History of the United States (1607-1763)

This article describes the history in the period 1607-1763 of the various colonies in North America and, in particular, of the thirteen colonies that stretched from New England to the South toGeorgia. These colonies in 1776 would eventually unite in what later would become the United States .

The period 1607-1763 is dedicated to the first large-scale colonization of the North American East Coast and the struggle between the European great powers on the continent.



Content
[hide] *1 Colonization  ==Colonization[ Edit] == The influx of European explorers starting in the early 17th century. They affect than a country inhabited by "Indians" with thousands of years of ancient cultures, based primarily on agricultureand hunting. The estimates of the population of North America range; for the period around 1500 is called some of about two million. [1]  This population will decrease within several centuries strongly by violence of the new residents and by the unknown diseases such as smallpox which they bring their own.
 * 1.1 Vikings
 * 1.2 first attempts
 * 1.3 Virginia
 * 1.4 Pilgrim Fathers
 * The Pequotoorlog 1.5
 * Rhode Island 1.6
 * 1.7 New-Netherlands
 * Pennsylvania 1.8
 * 2 Social and political conditions
 * 2.1 Slavery
 * 3 Culture
 * 4 external links

The East coast of North America, that of the Interior completed by the Appalachian mountains, offers good opportunities for colonization: there are bays, suitable for food and forests that supply timber ports, and navigable rivers. The climate is different than in Europe: the summers are warmer, winters colder and larger than the differences between North and South in Europe. ===Vikings[ Edit] === According to several sagas from Iceland would be the Vikings of Greenland already around the year 1000 founded a colony in the Vinlandlying still further to the West. This was probably Newfoundland or (if the name ' Vinland ' literally ' wine country ' meant) in New England. But this settlement was short-lived: at most one to two years. The distance to the mother country was actually too big and the necessary supplies in the beginning could not be properly set up. ===First attempts[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Already in 1497, five years after the (re) discovery of America by Columbus, New England shows interest in the continent. The Venetian Giovanni Caboto, a.k.a. John Cabot, is sent to the West by King Henry VII, then to a new route to the Orient way. The economic conditions in England are bad, especially in the countryside: the production of grain for a part place for those of wool, making high unemployment occurs.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">It was decided to colonization of North America to harvest to pick up, to name but a market for English products to create, to be able to fight the Spanish in their colonies and to the "pagan" Indians to repent. SirHumphrey Gilbert in 1583 is sent on an expedition, but dies himself on the way back.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The first attempt at establishing a English colony takes place in 1585 at Roanoke Island, North Carolinain the current. After 6 years the colony appears to have disappeared. What happened with the settlers is not known, but the area is often hit by hurricanes.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Meanwhile also the other European powers have not been idle. In 1511, the Portuguese Miguel the Cortreal along the coast of Rhode Island dangers. The Spaniard Juan Ponce de León continued on 2 april 1513 the first European to set foot in Florida. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazano explores in the service of Francis I of France the East Coast. Establish In 1565 French settlers on the coast of NorthernFlorida. Spain keeping awake and founds St. Augustine the oldest permanent settlement. ===Virginia<span class="mw-editsection" len="363" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === Chief Powhatan. Detail of a map of John Smith, 1612.<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1606 King James I gives two English companies, the London Company and the Plymouth Company, the right to colonize North America between the 34th and 45th latitude.The following year found English settlers the first permanent colony, Jamestown, named for King James I. The area around it, to the English they call Virginiaunmarried Queen (virgin queen) Elizabeth. The leader of this British colony, John Smith, writes about this area: never before have United themselves in such a perfect harmony heaven and Earth in order to provide a place of residence to man (Schulte Nordtholt pag. 8). The area is, however, already the residence of other people: a native American Confederacy led by ChiefPowhatan. The English use that name to describe the entire Covenant.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">After two years, the colony suffered a food shortage: in the winter of 1609-1610, the need is so high that the residents even dig up seem to eatthem. The number of settlers from 600 to just 50 runs back: many die, others flee to join the Powhatan to join, where they get to eat. When the Chief "condescending" responds to a request to send back the refugees, they raided the settlers take revenge: an Indian village, killing 15 people, cross the huts on fire and destroy the fields. The Chief's wife and her two children are imprisoned and taken on a rowing boat. The children are thrown into the water and shot dead in front of their mother. She is later killed with a knife.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">It was not until 1622 Powhatan decide to move up to full warfare, and the newcomers no longer to spare. They raided the colony and kill hundreds of people. ===Pilgrim Fathers<span class="mw-editsection" len="370" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">On 21 december 1620 the Mayflower lands with the Pilgrim Fathers on the US East Coast. They found a colony and give it the name "Massachusetts". The Pilgrim Fathers are a vanguard of a power Puritans, who in the years 1630-1670 piling into the country, looking for (religious) freedom. Among them are eighteen women, of whom only four are experiencing the following spring; the others dying from diseases or in childbirth. ===The Pequotoorlog<span class="mw-editsection" len="370" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Also the Puritans come in conflict with the Indians: they land in the area of the Pequot. Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts justifies the intake of their country by stating that the Indians only a "natural law" on the country, but no "civil justice", so no property that is recognised by the English law. The Puritan pastors disclaim on Psalms 2: 8:


 * Requirement of me, and I will give the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for Your possession.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1634, the smuggler and slave Tracker John Stone murdered by vassals of the Pequot, in response to atrocities committed by Dutch merchants and by Stone itself. The Pequot refuse to extradite the assassins to the English. In 1636, the Puritan merchant John Oldham is also murdered under mysterious circumstances. The colonial authorities suspecting the Narragansett, allies of the Pequot. The number of victims in criminal expeditions remains low because most Indians in the Woods know to flee, but their villages and fields are destroyed, as previously happened also with the Powhatan. Massachusetts and Plymouth In 1637 decisions to go to war over. However, because their forces are too weak, they avoid direct conflict with the Pequotkrijgers, and they turn on the slaughter of the population. Eventually, the Pequots after a bloody power struggle, in which both sides committed atrocities, finally broken.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The fight against the Indians, however, remains still centuries continue. So praise the Government of Massachusetts in 1755 from a reward of £ 40 for each Penobscotman scalp of an adult; for the scalps of women and children under 12 is 12 pounds reward. ===Rhode Island<span class="mw-editsection" len="367" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The by the Puritans in Massachusetts pursued religious freedom means no religious tolerance in: at be the ears cut off blasphemers , quakers and other dissidents are persecuted and exiled. As a result, founds a number of exiles a private colony around the Bay of Narragansett.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Among them is Pastor Roger Williams, who in 1636 a piece of land from the local native Americans (the Narragansett) buy. His exile following his protest against the charter (regulations) of Massachusetts: Williams is depriving it of native country wrong and aims for complete freedom of religion. He is also a member of the levellers, an egalitarian movement.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Two years later adds a group of about thirty-five families led by Anne Hutchinson joined the new colony. Hutchinson also is banned because of disagreement with the authorities from Massachusetts: it states that the interpretation of the Bible should be open to lay people.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1644 the Royal Colony recognized as Rhode Island. ===New-Netherlands<span class="mw-editsection" len="370" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Take on 5 september 1664 English troops without firing a shot in the Dutch colony of new Netherlands . In their surprise attack experience they don't present the least resistance of the 250 soldiers or from the 20 guns drawn up. The Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant had tried to organize the resistance of the colony, but this was prevented by him the people who were gathered in the streets. They besought him to focus and to not give in to the old general massacre. After the Second Anglo-Dutch war this region is officially transferred to the English authority in 1667. King Charles II gives it to his brother James, Duke of York, with which the New Yorkcolony arises. One of the first things Jacobus does is a part of the area to two friends, Lord Berkeley and George Carteret, both planters from Carolina. They found New Jersey. In 1674 they distribute the colony, and sells Berkeley its western part in the quakers.

