The New England Prospect

A.P. US Artem Kholodenko Mods 6.7.8 0109 Notes for pgs. 55-86

The New England - From 1630 – 1660, at least 200,000 (or 250,000) English Prospect swarmed to foreign lands - By mid-17th century, England’s population reached 5.5 Population Shift to the million, yet was loosing 65,000 – 80,000 people every US and the New World decade; by 1700 there were almost 250,000 people of English birth or parentage in the New World, including 200,000 in the US - There were also about 300,000 slaves who arrived during the 17th century who went to work at the sugar plantations - This migration was possible due to the depopulation of Native Americans who were rapidly dieing due to deceases Sarah Horbin - Had a large family clan, and settled in lands long inhabited and worked by the Indians - The vitality of the colonies came from the encounters of peoples from 3 continents The New England Way - 6 years after returning from Jamestown, John Smith led a whale hunting expedition to the then called part of North America named Norumbega John Smith’s Whale hunt - He found no whales, but named the land what it is called now – New England - He put out a pamphlet, which inspired Puritans discontented with the Church of England to view New England as a haven The Plymouth Settlement - The Pilgrims settled at Plymouth in 1620, and a few hundred others drifted into the region over the next decade, but not until 1630, did a large-scale migration begin - Building communities based on religious ideals, the Puritans found America’s first utopian society Errand into the - By 1600 Puritans held a considerable influence in the Wilderness Church of England, and as economy worsened in England, more Puritans looked into colonizing - James I – the founder of England’s Stuart dynasty – opposed Puritan effort to get rid of the bishops, and after Puritan attacks on bishops, said “No bishop, no king” Charles I and the Book of - When Charles I took over he tried to eliminate Puritan Common Prayer control in the Anglican Church and said that services must be conducted with the Book of Common Prayer; and if that was not done, the priest would be thrown out of the church forever The British Economy - Between 1550 and 1650 wages fell by ½ due to bad harvests and depressions - A 30% rise in population from 1590 to 1640 created massive unemployment - After Germany was unable to import English cloth, the weaving industry fell into a great recession (1618) Puritan goals in New - Puritans saw an opportunity to build a godly community England away from England’s constricting environment - In 1628 several Puritan merchants bought the claims of the Virginia Co. of Plymouth, England to land north of Plymouth colony between the Charles and Merrimack rivers - They obtained a royal charter in 1629 to govern and settle the area A City upon a Hill - 400 Puritans arrived at Salem, Massachusetts, later in 1629 to prepare the way for others - In 1630 a fleet of 11 ships and 700 passengers under John Winthrop, who would become governor until 1649 delivered a sermon describing a utopian colony arrived Gov. John Winthrop - Announced that the colony will be the best and all people will look up to it, and denounced self-destructive economic jealousy that bred class hatred - He said that Massachusetts will be an alternative to England, not its extension Development of Puritan - Winthrop arrived in June of 1630, by fall, 6 towns Orthodoxy appeared in the city’s modern limits - During a harsh winter, 30% of the party died, and 10% went home in spring - By 1631 1300 new settlers landed and the colony would never suffer starvation again Non-Separatist Puritans - As NS, Massachusetts Puritans considered themselves members of the Church of England, but created a self- governing system and ignored the Anglican church NS and S Puritans - Except for Separatists of Plymouth and Rhode Island, most American Puritans were Non-Separatists Mr. John Cotton - Said that the control of each church should be placed in the hands of the male saints and by majority these men chose their minister and “elders” - New England congregationalism fused elements of S and NS Puritanism - Rules of attending services and baptizing were made calling this the “New England Way” - English Puritans criticized this process and thought a lot of it was unnecessary Education - Parents drilled their kids into reading the bible and answering belief questions about it - In 1642, Massachusetts Bay colony ordered households to conduct regular catechism sessions, but that wasn’t enough and the famous “Old Deluder Act” was passed Old Deluder Act - The act ordered for towns with more than 50 households to appoint a teacher to whom the kids will come in for instructions and every town of at least 100 households to maintain a grammar school Public Schools appear - By 1671 most other Puritan colonies enacted similar legislation, which presented 1st steps toward public education - However non of these laws required school attendance, and though boys were