Jamestown

1
Jamestown
2
King James I, in 1606, granted charters to two
joint-stock companies, dividing British claims in
North America between the Virginia Company of
London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth.
The original charters had no western
boundaries hence in theory, they ran from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. The London Company was
made up of merchants and gentry from the west of
England and from London, itself. On December
20, 1606, three ships, the Susan Constant (120
tons), the Godspeed (40 tons), and the Discovery
(20 tons) sailed with 144 passengers, under the
command of Captain Christopher Newport. The ships
briefly laid over at the Canary Islands and the
Bahamas, before arriving in Virginia at
Chesapeake Bay on April 26th with 104 survivors.
3
Following the orders of the London Company, and
after facing a brief conflict with the local
Indians, the Powhatan, the ships landed up the
newly-named James River and encamped at what
became Jamestown on May 13, 1607. Of the 104
survivors, 39 were noblemen and 36 gentlemen. The
others were attendants, soldiers, and artisans
skilled at metalwork that is to say, they were
goldsmiths and jewelers. Among the soldiers was
a boorish troublemaker of immense ego, Captain
John Smith. Smiths mouth more than once got him
into trouble with his commanders, as near the
Canaries he was accused of trying to foment a
mutiny and so was locked up for the rest of the
voyage. When the settlers unsealed their orders,
however, they found that Smith was named to the
Council of the Colony and put in command of the
day-to-day running of the settlement.
4
From the outset, the settlement was in trouble.
Located on the site of an abandoned Indian
village and in the Powhatan hunting grounds, it
continually faced Indian attack. Many of the
settlers refused to work. Instead they searched
for gold and left the chore of building shelter
to the soldiers. Instead of gathering or hunting
for food, many stole it from the Indians, causing
no small amount of hostility. The Indians raided
Jamestown to steal weapons and gunpowder. Smith
tried to force all to work and, failing that,
traded for Indian maize. The English also made
Chief Powhatan an ally of King James. This
briefly improved relations with the Indians, but
did little to guarantee the success of the
colony, neither did the arrival of some women to
the community. Conditions hit bottom during the
winter of 1609-1610, after Smith returned to
England as a result of an illness. That winter
was known as the Starving Time. Crop yields
were miniscule because of a drought, but there
was still game in the woods and fish in the
river. Despite that, however, starvation reduced
the settlements population from nearly 500 down
to 54 by the time a ship came with fresh
provisions and new settlers in May 1610.
Shockingly, settlers resorted to cannibalism to
survive. They dug up graves to eat the remains.
Equally shocking, the new Assistant Governor
recorded the settlers activities as he sailed
in. They were not out foraging for food in the
spring forests. They were bowling in the street!
Obviously, this settlement needed a reworking.
5
In June 1610, Gov. Lord De la Warr restored order
through a new code, the Lawes Divine, Moral, and
Martiall. All settlers had to work in work gangs
under military discipline. The new rules helped
save the colony. The colony had still not found
its purpose and the London Companys investors
were beginning to wonder whether it had been
worth it, particularly after a new round of
conflict with the Powhatan emerged about 1611.
Eventually, an enterprising settler named John
Rolfe did find a profitable crop. Rolfe arrived
in Jamestown in May 1610. He brought with him
some Spanish tobacco plantings. By 1612, he gave
his friends a small sampling of his produce to
see if it suited their tastes. While not of as
good as Spanish tobacco at the time, it was
palatable enough for larger-scale cultivation. By
1617, Virginia shipped 20,000 pounds of tobacco
to England and the crop was so profitable that it
became known as brown gold.
6
Rolfe also brought peace with the Indians. In
1614, the First Powhatan War ended when Rolfe
married the daughter of Chief Powhatan,
Pocahontas. In 1616, Rolfe, Pocahontas, and their
son traveled to England and Pocahontas met the
King. Tragically, just before they set sail to
return to the New World, the 22-year-old
Pocahontas died, likely of pneumonia. She is
buried in a churchyard at Gravesend.
7
With the colony saved, the London Company created
a new policy for land distribution to entice more
settlers. The headright system promised that
every new shareholder who settled in Virginia
would get 50 acres of land for himself and 50
acres for each family member he brought over,
including servants. The company also created a
new constitution, granting settlers the Rights
of Englishmen. In July 1619, Virginia created
the House of Burgesses, Americas first
legislative assembly. Its twenty-two members
represented their settlements and governed along
with a Governor and executive council. Two other
events in 1619 expanded the colony (1) more
women arrived as the company sponsored the sale
of women for wives 90 women were bought for the
princely sum of 125 pounds of tobacco creating
a better gender balance in the colony (2) the
first Africans arrived they came on a Dutch
trade ship, but were indentured servants, not
slaves. In return for the masters paying
passage to America, an indentured servant
contracted to work for him for seven years. After
the term, the servant was free and received a
headright of 50 acres.
8
Powhatans brother, Opechancanough, seems never
to have accepted the settlers or his brothers
peace. Upon his brothers death, in March 1622,
he led raids on the settlement that turned into
nearly two years of warfare. As a result of the
war, James I revoked the Companys charter and
made Virginia a Royal Colony. Under the kings
authority for most of the remainder of the 1620s,
Virginia stabilized and slowly began to prosper.
