COLONIZATION


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First English Colonies Original 13 Colonies French Colonies
Jamestown
Plymouth 		New England Colonies
Middle Colonies
Southern Colonies








Jamestown
(By Diana Benavides & Hector Mancillas)

Almost twenty years passed between the first and second attempts by England to colonize in the Americas. In, 1606 the Virginia company of London received a charter from King James I, and that charter gave the company permission to set up a settlement in the land to the north of Roanoke, between North Carolina and the Potomac River. This land was called Virginia.

In order to raise money to settle the collony, the Virginia Company organized a private trading company that sold shares to investors. This is also referred to as a joint stock company.

In December 1606, three ships with 144 men, were sent to Virginia by the Virginia Company. On the way to Virginia there was a very bad storm and 40 men died. Only 104 survived and those 104 sailed into Chesapeake Bay and headed inland in the spring of 1607. They sailed up a river called Jamestown, named after James I. The men climbed ashore and began building homes. They named their tiny outpost Jamestown and that was the beginning of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

The colonists faced many problems because the land was swampy, there were a lot of mosquitoes, and the water was undrinkable. Many settlers died from disease. Governing the colony was also very difficult. The Virginia Company chose 13 men to rule the settlement. Members of the council quarreled and accomplished very little to provide for the future of the colony. Mostly all colonists spent their day hunting for gold instead of planting crops and preparing for the future of Jamestown.

Jamestown was on the edge of failure by the summer of 1608. Many settlers had died of diseases and hardship, and were about to give up and go back to England. It was captain John Smith, a swashbuckling soldier, who saved Jamestown from disaster. He determined not to let the colony fail. Smith had a little patience with the settlers, because they didn't want to work. They only wanted to dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, and load gold, but there was no gold to be found and food was running short. Smith had to trade with nearby villages to get food. A powerful chief called Powhatan did not like the English people, so he took Smith prisoner and sentenced him to death. According to Smith, they didn't kill him because the chief's daughter, a 12 year-old girl named Pocahontas, begged her father to release him. He agreed and even sold corn to them.

The colonists were very proud of John Smith and decided to put him in charge of the colony. Life improved for them and they began to plant crops. In 1609, John Smith injured his leg and he went back to England to get treated. After he left, the settlers got lazy and went back to their old bad habits.

As winter approached the settlers had nothing to eat. They would eat whatever they could find; dogs, snakes, cats, toadstools, and horsehides. By the time spring came around 60 men were alive. When the Virginia Company found out what a disaster Jamestown was, they sent an army officer to act as governor. He was very powerful and made whatever laws he thought were needed. He used his power very harshly. He executed a settler for killing a chicken without permissioon. Even so , matters at Jamestown did not improve.

Things started to get better when colonists began to grow tobacco. Europeans learned about tobacco from the Indians. In 1612, a settler named John Rolfe discovered that Jamestown was ideal for growing tobacco. The soil and climate there were great. King James I considered smoking "a vile custom" and tobacco "a stinking weed". By 1620, England was impporting more than 30,000 pounds of tobacco a year. At least the VirginiaCompany had found a way to make a profit.

Tobacco growing was hard work. In 1619 a Dutch ship arrived in JAmestown carrying 20 Africans whom the Dutch seized in Africa. They sold the Africans to the colonists, so the could help with the farming of tobacco. During the late 1600s, the Virginia planters became very cruel to the slaves, setting up a system of slavery that lasted more than 200 years.

The colony began to thrive with the arrival of slaves. Two other major happenings also improved life in Jamestown. First, the colonists set up a new government. The Virginia Company sent a governor to Jamestown in 1619. Male settlers who owned land were allowed to elect their representatives. They met in an assembly called the House of Burgesses, and made laws for the colony. Then the arrival of woman also helped the colony prosper. In 1608, the first English women arrived aboard a supply ship. They were Anne Forst and Anne Burras. The Virginia Company decided that if Jamestown was to survive, family life would have to grow. So in 1619, 100 women arrived in Jamestown. Most of the men found wives. Anyone who did find a wife was charged 150 pounds of tobacco. The most famous marriage took place in 1614. John Rolfe and Pocahontas got married, but the relatioins between the settlers and the Indians was still uneasy. In 1622 the Indians decided to drive out the English settlers. They killed 350 europeans. News of the attack reached England, and King James decided that the colony had not been run well. In 1624, King James took charge of Jamestown. From that time forward Virigina was a royal colony, or a colony directly under the control of the king.


