Colonial America and the Character of Colonial Charters

1. Colonial America and the Character of Colonial Charters Teaching American History Asbury Park, New Jersey

2. Alan Gibson’s Email Agibson@csuchico.edu

3. Why Study the Puritans and Pilgrims Today? • Illuminates the American Character and our National Identity– We have traditionally turned to the Puritans and Pilgrims to explain ourselves as a people and our national character or what we often call “American Exceptionalism.” • The Puritan Work Ethic: Contrast contemporary Americans’ conception of a job with the Puritans’ conception of “a Calling.” • The Dark Side of the Puritans and Pilgrims – Intolerance, Superstition, and Repression

4. Why Study the Puritans? (continued) • The Settlement of America is also a source of a number of concepts and metaphors that constitute a dimension of our collective memory. We say that we are a “Chosen People,” a “City on the Hill,”and “A Redeemer Nation.” But contrast this with Malcolm X’s famous statement: “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us” • Provides an avenue for discussing the claim that “America as a Christian Nation Founded on Christian Principles.” Is this True? What Does This Mean? What Are its Political Implications? • Provides an Avenue for Discussing the Origins of Religious Freedom in America and for Debating the Proper Relationship of Church and State • Provides an avenue for discussing the character of groups who separate from society to seek purity. Under persecution and surrounded by others who are different, common bonds are more easily forged and maintained. But once separation takes place, it is necessary for authority, hierarchy, and discipline to be introduced. Compare and contrast the Puritans and the Beat Generation.

5. Why Study the Puritans? (continued) • Provides an Avenue for Discussing the Origins of Religious Freedom in America and for Debating the Proper Relationship of Church and State • Provides an avenue for discussing the character of groups who separate from society to seek purity. Under persecution and surrounded by others who are different, common bonds are more easily forged and maintained. But once separation takes place, it is necessary for authority, hierarchy, and discipline to be introduced. Compare and contrast the Puritans and the Beat Generation. • Provides a challenge to the idea that American society is based only on the liberal principles of John Locke. Much of the political thought of early America is communitarian, not individualistic.

6. The Transformation of the Story of the Settlement of North America • In the past, the story of “American Exceptionalism” has often been told as a celebratory and narrowly confined narrative of the creation of a new people in a new land. The settlement of North America, according to this story, was the upbeat story of English colonists who fled religious persecution and came to new land seeking and securing prosperity and liberty, planting the seeds of democracy, and gaining the character traits that we associate with Americans (individualism, equalitarianism, and acquisitiveness) when confronted with this new continent.

7. Partial Truths in the Old Story • By 1640, the great majority of free colonists were better fed, clothed, and housed than their contemporaries in England where about half of the people lived in destitution. • Colonial America did not have nobles and aristocrats in comparison with Europe. More people participated in politics in the colonies, especially those without wealth. In a sense, the seeds of democracy were sewn in the colonies. • Many of the colonists did flee Europe to avoid religious persecution, especially the Puritans.

8. The New Story Beginning in the 1960s and accelerating (though not without resistance), a new story of the settlement of North America has been told. Now scholars emphasize the diversity of the peoples engaged in settlement, the multiplicity of nations acting, the disease and difficulty of the endeavor, and the exploitation and cruelty of these people to each other. Finally, scholars have emphasized the paradoxical and ambiguous character of the development of democracy and liberty (especially religious liberty) in colonial America.

9. The Diversity of Settlement (Red, White, and Black) • Native Americans included literally hundreds of linguistically distinct people. • The Africans who were brought to America in the slave trade were from many different tribes including Ashanti, Fulani, Ibo, Malagasy, Mandingo, and Yoruba.

10. The Diversity of “English” Colonists: Who Came? • There were many varieties even of “English” colonists (including Finns, Dutch, Welsh, Scots, Scots-Irish, Germans, Swedes, and French Huguenots). • Who voluntarily came to North America in the 17th century? • Religious Dissenters • Second, third, and fourth sons of Aristocrats • Indentured Servants • Adventurers and Entrepreneurs (John Smith, Sir Walter Raleigh) • Criminals – many facing death penalties. • “We’re Americans. We have been kicked out of the Best Countries in the World.”

