Early European Exploration

and Colonization

VUS.2 & .3

Early European Exploration

and Colonization

• Resulted in the redistribution of the world's population as millions moved from Europe and Africa voluntarily and involuntarily.

• Initiated worldwide commercial expansion as agricultural products were exchanged between the Americas and Europe *(Columbian Exchange).

Early European Exploration

and Colonization

• The English settled in the American colonies

• The Spanish settled in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

• The French explored Canada but did not have large-scale immigration.

Early European Exploration

and Colonization

• English and Spanish had violent conflicts with the

American Indians (First Americans or Native

Americans).

• Indians lost their traditional territories and fell

victim to diseases (like Small Pox) carried from

Europe.

• Unlike Europeans, Africans and American Indians

did not believe in land ownership.

• French relations with native peoples were more

cooperative.

Early European Exploration

and Colonization

• Economic institutions in the colonies developed

in ways that were either typically European or

were distinctively American.

• Climate, soil conditions, and other natural

resources shaped regional economic

development.

• A strong belief in private ownership of property

and free enterprise characterized colonial life.

Colonial Trade Routes - "triangular trade" between

Europe, Africa, and North America, involving

slaves, raw materials, and manufactured goods

New England Colonies• Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut

and Rhode Island• In 1629 approximately 20,000 Puritans emigrated to New

England and formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony settled by Puritans

• Puritans were religious group that believed the Anglican Church should purify itself by abandoning much of its ritual and ceremony kept from the traditional Roman Catholic rituals - they were not tolerant of other religions!

• The Anglican Church = Church of England.

• An extreme group of Puritans, known as Separatists, believed that the Anglican Church could never be purified and called for a total break with it. The Separatist settled at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1620.

Puritans/Separatist

• Came seeking freedom from

– religious persecution and

– economic opportunity.

• Practiced a form of (“Athenian”) direct democracy through town meetings for the operation of government which centered around the church.

• The Separatists formed a “covenant community” based on the principles of their religious beliefs and the Mayflower Compact. (A covenant is a promise or agreement.)

The Pilgrims' charter entitled them to settle in Virginia, but

where they landed in New England they had no legal

authority. So the Separatist drew up a secular document,

the Mayflower Compact, which provided a basis for order

and government until the settlers could legalize their status.

New England Colonies

• Economy based on shipbuilding, fishing,

lumbering, small-scale subsistence

farming, and eventually, manufacturing.

• Subsistence farming is growing only

enough food to feed one’s family.

• Economy prospered, reflecting the

Puritans’ strong belief in the values of hard

work and thrift.

New England Colonies

• Society was based on religious standing.

• Intolerant of dissenters who challenged

the Puritans’ beliefs concerning religion

and government.

• Rhode Island was founded by dissenters

fleeing persecution by Puritans in

Massachusetts.

In 1635, Roger Williams angered the

General Court by preaching for a

separation of church and state in the

Massachusetts Bay government and he

escaped to Narragansett Bay where he

was sheltered by his Indian friends. He

purchased lands from them and founded

the community of Providence, accepting

all settlers regardless of their beliefs.

Anne Marbury Hutchinson believed

that the Holy Spirit spoke directly to

the souls of believers, a view which

challenged the Puritan doctrine that

God had spoken to men through the

Scriptures, and endangered the

Biblical foundation of the colony. In

1638 she fled to Roger Williams'

Rhode Island area, and founded the

village of Portsmouth.

Middle Colonies• New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and

Delaware

• Settled chiefly by English, Dutch, and German-

speaking immigrants seeking

– religious freedom and

– economic opportunity.

• Economies based on shipbuilding, small-scale

farming, and trading. Cities such as New York,

Philadelphia, and Baltimore began to grow as

seaports and commercial centers.

William Penn (1644-1718), the founder of

Pennsylvania, the last of the Proprietary colonies,

landing at New Castle, Delaware

Middle Colonies• Home to multiple religious groups, including

– Quakers in Pennsylvania,

– Huguenots and Jews in New York, and

– Presbyterians in New Jersey

who generally believed in religious tolerance.

• More flexible social structures and began to

develop a middle class of skilled artisans,

entrepreneurs (business owners), and small

farmers.

• Incorporated a number of democratic principles

that reflected the basic rights of Englishmen

Southern Colonies

• Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

• Were settled by people seeking economic opportunities.

• Virginia “cavaliers” were English nobility who received large land grants in eastern Virginia from the King of England.

• Poor English immigrants also came seeking better lives as small farmers or artisans and settled in the Shenandoah Valley or western Virginia, as indentured servants.

Southern Colonies

• Farther inland, in the mountains and

valleys of the Appalachian foothills,

• the economy was based on small-scale

subsistence farming, hunting, and trading.

• this society was characterized by people

of Scot-Irish and English descent.

Southern Colonies

• Social structure was based on family status and

the ownership of land.

• Large landowners in the eastern lowlands/planters

played a leading role in colonial representative

legislatures

• maintained an allegiance to the Church of England

and closer social ties to England than in the other

colonies.

• except Maryland which was settled by Catholics!!!

A woodcut of

puritans and

cavaliers. A study in

contrast in 17th

century England.

Southern Colonies

• Jamestown, established in 1607 by the Virginia

Company of London as a business venture, was

the first permanent English settlement in North

America.

• The Virginia House of Burgesses, established

by the 1640s, was the first elected assembly in

the New World. It has operated continuously

and is today known as the General Assembly of

Virginia.

Landing at Jamestown, Virginia,

1607.

Southern Colonies• Virginia and the other Southern colonies

developed economies based on large

plantations that grew “cash crops” such as

tobacco, rice, and indigo. (Virginia produced

mostly tobacco)

• Plantations required cheap labor on a large

scale.

• Some of the labor needs, especially in Virginia,

were met by indentured servants, mostly poor

people from England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Southern Colonies

• Eventually the labor needs were filled by

the forcible importation of Africans.

• The first Africans were brought against

their will to Jamestown in 1619 to work on

tobacco plantations.

Southern Colonies

• Some slaves worked as indentured

servants, earned their freedom, and lived

as free citizens during the Colonial Era.

• Larger and larger numbers of enslaved

Africans were forcibly brought to the

Southern colonies (the “Middle

Passage”).

This arrangement was similar to the model made by abolitionist William

Wilberforce (1759-1833) to show to the House of Commons as evidence of

how the slaves lay "like rows of books on a shelf" during the notorious "middle

passage" across the Atlantic.

The Great Awakening

• Religious movement that swept both Europe and the colonies during the mid-1700s.

• Led to the rapid growth of evangelical religions such as the Methodists and Baptists and challenged the established religious and governmental order.

• Laid one of the social foundations for the American Revolution.

• George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were

two important preachers in this movement. They

preached “fire and brimstone” sermons designed

to make people recognize their sins and

experience a new spiritual birth.

Early European Exploration and

Colonization

• The development of a slavery-based agricultural

economy in the Southern colonies would lead to

eventual conflict between the North and South

and the American Civil War.

• In time, colonization led to ideas of

representative government and religious

toleration that over several centuries would

inspire similar transformations in other parts of

the world.