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Introduction to Colonization| CCD
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Introduction to Colonization |
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Introduction to Colonization
Colonization in the New WorldMost historians of US history divide their subject into periods. There are several different schemes. The following one is representative. Six Periods of American History, 1600-1865
Within this periodization, there is usually a geographic division: Southern colonies, New England, and Mid-Atlantic. This is a useful division of the material and one that we will follow to an extent, but it is good to be mindful of what this leaves out: As we have mentioned before it ignores the long baseline of aboriginal occupation. This is the material we started to cover in chapter one. It ignores the fact that the Spanish were in the New World for hundreds of years, that they occupied lands that subsequently were taken and incorporated by the US, that they developed distinctive adaptations to the ecology and the cultures they found here. Land tenure, water law, cattle ranching, horses for Plains Indians, regional foods, religion, and cultural identity for Mexican and Native peoples were changed and shaped by the Spanish presence and these influences are important today throughout much of the country.
It ignores the French, Dutch, Swedish Colonies and the British activities in Canada and the Oregon country, and the Russian exploration in the far northwest. It ignores the differences between how Spanish, French and English colonialists interacted with native populations and the impact that had on settlements, conflicts, and ecosystems. For example, what changes occurred in the Ohio valley between the French and the British colonial occupations? Or, what impact did the Spanish suppression of Pueblo Indians have on Navajo cultural identity in the Refugee period that occurred after the Pueblo revolt? These areas of omission from standard US histories are all part of the history of the US and are important in their own right - just as deserving of study as the history of the 13 original British colonies. Interestingly, with all the activity in US History, much of this non-British history has yet to be written. There are still opportunities for those of you who want to become historians to make your mark. The periodization also tends to ignore what was happening elsewhere in the world.
Significantly there was a population boom in Europe, massive inflation at different times in different countries (notably Spain and Portugal), the rise of English and French empires, rise of capitalism, shift to a cash economy, the enclosure movement where public lands were privatized, prolonged and bloody religious wars, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. There was a political revolution in England and, at least for a time, the imposition of a military dictatorship under Cromwell there. All of these events had an impact on European colonization of North America. Population Change in England, 1500-1700
It is important to keep these world-wide events in mind as we direct our attention to the English colonies in North America. It is helpful to contrast Three Areas of English Colonization
Unlike the pre-Columbian era which has few primary historical documents (but much archaeological evidence) there is a vast amount of material available on colonization in the New World. The volume can be overwhelming. Pick and choose things that interest you from the primary and secondary sources. Share what you find with the class on the discussion board. The English first explored the New World in 1497 (John Cabot, Giovanni Caboto, explored England). Why did it take them another 100 years to found the first colony at Roanoke? The story of Roanoke colony is particularly interesting. Look at the primary documents for the 1500s and at the Virtual Jamestown website and elsewhere. Look at the contracts and charters setting up the colonies. See how the purpose and the governance of the colonies changed over time. Follow the stories of Pocahontas, William Penn, Ann Hutcheson, Hannah Dustan, La Salle, Jacob Leisler, and others. As you browse through the documents and essays, think about what kinds of people these were. What did they believe? What were their aspirations? What were their expectations? How did things change over time? Follow the disputes between Native, French, English and Spanish peoples as they struggled for control. What is sometimes referred to as the French and Indian War, though an echo of the imperial world war raging elsewhere, was a long and sometime terrifying series of conflicts.
In the years from 1607 to 1776 colonists went from fortune hunters to the founders of a new country, from British to American, from a belief in the divine right of kings to a belief that all men are created equal (though not yet women, Blacks, Indians or Catholics). As you study, be mindful of changes in attitudes about authority, freedom, equality, democracy, and religious tolerance that begin to occur in this period. I Bondage and Freedom in the Colonial SouthThe earliest colonists were particularly ill suited to making a living in the New World. They mostly wanted to quickly make their fortunes and return to England. Most significantly, early on, the southern colonies were a killing ground. Mortality rates were very high, mostly from disease. The colonists were not good at getting along with the natives. They antagonized them in many ways, for example by capturing them and holding them for information and for ransom.
Links to the Instructions for the Virginia Colony (1606)
Tobacco and The Chesapeake: Model for the Southern Colonies
The Indenture Contract in 17th Century Virginia
This looks good on paper but few indentured servants survived the seven years of their contracts.
