American History I
Notes from 1/30/01

In 1607, the English established a settlement in Virginia, and named it Jamestown, after Elizabeth’s successor, James I. The English who settled Jamestown were part of something called the London Company, which was later renamed to the Virginia Company. Perhaps naïvely, they thought they would find huge quantities of gold in Virginia, like the Spanish had found in South America. The first years for the English in Jamestown were terrible.  Many died of malnutrition and disease, and many more were killed during conflicts with the Powhatan Indians, the main Native American tribe in the area. Discipline was a major problem: the Jamestown settlers, mostly young males, preferred to go off looking for gold than guarding their settlement or growing crops.  The colony might not have survived the harsh winter of 1608-09 had it not been for John Smith, who seized control of the settlement's ruling council and imposed a harsh military discipline.  Smith also traded with local Indians for food, and required that all men work, regardless of social status or privilege.

Even with the military discipline, the settlement's survival was precarious.  Of the 500 people who arrived in the fall of 1609, only 60 lived to see the following spring.  Smith himself was forced to leave the colony after a gunpowder accident in 1609, but subsequent leaders emulated his approach.  I read briefly from laws of Virginia (1610-11), noting the severity of punishments (most often death) for a variety of offenses.  GO TO EXCERPT  But such strictness, and the harsh conditions faced by the settlers, discouraged others from leaving England for Jamestown.  So to encourage further settlement, the London Company began awarding small plots of land to men once they had finished their duty to the company.  Eventually (1616), the company instituted a headright system.  This gave 50 acres of land to anyone who could pay his own way to Virginia, plus an additional 50 acres for each person (or head) he brought with him.  In the long run, the incentive of land ownership would help sustain population growth in the colony, but it would also lead to the emergence of an elite planter class, which owned all the best acreage for farming.

Besides the establishment of martial law, and the creation of landownership incentives, a couple of other things began to work in the settlement's favor.   In 1614, John Rolfe, a prominent colonist, married Matoaka (better known as Pocahontas), daughter of the Powhatan chief.  This created a fragile (and temporary) peace between English and Native American, giving the colony a little "breathing" time.  (Pocahontas was converted to Christianity, renamed "Rebecca", and taken to England, where she died in 1617; I made the point that she serves as an early example of the Anglo-American view that native populations should be Christianized and assimilated into white culture.)

Besides the temporary peace (Pocahontas' father died in 1618, and was succeeded by a brother who renewed hostilities with the English), the other thing to save the Jamestown settlement was the cultivation of tobacco.  I read from some excerpts suggesting that tobacco had become known to the Europeans as early as Columbus' first voyage to the New World, and certainly by the late 16th century tobacco grown in the Caribbean was bringing in handsome profits.  King James I (r. 1603-1625) initially opposed the practice of smoking, but the English king soon saw the benefits of taxing the new habit rather than suppressing it.  Jamestown settlers had been growing tobacco since 1610, but found the native Virginia leaves of poor quality.  John Rolfe had begun experimenting with seeds from Trinidad, and these proved more suited to European tastes.  The first cargo of Virginian-grown tobacco was sold in England in 1617, and almost immediately Jamestown settlers dived into tobacco production.

But there were three important problems with tobacco.  First, Virginians put all their eggs in one basket (failed to diversify), beginning a long history in the American south of dangerous reliance on a single "cash crop" -- first tobacco, then cotton.  Second, tobacco cultivation causes exhaustion of the soil, and thus a constant need for clearing new land.  This meant nearly incessant warfare with native populations, and favored the colony's wealthy.  Third, tobacco cultivation was labor intensive.  Tobacco required attention 9 months out of the year.  Virginia planters relied initially on indentured servitude, "purchasing" able-bodied makes from England.  But this greatly skewed the colony's sex ratio, with men outnumbering women 6:1 during the 17th century.  This meant that social instability, lawlessness, would persist in the Chesapeake area throughout the century.

There are three critical events in Jamestown during the year 1619. First, in 1619 the Virginia Company began transporting women to the colony to become wives for planters.  Second, this is the year when the House of Burgesses meets for the first time. The House of Burgesses was a legislative body that would make local laws in the Virginia colony. In other words, it represents the beginning of self-government in colonial America. Over time, colonial assemblies in each of the English colonies will become extremely important in preparing America for independence. The third major event of 1619 in Jamestown is the first recorded sale of slaves in the English colonies. Although the African slave trade had been started during the late 1490’s by the Portuguese, most Africans ended up in places like the Caribbean or Brazil. The importation of slaves to Virginia (because cheap labor was needed to keep up with the demand for tobacco) would obviously have a dramatic effect on subsequent colonial history, and on the history of the United States after independence.  However, at this time (1619), slavery was not at all established in Virginia, and throughout the 17th century the status of Africans in the colony would be ambiguous.  However, during the 18th century slavery would become a much more well-defined institution, as the inefficient system of indentured servitude gave way to one based on the forced labor of blacks.

We also talked about the second permanent English settlement, Plymouth Massachusetts. Whereas the Jamestown colony was started by people looking to make money, Plymouth was settled by Puritans, for religious and social reasons. In 1607-08, a small group of Puritan Separatists left the village of Scrooby, in England, and settled in Holland.  (Holland had already developed a reputation for tolerance.)  But the Scrooby congregation began to worry that their children were being tempted and corrupted by the "worldly pleasures" and permissiveness of the Dutch, and they therefore petitioned the Virginia Company for a land patent, to settle in the northern reaches of the Virginia colony.  They were supposed to end up there, but went off course and landed much further north. The Pilgrims, as they became known, had little choice but to remain there, and faced with the uncertainties of settling in a new land, the men reconvened aboard their ship and pledged to one another to form a "civil body politic."

Eventually Plymouth became part of another colony, known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Whereas the early Virginians were mostly young men motivated by dreams of wealth, the first New Englanders came in stable family groups, motivated by the desire to establish their own separate religious communities.  This stability and religious motivation (and the Puritan's healthier lifestyles) meant that the Massachusetts colony would become successful in a relatively short period, attracting thousands of like-minded Puritans over the following several decades.  These disparate origins would persist throughout the colonial period, resulting in the emergence of two very different American communities, with different economies, religions, social institutions and cultures.