11. The Diversity of English Colonists: Why Did They Come? • Freedom to create their own religious communities • Opportunity • Profit • A place to be more significant that in Europe • The British Government and Joint Stock Companies supported settlement of the North American continent because they sought a) a short route to the Pacific and to India b) extensive mineral wealth c) to quell discontent and enhance the status quo in England by exporting portions of the society that were outcasts or supported change.

12. Diversity (summarized) • Most broadly, the American colonies presented an example of an “unprecedented mixing of radically diverse peoples - African, European, and Indian - under conditions stressful for all. The colonial intermingling of peoples – and of microbes, plants, and animals from different continents – was unparalleled in speed and volume in global history.”[1] • [1] Alan Taylor, American Colonies, xi.

13. The Multiplicity of Nationswith Territorial Ambitions in North America In addition to the British, the Spanish, the Russians, and the French were also empire builders in North America. Russians colonized Alaska; the French colonized in the Great Lakes and Quebec; the English colonized not only on the east coast but also in Hawaii; the Spanish colonized Florida and migrated from settlements in what is now Mexico north into what is now the United States. Obviously, when all of these nations and nationalities are considered, settlement did not take place only from Europe to the east coast of North America or even only east to the west, but west to east across the Bering Strait, north from Latin America, and south from the Canadian territory. The contest between foreign powers for control over the North American territory is of course integral to the study of American history.

14. The Impact of Disease on the Settlement and Demographic Transformation of North America European settlers brought diseases into North America which the Indians’ immune system was unable to fight and thus they died in the thousands. This precipitated a huge demographic transformation. In 1770, there were about 1.6 million Native Americans on the North American continent and about 330,000 Europeans and Africans. By 1800, there were about 1.1 million Natives Americans, many of whom now lived west of the Mississippi and 5.5 million Europeans and Africans. Disease also killed thousands of “English” colonists. The North American continent was settled literally in a race to replace dead colonists and Indians with living colonists. As a result of these massive deaths, “between 1492 and 1776, North America lost population, as diseases and wars killed Indians faster than colonists could settle.” (Alan Taylor, American Colonies)

15. The Difficulty of Settlement • Many Native American tribes were nomadic and lived by foraging, farming, hunting, and fishing. Unlike the English colonists, they knew how to survive on the North American continent. Furthermore, many of the early attempts at settlement were entrepreneurial ventures by men who did not plan on farming and foraging. Many colonists relied on the generosity and help of Native Americans for food and starved in times of shortage. E.g. “The Lost Colony of Roanoke.”

16. Cruelty Between the Diverse Groups and Within Them • Brutality between Native peoples and colonizers was the rule, not the exception. Periods of cooperation and shared “thanksgiving” celebrated in our national myths were unfortunately not common. Indians and colonists were also brutal to members of their own group. Punishments for violations of laws were extremely harsh and meant to set an example. One man who was convicted of stealing two pints of oatmeal to allay his hunger was punished by having a long needle thrust into his tongue to prevent him from ever eating again. He was then chained to a tree and starved to death as a lesson to other colonists. Some English colonizers went off to live with the Indians and were welcomed by them if they brought guns or tools. If recaptured by the colonists, the colonists who had abandoned the settlement were often tortured before being put to death.

17. Systems of Exploitation (Slavery and Indentured Servitude) The relative prosperity of the English colonists in comparison to their English contemporaries resulted primarily from the shortage of labor and shortage of land on the North American continent. With labor scarce and land plentiful, free colonists were not forced to work for others and were eventually able to secure relative prosperity. But the colonists prosperity was achieved, in part, by taking lands from Native Americans. Furthermore, the very conditions that made for the relative prosperity of the colonists – the scarcity of labor – led to the importation of unfree laborers by the thousands.

18. Indentured Servitude • More than half the European immigrants to the colonies prior to the American Revolution were indentured servants. Many were criminals. Others were poor, orphans, or debtors. Indentured servants signed contracts for right of passage to North America for four to seven years labor. Skilled laborers might be able to negotiate a better contract. Indentured servants were under the control of a master who could discipline them with force. They were usually not allowed to marry or have children. Many indentured servants fled their masters. Indentured servitude was a system of labor, not of apprenticeship.

