Colonial America
Learn The History
Part One
| Chapter I - The London Company | Chapter II - Jamestown | Chapter III - The Starving Time | |Chapter IV - The Events of 1619 |
Part Two
| Chapter V - Pilgrims | Chapter VI - Witches |
Part Three
| Chapter VII - The Next
Three Colonies |
| Chapter VIII - Rhode Island, New York,
New Jersey, & Pennsylvania |
| Chapter IX- Maryland & The Carolinas
| Chapter X- James Oglethorpe |
Part Four
| Epilogue |
Part One
When most people think of the United States, they don't think of the early settlers in Jamestown. The thing is, our whole country started with the London Company, in England. They were a business company who, in 1607, sent three ships to North America. They were the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. They were looking for gold, or they wanted a river or passage to another land. They knew there was a discovery to be made.
They came to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in April of 1607. They named the beach Cape Henry, in honor of the king's son, Henry. The first time they went out to explore the land, they were attacked by Indians. The explorers knew they would have to share the land. But, they stayed for a few weeks near the bay. They ate strawberries, oysters and other water animals they could catch, and plants they gathered.
The council elected by the London Company to be the government of the colony was announced that year, and they included the future leader of the colonies, John Smith. He was brought to the Chesapeake Bay in chains. He had been punished and nearly sent back to England. He was to help govern the colonists. Named after King James, the Jamestown colony along the James River was founded. The United States had built its foundation.
Jamestown was the beginning of what uld become Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies. Their leader, John Smith, was a very important leader to have along. The Indians, led by the chief Powhatan, shared the land with the colonists. And Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, saw in John Smith an intelligent person, as well as a good leader. But, Powhatan wanted to kill him. He was invading the land of the Native Americans.
Pocahontas came to rescue him. She came and put her head on his, and Powhatan had to listen to her favorite daughter. He let John Smith live. The Indians started to appreciate him; they adopted him into their tribe.
From that day on, John Smith was the luckiest person there was. Once he was bitten by a stingray, and he nearly died. He recovered, and he even ate the stingray. But, once some gunpowder exploded in his boat when he was asleep. He was so terribly wounded he had to return to England. John Smith would never again see Virginia, but the colony would have to survive without him.
After John Smith left Jamestown, disaster hit. He had planned on having ten weeks of food, as of October 1609. He also expected the Indians to help provide for the colonists. They thought they had plenty of food, but there was a problem. More colonists were arriving, and that meant they needed more food. They were running out of food too fast, and the Indians didn't help. Powhatan refused to trade with Jamestown. They had no way of getting food.
Dozens of colonists died of hunger. Seven eighths of Jamestown's population died. There were only 60 colonists left after the winter of 1609 and 1610. Jamestown's winter was called the Starving Time, one of the worst times in American history. And the colony was only three years old.
Jamestown was far from the democratic nation it is today. The colony still acted with the same laws and regulations as England. But 1619 was an important year in American history. So far, there were only white men allowed in the colony. By 1619, Jamestown was recovered from the Starving Time disaster and they were expanding. For the first time, women and black people were brought to Jamestown. And, also a major event in Jamestown, people were allowed to own their own land and elect their own government. Still, women and black people were being sold on the ship docks like property. But there was improvement.
An assembly called the House of Burgesses was elected to make laws in Jamestown. This was the colony's first form of elected government. It was the beginning of four hundred years of self-government in the United States. The U.S. had begun their democratic government.
Part Two
Of course, colonization of the United States would expand beyond Jamestown. The Pilgrims were the second group of American colonists. The Mayflower carried 102 Pilgrims, some of them saints, some of them just looking for a new adventure. They came to the New England coast and began a new colony. And in November of 1621, they started a celebration which is now three hundred fifty years old- Thanksgiving.
The Pilgrims chose a site to arrive in America that was cold and windy. It was a tough place to begin a colony. But this colony, like Jamestown, would eventually survive. It was the foundation of Massachusetts, the second of the thirteen colonies.
