Date: September 18, 2014.

Topic: The Chesapeake Colonies.

Aim: How did the Chesapeake colonies develop in the 17th century?

Do Now: Multiple Choice Questions.

Background• In 1632, King Charles I subdivided

the vast area that had been the Virginia colony. He chartered a new colony located on either side of the Chesapeake Bay and granted control of it to George Calvert, as a reward for this Catholic nobleman’s loyal service to the crown. The new colony of Maryland thus became the first of several proprietary colonies.

Proprietary Colony – under the authority of individuals granted charters (licenses) of ownership by the king.

ACT OF TOLERATION DOCUMENT

• THE ACT OF TOLERATION (1649) – MARYLAND• To avoid the intolerance and persecution of their Puritan

enemies, a number of wealthy English Catholics emigrated to Maryland and established large colonial plantations. They were quickly outnumbered, however, by Protestant farmers. Protestants therefore held a majority in Maryland’s representative assembly. In 1649, Calvert persuaded the assembly to adopt the Act of Toleration, the first colonial statute granting religious freedom to all Christians. However, the statute also called for the death of anyone who denied the divinity of Jesus.

Why was the Act of Toleration significant?

Virginia House of Burgesses• An early form of

representative government.• The House of

Burgesses included two citizens from each of Virginia’s eleven districts.

Economic Problems in Virginia• 1660’s: low tobacco prices due to overproduction

brought hard times to the Chesapeake colonies.

BACON’S REBELLION• Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of

Virginia, adopted policies that favored the large planters and used dictatorial powers to govern on their behalf. He antagonized backwoods farmers on Virginia’s western frontier because he failed to protect their settlements from Indian attacks.

• Nathaniel Bacon, an impoverished gentlemen farmer newly arrived from England, seized upon the grievances of the western farmers to lead a rebellion against Berkeley’s government. Bacon and others resented the economic and political control exercised by a few large planters in the Chesapeake area. He raised an army of volunteers and, in 1676, conducted a series of raids and massacres against Indian villages on the Virginia frontier. Berkeley’s government in Jamestown accused Bacon of rebelling against royal authority. Bacon’s army succeeded in defeating the governor’s forces and even burned the Jamestown settlement. Soon afterward, however, Bacon died of dysentery and the rebel army collapsed. Governor Berkeley brutally suppressed the remnants of the insurrection.

Why did Bacon’s Rebellion occur?

Why did Bacon’s Rebellion occur?Bacon’s Rebellion occurred due to the harsh policies enacted by Governor Berkeley over the poor farmers. Berkeley’s government also did not protect these farmers from Native attacks.

Bacon’s Rebellion represented the sharp class differences between wealthy planters and landless or poor farmers. In addition the rebellion represented a resistance to royal control.

How did introducing African slaves end the indentured servant problem in colonial Virginia?

I KNOW MAAAD HISTORY YO!

• SLAVERY IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA• The first Africans to come to Virginia arrived in 1619 aboard a

slave ship operated by a Dutch trader. At first Africans were not held as slaves for life but had roughly the same status as white indentured servants. Moreover, the early colonists were struggling to survive and too poor to purchase the Africans who were being imported to provide slave labor for sugar plantations in the West Indies. By 1650, there were only about 400 African laborers in Virginia, and not all of them were held in permanent bondage. In the 1660’s however, the Virginia House of Burgesses enacted laws that discriminated between blacks and whites. Africans and their offspring were to be treated as lifelong slaves, whereas white laborers were to be set free after a certain period.

How did the Virginia House of Burgesses change the status of Africans in the Virginia colony?