Chapter 2 The American Colonies Emerge

1. The Spanish Claim a New Empire

a) Hernando Cortes Subdues the Aztecs

(1) Conquistadors

(2) Learned of vast wealth of Aztec Empire in Central Mexico

(3) Marched 200 miles with 600 men to reach Tenochtitlan in 1519

(4) Aztec emperor Montezuma thought Spanish were gods and agreed to give them a portion of Aztec gold

(5) Cortes eventually forced Aztecs to mine more gold and silver

(6) In 1520 the Aztecs rebelled, drove the Spanish out and killed Montezuma as a traitor

(7) Cortes launched a counter attack in 1521 and by that time many of the Aztec had died of small pox or measles

(8) After several months of fighting the Spanish burned Tenochtitlan and the Aztec surrendered

(9) Cortes established New Spain whose capital he called Mexico City

b) Spanish Patterns of Conquest

(1) Settlers mostly men

(2) Married native women

(3) Mestizo – mixed Spanish and Native American population

(4) Encomienda – natives farmed, ranched, or mined for Spanish landlords, who had received the rights to their labor from Spanish authorities

(a) Spanish abolished it in 1542 and turned to African slaves

2. The Conquistadors Push North

a) Exploring Florida

(1) Juan Ponce de Leon

(2) 1513

(3) Spanish explored for 50 years without much economic success

(4) Menendez de Aviles drove French pirates out of area which is now Jacksonville in 1565 and established a lonely outpost he called St. Augustine which is the oldest European founded city in the present day United States

b) Settling the Southwest

(1) Francisco Vasquez de Coronado

(a) 1540

(b) Arizona , New Mexico , Texas Oklahoma , and Kansas

(2) Other Spaniards followed looking for silver and to spread the Roman Catholic religion

(3) Many natives died of disease

(4) Spanish priests gathered survivors in large communities called congregaciones

(5) New Mexico

(a) Spain ’s northern holdings

(b) Governor Pedro de Peralta led missionary priests and settlers to build a capital on a tributary of the upper Rio Grande called Santa Fe in the winter of 1609-1610

3. Resistance to the Spanish

a) Conflict in New Mexico

(1) Missionaries tried to Christianize natives and impose Spanish culture on them

(a) Burned objects held sacred by natives and suppressed many of their ceremonial dances and rituals

(2) Priests and soldiers around Santa Fe began forcing natives to pay tribute in the 1670s

(3) Natives were sometimes physically abused

b) Pope’s Rebellion

(1) Pope was Pueblo religious leader whipped by Spanish for worship practices interpreted as witchcraft

(2) Led a rebellion in 1680 that drove Spanish back to New Spain for 14 years

B. An English Settlement at Jamestown

1. English Settlers Struggle in North America

a) The Business of Colonization

(1) Funded by joint stock companies

(a) Virginia Company

(i) Granted a charter by James I in 1606

(ii) Hoped to start a colony in area of Lost Colony named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth

(iii) Sent three ships with 150 passengers in 1607

(a) Susan Constant

(b) Discovery

(iv) Jamestown

b) A Disastrous Start

(1) John Smith warned early behavior of colonists would lead to disaster but no one listened

(2) Disease from contaminated river water

(3) Hunger

(a) Colonists refused to work

(4) John Smith took control when number of colonists dwindled to 38

(a) Those who didn’t work didn’t eat

(b) Persuaded Powhatan to provide food

(5) Smith was badly burned and had to return to England

(6) 600 new colonists arrived in 1609

(a) Powhatan were alarmed at rising numbers of colonists and killed their livestock and burned their crops

(b) Starving Time

c) Jamestown Begins to Flourish

(1) New group of settlers convinced remaining colonists not to abandon settlement and instituted strict rules about work

(2) Colony expanded further inland along the James River

(a) Richmond

d) “Brown Gold” and Indentured Servants

(1) Tobacco

(a) John Rolfe

(b) Very lucrative

(i) Headright System

(a) Led to huge land grants for early settlers

(ii) Indentured Servants

e) 1619

(1) The First African Laborers

(2) First legislative Assembly

(3) 90 eligible women arrived

2. The Settlers Clash with Native Americans

a) The English Pattern of Conquest

(1) No desire to live among and marry natives as the Spanish did

b) The Settlers Battle Native Americans

(1) Settlers began to burn native villages, take hostages and demand tribute in retaliation for the starving time

(2) Temporary peace achieved when John Rolfe married Chief Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas in 1614

(3) Settlers continued to move further and further west

(4) Powhatan’s brother and successor Opechancanough launched a well planned attack against colonial villages up and down the James River in 1622

(a) Killed 340 colonists

(5) Virginia Company nearly went bankrupt

(6) James revoked the company’s charter and made Virginia a royal colony under direct control of the king

3. Economic Differences Split Virginia

a) Hostilities Develop

(1) Increased tension and fighting between natives and settlers on the western frontier around what is now Richmond

b) Bacon’s Rebellion

(1) Four main causes

(a) Tidewater versus Piedmont farmers

(i) Tidewater

(a) Rich

(b) Headright system

(ii) Piedmont

(a) Poorer people with smaller farms

(b) Ex-servants

(d) Younger sons of Tidewater farmers

(e) More vulnerable to low prices

(f) Less fertile soil

(b) Unfair taxes

(i) Burden almost entirely on the Piedmont

(i) Poor farmers could not vote

(d) Disagreement over Natives

(i) William Berkeley supports the Indians

(2) Nathaniel Bacon

(3) Attack on the Natives

(4) Attack on Jamestown

(5) About 100 dead

(6) Berkeley and other wealthy farmers fled

(7) Bacon died and rebellion collapsed

(8) Alerted wealthy to the dangers of indentured servants

C. Puritan New England

1. Puritans Create a “ New England ”

a) Puritans and Pilgrims

(1) Puritans wanted to purify the Anglican Church of all traces of Roman Catholicism

