Settlement FAQs

a-z early english settlements

by Percy Bergnaum Published 2 years ago Updated 1 year ago
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What was the first English settlement in North America?

In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh took on one of the first English settlement attempts. He set up a colony of about 100 men on the east coast of North America, on land he named Virginia after Queen Elizabeth I, who being unmarried, was known as the “Virgin Queen.” These settlers only lasted for a year before returning home.

What are some examples of Early English settlements?

Early English settlements - Jamestown. This is the currently selected item. Jamestown - John Smith and Pocahontas. Jamestown - the impact of tobacco. Jamestown - life and labor in the Chesapeake. Jamestown - Bacon's Rebellion. Practice: Jamestown. The West Indies and the Southern colonies.

When did colonization begin?

Colonization efforts began in the 17th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first permanent English colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

Where did the British colonize America first?

Colonialism portal. The British colonization of the Americas (including colonization by both the English and the Scots) began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia, and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas.

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What is the oldest settlement in Arizona?

The oldest town in Arizona is Tubac, which was established as a European settlement in 1752. Tucson was established later, in 1775. Both towns still exist today, and Tubac is a small, historically rich little place.

Who were the first settlers of Arizona?

The first Native Americans arrived in Arizona between 16,000 BC and 10,000 BCE, while the history of Arizona as recorded by Europeans began when Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan, explored the area in 1539. Coronado's expedition entered the area in 1540–1542 during its search for Cíbola.

Who lived in Arizona before the 1600s?

A few thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and the Sinagua cultures inhabited the state. However, all of these civilizations mysteriously disappeared from the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, countless ancient ruins can found in Arizona.

How did people survive in Arizona in the 1800s?

When the area that is now Phoenix was resettled during the 1860s, many people lived in houses made of adobe blocks. Adobe is made from dirt, water and straw that is mixed together and dried in the sun.

Who owned Arizona before the US?

Originally part of the Territory of New Mexico, the Territory of Arizona was established in 1863. In the early 1900s, Arizona almost entered the United States as part of New Mexico, since Republicans thought it would help them maintain control of the Senate.

Why did the early settlers come to Arizona?

Trappers, Pioneers, and Businessmen In the mid-1800s, people began arriving in Arizona from the eastern states and territories. Some were trappers looking for more work, others were pioneers in search of new land and a new life. Most found what they were looking for but had to work hard for it.

Who founded Phoenix Arizona?

Jack Swilling (1830–1878) founded Phoenix in 1867 as a venture in irrigated farmland.

Was there slavery in Arizona?

It abolished slavery in the new Arizona Territory, but did not abolish it in the portion that remained the New Mexico Territory. During the 1850s, Congress had resisted a demand for Arizona statehood because of a well-grounded fear that it would become a slave state.

Why did the English settle in Virginia?

In the early seventeenth century, thousands of English settlers came to what are now Virginia, Maryland, and the New England states in search of opportunity and a better life.

What were the English colonies like in the seventeenth century?

The English encouraged emigration far more than the Spanish, French, or Dutch. They established nearly a dozen colonies, sending swarms of immigrants to populate the land. England had experienced a dramatic rise in population in the sixteenth century, and the colonies appeared a welcoming place for those who faced overcrowding and grinding poverty at home. Thousands of English migrants arrived in the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Virginia and Maryland to work in the tobacco fields. Another stream, this one of pious Puritan families, sought to live as they believed scripture demanded and established the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, New Haven, Connecticut, and Rhode Island colonies of New England ( [link] ).

Why did the Puritans escape England?

Although many people assume Puritans escaped England to establish religious freedom , they proved to be just as intolerant as the English state church. When dissenters, including Puritan minister Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, challenged Governor Winthrop in Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s, they were banished. Roger Williams questioned the Puritans’ taking of Indian land. Williams also argued for a complete separation from the Church of England, a position other Puritans in Massachusetts rejected, as well as the idea that the state could not punish individuals for their beliefs. Although he did accept that nonbelievers were destined for eternal damnation, Williams did not think the state could compel true orthodoxy. Puritan authorities found him guilty of spreading dangerous ideas, but he went on to found Rhode Island as a colony that sheltered dissenting Puritans from their brethren in Massachusetts. In Rhode Island, Williams wrote favorably about native peoples, contrasting their virtues with Puritan New England’s intolerance.

