Exploration & the Rise of English America

[Pages:16]Unit 1 (Part 1) Chapters 1-3

Exploration & the Rise of English America

(33,000BC-1733)

Assessment Date: Friday 9/4/15

CHAPTER 1

New World Beginnings, 33,000 B.C.E.?1769 C.E.

CHAPTER THEMES

Theme: The first discoverers of America, the ancestors of the American Indians, were small bands of hunters who crossed a temporary land bridge from Siberia and spread across both North and South America. They evolved a great variety of cultures, which ranged from the sophisticated urban civilizations in Mexico and Central and South America to the largely seminomadic societies of North America.

Theme: Europe's growing demand for Eastern luxuries prompted exploration in the hopes of reducing the expense of those goods with new trade routes. Exploration occurred incrementally, beginning with the Portuguese moving around the coast of Africa and establishing trading posts. Awareness of the New World and its wealth pushed exploration across the Atlantic. Spanish exploration continued in the same fashion, first in the Caribbean islands then expanding into South and North America.

Theme: Portuguese and Spanish explorers encountered and then conquered much of the Americas and their Indian inhabitants. This "collision of worlds" deeply affected all the Atlantic societies--Europe, the Americas, and Africa--as the effects of disease, conquest, slavery, and intermarriage began to create a truly "new world" in Latin America, including the borderlands of Florida, New Mexico, and California, all of which later became part of the United States.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Millions of years ago, the two American continents became geologically separated from the Eastern Hemisphere land masses where humanity originated. The first people to enter these continents came across a temporary land bridge from Siberia about 35,000 years ago. Spreading across the two continents, they developed a great variety of societies based largely on corn agriculture and hunting. In North America, some ancient Indian peoples like the Pueblos, the Anasazi, and the Mississippian culture developed elaborate settlements. But on the whole, North American Indian societies were less numerous and urbanized than those in Central and South America, though equally diverse in culture and social organization.

The impetus for European exploration came from the desire for new trade routes to the East, the spirit and technological discoveries of the Renaissance, and the power of the new European national monarchies. The European encounters with Africa and America, beginning with the Portuguese and Spanish explorers, convulsed the entire world. Biological change, disease, population loss, conquest, African slavery, cultural change, and economic expansion were just some of the consequences of the commingling of the Old World and the New World.

After they conquered and then intermarried with Indians of the great civilizations of South America and Mexico, the Spanish conquistadores expanded northward into the northern border territories of Florida, New Mexico, and California. There they established small but permanent settlements in competition with the French and English explorers who also were venturing into North America.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION

1. How did Indian societies of South and North America differ from European societies at the time the two came into contact? In what ways did Indians retain a worldview different from that of the Europeans?

2. What role did disease and forced labor (including slavery) play in the early settlement of America? Is the view of the Spanish and Portuguese as especially harsh conquerors and exploiters valid--or is this image just another version of the English black legend concerning the Spanish role in the Americas?

3. Are the differences between Latin America and North America due primarily to the differences between the respective Indian societies that existed in the two places, or to the disparity between Spanish and English culture? What would have happened if the English had conquered densely settled Mexico and Peru, and the Spanish had settled more thinly populated North America?

4. In what ways are the early (pre-1600) histories of Mexican and the present-day American Southwest understood differently now that the United States is being so substantially affected by Mexican and Latin American immigration and culture? To what extent should this now be regarded as part of our American history?

5. Why was the Old World able to dominate the New World? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Old World? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the New World?

READING

Bartolom? de Las Casas, "Of the Island of Hispaniola" (1542)

God has created all these numberless people to be quite the simplest, without malice or duplicity, most obedient, most faithful to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the most humble, most patient, most peaceful and calm, without strife nor tumults; not wrangling, nor querulous, as free from uproar, hate and desire of revenge as any in the world. . . .

Among these gentle sheep, gifted by their Maker with the above qualities, the Spaniards entered as soon as soon as they knew them, like wolves, tiger and lions which had been starving for many days, and since forty years they have done nothing else; nor do they afflict, torment, and destroy them with strange and new, and divers kinds of cruelty, never before seen, nor heard of, nor read of. . . . .

The Christians, with their horses and swords and lances, began to slaughter and practice strange cruelty among them. They penetrated into the country and spared neither children nor the aged, nor pregnant women, nor those in child labour, all of whom they ran through the body and lacerated, as though they were assaulting so many lambs herded in their sheepfold.

They made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head at one blow: or they opened up his bowels. They tore the babes from their mothers' breast by the feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks. Others they seized by the shoulders and threw into the rivers, laughing and joking, and when they fell into the water they exclaimed: "boil body of so and so!"

They spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords. They made a gallows just high enough for the feet to nearly touch the ground, and by thirteens, in honour and reverence of our Redeemer and the twelve Apostles, they put wood underneath and, with fire, they burned the Indians alive. They wrapped the bodies of others entirely in dry straw, binding them in it and setting fire to it; and so they burned them. They cut off the hands of all they wished to take alive, made them carry them fastened on to them, and said: "Go and carry letters": that is; take the news to those who have fled to the mountains. They generally killed the lords and nobles in the following way. They made wooden gridirons of stakes, bound them upon them, and made a slow fire beneath; thus the victims gave up the spirit by degrees, emitting cries of despair in their torture. . . . *See next page for details on how to fill out each category.

Author

Place & Time

Prior Knowledge

Audience

Reason (Purpose)

The Main Idea

Significance

APPARTS:

An acronym of prompts for the analysis of primary sources

AUTHOR Who created the source? What do you know about the author? What is the author's point of view?

PLACE AND TIME Where and when was the source produced? How might this affect the meaning of the source?

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE What else do you know that would help you understand the primary source? For example, do you recognize any symbols?

AUDIENCE For whom was the source created and how might this affect the reliability of the source?

REASON (Purpose) Why was this source produced when it was produced?

THE MAIN IDEA What point is the source trying to convey?

SIGNIFICANCE Why is this source important? What inferences can you draw from this document? Ask yourself, "So what?" in relation to the question asked.

CHAPTER 2

The Planting of English America, 1500?1733

CHAPTER THEMES

Theme: The English hoped to follow Spain's example of finding great wealth in the New World, and that influenced the financing and founding of the early southern colonies. The focus on making the southern colonies profitable shaped colonial decisions, including choice of crops and the use of indentured and slave labor. This same focus also helped create economic and cultural ties between the early southern colonies and English settlements in the West Indies.

Theme: The early southern colonies' encounters with Indians and African slaves established the patterns of race relations that would shape the North American experience--in particular, warfare and reservations for the Indians and lifelong slave codes for African Americans.

Theme: After a late start, a proud, nationalistic England joined the colonial race and successfully established five colonies along the southeastern seacoast of North America. Although varying somewhat in origins and character, all these colonies exhibited plantation agriculture, indentured and slave labor, a tendency toward strong economic and social hierarchies, and a pattern of widely scattered, institutionally weak settlements.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The defeat of the Spanish Armada and the exuberant spirit of Elizabethan nationalism finally drew England into the colonial race. After some early failures, the first permanent English colony was established at Jamestown, Virginia. Initially it faced harsh conditions and Indian hostility, but tobacco cultivation finally brought prosperity and population growth. Its charter also guaranteed colonists the same rights as Englishmen and developed an early form of representative self-government.

The early encounters of English settlers with the Powhatans in Virginia established many of the patterns that characterized later Indian-white relations in North America. Indian societies underwent their own substantial changes as a result of warfare, disease, trade, and the mingling and migration of Indians from the Atlantic coast to inland areas.

Other colonies were established in Maryland and the Carolinas. South Carolina flourished by establishing close ties with the British sugar colonies in the West Indies. It also borrowed the West Indian pattern of harsh slave codes and large plantation agriculture. North Carolina developed somewhat differently, with fewer slaves and more white colonists who owned small farms. Latecomer Georgia served initially as a buffer against the Spanish and a haven for debtors.

Despite some differences, all the southern colonies depended on staple plantation agriculture for their survival and on the institutions of indentured servitude and enslaved Africans for their labor. With widely scattered rural settlements, they had relatively weak religious and social institutions and tended to develop hierarchical economic and social orders.

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION

1. What did England and the English settlers really want from colonization? Did they want national glory, wealth, adventure, a solution to social tensions, and/or new sources of goods and trade? Did they get what they wanted?

2. How did Spanish success in the New World influence the English colonial efforts? How did England's earlier experience in Ireland influence its colonial efforts in the New World? How did different events in England (and Europe) affect England's southern colonies in the New World?

3. Were the English colonizers crueler or more tolerant than the Spanish conquistadores? Why did the Spanish tend to settle and intermarry with the Indian population, whereas the English killed the Indians, drove them out, or confined them to separate territories? How did this pattern of interaction affect both white and Indian societies?

4. Was the development of enslaved Africans in the North American colonies inevitable? (Consider that it never developed in some other colonial areas, for example, Mexico and New France.) How would the North American colonies have been different without slavery? What role did the Spanish encomienda system and British sugar colonies play in introducing slavery to the southern colonies?

