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[edit] Types of Colonies
In America, there were three different types of colonies. First, corporate colonies were established by corporations known as "joint stock companies". A joint stock company was a project in which people would invest shares of stock into building a new colony. Depending on the success of the colony, each investor would receive profit based on the shares he bought. This method of investing proved to be less risky than starting a colony from scratch, and in the process each investor could have some influence on how the colony was run. For example, these investors often elected their own public officials.
Meanwhile, proprietary colonies were owned by a person or family, who could make laws and appoint officials as he or they pleased. Finally, royal colonies were under the direct control of the King, who usually appointed a Royal Governor.
[edit] Virginia and Jamestown
Founded in 1607 with a charter from the Virginia Company of London, Jamestown was the first permanent English colony in the Americas. However, the swampy terrain was a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which carried a variety of diseases - dysentery, malaria, smallpox - that the English were unaccustomed to. Many of the settlers fell prey to these infections and died shortly after.
In addition, Virginia's initial government had no backbone, and its individual members frequently quarreled over policies. The colonists themselves frantically searched for any precious metals (i.e. gold) they could find, ignoring their deteriorating health in the process. Furthermore, "Indian raids" also weakened any hopes of defense and unification, and gradually the population of the colony declined. By the winter of 1609-1610, also known as the Starving Time, only 60 settlers remained from the original 500 passengers.
Despite these shortcomings, it was the work of two men that helped the colony to survive: John Smith and John Rolfe. John Smith, who arrived in Virginia in 1608, introduced an ultimatum - those who did not work would not receive food or pay. His struggle to improve the colony's conditions succeeded - the colonists learned how to raise crops and trade with the nearby Indians, with whom Smith had made peace.
In 1612, John Rolfe, an English businessman, discovered that Virginia had ideal conditions for growing tobacco. This singular discovery led to an explosion of success as the plant became the colony's major cash crop. With English demand for tobacco rising, Virginia had now found a way to economically support itself.
In 1619, Virginia set up the House of Burgesses, the first elected legislative assembly in America. It marked the beginnings of self-government, as opposed to the martial law that was previously imposed on the colonists.
Simultaneously, however, the king declared Virginia a royal colony, or a colony run by the English monarchy. While the House of Burgesses was still allowed to run the government, the king nevertheless appointed a royal governor to settle disputes and enforce certain British policies.
[edit] Massachusetts Bay Colony
Meanwhile, the English had their own problems with religious tension. The Pilgrims, a radical group of Protestants, faced persecution because they disagreed with the official Church of England. In 1620, forty-one Pilgrims sailed for the new world. Based on numerous contemporary accounts, it is quite clear that the Pilgrims originally intended to settle the Hudson River region near present day Long Island, New York. Once Cape Cod was sighted, they turned south to head for the Hudson River, but encountered treacherous seas and nearly shipwrecked. They then decided to return to Cape Cod rather than risk another attempt to head south. After weeks of scouting for a suitable settlement area, the Mayflower's passengers finally landed at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts on Dec. 26, 1620.
They agreed to govern themselves in the manner set forth in the Mayflower Compact, which was named for the Pilgrims' ship, The Mayflower. After two years they abandoned the communal form of partnership begun under the Mayflower Compact and in 1623 assigned individual plots of land to each family to work. William Bradford, who was selected as governor after John Carver died has left us with a journal that helps to understand the challenges, encounters with native americans and successes of the colony. (1) (2)
Ten years later, the Massachusetts Bay Company, a joint stock company, acquired a charter from King Charles of England. The colony of Plymouth was eventually absorbed by Massachusetts Bay, but it did remain separate until 1691.
A large group of Puritans migrated to the new colony of Massachusetts Bay. The colony, ironically, did not provide religious freedom. It only permitted male Puritans to vote and established Puritan ideas as part of the official religion of the colony (The Act of Toleration).
[edit] New Netherland
New Netherland (Dutch: Nieuw-Nederland), was the territory on the eastern coast of North America in the 17th century which stretched from latitude 38 to 45 degrees north as originally discovered by the Dutch East India Company with the yacht Half Moon under the command of Henry Hudson in 1609 and explored by Adriaen Block and Hendrick Christiaensz from 1611 until 1614. Their map of 1614, presented to the States General, claimed the territory as New Netherland for the Republic of the Seven United Provinces.
A private commercial venture since patents were issued by the States General in 1614, New Netherland became a province of the Dutch Republic in 1624. At that time the northern border was reduced to 42 degrees north in acknowledgment of the inevitable intrusion of the English north of Cape Cod.
