England Comes into Empire

1
England Comes into Empire

• After the experience of Roanoke The Lost Colony
  England would wait 20 yrs before attempting
  again
• 1607For God, Gold and Virginia Company, England
  made another attempt at permanent settlement in
  the New World.
• England was assuming the trappings of Empire and
  needed the raw materials for a burgeoning
  mercantilist empire.

2
English Settlement

• A joint-stock company(selling shares to
  investors) in 1606 several merchants contacted
  King James I for a charter that would incorporate
  two companies in an attempt to establish a New
  World settlementtheir company was the Virginia
  Company. Richard Haklyut first to promote New
  World settlement.

3
English Settlement

• After defeating the Armada, England returned its
  attention to Americathe questionhow to convince
  people to accept such a venture.
• England was quickly moving from medieval status
  to Modern stateas it expanded, many looked to
  America for land and better conditions
• England in 1600 4 million people by 1640 5 ½
  million it was growing at 30 exponentially.

4
English Social Stratification

• 1) Upper ClassRoyal family, Nobility, Bishops,
  Landed gentry100,000.
• 2) Yeoman and Merchantsindependent freeholders
  and Merchants and bankers10 or 500,000.
• 3) Laborers, Cottagers, and Peasants made up the
  other 4 ½ millionthe lower sort.

5
English demographics

• Far greater mixture than once thought Mixture of
  French, Scot, Irish, Norman, Celtic, Angles,
  Latin, Nordic, Franks and Germanic Sort of
  European melting Pot.
• All political, social and economic power rested
  in the hands of the upper class
• One gave deference or they were put in their
  placesome fluidity, but very rare.

6
Life in England

• Diseases, poverty, infant mortality, accidents,
  and many other maladies made life tenuous at
  best.
• Poverty wide spreadabout 50 to 60 of the people
  fell into this category.
• Beggary, thievery, crime was rampant corporal
  punishment and mutilation was legalalcohol and
  prostitution wide spread.

7
First Century of Settlement

• Emigration became the only hope for many
  destitute people.
• Some came for land and a permanent residence
  others hoped to find gold and richesthen return
  to England wealthy.
• Many came for religious and political
  purposes,never a sufficient labor force in
  Americapeople became a valuable cargomany would
  come as indentures and many others as slaves.

8
Who were these People?

• About 1/3 or 30 were Yeoman and Husbandmen
• 20 artisans and tradesmen
• 10 laborers
• Women 25
• and gentlemen 1

9
Demographics

• Most were college age 18-24yrs old
• Most were Middle Class socio-economic status Few
  were poverty stricken few were wealthymostly
  the Middling sortsecond and third sons of the
  gentry, artisans and craftsmen(unfortunately no
  soldiers or farmers).
• Chesapeakemany came as individuals large number
  of indentured servantsthousands of others came
  involuntarily

10
The Crossing

• One thing is certain, the crossing was a
  nightmare, very traumatic3000 miles of
  unpredictable waterway.
• Rich or Poor, Servant or Freeonly one mode of
  transportationWooden sailing Shipsalmost always
  a one way ticket.

11
The Crossing

• Atlantic very violent
• Typically took 9 weeks but many recorded the
  journey at 18 to 24 weeks
• Overcrowding an issue usually around 300 souls
  aboard
• Ships captain always planned for 10 to 12
  weeksso rationing, starvation and dehydration
  very common

12
The Crossing

• The Good Ship Intent took 24 weeks 24 of 300
  survived disease was another specter.
• Small pox, sea sickness, scurvy, cholera, typhus
  etc Ship was a Petri dish.
• One Journalterrible misery, stench, fumes,
  horror, vomiting, fever, dysentery, constipation,
  boils, cancer, mouth-rot
• Shipwrecks, bad weather, PiratesEnglish Jails
  were saferonce in the New Worldno going back.