(2) Separatists were Puritans who thought reform of the church was impossible so they formed independent congregations

(3) Pilgrims were group of Separatists who first went to Holland to escape persecution and then founded Plymouth Colony in 1620

(4) Mayflower Compact

b) The Massachusetts Bay Company

(1) Other Puritans began to look to the New World

(2) John Winthrop obtained a royal charter and formed the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629

(3) Winthrop and other colonists aboard the Arbella established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630

(4) Capital was Boston

(5) Grew quickly and eventually incorporated Plymouth Colony

c) City Upon a Hill

(1) Winthrop ’s vision although not one of political democracy and social equality

(2) Right to vote extended to all adult males who belonged to the Puritan Church

(3) Voted annually for members of a lawmaking body called the General Court which chose the Governor

d) Church and State

(1) Extremely close relationship between government and the Puritan Church

e) Importance of the Family

(1) Came to New World as families rather than as single men

(2) Puritans enforced strict rules about family

2. Dissent in the Puritan Community

a) The Founding of Providence

(1) Roger Williams

(a) Extreme Separatist who expressed two controversial views

(i) English settlers had no right to land unless they purchased it from the natives

(ii) Government had no business punishing settlers for their religious beliefs

(b) Ordered to be arrested and sent back to England

(c) Williams fled Massachusetts and negotiated with the Narragansett tribe for land to set up a new colony called Providence in 1636 which would later become the capital of Rhode Island

(i) Separation of church and state and religious freedom were guaranteed

b) Anne Hutchinson Banished

(1) In 1638 for teaching that worshipers needed neither the church nor his ministers to interpret the Bible for them

(2) Moved to Rhode Island and then New Netherland in 1642 after husband died

(3) She died the following year in a war fought between the Dutch and Native Americans

3. Native Americans Resist Colonial Expansion

a) Disputes Over Land

(1) Natives needed 20 acres to every one acre the colonial farmer needed to support life

(2) Natives believed no one could own land

(3) Natives viewed land treaties as temporary agreements to share land and colonists viewed them as permanent

b) The Pequot War

(1) Connecticut in 1637

(2) Pequot nation took a stand against colonial advance further and further west

(3) Colonists formed an alliance with the Narragansett who were old enemies of the Pequot

(4) Colonial alliance nearly destroyed the Pequot nation

(5) Narragansett were shocked at the brutality of the colonists

c) King Philip’s War

(1) Wampanoag chief Metacom, whom the English called King Philip, organized an alliance against the settlers in 1675

(2) Over a year of mutual brutality and destruction

(3) Food shortages, disease and heavy casualties wore down Native American resistance and they gradually surrendered or fled

(4) Matacom was killed , and his head was displayed in Plymouth for 20 years

(5) Native American power in southeastern New England was gone forever

D. Settlement of the Middle Colonies

1. The Dutch Found a New Netherland

a) Englishman Henry Hudson explored what is now the Hudson River for the Dutch as early as 1609

b) Dutch government granted the Dutch West India Company a charter to colonize New Netherland in 1621

c) New Amsterdam which is now New York City was founded in 1625

d) Dutch took over New Sweden in 1655

(1) Tiny colony of Swedish and Finnish settlers that had established a rival fur trade along the Delaware River

e) A Diverse Colony

(1) Attracted Dutch, Germans, French, Scandinavians and other Europeans

(2) Also included many Africans, free and enslaved

(a) By the 1660s one fifth of New Netherland ’s population was of African ancestry

(3) Friendlier relations with Native Americans than in New England and Virginia

(a) Less interested in conquering natives than in trading with them for furs

(b) Smart enough not to anger the very powerful Iroquois but did engage in some fighting with other Native American groups over land claims and trade rivalries

f) English Takeover

(1) New Netherland had become a Dutch wedge between English colonies to the north and south

(2) James, the duke of York and later to be James II, was given permission by Charles II to drive out the Dutch in 1664

(3) Autocratic and unpopular Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered without a shot being fired because people did not heed his call to arms

(4) James became the proprietor and renamed the colony New York

2. The Quakers Settle in Pennsylvania

a) Penn’s “Holy Experiment”

(1) William Penn asked that a debt owed to his diseased father by Charles II be paid in American land

(2) Penn received a charter for Pennsylvania in 1681

(3) Penn was a Quaker

(a) God’s “inner light” burns inside everyone

(b) Services with no formal ministers where anyone can speak

(d) Refused to defer to persons of rank

(e) Pacifist

(f) Harassed by Anglicans and Puritans alike

(4) No land owning aristocracy

(5) Every adult male guaranteed 50 acres and the right to vote

(6) Representative assembly and freedom of religion

(7) Penn helped plan capital city of Philadelphia

b) Native American Relations

(1) Consistent with Quaker beliefs Penn tried to treat natives fairly

(2) No major conflicts

c) A Thriving Colony

(1) At first colony was opened to Quakers but soon immigrants from all over western Europe came

(2) Penn only spent four years in Pennsylvania

(a) Never profited financially even though colony was successful and died in poverty in 1718

(3) Quakers eventually became minority but some values lived on

d) Thirteen Colonies

(1) Throughout the 1600s and 1700s new colonies were formed for a variety of reasons

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