Southern Colony

Southern colony; What do you know?

 Joint Stock Company ◦ Several investors pool their wealth to support a colony to gain a PROFIT $$.  King James I granted charter to V.C. to found a colony in America. (April 1607)  Named the colony Jamestown ◦ First colony of Great Britain in the New World. ◦ People in search of gold and silver.

 Powhatan Tribe lived on frontier of Virginia colony. ◦ John Smith negotiated to get food from natives for colonists.  Tensions increase with Powhatans ◦ 1609: 600 more colonists arrive. ◦ Powhatans alarmed and began destroying livestock and farms in the colony.

 Powhatans no longer helping colonists.  Few crops led to famine. ◦ People eat rats, snakes, pets, even resort to eating dead folks.  Why not just leave? ◦ Winter ◦ Hostile Natives

 John Rolfe: introduces tobacco to Virginia in ◦ Major cash crop: pulls Jamestown out of starving time.  Creates a need for workers: ◦ Headright system: British citizens who could pay their own way- got land in Virginia. If you pay for someone else’s way you also get that land. ◦ Indentured servants:  People who could not pay their own way could ask a wealthy landowner to pay for their passage to the colony.  In exchange, they would have to work off the debt for a period of time.  Leads to a class system in the Virginia colony

 First Representative Government in Colonies.  People had a say in the laws- not just one person controlling everything.  House can make laws and raise taxes ◦ Power of the Purse  Voting: white males with property creates elite ruling class.

 Small land owners- former indentured servants unhappy. They were not being protected from Native American attacks on the frontier by the Virginia government.  Nathanial Bacon raised an army of landless settlers. ◦ Marched on Jamestown and set fire to the town.  No immediate results, but would contribute to the use of slaves.