James A.

Henretta
Eric Hinderaker
Rebecca Edwards
Robert O. Self

America’s History
Eighth Edition
America: A Concise History
Sixth Edition

CHAPTER 2
American Experiments
1521‒1700

Copyright © 2014 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

 I. Spain’s Tribute Colonies

A. A New American World

1. Encomiendas – Leading conquistadors received these land grants from the crown,
allowing them to claim tribute in labor and goods from Indian communities; prominent Spaniards controlled vast
resources and exploited Indian labor.

2. Precious metals – Mexican gold and Andes silver poured into Spain; Spaniards spent
their wealth on Eastern silks, spices, and ceramics, and on Catholic churches; eventually the wealth triggered
ruinous inflation in Spain.

3. Society in New Spain – Between 1500 and 1650, at least 350,000 Spaniards,
two-thirds of them men, and 250,000–300,000 Africans migrated to Mesoamerica and the Andes; racial mixture
was widespread; mestizo (Spanish-Indian), mulatto (Spanish-African), and zambo (Indian-African) populations
developed, along with a “casta system” that differentiated among the principal groups. Indians were in the
majority and Spanish priests converted them to Christianity en masse.
 I. Spain’s Tribute Colonies

B. The Columbian Exchange

1. Diseases – European and African diseases ravaged Indian communities, decimating populations
in both densely and sparsely populated areas; Columbus’s sailors carried a virulent strain of syphilis back to
Europe from the New World.

2. Plants and animals – Foods from the Western Hemisphere (maize, potatoes,
manioc, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes) increased agricultural yields and spurred population growth on other
continents; European livestock (cattle, swine, horses, oxen, chickens, and honeybees) transformed the Americas.
 I. Spain’s Tribute Colonies

C. The Protestant Challenge to Spain

1. Spain’s status in Europe – Spain had vast American dominions and wealth, as
well as powerful enemies that challenged it continuously; the Protestant Reformation sharpened conflicts as
Spanish King Philip II sought to defend Spanish wealth and Catholicism.

2. The English Reformation – In 1534, King Henry VIII broke with Rome and
founded the new Church of England; from 1558–1603, Protestant teachings spread during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, Henry’s daughter and successor.

3. English expansion – Elizabeth supported English seafarers (e.g., Sir Frances Drake) in
their aggressive actions against Spanish control of American wealth; she supported military expeditions to impose
English rule over Catholic Ireland and defeated the Spanish Armada. While Spain declined economically, England
grew significantly through population increase, expansion of commerce and manufacturing, and mercantilism. By
1600, England had the resources needed to challenge Spain’s control of the Western Hemisphere.
 II. Plantation Colonies

A. Brazil’s Sugar Plantations – By 1590, Portuguese colonists transformed coastal

Brazil into a sugar plantation zone; plantations included both sugar cultivation and milling, extracting, and refining
operations. The diminished Indian population’s inability to provide sufficient labor led colonists to import growing
numbers of African slaves; by 1620, Brazil was a sugar colony based on a slave labor system.
 II. Plantation Colonies

B. England’s Tobacco Colonies

1. The Jamestown Settlement – In 1606, a charter was granted to the
Virginia Company for land from present-day North Carolina to southern New York; primary goal was trade with
native people. In 1607 traders (all men) sent for economic venture; settlement failed horribly; only 38 of 120
men were alive after nine months; many destroyed by disease, warfare, and famine. Powhatan (Algonquin)
forged relations with later settlers, marrying his daughter Pocahontas to John Rolfe; Rolfe produced tobacco in
the region; production of tobacco and availability of land grants encouraged migration to the region. In 1619,
House of Burgesses convened to make laws and levy taxes.

2. The Indian War of 1622 – Powhatan’s brother Opechancanough [O-pee-

chan-KA-no] led an unsuccessful uprising in 1607; captured John Smith; later became chief and vowed another
uprising; 1622 revolt killed 347 English settlers; King James revoked the charter and made Virginia a royal
colony in 1624; settlers now followed English rule: appointed governor, elected assembly, formal legal system,
and the Anglican Church.

3. Lord Baltimore Settles Catholics in Maryland – A

second tobacco-growing colony was created by King Charles’s granting of land to Lord Baltimore (Cecilius
Calvert); became a refuge for Catholics; population grew quickly; 1649 Toleration Act granted all Christians in
the colony the right to religious freedom.
 II. Plantation Colonies

C. The Caribbean Islands

1. European colonization – In 1624, English and French colonists occupied St.
Christopher (St. Kitts) in the Caribbean; by 1655, French also occupied Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. Bart’s;
English occupied Nevis, Antigua, Montserrat, Anguilla, Tortola, Barbados, and Jamaica; Dutch occupied St.
Eustatius.