<p lang="en" len="418" style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">By conquering New-Netherlands the British have now control of the North American ports of Virginia to Massachusetts, which impose the English Navigation Act on 2 February 1665 facilitated. ===Pennsylvania<span class="mw-editsection" len="367" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1681 William Penn the quaker lands on the East coast of America. A new colony is founded: Pennsylvania. Gradually the number of colonies in number. Around the year 1700 live there about 250,000 Europeans in the new world. In 1636, the first University, the Harvard University, was established. Already in 1647 in Massachusetts, is dominated by the Puritans, introduced compulsory education. In the Netherlands would be introduced only in 1900 compulsory schooling, in Belgium in 1914. In the 18th century within the immigrant flows on the continent. ==Social and political conditions<span class="mw-editsection" len="389" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The social relations in the English colonies can best be described as a class society, in which a wealthy white minority the political and economic power in their hands had. As Governor John Winthrop in 1630 stated:


 * In all times must be some rich, some poor, some high in power and prestige, some humble and subject.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 1619, the first elected legislative body is founded: the House of Burgesses in Virginia. There is still no question of democracy : the right to vote is initially reserved to free men, and is later reduced even further so that only landowners still may vote, if they possess more than 200,000 m² of land. Women, slaves, Indians and indentured servants (see below), and later the poor in General, they have no political power, although the great majority of the population. In various colonial cities the richest merchant families as a true aristocracy, which like the European nobility extends its power and possession by strategic marriages. That same part of the population is mostly the directors and politicians.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">As New-Netherlands in 1664 is taken over by the English, this area compare well with the European feudal kingdoms. The corruption of the Governors to the acquisition not on: land is leased by English Governors for symbolic amounts to friends. Rebellions, including the peasants ' revolt of militia captain Jacob Leisler in 1689, there have little effect.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Though democratic ideas are emerging, but the practical implementation often runs spaak on vested interests. So were the quakers in Pennsylvania plan to enter a representative democracy, but they were forced to cede a large part of the power to the financiers of the colony. ===Slavery<span class="mw-editsection" len="365" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === Flogging of a slave, as imagined byWilliam Blake (1796)<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The economy of the colonies floats on agriculture, specifically the production of food and for the exportof tobacco . The labour force is largely supplied by indentured servants: English debtors who meet their debts by a set number of years to stay in service. The first settlers are mostly low to nobles, who feel well to the heavy agricultural work that is necessary to maximize their profits.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Soon comes the "real" slavery on gang. The Indians are not usable for slave work: they are more at home in the woods of their home country than the European conquerors and catch are not without a fight. Therefore decided to slaves from Africa, such as the Portuguese and Spaniards already widely in South America did. The first (Dutch) slave ship with 20 black Africans arrives in Jamestown in 1619.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The black slaves are the driving force behind the economy, they releases There is a system of institutional racism: Blacks are more heavily punished than whites for the same crime (such as flights) and have absolutely no voice in politics. Free blacks be excluded from certain occupations to prevent them would constitute competition for skilled, white working.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Make the slaves against 1760 averaged a fifth part of the population; in North Carolina and South Carolina, they form a majority of the population with 40,000 slaves on 25,000 Europeans. The authorities, scared shitless that blacks and Indians would unite against them, draw up a law on that prohibits free blacks to go to Indian country. ==Culture<span class="mw-editsection" len="363" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ Edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" len="1" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">American culture develops from the European cultures that the settlers to carry. The English culture is and will continue to dominate, and English is the language of the new people. By 1760, however, there are so many non-English settlers (Irish, Germans, Dutchmen) that they also assert their influence.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.3999996185303px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Personal freedom, capitalism and social inequality are deeply rooted in American culture. There is, already in the 17th century, a great variety of newspapers and pamphlets. In 1700 defends John Wise would be already a Government based on the natural equality of all people. A completely new sound in the Western world of those days. There is also a private American gradually self-awareness. One of the first to show them is Hector St. John de Crévecoeur in his book Letters from an American Farmer. In that book he writes:Here are people of all the Nations merged into a new race of people. There is growing awareness in the 18th century an American and an American idealism. The foundations have been laid for a new nation. In 1790the population amounts to nearly 4 million. The nation occurs.