more likely to be taught reading and writing than girls would Harvard College in 1636 - To produce learned ministers, Massachusetts founded Harvard College in 1636 - Not only were people trained there, but also studied arts and sciences - Teenagers entered Harvard as well, after proving they could write and speak Latin and Greek grammar - Harvard’s tough standards led Oxford University to recognize its degrees as equivalent to its own by 1648 Dissenting Puritans - One of the 1st to challenge the “New England Way” was Roger Williams, who arrived in America in 1631 Roger Williams - He stirred controversy, yet did not make enemies, and quickly became one of the most respected and popular figures in Massachusetts - However he questioned the legal basis of congregationalism and once he began to say that the church and state were entirely separate, the government silenced him State control of the Church - Puritans agreed that the church must be free of state control, and they opposed theocracy (govn’t run clergy), but agreed that commonwealth required cooperation between church and state - Williams took a position saying that the government should completely stay uninvolved with religious matters Banishment of Williams (he got this from a 16th century Anabaptist tradition) - In 1635 the government of Massachusetts banished Williams because they thought that he was going against the principals on which Massachusetts was established - He went to the south to a place called Providence with 4 The Rhode Island Colony friends, which he purchased from the Indians - Providence later joined to become the Rhode Island Colony, and in 1644 Williams gained permission from England to establish a legal government, which true to William’s beliefs, practiced religious toleration Anne Hutchinson - The colony’s 4 towns grew to 800 people by 1650 - Said that saints should be free from interference from the non-elect - By doing this, she undermined the clergy’s moral authority to interpret and teach Scripture, and authorities Massachusetts Splits would have prosecuted her, if she was a man - By 1636, Massachusetts Bay split into 2 camps: Hutchinson’s supporters included: women, merchants, and young men - In 1636 the Antinomians were strong enough to have their candidate elected governor, but they suffered defeat with Winthrop’s return to office in 1637 Winthrop Returns to Office - Winthrop brought Hutchinson to trial for heresy before the legislature (General Court) - While John Cotton watched nervously, the legislature asked questions, and later condemned her and banished the leading Antinomians from the colony, and some others followed to Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or back to England - Hutchinson moved to New Netherland, and was killed there in 1643 in a war with the local Indians Restrictions to women - The defeat of the Antinomians was followed by new restrictions to women’s rights and independence - Women were prohibited from assuming any public religious roles Winthrop’s Worries - He worried that the people would move on to reach personal interests and forget about the close-knit community of the town - In 1635, the government forbade the sale of any item above 5 percent of its cost, Robert Keayne of Boston and other merchants objected - They said that good must be sold at higher rates to cover losses in other products - In 1639, after selling nails at 25%-33% above cost, Keayne was fined heavily in court and was forced to make humiliating apologies before his congregation Puritan Expansion - 1 epidemic killed 90% of New England’s Indians between 1616 and 1618 - Expansion of English settlements farther inland, aroused Indian resistance - Captain John Mohegan led a ruthless campaign using tactics similar to the English / Irish conflict during the 1570s - By late 1637, the Pequot resistance was crushed, and survivors taken by pro-English as captives or by the English as slaves, and English settlements in Connecticut would now go on unimpeded Power to the Saints - To preserve the “New England Way” Puritans evolved political and religious institutions far more democratic than those in England The Massachusetts Bay Co. - The Massachusetts Bay Co. made its headquarters in America and gave the right of electing the governor and his executive council to all male saints - In 1634, when the public said the two people had too much power, each town gained the option of sending 2 delegates to the General Court The House of - In 1644 the General Court became a bicameral (2 Representatives chamber) lawmaking body when the towns’ deputies separated from the Governor’s Council to form the House of Representatives - Massachusetts didn’t require voters to own property or officeholders, but only needed people to be adult male saints - By 1641 about 55% of the colony’s 2,300 men could vote - While in contrast, English property requirements allowed fewer than 30% of adult males to vote New Towns: Hartford, - In 1639 new towns adopted a government, designed by Windsor, and