The Race for Colonies: Lecture 2

The Second Wave of Colonization:

Spain and Portugal Moribund: The first wave of colonization was driven by Spain and
Portugal, who were at the height of their power in the 1500s. But by the 1600s, both
countries were in decline. Both had overextended themselves and Spain was blowing all
its wealth trying to dictate religious belief in Europe.
The Wars of Religion Boil Over: In the 1600s, the struggles of Catholic vs. Protestant
come to a head in out and out violence. Colonization begins in a context of extreme,
often violent religious conflict. This especially shapes England's colonies.
The Thirty Year's War (1618-1648): The Holy Roman Empire Dies
The Balance of Power: 7 men elect the Holy Roman Emperor: 3
Catholic Bishops, 3 Protestant Nobles, and one Elected King (the King of
Bohemia). The Catholic Habsburgs have monopolized the throne by
exploiting their control of Bohemia and Catholic vs. Protestant tensions.
The Winter King: Elector Frederick of the Palatinate, son-in-law of King
James I of England, was elected King of Bohemia in 1618 with the help of
local Protestants. This triggered the Thirty Years' War.
The End Result: Holy Roman Empire is wrecked, the French end up
fighting Spain and break Spanish power, many refugees flee to America
and the Catholic vs. Protestant struggle ends with everyone basically
losing.
English Civil War: England sinks into a religious civil war too, which we will
look at in more detail later.
Dutch Apogee: The Dutch are now at the height of their power by the end of his
period, taking over many Portuguese colonies and wrecking Spanish power. They
become a vast commercial empire of trading posts and plantations.
Commercial Empire: The Dutch Empire is largely made up of trading
posts and plantations and its main strength is in South-east Asia.
France Ascendent: After the Thirty Year's War, France is the strongest nation in
Europe, especially under King Louis XIV (1644-1714). However, the French
tend to throw their weight around a lot and quickly the English emerge as a
counter-balance to French ambition by the 18th century.
French Colonization: The French set out to create colonies in Canada,
the Caribbean, and India, in order to make money but also to advance the
GLORY of the French monarchy. But few Frenchmen actually leave
home.

Why A Second Wave?

 Desire for Foreign Goods: Europe is in a temperate zone, so there is a huge
demand for goods which can't be grown in Europe: sugar, cotton, tobacco,
indigo, rice, coffee, and so on. Sugar is especially important.
Mercantilist Theory: Economy theories encourage maximizing exports and
minimizing imports, therefore, it's best to take over areas that make what you
want so you don't have to buy them from foreigners. That means making
colonies.
Struggle for World Trade: Whoever controls the flow of these goods is going
to become very wealthy and powerful; the strongest European nations are willing
to fight for control of access to these goods.
Joint-Stock Companies: Merchants banded together, pooling their resources to
form joint ventures which would buy the right to control trade with an area or to
form colonies and trading posts in an area. Kings got steady revenue and the
merchants could lock out competition and charge monopoly prices for their
goods. Everyone but the consumer wins.
British East India Company: The Earl of Cumberland and 215 other
men were the initial investors in the British East India Company, granted a
monopoly in 1600 on British trade with India. They eventually would
conquer all of India by 1857. It was the unfortunate victim in the Boston
Tea Party when Bostonians threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor in
1773. .

The French Colonies

The Early Years:
Giovanni da Verrazzano makes the first French expedition in 1523, discovering
the New York City area.
1534—Jacques Cartier claims the region around the mouth of the Saint Lawrence
River for France.
French fishing fleets now begin visiting the east coast of Canada.
1608—Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec.
1627-1663: Canada is controlled by the Company of One Hundred
Associates, a Joint-Stock Company
Trois-Rivieres is founded 1634 and Montreal in 1642
Early settlement clings to the Saint Lawrence River
1663: Canada becomes a royally controlled province.

French Colonial Goals:

The Quest for Fur: While farming was a component of life in New France, the
big money was in the fur trade. And the fur trade could be profitable in the cold
forests of New France.
The Quest for Sugar: In the Caribbean, the main focus was the quest for sugar,
which was very valuable in Europe. The price of sugar remained high for
 centuries, fueling a massive quest for sugar production. But only semi-tropical or
tropical areas could grow sugar.

