British Colonial America

1600 - 1776
Chapter 5 17th century
Chapter 6 18th century
 England The Great Migration
Slow beginning (little activity prior to 1600)
Cabots: Find Northwest Passage
Martin Frobisher 3 voyages in 1570s
Elizabethan Sea Dogs (1558 1603)
Map of sea voyages
Early English Migration Map
 England The Great Migration
Slow beginning (little activity prior to 1600)
Cabots: Find Northwest Passage
Martin Frobisher 3 voyages in 1570s
Elizabethan Sea Dogs (1558 1603)

Yet, by 1650 50,000 english migrants

Caribbean
Chesapeake Bay (Jamestown)
New England

Why?
 Reasons for migration:
1. England is overpopulated
2. Expand to new markets e.g., wool
3. Precious metals gold!!
4. New source of olive oil, wine, etc??
5. Route to the Indies
6. Protestant Zeal
These were motives all the way; thru 1770s
 English Colonial System

French/Spanish centralized; governed

from New World capitals

England 13 separate colonies

Great differences
Many disputes e.g., boundaries
Chapter 5 Colonial Origins of
Anglo America: Europeanization
(1700 250,000 population)

Chapter 6 Colonial America in

18th Century: Americanization
(1776 2,500,000 population)
Epicenters
Plymouth Rock
 Colonial Organization (1606)
Royal Charter by King James
Council politicians and merchants who
would recruit and define governmental
structure
Two bodies given the charge
Virginia Company of Plymouth (41 45 degrees)
Virginia Company of London (34 38 degrees)
Latitude between either one
Map of Virginia Companies latitude of influence
 Conditions of the Charters

Inland for 100 miles

All rights of trade with natives
Exploitation of precious metals (1/5 to crown)
Consideration to the Natives
Offered true religion
Offered peaceful governance
All their lands passed to the two companies
(Note: ignored claims of France and Spain)
Jamestown
April, 1607
3 ships
James River (50 miles)
 Jamestown - early history
(London Group)

Bad site low and swampy

Death and misery
Trading post
Male population
Working for the company
1616-1624: change to permanent colony
Profitable product
System of landholding
National Geog
Exhibit
Factor #1 - King Tobacco
Indigenous to new
world
Indies better variety
John Rolfe
Ubiquitous!
Ugh!
One-crop economy
Dependent on
England for supplies
Soil depletion
Labor intensive
 Not everybody liked it!!
"Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye,
hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain,
dangerous to the lungs, and in the black,
stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the
horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is
bottomless." -- James I of England, "A
Counterblaste to Tobacco."
 Factor # 2 Private Property
Headright system
50 acres/head
Capt. Adam Throughgood
this guy accumulated 1105
headrights over 20 years!!

Result Plantation economy

large and dispersed; NOT
towns

1650 Jamestown had 30 houses

Today
 Factor #3 Sex!
1620 very few women; active program to
import unmarried women
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
 Plantation Economy
Rivers as far as
navigable fall line
Landings for ocean-
going vessels
All planters had direct
line to England
In Between forest
primeval and the hill
country
 Jamestown Population
Mixed population reflected classes of
English society
30% - rural middle class; paid their own
way
Majority poor tenants, laborers, and un-
employed artisans: Redundant Population
Map - Atlantic Slave Trade
 Slavery
Tobacco culture labor intensive and
large land-holding
Indentured labor unreliable, lacked
permanence, also thirsted for their own
land; flow from England reduced
Virginia and Maryland population growth in
1660-1700 (35,000 to 88,000)
African Slaves
1670-1700: 12,000 slaves to Chesapeake
 1700 your text
By the end of the century (1700) there was
distinct evidence of regional homogeneity
within the Chesapeake. The commitment
to a tobacco plantation and slave system,
with its consequent class structure, was
widespread. Life was overwhelmingly
rural, agrarian, dispersed, and
decentralized.
Map Chesapeake Growth