2. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• Leadership in the Chesapeake colonies did not
consist of typical nobles or aristocracy.
– Most found it too hard and went home.
– Leadership was left to the hard working merchants
and planters who claimed it.
– People accepted the leadership in good times, but
questioned it when things were bad.
• Colonists demanded and were granted a degree
of independence.
– In Maryland, the colonists arrested and sent home a
Lord Governor who they did not agree with.
• Britain responded by sending a different Lord Governor.
3. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• In Virginia the crown was even less present as the kings men would
deal directly with the planter elite.
– Only free white men who possessed land enjoyed this independence.
– People acted with respect to county lines because towns were so
small.
– Counties ran courts, militia, and law enforcement.
• The power started with the king, to provincial government, to
county court, to “little commonwealths” or homes.
– Within the home the husband had what was like a small monarchy.
• Murder of the husband was viewed as small treason in addition to murder.
• Wives were bound by coverture, lacking an independent voice apart from their
husband.
– Men were held responsible for actions that came out of their homes.
– Based upon the premise that if the home functioned properly, the
larger government would.
4. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• The Colonies consisted of a prevalence of single men.
– Most laborers were English indentured servants who were purchased
for four to five years.
• Much cheaper and cost effective than Black slaves due to the fact that most
newcomers died within five years.
• Indian slaves tended to escape too quickly to be profitable.
• ¾ of the emigrants of the 17th Century were indentured servants.
• Courts almost always sided with owners, even if abusive, adding time to the
servant’s contracts.
– Work and living conditions were very difficult.
– Opportunity for eventual success was always there in the form of land
grants.
• In 1665 opportunity faded as producers depressed tobacco prices.
– Led to large gap between wealthy and poor.
5. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• In 1641 Governor William Burkley was appointed Governor of Virginia.
– Did not want to educate or empower the commoner.
– Gave huge tax breaks and land grants to his favorite rich men, making them richer, while
driving the poor into the frontier.
• Would not support frontiersmen as they fought the Indians for land.
• Nathaniel Bacon led a rebellion that displaced Burkley and drove him to
Jamestown.
– Bacon died within a month to dysentery.
– Burkley returned with a vengeance, hanging and pillaging rebels.
– Crown intervened and brought Burke back to England where he died shortly after.
• New Great Planter class began wooing the commoner with lower taxes and other
incentives.
• Slavery started slow, but experienced a huge boom in the 18th Century.
– Great planters used racial division and white unity to distract commoners from the growing
gap between rich and poor.
– Whites became united in an effort to keep the black man under control.
– Slaves were treated as mere property, with no civil rights or protections from crimes
committed by their owners.
6. American Colonies Ch.9: Puritans and
Indians
• Puritans in New England feared the land and Indians.
– Thought that colonials would denounce civilization and join the
Indian way of life.
– Attempted to make the land as much like England as possible.
• Profit and religion clashed as towns people moved further
apart for crops, losing and aspect of their fellowship.
• Indians in the area consisted of tribes who divided
themselves into many small bands.
– Shared hunting and meeting grounds with each other.
– Mostly sustained by their horticulture of various intermingled
crops.
– Labor was divided based upon gender roles, women tended to
the home and agriculture while men did hunting and fighting.
7. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• Indians utilized fire to maintain and shape the forests.
– Limited destruction kept things clean and inspired new growth.
• Indians had far different values than colonists.
– Did not value material accumulation, only possessed what they could
carry during seasonal moves.
– Took just enough from the land to live and enjoy it.
– Did not sell lands, until coerced by colonists, preferring to share it and
defend territories from enemy hunters.
• English came from a impoverished, overpopulated, deforested land.
– Saw huge opportunity in New England and thought the Indians lazy for
not exploiting it.
– Began a process of dispossessing the Indian’s of their land through
deeds, though the Indians thought of these deeds as agreements to
share the territory.
8. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• Colonists deforested at an alarming rate and allowed their animals to
graze in the forest.
– Came in direct conflict with Indian crops and hunting.
– If attacked, colonists had a sense of innocence.
– Indians who killed trespassing animals were tried in colonial courts.
• Indians sought colonial allies.
– English perceived this to be a consent to their rule, continuing aggressive
expansion, and extortion of Indian goods.
• New England solicited Indian allies to destroy the resistive Pequot tribe.
– ½ of the 3,000 Pequot would survive, mostly as subjects in existing tribes.
– Puritans viewed victories as God’s favor.
• Continued to manipulate Indians to weaken or empower their friends and
enemies.
– Potential Indian alliances were undermined by the ambitions of individual
tribes.
9. American Colonies Ch.7: Chesapeake
Colonies
• Late 1640s saw an effort to convert the Indians.
– Established praying towns to house Indian converts and separate them from pagan relatives.
– Indians saw it as a last resort for weak or floundering tribes to survive.
• King Philips War erupted when the Puritans hung 3 Indians for killing a praying
town informant.
– War was led by a Wampanoag sachem named Metacom, called King Philip by the colonists.
– Metacom and an alliance of tribes achieved great success through guerilla tactics.
– Tide of war turned as Puritans enlisted Indian aid and Metacom’s men ran out of food and
ammunition.
– 1,000 Colonists and 3,000 Indians died as a result.
– Captives were either executed or sold into slavery, those who escaped continued to guide
French raids on the English for many years.
• Indians were placed on the bottom of the social scale by 1789.
– All Indians on the Atlantic seaboard had become a small minority among invaders in a changed
land.
– Forced to abandon their old ways to survive in the changed world.