Life in New France:

Sparse Settlement: Whites clustered in small agricultural communities, slightly
larger trading towns and scattered forts for fur trading.
1666: 3,215 whites: 2034 men and 1181 women
The King responded by recruiting 700 women, age 15 to 30, to go
to New France to marry people. (known as the 'les filles du Roi',
the King's Daughters)
1700: 15,000 colonists (roughly 7% of the population of the English
colonies in 1700 (p. 32)
1750s: 70,000 colonists (English had over a million in theirs)
Seigneurs: Land was given out to aristocrats who then tried to recruit people to
come settle and work for them.
Indentured Servants: The Seigneur would pay for someone to come
over and he would repay them by working for room and board for 3
years.
Rented Lands: Former Indentured Servants often ended up renting land
from a Seigneur to run a family farm on, paying rent and various fees to
the Seigneur.
Alliance with the Indians: The French allied themselves to the Montagnais and
Hurons, who would collect furs and trade them to the French. Military assistance
from the Indians was crucial to the survival of the colony.
The Priests: Various Catholic Orders tried to convert the Indians to Catholicism.
The Hurons: The Jesuits converted the Hurons in the 1630s
Reductions: The Jesuits tried to create model villages known as
'Reductions', where they tried to get the Indians to live like European
Catholics, with some success.
Syncretism: A lot of Catholic ideas were basically alien to the Indians,
resulting in the creation of a faith which basically blended aspects of
traditional belief with Catholicism.
Further Expansion: By the 1670s, French traders moved into the Mississippi
valley. By the 1680s, colonists began to move in and forts were built, claiming
the vast lands which came to be called the pays des Illinois or Louisiana. The
French Mississippi Company was founded to colonize the area.
New Orleans: On May 7, 1718, New Orleans was founded by agents of
the French Mississippi Company.
The Acadians: In the 1750s and 1760s, French settlers in what is now
called 'Nova Scotia' but which originally was known as 'Acadia' were
forced to leave by British and Colonial authorities when they refused to
help fight French Canada during the French and Indian War (1754-1763).
Some of them came to Louisiana and eventually became the modern
'Cajuns'.

The Caribbean Colonies:

 The Goal: France settled many islands in the Caribbean, most notably the colony
of Haiti in order to grow lots of sugar and tobacco, which flourished in the
Caribbean climate.
Haiti: The Island of Hispaniola was the first Spanish colony in the New
World, but Spain failed to control the western portion of the island, which
became a haven for pirates and tobacco planters from France. In 1697, the
island was partitioned and became the French colony of Saint-Domingue ,
dominated by sugar and indigo planters. A society emerged of white
plantation owners, a middle class of mixed white and black ancestry
people (mulattos) and black slaves imported from Africa to work the
plantations. By 1790, it was very wealthy and hugely brutal. One third of
all newly arrived slaves died in their first year.
Indian Extermination: The Indians of the Caribbean were wiped out to make
way for the tobacco, sugar, and indigo plantations. Many simply died from
European diseases. Thus, a new labor supply was needed.
The Triangle Trade:
Manufactured goods are shipped from Europe to Africa and sold to buy
slaves.
Slaves are then shipped to the Caribbean and sold to buy sugar, molasses, and
rum.
Sugar, Molasses and Rum are shipped to Europe and sold to make the final
profit, which could be quite large—10 to 30%.

Canada vs. Caribbean:

Economics and Climate Shape Culture: Nearly perfect example of how
economic and climactic differences shaped cultures. In Canada, the fur trade
needed cooperation with Indians and the result was peaceful co-existence. In the
Caribbean, the Indians were wiped out and African slaves used to grow cash
crops that could never grow in Canada. (Just as the Caribbean had no significant
furs.)

The Dutch Colonial Empire

The Dutch Economy: The Dutch are major manufacturers of goods such as textiles,
jewelry, and glass and also the prime financiers of Europe. But the heart of the economy
is commerce, namely international and indeed global trade.
1602: Dutch East India Company is founded to challenge Portugal's monopoly
of trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesia. It came to control a sprawling empire
across Southern and Southeastern Asia from Africa to Indonesia, trading in spices
and slaves.
1609: Henry Hudson finds the Hudson River on an expedition for the Dutch,
though he is English.
1621: West India Company is founded. It takes over the West African slave
trade posts of the East India Company.
1624: Fort Orange (modern Albany) is founded as a trading post.
 1626: New Amsterdam is founded on Manhattan Island, which is purchased
cheaply from the locals.
1630s: Wealthy gentlemen, the patroons, are granted tracts of land to which they
are expected to lure settlers (at least 50 families to keep the land). They had
many feudal-style rights such as control of local law courts. This worked poorly
because even in the overcrowded Netherlands, few wanted to emigrate to start
over from scratch as a lord's peasants. Rensselaerwyck was the most successful
patroonship. Only about 10,000 lived in the colony at its peak before English
conquest.
Refugees: A lot of religious refugees flocked here for religious toleration,
including Quakers and Jews.
Ethnic Diversity: The settlers were very diverse, including Walloons, Dutch,
Germans, French, Swedes, and even English.
Poor Governors: A series of bungling governors mismanaged the colony and
provoked the Indians pointlessly.
The Fur Trade: The one profitable business was the Fur Trade, conducted much
as the French did it, mainly trading with the Iroquois confederacy
1664: The English capture New Amsterdam and take control of the Colony
which becomes New York.
Was the colony a success? It was only a very limited success at best, especially
compared to the massive growth of English colonies around it.
No Big Money: A major problem was that there was nothing hugely
valuable to serve as an incentive for further investment. It was too far
north for sugar, cotton, tobacco, indigo, coffee, or even rice. And the fur
trade only required a small number of people and could never match cash
crop revenues.