Wethersfield Thomas Hooker, called the Fundamental Orders of and the Fundamental Connecticut Orders of Connecticut - This government was modeled after the one in Massachusetts Bay, except voting and office-holding were open to all adult male landowners - The southwestern portion of Connecticut remained outside this agreement, under John Davenport, who thought the other two colonies allowed too much freedom The New Haven Colony - In 1643 8 colonies united in this area to become the colony of New Haven Establishment of New - New England legislatures established a town by awarding Towns a grant of land to several dozen heads of families; these people had almost unlimited freedom to lay out the settlement, organize the church, and distribute the land, as well as make the laws Community Life - The local economy and environment left its stamp on New England towns - The ports seemed to be the most loose because of the changing population, but towns in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and what would become New Hampshire (part of Massachusetts until 1679) were broadly uniform, since most families and farm communities resembled traditional English villages - The founders usually gave 1 acre-house-lot a family - By 1600 English agriculturalists preferred to live on scattered farms away from village centers, even though dispersion increased the difficulty of maintaining neighborly ties - New England’s system of settlement, forced people to interact with each other and also establish an atmosphere of mutual watchfulness that promoted godly order Puritan Families - The foundation now rested on nuclear families - In a proper family, all people (wife, kids, servants) obeyed the husband Marriage and Divorce - New Englanders defined matrimony as a contract between two people, and justices instead of priests began marrying people - Marriage could also be dissolved by courts incase of reasons - Massachusetts courts allowed just 27 divorces between 1639 to 1692 - Women, although with more freedom than in England, still suffered the same legal disabilities as British women Prenuptial Agreements - Women didn’t have property rights without the husband, unless he consented to a special prenuptial agreement - The agreement gave her control over any property that she already owned, only if the husband had no other heirs or wrote a will awarding his widow full control over their possessions could she claim the rights over the household property Difference between English - After 1640, England’s dramatic population rise halted as and New England infectious diseases combined with poor nutrition to households produce steep levels of early death among adults, as well as high infant mortality English Death Rates - Typical male who reached 18, would die at about 53, an 18 female would die at about 45, because so many pregnancies ended in death - English families had about 5 children, of whom 3 would reach adulthood, and parents did not live long enough to see their 1st grandchild - Most women in the 1650s were orphans when becoming brides - In contrast, New England benefited from a remarkably benign disease environment New England Death Rates - Although settlements were compact, minimal travel occurred between towns, especially in winter, when people were most susceptible to infection and easy access to land allowed an adequate diet, which improved resistance to disease and lowered death rates associated with childbirth - New Englanders lived ling and raised large families - Life expectancy for men – 65, women – nearly that long - More than 80% of all infants survived long enough to get married - The 58 men and women who founded Andover, Massachusetts, had 247 children, and by the 4 generation, descendants numbered 2,000 - Equal division of men and women, produced a high population growth - Parents discouraged their males to get married early, because later, they would get land, and while that, will help out the family Demise of the Puritan - Due to Charles I’s tries to get more taxes with approval Errand of the parliament, civil war broke out in 1642, and he was beheaded in 1649, and after Oliver Cromwell, Charles II was crowned in 1660 - This doomed Puritanism in England, and the Anglican church expelled Puritan ministers from their parishes and passed harsh laws forbidding Separatists from establishing churches and schools - By 1650, less ½ adults in Winthrop’s congregation were saints - The second generations preferred more inclusive religious community, like English Puritans - Because Puritan churches baptized only babies born to saints, the unwillingness of the 2nd generation to submit to the conversion relation confronted their parents with the prospect that their grandkids would be unbaptized The Half-Way Covenant - Permitted the children of all baptized members including non – saints to receive baptism - This signaled the end of the “New England Way” because the elect was unable to bring up a generation of saints whose religious fervor equaled their own - By the 1700s, there were more women in the elect than men in most congregations, but religious authority remained in male hands The End of Indian - As the settlers grew, the Indians died out from Independence illnesses such as diphtheria, measles, and tuberculosis, and new outbreaks of smallpox - The Indian population in New England went from 125,000 in 1600 to 10,000 in 1675 - White people forced Indians into debt by giving them things on credit, and with this reason, taking Indian land as payback - As towns expanded, they put more pressure on Indians for an appraisal, and as early as 1642, the New Englanders were warned by the Miantonomi to keep off the land - Colonial farmers altered an entire ecosystem by cutting down large amounts of wood for burning and construction, and the live stock which ran wild destroyed Indian cornfields Loss of Hope and Expansion - Some Indians lost hope and turned to alcohol, which of Christianity was increasingly available during the 1660s, and some turned to Christianity - By 1675, Puritans established about 30 praying towns in eastern Massachusetts and Plymouth and in the islands if Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket While – Indian Tension - White – Indian conflict became acute in the 1670s, because of pressure imposed on unwilling Indians to sell their land and to accept missionary control - In 1675 Plymouth hanged 3 Wampanoags for killing a Christian Indian and threatened to arrest Metacom, and violence kept on increasing Metacom - Metacom’s forces were all armed with guns like whites - They attacked 52 of 90 white towns, destroying 12 of them entirely, burning 1200 houses, killing 8000 heads of cattle, and 600 colonists Mohawks join to help - But when the Mohawks of New York joined to help the Colonies whites, in 1676, Metacom’s food supplies were destroyed and many taken into slavery, including his wife and child - This war reduced the Indian population by almost 40% and eliminated resistance to white expansion Economics, Salem, and - In the 3 decades after the Half-way Covenant (1662), Satan New Englanders went through sermons called jeremiads - People however began to forget that the colony was originally established as a plantation of Religion Capitalism Shows - Although the earliest Puritans were poor, the new society which was including several port cities became greedy, and the balance of wealth became uneven - Winthrop’s vision of a ”Town Upon a Hill” was giving away to materialistic society Salem, Massachusetts - These divisions showed the most in Salem, Massachusetts - It grew rapidly after 1660 to become the 2nd largest port - There was a large difference between the port residents and the outlining farmers Wealth Division in Salem - Prior to 1661, richest 10% of Salem owned 21& of the town’s property, but by 1681 the richest 10-th had 62% of all wealth - Farmers lost political and social power - Before 1665 twice the farmers held political power than merchants, but after, merchants outnumbered farmers 6 to 1 Salem Village - 6 miles west of Salem’s meeting house - The village was divided between supporters of Porter and Putnam families Porter - Had connections with the elite and merchants - Lived in the richer part of the town, with better soil Putnam - Live in the less fertile section and lost positions held in office before Salem Witch Trials - In late 1691 several Salem Village girls encountered a West Indian slave woman, Tituba, and began behaving strangely - The villagers assumed they were victims of witch craft because Tituba believed in black magic - The girls were presses to identify the guilty, the girls named 2 local white women and Tituba - Women who did not have sons or brothers were thought to be witches because of the unusual situation - By April 1692 the girls denounced 2 respectable saint women to be witches, and a minister as a wizard - The family divisions became obvious during these trials - With 2 exceptions, those named as witches lived outside the village’s western half, and were people economically or by marriage connected to the Porters, though no Porters were named witches, and several members of wealthy Salem Town families - Gender and age also influenced who became a witch and 2/3 of the accused were possessed girls or women 11-20 years old and more than ½ lost their parents in conflicts between Indians - Women who would have had a chance to have control of land or property were named witches (widows or middle-age wives) The Horror Ends in Salem - In the end, 20 were hung and 50 confessed and accused others, but by 1692 judges realized that there needed to be more evidence to kill people - The witchcraft reflected profound anxieties over social change in New England - The clash of values between the traditional and new End to Puritanism and ideas caused this to take place Beginning of Yankees - By the last years of the 17-th century Winthrop’s ideas of the New England Way lost its relevance for the generation reaching maturity - The 18-th century New