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I. England in America (Pages 70–71)

A. The English defeat of the Spanish Armada ended Spanish control of the seas. England

and other European nations could begin colonies in North America because it was

now safe to sail the waters.

B. In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for Queen Elizabeth.

C. Sir Walter Raleigh sent about 100 men to settle on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-

day North Carolina in 1585. After the difficult winter there, the colonists returned

to England.

D. A second group of settlers came in 1587. This group of Roanoke colonists deserted the

island and disappeared. No clues to their fate were left except the word Croatoan

carved on a gatepost.

Discussion Question

Why do you think Roanoke Island was so difficult to settle? (Answers will vary, but

should include the idea that weather conditions were probably hard for living and for growing

crops. So the settlers were not able to get the food and supplies they needed to survive.)

II. Jamestown Settlement (Pages 71–73)

A. In April 1607, settlers sent by the Virginia Company in London entered Chesapeake

Bay and founded Jamestown. They faced many hardships. For example, they found

no gold nor did they establish the fish or fur trading expected of them by the Virginia

Company investors. The number of colonists dwindled.

B. Captain John Smith arrived in 1608 to govern the colonists. The Virginia Company

installed yet another leader to govern them after Smith. A harsh winter and more

trouble continued to plague the colonists.

C. When the colonists discovered how to grow tobacco, the colony began to prosper.

Relations with the Native Americans living nearby also improved when one of the

colonists, John Rolfe, married Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan.

D. The Virginia Company allowed a representative government in which ten towns in

the colony each sent two representatives, or burgesses, to an assembly. The assembly

made local laws.

E. The House of Burgesses met for the first time on July 30, 1619.

F. In 1619 ninety women were sent to Jamestown so that families could form and the

population could increase.

G. In 1619 twenty Africans came to Jamestown. They were sold to Virginia planters to

work in the tobacco fields. They may have come as servants, not as slaves.

H. Until 1640 some Africans were free and some owned property. In the years that followed,

however, Africans came as enslaved passengers or were sold as slaves upon

arrival. Slavery became legal in the 1660s.

I. Because of the financial problems the Virginia Company faced, King James of England

canceled its charter and made Jamestown England’s first royal colony in America.

Discussion Question

Why do you think slavery in Virginia was made legal in the 1660s? (Answers will vary,

but they should include the notion that the lawmakers felt slavery was not bad. Slavery provided

workers for the plantations that grew crops, which made money for the colony.)

I. Religious Freedom (Pages 76–78)

A. There were two groups of Protestants in England. Those who wanted to reform the

Anglican Church were Puritans. Those who wanted to leave and set up their own

church were Separatists.

B. Some Separatists fled to the Netherlands for religious freedom. Some of these

Separatists were given a guarantee by the Virginia Company to be able to practice

their religion freely if they settled in Virginia. In return they had to share their profits

with the Virginia Company. These people called themselves Pilgrims.

C. The Mayflower carried Pilgrims to settle the Virginia colony. They landed north, however,

at Plymouth, Massachusetts, due to the oncoming winter. Plymouth was not part

of the Virginia Company territory and its laws did not apply. So the Pilgrims drew up

the Mayflower Compact to provide laws to live by. It was the beginning of a representative

government in America.

D. The Pilgrims received help from the Native Americans in learning to plant crops and

in hunting and fishing. Without them the Pilgrims may not have survived.

Discussion Question

How do you think the Pilgrims lives in America compared to their lives in England?

(Answers will vary, but should include discussions about gaining religious freedom, establishing

a new government, and learning to adapt to a new environment, as well as living under religious

persecution, living under established laws, and living under difficult economic conditions.)

II. New Settlements (Pages 78–80)

A. More hard times beset the Puritans in England. In 1629 a group received a royal charter

and formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony located north of Plymouth. The group

settled in Boston with John Winthrope as their governor.

B. During the Great Migration in the 1630s, more than 15,000 Puritans came to

Massachusetts to escape religious persecution and economic difficulties in England.

C. An elected group called the General Court ran the colony. The Massachusetts Bay

Colony created a colonial legislature when settlers wanted a larger role in government.

Every adult male church member who also owned property could vote for

their representatives to the General Court.

D. Although the Puritans left England for religious freedom in America, they criticized,

or persecuted, people who held religious beliefs other than theirs. This led to the formation

of new colonies in America.

E. Colonists began to settle along the fertile Connecticut River valley in the 1630s.

F. In 1636 Thomas Hooker founded Hartford. Three years later, Hartford and two neighboring

towns adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. This was the first

written constitution in America.

G. Roger Williams, a minister, established Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,

where religious toleration existed. People could worship as they pleased.