What were the Puritans' motives for settling in New England?

Many of the Puritans crossing the Atlantic were people who brought families and children. Often they were following their ministers in a migration “beyond the seas,” envisioning a new English Israel where reformed Protestantism would grow and thrive, providing a model for the rest of the Christian world and a counter to what they saw as the Catholic menace. While the English in Virginia and Maryland worked on expanding their profitable tobacco fields, the English in New England built towns focused on the church, where each congregation decided what was best for itself. The Congregational Church is the result of the Puritan enterprise in America. Many historians believe the fault lines separating what later became the North and South in the United States originated in the profound differences between the Chesapeake and New England colonies.

How many people lived in New England in 1640?

By 1640, New England had a population of twenty-five thousand. Meanwhile, many loyal members of the Church of England, who ridiculed and mocked Puritans both at home and in New England, flocked to Virginia for economic opportunity.

Where did slavery take place?

On the small island of Barbados, colonized in the 1620s, English planters first grew tobacco as their main export crop, but in the 1640s, they converted to sugarcane and began increasingly to rely on African slaves. In 1655, England wrestled control of Jamaica from the Spanish and quickly turned it into a lucrative sugar island, run on slave labor, for its expanding empire. While slavery was slower to take hold in the Chesapeake colonies, by the end of the seventeenth century, both Virginia and Maryland had also adopted chattel slavery—which legally defined Africans as property and not people—as the dominant form of labor to grow tobacco. Chesapeake colonists also enslaved native people.

Where did the fault lines between the North and South originate?

Many historians believe the fault lines separating what later became the North and South in the United States originated in the profound differences between the Chesapeake and New England colonies. The source of those differences lay in England’s domestic problems.

What was the first English settlement in Connecticut?

Connecticut’s Oldest English Settlement. In 1633, Windsor became Connecticut’s first English settlement. This was due to its desirable location at the juncture of the Farmington and Connecticut Rivers, its rich and fertile soil, and, perhaps most importantly, to a 17th-century war between Native peoples of the region made complicated by new ...

Why did the Indians send the Wahginnacut to the Massachusetts Bay colony?

In 1631 a war between the River Indians of the Connecticut Valley and the Pequot of the Thames Valley sent the River Indian sachem, Wahginnacut, to the Massachusetts Bay colony to elicit support from English settlers.

What was the first town in Connecticut?

Today, Windsor takes great pride in being Connecticut’s first English settlement and is the home of the First Town Downtown movement, formed to preserve and protect Windsor ’s unique role in history and promote its reputation as a premier New England town center.

Where did Holmes and his party sail?

To get to the desired location, Holmes and his party sailed up the Connecticut River, past the recently discovered Dutch settlement. The English arrived just south of the Connecticut and Farmington River juncture and there established their trading post.

Who followed Wahginnacut back to the Connecticut Valley?

Winslow followed Wahginnacut back to the Connecticut Valley and, having witnessed its hospitable living conditions, decided in 1633 to have a settlement constructed in the area.

What was the original layout of the town of Windsor?

Plan of the Palisado , the original layout of the town of Windsor – Windsor Historical Society. Despite the challenges of claiming the area, which involved surviving bouts of small pox and troubled, even combative, relations with local Native Americans, the Windsor settlement began to thrive.

Who were the first Europeans to settle in America?