2. Plantation economy – England, France, and Holland established plantation

economies in the region and, after experimentation with tobacco, indigo, cotton, cacao and ginger, many
planters shifted focus to sugar cultivation wherever possible.
 II. Plantation Colonies

D. Plantation Life
1. Indentured Servitude – By 1700, more than 100,000 English migrants had come to
Chesapeake as indentured servants; many were men seeking land and opportunity who could not afford passage;
some were women; all were valuable but severely exploited; many died before their indenture had ended; those
who survived rarely received what had been promised.

2. African Laborers – In 1619, John Rolfe noted first Africans sold in the Chesapeake; at
first these men were not legally enslaved; by 1660s status was changing; value of tobacco declined and
landowners desired ways to make a profit despite declining prices; African labor was “cheaper” than white labor,
they concluded; residents of the Chesapeake became increasingly race conscious, referring to color (white-black).
 III. Neo-European Colonies

A. New France
1. Fur trade – In the 1530s, Jacques Cartier ventured up the St. Lawrence River and claimed it
for France; in 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded the fur-trading post of Quebec; the French traded
manufactured goods and guns to Native Americans in the region for beaver pelts and other furs which were
popular in Europe.

2. Jesuit missions – From 1625–1763, hundreds of French Jesuit priests lived among the
Indian peoples and came to understand and respect them; conversion failed when Indians did not see results
from the use of Christian prayers.

3. Life in New France – In 1662, King Louis XIV made New France a royal colony, but
migration and farming languished; New France’s population remained small. France eventually claimed a vast
quantity of land from St. Lawrence Valley through the Great Lakes and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers; by
1718, Robert de La Salle had founded the port of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi.
 III. Neo-European Colonies

B. New Netherland
1. Hudson River settlement – In 1609 with Dutch support, Englishman Henry
Hudson located a wealth of fur along a river in present-day New York; in 1621, Dutch founded the colony of New
Netherland, sending farmers and artisans to the region to build a community; the new colony failed; the small
population of Holland meant few migrants would go to North America; West India Company granted land to
wealthy Dutch along the Hudson who were unsuccessful in populating the estates.

2. England invades – Settlers had hostile relations with Algonquin neighbors; formed an
uneasy alliance with Mohawks. Dutch focused on business profits and not land acquisition. New Netherland had
a diverse population of Dutch, English, and Swedish; England invaded and took control of the colony in 1664;
leadership was uncertain in the years that followed, as Dutch culture remained but political control was
contested; in 1699, a colonist observed region was “like a conquered Foreign Province.”
 III. Neo-European Colonies

C. The Rise of the Iroquois

1. Iroquois domination – The Five Nations of the Iroquois bartered with French and
Dutch traders for European guns; Iroquois grew their population quickly and became powerful with the use of
European weapons; aggressively attacked other groups, ritually killing the men and capturing women and children.
In the 1660s, New France committed to all-out war against the Iroquois; in 1667, the Five Nations in New France
admitted defeat, accepted Jesuit missionaries into their communities, and settled in St. Lawrence Valley.

2. Alliance with English settlers – Iroquois in NY survived war with France

and forged new alliance with Englishmen who had taken control of New Netherland; they remained a dominant
force in politics of the Northeast for generations to come.
 III. Neo-European Colonies
D. New England
1. The Pilgrims – Religious separatists who left the Church of England; lived briefly among
Dutch Calvinists in Holland; 35 then migrated to America along with 67 who left England; led by William Bradford
aboard the Mayflower; first winter extremely harsh, only half survived until spring; built a community of houses and
planted crops; by 1640, Plymouth had 3,000 settlers because of worsening religious tensions in England.

2. John Winthrop and Massachusetts Bay – In 1630, Winthrop

led 900 Puritans to America and became the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony; wanted to
create an ideal “City upon a Hill”; joint-stock corporation was transformed into a representative
government with council and assembly, ruled by “the godly”; Puritans limited voting rights to those who
were members of the church; unlike Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay established Puritanism as the
state-supported religion.

3. Roger Williams and Rhode Island– Massachusetts Bay was

purged of all dissenters; Williams was a Puritan minister in Salem who opposed establishing
Congregationalism as official religion of the colony and advocated tolerance; he also questioned the
practice of taking Indian land; was banished in 1636; established Providence on land purchased from
Narragansett Indians. In 1644, a new colony was established, Rhode Island, with no legally established
church and religious tolerance.

