Colonial Origins and Motives

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Written Assignment 1 HIS-113 1

David Spencer

Written Assignment 1

The genesis of modern societies of the western hemisphere occurred across the eastern

coasts of the Americas. These beginnings were largely characterized by the motives of European

colonizers. Motives were very important in forming the character of the different colonies

spread throughout the Americas. Even in North America, these differences bred highly

divergent colonies stocked by English emigrants. These emigrants many times in both success

and failure came into conflict with aboriginal Americans.

European Motives

The motives for European expansion and colonization in the new world varied widely

between colonies and individuals within the same colony. Different people had different reasons

for making the dangerous journey to the new world, and their backers had different reasons for

risking their resources, capital, and prestige.

The first Spanish colonists that accompanied Columbus came to the new world in the

pursuit of gold. To this end they attempted to enslave the aboriginal peoples in the Caribbean.

These efforts were not successful at first (Brinkley, 2012, p. 13), but greater support from the

Spanish crown on successive missions prevailed in the end (Zinn, 2003, p. 3). For 300 years,

beginning in the sixteenth century, the mines in Spanish America yielded more than ten times as

much gold and silver as the rest of the worlds mines put together (Brinkley, 2012, p.16).

While initially Spanish efforts in the new world were overwhelmingly driven in the quest

for riches and conquest, beginning in the 1540s missionary efforts were a driving motive

(Brinkley, 2012, p. 16). These missionary activities were efforts to convert the aboriginal

peoples to Catholicism.


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Commerce and trade were also driving motives of the colonial backers, especially in

England. Colonies could provide England with materials and resources, which they then

depended on rival powers to provide. Richard Hakluyt argued that England could solve its

overcrowding problem, profit, and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers by encouraging

colonial commerce (Brinkley, 2012, p. 25).

The first English colonies were born out of nationalism and a desire for expansion. The

first English colonies failed. Most notable was the lost colony of Roanoke. There, Sir Walter

Raleigh hoped to build a base for further expansion into the unclaimed territory of North

America through the establishment of a plantation of English settlers. This plantation was

modeled after those established in colonial Ireland (Brinkley, 2012).

The most widely celebrated motive for European expansion and colonization in the new

world was the desire for religious freedom. As celebrated across much of North America each

fall, the Puritans established the Plymouth Plantation in order to obtain the freedom to practice

Protestant Christianity the way they saw fit, instead of the way prescribed by the English

Monarch and law (Johnson, 1999).

Colonial Comparison

The first colonies in the territory that would become the United States were all English;

however, the character of the colonies in Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts was particularly

different. These colonies were distinguished by their differences in their motives, royal charters,

form of government, initial success, population and family structures, land ownership, economy,

use of forced labor, religious tolerance, and in their relationship with aboriginal populations.


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As described above, there were various motives for European colonization of the new

world. Within each of the English colonies, there was a specific drive that propelled the

colonization and expansion. In Virginia, the colonists of Jamestown had the singular motive of

providing profit for the London Company, which then became the Virginia Company (Brinkley,

2012). In the other colonies, the profit motive was either mixed with or concealed religious

motivations for colonization. The Calverts, among them the Lords Baltimore, established

Maryland as a colony both as a great speculative venture in real estate and as a retreat for

English Catholics (p. 40). The Puritans in Massachusetts had a profit motive, but in both

Plymouth Plantation and the Massachusetts Bay Company, the primary motive was to create a

haven for Puritans in New England (p. 44).

The colonies all had Royal Charters from the English monarch. Virginia was founded

under the charters given to first Sir Walter Raleigh, and then to the London Company (Johnson,

1999). The Charter for Maryland was given to the Lord Baltimore. This charter was different

from the other commercial charters, in that it established Lord Baltimores royal authority over

Maryland and provided it in perpetuity to his heirs (Brinkley, 2012). The first colonies in

Massachusetts that established the Plymouth Plantation initially derived their colonial authority

from permission for settlement from the Virginia Company; however, when they arrived at

Plymouth outside of the Virginia Companys jurisdiction they signed the Mayflower Compact.

In this compact, the separatist Puritans of Plymouth swore allegiance back to the English

monarch.

The colonies also differed in their forms of government. While all had authority from the

Crown, local administration varied from authoritarian to representative democracy. In the

beginning, all the colonies had an authoritarian or martial form of administration lead by


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appointed governors. In Virginia, the absolute authority of the royal governor gave way to

gubernatorial execution of law established by the royal charter and a Virginia legislature

(Brinkley, 2012). Unlike Virginia, the nature of the charter in Maryland maintained the authority

of Lord Baltimores governor. Under the Massachusetts Bay Company, that colony was ruled by

a general court of eight stockholders. This general court was later chosen in elections open to all

freemen in the colony.