5. How did the reliance on plantation agriculture affect the southern colonies? Were their societies relatively loose because they were primarily rural or because they tended to rely on forced labor systems?

READING

Excerpt from Works, 1608-1631

John Smith Captain John Smith's Generall Historie includes a letter from John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys, the secretary of the Virginia Company. Rolfe's letter details the conditions in the fledgling colony after its first decade of tenuous existence. Rolfe is a significant figure in Virginia history for his introduction of tobacco cultivation and for his marriage to the Indian princess, Pocahontas. John Smith's use of the letter is a reminder that the captain was no longer in the colony by 1619. Indeed, despite Smith's prolific career as a promoter of New World settlement in both Virginia and New England, after he was forced out in 1609, he never again set foot in America.

Letter on tobacco culture and the introduction of slavery by John Rolfe

The gouernment surrendred to Sir George Yearley.

For to begin with the yeere of our Lord, 1619. there arriued a little Pinnace priuatly from England about Easter [Easter Sunday 0. S. was 28 Mar. in 1619] for Captaine Argall; who taking order for his affaires, within foure or fiue daies returned in her, and left for his Deputy, Captaine Nathaniel Powell.

On the eighteenth of Aprill, which was but ten or twelve daies after, arriued Sir George Yearley, by whom we understood Sir Edwin Sand[y]s was chosen Treasurer, and Master Iohn Farrar his Deputy; and what great supplies was a preparing to be sent vs, which did rauish us so much with ioy and content, we thought our selves now fully satisfied for our long toile and labours, and as happy men as any in the world. Notwithstanding, such an accident hapned Captaine Stallings, [that] the next day his ship was cast away, and he not long after slaine in a priuate quarrell.

Sir George Yearly to beginne his gouernment, added to be of his councell, Captaine Francis West, Captaine Nathaniel Powell, Master Iohn Pory, Master Iohn Rolfe, and Master William Wick[h]am, and Master Samuel Macocke, and propounded to haue a generall assembly with all expedition.

Vpon the twelfth of this Moneth [April 1619], came in a Pinnace of Captaine Bargraues; and on the seventeenth [April 1619] Captaine Lownes, and one Master Euans, who intended to plant themselves at Waraskoyack: but now 0phechankanough will not come at vs, that causes us [to] suspect his former promises.

In May [1619] came in the Margaret of Bristoll, with foure and thirty men, all well and in health; and also many deuout gifts: and we were much troubled in examining some scandalous letters sent into England, to disgrace this Country with barrennesse, to discourage the adventurers, and to bring it and vs to ruine and confusion. Notwithstanding, we finde by them of best experience, an industrious man not other waies imploied, may well tend foure akers of Corne, and 1000. plants of Tobacco; and where they say an aker will yeeld but three or foure barrels, we haue ordinarily foure or fiue, but of new ground six, seven, and eight, and a barrell of Pease and Beanes, which we esteeme as good as two of Corne, which is after thirty or forty bushels an aker, so that one man may prouide Corne for fiue; and apparell for two by the profit of his Tobacco. They say also English Wheat will yeeld but sixteene bushels an aker, and we haue reaped thirty: besides to manure the Land, no place hath more white and blew Marble [? marl] than here, had we but Carpenters to build and make Carts and Ploughs, and skilfull men that know how to vse them, and traine vp our cattell to draw them; which though we indeuour to effect, yet our want of experience brings but little to perfection but planting Tobaco. And yet of that, many are so couetous to have much, they make little good; besides there are so many sofisticating Tobaco-mungers in England, were it never so bad, they would sell it for Verinas, and the trash that remaineth should be Virginia: such devilish bad mindes we know some of our owne Country-men doe beare, not onely to the businesse, but also to our mother England her selfe; could they or durst they as freely defame her.

The 25. of Iune [1619] came in the Triall with Corne and Cattell all in safety, which tooke from vs cleerely all feare of famine; then our governour and councell caused Burgesses to be chosen in all places, and met at a generall Assembly, where all matters were debated [that were] thought expedient for the good of the Colony, and Captaine Ward was sent to Monahigan in new England, to fish in May, and returned the latter end of May, but to small purpose, for they wanted Salt. The George also was sent to New-found-land with the Cape Merchant: there she bought fish, that defraied her charges, and made a good voyage in seuen weekes.

About the last of August [1619] came in a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty Negars [this was the first introduction of Negro slavery into Virginia]: and lapazous King of Patawomeck, came to Iames towne, to desire two ships to come trade in his Riuer, for a more plentifull yeere of Corne had not beene in a long time, yet very contagious, and by the trechery of one Poule, in a manner turned heathen, wee [127] were very iealous the Saluages would surprize us.

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