9
Maryland
With settlements established in Virginia, others
began to look at the Chesapeake region for
opportunities. Many English Catholics faced
intolerance and sought escape to religious
freedom. In 1628-29, George Calvert, Lord
Baltimore, visited the region to check out its
prospect as a refuge for persecuted Catholics.
His son, Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore,
carried out the project. In 1632, King Charles I
granted all lands from the Potomac River north to
the Delaware River and a few hundred miles west
to the Appalachians to Calvert. In return for a
pledge of allegiance and a token payment of two
Indian arrowheads and a royalty of one-fifth of
any gold or silver discovered in the region,
Calvert could create whatever type of government
he chose, so long as any legislation was passed
with the Advice, Assent, and Approbation of the
Free-Men.
Maryland was the successful first proprietary
colony. Whereas the original colonies were run by
a joint-stock company, and Virginia had become a
royal colony run by the king, Maryland was given
to a single man to do with whatever he chose.
Saint Francis Xavier Church, Leonardtown, MD
Rebuilt on original site (1766)
10
The hope of a religious sanctuary in Maryland was
a failure. Puritans from Virginia moved into the
colony. In the 1640s, as a Civil War raged
between Puritans and the Catholic King in
England, religious warfare erupted in Maryland.
With Calvert's death, the Puritan William Stone
became governor. Tensions continued until passage
of the Maryland Act Concerning Religion in 1649.
The law guaranteed religious toleration to all
followers of Jesus Christ who believed in the
Trinity. It is important to note, however, that
the law promised toleration only for Trinitarian
Christians. Under the Act, Jews and
non-Trinitarian Christians (Quakers, Unitarians)
were not permitted freedom of religion. The Act
did, however, put an end to the broader religious
strife. With the good chances for prosperity in
tobacco production, settlement increased. By the
1670s, the population of Maryland neared 13,000,
including Catholic planters, Protestant farmers,
indentured servants, and a small but increasing
number of black slaves.
11
An Act Concerning Religion, Maryland 1649
Forasmuch as in a well governed and Christian
Common Wealth matters concerning Religion and the
honor of God ought in the first place to bee
taken, into serious consideracion and endeavoured
to bee settled, Be it therefore ordered and
enacted by the Right Honourable Cecilius Lord
Baron of Baltemore absolute Lord and Proprietary
of this Province with the advise and consent of
this Generall Assembly That whatsoever person
or persons within this Province and the Islands
thereunto belonging shall from henceforth
blaspheme God, that is Curse him, or deny our
Saviour Jesus Christ to bee the sonne of God, or
shall deny the holy Trinity the father sonne and
holy Ghost, or the Godhead of any of the said
Three persons of the Trinity or the Unity of the
Godhead, or shall use or utter any reproachfull
Speeches, words or language concerning the said
Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons
thereof, shalbe punished with death and
confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her
lands and goods to the Lord Proprietary and his
heires. And bee it also Enacted by the Authority
and with the advise and assent aforesaid, That
whatsoever person or persons shall from
henceforth use or utter any reproachfull words or
Speeches concerning the blessed Virgin Mary the
Mother of our Saviour or the holy Apostles or
Evangelists or any of them shall in such case for
the first offence forfeit . . . the summe of five
pound Sterling or the value thereof in goods
and chattells, . . . but in case such Offender or
Offenders, shall not then have goods and
chattells sufficient to pay shalbe publiquely
whipt and bee imprisoned. . . . And that every
such Offender or Offenders for every second
offence shall forfeit tenne pound sterling or the
value thereof to bee levyed as aforesaid, or in
case such offender or Offenders shall not then
have goods and chattells within this Province
sufficient for that purpose then to bee
publiquely and severely whipt and imprisoned as
before is expressed. And that every person or
persons before mentioned offending herein the
third time, shall for such third Offence forfeit
all his lands and Goods and bee for ever banished
and expelled out of this Province. . . .
12
(No Transcript)
13
New England Colonies Plymouth
14
In 1541, the Reformation in Europe to a new twist
when John Calvin created his church in Geneva,
Switzerland. Calvin attracted religious
dissenters from all over Western Europe,
including John Knox who took Calvinism to
Scotland creating the Presbyterian Church.
Several Englishmen also went to Geneva, learned
Calvins ideas, and brought them back to England.
In 1564, they coin the term Puritan, meaning a
person who wishes to purify the Church of England
of its Catholic rituals. Specifically, they
wished to reform the church organization and
refocus church doctrine away from works and
toward the belief that salvation comes by Gods
grace alone. Organizationally, they wanted the
church organized from the bottom upthe reverse
of the Catholic Church. They wanted the
congregation to be the primary force in decisions
as to church personnel, calendar, and focus of
lessons. For this reason, in America the
descendant of Puritanism is called
Congregationalism.
15
During the reign of King James I, the Puritans
split into two groups Puritans (who would
reform the English church from within) and
Separatists (who said England is lost beyond
redemption lets find somewhere else to live).