According to the Law of Nations, a claim on a territory required not only discovery and charting, but also settlement. In May 1624 the Dutch completed their claim by landing 30 Dutch families on Noten Eylant, modern Governors Island.
Over the next few decades New Netherland was run by less than adequate director-generals. Wars with the Native Americans erupted, and conficts with the English seemed destined to destroy the colony. All of that changed when Peter Stuyvesant was appointed Director-General in 1647. As he arrived he said "I shall govern you as a father his children". He expanded the colonies borders, conquering New Sweden in 1655 and resolved the border dispute with New England in 1650. He improved defences to protect the colonists against Native American raids, and the population of the colony went from 500 in 1640, to 9,000 by 1664. In August of 1664, four English warships arrived in New York Harbor demanding the surrender of the colony. At first, Stuyvesant vowed to fight for the colony, but he received little support from the colonists due to lack of ammunition and gunpowder, thus, he was forced to surrender. This event would spark the Second Anglo-Dutch War in which, the Dutch captured Suriname. Both sides kept the territory they had captured following the treaty.
[edit] Revolution in England
Ever since the "Magna Carta" England had an unusual form of government where the power of Parliament was balanced against that of the king. In the mid seventeenth century this division of powers resulted in the English Civil War.
In 1637, King Charles attempted to expand the influence of the Church of England to Scotland. The Scots did not take this action kindly, and attacked the north of England. The King, in order to raise funds, summoned Parliament. Parliament, on the basis of many unresolved grievances regarding personal rights while also favoring a non-military solution, opposed the King and tried to increase its own power. Charles's unsuccessful attempt to bypass parliament, by using an Irish Catholic army on Scottish Protestants, further incensed the Parliamentarians.
Eventually, by 1642, hostilities between some members of Parliament and the King were so great that armed conflict became unavoidable. The Parliament, supported by the Scots, won the Civil War in 1646, when King Charles surrendered. Parliament gained assurances of royal restraint, but the Army remained unsatisfied. War broke out again in 1648, the Army being led by the Puritan Oliver Cromwell.
Charles settled his disputes with Scotland and allied himself with them. But Cromwell defeated the Scottish Army, and had Charles beheaded in 1649. Under a new written constitution called the "Instrument of Government" Cromwell was appointed as head of state for life or "Lord Protector" in 1653. England was governed by a mixture of parliaments and military councils until Cromwell's death in 1658. He was succeeded as head of state by his son, Richard who was removed by the army after seven months. Immediately afterwards there was an attempted military coup but General Monck's English army in Scotland marched to London to save Parliament. Parliament re-established the monarchy under Charles II in 1660 but after the civil war Parliament had become the true power in England.
Friction continued between the monarchy and Parliament throughout the seventeenth century and the overthrow of James II in England in the "Glorious Revolution" cemented Parliament's power and was accompanied by the "English Bill of Rights" in 1689 which is in some respects a forerunner of the US Constitution.
Large numbers of the more extreme elements found their way to the Colonies both before and after the Civil War. Most importantly freeborn Englishmen had ceased to be subject to the absolute power of a monarch but the colonies did not always share this privilege. Though the American Revolution was still more than a century away, these and other consequences of the Civil War caused the build-up in revolutionary sentiments.
[edit] Mercantilism
Mercantilism was an economic idea that a nation's power depended on the value of its exports. Under the idea of mercantilism, a nation could establish colonies to help produce more goods which were then exported, increasing the strength of the nation. Essentially, mercantilists believed that colonies should have been established not for the benefit of settlers, but for the benefit of the home country.
The Parliament of England passed the Navigation Acts to increase the benefit the English derived from its colonies. Firstly, the Acts required that any colonial imports or exports travel only on ships registered in England. Also, the colonies were forbidden to export tobacco and sugar to any nation other than England. Furthermore, the colonies could not import anything manufactured outside England unless the goods were first taken to England, where taxes were paid, and then to the colonies.
Of course, many colonists resented the Navigation Acts because it regulated them more and reduced opportunities for profit. The English, they felt, profited, while the hard-working colonists lost potential wealth!
[edit] The Remaining Colonies
In an attempt to gain supremacy over trade, and in following mercantilist ideas, the English waged war against the Dutch in 1664. The English took control over the Dutch harbor of New Amsterdam on the Atlantic coast of America. James, the brother of King Charles II, received the charter for New Amsterdam and the surrounding Dutch territory. James granted a portion of the territory, present-day New Jersey, to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Cartaret. James retained present-day New York for himself as a proprietary colony.