Initial success was promised to the shareholders of the colonial companies. In reality,

there was great suffering in early days of the colonies. In Virginia, the first colony in Roanoke

was completely lost, and in Jamestown only 38 of 104 colonists survived the first winter. In

Plymouth, over half of the Pilgrims died during their first winter. The exception to this was in

Maryland, where there were no catastrophes after establishment (Brinkley, 2012).

Relationship with the aboriginal populations was likely the key to success in Maryland.

There the colonists established a healthy commercial trading relationship with the aboriginal

tribes (p. 41). In Massachusetts, the Puritans initially relied on the aboriginal peoples for

survival and also traded furs. This died with the tribes as European diseases decimated their

populations making room for colonial expansion in the depopulated lands. This depopulation

was not complete and within the first decades of colonization in Massachusetts, expansion into

aboriginal territory ignited conflict. Conflict was the nature of the relationship with the

aboriginal tribes of Virginia from the beginning, marked by slaughter and raiding.

Population and family structures of the first colonists to the new world tracks closely with

the motives dominate in each colony. Initially Jamestown had no women and was full of

adventurers who lacked the skills and ethic needed to thrive in a harsh colony. This is in contrast

to Maryland and Massachusetts, where colonists brought their families to the new world.


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After initial difficulties, the Virginia Company promoted family immigration to the

colony. It did this through the head right system of private land grants that was also used in

Maryland. Under this system, the head of the household would receive additional land for each

person accompanying him. The colonies were not commercially successful until there was

private ownership of land. Initially in all the colonies there was a centralized or communal

ownership and labor regime. The governors discovered that the colonists were much more

productive when they worked for themselves than when they worked communally for the colony.

In Virginia and Maryland this productivity was highly lucrative. The economy was based

on the cultivation of tobacco. In Massachusetts, the Puritans were a poor people who made their

living through mixed agriculture (Brinkley, 2012).

Additional labor to the limited economy of Massachusetts was not needed in pursuit of

the Puritans motives; however, the cultivation of tobacco in Virginia and Maryland was very

labor intensive. Initially indentured servants were brought from England and in 1619 the first

African laborers arrived (Brinkley, 2012). The service of landless Englishmen gradually gave

way to African slaves as the political costs of English rose as was seen in Bacons Rebellion.

Religious tolerance also varied widely across the colonies with the extremes found in

Maryland and Massachusetts. Maryland was initially conceived as a retreat for English

Catholics (Brinkley, 2012, p. 40), but from the beginning Catholics were a minority in

Maryland and the Calverts knew that codified religious tolerance was the only was to achieve the

desired retreat. In Massachusetts, the Puritans motives and religiously homogeneous population

fostered no dissident freedom of worship (p. 45).


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Sources of Friction

While initial relations with the Indians varied from colony to colony, by the middle of the

17th

century the English colonies of North America were widely in conflict with the aboriginal

populations. These conflicts primarily arose from two strains of friction between the Indians and

the English in Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay; they were convictions of superiority among

the English, and the exponential growth of the colonies into Indian lands.

In Virginia, the technological superiority of the English over the Powhatan was clear

evidence to Virginians of their overall superior over the Indians. The evidence was seen in their

seafaring ships, firearms, metal workings, and writing language, which the Powhatan did not

possess (Brinkley, 2012, p. 40). This conviction of superiority flourished as Virginian expanded

further into Indian lands to satisfy the needs of the growing tobacco economy. The friction

between the pioneering colonists and the Indians frequently erupted into violence (p. 41.)

While the relationship between the Puritans and the Indians of Massachusetts started off

friendly, the success of the Massachusetts settlements and the relative weakness of the disease-

devastated Massachusetts aboriginals lead to the gradual changing of colonial attitudes towards

the Indians (p. 48). The Puritans began to treat the Indians as heathens and savages (p. 48).

The need for land for the ever increasing number of colonists also created friction between the

Indians and the colonist.

Dynamic Factors

The character of the colonies in the new world, including those that would become the

United States distinguished themselves from one another as a result of dynamic factors in the


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people who became colonists, the old world environments that conditioned their motives, and the

new world natural and human environment to which the colonists arrived.


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References

Brinkley, A. (2012).American history: A survey (14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Johnson, P. (1999).A history of the American people. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.

Zinn, H. (2003).A people's history of the United States, 1492-present. New York, NY: Perennial

Classics.

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Colonial Origins and Motives