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Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh was an English explorer, soldier and writer.
At age 17, he fought with the French Huguenots and later
studied at Oxford. He became a favorite of Queen Elizabeth
after serving in her army in Ireland. He was knighted in 1585,
and within two years became Captain of the Queen's Guard.
Between 1584 and 1589, he helped establish a colony near
Roanoke Island (present-day North Carolina), which he named
Virginia. Accused of treason by King James I, Sir Walter Raleigh
was imprisoned and eventually put to death.
Roanoke
The Roanoke Island colony, the first English settlement in the
New World, was founded by English explorer Sir Walter
Raleigh in August 1585. The first Roanoke colonists did not
fare well, suffering from dwindling food supplies and Indian
attacks, and in 1586 they returned to England aboard a ship
captained by Sir Francis Drake. In 1587, Raleigh sent out
another group of 100 colonists under John White. White
returned to England to procure more supplies, but the war
with Spain delayed his return to Roanoke. By the time he
finally returned in August 1590, everyone had vanished.
Including his daughter and grand-daughter Virginia Dare, the
first British child born in America. The only clue left was the
word “CROATOAN” carved into a fence post.
Charter
Royal document granting a specified group the right to form a
colony and guaranteeing settlers their rights as English
citizens.
Joint-stock Company
The joint-stock company was the forerunner of the modern
corporation. In a joint-stock company, stock was sold to
investors who provided the money to start the colony and
then would be paid back and receive a portion of any profits
made by the colony. The Virginia Company used funds raised
by selling its stock to create the colony of Jamestown. At first
the colony nearly failed but then began to boom as it started
to produce tobacco.
Headright
A "headright" is a legal grant of land to settlers. Headrights are
most notable for their role in the expansion of the thirteen
British colonies in North America; the Virginia Company of
London gave headrights to settlers, and the Plymouth
Company followed suit. Most headrights were either 50 or
100 acres.
burgesses
The English kings who ruled the 13 original colonies reserved the
right to decide the fate of their colonies, but not alone. The
colonists drew upon their claims to traditional English rights and
insisted on raising their own representative assemblies or
burgesses. Such was the case with the VIRGINIA HOUSE OF
BURGESSES, the first popularly elected legislature in the New World
created in 1619.
John Smith
English adventurer John Smith is elected council president of
Jamestown, Virginia–the first permanent English settlement in
North America. Smith, a colorful figure, had won popularity in
the colony because of his organizational abilities and
effectiveness in dealing with local Native American groups. He
had been captured by the Powhatan Indian confederacy but
was spared from death and released (according to a 1624
account by Smith) because of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan’s
13-year-old daughter who begged that he be spared.
Royal colonies
A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal
colony, was a type of colonial administration of the British
overseas territories. Crown, or royal, colonies were ruled by a
governor appointed by the monarch (king or queen).
Proprietary colonies
Proprietary colonies were grants of land in the form of a
charter, or a license to rule, for individuals or groups. They
were used to settle areas rapidly with British subjects at the
proprietors' expense during the costly settlement years. Also,
they could be used by the Crown to repay a debt to, or bestow
a favor upon a highly placed person.
The land was titled in the proprietors' name, not the king's.
The proprietors could appoint all officials; create courts, hear
appeals, and pardon offenders; make laws and issue decrees;
raise and command militia; and establish churches, ports, and
towns. Proprietors had the opportunity to recoup their
investment by collecting quitrents—annual land fees—from
the settlers who had purchased land within these colonies.
Charter colonies
Charter colonies were governed by corporations called joint
stock companies. Individuals hoping to make a profit
purchased stock in these companies to finance colonization.
When a company had enough money, it applied to the King
for a charter, which is an agreement between the monarch
and a colony that lays out the rights and responsibilities of
both parties. If the King granted a charter, the company
recruited colonists, set up a government, and founded a
colony.
Charter colonies often enjoyed a higher level of self-
government than other colonies. The joint stock company
controlled land distribution and took an active role in colonial
government. Colonists tended to prefer this form of colonial
government because of the freedom it allowed.
Puritans
The name "puritan" came to be used to describe members of
the Church of England who wished to purify it of all
semblances to the Roman Catholic Church. The Puritans
emphasized that they did not wish to destroy the Church of
England, nor did they want to separate from it. Their sole aim
was to restore it to its original purity.
A radical minority within the Puritan movement, the
Separatists, wanted to remove itself from the tainted English
church and worship in its own independent congregations.
A group of Puritans sailed to the Massachusetts Bay in 1630,
wanting to establish "a city upon a hill" as an example of how
godly people should live.
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 English colonists on the
ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620, was the first written
framework of government established in what is now the
United States. The compact was drafted to prevent dissent
amongst Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims who had landed
at Plymouth a few days earlier. When the ship arrived at Cape
Cod, several hundred miles north of its planned destination in
Virginia owing to storms at sea, the passengers realized they
were outside the bounds of the governmental authority they
had contracted with in England and created their own.
tolerance
The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular
the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not
necessarily agree with. Some colonial groups such as the
Puritans were not tolerant of religious differences. Other
groups such as the Quakers were.