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Plymouth
(By Gonzalo Gonzalez & Fitzgerald Richardson)

In the 1620,the Mayflower arrived in the present day Massachusetts Bay. They came from England to seek freedom of religion. Before setting foot on land they drew up the Mayflower Compact. The compact stated that 41 signers would agree on how to make the colony successful and would agree on laws for the colony. The colony later grew too large for them to consult each other, so they choose representatives.

During the first winter many weren't prepared. It was too late to plant crops, so they had to feed on whatever wild game and food they had left from the voyage. Many pilgrims had sod houses that were poorly built. Others sought shelter in caves that were cold and damp. Nearly half of the pilgrims had died of disease or starvation after the first winter, the others carried on as best as they could.

During the spring, a Penaquid Indian came to the colony. His name was Samoset. He knew English from sailor he had worked with before. He introduced the pilgrims to a local Wampanoug chief, named Massasoit. The pilgrims and the chief made a treaty of peace. An indian named Squant was the one who helped the pilgrims the most. He knew english well. He thought they knew how to catch up from the river with their squado. I'm the fall, they had a good harvest, so they sit aside a day give thanks to god. From then on they celebrated Thanksgiving.


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New England Colonies
(By Eric Cano & Yvonna Perez)

The New England region of the U.S., comprised of the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, was originally settled by Pilgrims and Puritans from England. New England is an atlantic coastal region in the northeastern United States. It was named by Captain John Smith in 1614. It was a union formed, in 1643 by four original colonies, for defense against the indians, especially following the Pequot War. The union also provided sufficient military strength to resist the lurking threat of Dutch expansion from the Hudson River Valley. The soil was thin and rocky, so only some people grew crops. Because of the poor soil, many people worked in the industries of fishing and lumber to earn money. The settlers also sold slaves in the south for profit. New England existed since the 10th century. It was created under the statute of Rhuiddlan in 1824.


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Middle Colonies
(By Crystal Ambriz, Betsie Corkill, & Carmelie Zaldivar)



The middle colonies had a various number of religions inside the four tiny states. The religions were Presbyterian, Anglican Episcopal, and Dutch Reformed. People took part in economics. They did ironworks, lumbering, trading, and shipbuilding. The Middle Colonies were founded mainly for religious and profit reasons but if you take a better look at out web site you can know a lot more about the Middle Colonies.

Four tiny states make up the Middle Colonies. These include Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. Look closer and you will learn some interesting facts about these states.
NEW YORK NEW JERSEY
PENNSYLVANIA DELAWARE



The Middle Colonies were not only known for their economics, but also for some of the famous people that were born and raised there. Click on their pictures to learn more about three famous people of the Middle Colonies.

William Penn Peter Stuyvesant Benjamin Franklin



William Penn
William Penn was an English Quaker who spoke out on Civil War and religious freedom. Penn was born in Ruscombe, Berkshire, England on October 14, 1644. He grew up in Wanstead, Essex. Penn first heard the Quaker doctrine preached by George Fox in 1657. In 1660, he attended Christ Church College where he was expelled for religious noncomformity. In the year 1682 William Penn founded Pennsylvania, which he named after his father, Sir William Penn. Penn died on September 30, 1718 from a paralytic stroke. His wife managed his proprietary colony. Penn lies buried in the Quaker burial ground at Jordans in Buckinghamshire.

Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was an American printer, author, philosopher, diplomat, scientist, and inventor. Franklin was the eighth of ten children and brought up in a poor family. Later on he became the best editor and publisher in North America. He worked hard and skillfully to build his own press. Franklin published a newspaper called the Pennsylvania Gazette. At height of his fame as an editor, he turned more fully to a career in politics. His election in 1751 to Pennsylvania Assembly began a career of nearly 40 years as a public official. Franklin was also the leader of Quaker Party and opposed proprietary party. Franklin retired and lived comfortably for 20 years off the income of his business. He died peacefully in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790.

Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant was born in Scherpenzal near Wolvega, Frieland, Netherlands. He was a Dutch soldier and colonial official. He entered the military at a very young age. Stuyvesant was wounded in his right leg and had to have it ampuated and replaced by a wooden one. Which was later decorated with silver-ornaments. People called him "Old Silver Nails" because of his leg. In 1655 his success in external affairs varied greatly with a long dispute over Swedish colonization of the Delaware Valley he invaded Sweden and forced it to surrender. Stuyvesant retired in 1665 and died in Febuary 1672. He is buried in a family vault beneath the chapel he built.

