Chesapeake Colonies Dbq

Other Europeans, Native Americans and West Africans were the groups thought to be most suitable for the economic demand of labor. Many of the early views of West Africans were received through the bible until written accounts of encounters with these people were made. These written accounts of the encounters of West Africans led to the idea West Africans could be brought over and sold in the Americas to work in chattel slavery. This in turn made them the ultimate choice for the labor force of the English. However the famous sale of twenty Africans to the colonists at Jamestown in 1619 by Dutch slave traders did not equate to the introduction of chattel slavery just yet. Many early African slaves were treated similarly to indentured servants brought in from England. They could work the land for a set number of years then after their term was up be freed and given a piece of land. Indentured servitude was not hereditary but their contract could be sold, bartered, given away or gambled away. These contracts gave away the servant’s labor but it did not give away the servant’s person. Despite this African presence, slavery was slow to arrive in Virginia because the mortality rate for indentured servants was so high during the first decades of the Virginia colony. Indentured servitude remained the primary source of labor in Virginia through the 1680s, until economic considerations made slaves the cheaper alternative.

The founding of Jamestown was brought about in June of 1606 when King James I, granted a charter to the Virginia Company of London. The Virginia Company of London was a joint stock company established during this time with the purpose of growing settlements in North America. This group of London entrepreneurs had hopes of profit in building a secure settlement on Jamestown Island, and with the help of three ships and 100 colonists, The London Company became the first English Settlers in North America.

The Virginia company of London, consisted of a faction of investors that received a charter from King James I.This joint stock company used the charter to institute the Jamestowne colony, in hopes of accumulating greater wealth from the endeavor.These merchants planned on assembling an intricate and mixed economy in Jamestowne, that encompassed laborers who’d convert the colony’s assumed raw materials into prized merchandise. However, this was only a theory and boy, were they wrong. The reality of Jamestowne was far more different than their delusional land. For more than a decade, the colony staggered for stamina and survival, while the colonists were killed off by disease, famine and the continual attacks from neighboring natives. All of these were

Traveling aboard the Godspeed, Susan Constant, and Discovery, were 104 men that landed in Virginia in 1607. They called this new place Jamestown and it was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Jamestown had a great defensive position incase of any attacks. It also provided the new settlers a warm climate with fertile soil, which allowed large plantations. Unfortunately they used almost all the land to grow tobacco and not food, and this led to them having a food shortage. The real reason to grow tobacco was for them to make money, they traded the tobacco for goods or for amounts of money. Jamestown, lead by Captain John Smith, was soon turned into a normal successful colony.

Rich businessmen from London in 1606 created a petition for King James 1 to create a charter to create a colony in the New World. Together those businessmen created the Virginia Company, their goal was to create a permanent town in the name of the British government in the New World. So 105 people in 1607 boarded a ship and traveled to the New World. When they arrived they would create the famous first English colony, called Jamestown. The people aboard the ship weren’t exactly the farmer agriculture type. They were wealthy individuals and their servants. They colonist had planned on hunting, gathering and trade with the natives to suffice. They thought they could force the native to give them their resources but they were very wrong.

In 1606, King James I chartered a joint-stock enterprise called the Virginia Company. Owned and operated by wealthy merchant investors seeking to reap the benefits of the New World from the gold and silver they hoped to acquire. in 1607, the Virginia Company sent three tiny ships to America with one-hundred men and boys. After five arduous months at sea the settlers landed in the Chesapeake Bay area. The settlers knew that the Spanish would find them if they settled near the coast, so they made the trek forty miles inland and settled along a river they named James in honor of their King, here they formed the first permanent English settlement of Jamestown (Shi and Tindall p.45). However, the are the settlers chose was unforgiving, it was marshy

After King James 1 and Spain made peace he wanted to establish money making colonies in the Americas. Stockholders saw this as an opportunity to look for gold to transfer debtors and the jobless to work as well to teach the Native Americans

The first Africans arrived in Virginia while the system of indentured servitude was at its height. Not all Africans came to Virginia as slaves. For the first few decades of the Virginia colony, Black and white servants worked together on the plantations. In many instances they socialized together and even had interracial marriages. The system of racial slavery that would later evolve did not exist for the first few decades after Virginia’s

Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower, a ship that transported the first English separatists, founded the Plymouth colony at New Plymouth. This settlement that occurred in 1620 served as the capital of the colony and occupied the southeastern portion of what is now known as Massachusetts. Besides Jamestown and other settlements in Virginia, the Plymouth colony was one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the British. The colony went great lengths and traveled long distances to establish a friendship with Chief Massasoit to help ensure the colony’s success. Gifts were exchanged and Chief Massasoit gave his sons English names to show respect for each other.