Seventeenth Century England and its Colonies

Seventeenth Century England:
Multiple Kingdoms: James I (1603-1625) of the Stuart Dynasty ruled
Presbyterians in Scotland, Catholics in Ireland, and a divided Church of
England in England. All three groups thought the other two illegitimate and the
Church of England had an internal split. All three kingdoms had its own
Parliament as well.
Religious Conflicts:
Catholics in Ireland were not allowed to practice their faith or control the
churches they had to pay taxes to support.
Presbyterians in Scotland wanted local control of congregations and a
federal church structure, not top-down control. They also believed that
Kings who didn't cooperate with the Church could be overthrown with
God's blessing. The Stuart Dynasty didn't like the Presbyterians. But
King James feared to challenge them in Scotland. Presbyterians were
Calvinists.
Puritans wanted to reform the Church of England to the Presbyterian
Model. Some even wanted near total autonomy for every congregation.
 And the most extreme, the Separatists, now founded illegal secret
congregations run outside the Church of England. The famous Pilgrims
were Separatists. Puritans were Calvinists.
The High Churchmen of the Church of England supported royal control
through the Bishops and Archbishops and control of congregations from
the top. They also favored fancier Church services.
Political Conflict: Royal estates were not rich enough to properly pay the cost of
government and there were no permanent taxes. Kings could no longer afford to
fight wars without Parliament's help but Parliament was reluctant to vote adequate
taxes to pay for wars.
Control over Advisors: Parliament demanded the right to influence or
control who served in Royal offices.
Control over Taxes: Parliament wanted to ensure the King addressed
their grievances or they wouldn't vote him the taxes needed for wars.
Control over Religion: Parliament wanted more control over religious
affairs.
Control over Foreign Affairs: Parliament wanted to influence foreign
policy, especially to prevent marriages to any Catholics or alliances with
Catholics.
Political Paralysis: Lack of money left kings unable to conduct any
effective foreign policy or to govern well at home as they desperately
found expedients to pay for government
English Trade: By the 17th century, the English were heavily involved in
international trade and starting to break into the Triangle Trade.
Quest for Colonies: The English thus sought to create colonies in North
America, the Caribbean, and India.

The Big Boom: The British Civil Wars (1638-1660)

Background of Colonization: The first wave of colonies are created
during the period of political and religious conflict which now erupts in
violence. Many Puritans flee to America due to the wars, along with
Catholics, nobles, etc.
Charles I (1625-1649): Frustrated with Parliament, Charles I tries to rule
without Parliament from 1629-1638) . In 1638, he tries to force the Scots
to become Church of England people. What follows is escalating chaos
and death. Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans team up to kill
Charles I and crush the High Churchmen, while the Irish Catholics revolt.
Oliver Cromwell emerges as a Puritan Dictator.
Oliver Cromwell (1649-1658) establishes a Puritan dictatorship under his
rule and goes to Ireland and mows Catholics like wheat. This is why the
Irish STILL curse his name. He allows religious tolerance for all non-
High Churchman Protestants (except Quakers). But he is unable to create
a stable government and many people flee to the American colonies.
1660: The Restoration. Cromwell is now dead, no effective successor
has emerged and Charles I's son Charles II now returns and takes over.
The Virginia Colonies:

The Roanoake Colony:

Sir Walter Raleigh: In 1584, he sends an expedition to find a suitable place to
build a base for piracy in the Caribbean and trade with the local Indians.
Roanoake Island is chosen.
1585: The colony is founded, then abandoned the next year due to supply
problems.
1587: The colony is refounded (ninety men, seventeen women, and eleven
children). Virginia Dare, first English person born in the Americas is born.
1590: By this time the colony vanishes, leaving only the word 'Croatoan' and
many abandoned possessions behind. They probably had to flee hostile Indians
and the survivors assimilated into local tribes. The Croatoan were a friendly tribe
living on Hattaras Island.

