Origins and Early Formation of the 13 Colonies I Flashcards
Review - Timeline: Early Globalization - The Atlantic World, 1492-1650
1492: Christopher Columbus lands on Hispaniola. 1494: Treaty of Tordesillas divides the Americas between the Portuguese and the Spanish. 1517: Martin Luther publishes Ninety-Five Theses. 1521: Hernan Cortes conquers Tenochtitlan. 1530: John Calvin strengthens Protestantism. 1534: Henry VIII breaks with Catholic Church and establishes Church of England. 1584-1590: English efforts to colonize Roanoke fail. 1603: Samuel de Champlain founds New France. 1607: First permanent English settlement begins at Jamestown. 1624: The Dutch found New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
Timeline: Creating New Social Orders - Colonial Societies, 1500-1700
1565: Spanish establish St. Augustine in present day Florida (it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement within the borders of the continental United States). 1607: English settle Jamestown. 1609-1645: Jamestown colonists and Powhatan Indians fight Anglo-Powhatan Wars. 1610: Spanish establish Sante Fe in present day New Mexico. 1620: English Puritans draft Mayflower Compact and found Plymouth Colony. 1675-1676: King Philip (Metacom) wages war against Puritan colonies. 1676: Nathaniel Bacon leads armed rebellion against Virginia governor. 1680: Pope leads Pueblo Revolt in Santa Fe.
*Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World*
The sixteenth century witnessed a new challenge to the powerful Catholic Church. The reformist doctrines of Martin Luther and John Calvin attracted many people dissatisfied with Catholicism, and Protestantism spread across northern Europe, spawning many subgroups with conflicting beliefs. Spain led the charge against Protestantism, leading to decades of undeclared religious wars between Spain and England, and religious intolerance and violence characterized much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite the efforts of the Catholic Church and Catholic nations, however, Protestantism had taken hold by 1600.
*Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy*
By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Spain’s rivals—England, France, and the Dutch Republic—had each established an Atlantic presence, with greater or lesser success, in the race for imperial power. None of the new colonies, all in the eastern part of North America, could match the Spanish possessions for gold and silver resources. Nonetheless, their presence in the New World helped these nations establish claims that they hoped could halt the runaway growth of Spain’s Catholic empire. English colonists in Virginia suffered greatly, expecting riches to fall into their hands and finding reality a harsh blow. However, the colony at Jamestown survived, and the output of England’s islands in the West Indies soon grew to be an important source of income for the country. New France and New Netherlands were modest colonial holdings in the northeast of the continent, but these colonies’ thriving fur trade with native peoples, and their alliances with those peoples, helped to create the foundation for later shifts in the global balance of power.
*Colonial Rivalries: Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions*
The French and Dutch established colonies in the northeastern part of North America: the Dutch in present-day New York, and the French in present-day Canada. Both colonies were primarily trading posts for furs. While they failed to attract many colonists from their respective home countries, these outposts nonetheless intensified imperial rivalries in North America. Both the Dutch and the French relied on native peoples to harvest the pelts that proved profitable in Europe.
*English Settlements in North America* (A)
The English came late to colonization of the Americas, establishing stable settlements in the 1600s after several unsuccessful attempts in the 1500s. After Roanoke Colony failed in 1587, the English found more success with the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620. The two colonies were very different in origin. The Virginia Company of London founded Jamestown with the express purpose of making money for its investors, while Puritans founded Plymouth to practice their own brand of Protestantism without interference.
*English Settlements in North America* (B)
Both colonies battled difficult circumstances, including poor relationships with neighboring Indian tribes. Conflicts flared repeatedly in the Chesapeake Bay tobacco colonies and in New England, where a massive uprising against the English in 1675 to 1676—King Philip’s War—nearly succeeded in driving the intruders back to the sea.
*The Impact of Colonization*
The development of the Atlantic slave trade forever changed the course of European settlement in the Americas. Other transatlantic travelers, including diseases, goods, plants, animals, and even ideas like the concept of private land ownership, further influenced life in America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The exchange of pelts for European goods including copper kettles, knives, and guns played a significant role in changing the material cultures of native peoples. During the seventeenth century, native peoples grew increasingly dependent on European trade items. At the same time, many native inhabitants died of European diseases, while survivors adopted new ways of living with their new neighbors.