13
Jamestown

• Dec 1606 left England and landed in the New World
  April of 1607.
• Told to find a site with adequate water access
  well into the interior to avoid pirates and
  Spanish incursions.
• Chose James River and chose a swampy area near
  the Chesapeake estuary

14
Jamestown

• 1st yr Indian attacks, disease, and famine
  claimed 65 of the 105 settlers.
• Capt. John Smith became leader a dictator.
  Everyone shared responsibilitiesif you dont
  work you dont eat.
• Smith realized that the Indians didnt die as
  quickly as the Europeanshe also began moving
  away in the Summer to more cooler spring water
  spotshe did what the Indians did.

15
Jamestown

• 1609 300 more settlers and supplies
  arrivedtogether with older members sent Smith
  and his harsh rules back to England.
• Determined to set up a permanent structure-again
  many died of disease and Indian attacks. Smith
  warned before he left watch the Indians and do
  as they do, or you will die.
• Smith left 500 people at Jamestown spring of
  1610, the supply ship found 60 half starved sick
  survivorsEnglish arrogance killed more settlers
  than Indian arrows.

16
Jamestown and Mercantilism

• Because it was failing as a financial venture,
  something needed to be done.
• Mercantilism is the idea of colonization to
  attain national wealth and become self-sufficient
  so the state can reap rewards of the ventures
  success.
• Nation-state superiority over others by becoming
  a Commercial Colony. It was profit driven.

17
Jamestown and Mercantilism

• What else could entice people to move to
  Virginia???
• Send women!!! Wives for planters
• Africans began to arrivea labor force!!!
• Empty the jails for Indenturesbut do something.
• The Company sent Gov. Sir Thomas Dale
  (1610-1611)placed the colony under Martial Law.
  Punishments were harsh and meted out for the
  slightest of infraction

18
3 Developments in Virginia

• 1) 1612John Rolf began experimenting with
  Tobacco, found a cash crop. 1614 sent his first
  crop to Englandthereafter tobacco became what
  Cotton would become for the 19th century.
• 2) Gov. Dalegranted each settler a plot of land,
  introducing private property, ending
  starvationany settler who paid for indentures
  would receive an extra 50 acres of landthis is
  the Head Right System.

19
3 Developments in Virginia

• 3) House of Burgesses
• Met fist time in 1619 it gave landowners a voice
  in how local government(taxes) would be decided.
• So many people had moved onto the frontier away
  from Jamestown 11 communities and as Englishmen
  wanted a voiceinitiated Representative Government

20
Best of times, Worst of Times

• Jamestown was showing an enormous profit.
• The House of Burgesses hammered a set of laws and
  codes and established representative
  self-government
• People were learning to survive in the harsh
  climateeconomic growth was booming. Population
  was increasing rapidly.

21
Best of times, Worst of Times

• An unforeseen problem occurred when the head
  Right system grew to areas outside of
  Jamestownleading to expanded tension with the
  Indians.
• Powhatans territory was where the English
  decided to settle in 1607.
• Powhatan was in charge of about thirty
  tribesvery impressive!
• He had at his disposal some 14,000 people with
  over 3,000 warriors.
• Technologically the English were at an
  advantagebecause they had guns!

22
Powhatan Confederacy

• Opechancanough(Pocahontas's Uncle) did not like
  the English.
• In 1622about four years after his brothers
  death, hundreds of Indian men traveled to the
  English settlement where they were caught off
  guard.
• 347 English killed
• English fight backand even burn the cornfields!
  There was nine years of fighting and the Virginia
  Company was destroyed!
• When you were forced to protect yourself behind
  the walls of a fortified place there was not an
  opportunity to make money for the
  companybankruptcy followed.
• Amazingly there were more who died from
  starvation than Indian attacks.

23
Powhatan Confederacy
24
Disease and Mortality

• So many starved Why? How? Is it true?
• June 1607 104 colonists left healthy July 6th
  the misery beganJohn Asbie died of the Bloody
  Flux. July 9th George Flowre died of swelling.
  By August 21 died.
• Journals record the deaths as burning fevers,
  cruel diseases, swellings, bloody fluxes, and
  wars But, most died of famine.
• January Supply ships returned38 alive, but
  mostly skeletal beings, sick and near death.

25
Disease and Mortality

• Why? Yes, many were artisans and craftsmen and
  even second sons of gentlemen and not farmers or
  soldiers, but that doesnt explain the high
  mortality.
• Mere famine is inadequate this suggests a small
  ration of daily food to survive
• John Smiths accounts suggested that there was a
  bountiful supply of food sources.