“It was otherwise in the Chesapeake, the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. There, the legal institution of slavery grew out of economic opportunism and evolving social custom.” However, racism was involved as well in these areas. The British North Americans again resorted to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, bringing in the labourers necessary to grow their crops; no matter how inhumane. “Economic need drove the tobacco planters to import large numbers of enslaved Africans in the late seventeenth century.” Working on these plantations was not an easy life, and the travelling conditions that these people went through were

In May of 1607, there was the arrival of the first white settlers in Jamestown, Virginia. Virginia Company, a group of entrepreneurs from London, funded the explorers. Three ships namely Susan Constant, Godspeed, and the Discovery were used to transport the 104 men and women who left England to look for greener pastures in North America. Half of the settlers aboard the three ships were mostly “gentlemen” and some others from upper classes who do not know how to find a way to save their own lives. As soon as the colonists arrived at Jamestown On May 13, 1607, their expectations were immediately cut short since this group was met by

A new policy of enclosure for farming limited the land for the poor. Next, the tradition primogeniture stated only the eldest son would inherit their family’s estate. Later, in the early 1600s Joint Stock Companies let investors pool money and share losses/profits. Virginia Company of London received a grant from King James I of England for a settlement in the New World. On May 24, 1607 the Virginia Company landed in Jamestown. About a hundred men disembarked on this voyage, and sixty men died along the way. When they arrived on shore, men died of disease, malnutrition, and starvation because they were an unorganized group of men. John Smith took over in 1608 and forced the settlers back in line. By 1609 only sixty men survived the “starving winter” out of four hundred. Finally, in 1610 Lord De La Warr came to Jamestown with a military and supplies. By 1625, out of the original 4,000 men only 1,200

Many woman and men decided to follow the Pilgrims voyage to the new world due to the policies of religious belief by the King. Kind James1 and his successor eventually forced more and more people to follow behind the pilgrims in hopes of finding their religious haven. Another 1,000 puritan refugees under the guidance of John Winthrop came to establish todays Boston in Massachusetts. Between the time period of 1630 and 1640 another 25,000 refugees would follow to come to their religious safe haven. Eventually the pilgrims of Plymouth failed to achieve lasting economic success. Fighting the king Phillips war was rather costly and damaged the already struggling economy of Plymouth. In 1692, King James II appointed a governor to rule over New England and Plymouth was merged into a larger entity of Massachusetts ("The Pilgrims", 1996-3013).

The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth (in present day Massachusetts) in 1620. Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe first had contact with Europeans through fishing and trading vessels along the New England coast. Most encounters with the English were friendly so the Wampanoag had no reason to think that the Pilgrims, from the Mayflower, were a potential threat to their way of life. Indeed Massasoit had good reason to hope that the English could benefit his people and help them against their enemies, the Narragansett (http://www.tolatsga.org/wampa.html). For the first years, the Pilgrims encountered harsh living conditions and were unprepared for

Since the arrival of English settlers in 1607, problems began in Jamestown. They had problems with the geography, their leadership, and they were not prepared for what awaited at the settlement. When the English arrived at Jamestown Virginia, there was already Natives living in the area. This becomes a conflict in the further development of the colony. The joint-stock company was an association that sold merchandise to high investors who provided money. The Virginia company was the joint stock company that founded Jamestown. The settlers were sent to Virginia from England to find gold and get wealthy. What they did not know, was that there was not any gold in the area. The colonists spent most of their time looking for gold and left no time for producing food, and shelter. Because of this, in 1609 through 1610, the settlers faced a hard time of starvation, climate, and also disease. People turned to digging out graves and eating each other. For example, one settler killed his wife during her sleep and ate her leaving only her head. The time was known as the “Starving Time”. Eventually, the environment of Jamestown