THE NEW WORLD – COLONIAL AMERICA
LIFE IN GREAT BRITAIN – WHY MOVE TO THE COLONIES?
HOUSE OF TUDOR
In trying to understand the English colonization of America, it is helpful to know some of the events leading up to it. In 1485 a civil war in England called the War of the Roses ended when Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster defeated King Richard III of the House of York. Henry’s betrothal to Elizabeth of York united their two royal families, and he became King Henry VII. It was not uncommon for royal marriages to have political benefits.
Henry’s eldest son, Arthur, married Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. After five months of marriage, Arthur died. When Henry died seven years later, he was succeeded by his other son, Henry VIII, who married Arthur’s widow, Catherine. Their union produced a daughter named Mary, but no male heir to the throne, so Henry petitioned the Pope for an annulment. Being single again would allow Henry to marry a younger, male-producing queen.
The king felt justified in making the request because the Book of Leviticus in the Bible prohibits a man’s marriage to his brother’s wife. The Pope, who had sanctioned the marriage 20 years earlier in spite of Leviticus, refused to grant an annulment. Doing so would have offended Spanish Catholics, who were strong supporters of the Pope.
England was a Roman Catholic country as was most of Europe.
Henry VIII had been a staunch Catholic and had publicly condemned Martin Luther for his break from the Church. Despite that, Henry rejected the Pope’s decision and married a second wife, Anne Boleyn, anyway. The newarchbishop of Canterbury, appointed by Henry, we validated the new marriage after granting an annulment. Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, refused to renounce her title to the crown, which would have made their daughter Mary illegitimate.
After his excommunication for renouncing papal authority, Henry VIII established the Church of England with himself as the head. He confiscated property from the Catholic Church and redistributed it. He also had the Bible printed in English and placed in every church.
Anne Boleyn soon gave birth to a daughter named Elizabeth, but when Anne also failed to produce a male heir, Henry had her executed for treason and incest. He married Jane Seymour less than two weeks later. She gave Henry the long-sought male heir, Edward, but died from complications in childbirth. Henry VIII married three more times, six times in all.
REFORMATION and COUNTER-REFORMATION
After the death of his father, Edward ascended to the throne as King Edward VI. He only nine years old. During his short reign, religious reforms continued m England. More Catholic property was confiscated. Worship services moved away from the Mass and were conducted in English rather than Latin. The Book of Common Prayer brought uniformity to church services. Priests became government appointed ministers charged with helping their congregants reach God directly without their intercession. Their authority to perform weddings came from the state instead of the church. Unlike Catholic priests, Anglican ministers were encouraged to marry.
Protestant reforms were interrupted when Edward died after only six years as monarch. He was succeeded by his half sister Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Mary I waged a violent Counter-Reformation to restore Catholicism. She married the future king of Spain, Philip II, for support in cleansing England. She burned all the Bibles that had been printed in English, annulled the marriages of ministers, burned the small chapels that had been built, and reopened the cathedrals. Mary charged reformers with heresy and burned them at the stake, which earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” Many Protestants, “Marian Exiles,” fled England for the continent.
The Counter-Reformation lasted five years until Mary died. Her Protestant half sister. Elizabeth. daughter of Anne Boleyn, succeeded her as monarch in 1558. Philip II lost his English titles but remained Icing of Spain.
QUEEN ELIZABETH and the SPANISH ARMADA
Elizabeth I decided it was best for the stability and security of England for her to not marry. Called the Virgin Queen, she renewed Protestant reform in England. Elizabeth eased religious tensions by adopting a middle way, or via media. The state church would be Anglican, but Catholics would be allowed to quietly practice their religion as long as they swore allegiance to the crown.
After Columbus’s discovery, England and other European countries had followed Spain’s lead in sponsoring voyages to the Americas. An English expedition in 1497 led by the Italian explorer John Cabot was the basis for England’s claims in North America, but the claim was not pursued for most of the 16th century.
Colonization of the Americas had helped Spain become the dominant power in the Western world. England challenged that position by raiding Spanish ships on the high seas. In exchange for a percentage of the profits, Queen Elizabeth provided protection to the “Sea Dogs,” English mariners carrying out the raids. Sir Francis Drake captured numerous Spanish galleons in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Their cargoes of gold and silver looted from Native Americans wound up in the English treasury.
