History 101: Week 2 (Professor Messer-Kruse)

. Lecture 5: The Diversity of American Colonization

One of the striking differences between the colonization of North America from that of South America, was the diversity of colonization efforts that took root there. Because the English Crown allowed the colonization of the New World to proceed under private auspices, many different strategies and approaches were undertaken. Virginia was but one model, today we will survey some of the others.

British North America has generally been divided up into four areas that reflect their similar economic and social developments. New England; Middle Colonies; Chesapeake; Carolinas and Georgia.

Chesapeake cont.

I. Chesapeake colonies developed along similar lines in spite of the different intentions and plans of their founders. Tobacco culture was the engine that drove them down the same track.

II. Maryland: Began quite dissimilar to the Virginian model, but was eventually, because of its identical climate and evironment and the tremendous power of the tobacco boom, pulled into a similar track of development. A. During the tobacco boom, ML was a land of squatters and runaways from the authority of the Virginia government. But in 1632, Charles I, then in the midst of a tremedous struggle with Parliament over religion, rewarded one of his most loyal allies, the Calvert family (Lords Baltimore) with a grant of 10 million acres of land. The Calverts named the area Maryland in honor of Charles' wife.

B. Catholics repressed in England of the late 16c. Catholics prohibited from conducting mass, and fined for not attending Anglican churches. Calvert, to attract colonists and out of his own convictions, declared that ML would be a haven where Protestants and Catholics could live side by side. (The first colony to declare for religous toleration). 1. In 1634, the first colonists founded the town of St. Mary's. 2. The Calverts had grand plans of carving up ML into a number of great fuedal estates:

a. Under the proprietors (baron) were manors (lords) who in turn ruled over freeholders. (1) baron held court, made all rules (2) lords paid rent (3) freemand paid quitrents a. But eventually, the pressure of tobacco profits undermined their vision and they instituted the same sort of headright system as Vir. had to attract colonists to the territory.

C. Though originally Catholics were the majority, after 1850 Protestant ranks grew more quickly and a struggle for control ensued that had both religious and economic aspects.

New England:

III. The first colonists in New England were the famous Pilgrims. Different from Puritans. 1. Puritans wanted to reform the Anglican church. Pilgrims wanted to seperate themselves from it. 2. Puritans wanted to create a Christian society on earth and knew what that was and were prepared to force others to obey the one true creed. Pilgrims believed that each congregation should be autonomous 3. Puritans set out for America to establish an example of the perfected Christian society for other Christians to follow. John Winthrop exhorted his fellow Puritans, "for we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." Pilgrims just saw their opportunity and seized it.

A. Impetus for Pilgrim migration: 1. 1590s Crown and Parliament became alarmed at the growth of the Pilgrim sects. 1592 Francis Johnson (pilgrim founder) and his 56 members imprisoned. 1593 Parliament passes act penalizing Pilgrims with banishment, imprisonment and death. 2. 1607 congregation at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire led by William Brewster and William Bradford persecuted by ecclesiastical authorities. 1608 the entire congregation of 100 moved to Leiden, Holland. But once there they began to worry that their children were "in danger to degenerate and be corrupted." Also, Dutch-Spanish peace treaty due to expire in 1621. Still, only a minority of the Pilgrims chose to leave Holland in 1620's.

B. The mechanics of immigration: 1. Pilgrims recieved the financial backing of the London Co. and recieved the permission of the Crown who had become interested in the potential of increasing the supply of naval stores for the navy and ridding himself of excess population. a. 1624 the London Co. made a blatant pitch to the king to dump the vagabonds into the New World. Its stated purpose was: "The removing of the surcharge of necessitous people, the matter or fuel of dangerous insurrections, and thereby leaving the greater plenty to sustain those remaining within the land." 2. Mayflower set sail in 1620 with but a minority of pilgrims aboard (30 of 119). The majority were agents and servants of the London Co. investors. 65 days and four corpses over the side later the Mayflower landed.

C. The Mayflower Compact: A clever instrument by which to control the heathen, greedy, agents and retainers in their midst. Because the party landed at Cape Cod, far outside the legal boundaries of their patent, the government and authority of the colony in question. But an organized and united minority can often dominate a disorganized and divided majority as occurred here. 1. hardly a democratic society as we would think of it. a. "Old Comers" alone had power to distribute land until 1639. b. By 1643 only 1/3 of adult males could vote. c. By late 17c, property requirements and religious tests required for voting.