19. Slavery • Slavery was first introduced into American in 1619 at Jamestown. A black labor force was introduced gradually into the colonies and with the increase came the development of raced based justifications for slavery. In 1640, there were 150 blacks reported in Virginia. In 1650, about 300. In 1680, 3000 and in 1704 about 10,000 at the time that the white population was 80,000.

20. Slavery (continued) • Black slavery became the colonists’ answer to the labor shortage and chattel slavery evolved out of the limits established for indentured servants and concerns about the foreignness of African Americans. Initially, the differences between indentured servitude and slavery were not clear cut, but sometime in the 17th century this changed. At first, the slave was thought of as a laborer of the lowest denomination. Nevertheless, at some point, unlike European settlers, blacks became expected to labor for life. Then slave codes -governing the conduct of slaves - were introduced. As the institution evolved, the offspring of slaves were also automatically bond for life for service. Conversion to Christianity was once a path to freedom, but this was eliminated. Racially mixed marriages were forbidden. The slave was not by the beginning of the 18th century simply the servant of the lowest denomination but something qualitatively different.

21. The Foreignness of Colonial Society (Church and State) Colonial society was foundationally different than the world that we live. It contained a different understanding of the relationship of church and state. There was, as Michael Zuckerman has put it, “totalitarianism of true believers.“ The “Peaceable Kingdoms” of the colonial period were not theocracies (priests did not rule), but rather communities of religious uniformity in which taxation was used to support the Christian religion, there was compulsory church attendance, the criminalization of sin, political control of doctrine and clergy, and exclusion of political participation for non- believers.  

22. Foreignness continued (the Individual and Society) Colonial society contained a different understanding of the relationship of the individual to society. In these colonial societies, rights were not conceived of spheres of autonomy and liberties carried duties with them. The needs of the few and the one were subordinated to the needs of the many.  

23. Foreignness continued (Law and Government) Colonial society contained a different understanding of the purpose of law and the ends or goals of government. Laws and constitutions were designed to enforce belief and to prohibit behavior that is deemed to be unworthy of God. Puritans believed that if they did not punish sinners, God would punish them. In assessing the ends and character of government, many colonists reasoned that government was a gift from God and was his creation. It must therefore be view as an instrument to serve God.

24. The Ambiguity and Paradoxical Quality of Colonial America • “Democracy” grew up alongside slavery and in context of religious authority (particularly in the form of the New England town meeting and the congregational organization of churches). • The conditions that allowed for prosperity for the free colonists – the abundance of land and the need for laborers – eventually led to the importation of thousands and thousands of slaves. • Religious toleration grew from the splintering of biblical commonwealths. Many colonists had come in search of religious liberty, but did not intend to grant it. They came to promote their religious orthodoxy and avoid the imposition of someone else’s religious orthodoxy. Religious toleration expanded only as dissenters fled and created their own colonies and (later) as diversity (at least among Protestant groups) expanded and made religious orthodoxy difficult to impose. • Finally, the colonists had unprecedented freedom in the New World. Who was to regulate them? But this freedom came at the expense of terror, insecurity, and insularity.

25. The Settlement of the North American Continent

26. St. Augustine: The First Permanent Settlement in North America • The Spanish colonized St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Sante Fe, New Mexico in 1607. In colonizing what is now Florida, the Spanish sought to establish forts to lodge attacks against French pirates who had cut the revenues of the Spain in half. In Florida, Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish naval officer, formed the colony of St. Augustine. This was really the earliest permanent settlement in what would become the territory of the future United States. Spain eventually turned to Spanish missions manned by Christianized Native Americans to fortify their holdings in the New World.

27. But... the United States evolved out of British American settlements. "The importance of Jamestown,” James Horn has stated, “is understated. The United States evolves out of British America--they are 13 British Colonies, and if you trace back that line of development, it takes you back to Jamestown. Without British America you don't get a United States as it emerges in 1776, a polity based on British institutions, religion, commerce, language. None of that happens.“ James Horn, historian and Jamestown scholar

28. The English Experiments: Jamestown, Massachusetts Bay, and Plymouth

29. Jamestown We are still celebrating the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. Led by William Kelso, archeologists have discovered the original triangular fort and settlement which is now a site of excavation. They have also discovered Werewocomoco – the home of Powhatan and probably the place of the dramatic act in which Pocahontas saved John Smith’s life.