Mortality Compared: The South and New England in the 17th Century
To improve recruitment among the poor in Britain, additional incentives were offered:
Sir Edwin Sandys' 1618 "Reforms" of the Virginia Company
Demography [Mortality] of Seventeenth Century Virginia, I
Slavery did not become important to the colonial economy until the mortality rate dropped to the point that it was economical to use slaves.Demography [Mortality] of Seventeenth Century Virginia II
In Virginia in 1676 Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion. The manifesto of that effort, Bacon's Declaration in the Name of the People, 30 July 1676, expresses many of the reform objectives that would later be further developed and bring about the American Revolution. Links to Texts related to Bacon's Rebellion:
Governor
William Berkely on Bacon's Rebellion, 19 May 1676 The Paradox of Slavery and Freedom
Model From Colonies to Revolution
II. New England PuritanismA generation after the southern colonies were founded, a new and different colonization effort took place in the north. Many students think of the settlers who came to New England as an oppressed religious minority. While this was true of the Pilgrims (very few in number) who settled at Plymouth, it was not true of the Puritans who set up the Massachusetts colony. The Puritans in England successfully precipitated the English Civil War in 1642–48, set up a military dictatorship of England under Cromwell from 1649-1660, and the won the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which permanently took power from the King and gave it to Parliament. The Puritans were mostly middleclass, country gentry, merchants and artisans. They numbered over a million in the 17th Century and controlled considerable wealth and power. They were interested in creating their vision of religious utopia and wanted to create communities that would be a model to the world - what your texts calls, "cities on a hill". Their communities were marked by intolerance for people different from themselves.
New England Puritans in History, 1630-1776 Arrival
Pilgrims:
Puritans
The Body of Liberties. The Liberties of the Massachusetts Collonnie, 1641. The Puritans did not believe in religious freedom or toleration. They followed the teachings of John Calvin and held that human beings were innately sinful—utterly depraved by inheriting the original sin of Adam and Eve, the biblical parents of the human race - deserving to burn in hell for eternity. But Calvin also taught that God, in his infinite mercy, would spare a small number of "elect" individuals from the fate of eternal hellfire that all mankind, owing to their corrupt natures, justly deserved. That elect group of "saints" would be blessed, at some point in their lives, by a profound sense of inner assurance that they possessed God's "saving grace." See Puritanism and Predestination by Christine Leigh Heyrman This dawning of hope was the experience of conversion, which might come upon individuals suddenly or gradually, in their earliest youth or even in the moments before death. It is important to emphasize to that, in the Calvinist scheme, God decided who would be saved or damned before the beginning of history—and that this decision would not be affected by how human beings behaved during their lives. The God of Calvin (and the Puritans) did not give "extra credit"—nor, indeed, any credit—for the good works that men and women performed during their lives. People are totally undeserving of salvation and no matter how much good they did during their lives it was not enough to make up for original sin. The only thing that earned people a place in heaven was God's grace. This didn't stop Puritans from wanting to regulate how people behaved. Puritans in both Britain and British North America sought to cleanse the culture of what they regarded as corrupt, sinful practices. They believed that the civil government should strictly enforce public morality by prohibiting vices like drunkenness, gambling, ostentatious dress, swearing, and Sabbath-breaking. They also believed in capitalism. Poverty was a sign that people were morally corrupt. Wealth was as sign that they were favored by God. This reinforced a social hierarchy, social inequality, as economic inequalities increased, as the mixed economy grew largely fueled by trade and shipping.
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| Mercantilism: Central State Control over Trade |
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| Acts of Trade and Navigation, 1660 -- |
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| Board of Trade and Plantations, 1675- |
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| Admiralty Courts, 1696 |
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Governing Principle of the Imperial System: "Salutary Neglect" ...Until 1763 |
However, although the mechanism for strong centralized control, the Imperial System, was put into place starting in 1660, because of the practice of "salutary neglect" it was not rigidly enforced until 1763.
