1. COLONIAL ENGLISH AMERICA
1. In 1606, the Virginia Company received a charter from King James I to make a settlement in the New World.
2. On May 24, 1607, about 100 English settlers disembarked from their ship and founded Jamestown.
3. Problems emerged including (a) the swampy site of Jamestown meant poor drinking water and mosquitoes causing malaria and yellow fever. (b) men wasted time looking for gold rather than doing useful tasks (digging wells, building shelter, planting crops), (c) there were zero women on the initial ship.
4. John Rolfe (married to Pocahontas) fixed wasted time with “no work no food” policy.
5. Rolfe and Poca brought back the new crop of tobacco to England, creating a huge fad. Tobacco destroyed land after a few years, increased desire for new land, more colonies.
6. Slavery was found in all the plantation colonies. The growth of cities was often stunted by forests. The establishment of schools and churches was difficult due to people being spread out. In the South, the crops were tobacco and rice, and some indigo in the tidewater region of SC. All the plantation colonies permitted some religious toleration. Confrontations with Native Americans were often.
7. In 1643, four colonies banded together to form the New England Confederation. It was almost all Puritan, It was weak, but still a notable milestone toward American unity. The colonies were basically allowed to be semiautonomous commonwealths (self-governing). Colonies included: Massachussetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven.
8. New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania: All had fertile soil and broad expanse of land. All except for Delaware exported lots of grain. The Susquehanna River tapped the fur trade of the interior, and the rivers were gentle. The middle colonies were the middle way between New England and the southern plantation states. Landholdings were generally intermediate in size. The middle colonies were more ethnically