chapter 2 Flashcards
colonial competition
Religious conflicts between protestant England and Catholic Spain during the Reformation & Counter-Reformation
Economic competition with other European powers drove colonization
National glory
Internal precedents: England had previously invaded Ireland, establishing colonies or plantations there
middle ground
Historians call upper midwest a “Middle Ground” between Algonquians and French, British, and later Americans. Space of cultural accommodation, conflict, etc.
England’s social crisis
Increased number of poor people in England due to enclosure movement
Common lands became private property of larger landowners and some farmers
“Masterless men” roamed countryside & poor congregated in cities.
Imprisonment in houses of correction starting in 1601
Alternative Solution: use the poor to support colonization in Americas. Lower classes hoped access to land in the Americas could produce freedom
jamestown
Jamestown (1607) founded by Virginia Co.
Initially unsuccessful: starvation, no gold, unsustainable. Needed to attract more settlers
Headright system (1618): those who paid their own way (or someone else’s) got 50 acres of land; need labor
House of Burgesses: elected colonial assembly 1619
First 20 slaves arrive that same year, none enslaved for life
Plymouth
Pilgrams (subset of puritans) Establish Plymouth in Massachusetts on abandoned Indian village. Disease had already wiped out many tribes and villages
All land initially held in common
Government based on consent of governed and voting allowed for all men
Half of first 100 colonists die in the first winter, and only with help from Indians do the rest survive
1621 after first successful harvest, a feast of thanksgiving was held
Massachusetts Bay Colony
Puritan-run joint-stock companies to help Puritans emigrate and generate profit
1629-1642: 21,000 Puritans move to Massachusetts in the Great Migration
More families and fewer indentured servants
Migration ceased after this, but a balanced sex ratio led to real population growth. Larger than the Chesapeake by 1700
Headright Policy
Headright system (1618): those who paid their own way (or someone else’s) got 50 acres of land; need labor
Demographics in the colonies
5:1 sex ratio, some women come as “tobacco brides.” Death rate high & marriage short before 1700s
Why did St. Augustine never grow to be an important Spanish city?
It was largely a military outpost.
What was the main economic activity of the Dutch in the Americas?
trade with Indians
According to the textbook, what was the Middle Ground?
Midwestern region of accommodation and negotiation between the American Indian groups like the Hurons and European powers.
sir francis drake
privateered for the British Crown.
What was an important impetus for English empire building in North America?
The Protestant Reformation heightened England’s sense of mission to spread Protestantism and liberate the Americas from Spanish “popery.”
The Headright Policy
allotted 50 acres in Virginia for those who paid their passage or the passage of others to the New World.
________ saved the Chesapeake colonies from economic ruin.
Tobacco