The Virginia Colony:

The Virginia Company: In 1606, London Merchants form a Joint-Stock
company to create a colony in the Americas.
May 1607: 104 men sail to America and build Jamestown, a fortified town.
Goals: Find Gold and Silver; find a water route to the Pacific and thus to Asia.
Neither exist.
January 1608: Due to supply issues and foolishly not planting crops, only 38
survive.
Captain John Smith: A professional mercenary, he now takes command and
establishes order and rationality. But he is forced to go home in 1609 and more
death and destruction ensues, the Starving Time.
1610: The Headright System gives 50 acres to anyone who paid their own
passage to Virginia + 50 acres per person they brought with them.
1619: The Virginia Company begins sending over women to marry the men.
Also, the first slaves are imported.
1619: The House of Burgesses is created, allowing more self-government as
land owners now elect a legislature
Conflict with the Powhattan Confederacy: Settlers fanned out, encroaching on
Indian lands. Powhattan ruled 30 tribes (14,000 total, 3,200 warriors). March 22,
1622, the Indians attacked by surprise, killing 347 colonists, roughly 25% of the
colony. Between 1622-31, the colonists fought back, defeating the Indians. A
second Indian war (1644-6) wiped out the surviving Indians on the coast.
Tobacco: The cultivation of Tobacco was labor intensive but supremely
profitable. The price gradually dropped as cultivation became more common,
falling from 36 pence per pound in 1617 to 1 penny a pound in the 1660s. But
this meant more people could afford to smoke, and Virginia was selling over 20
million pounds a year by the late 1670s (pp. 36-37)
Tobacco Growing: At first, indentured servants did the growing, people who
pledged 3-7 years of service for passage to the New World and room and board.
They then sought to become planters once they were free. Work was hard, but
 one man could tend 2000 plants, producing 500 pounds of tobacco (p. 38) Former
indentured servants often found life difficult, however, and they would ultimately
join Bacon's Rebellion.
Slavery: Eventually, slaves would take the place of Indentured Servants.

Maryland:
A Refuge: Lord Baltimore, a covert English Catholic, created this colony as a
refuge for English Catholics in 1632. This was a proprietary colony ruled by a
single man. He wanted to create semi-feudal manors.
Trouble: But many early settlers were Protestants who wanted their own farms
and set out for the border to get one.
Civil War: Civil War in England caused trouble in Maryland.
1649: Act for Religious Toleration—allowed freedom of worship for all
Christians.
Virginia-fication: Increasingly, Protestants took over, creating Tobacco
plantations and importing indentured servants and slaves.

Life in the Chesapeake Colonies:

Marriage: Men outnumber women; marriage and families are rare early on.
High Mortality: Disease killed people fairly young. This required heavy
importation of servants and slaves.
Deferment of Pleasure: Most families lived under crude conditions so they
could sink all their money into getting more land, servants, and slaves so future
generations would live better.

New England

Puritans on the March: Six colonies founded by Puritans fleeing England in order to
set up their own style of government and religion between 1620 and 1640. They showed
up just after a terrible epidemic killed off 90% of the Indians of the area in 1616-8.
Puritanism: The Puritans were Calvinists. They rejected fancy church
ceremonies and wanted congregations made up only of those who had conversion
experiences. Salvation came by faith alone, not by works. They wanted bottom-
up Church organization, not a Church hierarchy appointed by the King. Also,
believers should rule politically over non-believers. Persecution by the Church of
England and the Stuart Dynasty convinced many to flee to America.
The Pilgrims: Separatists from Scrooby, England, they went to Holland from
1607 to 1620, but came to fear the Dutch would corrupt their children, so they set
sail for America, 102 strong, on the Mayflower in 1620. Some, however, were
non-Separatists hired because of needed skills.
Mayflower Compact: A plan of government agreed to on the boat.
Indian Aid: Nearly half died the first winter; only Indian assistance
enabled them to survive. (The story of this is one of the sources of the
American holiday of Thanksgiving) Pilgrims allied with the Wampanoag
against the Narraganset Indians.
Small: No more than 7000 settlers
Massachusetts Bay Colony: Founded in 1630 by Puritans who hoped to create a model
Christian society. About 1000 founders.
Covenant: Puritans believed they were contracting with God in a sacred
covenant to create a holy church and society as Abraham had with God to create
the nation of Israel. Covenants were used as the tool of agreement to set up towns
and congregations and entire colonies.
Democracy: Property owners who belonged to a Puritan congregation got to
elect representatives to a two house legislator and also elected the governor.
Second Class Non-Believers: Anyone who didn't have a conversion experience
and join a congregation couldn't vote and was basically treated as inferior but still
expected to follow Puritan morals or be censured or even exiled.

