2.  During the sixteenth century,
Spanish and French mariners
explored the coast of Florida
and south of Acadia deemed
little value for colonies.
 Neglected by the Spanish
and French, the mid-Atlantic
seaboard maintained open to
English colonization during
the 1580’s.
 English colonizers pursued
get-rich-quick schemes, a
search for gold mines on
land and for Spanish
treasure ships by sea.
American Colonies 6-Virginia

3.  The English queen lacked the
means to finance and govern
an overseas colony,
especially after a full scale
war that took place in Spain
in 1585.
 Sixteenth-century England
concentrated wealth and
power at the narrow top of
the steep social pyramid, in
the hands of a monarch, an
aristocracy, and a lesser
aristocracy known as the
gentry.
 The elite displayed their
power in elaborate city
palaces.
American Colonies 6- Promoters

4.  In 1585 Sir Walter Ralegh
sent about one hundred
colonies across the Atlantic
to settle on Roanoke, a small
island on the North Carolina
coast.
 After retreating to Croatoan
and failing to contact a
passing ship the surviving
colonists headed north to
Chesapeake Bay to execute
their original plan.
 The English colonial
promoters had insisted that
the diverse attractions of
colonization work together in
perfect harmony.
American Colonies 6-Roanoke

5.  The English tried again at
Chesapeake Bay which
offered better harbors,
navigable rivers, and more
fertile land.
 The broad coastal plain
sustained about 24,000
Indians divided into thrity
tribes but united by an
Algonquian language and the
rule of paramount chief
named Powhatan. They lived
by fishing, hunting, and
gathering.
American Colonies 6-Powhatan

6.  The Chesapeake’s leading
men lacked the mystique of
a traditional ruling class.
They were touchy about their
origins, qualifications, and
conduct.
 The colonists grudgingly
accepted such leaders as
prosperity prevailed, during
the tobacco boom of the
1640’s and 1650’s.
 The boom benefited planters
and further servants.
American Colonies 7- Chesapeake
Colonies

7.  The wealthiest planters also
dominated the county
system of local government
because tobacco cultivation
and the river system
encouraged dispersed
plantations.
 The political culture assumed
that the health and survival
of the larger commonwealths
of country, colony, and realm
all depended upon the order,
morality, and allegiance
maintained in the many little
commonwealths.
American Colonies 7-Commonwealths

8.  Chesapeake demanded too
much labor from too few
colonies.
 Tobacco required attention
and diligence to sow,
transplant, weed, trim,
eliminate worms, cut, cure,
pack, and ship.
 The planters also needed
regularly to clear new fields
with axes, for after three
years of cropping, the lands
lost their fertility.
American Colonies 7-Labor

9.  The Chesapeake became a
bit healthier and many more
servants lived long enough
to claim their freedom and
farms. In 1648, a Virginian
marveled that only one in
nine immigrants died during
their first year.
 Health improved as many
new plantations expanded
upstream into locales with
fresh running streams, away
from the lowlands, which
were polluted with malaria.
American Colonies 7-Prosperity