Subunit 1.3: Settler Colonies and Imperial Rivalries
Chapter 3: Settler Colonies and Imperial Rivalries (1565–1681) · pp. 85–125
Unit One: American Origins
Key points
Spain built the first great American empire after conquering the Aztec and Inca by the late 1530s; the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas (mediated by the pope) divided the globe between Spain and Portugal.
Spanish colonization relied on adelantados (private contractors licensed by the crown to conquer and exploit land) who became encomenderos; the crown later organized conquered lands into viceroyalties (New Spain, 1535; Peru, 1542) to rein in adelantado power.
Spain founded St. Augustine, Florida (1565) as a strategic hub to protect shipping routes and counter French/pirate threats, surrounded by Franciscan missions; an earlier Jesuit mission at Ajacan on the Chesapeake (1570) was wiped out by Indigenous people.
In New Mexico, Coronado's 1540s search for the mythic city of Cíbola found instead sedentary Pueblo peoples; Juan de Oñate's 1598 colony brutalized the Pueblos and enslaved Native people, and after no silver was found, the settlement of Santa Fe survived as a small outpost centered on Franciscan missionary efforts.
The Virginia Company of London founded Jamestown in 1607 in Algonquian-speaking Tsenacomoco, the chiefdom of Powhatan; poor site choice, disease, starvation, and conflict with Powhatan's people killed most colonists, and the 1622 attack by Opechancanough killed a quarter of the colony.
Virginia was 'salvaged' after 1612 when John Rolfe successfully grew tobacco for the English market, creating an economic boom that required massive amounts of labor.
Virginia's labor needs were met first by English indentured servants (bound by contract for 4-7 years) and, starting in 1619, by enslaved Africans; slavery's legal status was not yet clearly defined, and both servants and enslaved people faced brutal exploitation.
Puritans, inspired by Calvinist predestination and a desire to purify (not necessarily leave) the Church of England, colonized New England seeking religious purpose rather than plunder; Separatists (Pilgrims) founded Plymouth (1620) after signing the Mayflower Compact, aided by Indigenous people like Tisquantum and Massasoit.
The 'Great Migration' of the 1630s, led by John Winthrop, founded Massachusetts Bay Colony; Winthrop's 'city upon a hill' vision combined a religious covenant with an accepted social hierarchy of rich and poor, and political rights were restricted to male church members.
Puritan religious individualism produced internal dissent: Roger Williams (banished 1635, founded Providence/Rhode Island with Narragansett help) and Anne Hutchinson (banished 1637) both challenged Puritan orthodoxy and authority, Hutchinson especially by leading mixed-gender religious meetings.
Puritan expansion onto Native land, justified by the belief that Indigenous people did not properly 'improve' the land, led to violent conflict, culminating in the Pequot War (1636-1637), in which Puritan forces and Narragansett allies killed or enslaved large numbers of Pequots.
The Dutch founded New Netherland (1624) after Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage, centered on the fur trade at New Amsterdam, but a small population and better opportunities elsewhere in the Dutch empire left it vulnerable; England seized it in 1664 and renamed it New York.
William Penn secured a royal charter for Pennsylvania in 1681 as a haven for Quakers, though Penn set it up with quasi-feudal manors and baronies; Pennsylvania and the Jerseys attracted an unusually diverse mix of European settlers.
The Caribbean, especially Barbados, became a major English colonial focus once sugarcane cultivation (learned from the Dutch) took hold in the 1620s-1630s; sugar's intense labor demands shifted the workforce from white indentured servants to enslaved Africans by the 1650s.
Timeline
1494Treaty of Tordesillas divides the globe between Spain and Portugal, with papal mediation
1535Spanish crown establishes the first viceroyalty, New Spain
1542Spanish crown establishes the second viceroyalty, Peru
1565Spanish establish a settlement at St. Augustine
1570Spanish Jesuits establish the short-lived Ajacan mission on the Chesapeake; killed by Indigenous people shortly after
1571Killing of Spanish Jesuits in the Chesapeake, known to the later English colonists
1585First English colony on Roanoke Island established but evacuated the next year
1587Second English colony on Roanoke Island established (later the 'Lost Colony')
1598Spanish establish the colony of Santa Fe/Nuevo Mexico under Juan de Oñate
1605Oñate inscribes rock at what is now El Morro National Monument recording his expedition to the Pacific
1607English begin colonization of Virginia with settlement at Jamestown
1608Some English Separatists relocate to Leiden, Netherlands, seeking religious refuge
1609English explorer Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch, sails up what is later renamed the Hudson River
1612Tobacco palatable for European tastes first grown in Virginia by John Rolfe
1614Marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe ushers in a period of peace between Jamestown and the Powhatans
1615Virginia exports more than 2,000 pounds of tobacco to England
1617Pocahontas dies in England
1618Powhatan dies; his half-brother Opechancanough succeeds him
1619First enslaved Africans sold in Virginia (approximately twenty, brought by a Dutch ship)
1620English colony of Plymouth established after the Mayflower Compact, under the leadership of William Bradford
1622Opechancanough's attack on Jamestown kills roughly a quarter (347) of the colony's population
1624English crown dissolves the Virginia Company and takes direct control; Dutch establish colony of New Netherland
1625Dutch found New Amsterdam
1627First English settlement on the Caribbean island of Barbados
1630English establish Massachusetts Bay Colony under the leadership of John Winthrop; Winthrop delivers 'A Modell of Christian Charity' ('city upon a Hill') sermon
1631Roger Williams arrives in Boston; Jamestown surveyor William Claiborne purchases Kent Island from the Susquehannocks
1634Anne Hutchinson arrives in Boston
1635Roger Williams convicted of sedition and heresy by the Massachusetts General Court
1636Roger Williams, fleeing repression in Massachusetts Bay, settles Providence, Rhode Island; Pequot War begins
1637Pequot War ends with the destruction of a Pequot village near present-day Mystic, Connecticut (about 400 killed); Sugarcane introduced to Barbados by the Dutch; Anne Hutchinson banished from Massachusetts Bay, joins Roger Williams in Providence
1644Rhode Island and Providence Plantations formally established as a colony
1664English take New Netherland from the Dutch and call it New York; New Jersey granted to the Duke of York
1676Smallholders of West Jersey clash with the aristocratic East Jersey settlers
1681William Penn gets a royal English charter for the colony of Pennsylvania