*West Africa and the Role of Slavery*
Before 1492, Africa, like the Americas, had experienced the rise and fall of many cultures, but the continent did not develop a centralized authority structure. African peoples practiced various forms of slavery, all of which differed significantly from the racial slavery that ultimately developed in the New World. After the arrival of Islam and before the Portuguese came to the coast of West Africa in 1444, Muslims controlled the slave trade out of Africa, which expanded as European powers began to colonize the New World. Driven by a demand for labor, slavery in the Americas developed a new form: It was based on race, and the status of slave was both permanent and inherited.
Spanish establish St. Augustine.
St. Augustine is a city in the Southeastern United States, on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement within the borders of the continental United States. It is the second oldest continuously inhabited city of European origin in United States territory after San Juan, Puerto Rico (founded in 1521).
Spanish establish Sante Fe
The area surrounding Santa Fe was occupied for at least several thousand years by indigenous peoples who built villages several hundred years ago on the current site of the city. It was known by the Tewa inhabitants as Ogha Po’oge (“White Shell Water Place”). The city of Santa Fe (meaning “holy faith” in Spanish) was founded by Spanish colonists in 1610, making it the oldest state capital in the United States, in the state of New Mexico.
Pope leads Pueblo Revolt in Santa Fe.
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680—also known as Popé’s Rebellion—was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, present day New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spanish and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province.
Motivations for Exploration - Mercantilism
An economic system developing during the decay of feudalism to unify and increase the power and especially the monetary wealth of a nation by a strict governmental regulation of the entire national economy usually through policies designed to secure an accumulation of bullion (bars of gold or silver), a favorable balance of trade, the development of agriculture and manufactures, and the establishment of foreign trading monopolies.
Motivations for Exploration - Legend of Antillia
Antillia (or Antilia) is a phantom island that was reputed, during the 15th-century age of exploration, to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities. It originates from an old Iberian legend, set during the Muslim conquest of Hispania c. 714. Seeking to flee from the Muslim conquerors, seven Christian Visigothic bishops embarked with their flocks on ships and set sail westwards into the Atlantic Ocean, eventually landing on an island (Antilha) where they founded seven settlements. Beginning in the 1400s, explorers from just about every seafaring European nation sought the legendary cities of gold. These explorations were paid for by rich European merchants or by monarchs with their own motives - they wanted to catch up with Spain.
Motivations for Exploration - Northwest Passage
By dominating South America, Spain had control of the only known western route to Asia, at the southern tip of the continent. So the other European merchants and monarchs really wanted to find a fast, safe, western route to Asia that completely avoided Spanish territory. This goal became known as the Northwest Passage.
Failed Colonies of France and England - John Cabot
In 1497, just five years after Columbus’s first voyage, England sent John Cabot (1450-1499) exploring for this Northwest Passage. The exact landing place has never been definitely established: It has been variously believed to be in southern Labrador, Newfoundland, or Cape Breton Island. He mistakenly believed that he had reached the northeast coast of Asia. He announced his plans to return to his landing place and from there sail westward until he came to Japan, the reputed source of spices and gems; however, he later died in an expedition in 1499. The effect of Cabot’s efforts was to demonstrate the viability of a short route across the North Atlantic. This would later prove important in the establishment of British colonies in North America.
Failed Colonies of France and England - Giovanni da Verrazzano
Sailing for France, Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485-1528) made three trips, exploring most of the North American coastline, as well as South America and many Caribbean islands. He didn’t find the Northwest Passage or any cities of gold, but his knowledge, combined with that of a Portuguese explorer a few years earlier, was instrumental in creating a widely distributed outline map of the east coast of the continent. Unfortunately, much of Verrazzano’s work was overshadowed by other men at the same time.
