1607 1612 1619 1676

Maryland Founded

Jamestown Founded

First Africans Arrive in Jamestown

1670

Carolina Founded

1634

Bacon’s Rebellion

The Southern Colonies in the 17th Century

AP U.S. HistoryUnit 1.2

John Rolfe Plants Tobacco in Virginia

Learning Objective #1

Students will analyze the development of the Southern Colonies in the 17th

century.

Unit 1.2

Theme 1

Beginning in 1607, England established five permanent colonies along the southeastern seacoast of North America. Despite displaying some differences, all of these colonies were characterized by plantation agriculture, the use of indentured and slave labor, a strong social hierarchy, and a sparse population with little access to education, churches, and government institutions.

I. Plantation Colonies: Characteristics

A. Tobacco & rice

B. Slavery in all southern colonies

1. Indentured servitude--largest percentage of the population

2. Africans arrived in 1619 (Virginia)

-- About14% of population by 1700

C. Aristocratic gentry

D. Sparse population

E. Religious toleration (Anglican Church was the most prominent)

F. Expansionary attitude due to exhaustion of the soil from tobacco growing

The Southern Colonial Economy

Theme 2

Society in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake—consisting of Virginia and Maryland—experienced low life-expectancies (largely due to disease), dependence on indentured servitude, weak family life, and a hierarchical structure that was dominated by plantersat the top over the masses of poor white and black slaves at the bottom.

II. Chesapeake– 1st region colonized by the

British in North America

A. Virginia

1. Jamestown (1607): significance

a. Virginia Company: motives and goals

b. Virginia Charter: significance

2. Perils of colonization

3. Captain John Smith

-- “starving time”

“He who does not work, shall not eat!”

Reproduction of the early Jamestown Settlement

4. Pocahantas and Chief Powhatan

Powhatan Confederacy

Powhatan ConfederacyThe 1622 Powhatan uprising killed 347

John Smith claimed that Pocahantas saved him from being executed by Powhatan. Some historians believe this may have been a mock execution to demonstrate Powhatan’s power.

5. John Rolfe– tobacco

-- Most important reason for the survival of VA

The Wedding of Pocahantas and John Rolfe, April 1, 1614

6. House of Burgesses, 1619

a. Significance:

b. Organization

7. King James I revoked the Virginia Charter, 1624

-- VA became a royal

colony

King James I

B. Maryland (1634)

1. Lord Baltimore: Sought a haven for Catholics in the New World

2. Act of Toleration (1649):

a. Provisions:

b. Real purpose:

Maryland Act of Toleration, 1649(Excerpt)

That whatsoever person or persons within this Province and the Islands thereunto helonging 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.

Maryland Act of Toleration, excerpt

… Be it Therefore also by the Lord Proprietary with the advise and consent of this Assembly Ordeyned and enacted …that no person or persons whatsoever within this Province…thereunto belonging professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any ways troubled, Molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this Province or the Islands thereunto belonging nor any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any other Religion against his or her consent…

C. Life in the Chesapeake tidewater region was perilous

1. Disease

2. Most immigrants were single men

-- “Tobacco brides”

3. The region eventually stabilized

a. Virginia was the most populous colony by 1700

b. Maryland was the third most populous

Why was 1619 a pivotal year for the Chesapeake

settlement?

D. Tobacco Economy

1. First Africans arrived inVirginia in 1619 as indentured servants

-- White indentured servants were more predominant until late-17th

century

2. “Headright” system

a. Landowners gained 50 acres of land per payment for each laborer’s passage

b. By 1700, ¾ of European Immigrants to VA & MD came as indentured servants

c. Some landowners turned their investments in labor into vast estates.

d. Most indentured servants never escaped poverty

3. Expansion of plantations up river valleys provoked Indian attacks

Virginia’s

growth

was due

largely to

headrights

English Migration, 1610-1660

E. Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)

1. Large numbers of frustrated poor freedmen existed by late 17th century

a. Government land policies did not seem favorable to poor squatters

b. Governor Berkeley’s Indian policies did not seem to protect poor folks on the frontier

Nathaniel Bacon (center) confronts Governor Berkeley (right)

2. Nathaniel Bacon led the uprising

-- White rebels were helped by indentured servants & blacks

Nathaniel Bacon

3. The rebellion failed and several rebels were killed.

4. Significance: Plantation owners sought large numbers of black slaves instead of indentured servants

-- White indentured servants were now seen as too troublesome

5. Planters used racism to manipulate poor whites

III. CarolinasA. Impact of British West Indies

1. Came to rely on British North America for food stuffs

2. Some Barbados farmers came to Carolina and brought slaves with them to grow rice.

B. English Civil War (1642-49)

1. Interrupted immigration to North America and stunted growth of new colonies

2. Restoration Colonies (after 1660):

NC, SC, PA, NY

Oliver Cromwell vs. King Charles I

C. Carolina founded in 1670 after the English Civil War

1. Goals: grow foodstuffs for sugar plantations in Barbados & export non- English items

2. Exported Indian slaves to West Indies & New England

3. Rice production was labor intensive; slavery grew dramatically

-- By 1719, blacks outnumbered whites

4. Charles Town (Charleston)

-- Aristocratic haven

5. Turmoil with Spain and Amerindians inthe South

D. North Carolina (1712)

1. Refuge for poor whites and religious dissenters from Carolina & Virginia

2. Among the most democratic and least aristocratic of all the original 13 colonies

3. Harsh treatment of Amerindians

IV. Georgia (1733): last of the 13 colonies

A. Founded by James Oglethorpe

B. Founded as a haven for debtors and buffer betweenSpanish Florida & South Carolina

C. Savannah: diverse community

D. Least populous of 13 colonies

V. Colonial Slavery

A. West African slave trade

B. Middle Passage-- 10-15 million Africans sent into slavery in the New World, most brought in the holds of ships.

1. Most came after 1700 (1st in Jamestown-- 1619)

2. Rising wages in England reduced white immigration to the colonies

3. 1698, Royal African Co. lost itsmonopoly on slave trade and the slave trade boomed as a result

Map: Colonial Slave Trade

C. slave codes

1. Blacks and their children property for life of masters

2. Crime in some colonies to teach literacy to slaves

3. Conversion to Christianity not grounds for freedom

D. Slavery = roots of racism in America

-- Racism used to keep poor whites from rebelling alongside blacks

E. Slavery harshest in deepest South (especially SC); less deadly in the Chesapeake

F. Slave culture became a mixture of American and African folkways

G. Stono Rebellion (1739)

1. Most important slave revolt of the 18th

century

2. Slavery became even more tightly regulated and oppressive as a result

17th Century Southern Societys

Yeoman Farmers

Landless Farmers

Indentured Servants

Slaves

Plantation Owners

Categories are approximations

VI. 18th Century Southern Societys

Yeoman Farmers

Landless Farmers

Indentured Servants

Slaves

Plantation Owners

Categories are approximations