Sir Walter Raleigh Roanoke Sir Walter Raleigh was an English explorer, soldier and writer. At age 17, he fought with the French Huguenots and later studied at Oxford. He became a favorite of Queen Elizabeth after serving in her army in Ireland. He was knighted in 1585, and within two years became Captain of the Queen's Guard. Between 1584 and 1589, he helped establish a colony near Roanoke Island (present-day North Carolina), which he named Virginia. Accused of treason by King James I, Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned and eventually put to death. The Roanoke Island colony, the first English settlement in the New World, was founded by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in August 1585. The first Roanoke colonists did not fare well, suffering from dwindling food supplies and Indian attacks, and in 1586 they returned to England aboard a ship captained by Sir Francis Drake. In 1587, Raleigh sent out another group of 100 colonists under John White. White returned to England to procure more supplies, but the war with Spain delayed his return to Roanoke. By the time he finally returned in August 1590, everyone had vanished. Including his daughter and grand-daughter Virginia Dare, the first British child born in America. The only clue left was the word CROATOAN carved into a fence post.
Charter Joint-stock Company Royal document granting a specified group the right to form a colony and guaranteeing settlers their rights as English citizens. The joint-stock company was the forerunner of the modern corporation. In a joint-stock company, stock was sold to investors who provided the money to start the colony and then would be paid back and receive a portion of any profits made by the colony. The Virginia Company used funds raised by selling its stock to create the colony of Jamestown. At first the colony nearly failed but then began to boom as it started to produce tobacco.
Headright burgesses A "headright" is a legal grant of land to settlers. Headrights are most notable for their role in the expansion of the thirteen British colonies in North America; the Virginia Company of London gave headrights to settlers, and the Plymouth Company followed suit. Most headrights were either 50 or 100 acres. The English kings who ruled the 13 original colonies reserved the right to decide the fate of their colonies, but not alone. The colonists drew upon their claims to traditional English rights and insisted on raising their own representative assemblies or burgesses. Such was the case with the VIRGINIA HOUSE OF BURGESSES, the first popularly elected legislature in the New World created in 1619.
John Smith Royal colonies English adventurer John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia the first permanent English settlement in North America. Smith, a colorful figure, had won popularity in the colony because of his organizational abilities and effectiveness in dealing with local Native American groups. He had been captured by the Powhatan Indian confederacy but was spared from death and released (according to a 1624 account by Smith) because of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan s 13-year-old daughter who begged that he be spared. A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the British overseas territories. Crown, or royal, colonies were ruled by a governor appointed by the monarch (king or queen).
Proprietary colonies Charter colonies Proprietary colonies were grants of land in the form of a charter, or a license to rule, for individuals or groups. They were used to settle areas rapidly with British subjects at the proprietors' expense during the costly settlement years. Also, they could be used by the Crown to repay a debt to, or bestow a favor upon a highly placed person. The land was titled in the proprietors' name, not the king's. The proprietors could appoint all officials; create courts, hear appeals, and pardon offenders; make laws and issue decrees; raise and command militia; and establish churches, ports, and towns. Proprietors had the opportunity to recoup their investment by collecting quitrents annual land fees from the settlers who had purchased land within these colonies. Charter colonies were governed by corporations called joint stock companies. Individuals hoping to make a profit purchased stock in these companies to finance colonization. When a company had enough money, it applied to the King for a charter, which is an agreement between the monarch and a colony that lays out the rights and responsibilities of both parties. If the King granted a charter, the company recruited colonists, set up a government, and founded a colony. Charter colonies often enjoyed a higher level of selfgovernment than other colonies. The joint stock company controlled land distribution and took an active role in colonial government. Colonists tended to prefer this form of colonial government because of the freedom it allowed.
Puritans Mayflower Compact The name "puritan" came to be used to describe members of the Church of England who wished to purify it of all semblances to the Roman Catholic Church. The Puritans emphasized that they did not wish to destroy the Church of England, nor did they want to separate from it. Their sole aim was to restore it to its original purity. A radical minority within the Puritan movement, the Separatists, wanted to remove itself from the tainted English church and worship in its own independent congregations. A group of Puritans sailed to the Massachusetts Bay in 1630, wanting to establish "a city upon a hill" as an example of how godly people should live. The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 English colonists on the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620, was the first written framework of government established in what is now the United States. The compact was drafted to prevent dissent amongst Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims who had landed at Plymouth a few days earlier. When the ship arrived at Cape Cod, several hundred miles north of its planned destination in Virginia owing to storms at sea, the passengers realized they were outside the bounds of the governmental authority they had contracted with in England and created their own.
tolerance Fundamental Orders of Connecticut The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. Some colonial groups such as the Puritans were not tolerant of religious differences. Other groups such as the Quakers were. The first constitution in the American colonies, the Fundamental Orders, was adopted by representatives in 1639. Roger Ludlow, a lawyer, wrote much of the Fundamental Orders, and presented a binding and compact frame of government that put the welfare of the community above that of individuals. It was also the first written constitution in the world to declare the modern idea that the foundation of authority is in the free consent of the people.