WHY WAS IT SETTLED DATE FOUNDED LEADER
NEW YORK for selling wheat, flour, barley, and oats; growing profits 1626 Peter Minuit
PENNSYLVANIA Quakers came to worship freely, and political freedom; and profit from land sales 1682 William Penn
DELAWARE expand trade 1638 Peter Minuit
NEW JERSEY for religious freedom and rights of an assembly 1660 Lord Berkley



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Southern Colonies
(By David Gutierrez, O.J. Ortega, & Raul Reyes)
Maryland
In 1632, Sir George Calvert convinced King Charles I to give him land for a colony in the Americas. Sir Calvert ruined his career and protestan England by becoming a Roman Catholic. He was going to build a colony called Maryland but he died. Before he could set it up the colony was supposed to be located along the upper Chesapeake Bay, across from Virginia. In the mid 1700s, England ruled southern colonies. Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. Lord Baltimore bribed a lot of people. 100 acres of land would go to a settler who brought 5 healthy men. A woman and child would only bring 5 acres. In 1647, the governor was dying and he told Margaret Bret to take over. She did. In 1649, she asked the assembly to pass on the Act of Toleration.

Carolinas
The Carolinas were named after Charles I. Carolina's rice was a valuable trop traded around the world. They found out that it grew best in swampy lowlands along the coast. North and South Carolina led the division along the colony in 1716.

Virginia
In 1624, King James I of England took over the Virginia Colony saving it from bankruptcy. Previously, Virginia had been under control of the Virginia Company, which eventually failed. James I disliked representative government, so therefore appointed governors to rule Virginia. Later on, King Charles I failed to truly recognize Virginia as a province, so that Virginia's elite learned systems of local government rather quickly.

Georgia
Georgia was founded in 1732 by James Oglethorpe, he was a respected soldier and energetic reformer. He saw Georgia as a place where people who were jailed for debt in England far in Georgia. They could make a new start. In Georgia under English law, people that owed money could be sent to jail until their debt could be paid in full, and often when they got out of jail they often had no money. Oglethorpe offered to pay for debtors and other poor people to travel to Georgia. Oglethorpe had a dream that settlers in Georgia would "cut down trees, build houses, fortify towns, dig and saw the land." In 1733, Oglethorpe and 120 settlers reached Georgia and every settler got so many acres and there was a law no rum.


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French Colonies
(By Ashley Araiza, Cevera Clark, & Donielle Wolfe)

The French claims of North America date back at least to the exploration of Jacques Cartier in Newfoundland and Gaspe Peninsula around the 1530s and 1540s. The French tried to settle in Quebec but failed. It was not reestablished on a secure basis until Samuel de Champlaign reached Quebec in 1608. In the south a small Protestant settlement in Florida, but was eliminated by the Spanish in 1563. The French did not begin to colonize in America until the seventeenth century.

Louis XIV and his finance minister, Jean Colbert, began to develop a colony, New France. The state controlled trade, but the French feudal systems of land ownership in Canada discouraged growth of the colony. Around 1682, Sieur de La Salle claimed the entire Mississippi River Valley. In 1718 this area was named Louisiana. During the eightennth century the French moved into the northwest as around the Black Hills of South Dakota, and in the Southwest as far as New Mexico. The French had lost Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay territory and most of Acadia to the British, by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.


QUEBEC
Quebec fell to the English in 1759, when France and England were in the middle of "the French and Indian War". The fighting started when the English attacked the fortress of Louisbourg which is now Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. It fell to the English, in 1745; the War of Austrian Succession in 1744 brought France and the English into conflict in North America, that lasted since 1713. During the final period of peace in Nouvelle, France, the La Verendreyes took the last great explorations of America for France. Starting in 1731, the explorations streched to the Rocky Mountains by 1743. The three main aims of French colonization in North America had been conversion of the Indians to Christianity, fur trading, keeping the English at bayy. There as a population of 55,000 by 1754, and a system of laws and land ownership in Quebec, based on the code of Napoleon according to most English Canadians. Actually it was based on the Cutume de Paris and forms the basis for civil law in Quebec today. By 1760, a man named Mason Wade, noted the one quarter of the population lived iin cities and towns. Quebec's history changed by two main events. First, the Treaty of Paris in 1763, when France decided to keep its possessions in the Caribbean rather than Quebec. Then , it was the Quebec Act of 1775, when England restored the old boundaries of Quebec, extending it to the Mississippi River. This area is now Ontario, and the American states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The two things things that changed the most were religious and cultural recognition: Catholic religion was guaranteed of free exercise and French civil law was recognized as law. Only the language question was unsettled, but French outnumbered English 30 to 1. The Quebec Gazette was the first newspaper in Quebec containing articles in both French and English.


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LINKS


This page was constructed by Mr. Whalen's 2nd Period American history class.