4. Anne Hutchinson– Wife and mother of seven; held weekly prayer meetings for women
and made accusations against Boston ministers; believed in a “covenant of grace” not “works”; declared that God
“revealed” divine truth to individuals and not only through ministers. Puritan belief that women were inferior to men
hastened officials’ anger towards Hutchinson; she was banished in 1637; settled in Rhode Island.
 III. Neo-European Colonies
D. New England (cont.)
5. The Puritan Revolution in England – Religious war broke out in
England; English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians demanded religious reform and parliamentary power; after
years of civil war, Oliver Cromwell emerged victorious. In 1649, a republican Commonwealth was declared;
elaborate rituals and bishops were banned from the Church of England. The crown was restored in 1660 after
Cromwell’s death; restoration of the monarchy dashed Puritans’ hopes to return to England; the Puritan colonies
now stood stand as outposts of Calvinism and the Atlantic republican tradition.

6. Puritanism and Witchcraft – Puritans saw signs of God and Satan in the
physical world (birth defects, storms, unusual events, etc.). Many Christians incorporated some pagan practices
into their daily lives; condemned those who claimed powers as healers or prophets. Between 1647 and 1662,
fourteen New Englanders were hanged for witchcraft. The 1692 episode in Salem was America’s most dramatic
episode of witch-hunting; after young girls claimed to experience seizures and accused neighbors of bewitching
them, accusations spun out of control. Massachusetts Bay tried 175 people for witchcraft and executed 19 of
them. Debate continues among historians as to whether the witchcraft hysteria was the result of class differences
or efforts to control/limit the activities of women in the colonies. Charges of witchcraft were significantly reduced as
colonists began to adopt the philosophies of the European Enlightenment, including rational and scientific thought.

7. A Yeoman Society, 1630–1700 – Proprietors received tracts of land from

the general courts of the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut and then distributed the land to male heads
of household; all families received some land; most adult men could vote in town meeting (local government);
largest plots of land went to men of high social status; the possibility of land ownership made New England a place
of great opportunity for men.
 IV. Instability, War, and Rebellion

A. New England’s Indian Wars

1. Puritan-Pequot War – In 1637, a combined force of Massachusetts and
Connecticut militiamen, accompanied by Narragansett and Mohegan warriors, attacked a Pequot village and
massacred five hundred men, women, and children; acting on the belief that their presence was divinely
ordained, Puritans drove surviving Pequots into oblivion and divided their lands; only rarely did Puritans make
effort to convert Indians to Puritan religion.

2. Metacom’s War, 1675–1676 – The Wampanoag leader Metacom (known

to English as King Philip) wanted to expel Europeans; forged an alliance with the Narragansetts and Nipmucks
to attack settlements in New England; Indians destroyed one-fifth of the English towns in Massachusetts and
Rhode Island; nearly 5 percent of the adult population in New England was killed; approximately 4,500 Indians
died and more were displaced from land; Metacom was killed by Mohegan and Mohawk warriors hired by
Massachusetts Bay leader.
 IV. Instability, War, and Rebellion

B. Bacon’s Rebellion
1. Frontier War – Poor freeholders and former indentured servants in the Chesapeake wanted
lands occupied by Native Americans in Virginia; in 1675, fighting broke out when vigilante Virginia militiamen
murdered thirty Indians; intensified when group defied Governor Berkeley’s orders and killed five
Susquehannock leaders; Susquehannocks retaliated by killing three hundred whites. Settlers dismissed
Berkeley’s proposed defensive strategy as a plot to impose high taxes on the poor.

2. Challenging the Government – Nathaniel Bacon, an English migrant

with a position on the governor’s council, emerged as leader of Virginia rebels; disagreed with Berkeley on
frontier policy; demanded a military commission but was denied; organized a militia to attack Indians on the
frontier. Political struggle began between Bacon and the governor; Bacon issued “Manifesto and Declaration of
the People,” calling for death or removal of Indians and an end to rule by wealthy “parasites” in Virginia. Bacon’s
army burned Jamestown and plundered the plantations of wealthy. Bacon died suddenly in October 1676 of
dysentery; 23 of his followers were hanged. Wealthy leaders in Virginia realized that they had to appease the
poor and landless: cut taxes, expelled Indians from the frontier, increased importation of slaves while
decreasing use of indentured servants. In 1705, House of Burgesses legalized chattel slavery.