Anne Hutchinson Roger Williams Trained as a midwife and nurse, Hutchinson held small meetings in her home to discuss her Puritan pastor s sermons. Over time the meeting drew more and more people. She then claimed that God had communicated to her directly and declared that she was capable of interpreting the Scriptures on her own. In doing so she questioned the authority of the church and their control of society. She was put on trial and later banished from Massachusetts, seeking shelter in Rhode Island. The political and religious leader Roger Williams (c. 1603-1683) is best remembered for founding Rhode Island and advocating separation of church and state in Colonial America. His views on religious freedom and tolerance, coupled with his disapproval of the practice of confiscating land from Native Americans, earned him the wrath of his church and banishment from the colony of Massachusetts. Williams and his followers settled on Narragansett Bay, where they purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and established a new colony governed by the principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state. Rhode Island became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious minorities.
King Philips War Patroons Most colonist moved onto Native American lands without permission or payment. Throughout the colonial period, settlers and Native Americans competed fiercely for land. In 1675 Wampanoag leader Metacomet waged war against the New England colonies. Known to settlers as King Philip, Metacomet enlisted the help of other Native American groups. King Philip's War raged for 14 months. In the end, the colonists defeated Metacomet. The war destroyed the power of the Native Americans in New England and colonial settlement expanded. The Dutch West India Company controlled New Netherland (eventually New York). It wanted to increase the colony's population. To do this, the company offered large grants of land to anyone who could bring at least 50 settlers to work the land. The landowners who received these grants were called patroons. The patroons ruled like kings. They had their own courts and laws. Settlers owed the patroons labor and a share of their crops.
New Netherlands Quakers Not all of the colonies in North America were British at first, one was under Dutch control. This area was called New Netherland. The main settlement of New Netherland was New Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island. This location combined a good seaport with access to the Hudson River. The river served as a major transportation link to a rich land of farms, forests, and furs. As a result, New Amsterdam became a center of shipping to and from the Americas. New Netherland's success did not go unnoticed. The English wanted to gain control of the valuable Dutch colony. England insisted it had a right to the land based on John Cabot's explorations in the late 1400s. In 1664 the English sent a fleet to attack New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the colony, surrendered it to the English forces without a fight. The Quakers, a Protestant group that had been persecuted in England, founded the colony of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania as a holy experiment," a chance to put Quaker ideals into practice. The Quakers, or Society of Friends, believed that everyone was equal, no matter race or gender, including Native Americans. People could follow their own inner light" rather than the teachings of a religious leader. Quakers were also pacifists, or people who refuse to use force or fight in wars.
William Penn Indentured servant In 1680 William Penn, a wealthy English Quaker, received the land in payment for a debt King Charles owed Penn's father. Pennsylvania, or Penn's Woods." The new colony was nearly as large as England. A person under contract to work for another person for a definite period of time, usually without pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country. During the seventeenth century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia came from England as indentured servants. Penn was an active proprietor. In 1682 he sailed to America to supervise the building of Philadelphia, a name that means city of brotherly love." Penn designed the city himself. He also wrote Pennsylvania's first constitution. Penn advertised his colony throughout Europe. By 1683, more than 3,000 English, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, and German settlers had arrived. In 1701, in the Charter of Privileges, Penn granted colonists the right to elect representatives to the legislature.
Bacon s Rebellion Debtors In the 1640s, Virginia governor William Berkeley made a pledge to Native Americans. In exchange for a large piece of land, he agreed to keep settlers from pushing farther into their territory. Berkeley's goal was to prevent the outbreak of a war with the Native Americans. Nathaniel Bacon and others in western Virginia ignored the pledge. In 1676 Bacon led attacks on Native American villages. His army also marched to Jamestown to drive out Berkeley, and they burned the town to the ground. Bacon seemed on the verge of taking over the colony when he suddenly became ill and died. With his death, the rebellion faded. England recalled Berkeley and sent troops to restore order. Georgia, founded in 1733, was the last British colony set up in America. James Oglethorpe received a charter from George II for a colony where debtors and poor people could make a fresh start. In Britain, debtors those who had debts could be imprisoned if they were unable to pay what they owed. The British also hoped Georgia would block any Spanish attack on the colonies from Florida. Oglethorpe and his settlers built the forts and town of Savannah to discourage such attacks. Georgia did not develop as Oglethorpe planned. Hundreds of poor people came from Britain, but few debtors settled there.