Colonial Political and Economic Development

Key Questions 1. How did America develop as a society of representative governments?

2. What was meant by representative government? Who was represented? How did it change over time?

3. How and why did a separation of church and state develop?

4. What are the basic rights of a citizen?

5. What role did the government play in the colonial economy?

6. What led to increased unity among the American colonies and hinted that they could form their own nation, independent from Great Britain?

Great Britain, in 1588, was the separate nations of England, Scotland and Ireland. In 1691 that England gained control of Ireland. In 1707 Parliament united England and Scotland to create Great Britain.

Review of the Colonial Period: An English Empire

Under Queen Elizabeth I, the “Virgin Queen,” England enjoyed prosperity and peace as it morphed from a backwater island into a dynamic commercial society.

A key reason for her success was that Elizabeth was the only monarch able to handle the religious issue.

Elizabeth and Parliament worked out a compromise to reorganize the Church of England (Anglican Church). This kept things peaceful during her reign, although the compromise would fall apart after her death.

English Economics, Exploration, and the Lost Colony, 1496-1600

Although England was but a negligible world power in the late fifteenth century, King Henry VII commissioned the Genoese sea captain John Cabot, to look for a Northwest Passage to China.

In the 16th century, England underwent a significant economic reorganization. As wool prices rose, landowners began fencing land to make more room for grazing sheep.

Englishmen greatly increased the production of wool. Huge profits were made, bringing more people into the market and increasing production even more. By mid-century England produced more wool than Europe could consume. Prices crashed. The collapse led policy-makers to search for ways to avoid such economic disaster in the future.

They sought new markets and new ways to get capital into the economy, individual investors pooled their money in joint-stock companies (corporations).

The Enclosure Movement forced tenants off large estates that had been their home for centuries. The presence of vagabonds and unemployed disturbed powerful Englishmen. Many believed England was over-populated.

Meanwhile, European rivals, Spain and France, had created colonies in the Caribbean and Florida causing further concern in England.

The three elements (markets, surplus population, and international rivalry) created a nexus that provided the impulse for colonization.

The book suggests ways colonies could benefit England: (1)to extend “the reformed religion”(2)to expand trade(3)to provide England with needed resources and markets(4)to enlarge the Queen’s revenues and navy(5)to discover a Northwest Passage to Asia(6)to provide an outlet for the growing English population(7)to limit the expansion of rivals Spain and France in the region

English Motives for Colonizing

The key architects of English colonization were two cousins, prominent in the court of Queen Elizabeth: Walter Raleigh and Richard Hakluyt. Raleigh provided the money; Hakluyt, the reasoning.

Hakluyt’s Discourse of Western Planting, (1584) offers the clearest expression of why England should create colonies in the New World.

Roanoke, The Lost Colony

In 1585, Raleigh sent an expedition to settle at Roanoke Island. It failed.

In 1587, a new expedition, led by John White, resettled on the Island. White left the settlers and returned to England for supplies. White did not return for three years because of the conflict with Spain and the Spanish Armada. When White reached the settlement in 1590, no one was there. The colony was never found.

Jamestown

King James I, in 1606, granted charters to two joint-stock companies, dividing British claims in North America between the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth.

London Company ships landed up the newly-named James River and encamped at what became Jamestown on May 13, 1607.

From the outset, the settlement was in trouble. Many of the settlers refused to work. Instead of gathering or hunting for food, many chose to steal it from the Indians. The Indians, meanwhile, raided Jamestown to steal weapons and gunpowder.

Conditions hit bottom during the winter of 1609-1610. That winter was known as “the Starving Time.” Starvation reduced the settlement’s population from 500 down to 54 by the time a ship arrived with fresh provisions and new settlers in May 1610. Shockingly, settlers resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Governor Lord De la Warr restored order through the Lawes Divine, Moral, and Martiall. All settlers had to work in work gangs under military discipline. Anyone who ran away from the settlement and was caught was executed. The new rules helped save Jamestown, but the colony had still not found its purpose.

Eventually, an enterprising settler named John Rolfe found a profitable crop. Rolfe arrived in and had brought with him some Spanish tobacco plantings. By 1617, Virginia shipped 20,000 pounds of tobacco (at 3 shillings per pound) to England and the crop became so profitable that it was called “brown gold.”

Rolfe also brought peace with the Indians. In 1614, the First Powhatan War ended when Rolfe married Chief Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas.

With the colony saved, the London Company created a new policy for land distribution to entice more settlers. The headright system gave every new company shareholder who settled in Virginia 50 acres of land for himself and 50 acres for each family member he brought over, including servants. The company also drew up a new constitution, granting settlers the “Rights of Englishmen.”

In 1619, Virginia created the House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in America. Its members represented their local settlements and governed along with a Governor and executive council.

Two other events that year further expanded the colony: (1) more women arrived as the company sponsored the sale of women for wives – 90 women were bought for the princely sum of 125 pounds of tobacco – creating a better gender balance in the colony; (2) the first Africans arrived – they were indentured servants, not slaves.

In return for the master’s paying passage to the New World, an indentured servant contracted to work for a specific term, usually seven years. During that time the servant had no rights to property. Upon completion of the term, s/he was free to do whatever s/he wished and received a headright of 50 acres of their own.

Powhatan’s brother, Opechancanough, led raids on the English that turned into nearly two years of warfare and killed 347 settlers, including John Rolfe.

As a result of the war, James I revoked the Company’s charter and made Virginia a Royal Colony. Under the king’s authority for most of the remainder of the 1620s, Virginia stabilized and slowly began to prosper.