Englanders would be far less willing to accept society’s right to restrict their personal behavior and economic freedom - By 1700 New Englanders began going from “Puritans” to “Yankees” The English Caribbean - With the appearance of New England’s early settlements in the 1620s, more than twice the English immigrants landed in the Caribbean between 1630 and 1642, and almost 60% of them went to the Caribbean or Western Atlantic provisioning base at Bermuda The British West Indies - West Indies strongly influenced the English North America - The Caribbean islands became the major market for New England’s surplus foodstuffs, dried fish, and lumber - In 1640s the English West Indians began adapting their economy to large scale slave labor, and devising a code of social conduct for non-whites - This way techniques of racial control were pioneered which would later appear in mainland ‘s plantations Mainland Migration - After 1660 a large out migration of English islanders added significantly to the English NA population No Peace Beyond the Line - In 16-th century Spain claimed all the Caribbean, but concentrated on holding the largest islands: Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica - By 1600 the Indies came a no man’s land outside the legal limits of European treaties - English, French, and Dutch felt free to settle the uninhabited islands, and undeclared war was the normal state of events Successful English Colonies - Successful English colonies appeared in the Caribbean after Spain and the Dutch Republic went to war in 1621 - Gambling that the Dutch would distract the Spanish, English settlers began seizing vacated islands - Spanish troops soon destroyed most of the settlements, but left English with St. Kitts, Barbados, Montserrat, Nevis, and Antigua, and in 1655 Jamaica also fell to an English force - Born during war, England’s West Indian colonies matured in turmoil Constant Attacks - Between 1640 and 1713, every major island but Barbados suffered at least on invasion by Carib Indians, Spaniards, French, or Dutch - After 1680 pirates from the Bahamas menaced English shipping until the Royal Navy exterminated them in 1720s Sugar and Slaves - Just like in Virginia, Caribbean colonists kept growing tobacco in hopes of prices recovering - A worker could only maintain 3 acres a year, the population on the islands was large - By 1640 more colonists lived on these islands than in Virginia - Tobacco was cheap to grow, and gave individuals with small savings to improve themselves Individual Investments - A group emerged of planters profitably working their estates with servant labor during the 1630s, and English West Indies remained a society with a large % of independent landowners, and a large white population, and no extreme inequality in wealth Alternative to Tobacco - An alternative soon appeared in the 1640s, from Found in Sugar Dutch merchants who used Portuguese methods of sugar production in Brazil began encouraging the English to grow sugar cane - In return for selling their harvest to the Dutch, English planters learned how to raise and process the highly profitable crop - Sugar could make a settler wealthy because demand for the sweetener was extremely high in Europe - For this a large labor force was needed as well as a lot of land - The English deforested all but the island of Jamaica due to its mountains Slaves in the Indies - Before 1640, only white servants were imported, but after, blacks began to be purchased - Although slavery died out in England after the 11-th century, immigrant quickly copied examples set by Spanish landowners, and imposed black and Indian slaves to work for them - Blacks were preferred to whites because they can be driven harder and were less expensive to maintain - African could also withstand the climate, deceases, and had no rights - This way profit and racism emerged Population Shifts Occur - By 1670, the sugar revolution transformed the British West Indies into a slave society and in 1713 blacks outnumbered whites by a margin of 4 to 1 - Although number of blacks shot up from 40,000 in 1670 to 130,000 in 1713, the white population remained stable at about 33,000 because the planters’ preference for slave labor greatly reduced the Immigrant Flow Diverged importation of indentured servants after 1670 - Declining demand for whites diverted the flow of English immigrants from the islands to mainland NA, and so contributed to population growth there - The land in the Indies came priced too expensively, and 30,000 people left the islands from 1655 – 1700 and went to the mainland mostly where they continued to grow tobacco in places such as the Chesapeake West Indian Society - Within a generation of 1640, sugar transformed the West Indies into a starkly unequal world of haves and have-nots Wealth Divisions - Only 7% of all white were rich families, and owned more than 50% off all the land and held more than 100 slave each - Most whites however survived on plots of 10 acres or less, and led a hardscrabble existence