Connecticut and the Pequot War

Push West: Between 1630 and 1642, around 13,000 settlers came from England
and by the mid 1630s, they headed west into the Connecticut Valley.
1637 (Pequot War): Settlers, the Narragansets, and the Mohegans allied against
the Pequot and slaughtered them.
1639: Fundamental Orders of Connecticut set up a representative government.

Religious Challenges to Puritanism

Roger Williams and Rhode Island: Roger Williams declared the Puritans of
Massachusetts were corrupt for failing to break openly with the Church of
England; he moved south to hide among the Narragansett Indians, founding
Providence in 1636 with his followers.
Anne Hutchinson: A talented midwife who began to denounce some male
ministers in meetings, emphasizing the role of grace in salvation over things like
spiritual exercises. Some accused her of saying the saints answered only to God,
not any mortal authority. Her teaching mixed-gender groups offended many male
Puritans. She was tried for sedition. She was banished to Rhode Island.

Society in New England

Base Unit: The farm family (husband, wife, children) was the basic unit of
society. Parents lived longer, healthier lives than in the Chesapeake and retained
authority over their children longer. Sons often could not afford to marry until
their mid-to-late 20s; women married in the early twenties.
Women as Property: Women were pretty much dependent first on their fathers,
then on their husbands, unless they were widows. Men and women usually
worked side by side, often doing the same work, though women also got saddled
with the domestic chores.
The Township: 50 to 100 families would form a township which was both a
political unit run by local landholders and a congregation of the Puritan church
with a lot of autonomy. The meetinghouse was both a town hall and a church.
Each town had to support a school if they had 50+ families, so the Bible could be
learned.
 Subsistence Economy: Most people lived as subsistence farmers, growing just
enough food to get by with a small surplus to trade for other items. Families
worked together and bartered with neighbors.
The Sea: Fishing supplemented their diet and in turn led to building ships for
trade. Eventually New England would dominate trade between the colonies and
England proper.

Restoration Era Colonies (1660-early 1700s)

The Carolinas
1663: A group of nobles are granted the Carolinas as a colony.
Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina: A plan for the colony. A group of
nobles would control 40% of the land and the top of the political ladder. Many
small freeholders would elect a legislature under them. And slaves would work
the plantations of the nobles. Created by John Locke.
Failure: Settlers went wherever they wanted. The legislature voted down
the Fundamentals. They killed the natives and sold them as slaves.
A New Economy: The settlers first raised cattle to sell to the Caribbean colonies,
then began growing rice on plantations with black slaves. By 1708, slaves
outnumbered whites two to one. Rice planters took the best land and dominated
the colony but had to fear slave revolts. Poorer farmers moved to the upcountry
or to the northern regions. In 1729, the colony split into North and South
Carolina.
Pennsylvania: William Penn founds Pennsylvania as a model utopia in 1681,
wanting peaceful relations with the Indians and a haven for men of all religions,
especially for the Quakers.
The Quakers were a Protestant Sect who rejected the idea of church
rituals and formal clergy in favor of God's direct spiritual guidance). They
refused to take oaths and granted women more spiritual equality. They
refused to defer to their 'social superiors'. They also would not serve in
the military.
1700: 18,000 Pennsylvanians live in the colony. They allied with the
Delaware Indians, who had been reduced in number by disease and war
and needed the help.
Frame of Government: Penn wrote his own Constitution for the colony.
He kept a lot of power for himself but created a legislature. He controlled
foreign trade and got fees from landowners. As in the Carolinas, though,
the colonists tried to escape his control; indeed, some went so far as to
break away and form Delaware.
Prosperity: Penn's dreams collapsed but Pennsylvanians lived on large
farms and grew grains and vegetables and prospered.
New York and New Jersey:
1638-55: The Swedes founded a colony in southwestern New Jersey
known as New Sweden. 600 Swedes and Finns eventually moved there.
The Dutch eventually conquer it in 1655.
1664: The English conquer New Amsterdam. It is granted to James
Stuart, Duke of York, younger brother of King Charles II, who would
eventually become James II of England. He renames it as New York. He
rules it with a very firm hand and creates New Jersey as a colony for some
of his allies, Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton. In 1702,
New Jersey became a royally controlled colony when they gave up. James
controlled New York until he was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution
of 1688 in England.