30. Chronology of Jamestown • 1606 – The Virginia Company – a government chartered private company which sold stock in its exploration venture – was formed to settle a colony in North America. • December, 1606: Three vessels left England for Virginia. They were the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. • They landed at Chesapeake Bay on April 26, 1607. • 1607-1609 - John Smith in charge • 1609 - John Smith returns to England and the next winter (1609-1610) is the “starving time.” • 1610 – After the winter of 1609-1610, the remaining colonists decided to return to England. As they began the voyage back, however, they encounter other ships heading toward the colonies. These ships contained the new governor of the colony, Lord De La Ware, who order the original colonists to return to the settlement.

31. Chronology of Jamestown • 1610 – After the winter of 1609-1610, the remaining colonists decided to return to England. As they began the voyage back, however, they encounter other ships heading toward the colonies. These ships contained the new governor of the colony, Lord De La Ware, who order the original colonists to return to the settlement. • 1613 – Pocahontas captured by the colonists. She converts to Christianity. A period of relative peace between the colonists and the Native Americans begins. • 1614 – Pocahontas weds John Rolfe • 1617 – Pocahontas died in England • 1617-1624 – Violence between the tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy and the colonists is intense. • 1624 - The colonial charter is revoked by the King. • 1646 - In 1646, the first treaty between the Native Americans and the English colonists is signed.

32. Jamestown (Who were the colonists and what did they seek?) The colonists, at least according to John Smith, included a large proportion of “gentlemen.” This has traditionally been used to suggest that they would not work and to thus explain the difficulties encountered in the settlement, including starvation and political conflict. Recently, however, historians have concluded that the Virginia Company had heard from the members of the Roanoke colony before they were lost that the Indians would trade food for copper. Thus, few men were sent to the colony who had either the training or inclination to farm. Instead, the Virginia Company sent men who were specialists in finding and exploiting the minerals and natural resources of the new world. These men apparently worked diligently to preserve the colony, but lacked the necessary expertise. The colonists were sent to find gold, silver, and mineral wealth, the lost colony of Roanoke, a quick route to the Orient, and a cash crop of some sort (experiments were made with creating perfumes but tobacco became the colonies’ cash crop quickly after it was introduced into the colony by John Rolfe in 1612). Incidentally, women did not come to Jamestown until 1619 (17 years after the settlement of this colony). They were sold to their husbands for the cost of transportation.

33. Jamestown (Disease and Famine) One hundred and four people began the journey from England, but only 38 were alive nine months later. In December 1609, replacements brought the number back to 220 colonists, but after the winter only 60 remained alive. Between 1607 and 1622, the Virginia Company transported some 10,000 people to the colony but only 20 percent of them remained alive. In the second year, 440 of the 500 settlers died. In the three year period from 1619 to 1622, 3000 of 3600 of the settlers sent died. Disease, famine, and violence with Indians accounted for the early deaths. Recent studies have suggested that biological evidence suggests that the period surrounding 1607 was the period of the worst drought in 800 years in this area. The winter of 1609-1610 is known by historians as the “starving time.” Jamestown was settled on the banks of the James River on a pennisula 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. This was done to shield the colonists from Spanish warships, but it placed the fort and settlement near a swamp and millions of mosquitoes that gave the colonists malaria. Many colonists also died from drinking brackish water which seeped into the wells that they dug.

34. Jamestown (Captain John Smith) • As the famous story suggests, John Smith was integral to the survival of the colony. Smith was a great adventurer even before he came to America. He had fought and been captured in Turkey and had walked over 2000 miles in Russia. Smith was the “strategist, drill master, interpreter, provisioner, mapmaker, naturalist, and negotiator with the Indians” for the colony[1] From shortly after the arrival in 1607 to 1609, Smith commanded the colony and made the colonists work six hours a day in the fields. Some of the colonists hated Smith for making them work. He stayed in America only three years and was wounded in a gunpowder accident and returned to England to heal. • [1] Edmund S. Morgon and Marie Morgan, “Our Shaky Beginnings,” New York Review of Books, April 26, 2007. 21-25.