In 1634, Lord Baltimore appointed George Calvert of England to settle Maryland, a narrow strip of land north of Virginia and south of Pennsylvania, as a Catholic colony via a royal charter. Fifteen years later, in 1649, he signed the Act of Toleration, which proclaimed religious freedom for its colonists, among whom Protestants would become the majority despite the original charter. After Lord Baltimore's death several years later, Margaret Brent, the wife of an esteemed landowner in Maryland, executed his will as governor of the colony. She defied gender roles in the colonies by being the first woman of non-royal heritage to govern an English colony.
In 1673 the Dutch, lead by Michiel de Ruyter, briefly reoccupied New Netherland again, this time naming it New Orange. After peace was made, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War, they agreed to return it back to the English.
At the other end of the Eastern Seaboard, the territory of Carolina was granted as a proprietory colony to eight different nobles. The proprietors divided Carolina into two separate colonies- North and South Carolina.
Charles II also granted William Penn the territory now known as Pennsylvania. Penn granted refuge to Quakers, a group of Protestants who opposed the Church of England, in his new colony. But the people of Delaware, who were mostly non-Quakers, separated from Pennsylvania in 1704.
The charter for Georgia, the last of the thirteen original colonies, was granted to James Oglethorpe and others in 1732. Georgia was first established as a "buffer" colony to protect the other colonies from attacks from the Spanish in Florida, as well as the French in Louisiana. Because of this, Georgia was the only colony to receive funds from England at the outset. Oglethorpe's goal was to provide Georgia as a place where debtors from England could regain financial standing.
[edit] The Lords of Trade
In an attempt to enforce mercantilist policies, King Charles II created the Lords of Trade as a new committee on the Privy Council. The Lords of Trade attempted to affect the government of the colonies in a manner beneficial to the English, rather than to the colonists.
The Lords of Trade, in an attempt to gain more power, attempted to convert all American colonies to royal ones. Under King James II, the successor to Charles II, New York, New Jersey, and the Puritan colonies were combined into the Dominion of New England in 1687.
However, the Dominion would not last for much time. In England, the Catholic James II was seen as a danger by Protestants. James was overthrown (he was technically held abdicated by Parliament) in the bloodless Glorious Revolution of 1688. In 1689, James' daughter Mary II and her husband William III took the throne as joint rulers. William and Mary dismantled the Dominion of New England, dissolved the Lords of Trade (Which William replaced with a Board of Trade, which was an advisory body), and reestablished the various separate colonies.
[edit] The Economy, Slavery, and Colonial Expansion
From the middle of the seventeenth century to the start of the Civil War, commercial agriculture was intimately associated with different types of servitude. During the colonial period, slaves grew much of the tobacco in Virginia and the Carolinas, rice in the low country of South Carolina and Georgia, and sugar on the Caribbean islands. During the same period, tens of thousands of British men and women were imported to the American colonies, especially to Virigina and the Carolinas, as indentured servants, or as punishment for lawbreaking. Even after release from indenture, many of these white people remained in the economic lower classes, though not subject to the slave codes, which became more harsh as time passed, denying almost all liberty to slaves in the southern colonies. Neither southerners, who used slaves as field laborers and servants, nor northerners, who supplied slaves and food to the southern and Caribbean plantations and consumed the products of slave labor, questioned the economic value of slavery.
Among the whites sent to the colonies by English authorities were many Scots-Irish people from Ulster. Known for hardiness, combativeness and harsh Calvinist religious beliefs, Scots-Irish settled in the frontier region of the Appalachian Mountains and eventually beyond in the Ohio and Mississippi country. Though the Scots-Irish had been at odds with England back home, in America their desire for land and freedom pushed the colonial boundary westward at little cost to the government, and provided an armed buffer between the eastern settlements and Native American tribes which had been driven away from the seaboard. Colonial frontiersmen endured a very harsh life, building their towns and farms by hand in a dense wilderness amid economic deprivation and native attack.
[edit] British Interference
The colonists sincerely believed that they had the right to govern themselves, being separated from Britain by an ocean and having founded an entirely new society. Such ideas were encouraged by the Glorious Revolution and 1689 Bill of Rights, which established that Parliament and not the King had the ultimate authority in government. Slowly, as interference from the Crown increased, the colonists felt more and more resentful about British control over the colonies.
In the 1730's, the Parliament began to pass laws regulating the Americas. The Sugar Act established a tax of six pence per gallon of sugar or molasses imported into the colonies. By 1750, Parliament had begun to ban, restrict, or tax several more products. This provoked much anger among the colonists, despite the fact that their tax burdens were quite low, when compared to most subjects of European monarchies of the same period.
[edit] Review Questions
1.Why did the British interfere with the colonies? Chart: ???--->, ???--->, e.g.