26
Disease and Mortality

• Sturgeon was plentiful adequately supplied each
  man 2lbs of fish per daythis would have warded
  off beri beri, Thiamine diseases and starvation
• Smith and Rolf both logged 600 cattle and Hogs
  and Chickensseems to be enough food for a small
  colonyplenty of Game in the Forreststhe supply
  manifests suggest large amounts of Corn and Wheat
  during the Fall harvests.

27
Diseases

• Also, if people were dying surely this afforded
  more food to the survivors.
• Gov. Percy (who hated Smith and Dale) blamed
  famine and poor judgment of his predecessors.
  His journal listed clinical symptoms, which helps
  identify the true culprit.
• Typhoid, Dysentery, and Salt Poisoningthese
  maladies bring death on rapidly.

28
Stupid Englishmen

• John Smith and Gov. Dale made the colonists
  disperse during the Summer sick timesgoing to
  fresh water zones.
• English ethnocentricityneeded a proper organized
  society, one must have stable well established
  political and social controlNomadic wanderings
  weakened this control and made it less easy to
  defend against Indian attack.
• New Governors made the mistake of re-establishing
  the political seat at Jamestown as the focal
  point for political and social controlTragic
  re-learning of English mistakesdisease cared
  little for social theory.

29
New England Settlement

• Long lonely coastline, rockbound and ruggedlong
  winters of numbing cold, short sweltering
  summers, no minerals to mine, no suitable export
  crops, no large native population to enslavenot
  suitable for large scale cash crop exploration
• However, a group of religious Zealots called the
  Puritans welcomed the harshness of New England
  over religious persecution of Merry Old England.

30
New England Settlement

• Puritans were really Presbyterians or
  Congregationalists conflict with James I and the
  Church of England
• Separatiststo cleanse the Churchtoo
  Catholicleft for Holland, but their children and
  church was becoming too Dutchdecided to migrate
  to the New World

31
New England

• Virginia was the destination but a series of
  mistakes and navigation errors caused to be off
  course
• Nov 1620, 88 Separatists(pilgrims) Mayflower
  anchored off a promontory, they called Plymouth,
  SE Massachusettsmany were sick with scurvy,
  malnutrition, dehydration etc
• Many were shaken by the Ship board mutinyNew
  England looked desolate.

32
Mayflower Compact

• To avoid mutinous issues, and to settle land
  allotments and governance they compromised and
  signed on Nov 11, 1620The mayflower Compactthe
  first charted document of civil government in
  America

33
Puritan Migration

• 1625 Charles I wanted rid of the pesky
  Separatistanother large migration took
  placeThese guys under direction of John Winthrop
  wrangled a Royal Charter.
• This group made up of Lawyers, doctors,
  merchants, mechanics, shop owners etc Very well
  organized and literate
• Settled in Salem, John Winthrop was the first Gov
  of Massachusetts Bay Colony

34
Puritan Migration

• New England Communities, which saw 21,000 new
  arrivals from 1630 to 1642.
• They were stable because of
• Family Lifebalanced family units
• Settlement Patternsclose proximity
• Church Controlsecclesiastic control
• Colonial GovernmentsGov Bi-Cameral Legislature,
  Male suffrage, Town Meetings.

35
Puritan Politics

• Re-fashioned the Charter into a Civil
  Constitutiongained full control of their future,
  how their society would be shaped and that their
  brand of religion would be dominate.
• This made New England a political stronghold,
  kept government from dictating to them.
• Hurt them during Independencethey was unity when
  things benefited them, but great dissension when
  things benefited the country as a whole over them
  personallystill that way today.

36
Puritan Religion

• Though the individual was important, the Church
  and family was more important Church, family,
  and Town were bound together by religiously
  collective Covenants. Strict religious doctrine.
• All morality and jurisprudence rested on
  Ecclesiastical authorityyet 52 of Puritan
  marriages, wife already pregnantAlso developed
  something called Moral Capitalism.

