Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0387/03873.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 23KB | 400 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03873}
$Pretitle{444}
$Title{United States of America
Chapter 1A.   The Colonial Period}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{United States Information Service}
$Affiliation{United States Government}
$Subject{new
colony
america
england
settlers
english
massachusetts
dutch
colonies
pennsylvania}
$Date{1991}
$Log{}
Country:     United States of America
Book:        An Outline of American History
Author:      United States Information Service
Affiliation: United States Government
Date:        1991

Chapter 1A.   The Colonial Period

     "Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's
habitation."

John Smith
Founder of the Colony of Virginia, 1607

     The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from
Europe to North America. Spanning more than three centuries, this movement
grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a floodtide of
newcomers numbered in the millions. Impelled by powerful and diverse
motivations, they built a new civilization on a once savage continent.

     The first English immigrants to what is now the United States crossed
the Atlantic long after thriving Spanish colonies had been established in
Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. Like all early travelers to the
New World, they came in small, overcrowded ships. During their six- to
12-week voyages they lived on meager rations. Many of them died of disease;
ships were often battered by storms, and some were lost at sea.

     To the weary voyager the sight of the American shore brought immense
relief. Said one chronicler: "The air at 12 leagues' distance smelt as sweet
as a new-blown garden." The colonists' first glimpse of the new land was a
vista of dense woods. True, the woods were inhabited by Indians, many of whom
were hostile, and the threat of Indian attack would add to the hardships of
daily life. But the vast, virgin forests, extending nearly 2,100 kilometers
along the eastern seaboard from north to south, would prove to be a
treasure-house, providing abundant food, fuel, and a rich source of raw
materials for houses, furniture, ships, and profitable cargoes for export.

     The first permanent English settlement in America was a trading post
founded in 1607 at Jamestown, in the Old Dominion of Virginia. This region
was soon to develop a flourishing economy from its tobacco crop, which found
a ready market in England. By 1620, when women were recruited in England to
come to Virginia, marry, and make their homes, great plantations had already
risen along the James River, and the population had increased to a thousand
settlers.

The Land is Settled

     Though the new continent was remarkably endowed by nature, trade with
Europe was vital for the import of articles the settlers could not yet
produce. The coastline served the immigrants well. The whole length of shore
provided innumerable inlets and harbors. Only two areas-North Carolina and
southern New Jersey-lacked harbors for ocean-going vessels.

     Majestic rivers-the Kennebec, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac,
and numerous others-linked the coastal plain and the ports with Europe. Only
one river, however-the St. Lawrence, dominated by the French in
Canada-offered a water passage into the heart of the continent. Dense forests
and the formidable barrier of the Appalachian Mountains discouraged settlement
beyond the coastal plain. Only trappers and traders plunged into the
wilderness. For a hundred years the colonists built their settlements
compactly along the coast.

     The colonies were self-sufficient communities with their own outlets to
the sea. Each colony became a separate entity, marked by a strong
individuality. But despite this individualism, problems of commerce,
navigation, manufacturing, and currency cut across colonial boundaries and
necessitated common regulations which, after independence from England was
won, led to federation.

     The coming of colonists in the 17th century entailed careful planning
and management, as well as considerable expense and risk. Settlers had to be
transported nearly 5,000 kilometers across the sea. They needed utensils,
clothing, seed, tools, building materials, livestock, arms, and ammunition. In
contrast to the colonization policies of other countries and other periods,
the emigration from England was not sponsored by the government but by private
groups of individuals whose chief motive was profit.

     Two colonies, Virginia and Massachusetts, were founded by chartered
companies whose funds, provided by investors, were used to equip, transport,
and maintain the colonists.

     In the case of the New Haven colony (later a part of the colony of
Connecticut), well-to-do emigrants themselves financed the transport and
equipment of their families and servants. Other settlements-New Hampshire,
Maine, Maryland, the Carolinas, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania-originally
belonged to proprietors, members of the English gentry or nobility who, as
landlords, advanced funds for settling tenants and servants upon lands
granted to them by the King.

     Charles I, for instance, granted to Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore) and
his heirs approximately 2,800,000 hectares that were later to become the
state of Maryland, Charles II dispensed grants that were to become the
Carolinas and Pennsylvania. Technically, the proprietors and chartered
companies were the King's tenants, but they made only token payments for
their lands. Thus, lord Baltimore gave the King two Indian arrowheads each
year, and William Penn gave him two beaver skins.

     The thirteen colonies that eventually became the United States were
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia. The individual colonies reflected their varying
origins. Several were simply off-shoots of other settlements: Rhode Island and
Connecticut were founded by people from Massachusetts, the mothercolony of all
New England. Georgia was established for benevolent and practical reasons by
James Edward Oglethorpe and a few colleagues whose plan was to release
imprisoned debtors from English jails and send them to America to establish a
colony that would serve as a bulwark against the Spaniards to the south. The
colony of New Netherland, founded in 1621 by the Dutch, came under English
rule in 1664 and was renamed New York.

     Most European emigrants left their homelands for greater economic
opportunity-an urge frequently reinforced by the yearning for religious
freedom, or a determination to flee from political oppression. Between 1620
and 1635 economic difficulties swept England. Many people could not find
work. Even skilled artisans could earn little more than a bare living. Bad
crops added to the distress. In addition, England's expanding woolen industry
demanded an ever-increasing supply of wool to keep the looms running, and
sheep-raisers began to encroach on soil hitherto given over to farming.

The Search for Religious and Political Freedom

     During the religious upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries, a body of
men and women called Puritans sought to reform the Established Church of
England from within. Essentially, they demanded more complete
protestantization of the national church and advocated simpler forms of faith
and worship. Their reformist ideas, by destroying the unity of the state
church, threatened to divide the people and to undermine royal authority.

     During the reign of James I, a small group of Separatists-a radical
sect, mostly humble country folk who did not believe the Established Church
could ever be reformed to their liking-departed for Leyden, Holland, where
they were allowed to practice their religion as they wished. Later, some
members of this Leyden congregation, who became known as the "Pilgrims,"
decided to emigrate to the New World, where, in 1620, they founded the
colony of Plymouth.

     Soon after Charles I ascended the throne in 1625, Puritan lea