Exploration, Discovery and Settlement

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Thus, out of small beginnings greater things
have been producedso as one small candle may
light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath
shone unto many

• Exploration, Discovery and Settlement
• 1492-1700

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Europe Moves to Expansion

• Improvements in Technology
• The Renaissance led to an explosion of new
  technology that made distance travel an option
• Religious Conflict
• The Catholic Church took hold in Spain and began
  an aggressive exporting
• The Protestant Revolt in North Europe led
  pilgrims to seek freedom of worship
• Each group wanted its own Christianity to be
  dominant

• Expanding Trade
• This provides an economic motive for expansion
• The land route to Asia had been made dangerous by
  the emergence of the Ottoman Turks
• Developing States
• These nations that developed began to gather the
  vast resources needed to finance the trips of
  exploration

3
Columbus

• As we know, Columbus did not discover America
• Columbus did have a great impact on the world
• His legacy is the opening of the new world to
  trade and exploitation by Europeans.
• Spain and Portugal were the pre-eminent naval
  powers of the time
• They felt a right and a duty to spread
  Catholicism to the new world and to exploit its
  resources

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Early English Settlement

• Early Problems in Jamestown
• Disease
• Swampy land
• Indian attacks
• Poor leadership and focus

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Jamestown

• How did it survive?
• John Smith
• Tobacco
• The colony of Virginia came under control of the
  British monarchy as the Virginia Company went
  bankrupt

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The Puritans

• The Plymouth Colony
• The Puritans wanted to remove all vestiges of
  Catholicism from the Anglican Church (Church of
  England)
• The Pilgrims established the Plymouth colony as a
  place to practice the Puritan religion
• They were NOT tolerant of other religions!!
• In a view of things to come in New England, fish,
  fur and lumber become economic staples

• Massachusetts Bay Colony
• In 1629 a new group of Puritans gained a royal
  charter for a new colony
• Just one year later, a wave of new Puritan
  immigrants, including John Winthrop, came to the
  New World
• This was known as the Great Migration
• Most were seeking freedom or fleeing the civil
  war in England

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The Baby Steps to Democracy!!

• Early Political Institutions
• Majority Rule
• Took the form of the Mayflower Compact
• Representative Government at Jamestown
• The establishment of the House of Burgesses
• Representative Government in Massachusetts
• Members of the Puritan Church
• The town hall meeting
• Limited Democracy
• Only white male landowners were generally allowed
  to participate in the political process

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Native Americans

• Spanish Policies
• Conquest, disease and conversion
• A class system developed w/ the Spanish at the
  top
• English Policies
• Initially, trade and coexistence
• English had limited respect for the N.A. culture
• French Policies
• The French generally supported the Native
  populations in the North
• This was to maintain control of the fur trade