37
Puritan Dilemma

• Be self-reliant and self-sufficientbe the best!
  Maximize production and reinvest and attend to
  the economically vulnerablestate welfare.
  Capitalism was beneficial, but destructive due to
  success and moral righteousnessSouth richer, but
  are Mercantilist
• Dilemmahow to emphasize excellence, pride,
  thriftiness and financial success without
  succumbing to greed and avarice.

38
Puritan Dilemma

• Winthrop made them a more social reliant society
  rather than self-reliantthey were to do well
  but remember from whence the success came
• Ascetic Puritanismcold unemotional austere
  insistence that to work hard was to gain Gods
  grace.
• Puritans came as close as anyone to enacting
  Moral Capitalism

39
Religious Heretics

• Some who clashed with the Church were violently
  opposed.
• Roger Williams was a strict Separatist.
• Williams told the Puritans Their very charter was
  blasphemous. They should renounce the Kingas too
  Popish and instruct him of his sin.
• Winthrop did not wish to alarm England. Told
  Williams to be a quiet Separatist
• Unfortunately he was consumed with a consummate
  lack of good sense or was too pious to
  compromise
• Winthrop understood that religious toleration
  must be bridled to benefit the colony.

40
Religious Heretics

• Two things made things worse
• 1) Williams assumed role of full pastor at Salem
• 2) Thomas Dudley became Gov. ousting the moderate
  and patient Winthrop.
• Again, Williams bad timinghe preached against
  the colonies mandatory Oath of Allegiance Many
  took the Oath as show.
• This was blasphemy and heresy against the church
  of Godthis made Massachusetts itself
  blasphemousagainst God.

41
Religious Heretics

• Dudley and the Boston Council voted to suspend
  Land allocations needed by the Salem
  congregationeconomy takes precedence over
  spiritualitymembers began to distance from
  Williamsneeded land allocations for growth
• Williams penchant for stupidity took center
  stagehe demanded that Salem condemn all other
  congregations as ungodlymore than Boston could
  takebanished to the Narragansett Baygave him a
  chance to recantbut refusedwarrant for treason
  and sedition.

42
Heretics

• Anne Hutchison was a charismatic heretic. Wife of
  wealthy merchant.
• She repeated the sermons of John Cotton in 1634
  Boston.
• Over time she began to add her own interpretation
  to Cottons sermons.
• She claimed that the elect had an inner
  light. Anti-predestination
• Her chief crime was that she was a woman who
  didnt know her place.

43
Heretics

• Unfortunately she also became Gods key witness
  and messengershe alone understood because God
  spoke to her directly
• She was bright and articulate. She appeared calm
  and self-assured.
• She could see the difference between the
  antichrist churches and the true churches.
• She upset the divine balance of Puritan society.
  The Strumpet of Satan.

44
Halfway Covenant

• The halfway covenant allowed for the so-called
  non-select saints of God to not only join the
  church, but also supply them with a spiritual
  avenue to heavencould not participate fully in
  communion, but could be baptized
• This led to the dissolution between the strict
  purity of the Congregational church and a new
  groupsacrificed principle for wide membership

45
Salem Witch Trials

• Appears as a sad and brief history of Salemit
  was in essence witch hunting gone wild!
• However, witchcraft, hexes, curses etc .. Were
  medieval superstitionsthese were frequent
  reality in New England livesthey fundamentally
  believed in these things.
• After all was it not Satan interfering in
  peoples lives as the Bible suggested.

46
Salem Witch Trials

• Witchcraft was an integral part of everyday
  lifebattle between good and evil the Puritans
  believed God would win, but saw no reason to
  doubt that the Devil would also win a few.
• In 1692, 20 were convicted and 19 were hung
  including 2 dogs one man was crushed with
  stones.
• It explained the disasters and Indian unrest in
  the colonyGod was displeased with their laxitt
  of true spiritualism

47
Salem Witch Trials

• Demographics
• Female
• Middle Aged (40-60)
• English and Puritan background
• Usually married but with few children or none
• Frequently quarrelsome and in conflict with
  family and community
• Petty criminal background (theft or slander)
• Low socio-economics (why they conjured and
  healed needed money)
• Obstinate, recalcitrant, stubborn, contentious,
  and seemingly resilient in the face of adversity.