1451 - 1620

Michael Kling Prd.3

Christopher Columbus

• Date: 1451-1506• Set sail on behalf of Spain with 3 ships the Niña, the Pinta,

and his flagship, the Santa María• Originally, he sailed west across the Atlantic Ocean to find

a water route to Asia• Columbus was convinced that he had found the

waterway that he sought and that the Americas were actually an extension of China

• Returned from his expedition with gold, encouraging future exploration

Amerigo Vespucci

• Italian member of a Portuguese expedition• Explored South America• Discovery suggested that the expedition had found a "New World"

• After an account of Vespucci's 1497 expedition was published, a cartographer mistakenly thought that Vespucci had led the expedition and had landed in the New World before Christopher Columbus; the cartographer named the continent America

• Treaty of Tordesillas

• Date: 1493• Created a Papal Line of Demarcration,

which divided the New World: east of the line for Portugal and west of its for Spain

• Later, the Papal Line affected colonization in Africa and Asia

• New Spain

• Date: 1400s and 1500s• Spain’s tightly controlled empire in the New

World• To deal with labor shortages, the Spaniards

developed a system of large manors (encomiendas) using Native American slaves under conquistadors

• With the death of Native American slaves, Spaniards Begin importing African slaves to supply their labor needs

• Mercantilism

• Date 1500s-1700s• Prevailing economic philosophy of the 1600s that held that

colonies existed to serve the mother country• Founded on the belief that the world’s wealth was sharply

limited and, therefore, one nation’s gain was another nation’s loss

• Each nation’s trade goal was to export more that it imported in a favorable balance of trade; the difference would be made up in their possession of gold and silver, which would make the nation strong both economically and militarily

• Mercantilists believed economic activity should be regulated by the government

• Queen Elizabeth I

• Date 1532-1603• Protestant Successors to Queen Mary (England)• Popular leader and the first woman to successfully

hold the throne• Invested in English Raids on Spanish New World

colonies• Brought on a war response from Spain in the form

of the Spanish Armada• Established Protestantism in England and

encouraged English business

• The Spanish Armada

• Date: 1588• Fleet assembled by King Phillip II of Spain to

invade England• The Armada was defeated by the skill of British

military leaders and by rough seas during the assault

• England’s victory over Spanish forces established England as an emerging sea power

• Defeat helped bring about the decline of the Spanish empire

• Types of Colonies in the New World

• In the charter colony, colonists were essentially members of a corporation and, based on an agreed-upon charter, electors among the colonists would control the government

• A royal colony had a governor selected by England’s king; he would serve in the leadership role and choose additional, lesser options

• Propriety Colonies were owned by an individual with direct responsibility to the king; the proprietor selected a governor, who served as the authority figure for the property

• English Puritanism

• Date: 1500s and 1600s• Movement by those who wished to reform the Church of England to

be more in line with their ideology• Puritans were Calvinist in their religious beliefs; they believed in

predestination and in the authority of scripture over papal authority• Though King Henry VIII had set out to separate from papal authority

in favor of his own Church of England, many Roman Catholic traditions and practices remained

• Puritans rejected these Roman Catholic holdovers because of their Calvinist ideology; they sought to make the English Church “pure”

• Puritanism would echo throughout American culture in the ideas of self-reliance, moral fortitude, and an emphasis on intellectualism

• Dutch West Indian Company

• Date: 1500s and 16002• The joint-stock company that ran the colonies in

Fort Orange and in New Amsterdam, which later became New York

• Carried on profitable fur trade with the Native American Iroquois

• Instituted the patroon system, in which large estates were given to wealthy men who transported at least fifty families to New Amsterdam to tend the land; few took the opportunity

• Sir Walter Raleigh

• Date: 1587• Selected Roanoke Island as a site for the first English

settlement• Returned to England to secure additional supplies; on his

return he found the colony deserted; it is not known what became of the Roanoke settlers

• After the failed at Roanoke, Raleigh abandoned his attempts to colonize Virginia

• Held back by a lack of financial resources and the war with Spain, English interest in American colonization was submerged for fifteen years

• St Augustine, Florida

• Date: 1598• French Protestants (Huguenots) went to the New World to

freely practice their religion; they formed a colony; they formed a colony near modern-day St. Augustine, Florida

• Spain, which oversaw Florida, reacted violently to the Huguenots because they were trespassers and because they were viewed as heretics by the Catholic church

• Spain sent a force to the settlement and massacred the fort’s inhabitants

• The settlement at St. Augustine, Florida, is considered to be the first permanent European settlement in what would become the United States

• Charter Colonies (Joint-Stock) and “Starving Time”

• Date: 1600s• Charter Colonies were associations that sought

trade, exploration, and colonization overseas• Jamestown (1607) was the first charter colony• “Starving Time” describes a period in the 1600s

during which many colonists died and others considered returning to England

• Jamestown

• Date: Established 1607• James I granted charters for charter colonies in the New

World• In 1607, the Virginia Company of London settled

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement• Swampy location led to disease and contaminated water

sources• Despite location and hostile relations with Native

Americans, John Smith’s harsh, charismatic leadership of the colony kept it from collapsing

• In 1619, African slaves arrived at Jamestown, becoming the first group of slaves to reach a British settlement

• Indenture System

• Date: 1600’s• Poor workers, convicted criminals, and debtors

received immigration passage and fees in return for a number of years of labor on behalf of a planter or company

• Servants entered into their contracts voluntarily and kept some legal rights

• However, servants had litte control over the conditions of their work and living arrangements; system led to harsh and brutal treatment

• John Rolfe

• Date: 1585-1622• English colonist in Jamestown, Virginia• Married Pocahontas• Created process for curing tobacco,

ensuring economic success for Jamestown

• House of Bugesses

• Date: 1916• Representative assembly in Virginia• Election to a seat was limited to voting members

of the carter colony, which was all free men; later rules that required a man to own at least fifty acres of land to vote

• First representative house in America• Instituted private ownership of land; maintained

rights of colonists

• First Families of Virginia

• Date: 1600s• Wealthy and socially prominent families in

Virginia who by 1776 had been in America for four to five generations

• Included the Lees, Carters, and Fitzhughs

• Headright System

• Date: Introduced in 1618• System used by the Virginia Company to

attract colonists; it promised them parcels of land (roughly fifty acres) to emigrate to America

• Also gave nearly fifty acres for each servent that a colonist bought, allowing the wealthy to obtain large tracts of land

• The Separatists and Plymouth

• Separatists were Puritans who believed the Church of England was beyond saving, and felt that they must separate from it

• One group of Separatists suffering government harassment fled to Holland, then to America

• Members of this group traveled on the Mayflower, they became known as the Pilgrims, a term used for voyagers seeking to fulfill a religious mission

• The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, in September 1620 and landed in Provincetown Harbor, settling in what became Plymouth, Massachusetts

• Before landing in the New World, the Pilgrims formed the Mayflower Compact, which provided for a government guided by the majority

• William Bradford (1590-1657) served as Plymouth Colony’s first governors