growing tobacco, cotton, or food crops - At the bottom of the society where the slaves who were controlled by slave codes and rules 1 st Code Passed by - In 1661 Barbados passed the 1st comprehensive slave Barbados code, which served as a model for all colonies in the Caribbean and several on the NA mainland - The code guarantied decent treatment of slaves, but did not define a good diet o shelter, aside from requiring masters to furnish each woman with a dress and every man with a pair of pants and a hat - From this, the slaves an almost naked and were housed in shacks - And torture was not forbidden either - This allowed masters almost complete control over their human property and laws placed no limits on how and why a master could punish a slave, and slaves endured beatings and whippings - The codes also legalized assault, murder and manslaughter - Slaves were left helpless against not just their masters, but all whites Codes Try to Terrorize - By cruel and extreme punishments, people were scared into obedience - Ears were sliced off for theft of food, and limbs torn off for attempted poisoning, and rebels burned alive - Body parts were hung in public places to generate dread and scariness Death Never Stops with - Of 74 settlers who founded Barbados, in 1627, 6 Settlers and Deceases remained alive just 11 years later - A bubonic plague killed about 1/3 of the settlers from 1647 to 1649 - Up to 5,000 of the military perished while fighting for Jamaica against Spain in the 1630s - In 1692 an earthquake killed about 11,000 of 40,000 - Malaria and yellow fever never stopped killing and immigrants usually died 20 years after arriving, at about 38 years of age - Mortality with blacks was extremely high - Slaves usually didn’t last more than 10 years after arriving in their early 20s - Although 264,000 were imported between 1640 & 1699, the population was at 100,000 in 1700 Slave Families - Slaves still managed to start families because the ratio of men to women was about equal - Most slave children died before 5, and marriages were cut short due to the mortality toll - Africans preserved their roots with songs, dances, and chants White Families - It was hard to start a family because 80% of the people were male and most lived wild bachelor lives - Not after 1700 did a sufficient number of women inhabit the island for the men to get married - Still high death rates robbed most children of at least 1 parent before reaching maturity Religion Withered - Religion was being lost in the Caribbean, and the number of clergy never met the colonists’ needs - Aside from a small Jewish community, most whites rarely went to services and spent most of their time drinking rum - On the average over 1 gallon was consumed by an English islander a month - Few demonstrated sense of community, and rich usually hired people to oversee their estates and retired in luxury in England - The West Indian colonies were the 1st to evolve into plantations and extreme labor exploitation - Similar patterns developed in the Chesapeake Bay and by 1700 the Chesapeake resembled the Caribbean far more than it resembled New England, but only after the depression and unrests The Chesapeake Society - The Virginia Colony was strong in 1624 even though the company went bankrupt - Royal control gave advantage to the elite - Governors were forced to cooperated with the legislature - Like in West Indies, the crop (tobacco in this case) would make the future for the colony, and the same forces shaped life in Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, which were known at the Chesapeake State and Church - 1st elected assembly in Virginia met in 1619 - When James I took over, he didn’t like the government officials, and appointed his own governor who would control the counsel - In 1628 Charles I, put a tax on tobacco and control of the government went to the taxpayers of Virginia - After 1630 need for additional taxes led to royal governors to call assemblies House of Burgesses and - During 1650 legislature split into 2 chambers: House Governor’s Council of Burgesses and Governor’s Council - Later all royal colonies had a 2 chamber government - All government officials were appointed and not elected - In 1634 the Country Court System was adopter, and the court members, or justice of peace acted as the judge - Local taxes were set to pay the officials and to construct roads, bridges and buildings - Everywhere south of New England unelected county courts would become the basic unit of local government - In contrast to Puritan life, Virginia had the Church of England, and was 1st instituted in 1618 - Taxpayers elected the vestries until 1662, when the assembly made them self-recruiting and independent of the voters - Many could not attend services because most counties supported one parish - In 1662 10 ministers served Virginia’s 45 parishes, and compared to New England, religion was taken lightly, but not as lightly as in West Indies First Families - There were a lot of problems with establishing