Europeans Establish Colonies England’s Southern Colonies Chapter 2: Europeans Establish Colonies Section 3: England’s Southern Colonies

Neglected by the Spanish and French, the Atlantic coast of North America remained open to English colonization during the 1580s Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia

England’s First American Colonies SOCIAL: First promoters of English colonies were wealthy gentlemen from southwestern England Sir Walter Raleigh; English Patriots; Devout Protestants

England’s First American Colonies ECONOMICS: England wealth from new colonies: Mining gold and silver; Raising plantation crops.

Roanoke Colony Fails Charter: a certificate of permission ECONOMICS: Joint-stock company: a business venture founded and run by a group of investors who were to share in the company’s profits and losses. Almost impossible to grow crops in Roanoke (small island on the North Carolina coast)

Chesapeake Bay Virginia Chesapeake offered good harbors and navigable rivers; Social: Colonists had to deal with powerful Native Americans: SOCIAL: Led by Powhatan – he hoped to contain the colonists and to use them against his own enemies; he especially wanted to trade with the colonists for their metal weapons; SOCIAL: Colonists want Native American land and refuse to recognize that the Native Americans occupied, used, and had ancestral ties to the land

Jamestown Overcomes Hardships Surrounding swamps bred mosquitoes that carried deadly diseases; Colonists suffered from hunger, because they were often too weak by disease to tend to their crops; Between 1607 and 1622, the Virginia Company would send some 10,000 people to the colony, but only 20% would still be alive in 1622

The Tobacco Crop Saves the Colony: ECONOMICS: The Virginia Company saved the Jamestown colony by allowing the colonists to own and work land as their private property; ECONOMICS: As farmer-owners, rather than company employees, the colonists worked harder to grow the corn, squash, and beans that ensured their survival

The Tobacco Crop Saves the Colony: ECONOMICS Led by John Rolfe, who married Pocahontas, the colonists learned how to cultivate tobacco in 1616; Indian tobacco was greatly desired in Europe; Because tobacco needed a long, hot, and humid growing season, the tobacco crop thrived in Virginia but not England Virginia made it’s profits by selling tobacco

House of Burgesses: POLITICAL: The first representative body in colonial America; House of Burgesses had the power to make laws and raise taxes It began a strong tradition of representative government in the English colonies. Male landowners over 17 years of age could vote for two Burgesses to represent their settlement

Effects of Expansion In Virginia

Effects of Expansion in Virginia: ECONOMICS: As colonists expanded their tobacco plantations, SOCIAL: they took more land from the Native Americans, who became enraged

Bacon’s Rebellion: SOCIAL farmers who moved were moving onto less fertile land where it cost more to transport their crops to the market, The royal governor of Virginia, William Berkeley, worsened the growing crisis, by levying taxes on the planters and used the proceeds to reward a few favorites from the wealthiest class, which dominated the House of Burgesses ; and Berkeley expressed contempt for free press and public education

Bacon’s Rebellion: William Berkeley told settlers not to create war with the Native Americans in the Potomac Valley, the settlers rebelled under the leadership of Nathaniel Bacon;

EFFECTS OF BACON’S REBELLION: Bacon’s Rebellion showed that poor farmers would not tolerate a government that catered only to the wealthiest colonists; The colony’s leaders reduced the taxes paid by the farmers and improved their access to frontier, new, land Berkeley eventually regained power but his credibility was ruined

Other Southern Colonies: Virginia was the first of the Southern Colonies to be settled; During the 17th and 18th centuries, England established Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia

Lord Baltimore, owned and governed Maryland Other Southern Colonies: Maryland: Lord Baltimore, owned and governed Maryland RELIGION: He founded Maryland as a colonial refuge for Catholics who were discriminated against in England by the Protestant majority; However, more Protestants than Catholics immigrated to Maryland; Relations between Catholics and Protestants deteriorated into armed conflicts later on

Other Southern Colonies: The Carolinas: Includes present-day North and South Carolina POLITICAL: Carolinas belonged to a group of aristocrats – the Lords Proprietor – who remained in England, entrusting the colony’s leadership to ambitious men from the West Indies

Other Southern Colonies: Georgia: ECONOMICS: Proprietary colony intended to protect South Carolina from Spanish Florida; Was a safe place for English debtors, who had been jailed because they could not pay their debts; Most of Georgia’s first colonists were poor English traders and artisans, or religious refugees.

Other Southern Colonies: Georgia: James Oglethorpe, who led the Carolinas, had strict rules for the colonists: NO ALCHOHOL; COULD NOT OWN SLAVES

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