England Expansion
Last Updated    12/15/2009     12/14/2009     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
FIRST COLONY
Queen Elizabeth granted Sir Humphrey Gilbert a charter to give out land in America to investors.
He wanted to establish a permanent settlement in which he hoped to find treasure and a northwest passage.
It could also serve as a base for piracy against the Spanish.
After a preliminary reconnaissance of Newfoundland and the Gulf of Maine, Gilbert was lost at sea on the way home.
His colony never got on the ground.
Gilbert’s half-brother, Walter Raleigh, continued England’s quest of starting a settlement in North America.
1584, Raleigh was given permission to claim land for England.
He sent Arthur Barlowe and Phillip Amandas on an expedition to the Americas.
Barlowe took two Indian friends, Manteo and Wanchee,  back with them to England and they gave glowing reports of the new land.
Raleigh sent a group of 500 men, 107 of them colonists to settle Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina.
Roanoke Island was 8 miles long and 2 miles wide.
The Queen said he must stay behind with her to help prepare for possible war with Spain.
The seven ships were commanded by Raleigh’s cousin, Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane a soldier.
Upon arrival, one of the main ships struck a rock and flooded.
This accident caused most of the supplies needed for the colony to be ruined.
Sir Greenville went back to England for supplies.
Ralph Lane was appointed as Governor of the colony.
The men built a fort and called it Fort Raleigh.
They also built houses.
1585, the food was becoming scarce.
The colonists depended on the indians for food.
When the demand became too great, the indians refused to provide more food.
Sir Francis Drake comes to visit, a storm washes the supply ship out to sea, the English decide to abandon the colony and leave with Sir Drake.
The supply ships arrived shortly after Drake’s departure.
The crews found only a deserted settlement.
Sir RichardGrenville, commander of the supply fleet, left behind 15 men to hold the island and sailed back to England.
The Indians had decided they’d had enough of the foreigners and attacked the settlement.
The outnumbered Englishmen scrambled into their boat and fled.
They were never seen again.

SECOND COLONY
In 1587, a group of men along with 17 women and 9 children sailed back to Roanoke Island with a man named John White.
They found only the charred ruins of the village.
The Fifteen sailors that had been left behind had disappeared and the bones of a former resident showed signs of a brutal showdown with a native.
It was too late to plant crops, and the indians were hostile.
It was an ominous welcome.
But the colonists decided to rebuild and make a new start.
They repaired the fort and tried to reestablish the colony.
This was no longer a military settlement but an actual attempt at colonization.
Again, they didn’t have enough food, so White left the colony to go back to England for more food.
1587 August 18, Virgina Dare, the granddaughter of John White, the first English child born in America.
When White arrived in England, they were about to go to war with Spain.
White was not able to return to the colony for more than three years.
1590 August 18, White arrived back at Roanoke Island, there were no colonists.
The letters CRO were carved into a tree and the word CROATON was carved on a nearby post.
If there was trouble they were to carve a cross.
there was no carved cross.
White wanted to sail to Croataon, but low provisions, the loss of sea anchors in a storm, and privateer’s impatience prevented them from stopping there.
Raleigh made several attempts to locate the colonists between 1590 and 1602, but no trace was found.
They were refered to as the "Lost Colony."
It seems likely that some, if not all, of the colonists went to live among the native peoples of the Outer Banks.
John White believed that they had gone to live with the Hatteras (Croatan) Indians under Manteo.
Many Lumbee now living in Robeson County believe that they are descended in part from the Roanoke colonists and the Hatteras Indians.
They cite their light complexions, blue eyes, and names that are the same as the names of the Roanoke colonists.

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 April 26, the Virgina Company is formed.
Three ships, the Godspeed, the Susan Constant, and the Discovery, set sail for the New World in December 1606.
Captain Christopher Newport was the leader of the expedition.
They reached the Chesapeake Bay area in April 1607.
Upon arrival, the names of the men chosen by the Virginia Company to oversee the colony were announced.
Among the names listed was a man by the name of John Smith, who would later be credited for helping the colony to survive.
They founded the first English settlement in America.
Jamestown was named after King James I of England.
Jamestown was located on a pennisula near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.
The settlement was on Indian land.
This location turned out to be a very bad choice.
The land was low and swampy, the water was not good to drink, and mosquitoes that carried malaria surrounded the area.
Other problems arose as well.
Rats and mold made the food inedible.
1607-1608 was called "The Freezing Time."
1608, 100 settlers are sent to the Americas to search for gold and silver.
Most of the settlers were “gentlemen” who were not accustomed to working.
Therefore, many of the settlers did not have the skills necessary to start a colony.
They spent their time looking for gold instead of planting crops.
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.
Of the over 900 European settlers to arrive between 1607 and 1609, only 59 survived to the spring of 1610.

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.
He implemented the “If you don’t work, you don’t eat” rule that required the work efforts of everyone.
1609, Smith returned to England.
Many of the colonists starved to death.
The Starving Time (the winter of 1609-1610) included such horrific acts as cannibalism and the eating of corpses.
Many colonists deserted to the Natives as well.
1610 June 8, They were ready to leave when English ships arrived with the new governor De La Ware and 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, Pocahantes's father dies.
Opechancanough, said to be Powhatan's half-brother, becomes chief.
He wanted English encroachment stopped.
1617-1619, an epedimic decimated the Powhatan tribe.
The English kill a Powhatan religious leader, "Jack of the Feathers."
March 22, 1622 Opechancanough launched a well-planned attack on the English of Virginia which resulted in the death of nearly a third of the immigrants.
John Rolfe dies in the massacre planned by Opechancanough.
jamestown is saved by an indian boy.

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 experimenting with Caribbean tobacco.
It was sweeter than Native American tobaccoo.
Most of the tobacco was exported to England.

Immigration
In 1618, the Virginia Company began granting land to individuals.
All colonists who paid 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, the Virginia General Assembly met for the very first time.
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
Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony. http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-twoworlds/1638.

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)

Pearson, Jim and Wartkins, Bryna.  Early Jamestown. 1991. http://www.learner.org/courses/amerhistory/pdf/Jamestown_LOne.pdf.

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