England Expansion
Last Updated    12/30/2007     12/29/2007      12/28/2007

England looked to the Americas for wealth.
With enough gold, silver, and raw materials the English could have a favorable balance of trade.
They would sell more than they had to buy from other countries.
New colonies also meant new jobs.
Catholics and Separatists were looking for religious freedom.


              
     Sir Walter Raleigh                               The arrival at Roanoke                                    Birth of Virginia Dare                                    "Crotan" carved in tree
The Lost Colony
1585, Sir Walter Raleigh fianances a colony at Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina.
1587 August 18, Virgina Dare, the first English child born in America.
After six years the colonists diappeared.
The word Croatan was carved into a tree.
They were refered to as the "Lost Colony."

East India Company
1600, East India Company formed to trade in East Indies.
They set up trading posts in India, Malaya, and islands in the East and West Indies.


    
Jamestown Colony
1607, the Virgina Company is formed.
1608, 100 settlers are sent to the Americas to search for gold and silver.
They founded the first English settlement in America.
Jamestown was named after King James I of England.
Jamestown was located near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.
The settlement was on Indian land.
The Powhatan lived near Jamestown.
Their chief, Powhatan, controlled 128 Indian villages.



           Algonquian Indians
Native Americans
There were 1 million Indians in North America.
They were divided into 500 different groups.
Each group had its own language, religion, and way of life.
The Pima, Papago, Creeks, and Cherokee were farmers.
The Comanche, Blackfoot, Sioux, Apache, and Navajo were hunters and warriors.

Life in Jamestown
The land was swampy and filled with mosquitoes.
Winters were colder.
The colonists had to burn parts of their houses for fuel.
Many became sick and died.

Captain John Smith
John Smith kept Jamestown from failing.
If you did not work, you did not eat.
He convinced Powhatan to provide corn and beans.
1609, Smith returned to England.
Many of the colonists starved to death.
They were ready to leave when English ships arrived with supplies.

Pocahontas
Smith claimed that Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, saved him from death.
In 1608, Pocahantes was 13 years old when she supposedly intervened in Smith's behalf.
1612, Pocahontas was coaxed onto an English ship on the Potomac River.
She was then taken as a hostage to Jamestown.
She was used to bargain for the release of Virginia captives held by the Powhatans.
1613 April, Pocahantas married John Rolfe.
1616, she went to England.
1617, Pocahantes died of an European disease (small pox).
1618, Pocahante's father dies.
1622, Rolfe dies in the massacre planned by Opechancanough.

Tobacco
The Indians were using tobacco.
The English began using tobacco.
People in England started to use it.
At first it was used as a medicine.
1612, John Rolfe began planting tobacco.
Most of the tobacco was exported to England.

Immigration
In 1618, the Virginia Company began granting land to individuals.
All colonists who pais their own way got 50 acres.
Each settlers recived 50 acres for each person they brought to the Americas.
Most newcomers were indentured servants.

Slavery
"There came . . . a Dutch man-of-warre that sold us 20 negars." That was from the diary of John Rolfe, a tobacco farmer in Jamestown 1619. (1)
1619, 20 enslaved blacks were brought to Jamestown and sold.
The slaves were from Angola, in Southwest Africa.
Antoney and Isabella were slaves or indentured servants in the first group of twenty.
In 1623 or 1624, Isabella gave birth to William, the first African American born in the English colonies.
Their homelands were the kingdoms of Ndongo and Kongo.
They are modern-day Angola and coastal areas of Congo.
They were entrepreneurs.
They were a literate and morally upright people who held family in the highest regard.
They were renowned for preparing their children for adulthood.
The tradition persisted even after the slave ships began to arrive.
Warfare within the Kingdom of Ndongo led to the capture of thousands of people.
This was the first of many slave shipments.

Government
The settlers brought English laws and government to America.
It became necessary for them to make their own laws.
1619, they elected 22 representatives called burgesses.
Burgesses met to decide laws for the colony.
The House of Burgess was an example of self-government.

Plymouth Colony
The Virginia Company
In 1606, the Virginia Company of Plymouth was formed.
1620, it reorganized as the Council for New England.
It granted land to settlers in New England.



The Voyage
1620, a group of Separatists called Pilgims sailed for America on the Mayflower.
The Speedwell was the other ship.
It had to return because it was not seaworthy.
The Pilgrims were supposed to settle in Virginia.
Strong winds caused them to land in Massachusetts.



Mayflower Compact
Massachusetts land belonged to the Council for New England.
The Pilgrims did not have the right to govern themselves.
They set up an agreement called the Mayflower Compact to govern themselves.
The majority of free men would govern.
Women and indentured servants could not vote.

Plymouth Settlement
1620 Decemeber 20, The colonists choose an abandoned Wampanoag village called Patuxet for their new site.
The Pilgrims named their settlement Plymouth.
During the first winter one half of the settlers died.
Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to fertilize their crops.
They taught them how to hunt and fish.



Thanksgiving
1621 September or early October, Governor William Bradford declared a festival because of the bountiful harvest.
The Pilgrims invited the Native Americans to a 3-day feast.
This feast is now known as Thanksgiving.

New Arrivals
1621 Novemeber 9, the ship Fortune arrives at Cape Cod bringing 35 new colonists.
1623 July or August, two more ships arrive, the Anne and Little James, bringing 60 more colonists.

Legacy
Plymouth governed themselves for 70 years.
In 1691, Plymouth became part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Growth of Empire
In the 1630s, Puritans seeking religious freedom sailed for America.
The Puritans founded several settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1634, the English settled in Maryland.
King Charles I had granted land to his friend Cecilius Calvert (Lord Baltimore).
Calvert wanted a place for English Catholics to live.
1681, William Penn, the leader of the Quakers, founded a colony in Pennsylvania.
King Charles II had granted Penn the land.
King Charles II had owed Penn's father a debt.
By 1733, Great Britain had 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast.

Bibliography
Greenblatt, Miriam, and Lemmo, Peter. Human Heritage A World History. Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

"Jamestown: Brave New World." The Granger Collection. 29 Dec. 32007. http://www.granger.com/cats.asp.

Molloy, Courtland. "Legacy of Slavery Echoes Beyond Jamestown Founding."  Washington Post. 6 Sept. 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501288.html. (1)

"Primary Sourcec Set." The Learning Page. 1 Aug. 2006. 30 Dec. 2007. http://memory.loc.gov/learn/community/cc_earlyamerica_kit.php.