1. The English 13 Colonies (1585 – 1732)
Chapter #3
The English 13 Colonies (1585 – 1732)

2. Early Colonies Have Mixed Success:
Queen Elizabeth I gave Sir Walter Raleigh permission to make the first English colony in America, Roanoke Island (a small island off North Carolina) , in 1585.
He named it Virginia, after their unmarried queen.
But lack of food or troubles with the local tribes forced them to return to England.
1587, Sir Raleigh went back to Roanoke, but the colony was lost and no one know why?
Raleigh lost his investments, other tried through a joint-stock company – where people put money into a project to earn profits, each investor – owned a portion of the company
The English were eager to colonize America due to mercantilism – economic system that European countries used to enrich
their treasuries

3. Early Colonies Have Mixed Success:
King James I, finally got to joint-stock companies: Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth, to colonize America in 1606
He issued a charter – written contract, giving the companies the right to establish a colony
Jamestown, was that colony, founded by 100 colonist and was the first permanent English colony
Named after none other than King James himself
Times were hard at first, but a man, John Smith, brought order and had the people focus on farming
The local tribe helped them out trading corn, tensions were high until the Powhatan’s Chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, married a colonist John Rolfe.

4. Early Colonies Have Mixed Success:
Soon the colony discovered how to make money in tobacco
The first shipment was sent to England in 1614, and as it became popular in England, it ensured the colony’s survival
To attract settlers, the Virginia Company offered headright – 50 acres of land for anyone who could pay their way to the colony
Those who could not became indentured servants – men and women who agreed to work without pay, 4 – 6 years, for a landlord if they paid for their passage
1619 the first Africans arrived in Jamestown; though planters relied more on European indentured servants than slaves
Slavery was not widespread until the late 1600’s

5. House of Burgesses Formed:
People soon became frustrated with lack of governance
So the Virginia Company decided that burgesses – elected representatives, would meet once a year
It was created in 1619
They had the ability to create laws and raise taxes
An uprising in 1622 almost wiped out the colony, killing a quarter of the population
King James revoked the Virginia Company’s charter and made it a royal colony – which is ruled by the king’s appointed officials

6. New England Colonies:
Breaking ties with the Catholic Church, King Henry VIII, established the Church of England
Those who disagreed with England’s official church were called – dissenters
Still feeling like the Church of England was much like the Catholic Church, Separatists wanted to break away
King James persecuted – mistreated, the Separatists
They fled to Holland, and later traveled to America, to be known as pilgrims – or people who go on a religious journey

7. Pilgrims Found Plymouth:
1620, in November, the Mayflower arrived in Cape Cod, as the Pilgrims settled into an abandoned native American village called Plymouth
The Mayflower Compact – helped establish the practice of self-government and majority rule
Squanto, a Native American, helped the colonist plant native crops
And to celebrate their good harvest; they would hold a three-day feast
Thanksgiving later also came to represent the peace that existed between the Native Americans and the colonist

8. Puritans:
The Great Migration, in 1629, by the Massachusetts Bay Company; were given a charter to start a colony in America and to self governance
Puritans – wanted to reform/purify its practices
In 1630, 11 ships with 1000 colonist to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Boston was founded
1630 – 1640 about 20,000 more settlers crossed the Atlantic Ocean known as the Great Migration
Congregations – a group of people who belong to the same church, which was the Puritans governing system
Puritans values:
Hard work
Education
Representative Government
Others thought that the Puritans were over stepping their bounds
One such man/minister, Roger Williams, insisted that no colony had to rights to take the Native Americans lands, no one should be forced to attend church, not to impose religious beliefs on others, and that the state and church should be separate
Williams was banished – force to leave the colony, as well as Anne Hutchinson – who believed that the state and church should be separate
Many left and founded other “seed” colonies in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut

9. Fundamental Orders of Connecticut:
Fight for Tolerance:
Although puritans escaped for religious freedom, they still did not allow other faiths
Particularly Quakers
Quakers believed that they should tremble “quake” at the word of the Lord
They also believed that women and men were equals
Puritans were so intolerant that they would kill, banish, or jail Quakers that returned to their colonies
One such woman, Mary Dyer, return despite such punishments and was killed, but her death lead to greater religious tolerance
When Puritan arrived, only males who were church members could vote
In 1636, Thomas Hooker moved his congregation to Connecticut and wrote the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut – the Orders extended voting rights to non-church member

10. Southern Colonies:
In 1634 the second Southern colony, Maryland was founded
It was intended to be free from the religious beliefs of Europe
Lord Baltimore, was given the charter from King Charles I to settle Maryland as a proprietary colony – colony governed by a single owner or proprietor
In 1649, the Act of Toleration – forbade religious persecution
In 1645 Puritans tried to seize Maryland

11. The Carolinas:
In the 1640’s England being torn by civil war colonization was stopped, until 1660, when King Charles II started it again, granting eight supports new land, Carolina
Carolina was a diverse colony, where the proprietors attracted settlers with religious tolerance, large land grants, and political representation
The northern part was settled by colonist from Virginia, the southern part by English colonist who had been living in the West Indies; from Barbados who built Charles Town (Charleston) in
Charleston was a refuge to Huguenots – French protestants
Wars with the Native Americans, Tuscarora and Yamasee, opened more land to the south as the elite – richest planters, used slave labor to harvest their rice crops
Colonist rebelled in 1691, demanding more military help and didn’t like the proprietors
Later making way for North Carolina and South Carolina in 1729, which became royal colonies

12. Georgia:
In 1732, James Oglethorpe, received a charter to start a colony, Savanah, in Georgia, named after King George II
Savanah was populated with great diversity – variety, of people from English, German, Swiss, and Scottish
Religious groups as well: all Protestant groups, Jews, and Catholics though were banned because of Florida’s Spanish population
Oglethorpe hated large plantations and slavery to help the poor people, but in the end the people resented South Carolina and how prosperous they were and eventually became a royal colony and legalized slavery

13. The South:
The region – distinct area, of the south stretched from the borders of the Spanish colony of Florida north through the Carolina’s, Virginia, and Maryland with the Appalachian Mountains bordering on the east
This soil and climate of the Tidewater – flat land along the coast, was suited for growing tobacco, rice, and indigo, which were labor intensive crops making the area the most heavily populated with slaves

14. The Middle Colonies:
The middle colonies include: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware
New Netherland – later New York, was settled by Peter Stuyvesant – in 1647
This region was populated with a very diverse group
The Dutch West India Company, which Stuyvesant was a part of, set up the patron system – which granted land, hunting, fishing, and fur trading rights
This region was the most tolerant settling dissenters, Puritans, Quakers, German Lutherans, French Protestants, and Jews
Seeing the Dutch as a threat the colony was taken over by King Charles II brother, the Duke of York, and was renamed New York
William Penn, in 1681 was given land which he named Pennsylvania, which was a place for Quakers could practice their beliefs free of persecution

15. Thirteen Colonies:
By the end of the 1730’s, 13 English colonies were thriving along the eastern coast of North America
The population was doubling every 25 years