The colony of Massachussets had a problem. The whole world believed in witches. People had unreasonably come to conclusions about witches for a long time, and in Salem, Massachussets, there was an incedent that alarmed the entire colony. In the middle of a church service, some girls at the church (Sarah Good, Sarah Osborn, and Tituba, and a servant) spoke up in church, saying silly things and causing disruption. The people of the church thought that only witches would disrupt their church like that. There was alot of controversy, and eventually, everything that happened in Salem was blamed on a witch. Twenty people were put to death in Salem, in 1692. The history of Massachussets had seen one of the worse events it would ever include.
Part Three
In 1636, Thomas Hooker, a minister, and one hundred followers moved west to the Connecticut River. He came without a charter, without even permission to live there. No one conceded him any right to having his own land at all; he just came and stayed. But, Connecticut grew to become a trading post. More people arrived in Connecticut, and it became its own separate colony.
Meanwhile, there was a separate piece of land which the king gave to his two friends: Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason. Gorges founded Maine, and Mason founded New Hampshire. They both advertised in England for settlers in their territiories, and people came. While New Hampshire became a colony, Maine remained part of Massachusetts until 1820.
The Indians were losing their land quickly. Colonists had invaded and taken everything. The colonists would fight for land and power, while the Indians had lost both.
In 1636, Roger Williams, a minister, fled Massachusetts in January and bought his own land from the Indians. He called it Providence, and it became the capital of Rhode Island. Rhode Island developed a population of people who weren't welcome elsewhere. Williams was welcoming to all cultures and religions, so no one was excluded and everyone was welcomed. Rhode Island was known as the place for "all the cranks of New England."
The Duke of York, in 1664, captured New
Amsterdam, renaming it New York. New York became another of the
British colonies which would become the U.S. The Duke gave a
friend, George Sir Carteret, a piece of his colony, and named it
New Jersey, after Carteret's island of Jersey. Two colonies had
been established on the land of New Amsterdam.
In 1681, William Penn was given a piece of land to establish a colony. King Charles II had given it to him to repay the debt of his deceased father, a rich Anglican admiral. It was called Pennsylvania, which means "Penn's woods." Penn, a Quaker, had established the colony for Quakers to come and live with their own kind. But Penn believed in brotherly love, saying that Pennsylvania was for everyone, not just Quakers. You might notice that today, Philadelphia, the most popular city in Pennsylvania, is called "the city of brotherly love." Pennsylvania welcomed people of all religions and races, and became a prosperous colony.
An English lord, Sir George Calvert, founded Maryland in 1632. King Charles had given him land in America, and he named it Maryland after Queen Henrietta Maria of England. Maryland became a place where Catholics and Protestants could live in harmony.
King Charles II granted land to eight lords proprietors, lands called North Carolina and South Carolina. South Carolina named Charles Town after Charles II, which was later named Charleston. Charleston became an instant success, the largest city in the Carolinas. South Carolina was a successful colony which practiced tolerance of other religions, while North Carolina became a very democratic nation, practicing democracy and, in some cases, religions such as Baptist and Methodist. The Carolinas were the beginning of the South as we now know it.
In 1732, when George II was king of England, James Oglethorpe founded a colony, Georgia, named after the king. Georgia was a place where debtors could go and live together and live ideal lives with each other. Georgia did not permit drinking or owning slaves. Oglethorpe was against big plantations, in favor of small farms. Georgia was bordering on Spanish land, and the Spaniards gave the colonists a hard time by capturing ships and stealing goods. But Georgia survived, and it expanded what would become the South.
Part Four
The United States now includes 50 states, as you already know. I have already mentioned the original thirteen colonies, which eventually formed a country. The colonization of England began it all. I recommend that you continue to learn about U.S. history from other web sites and books. It is an interesting subject as well as something that everyone has to learn in school sometime. For additional sources of information, see the More Sources of Information page.
Over & Out!