Failed Colonies of France and England - Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier (1491-1557) was sent by the king of France to find a northwest passage and to discover certain islands and lands where it was thought that gold and other precious commodities could be found. During his second expedition in 1535, local Native Americans (Iroquois?) claimed that two rivers led farther west to lands where gold, silver, copper, and spices abounded. He treacherously seized some of the Iroquois chiefs and returned back to France. Cartier was able to report only that great riches lay farther in the interior and that a great river possibly led to Asia. During his third voyage in 1541, he and Roberval set out to secure a French title against the counterclaims of Spain and establish a colony in the lands discovered by Cartier. Cartier found what he thought were a great quantity of gold and diamonds, abandoned his settlement, and retuned to France. His precious metals turned out to be pyrite (fools gold) and quarts. The disappointment at these meagre results was very great. Not for more than half a century did France again show interest in these new lands.
Failed Colonies of France and England - Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596) participated in some of the earliest English slaving voyages to Africa and earned a reputation for his privateering, or piracy, against Spanish ships and possessions. Spanish nicknamed English pirates ’Sea Dogs’. Sent by Queen Elizabeth I to South America in 1577, he returned home via the Pacific and became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. The queen rewarded him with a knighthood in part because he managed to return with him about twice the queen’s annual income in plunder. In 1588, Drake served as second-in-command during the English victory over the Spanish Armada. The most famous mariner of the Elizabethan Age, he died off the coast of Panama in 1596 and was buried at sea.
Failed Colonies of France and England - Roanoke - Sir Walter Raleigh, John White, and Virginia Dare.
The origins of one of the America’s oldest unsolved mysteries can be traced to August 1587, when a group of about ~115 English settlers financed by Sir Walter Raleigh (Raleigh himself never visited North America) arrived on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina. Later that year, it was decided that John White, governor of the new colony, would sail back to England in order to gather a fresh load of supplies. But just as he arrived, a major naval war broke out between England and Spain, and Queen Elizabeth I called on every available ship to confront the mighty Spanish Armada. In August 1590, White finally returned to Roanoke, where he had left his wife and daughter, his infant granddaughter (Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas) and the other settlers three long years before. He found no trace of the colony or its inhabitants, and few clues to what might have happened, apart from a single word—“Croatoan”—carved into a wooden post.
Failed Colonies of France and England - El Dorado - Sir Walter Raleigh
Since Roanoke was a failure, Sir Walter Raleigh turned his attention to the legendary cities of gold. In 1594, he sailed to South America on new information, and even published a book about what he found, an entirely fictional account of ‘El Dorado’. When a second expedition turned into a raid on a Spanish outpost, Raleigh returned home to find himself out of favor with the new king, who agreed to Spanish demands that Raleigh be executed for piracy. After his head was cut off, it was embalmed and presented to his wife, who kept it until her death.
Failed Colonies of France and England - Popham - Raleigh Gilbert
Walter Raleigh’s nephew, Raleigh Gilbert, was second-in-command of an expedition to start Popham colony in modern-day Maine in 1607. They were well-prepared, and their governor was the only casualty they suffered, leaving Gilbert in command. Popham was unusually successful, and the colonists even built a 25-ton ship that crossed the Atlantic twice, giving investors a new idea about how the American colonies could make money. But in 1608, Gilbert’s father died, leaving Gilbert to inherit the family fortune and titles back in England. He packed up the colony and headed home, taking all of the Popham settlers with him.
Jamestown Colony
Jamestown Colony, first permanent English settlement in North America, located near present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. Established on May 14, 1607, the colony gave England its first foothold in the European competition for the New World, which had been dominated by the Spanish since the voyages of Christopher Columbus in the late 15th century.
Jamestown and the The Virginia Company and Joint-Stock Companies
Jamestown was originally funded by the Virginia Company (also called ‘Virginia Company of London’ or ‘London Company’), which was a joint-stock company that was a new kind of public/private partnership investing in New World colonies. Earlier voyages had been paid for by rich businessmen or kings and queens, but joint-stock companies combined resources from both. Investors pooled their money to pay all up-front expenses of starting a colony. The government gave the company a charter with boundaries and a time limit, and in return, was granted a share of stock in the company.