H. In 1638 John Wheelwright founded the colony of New Hampshire. It became independent

of Massachusetts in 1679.

Discussion Question

Why were the Puritans so intolerant of religious views other than their own? (Answers

will vary, but should state that once here, they expected everyone to think and believe as they did

and did not want to deal with differing views.)

I. England and the Colonies (Pages 82–84)

A. In 1660 England had two groups of colonies:

1. The New England colonies run by private corporations under a royal charter. They

were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

2. The royal colonies run by England. They were Maryland and Virginia.

B. England wanted to gain control of the Dutch-controlled land in between these two

groups of colonies because of its harbor and river trade.

C. The Dutch colony was New Netherland. Its main settlement of New Amsterdam on

Manhattan Island was a center of shipping to and from the Americas. The Dutch West

India Company gave new settlers who brought at least 50 settlers with them a large

estate. These landowners gained riverfront estates and ruled like kings. They were

called patroons.

D. In 1644 the English sent a fleet to attack New Amsterdam. The governor of New

Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, was unprepared for a battle, so he surrendered the

colony.

E. The Duke of York gained control of the colony and named it New York. He promised

the colonists freedom of religion and allowed them to hold on to their land.

F. The population of New York grew to about 8,000 in 1664. New Amsterdam, now

called New York City, became one of the fastest-growing locations in the colony.

G. The southern part of New York between the Hudson and the Delaware Rivers became

New Jersey. Its inhabitants were diverse in ethnicity and religion, like those from New

York. Without a major port or city, however, it did not make the money the landowners

expected.

H. By 1702 New Jersey became a royal colony, yet it continued to make local laws.

II. Pennsylvania (Page 84)

A. William Penn received a large tract of land in America from the king as a repayment

of a debt. The colony was Pennsylvania.

B. Penn, a Quaker, saw Pennsylvania as a chance to put the Quaker ideas of tolerance

and equality into practice. He designed the city of Philadelphia and wrote the first

constitution.

C. To encourage settlers to Pennsylvania, he advertised the colony throughout Europe in

several languages. By 1683 more than 3,000 English, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, and German

people settled there.

D. In 1701 Penn granted the colonists the right to elect representatives to a legislative

assembly. In 1703 Three Lower Counties formed their own legislature and became the

colony of Delaware.

E. The counties functioned as a separate colony known as Delaware and were supervised

by Pennsylvania’s governor.

Discussion Question

Why was religious toleration and equality important to the settlers of Pennsylvania?

(They were Quakers and believed in these ideals.)

I. Coming to America (Pages 86–88)

A. The colonies needed people to grow and prosper. Settlers came voluntarily. Others

came because they were

1. criminals or prisoners of war from England and Scotland and could earn their

release if they worked for a period of time (seven years).

2. seized and brought as slaves from Africa.

3. indentured servants who worked without pay for a certain period of time in

exchange for their passage.

B. Maryland became a proprietary colony in 1632. King Charles I gave Sir George

Calvert, called Lord Baltimore, a colony north of Virginia. Lord Baltimore wanted to

establish a safe place for Catholics, and he also hoped that the colony would make

him rich.

C. Maryland tobacco farmers also produced wheat, fruit, vegetables, and livestock so

that they would not be dependent upon one cash crop. Wealthy landowners became

powerful. As plantations grew in number, indentured servants and enslaved Africans

were used to work the plantations.

D. Baltimore became the largest settlement, founded in 1729.

E. Because the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania was disputed, the British

astronomers, Mason and Dixon, were hired to resolve the issue and establish a

boundary.

F. A conflict between Catholics and Protestants, who outnumbered them, resulted in the

passage of the Act of Toleration in 1649. It stated that both groups had the right to

worship freely. The colony’s Protestant majority repealed this act in 1692.

II. Virginia Expands (Pages 88–89)

A. As Virginia grew, settlers moved inland to open up the backcountry. Native

Americans lived on these lands. The governor, Sir William Berkeley, worked out an

arrangement in 1644 that kept settlers from moving farther into Native American land.

The settlers received a large piece of land, and conflicts were diminished.

B. Many Virginia westerners resented Berkeley’s pledge to the Native Americans and settled

in the lands anyway. As a result, Native Americans raided these settlements.

C. Nathaniel Bacon opposed colonial government because it was made of easterners. He

led attacks on Native American villages, set fire to the capital, marched into Jamestown,

and drove Berkeley into exile. England summoned Berkeley and sent troops to restore

order.

Discussion Question

Why did Native Americans sign a treaty with the colonial government in 1677 to open

up more land? (They were probably not given any choice and there was still land for them to

live on. Perhaps they hoped all people could live together peacefully, so they gave up a piece of

their land under the terms of the treaty.)

