British Colonial America 1600 - 1776

1
British Colonial America1600 - 1776

• Chapter 5 17th century
• Chapter 6 18th century

2
England The Great Migration

• Slow beginning (little activity prior to 1600)
• Cabots Find Northwest Passage
• Martin Frobisher 3 voyages in 1570s
• Elizabethan Sea Dogs (1558 1603)

3
Map of sea voyages
4
Early English Migration Map
5
England The Great Migration

• Slow beginning (little activity prior to 1600)
• Cabots Find Northwest Passage
• Martin Frobisher 3 voyages in 1570s
• Elizabethan Sea Dogs (1558 1603)
• Yet, by 1650 50,000 english migrants
• Caribbean
• Chesapeake Bay (Jamestown)
• New England
• Why?

6
Reasons for migration

• England is overpopulated
• Expand to new markets e.g., wool
• Precious metals gold!!
• New source of olive oil, wine, etc??
• Route to the Indies
• Protestant Zeal
• These were motives all the way thru 1770s

7
English Colonial System

• French/Spanish centralized governed from New
  World capitals
• England 13 separate colonies
• Great differences
• Many disputes e.g., boundaries

8
Chapter 5 Colonial Origins of Anglo America
Europeanization(1700 250,000 population)

• Chapter 6 Colonial America in 18th Century
  Americanization
• (1776 2,500,000 population)

9
Epicenters

• Plymouth Rock

10
Colonial Organization (1606)

• Royal Charter by King James
• Council politicians and merchants who would
  recruit and define governmental structure
• Two bodies given the charge
• Virginia Company of Plymouth (41 45 degrees)
• Virginia Company of London (34 38 degrees)
• Latitude between either one

11
Map of Virginia Companies latitude of influence
12
Conditions of the Charters

• Inland for 100 miles
• All rights of trade with natives
• Exploitation of precious metals (1/5 to crown)
• Consideration to the Natives
• Offered true religion
• Offered peaceful governance
• All their lands passed to the two companies
• (Note ignored claims of France and Spain)

13
(No Transcript)
14
JamestownApril, 16073 ships James River (50
miles)
15
Jamestown - early history(London Group)

• Bad site low and swampy
• Death and misery
• Trading post
• Male population
• Working for the company
• 1616-1624 change to permanent colony
• Profitable product
• System of landholding

16
National Geog Exhibit
17
Factor 1 - King Tobacco

• Indigenous to new world
• Indies better variety John Rolfe
• Ubiquitous!
• Ugh!
• One-crop economy
• Dependent on England for supplies
• Soil depletion
• Labor intensive

18
Not everybody liked it!!

• "Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye,
  hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain,
  dangerous to the lungs, and in the black,
  stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the
  horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is
  bottomless." -- James I of England, "A
  Counterblaste to Tobacco."

19
Factor 2 Private Property

• Headright system
• 50 acres/head
• Capt. Adam Throughgood this guy accumulated
  1105 headrights over 20 years!!
• Result Plantation economy large and dispersed
  NOT towns
• 1650 Jamestown had 30 houses
• Today

20
Factor 3 Sex!

• 1620 very few women active program to import
  unmarried women
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.

21
Plantation Economy

• Rivers as far as navigable fall line
• Landings for ocean-going vessels
• All planters had direct line to England
• In Between forest primeval and the hill
  country

22
Jamestown Population

• Mixed population reflected classes of English
  society
• 30 - rural middle class paid their own way
• Majority poor tenants, laborers, and
  un-employed artisans Redundant Population

23
Map - Atlantic Slave Trade
24
Slavery

• Tobacco culture labor intensive and large
  land-holding
• Indentured labor unreliable, lacked permanence,
  also thirsted for their own land flow from
  England reduced
• Virginia and Maryland population growth in
  1660-1700 (35,000 to 88,000)
• African Slaves
• 1670-1700 12,000 slaves to Chesapeake

25
1700 your text

• By the end of the century (1700) there was
  distinct evidence of regional homogeneity within
  the Chesapeake. The commitment to a tobacco
  plantation and slave system, with its consequent
  class structure, was widespread. Life was
  overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, dispersed, and
  decentralized.

26
Map Chesapeake Growth