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
The first constitution in the American colonies, the
“Fundamental Orders,” was adopted by representatives in
1639. Roger Ludlow, a lawyer, wrote much of the
Fundamental Orders, and presented a binding and compact
frame of government that put the welfare of the community
above that of individuals. It was also the first written
constitution in the world to declare the modern idea that “the
foundation of authority is in the free consent of the people.”
Anne Hutchinson
Trained as a midwife and nurse, Hutchinson held small
meetings in her home to discuss her Puritan pastor’s sermons.
Over time the meeting drew more and more people. She then
claimed that God had communicated to her directly and
declared that she was capable of interpreting the Scriptures
on her own. In doing so she questioned the authority of the
church and their control of society. She was put on trial and
later banished from Massachusetts, seeking shelter in Rhode
Island.
Roger Williams
The political and religious leader Roger Williams (c. 1603-
1683) is best remembered for founding Rhode Island and
advocating separation of church and state in Colonial America.
His views on religious freedom and tolerance, coupled with his
disapproval of the practice of confiscating land from Native
Americans, earned him the wrath of his church and
banishment from the colony of Massachusetts. Williams and
his followers settled on Narragansett Bay, where they
purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and established
a new colony governed by the principles of religious liberty
and separation of church and state. Rhode Island became a
haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious
minorities.
King Philips War
Most colonist moved onto Native American lands without
permission or payment. Throughout the colonial period,
settlers and Native Americans competed fiercely for land.
In 1675 Wampanoag leader Metacomet waged war against
the New England colonies. Known to settlers as King Philip,
Metacomet enlisted the help of other Native American
groups. King Philip's War raged for 14 months. In the end, the
colonists defeated Metacomet. The war destroyed the power
of the Native Americans in New England and colonial
settlement expanded.
Patroons
The Dutch West India Company controlled New Netherland
(eventually New York). It wanted to increase the colony's
population. To do this, the company offered large grants of
land to anyone who could bring at least 50 settlers to work the
land. The landowners who received these grants were called
patroons. The patroons ruled like kings. They had their own
courts and laws. Settlers owed the patroons labor and a share
of their crops.
New Netherlands
Not all of the colonies in North America were British at first,
one was under Dutch control. This area was called New
Netherland. The main settlement of New Netherland was New
Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island. This location combined a
good seaport with access to the Hudson River. The river
served as a major transportation link to a rich land of farms,
forests, and furs. As a result, New Amsterdam became a
center of shipping to and from the Americas.
New Netherland's success did not go unnoticed. The English
wanted to gain control of the valuable Dutch colony. England
insisted it had a right to the land based on John Cabot's
explorations in the late 1400s. In 1664 the English sent a fleet
to attack New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the
colony, surrendered it to the English forces without a fight.
Quakers
The Quakers, a Protestant group that had been persecuted in
England, founded the colony of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania as a “holy experiment," a chance to put Quaker
ideals into practice. The Quakers, or Society of Friends,
believed that everyone was equal, no matter race or gender,
including Native Americans. People could follow their own
“inner light" rather than the teachings of a religious leader.
Quakers were also pacifists, or people who refuse to use force
or fight in wars.
William Penn
In 1680 William Penn, a wealthy English Quaker, received the
land in payment for a debt King Charles owed Penn's father.
Pennsylvania, or “Penn's Woods." The new colony was nearly
as large as England.
Penn was an active proprietor. In 1682 he sailed to America to
supervise the building of Philadelphia, a name that means
“city of brotherly love." Penn designed the city himself. He
also wrote Pennsylvania's first constitution.
Penn advertised his colony throughout Europe. By 1683, more
than 3,000 English, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, and German settlers
had arrived. In 1701, in the Charter of Privileges, Penn granted
colonists the right to elect representatives to the legislature.
Indentured servant
A person under contract to work for another person for a
definite period of time, usually without pay but in exchange for
free passage to a new country. During the seventeenth
century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia
came from England as indentured servants.
Bacon’s Rebellion
In the 1640s, Virginia governor William Berkeley made a
pledge to Native Americans. In exchange for a large piece of
land, he agreed to keep settlers from pushing farther into
their territory. Berkeley's goal was to prevent the outbreak of
a war with the Native Americans.
Nathaniel Bacon and others in western Virginia ignored the
pledge. In 1676 Bacon led attacks on Native American villages.
His army also marched to Jamestown to drive out Berkeley,
and they burned the town to the ground. Bacon seemed on
the verge of taking over the colony when he suddenly became
ill and died. With his death, the rebellion faded. England
recalled Berkeley and sent troops to restore order.
Debtors
Georgia, founded in 1733, was the last British colony set up in
America. James Oglethorpe received a charter from George II
for a colony where debtors and poor people could make a
fresh start. In Britain, debtors—those who had debts—could
be imprisoned if they were unable to pay what they owed.
The British also hoped Georgia would block any Spanish attack
on the colonies from Florida. Oglethorpe and his settlers built
the forts and town of Savannah to discourage such attacks.
Georgia did not develop as Oglethorpe planned. Hundreds of
poor people came from Britain, but few debtors settled there.
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