English Settlement in the South 1606: James I granted a charter creating 2 branches of the Virginia Company of London: The Plymouth Company London Company Motives for settlement: Gold Passage to Asia Converting Indians to Christianity April 1607: London Company settles Jamestown 100 settlers led by Capt. Christopher Newport Selected the peninsula on the James River out of the concern for effective defense Area was ridden with malaria

Jamestown Initial poor leadership John Smith eventually provides effective leadership John Rolfe establishes tobacco crops Tobacco 1616: 2500 lbs produced 1618: 30,000 lbs produced 1627: 500,000 lbs produced Tobacco profits off-set the fruitless search for gold

Jamestown The charter is an important document in that it guaranteed the overseas settlers the same rights of Englishmen who were still in the homeland. Relationship of John Smith and Pocahontas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHBl-EuFoLY

Virginia The first slaves came in the late 1600s Initially, the headright system provided labor force Settlers arranged their own transportation and that of dependents in return for 50 acres per “head” transported Initially preferred indentured servants 1622: massive Indian attack reduces population by 250 1624: James I sees Virginia as a bad investment and revokes the charter Creation of the House of Burgesses By 1670, there were 30,000 inhabitants

Maryland Lord Baltimore (Sir George Calvert) wanted his own colony for the personal advantage of his family and for the benefit of Roman Catholics (who were encouraged to settle there) Selected St. Mary’s as the first settlement Representative gov’t (like Virginia) Didn’t turn out to be Catholic refuge it was hoped to be

Carolinas Chartered in 1663 Representative assembly Largely Protestant Settled by some French Huguenots Also settled by some West Indian planters (who brought slavery to the South Carolina region) Wanted pine trees for ship building Rice became a major crop in Carolina

Georgia Established in 1713 Founded by Gen. James Oglethorpe as a buffer between the British and Spanish (in Florida) Also used as a debtor’s colony (criminals and convicts from GBR)

Life in the Chesapeake Ridden with malaria, dysentery, typhoid, and other diseases High death rate Difficult to start families and create solid settlements Tobacco Economy The climate/soil was hospitable to tobacco cultivation More tobacco means more labor, but where will this labor source come from?

Life in the Chesapeake Headright System To encourage the importation of servant workers Whoever paid the passage of a laborer received the right to acquire 50 acres of land Masters (not the servants) reaped the benefits of landownership from the headright system  the beginning of the rich planter class with extensive land holdings As land became more scarce, masters became more reluctant to have land allowances in the “freedom dues” More harsh treatment of servants You would be free after 7 years, but then you’d be a poor farmer with little choice but to sell yourself back into servitude

Triangular Trade

Bacon’s Rebellion There were an increasing number of poor freemen in the Chesapeake region Frustrated by their broken hopes of acquiring land and getting rich This growing class of “freemen” made the rich planter class nervous Gov. Berkeley- governor of VA colony Was growing increasingly agitated with the large number of rowdy poor throughout the colony

Bacon’s Rebellion The freemen were moving westward towards the Indian settlements and were fighting w/ them on a regular basis Resented Berkeley’s friendly Indian policies Berkeley had refused to avenge several brutal Indian attacks on the frontiersmen So Bacon and his men disobeyed Berkeley and attack/murder the Indians 1676: Nathaniel Bacon leads about 1,000 men on a raid of Jamestown (the colonial capital of VA) Torches the town; Berkeley flees and returns w/ English troops

Bacon’s Rebellion Bacon suddenly dies (illness) Berkeley brutally crushes all Bacon supporters Results of the Rebellion Awakened the latent unhappiness of the landless former servants Pitted the backcountry frontiersmen against the gentry plantation owners The lordly planters now looked for a different source for plantation labor

Slave Trade The Royal African Company lost its charter in 1698  enterprising colonists rushed to cash in on the lucrative slave trade (especially Rhode Islanders) By 1750, the slave trade had ground to a halt By the 1660s, specific “slave codes” had been drawn up by the colonial gov’ts to delineate between servants’ and slaves’ rights

Colonial Slavery About 10 million Africans were carried over the course of 3 centuries First Africans came to Jamestown in 1619 (about 2,000) Slaves were too expensive for struggling colonists But in the 1680s, rising wages in England shrank the pool of servants coming over Bacon’s Rebellion had brought a distrust of current and former servants, as gentry feared future rebellions