III. Settling the Carolinas (Pages 89–90)

A. King Charles II founded the colony of Carolina. The proprietors took large estates for

themselves and hoped to sell and rent land to new settlers. In 1670 English settlers

arrived, and by 1680 they founded Charleston.

B. The English philosopher John Locke wrote their constitution.

C. Northern Carolina was settled by small farmers. Because this northern region did not

have a good harbor, settlers relied on Virginia’s ports.

D. Southern Carolina was more prosperous due to the fertile farmland and its harbor city,

Charleston. Rice became the leading crop, and indigo, a blue flowering plant,

became the “blue gold” of Carolina.

E. Most of the settlers of southern Carolina came from the English colony of Barbados in

the West Indies. They brought with them enslaved Africans to work in the rice fields.

Because so much labor was needed to grow rice, the demand for slaves increased. By

1708 more than half of southern Carolina’s new settlers were enslaved Africans.

F. Carolina’s settlers were angry at the proprietors. They wanted a greater role in the

colony’s government. In 1719 the settlers in southern Carolina seized control from its

proprietors. Carolina was formally divided into two colonies—North Carolina and

South Carolina—in 1729.

Discussion Question

Why did many of the settlers to Southern Carolina come from the West Indian island of

Barbados? (Barbados was an English colony. Enslaved Africans were brought there as part of

the Columbian Exchange. These enslaved Africans had worked on large sugar plantations in

Barbados. Their experience would be helpful as they worked on the plantations of Southern

Carolina, which ultimately helped the economy of the colony grow. Because they were enslaved

people, they had no freedom to choose where they were to live.)

IV. Georgia (Pages 90–92)

A. James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733. It was the last British colony

to be founded in the Americas. Great Britain created Georgia for several reasons:

1. as a place where British debtors and poor people could make a fresh start

2. as a military barrier to protect the other British colonies from Spain due to its location

between Spanish Florida and South Carolina

B. Georgia did receive poor people but few debtors. Religious refugees also settled there.

C. The town of Savannah was created in 1733.

D. Oglethorpe banned slavery, Catholics, and rum in the colony and limited the size of

farms. As settlers came, they objected to the laws, so he lifted all the bans except on

slavery. In 1751, he turned the colony back to the king.

Discussion Question

Because Georgia was the last colony to be settled by the British, did it suffer in any way

or was it as stable or organized as the other colonies? (Answers will vary but should

include that it probably was at a disadvantage because of Oglethorpe’s laws and the settlers’

objections. Remember the colony eventually became a royal colony. On the other hand, it

had the experience from other colonies to draw on.)

V. New France (Page 92)

A. The French settlement in the Americas grew slowly. The French were interested

mainly in the fishing and fur trade at first. Their settlement called New France became

a royal colony in 1663. They had settlements in two regions:

1. North in Quebec and along the St. Lawrence River. They consisted mostly of forts,

trading posts, and later large estates.

2. South along the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle claimed the

region called Louisiana for France. In 1718 the port city of New Orleans was

founded.

B. The French, years later, did send explorers, traders, and missionaries farther west to

the Rocky Mountains and southwest to the Rio Grande.

C. The French respected the ways of the Native Americans, so they had better relations

with them than did other Europeans. The fur trappers traveled far into Native

American territory, so they needed to learn to live among the Native Americans.

These trappers did not push the Native Americans off their land. The missionaries did

not try to change their customs.

Discussion Question

Why were the French less interested than the British in colonizing the Americas? (They

wanted the money gained from fishing and fur trading because it was profitable. They were not

looking to set up colonies abroad because that took time, money, and responsibility. They were

not in a race for land across the ocean.)

VI. New Spain (Pages 92–93)

A. Spain had a large empire in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central, and South America called

New Spain. To keep control and protect their claims, they sent soldiers, missionaries,

and settlers north of this region into

1. present-day New Mexico, where Santa Fe was founded in late 1609 or early 1610

2. Arizona in the late 1600s

3. the region that is now Texas in the early 1700s, establishing San Antonio and other

military posts

4. California

B. In California Spanish priests built missions to convert people to Catholicism. In 1769

Junípero Serra founded a mission at San Diego. Many more missions that eventually

became large cities were established along the El Camino Real.

C. Rivalries in Europe between Great Britain and France often resulted in fighting

between the British and Spanish colonies in America. Wars between the British and

French in Europe also greatly affected their lands in the Americas.

Discussion Question

Do you think the Spanish were any kinder to the Native Americans than the British

were? (Answers will vary but should include the fact that perhaps they were not, but they did

not try to usurp their land immediately. They did take the Native Americans as laborers, but did

not make them slaves.)