a social elite - The gentlemen sent by the Virginia Co. were not suited for the frontier, and by 1630 only a few were left (others died or went back to England) Government Abuses - Next leaders were mostly middle class who build large estates by defrauding taxpayers - Others gambled on tobacco and won big - From 1630-1660 these dominated the counsel and became even richer - They had few or no kids, their influence died with them New Government - From 1660 to 1675, a 3rd cycle of immigrants who arrived after 1645 assumed power - Mostly came with wealth, education, and ambition - By 1670 they controlled the counsel - They however gave their power to future generations and became know as the 1st Families of Virginia (Burwell, Byrd, Carter, Harrison, Lee, Randolph, Taylor) - Not only did they control the Virginia politics for 2 centuries, but 1/5 of all the presidents of US would descend from them Maryland - Until 1632 English colonization resulted from joint- stock companies, but afterward the crown repeatedly made presents of the Virginia Co.’s forfeited territory to reward English politicians Origin - In 1632 Lord Baltimore got a large tract of land north of the Potomac River and east of Chesapeake Bay and named Maryland in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria - He secured freedom from royal taxation - He wanted to create a refuge for English Catholics who were 2% of England’s population; the Catholics couldn’t worship in public, hold office, and had to pay to the Anglican Church - The Lord created his own estate where Catholics could pray without bothering the neighboring Protestants - Any transporting 5 adults (raised in 1640 to 20) got 2,000 acres of land First Settlers Land - The initial colonization went smoothly, and in 1634 1st 200 settlers landed who were the 1st to be spared of starvation thanks to Calvert family’s careful study of Virginia’s early history - Lord Baltimore however stayed in England while his colony flourished - The colony became made up of independent landowners because land was cheap and few wanted to live on the estate - By 1675 all 60 nonproprietary manors became plantations Religious Tension - The religious tension started after a while with Protestants controlling the main part of the assembly, though some were Catholics - 1st religious problems arose in 1642, when Catholics and Protestants in the capital at St. Mary’s argued over the use of the city’s chapel Act of Religious Toleration - The Act of Religious Toleration was written when things got worse in 1649 - They hoped that this would enforce the freedom of Catholics - Separation of church and state was no made - The act did not work, and in 1654 the Protestant majority barred Catholics from voting ousted Gov. William Stone (Protestant) and repealed the act Battle of Severn River - In 1655 Stone made an army of both faiths to regain government but was defeated at the Battle of Severn River - Maryland remained in Protestant hands until 1658 - Lord Baltimore regained control by order of the Puritan authorities ruling England Life of the Chesapeake - The resident here lived 12 families to 25 square miles, and about 6 people per square mile - These isolated folks of Virginia & Maryland were what would become North Carolina had their future depending on tobacco Tobacco - Tobacco dominated since 1618 and the boom ended in 1629 after prices sank 97% and never regain more than 10% - It still was profitable and people grew it best on leveled grounds with 80% of Chesapeake homes laying ½ miles of a riverbank and most 600 feet of the shoreline - Control of export and import stopped the growth of towns, including the capital St. Mary which by 1678 was only at 30 houses - A sharp demand for labor still existed and 110,00 English went to Chesapeake from 1630 to 1700 - 90% were immigrants (indentured servants) and 80% were men aged around 20 Domestic Relations - Barely 1/3 of the male immigrants found wives before 1650 because so few women immigrated, and marriages occurred late because the masters forbade the servants to marry - Women servants often found rich suitors who paid their time off to their masters Death in the Chesapeake - Before 1650, the greatest killers in the Chesapeake were deceases from contaminated water: thyroid, dysentery, and salt poisoning - After 1650 malaria became the primary killer gotten from the sailors coming back from Africa - The life expectancy was 48 for men and 44 for women in the 1600s; this was slightly less than in England Population Growth Halts - 40% of servants went to their death before 6 years at work, and 70% by age 49 - Death rates crippled family life and women became widows within 7 years - Typical family had 4 kids die in childhood - The widows had a lot of control since they gained the land from their husbands, and in the will the husbands left it all to the women, so incase they would remarry, it would all go to the kids; this way the women would stay unmarried but still be pressured to marry - Because of large