35. Pocahontas Pocahontas act of saving John Smith’s life was probably an act in which his life was spared so that he could become a member of the Powhatan tribe and the English settlers could be integrated into the Powhatan empire. Powhatan seems to have had designs for the English and to have seen a purpose in establishing them as members of the tribe. In this ceremony, Pocahontas (whose name means something like “brat,” “little wanton,” or “favorite daughter” in the Powhatan language) was given the power to admit Smith to the tribe or to allow him to be killed. Her intervention established him as her brother in the tribe. We do not know if they truly had a love relationship, but she was probably only between 10 and 14 years old. Smith incidentally did not write about this event until seventeen years after it had taken place. In 1613, the colonists captured Pocahontas. She accepted Christian conversion, took the name Rebecca, and married a colonist named John Rolfe in 1614. She was eventually taken to England to serve as a symbol of peace and cooperation and as an advertisement for the Virginia Company and a symbol that the Natives could be civilized. She died of disease at 21 while in England.

37. Jamestown (Relationship of the colonists and the Indians) • Intermittent violence characterized the relationship of the colonists with the Algonquian Native Americans they found in Virginia. Many of the colonists expected the Indians to feed them or at least to trade iron and copper for food. They viewed themselves as civilized, Christian, and superior in arms and armor. Sometimes the Indians traded colonists food for copper and iron tools, but the problem with expecting to be feed by the Indians was that they often had little excessive food and if pressured for food they sometimes reacted violently. In one incident, colonists came to the Indians for food and seventeen were slaughtered and maize was symbolically stuffed in their mouths. • The colonists tried to capture the Indian chief Powhatan (his real name was Wahunsonacock) by luring him into their settlement but he declined their invitations. John Smith was of course captured once by the Indians. • The English at times lashed out against the Indians in violence. In 1610, Captain George Percy surprised an Indian village and killed sixty five inhabitants. He took the wife and children of the chief prisoner, then headed back to Jamestown by boat. In the course of their return, they threw the children overboard and shot them as they tried to escape. When they returned to Jamestown, the chief’s wife was also executed.

38. Jamestown and the Evolution of Democracy Jamestown convened the first legislative assembly in British North America in 1619 (the same year as slavery was introduced into the colony). The General Assembly was formed following orders from the Virginia Company to establish a uniform government over the colony.

39. Dissolution of Jamestown • From 1610 to 1622 the colony became marginally self -sustaining. A generous policy of land inducements gave anyone who came or sponsored someone who did 50 acres. By 1624, the company’s charter was finally revoked and it became a dependency of the crown. The Virginia company went bankrupt, the colony was attacked by the Powhatan tribe, and James I became feed up with the company and the colony. By 1624, 8500 people have tried to settle in Jamestown and only 1275 still survived.

40. Jamestown (“The Laws: Divine, Moral, and Martial” • These codes organized the community into quasi-military corps committed to compulsory service on common projects and subject to severe penalties for failure to work or share military obligations. The sets of codes in this body of law mandate Christianity and provide severe penalties for dissent and non-compliance. They require mandatory church attendance. Blasphemy is punishable on the first offense by whipping, second offence (having a dagger thrust through your tongue), and third offense (death). And you thought contemporary three strikes laws were tough. The number of capital crimes and the severity of the punishments are shocking to modern sensibilities. The laws regulate trade (they forbid trade by individuals, not the colony with Indians), hygiene, the use of tools, care for homes, the manner in which bakers can make bread. Many of these laws have to do with preserving scarce equipment and resources. Publicly “doing the necessities of nature.” Sodomy and adultery were punishable by death. Fornication was punishable by whipping on the first offense and on the third offense by whipping three times a week.

41. The Plymouth (Plimoth) Colony

42. Early Chronology of Plymouth Colony • November, 1620 – The Mayflower anchors at Provincetown. • December, 1620: Explorers encounter the Native Americans (the Wampanoag) on Cape Cod. • October, 1621 (?): Harvest celebration after a particularly difficult winter leads the colonists to create a harvest celebration. Ninety Wampanoag men hear the celebration and join it.

