| |
The English Come to Stay, 1600-1660
Overview
|
Looking at the early English colonies in the Chesapeake Bay region, it is clear that the English had not learned any lessons from their experiences at Roanoke. Poor planning, a bad location, unrealistic expectations, flawed leadership, poor relations with the local Indians, and no hope of finding the mineral wealth the Spanish found in Mexico all contributed to failure. However, a solution to these problems was found in a single plant: tobacco. Once a cash crop was found, two new requirements had to be resolved: more land and more laborers. The greed for land led the colonists to war with the Powhattan Indians and their need for more and cheap laborers led them to import indentured servants and slaves from Africa. Chesapeake society in the first half of the seventeenth century was shaped by four forces: weak government, the market for tobacco, the availability of land, and the need for labor. These forces coupled with individual situations created a society of contrasts: there were opportunities to accumulate wealth and power as well as the opposite. It was in this environment that the political economy of slavery took root. England’s second attempts at establishing colonies in North America should not have been successful. The people found no gold, no cash crops, or anything of immediate value to their investors but the colonists were committed to success. Both Plymouth (1620) and Massachusetts Bay (1629) were founded by middle class Christians who emigrated as families and communities in order to escape persecution at home. Their ventures were well planned and well financed and they established positive relations with the local Indians. These Christians were called Puritans and they were committed to establishing new communities based upon God’s laws as they understood them. That the Puritans believed they had a covenant with God made them secure in their mission. However, that same covenant was also believed to be a fragile thing -- something that could be endangered by those with different (the Puritans would say “wrong”) beliefs.
|