D. First Winter half of the colonists died - most not from starvation but from chronic illness from the voyage itself. Helped by Squanto (again evidence of the frequency of contacts between Indians and Europeans in the area). William Bradford recorded that the real spirit of the congregation was only depressed after the beer ran out.

E. Indians: Because farming took second place to trading with the natives (trading posts established as far north as Maine and as far south as Connecticut River - these brought hard currency in England and retired the debt of the colony) peaceful relations were cultivated by the Pilgrims. 1. Pilgrims attacked immediately upon reaching land at Cape Cod. They then moved on to Plymouth Bay to escape hostilities. 2. But Pilgrims were not pacifists and were quite prepared to take what they could not bargain for. Plymouth town built on an abandoned Indian cornfield. First church built on a commanding hill and topped with 6 cannons. 3. In 1623, the Pilgrims were informed by their Wampanoag allies that the Massachusetts tribe to their west was going to attack. Whether they truly feared the Massachusetts or whether they simply could not tolerate a group of native people who refused to trade with them is not definitively known. Capt. Miles Standish led a band of militia in a preemptive strike and destroyed the village of Wessagusett. The surviving Massachusetts were stunned to witness the victorious English solidiers slicing the head off their slain chief and carrying it back to Plymouth and sticking it on their palisade as a warning. The Mass. now had a name for the English "wo-tow-que-nange" - meaning cutthroats.

IV. Massachussetts Bay Colony: 1630 John Winthrop led 1,000 Puritans to Mass. Bay. By 1643 Mass. Bay had 20,000. Unlike the immigration to Virginia, 70% of these immigrants came as members of families. Though the flood of immigrants dropped off as England exploded into Civil War, MBC enjoyed low infant mortality, early marriages, and high longeivity that expanded the population by natural increase. By 1660, New England counted 55,000-60,000 European residents, a number twice that of the Chesapeake. By 1636 Puritan settlements founded in Connecticut; 1638 in New Haven and in New Hampshire. A. Indians: The original Puritan leaders regarded the Indians as savages and percieved them as lazy and idle. Still, good relations were established with the first tribes that were encountered as lands were formally purchased from them for settlement rather than being simply appropriated as elsewhere. But as the rush of immigration continued, such scruples were relaxed in many cases and tensions began to build. As Puritans pushed into the Connecticut River valley they ran across the strongest group in the area, the Pequots who resisted the encroachment onto their land. 1. 1634 the Pequot murdered 9 settlers who set up a trading post in their lands. The Puritans were alarmed at this, but as the murdered men were heathen Virginians, they let bygones be bygones after the Pequot promised to pay indemnity and to turn over the guilty parties. But two years later another 2 colonists killed and this time the Puritans organized a punitive expedition that razed a village. Pequots retaliated by killing 30 colonists and the Pequot War was on. 2. 1637 all New England colonies mobilized together against the Pequot and a coordinated campaign of extinction was begun. a. Mystic River massacre - 700 Pequots killed. b. Colonists used dogs to flush out every last Pequot in the area. Some cruelly tortured when found - "They tied one of his legs to a post, and twenty men, with a rope tied to the other, pulled him in pieces. Even those who surrendered were either immediately executed by the English or sold into slavery. 3. Twenty years later it was the Narragansetts turn in what became known as King Phillips War.

Lecture 6: Middle Colonies and Carolinas

New England Cont:

1. Puritan Belief Molded New England Society: a. Each sect was powered not only by theology, but by a social rebellion against the growth of capitalism in England that seemed to be destroying the ancient ideal of community and communal responsibility. They were neither feudalists, nor individualists. (1) ethic of public industriousness. (2) committment to communal congregation. (3) ideal of moral stewardship of neighbors. [However, do not confuse a communal ideal with an egalitarian/levelling one. These were inegalitarian communists. They believed in social hierarchy, privilege, and order. John Winthrop "in all times some must be rich, some poor, some highe and dominant in power and dignitie; others mean or in subjection." b. The New England Town: Puritans tried to recreate the communal towns they clung to in England and that were being progressively uprooted by the great economic changes of the time. First, the town plots and streets were laid out and divided. Then the elders of the town parcelled out the pastures, fields, and woodlots according to ones social ranks and postion. When a town filled up, a new group would venture further and begin the process again. i. The Puritan ideal was a correspondence between town residence and church membership. c. Many exceptions to the rule of New England towns: seaports north of Boston; land oligarchies along Conn. River and in Springfield.