male numbers and high death rate, the population of the colony was 69,000 in 1700 after receiving 110,000 people between 1630 and 1700 - In contrast the non-decease environment of New England allowed the population to grow from 25,000 to 91,000 by 1700 - The next generation developed immunities and lived into their 50s (10 years longer than before); plus the male/female ration evened out more because ½ of the people born were girls and by 1690 the gender division was even - After that the population grew from more births than deaths and by 1720 the colony was primarily a native born society Tobacco’s Troubles - The gap between poor and rich was widened because of the head-right system, which allowed landowners to build up a great work force and feed and clothe them poorly, saving a lot of money - The harshness of Chesapeake landowners was not equal anywhere except West Indies - After their indenture was over, servants still were in trouble because all they got from their masters was a suit of clothes and a year’s supply of corn (Maryland also gave a ax, hoe, and 50 acres) - The 2/3 of ex-servants became landowners, but later good soil was bought up by the rich, and it became even more unaffordable to purchase land for the poor - A depression which lasted over 50 years began after 1660, when tobacco fell to a penny a pound, but the rich still profited from rent, loans, shop-keeping, and government fees - While the landowners made profit by selling corn and cattle to the West Indies, they still were poor and lived in a small shack barely 20 by 16 feet - The colonists also lacked furniture, lived on mush and stew, and slept on a pile of rags - Going from poverty in England, they didn’t find more in Chesapeake - The ex-servants became the underclass because they didn’t have the money to buy land, or the capital to make money by selling the little corn that was left after they filled their own needs Bacon’s Rebellion - In 1676, hundreds of Indians were dead, Jamestown burned, plantations looted after Nathaniel Bacon “lit the match” Nathaniel Bacon - He was an educated immigrant who came in 1674, and was appointed to the council by a distant relative - Virginia has been free of Indian conflicts after the 2nd Powhatan war, in which 800 whites were killed out of 8,000 before the Indians meet defeat - The Indians were forced into reservations and stayed there because the white outnumbered them by 40,000 - The tensions between the Indians and settlers grew because there was a fur monopoly and the governor (Berkeley) caused tension within the people, and in June 1675 a dispute between the Doeg Indians and Virginia farmers escalated until a militia force killed 14 friendly Indians and 5 of their chiefs - Berkeley suggested to build forts and have patrols, but that would take ¼ of the colony’s annual income and there were less costly ways War on All Indians - The governor told the settlers not to attack, but in June 1676, 300 settlers under Bacon’s control led a massacre - When he returned, Bacon got permission to wage war against all Indians; this allowed to take Indian property, and take Indians as slaves - But soon the governor had doubts and called the 1,300 back and spared more Indians from attack, leading on an attack and rebel on Jamestown, making Berkeley flee across Chesapeake Bay - Bacon died of dysentery in late 1676 and followers dispersed - After this the poor took the Indian land and furs, and harvest Slavery - The tensions between the underclass of slaves and servants and the rich became acute because the numbers of indentured servants greatly outnumbered the rich, however they were all poor and even after being free had not much to do but work for small pay on rented land; in didn’t get better after blacks began substituting the whites Racism - Racial slavery began appearing in 3 stages in the Chesapeake when blacks 1st appeared from 1619 to 1640 - In the beginning the blacks and Indians were treated as servants, but in the 2nd phase of 1640-1660 became treated as slaves - In the last phase after 1660, whites officially defined slavery as a lifelong inheritable status in 1661 - Slavery was never a status for whites, although enemies such as the Irish could have been enslaved Slave Monopoly - As late as 1660 less than 1,000 slaves were in Virginia and Maryland, and the # 1st began large in the 1680s when the black population almost tripled - By 1700 almost 20,000 made up 22% of the population, but indentured servants still were ½ of all non-free laborers - Wages rose by 50 cents in England because of declining population, and indentured servants became few, so blacks became the primary source of labor import - The Royal African Co. made a monopoly on slaves, but later (1690s) the monopoly was broken by other companies, but the numbers of slaves imported were still not large enough to change the racial population - After 1690 the white to white tension went away because of slaves, and whites all gained a common goal and had social control over blacks -