English Colonial Expansion

SWBAT: identify the two areas of English colonial expansion and explain why the British began colonizing North America.

Homework: None

Do Now: English Colonial Expansion Quiz

Beginnings of the British Empire• Political unrest

prevented the English from pursuing overseas empires in the 16th century.

• During the 1600s this changed and by the 1760s, the British became the largest empire in the world at the time.

Early Explorers

• John Cabot: explored the coasts of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and possibly New England giving G.B. its first North American land claims.

• Sir Francis Drake: trader and pirate. Embarked on voyages of exploration. Known for plundering ships of other countries. Was backed financially by Elizabeth I.

• Drake and other pirates secured G.B. seafaring tradition.

Sir Francis Drake

The British in India

• In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to a trading group that came to be known as the East India Trading Company.

• Est. trading ports in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras.– Became centers the British used to

expand and solidify their influence.

• Became extremely powerful and wealthy and was backed strongly by Parliament.

The British in America

• Slow to develop colonies in the Americas.• Spent a lot of time looking

for the Northwest Passage, a route that would take them straight to the far east without sailing around Africa or S. America.• Henry Hudson was one of

the first to search for the Passage.

The Beginnings of Colonial Expansion in the Americas• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o69TvQqyGdg

• 1. What was the first successful colony in the Americas? What were they hoping to find there?

• 2. What are indentured servants?

• 3. What crop made Virginia so popular?

• 4. What is the difference between Puritans and Pilgrims?

• 5. Why is Thanksgiving celebrated?

• 6. Why is the Mayflower Compact so significant?

What about those places mentioned other than Plymouth?

Back to the video…

The Lost Colony of Roanoke…• Was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh as an attempt to est.

England’s first colony.• In 1587, Raleigh dispatched a new group of 150 colonists

to establish a colony on Chesapeake Bay despite failed attempted to previously colonize it. • When relations with the Native Americans went bad, the

group convinced John White, their leader, to go back and ask England for help. • It took him 3 years to return to the colony.

What he found…or didn’t find : /

• His men could not find any trace of the 90 men, 17 women, and 11 children, nor was there any sign of a struggle or battle.• To this day, no one knows for

sure what happened to these people.

Jamestown

• We will get to this on Wednesday, but for now please know that the images to the right never happened.• And even if it did, John

Smith would have been in his late 20s and Pocahontas barely a teenager… Gross.

What makes England’s colonies unique?

But…

Self-government • Most European colonies were ruled from the home

country.• Most English colonies, however, had some form of

representative assembly. YAY ENLIGHTENMENT!!• However, official control resided in England despite these

colonies having some autonomy.

Mercantilism and Smuggling • Belief that a country should export more than it imports.• British Parliament passed laws that forced colonists to

only sell goods to England or taxed certain items, like sugar.• Smuggling became respectable.• Great Britain was pretty lax about enforcing these laws

until the mid-late 1700s.

Exit Slip

• If you were a colonist living in Massachusetts Bay and suddenly the British started enforcing laws against smuggling and collecting taxes, how might you feel/react?