Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
1600 - 1776
Chapter 5 – 17th century
Chapter 6 – 18th century
England – The Great Migration
• Slow beginning (little activity prior to 1600)
– Cabots: Find Northwest Passage
– Martin Frobisher – 3 voyages in 1570s
– Elizabethan Sea Dogs (1558 – 1603)
Map of sea voyages
Early English Migration Map
England – The Great Migration
• Slow beginning (little activity prior to 1600)
– Cabots: Find Northwest Passage
– Martin Frobisher – 3 voyages in 1570s
– Elizabethan Sea Dogs (1558 – 1603)
• Why?
Reasons for migration:
1. England is overpopulated
2. Expand to new markets – e.g., wool
3. Precious metals – gold!!
4. New source of olive oil, wine, etc??
5. Route to the Indies
6. Protestant Zeal
– These were motives all the way; thru 1770s
English Colonial System
April, 1607
3 ships
James River (50 miles)
Jamestown - early history
(London Group)
• Today
Factor #3 – Sex!
• 1620 – very few women; active program to
“import” unmarried women
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
Plantation Economy
• Rivers as far as
navigable – fall line
• Landings for ocean-
going vessels
• All planters had direct
line to England
• In Between – forest
primeval and the “hill
country”
Jamestown Population
• Mixed population – reflected classes of
English society
• 30% - rural middle class; paid their own
way
• Majority – poor tenants, laborers, and un-
employed artisans: Redundant Population
Map - Atlantic Slave Trade
Slavery
• Tobacco culture – labor intensive and
large land-holding
• Indentured labor unreliable, lacked
permanence, also thirsted for their own
land; flow from England reduced
• Virginia and Maryland population growth in
1660-1700 (35,000 to 88,000)
• African Slaves
• 1670-1700: 12,000 slaves to Chesapeake
1700 – your text
• By the end of the century (1700) there was
distinct evidence of regional homogeneity
within the Chesapeake. The commitment
to a tobacco plantation and slave system,
with its consequent class structure, was
widespread. Life was overwhelmingly
rural, agrarian, dispersed, and
decentralized.
Map – Chesapeake Growth