2. Social Life in New England: a. Women's Experience: i. In New England between 1650 and 1750, the terms "wife" and "woman" were synonymous. Almost all women who reached adulthood married. ii. Women's Place: Both religion (Genesis: "They desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.") and law (Blackstone: "By marriage...the very being or legal existance of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband under whose wing, protection, and cover, sher performs everthing.") placed women in strict subordination to man. A wife (seperate contract aside) could not acquire property or enter into a contract or will. Upon death she was legally a "relict" and entitled to only 1/3 of the estate. But this was an organic social world of many levels of dependency from the lowest to the highest. Within this web of hierarchy the relationship of wife to husband was the most equal and mutual. iii. Woman's Role: Women's life was hard toil.

"Up in the morning I must rise Before I've time to rub my eyes With half-pin'd gown, unbuckled shoe I haste to milk my lowing cow. But, Oh! it makes my heart to ake, I have no bread till I can bake And then, alas! it makes me sputter, For I must churn or have no butter. The hogs with swill too I must serve, The hogs must eat or men will starve. -Ruth Belknap 1782

b. Unlike the 19th and 20th centuries, the woman's role not defined by all encompassing spheres of action, but by innumerable specific duties. Housewife, deputy husband, consort, mother, Christian, neighbor - many of which included roles and activities that overlapped with those of the man. A merchant's wife might conduct the business when her husband was away. An artisan's wife assisted in the craft. A farmer's wife did everything from butchering to brewing beer and cider.

3. Founding of Rhode Island the product of Puritan intolerance. Remember, Massachusetts was a theocracy. Church and state were one. a. Anne Hutchinson, immigrated to Boston 1634. Tried 1637, banished to Rhode Island. b. Roger Williams, 1631 Williams immigrated to Mass Bay and became minister in Salem. Banished 1635 and moved to Narragansett Bay where he founded Providence and Rhode Island colony.

Rhode Island became a haven for Quakers, Jews, and other religious dissenters who came to the New World.

Summary: New England social/cultural area distinguished by religious orthodoxy, family immigration, low mortality, natural increase, social order, diversified farming economy.

Middle Colonies

4. Middle Colonies economically similar to New England's diversified, mercantile economy, but lacked New England's puritan society and generally attracted a more polyglot and urbanized selection of immigrants.

5. New Netherlands

a. Established by the Dutch West Indian Co. with colonists known as "Walloons", Calvanists who had fled the religious persectution of the Francophone low countries for Calvanist Netherlands. b. 1624, the first Walloons establish Fort Orange on the Hudson (Albany) but by 1626, all had left or were called back to Manhattan. i. Although the West Indian Co. were the most efficient outfitters in the colonization game - livestock supplied to first settlers in three ships, the Cow, the Sheep, and the Horse, so well designed and supplied that all but 2 of 100 animals survived the passsage to be released on Manhattan island - the colony did not attract the capital that British ventures did at this time because of the more lucrative prospects in West Africa and East Asia. Also, because the Walloons were not either fleeing persecution in Netherlands, nor setting out to found their city on a hill, few settlers were interested in coming. As late at the 1660's, New Netherlands had only 5,000 settlers and slaves. (New Englands was already ten times this number).

c. English puritans from New England trickled into New Netherlands territory during its first 25 years, particularly onto Long Island. In 1664, Charles II laid claim to all the land between Connecticut and Deleware rivers and gave it to his brother John, Duke of York, who organized an invasion fleet. When the fleet arrived, the Dutch wisely surrendered without a shot.

