Europeans Crossing the Atlantic Massachusetts Bay Colony, Virginia and North American Settlement
Context 1492: Columbian Encounter 1519: Spanish Conquest of Aztecs 1533: Spanish Conquest of Incans 1580s: Founding of Roanoke in Current Virginia (colony did not survive) 1607: Founding of Virginia (Jamestown) 1620: Founding of Plymouth Colony (current Massachusetts)
Context, continued 1626: Founding of New Amsterdam (Dutch), later New York, 1664 (English) 1630: Founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston) 1663: Carolina Colony Founded 1681: Pennsylvania Founded
Models of Development Massachusetts Bay –Family migrations –Religious consensus –Village or Town settlement structure –Community centered governance –***NOT DEMOCRATIC*** Virginia –“Adventurer” migration in search of riches –Men predominated in colony –A volatile mixture of rich and poor men –Little interest in permanent settlement or civic activity –***NOT DEMOCRATIC***
Leaders: John Winthrop and John Smith Winthrop: Massachusetts Smith: Virginia
John Winthrop ( ) Governor of Massachusetts Bay colony for most of its first twenty years. “Middle Class” background in England. Devout Puritan Goal was to build a "City on a Hill" as a model for world. Arrived in the summer of 1630, with eleven vessels, more than 1,000 passengers. 20,000 more migrated in next decade.
John Smith ( ) Long career as adventurer, writer, and publicist. Saw military action in France, the Mediterranean, Hungary 1602: Captured and sold as a slave to a Turk, escaped, returned to England, ca : Landed with colonists in Virginia, became governor 1609: Returned to England, never to return to Virginia Spent his remaining life promoting the colonies.
Smith’s Map of Virginia
Sudbury, Massachusetts
Watertown, Massachusetts
Mt. Vernon, Virginia
Mt Vernon Slave Cabin: Restored
Population Growth of the 13 Colonies 1630: 4, : 50, : 250, : 1,170, : 2,780, : 3,900,000
American Revolution Seven Years War (French and Indian Wars): Challenge to British Rule: 1763…. Declaration of Independence: 1776 War for Independence: U.S. Constitution: 1787 National Government convened: 1789.
American Revolution Based on the notions of “liberty”…”freedom” … “equality”… ????
Virginia, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia: 2,500 to 538,000 Massachusetts: 500 to 268,627 South Carolina: 0 to 180,000 Percent African American in 1780: –Virginia: 41% –Massachusetts: 1.8% –South Carolina: 54%
Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonial U.S Trade flourished from 15 th to 19 th Centuries. 10 million Africans transported to New World Proportion of the trade to British North American colonies: ~ 4%. Slave trade banned in U.S. in Abolition of Slavery: 1865.
Peculiarities of US Slave System Only New World Slave system sustained by “natural increase” rather than continued importation. –400,000 “imports.” –4,000,000 slaves freed in 1865 One of the last slave economies to end –U.S. Civil War –Last nation: Brazil (1888).