The Philadelphia Trading System
Differences in outlook: Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Bay Compared
The Society of Friends and the New England Calvinists
| Pennsylvania | New England |
|---|---|
| Friends (Quakers) | Puritans |
| Universalistic | Particularist |
| All humans equal -- prohibition on oaths | Visible Saints ("Regenerate") and the "Depraved" |
| Perfectionists | Predeterminists |
| Earthly Regeneration (Pacifism/Peace Vow) | Regeneration in Death through God's Will/Grace |
| Mystical | Intellectual |
| Individual "Inner Light" (no ministry) | Typological Analysis of Scripture |
William
Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693)
Rebellions occurred in Massachusetts, New York and Maryland in 1689. In a chain reaction, three political uprisings occurred in the American colonies in just four months. Although each had its own individual character, the common issue, besides the rumored Catholic conspiracy, was the question of how extensive colonial rights would be in the face of tightening imperial administration.
More difficult to understand and explain from our modern perspective was New England's Witchcraft Hysteria
Witchcraft trials occurred at this time throughout Europe. Over 1000 people were put to death for witchcraft at this time. Most explanations for what happened at Salem ignore the greater global context of witchcraft hysteria.
An Exploding Population Base
Between 1700 and 1760 the colonial population mushroomed from 250,000 to 1.6 million persons—and to 2.5 million by 1775. The introduction of non-English peoples was significant . Between 1700 and 1775 the British North American slave trade reached its peak, resulting in the involuntary entry of an estimated 250,000 Africans into the colonies. The black population grew from 28,000 in 1700 to over 500,000 in 1775, with most living as chattel slaves in the South. At least 40 to 50 percent of the African population increase in the colonies was attributable to the booming slave trade.
See Olaudah Equiano on His Ship Passage as a Slave to America and Slavery.
Among European groups, Scots-Irish and Germans predominated, although a smattering of French Huguenot, Swiss, Scottish, Irish, and Jewish migrants joined the westward stream. The Scots-Irish had endured many privations. Originally Presbyterian lowlanders from Scotland, they had migrated to Ulster (northern Ireland) in the seventeenth century at the invitation of the Crown. Once there, they harassed the Catholic Irish with a vengeance, only to face discrimination themselves when a new Parliamentary law, the Test Act of 1704, stripped non-Anglicans of political rights. During the next several years they also endured crop failures and huge rent increases from their English landlords.
In a series of waves between 1725 and 1775 over 100,000 Scots-Irish descended on North America, lured by reports of "a rich, fine soil before them, laying as loose . . . as the best bed in the garden." Philadelphia was their main port of entry. They then moved out into the backcountry where they squatted on open land and earned reputations as bloodthirsty Indian fighters. In time, the Scots-Irish took the Great Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley and started filling in the southern backcountry.
Even before the first Scots-Irish wave, Germans from the area of the upper Rhine River began streaming into the Middle Colonies. Some, like Amish, Moravian, and Mennonite sectarians, fled religious persecution; others escaped from crushing economic circumstances caused by overpopulation, crop failures, and heavy local taxes. So many Germans came through Philadelphia that Benjamin Franklin questioned whether "Pennsylvania . . . [will] become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them." Franklin's worries could not stop the German migrants, whose numbers exceeded 100,000 by 1775.
Many destitute Germans crossed the Atlantic as redemptioners. This system was similar to indentured servitude, except that families migrated together and shippers promised heads of households a few days' time, upon arrival in America, to locate some person or group to pay for the family's passage in return for a set number of years of labor (usually three to six years per family member). If they failed, then ship captains held auctions at market with the expectation of making tidy profits. The redemptioner system was full of abuses, such as packing passengers on vessels like cattle and serving them worm-infested food. Hundreds died before seeing America. For those who survived, the dream of prospering someday as free colonists remained viable.
One reason for such optimism was that more settlers were enjoying longer life spans, as reflected in higher birth and lower death rates. Estimates indicate that post-1700 Americans were dying at an average of 20 to 25 per 1000 annually, but births numbered 45 to 50 per 1000 settlers.
Longer lives reflected improved health and agricultural abundance. Colonists had plentiful supplies of food. Nutritious diets led to better overall health, making it easier for Americans to fight virulent diseases. Even the poorest people, claimed a New England doctor, had regular meals of "salt pork and beans, with bread of Indian corn meal," as well as ample quantities of home-brewed beer and distilled spirits. In the same period, food supplies in Europe were dangerously sparse. Thousands of western Europeans starved to death between 1740 and 1743 because of widespread crop failures.