43. The Pilgrims • The Pilgrims were one of a series of “separatist” groupswho first appeared in England in the 1570s. They were determined to break with the Anglican church and to form a pure and primitive church. They believed that the Latin finery of the ceremonies of the Anglican church prevented the lay person from a real communion with Christ. They wanted the Bible published in English, for hymns to come directly from scripture, and in general opposed church hierarchy and grandeur. As a result of these positions, they lived on the fringe of English society and were often persecuted. Under a 1559 Act of Uniformity in Britain, everyone was required to attend official Church of England services. Conducting unofficial services, which they did, was punishable by imprisonment, fines, and even death. Pilgrims were also followed and watched by government officials.

44. The Pilgrims first moved to Leiden to avoid Religious Persecution The Pilgrims first moved to the famously tolerant nation of Holland to worship as they pleased. This move, in itself, proved to be harrowing. Pilgrims were arrested trying to leave England. In one dramatic escape to Holland, the women and children of the group were literally left on the dock because English officials arrived at the time that the men had boarded but the women had not. Moving to Holland worked in a sense, but the Pilgrims faced a number of problems there. Some had difficulty finding adequate work; others found the language and culture too foreign. William Brewster became embroiled in a religious debate that led James I to ask government officials in Holland to call for his arrest. He had to go into hiding. Furthermore, there was concern of impending war between the Netherlands and Spain. Mostly, however, the Pilgrims worried about their future as a people if they stayed. Their young, they feared, would not maintain their religious identity unless they could grow up free from influences that were not so much corrupting as erosive of their cultural identity.

45. The Decision to come to North America Various hardship, fears of war, and concern with cultural extinction led the Pilgrims to plan to come to North America. This is also a long, dramatic story. James I would not grant them a charter because he would not recognize their religion. Still, he allowed them to obtain a patent for land north of the Jamestown settlement from a group of “Adventures” who sought to make money from their trip. This group thought that the Pilgrims might provide cod to England. The Pilgrims needed supplies and a boat to get to North America. The Pilgrims thus indentured themselves to an investment group. Still, the details of this indenture changed and there was no clear cut agreement when they left.

46. Plymouth • In July 1620, 102 individuals and about 20 to 30 crew members– about half Pilgrims (Leiden separatists), others “strangers” - set sail for North America from Southampton, England on the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The group included three pregnant women (one gave birth at sea and named her daughter “Oceanus”). The Mayflower had been rented for them by the investment group that was financing their voyage. It was a large merchant vessel listed as having a capacity or rating of 180 tons or, in other words, capable of holding 180 cast barrels of whine called “tuns.” The Pilgrims bought the Speedwell but had to abandon it when it proved to be unseaworthy. It was probably deliberately sabotaged to induce its resale at a bargain price. Only one passenger died on the voyage. The Mayflower traveled some 2700 miles at 2 miles per hour for 66 days. They spotted Cape Cod on November 9, 1620 and debarked off at Providencetown on November 11. By the spring of 1620, half of them had died. • (For a vivid depiction of a transatlantic journey see Richard Hofstadter, America At 1750: A Social Portrait.)

48. “First Encounter” The colonists saw Native Americans during their early days, but their first substantial encounter was a surprise attack by the Indians, perhaps precipitated by colonists’ thefts of Indian corn bins and plundering of their grave sites. The place where this first encounter took place is still called “First Encounter” Beach.

49. Relationship of the Pilgrims to the Native Americans of the Region The colonists and the Indians did not, however, have a simple relationship of hatred. The colonists grew to love and respect Massasoit and never forgot the aid that he provided in the first year of their efforts to create a colony.

50. Plymouth Still, although desperately difficult, life in Plymouth was not as difficult as in Jamestown. The population of the colony rose steadily. To 390 by 1630 to 549 by 1637 and then to 1360 by 1657. By 1657, divisions became to occur in the people. Unlike the original generation, they were not bound entirely by the same beliefs. A government structure arose, but it was very primitive.