With settlements established in Virginia, other Britons began to look at the Chesapeake region for possible opportunities. As intolerance toward Catholics increased in England, one family led the charge for escape to religious freedom. In 1628-29, George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, visited the Chesapeake region to check out its prospect as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. His son, Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore, carried out the project.

This was to be the successful first proprietary colony. Whereas the original colonies were based on a charter granted to a joint-stock company, and Virginia by 1624 had been turned into a royal colony, Maryland was given to a single man to own.

Despite its original goal, Puritans from Virginia moved into the colony in large numbers. Religious tension continued until passage of the Maryland Act Concerning Religion (often called, incorrectly, the Maryland Religious Toleration Act) in 1649. The law guaranteed religious toleration to all followers of Jesus Christ and believers in the Trinity.

Saint Francis Xavier Church, Leonardtown, MD Rebuilt on original site (1766)

By the 1670s, the population of Maryland neared 13,000, including: Catholic planters, Protestant farmers, indentured servants, and a small but increasing number of black slaves.

Maryland

In 1642, Governor William Berkeley arrived in Virginia to begin thirty-four years of stable governance. Conditions had sufficiently improved to make slavery a more viable economic choice.

Tobacco production increased through the 1630s. But it was so profitable that too many settlers began planting tobacco, glutting the market, causing the price to fall, and pushing marginal farmers into severe debt.

As the population of poor grew and as the colony spread deeper into the interior, it became harder to govern the colony. Adding to public displeasure was the fact that Berkeley’s government had become a clique of family members and business relations. The colonial treasurer was a Berkeley cousin, as was the Secretary of State.

“How miserable that man is that governs a people where six parts of seven at least are poor, indebted, discontented, and armed.” Governor William Berkeley

Chesapeake Society

The discontent reached a head in 1675. Settlers on the frontier believed the government was not protecting them. A minor squabble between settlers and Indians along the Potomac turned ugly and left nearly twenty-five Indians dead. The Indians retaliated by attacking settlers along the frontier and the James River. Berkeley proposed a series of forts be built along the frontier, but the assembly believed it would be too expensive and besides what the settlers really wanted was to get rid of the Indians and take their land. Tensions grew.

In May 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led vigilantes against the Indians despite Berkeley’s prohibition. Then he and his men, a collection of landless servants, small farmers, and slaves, went on a rampage down river, ultimately torching Jamestown itself. By October, the rebellion was over, however, and Bacon was dead, from malaria. Order was restored and Berkeley had twenty-three of the rebels executed. When news of Bacon‘s Rebellion reached England, Berkeley was recalled and a new regime was put in place, one that more clearly protected the interests of common Virginians.

By 1677, the difficult infancy of Virginia ended.

1. For having, upon specious pretenses of public works, raised great unjust taxes upon the commonalty for the advancement of private favorites and other sinister ends, but no visible effects in any measure adequate; for not having, during this long time of his government, in any measure advanced this hopeful colony either by fortifications, towns, or trade.

2. For having abused and rendered contemptible the magistrates of justice by advancing to places of judicature scandalous and ignorant favorites.

3. For having wronged his Majesty’s prerogative and interest by assuming monopoly of the beaver trade and for having in it unjust gain betrayed and sold his Majesty’s country and the lives of his loyal subjects to the barbarous heathen.

4. For having protected, favored, and emboldened the Indians against his Majesty’s loyal subjects, never contriving, requiring, or appointing any due or proper means of satisfaction for their many invasions, robberies, and murders committed upon us.

5. For having, when the army of English was just upon the track of those Indians, . . . and when we might with ease have destroyed them who then were in open hostility, for then having expressly countermanded and sent back our army by passing his word for the peaceable demeanor of the said Indians, who immediately prosecuted their evil intentions, committing horrid murders and robberies in all places, being protected by the said engagement and word past of him the said Sir William Berkeley . . .

6. And lately, when, upon the loud outcries of blood, the assembly had, with all care, raised and framed an army for the preventing of further mischief and safeguard of this his Majesty’s colony.

“Declaration of Nathaniel Bacon in the Name of the People of Virginia, July 30, 1676”

7. For having, with only the privacy of some few favorites without acquainting the people, only by the alteration of a figure, forged a commission, . . . against the consent of the people, for the raising and effecting civil war and destruction . . .

8. For the prevention of civil mischief and ruin amongst ourselves while the barbarous enemy in all places did invade, murder, and spoil us, his Majesty’s most faithful subjects.

Of this and the aforesaid articles we accuse Sir William Berkeley as guilty of each and every one of the same, and as one who has traitorously attempted, violated, and injured his Majesty’s interest here by a loss of a great part of this his colony and many of his faithful loyal subjects by him betrayed and in a barbarous and shameful manner exposed to the incursions and murder of the heathen. And we do further declare these the ensuing persons in this list to have been his wicked and pernicious councilors, confederates, aiders, and assisters against the commonalty in these our civil commotions:

And we do further demand that the said Sir William Berkeley with all the persons in this list be forthwith delivered up or surrender themselves within four days after the notice hereof, or otherwise we declare as follows.

That [wherever] the said persons shall reside, be hid, or protected, we declare the owners, masters, or inhabitants of the said places to be confederates and traitors to the people and the estates of them is also of all the aforesaid persons to be confiscated. And this we, the commons of Virginia, do declare, desiring a firm union amongst ourselves that we may jointly and with one accord defend ourselves against the common enemy. . . . These are, therefore, in his Majesty’s name, to command you forthwith to seize the persons above mentioned as traitors to the King and country and them to bring to Middle Plantation and there to secure them until further order, and, in case of opposition, if you want any further assistance you are forthwith to demand it in the name of the people in all the counties of Virginia.

Nathaniel Bacon General by Consent of the people. William Sherwood