6. Pennsylvania:

a. Admiral William Penn fought for Charles II and loaned him a large sum of money during the English Civil War. After the restoration, the Crown rewarded Penn's service by granting his son, a close personal friend a large area of land in the New World in 1681. Penn, in a fit of modesty, named the new colony Pennsylvania. i. Penn was a Quaker, a persecuted antinomian sect and like Lord Baltimore before him, envisioned his colony as a refuge for the religiously persecuted. ii. Penn energetically advertised his lands throughout Europe and sparked an immigration that was exceeded only by that of the Puritans of New England. In its first five years, Pennsylvania attracted over 12,000 immigrants. (1) many of these, especially the German and Dutch immigrants were artisans and merchants who made Philadelphia a practically "instant" city of 2,000 people. iii. Penn, like his co-religionists was a pacifist and attempted to treat the natives in his lands more equitably than the colonists who came before him.

Carolinas

Shared more with the Caribbean plantation societies than with their fellow continental colonies.

7. South Carolina and the Lower South sprung from the colonial model and success of Barbadoes (founded 1627).

a. Barbadoes: like Virginia, concentrated on tobacco in its first decade. By the late 1630's, cotton and indigo plantations were developed. Unlike Virginia, the early diversification of the economy attracted many immigrants from Britain and very early on all 166 sq. miles of Barbadoes and all 251 sq. miles of the surrounding Leeward islands were engrossed.

Barbadoan immigration unmatched by any other British colony. 1603-1643 emmigrants from Britain: 20,000 - 25,000 to New England 50,000 to Virginia (by 1663) 110,000 - 135,000 to Brit. West Indies

i. Like Virginia, Barbadoes was a society of single men, many indentured, and harshly exploitative. ii. By mid 1640's, as tobacco prices continued to fall, sugar took over the islands. Sugar, unlike tobacco, was not only labor intensive but was capital intensive as well and served to concentrate wealth to a greater degree than occurred in early Vir. history. Plantation owners also began to substitute African slaves for European indentured servants, who with the decreasing mortality of servants, became more profitable. This was the first large-scale use of slavery in any English colony. iii. By early 1650's, Barbadoes had grown so rich from sugar and slavery that its population reached a density matched only by the urban wards of London. Free whites, who now had no opportunity to buy their own land and certainly did not have the capital to participate in the sugar economy, began to immigrate in large numbers to other British colonies. The relative proportion of Africans in the W. Indian population rose dramatically. White settlers: 1650 - 30,000 1680 - 20,000 (more than 30,000 Africans in 1670) 1700 - 15,500 iv. Barbadoes was by 1670 the wealthiest, most populous, most highly developed colony of all and its concentration of wealth continued unabated throughout the century. Eventually even the sugar barons fled their bloody plantation factories to enjoy their profits back in England. v. In the last half of the 17c. the successful Barbadoes model of colonization spread to Jamaica and to South Carolina.

8. South Carolina: As Barbadoes specialized in sugar production, it lost its ability to feed itself. Food had to be imported from the New England colonies and from Jamaica. By the mid-1660's, Barbadoans cast their eyes on the southern coast of North America as a ripe area to plant new agricultural settlements that would supply them with foodstuffs and supplies. a. Half of the first colonists to South Carolina (both black and white) came from Barbadoes as would half of all the 1,343 white colonists (and nearly all of the African slaves) who came to that area for the next 20 years. Many were ex-indentured servants who struck out to the mainland to find their stake of land that they could not obtain in Barbadoes. b. The Barbadoan influence on South Carolina proved deep and lasting. South Carolina became the only mainland English colony to have been born under a system of African slave labor and with a large proporation of Africans in its population. Its strong commercial, materialistic, and exploitative society was unmatched by any in British North America.

c. Economy: From 1670-1690s, S. Carolina had a mixed economy that produced foodstuffs and supplies for the W. Indian plantations and freebooting privateers that took on provisions at its ports. It also developed an extensive trade with the large Indian societies to its southwest and marketed the deerskins it obtained to England. i. But in the 1690s, a new plantation crop took hold in S. Carolina - rice that was profitable and well suited to the exploitative slave plantation model that was already established in Barbadoes. The African population rose quickly and by 1720, blacks outnumberd whites 2:1. d. Society: The influence of the plantation culture of the W. Indies did not end with the creation of S. Carolina. Throughout the colonial period the Caribbean was the most important area of commerce for S. Carolina and the society there moved in synch with that of its W. Indian English neighbors.

ID: NOTES-101.2.

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