Another Sea Dog, Sir Walter Raleigh, convinced Elizabeth that a colony in the New World would help England compete economically and be a valuable base of operations for raiding Spanish ships. In 1587, Raleigh planted colonists on Roanoke Island just off the coast of present-day North Carolina. It was part of the territory named Virginia by the English in honor of their Virgin Queen.
Meanwhile, King Philip II of Spain was laying plans to conquer England and return it to the Catholic fold. The armada he assembled consisted of 130 ships. The size of the Spanish ships proved to be a disadvantage in the English Channel against the smaller and more maneuverable English vessels. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 catapulted England to a position of dominance on the seas and gave momentum to the Protestant movement.
The success did not extend to England’s colony in America. When supply ships returned to Roanoke Island in 1590, it was uninhabited. The colonists were never found, and the fate of the “Lost Colony” is still a mystery. As a consequence of the failure, Queen Elizabeth lost interest in colonizing the New World. The next attempt would fall to her successor.
JAMESTOWN
In 1606 the king of England, James I, granted a private company of investors the right to establish another colony m Virginia. The London Company hoped to profit from the export of forest products and precious metals.
Three company ships set sail from England in December. After an unusually lengthy voyage, the 104 colonists arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in April of 1607. They sailed up the James River (named after their king) in search of a suitable place for a settlement. They chose a small peninsula jutting out into the river some 40 miles inland. The water near the shoreline was deep. Being able to bring their large ships close to shore made unloading easier, but the site was a poor choice overall. Clean drinking water was not available there, and the surrounding land was low, swampy, and a breeding ground for disease.
They named the colony Jamestown. The settlement began under a communal arrangement. The London Company owned all the land, and the settlers were expected to work for the company and for the welfare of the group for a certain number of years.
The conditions were formidable, and provisions brought from England were inadequate. Most of the settlers were English gentlemen from upper-class families and lacked the necessary skills to survive in a wilderness. They were unaccustomed to manual labor, and many believed that such work was beneath them. After building a fort and a few simple structures inside the one-acre enclosure, time and energy were wasted searching for gold, which did not exist in the area. Within six months half the colony had died from disease or starvation.
The arrival of supplies and more settlers from England over the next two years, including the first women, helped only temporarily.
Most of the new settlers were equally ill-suited to the demands of the colony. Food shortages were persistent problem. Captain John Smith assumed leadership of the colony and imposed strict discipline that included the warning: “He that will not work shall not eat. Smith kept the colony in reasonably good condition until a gunpowder burn forced him to return to England for treatment.
The winter after Smith’s departure was known as “the starvmg time.” The situation became so desperate that settlers ate weeds and rats to survive. When supply ships arrived in May of 1610, only 60 feeble colonists were left alive. Given the seemingly hopeless situation, the commander of the ships thought it best to load up the colonists and return to England. Before reaching the mouth of the James River they were met by three ships arriving from England with abundant provisions, healthy settlers, and a new leader. The Jamestown survivors were ordered to tum back and try again with the new arrivals.
Life in Jamestown gradually improved, and other settlements were established nearby. Relations with the Indians were friendly at times and hostile at others. In 1614 one of the colonists, John Rolfe, married Pocahontas, the daughter of the most powerful Indian chief in the area. Their marriage brought temporary peace with the Indians.
Allocating land to the colonists for their private use had a dramatic effect. Settlers worked harder on their own land than they did on land that belonged to the company. Food shortages became a thing of the past. Tobacco also played a major role in establishing the colony. The plant grew well in Virginia, and the demand for tobacco in England gave Jamestown its first cash crop.
It took years for the colony to become secure, but Jamestown continued and took its place in history as the first permanent English settlement in America.
In 1619 representative government was introduced when delegates from Jamestown and the surrounding settlements met to make laws for the entire Virginia colony. Their assembly, known as the House of Burgesses, was the first legislature of elected representatives in the New World.
As for Pocahontas – in 1616 she and her husband and their infant son sailed to England where she was a celebrated visitor. The following year, just as the family was setting out on the return voyage to America, Pocahontas became seriously ill and died at the age of 22. She was buried in England.