So they left the town of Scrooby in England and
moved to the town of Leyden in the Netherlands in
1609. After years in Holland, the Scrooby
Separatists feared the moral decay of their
community amid the permissive Dutch culture.
St. Wilfrid's Church in Scrooby
16
In 1619, the Separatists contracted with the
London Company to settle in Virginia and the
crown ensured that they could practice their
religion freely there. With financial help from a
group of merchant adventurers, they set up their
voyage. In July 1620, the Separatists sailed to
Southampton aboard the Speedwell to meet more
Separatists and the 180-ton Mayflower. After two
false starts, including a forced docking at
Plymouth after the Speedwell turned out to be too
leaky, 103 men, women, and children set sail
aboard the Mayflower for Virginia. The
Separatists called themselves Saints those
elected to heaven the others, a majority of
passengers who were going to Virginia to strike
it rich, they called strangers. Two months later,
they landed along Cape Cod, some 500 miles off
course. Since they were outside the
jurisdiction of the London Company, the men
aboard wrote up a new contract for the
settlement. Called the Mayflower Compact, it
represented the first example of self-government
in the New World. The settlers agreed to create a
system of laws, to elect leaders, and to obey
those laws and leaders.
17
A month later, on December 20th, after several
reconnaissance missions, the settlers chose an
abandoned Wampanoag village as the place to build
their Plimoth Plantation. Out of food and
exhausted, they discovered that they had made the
right choice for in the abandoned village they
found buried a large store of maize, enough, when
replenished with fish and game, to see the
settlement through the winter.
18
In March of 1621 a truly strange coincidence
further proved to the pilgrims that they were
destined to come to Plymouth. A Mohegan Indian
named Samoset arrived at the plantation to inform
them that Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief,
intended to visit. Another Indian, named
Tisquantum, arrived with Samoset. Remarkably,
Tisquantum began talking to the pilgrims in
English and told them that he had seen London.
Calling him Squanto, the pilgrims learned that he
had been captured by European fishermen and sold
into slavery to Spain.
He had been in the West Indies and the Canaries
and had escaped his Spanish captors and fled to
England. While in England he learned English and
then he arranged to board an English ship and
sail back to America just in time for him to be
here when the pilgrims arrived. Squanto taught
the pilgrims how to grow maize, fertilizing the
ground with rotting fish. By the autumn, the
pilgrims harvested their first crop and gave
thanks to God for the bounty.
19
Massachusetts Bay Colony
In 1628, in search of more capital to generate
more settlement, the sponsors of several New
England villages formed a joint-stock company,
the Massachusetts Bay Company. They petitioned
the king for a charter to land between the
Charles River and the Merrimac River. The
companys primary goal was economic opportunity,
but as conditions for Puritans in England
worsened a second motive arose freedom to
practice their religion.
In March 1630, led by Governor Winthrop, 400
Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay
Colony. Winthrop set out his plan for the colony
in a sermon, titled A Model of Christian
Charity. He declared that Massachusetts Bay
should be a model community a City upon a Hill,
the eyes of all people upon them. During the
1630s, some 80,000 people left England for the
New World. It was known as the Great Migration.
Of those, about 20,000 came to Massachusetts Bay.
20
I durst not officiate to an unseparated people.
Unless they make a public declaration of their
repentance for having communion with the churches
of England. Roger Williams
Though Winthrop was a devout Puritan, and was
interested in maintaining power, he was not
puritanical in his governance. He realized that
the real threat to the colony was from religious
zeal, not from internal social wickedness. Thus,
he was rather a lenient ruler and it was his
leniency, not his chicanery, which forced him out
of office.
One of Winthrops main detractors was Roger
Williams. Williams was a Separatist, but he came
originally to Boston, not Plymouth. He would
likely not have been happy anywhere, but he was
especially unhappy in Boston. He believed that
the Puritans earlier unwillingness to leave the
Church of England contaminated him and would have
nothing to do with them. So Williams made his way
up to Salem to try out their congregation, but he
found them just as unsatisfactory. Then he moved
on to Plymouth to see if the Separatists
themselves would meet his criteria. They did not.
21
Williams problem with the colonies was that they
were too worldly. He believed that there should
be complete separation of church and state and
that no one could be coerced into belief. He held
that the perfect church could have no contact
with the unregenerate. This eventually led him to
believe that no true church was even possible on
Earth.
Williams claimed that magistrates had no
authority in religious matters. As his criticisms
became less restrained and more dangerous to the
stability of the colony, he was brought before
the court to renounce his opinions. He refused,
and talk began about deporting him to England.
Before that happened, Governor Winthrop allowed
him to escape Massachusetts. In 1636, he
established the first permanent settlement in
Rhode Island. He called it the Providence
Plantation.

• At Providence, Williams fulfilled his goals
• he bought the land from the Indians, something he
  had always criticized the settlers of
  Massachusetts Bay for not doing
• he permitted believers of any Faith and
  non-believers to live there
• government service required no religious
  testthere was complete separation of church and
  state.