1. From Jamestown to Massachusetts Bay Colony
A Sense of Mission:
From Jamestown to
Massachusetts Bay Colony

2. First Attempt At Settlement
Sir Walter Raleigh
The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island (NC) was a late 16th-century attempt to establish a permanent English settlement in what later became the Virginia Colony
The enterprise was financed and organized by Sir Walter Raleigh
The final group of colonists disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War, three years after the last shipment of supplies from England.
The settlement is known as "The Lost Colony," and the fate of the colonists has never been determined.

3. Jamestown: Colony in Danger
In 1606 Virginia Company of London (a joint-stock company) received a charter to settle in America.
1607 – The Jamestown settlement was formed.
Approximately 100 men and boys
This colony was not intended to last indefinitely; it was simply a for-profit venture.
Captain John Smith led the colony
John Rolfe and his wife Pocahontas established a tobacco industry
The first several years were full of hardships, some created by natural conditions, some by bad luck, and some by lazy or neglectful colonists.
known as the “Starving Time”
Jamestown fort

4. Representative Government at Jamestown
The Virginia Company sought to encourage settlement in Jamestown by guaranteeing colonists the same rights they had in England
This included the right to be represented in the lawmaking process
In 1619, just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown, Virginia’s colonists organized the first representative assembly in America, the House of Burgesses
Patrick Henry in the House of Burgesses

5. Development of New England
Strong religious convictions helped sustain the Puritans and separatists in their struggle to establish the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies
Influenced by the teachings of John Calvin (predestination)
At the same time Puritan leaders tended to be intolerant of anyone who questioned their teachings
Dissidents formed the nucleus for the founding of several colonies in New England (Rhode Island and Connecticut)
The English royal charters granted land to the north to the Plymouth Company, land to the south to the London Company and the land between could be settled first by either company

6. The Separatists
This group desired to be separated from the Church of England.
Led by William Bradford and William Brewster, they first fled to the Netherlands in 1611, making an agreement in 1620 with the London Company of Virginia to emigrate to America.
They sailed in September 1620 on the Mayflower, arriving at Cape Cod on November 9.
they drafted an agreement known as the Mayflower Compact.
William Bradford is depicted in the center

7. The Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony
It was written by the Separatists, also known as the "Saints", fleeing religious persecution
The Mayflower Compact was based simultaneously upon a majoritarian model (even though the signers were not in the majority) and the settlers' allegiance to the king.
It was in essence a social contract in which the settlers consented to follow the compact's rules and regulations for the sake of survival.
Bradford’s transcription of the compact

8. Separatists continued…
The Separatists were the Pilgrims.
Settling among the Wampanoag near the coast, they were befriended by Squanto (Tisquantum) who showed them how to fish and “set their corn.”
Supposedly, they celebrated their successful harvest with a “Thanksgiving” celebration in October 1621.
1911 illustration of Tisquantum, or Squanto, teaching the Plymouth colonists to plant maize.

9. The Puritans
This group wanted to “purify” the Church of England; that is, they wanted to do away with the remnants of Catholicism still found in the Church
They faced serious persecution in England during the 1620s at the hands of King Charles I, who offered generous land grants to try to get them to leave England.
In 1630, members of the Massachusetts Bay Company began their journey to the Americas, under the leadership of John Winthrop.
John Winthrop

10. The Puritans continued…
They arrived in Massachusetts in July 1630.
More than 20,000 Puritans would leave England over the next decade
: The Great Puritan Migration
The Massachusetts Bay Company was governed by its voting members, or “freemen.”
While only 100 of the adult male settlers were stockholders when they arrived, eventually all male members of Puritan congregations were admitted as freemen.
John Winthrop sailed on board the Arbella when she and three other ships sailed from Yarmouth at the Isle of Wight on April 8, 1630
The Great Puritan Migration

11. The Puritan Mission
As early as 1630, John Winthrop was reminding the Puritans of their mission in his sermons.
He suggested that America was to be an example for other nations of the world. (“City upon a Hill”)
John Winthrop lands in the New World

12. The Puritans continued…
The Puritans believed that people should not just talk about how people should live their lives – people should APPLY Christianity (remember the old adage – “practice what you preach”).
This “sense of mission,” to be an example to the rest of the world and to live the lives they preached, would sustain the early Puritan colonists.
Dissenters (such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson) were not tolerated.
Depiction of Anne Hutchinson's trial