Key Terms:

Separatists

• Opposed to the Church of England

• Originally went to Holland, but some felt as if the Dutch morals were too loose

• Some left and sailed to the New World

Puritans

• Came to the New World seeking a “pure” church that was better than the Church of England

Indentured Servants

• Worked for people who paid for their voyage to the New World

• Often worked for seven years before their indenture was complete

• Some received a bit of land and/or a small remuneration for their service

• These were generally Europeans

Enslavement and the Enslaved

• Primarily Africans brought to the New World against their will

• Purchased in Africa (usually the West Coast) and sold to Europeans

• Eventually brought to the Caribbean and the Americas as chattel (property) who endured life-long and inheritable bondage

Early Settlers and Explorers

The French

• In what is now Canada, Jacques Cartier sailed the St. Lawrence River in the 1530s

• Samuel de Champlain established Quebec in the 1600s

  • Champlain was known as the “Father of New France” or “Le Pere du France Nouveau”

• Most of New France was settled by fur traders, Catholic Missionaries, and soldiers of the king

• A small group of Protestants, called Huguenots, eventually made their way to Canada

• While relations between the French and Natives were not always friendly, they managed to develop fur trading routes and some married Native women

• Generally, the French fared batter with the Native population than their other European counterparts such as the English or Dutch

The Dutch

• Also in the 17th century, the Dutch explored parts of North America

• Henry Hudson explored the are that is now known as New York City (Manhattan Island)

  • The Hudson river is named after him

• The Dutch traded for beaver pelts and created settlements in Albany

• New Amsterdam was established in 1625

• Relationships with Native Americans were usually tense and, in 1664, New Amsterdam was overtaken by the British

• The British renamed the area New York

The British

• England experienced a population growth that caused people to seek new places to live

• Religious minorities sought refuge and left the country in search of sanctuary

• Puritans rejected the Catholic-like practices of the Church of England and embraced the tenets of Calvinism

• Separatists went a step further, literally, and went to Holland at first

• The British arrive in 1606 via the London Company, a joint-stock company, who received a charter from King James I

• In 1607 the first permanent British colony was established as Jamestown

• Disease, drought, swampy conditions, and difficulty growing crops led to the starving time

  • Roughly 2/3 of the Jamestown population died of starvation

• Captain John Smith was in charge of this colony

• Relationships with the local Native Americans, the Powhatans, were often strained

  • Pocahontas, the Chief Powhatan’s daughter, would marry John Rolfe

  • Rolfe would cultivate tobacco in Jamestown, keeping it afloat financially

  • Tobacco would become a lucrative and impactful crop

• Profits from tobacco led to a need for labor

• Intense labor was performed first by Native Americans, then, by indentured servants, and in 1619, by Africans who were indentured servants at this time, not slaves

• By 1662, enslaved Africans provided the majority of labor

  • That year, Virginia passed a law that the children of a slave mother were slaves as well, regardless of the father

• In 1619 Virginia established the House of Burgesses

  • This was a legislative body of the Virginia and one of the first self-made European governments in the New World

• The famous Mayflower ship landed in Cape Cod (Plymouth Rock)

  • This group were called Pilgrims because they made a pilgrimage for religious freedom

  • The men sighed the Mayflower Compact, another early self government in the New World

  • This established a representative government, or a social contract

• With help from Natives such as Squanto, the Pilgrims survived starvation and rough weather

  • In 1621 was the First Thanksgiving

  • In 1691, Plymouth Colony became a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

• John Winthrop and other Puritans came to the New World to establish a colony devoted to Godly principles

  • Winthrop called it “City upon a hill”

  • in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was formed

  • in 1640, it had thriving, bustling towns such as Boston and Salem with profitable industries such as lumbering, fishing, and ship building

• Although Massachusetts was supposed to be a place of religious freedom, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were banished to Rhode Island because they criticized the religious establishment and the authority of the colonies religious leaders

Southern Colonies (For the Time)

• in 1632, King Charles I granted the Calvert family a charter to found a colony.

  • They named it Maryland

  • Maryland was to be a sanctuary for Catholics and, in general, a place of religious tolerance

• In the 1660s, Caroline became an English colony

  • King Charles II gave a charter to wealthy British settlers

  • Caroline eventually split into the North and South we know today

• All of the Mid-Atlantic and Southern colonies relied on slave labor to develop their respective economies

  • The enslaved were essential to the plantation-based economic system in those regions