered and shipped back to England. Colonist where now allowed to work and own their own land. With the price of tobacco selling in England for ten-times the cost to produce. The population of the colonist surged. Needing more land to harvest tobacco, the Indians suffered greatly at the hands of the English colonist. By the end of the 1660s, 10 million pounds of tobacco was being shipped to England annually. The English once tenuous beachhead had become two thriving provinces and a dynamo for further expansion.

6. American Colonies-9Puritans & Indians (Natives) The English saw the Indians as pagan peoples living within the wild. Indian cultivation was very efficient, producing substantial yields from relatively small amounts of land and labor. The natives used fires to control the land for hunting and gathering. The Indians where very mobile, moving from one area to another annually, because of this mobility the Indians acquired very little material possessions. By comparison to the colonist, the Indians demanded less from their nature, investing less labor in, and extracting less energy and matter from their environment. The Indians regarded most colonists as mean and stingy, enslaved by their longings for more.

7. American Colonies-9Puritans & Indians (Praying Towns) The English could not conceive of permitting the Indians to remain independent and culturally autonomous peoples, the Indians had to convert to Christianity or die. The Puritan missionaries sought from the Indians a thorough conversion, manifest in virtually every behavior. They had to take English names, and had to give up wearing body grease, playing traditional sports, and killing lice with their teeth. The men where compelled to cut their hair short. The English regarded long hair as a sign of pride and vanity, sins that are quick to see in others rather than themselves. The short hair and wearing English attire set the Praying Indians apart from their traditionalist brethren.

8. American Colonies-9Puritans & Indians (The Pequot War and King Philip’s War) In 1636 the colonies of Connecticut, Plymouth, and Massachusetts declared was against the Pequot Indians. With the help of the Narragansett and Mohegan Indians, ambushed and nearly eliminated all the Pequot from existence. In the Spring of 1675, the Plymouth colonist provoked what the English called the bloodiest Indian war. Drawing on the lessons that the Indians learned from the Pequot war, the Indians would kill everyone in the village that they attacked. In 1676 the Indian resistance collapsed, with the help of other Indians the New English where victorious in the war.

9. American Colonies-9Puritans & Indians (Victory and Defeat) The King Philip’s War was a bitter and bloody conflict that devastated the Puritan settlements but was especially hard on the Indian villages. The victorious Puritans did not treat their Indian captives as prisoners of war, rather they defined them as traitors, executing the chiefs and enslaving others for sale in the West Indies or Mediterranean.