Outline of US History by U.S. Department of State - HTML preview

CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA

Political considerations influ- they chose a site about 60 kilometers

enced many people to move to up the James River from the bay .

America . In the 1630s, arbitrary rule

Made up of townsmen and ad-

by England’s Charles I gave impetus venturers more interested in finding

to the migration . The subsequent re- gold than farming, the group was

volt and triumph of Charles’ oppo- unequipped by temperament or abil-

nents under Oliver Cromwell in the ity to embark upon a completely new

1640s led many cavaliers — “king’s life in the wilderness . Among them,

men” — to cast their lot in Virginia . Captain John Smith emerged as the

In the German-speaking regions of dominant figure . Despite quarrels,

Europe, the oppressive policies of starvation, and Native-American

various petty princes — particularly attacks, his ability to enforce disci-

with regard to religion — and the pline held the little colony together

devastation caused by a long series through its first year .

of wars helped swell the movement

In 1609 Smith returned to Eng-

to America in the late 17th and 18th land, and in his absence, the colony

centuries .

descended into anarchy . During the

The journey entailed careful winter of 1609-1610, the majority of

planning and management, as well the colonists succumbed to disease .

as considerable expense and risk . Only 60 of the original 300 settlers

Settlers had to be transported nearly were still alive by May 1610 . That

5,000 kilometers across the sea . They same year, the town of Henrico (now

needed utensils, clothing, seed, tools, Richmond) was established farther

building materials, livestock, arms, up the James River .

and ammunition . In contrast to the

It was not long, however, before

colonization policies of other coun- a development occurred that revo-

tries and other periods, the emigra- lutionized Virginia’s economy . In

tion from England was not directly 1612 John Rolfe began cross-breed-

sponsored by the government but by ing imported tobacco seed from the

private groups of individuals whose West Indies with native plants and

chief motive was profit .

produced a new variety that was

pleasing to European taste . The first

JAMESTOWN

shipment of this tobacco reached

T

London in 1614 . Within a decade it

he first of the British colonies had become Virginia’s chief source

to take hold in North America was of revenue .

Jamestown . On the basis of a char-

Prosperity did not come quickly,

ter which King James I granted to however, and the death rate from

the Virginia (or London) Company, disease and Indian attacks remained

a group of about 100 men set out for extraordinarily high . Between 1607

the Chesapeake Bay in 1607 . Seeking and 1624 approximately 14,000 peo-

to avoid conflict with the Spanish, ple migrated to the colony, yet only

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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

1,132 were living there in 1624 . On nized government, the men drafted

recommendation of a royal commis- a formal agreement to abide by “just

sion, the king dissolved the Virginia and equal laws” drafted by leaders

Company, and made it a royal colony of their own choosing . This was the

that year .

Mayflower Compact .

In December the Mayflower

MASSACHUSETTS

reached Plymouth harbor; the Pil-

D

grims began to build their settle-

uring the religious upheavals ment during the winter . Nearly half

of the 16th century, a body of men the colonists died of exposure and

and women called Puritans sought disease, but neighboring Wampa-

to reform the Established Church of noag Indians provided the informa-

England from within . Essentially, tion that would sustain them: how

they demanded that the rituals and to grow maize . By the next fall, the

structures associated with Roman Pilgrims had a plentiful crop of corn,

Catholicism be replaced by simpler and a growing trade based on furs

Calvinist Protestant forms of faith and lumber .

and worship . Their reformist ideas,

A new wave of immigrants ar-

by destroying the unity of the state rived on the shores of Massachusetts

church, threatened to divide the Bay in 1630 bearing a grant from

people and to undermine royal

King Charles I to establish a colony .

authority .

Many of them were Puritans whose

In 1607 a small group of Sepa- religious practices were increasingly

ratists — a radical sect of Puritans prohibited in England . Their leader,

who did not believe the Established John Winthrop, urged them to cre-

Church could ever be reformed — ate a “city upon a hill” in the New

departed for Leyden, Holland, where World — a place where they would

the Dutch granted them asylum . live in strict accordance with their

However, the Calvinist Dutch re- religious beliefs and set an example

stricted them mainly to low-paid la- for all of Christendom .

boring jobs . Some members of the

The Massachusetts Bay Colony

congregation grew dissatisfied with was to play a significant role in the

this discrimination and resolved to development of the entire New Eng-

emigrate to the New World .

land region, in part because Win-

In 1620, a group of Leyden Puri- throp and his Puritan colleagues

tans secured a land patent from the were able to bring their charter with

Virginia Company . Numbering 101, them . Thus the authority for the col-

they set out for Virginia on the May- ony’s government resided in Massa-flower . A storm sent them far north chusetts, not in England .

and they landed in New England

Under the charter’s provisions,

on Cape Cod . Believing themselves power rested with the General

outside the jurisdiction of any orga- Court, which was made up of “free-

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