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Roanoke
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Virgins Company Sends Colonists
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“The Starving Time”
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The House of Burgesses
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People Who Worked for Virgina
The first group of Africans that arrived was in 1619. 20 Africans arrived and boarded a Dutch trading vessel. The years that followed, many more shiploads of this human cargo would arrive in North America. The first Africans did not all come to work in the colonies of their own free will. England also shipped criminals and prisoners of war to the colonies. They could earn their release by working for a period if time. Many people came to the colonies as indentured servants. -
Pilgrims Decided to Move to America
A group of Separatists decided to move to America. The Pilgrims were able to get grants of land from the Virginia Company. They got permission to to settle in Virginia and to practice their religion freely. They boarded a ship called the Mayflower. -
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The Great Migration
In 1629, a group of Puritans formed the Massachusetts Bay Company. They received a royal charter to establish a colony north of Plymouth. The company chose John Winthrop to be the colony’s governor. John Winthrop led 900 men, women, and children to Massachusetts Bay. During the 1630s, 15,000 Puritans journeyed to Massachusetts to escape religious persecution and economic hard times in England. This movement was called, The Great Migration. -
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Connecticut becomes a Colony
In the 1630s settlers started to settle in the area. A leader of this movement was Thomas Hooker. He did not like how Winthrop and other Puritans leaders ran the colony. In 1636, Thomas Hooker led his congregations to the Connecticut River Valley. There he found the town, Hartford. Other nearby towns were established. Three years later, these towns formed a colony, Connecticut. In 1639, they adopted a plan of government called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. -
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Rhode Island becomes an Independent Colony
A minister, Roger Williams found the colony Rhode Island. William felt that government should not force people to worship in a certain way. He also believed it was wrong for settlers to take away land from the Native Americans. Forced by Massachusetts leader to leave the colony, Williams refuge with the Narragansett, a Native American People. They later sold him the land where Williams found the town of Providence. -
New Netherlands
By the 1660s, England had two groups of colonies in North America. In the north were the New England colonies, and in the south was Virgina and the colony of Maryland. Between these two groups of colonies were lands under Dutch control. The Dutch West India Company controlled New Netherlands. It wanted to increase the colony’s population. To do this, they offered large grants of land to anyone who could bring at least 50 settlers to work on their lands. -
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The Two Carolinas
The Carolinas did not develope as planned. The split into northern and southern Carolina. Farmer from inland Virgina settled in northern Carolina. They grew Tobacco and sold timber and tar. Settlers in southern Carolina took advantage of fertile land and the harbor at Charles Town. In the 1680s, planters discovered that rice grew well in wet costal lowlands. By the 1700s, Carolina settlers were growing tired of proprietor rule. In 1729, Carolina became two royal colonies. -
New Netherlands becomes New York
In 1664, the English sent a fleet to attach New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, governor of the colony, surrendered it to the English forces without a fight. England’s King Charles gave the colony to his brother who renamed it New York. -
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Founding New Jersey
The Duke or York decided to divide his colony. He gave the land between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The two proprietors named their colony New Jersey, after the English Channel island of Jersey, where Carteret was born. To attract settlers, the proprietors offered large tracts of land and also promised freedom. New Jersey had a diverse population. New Jersey had no major harbors so it did not have a major city. By 1702 New Jersey became a colony. -
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Pennsylvania
The Quakers, a Protestant group that had been persecuted in England, founded the colony of Pennsylvania. A wealthy English Quaker, William Penn received the Landon payment for a debt King Charles owned Penn’s father. William Penn saw Pennsylvania as a “holy experiment.” He had a chance to put his Quaker ideals into practice. In 1682, Penn sailed to America to supervise a building of Philadelphia. Penn granted colonists the right to elect representatives to the legislature. -
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Georgia Becomes a Colony
James Oglethorpe received a charter from George II for a colony where debtors and poor people could make a fresh start. The Britished hoped Georgia would block any Spanish attack on the colonies from Florida. Oglethorpe and his settlers built forts and town of Savannah to discourage attacks. Georgia did not develope as Oglethorpe planned. Many poor people from Britain settled there. They complained about Oglethorpe rules. Oglethorpe got frustrated and gave up. He gave the colony to the king.