The first documented settlement of Europeans in the Americas was established by Norse people led by Leif Erikson around 1000 AD in what is now Newfoundland, called Vinland by the Norse. Later European exploration of North America resumed with Christopher Columbus 's 1492 expedition sponsored by Spain. English exploration began almost a century later. Sir Walter Raleigh established the short-lived Roanoke Colony in 1585. The 1607 settlement of the Jamestown colony grew into the Colony of Virginia and Virgineola (settled unintentionally by the shipwreck of the Virginia Company's Sea Venture in 1609) quickly renamed The Somers Isles (though the older Spanish name of Bermuda has resisted replacement). In 1620, a group of Puritans established a second permanent colony on the coast of Massachusetts. Several other English colonies were established in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries. With the authorization of a royal charter, the Hudson's Bay Company established the territory of Rupert's Land in the Hudson Bay drainage basin. The English also established or conquered several colonies in the Caribbean, including Barbados and Jamaica .

What colony was established in 1607?

The 1607 settlement of the Jamestown colony grew into the Colony of Virginia and Virgineola (settled unintentionally by the shipwreck of the Virginia Company's Sea Venture in 1609) quickly renamed The Somers Isles (though the older Spanish name of Bermuda has resisted replacement).

What was the second British Empire?

Historians refer to the British Empire after 1783 as the "Second British Empire"; this period saw Britain increasingly focus on Asia and Africa instead of the Americas, and increasingly focus on the expansion of trade rather than territorial possessions.

How did the colonial population grow?

Between immigration, the importation of slaves, and natural population growth, the colonial population in British North America grew immensely in the 18th century. According to historian Alan Taylor, the population of the Thirteen Colonies (the British North American colonies which would eventually form the United States) stood at 1.5 million in 1750. More than ninety percent of the colonists lived as farmers, though cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston flourished. With the defeat of the Dutch and the imposition of the Navigation Acts, the British colonies in North America became part of the global British trading network. The colonists traded foodstuffs, wood, tobacco, and various other resources for Asian tea, West Indian coffee, and West Indian sugar, among other items. Native Americans far from the Atlantic coast supplied the Atlantic market with beaver fur and deerskins, and sought to preserve their independence by maintaining a balance of power between the French and English. By 1770, the economic output of the Thirteen Colonies made up forty percent of the gross domestic product of the British Empire.

What was the first colony in the Americas?

The first permanent British colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Over the next several centuries more colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies have opted to remain under Britain's jurisdiction as British Overseas Territories .

Which country took control of the Americas in the 19th century?

Nonetheless, Britain continued to colonize parts of the Americas in the 19th century, taking control of British Columbia and establishing the colonies of the Falkland Islands and British Honduras.

Which colony did the English conquer?

The English also established or conquered several colonies in the Caribbean, including Barbados and Jamaica . England captured the Dutch colony of New Netherland in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-17th century, leaving North America divided amongst the English, Spanish, and French empires.

Who supported the English in the New World?

With the exception of John Cabot's voyage to Newfoundland in 1497, the English showed little interest in the New World until the reign of Elizabeth I. Wary of confronting powerful Spain directly, Elizabeth secretly supported English seamen who raided Spanish settlements in the Western Hemisphere and captured their treasure ships.

How many settlers were there in Jamestown?

Even with the headright system and the influx of indentured servants, Jamestown grew slowly. There were only about twelve hundred settlers by 1622. Death from disease and malnutrition took its toll, the company was in debt to its shareholders, and conflicts with the Indians became more common as the colony expanded. These problems led the king to revoke the charter of the London Company; Virginia became a royal colony under the direct control of the crown in 1624.

What was the name of the colony that was lost?

The lost colony of Roanoke. While English explorers, most notably Martin Frobisher, continued to look for the Northwest Passage, there was interest in colonizing North America. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh scouted possible sites for a colony farther to the south. Naming the land Virginia after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, he chose Roanoke Island off the coast of present‐day North Carolina. The first attempt to settle there (1585–86) was quickly abandoned. A group of 110 men, women, and children sailed for Roanoke in the following year. The colony's leader, John White, returned to England for additional supplies but did not return until 1590 because of the war between England and Spain. He found no trace of the colonists, and the only message left was the cryptic word “Croatoan” carved on a wooden post. It is most likely that the small settlement was overrun by local tribes, but to this day, no one has explained the meaning of “Croatoan” or found definitive evidence of the fate of the Roanoke colony.

What was the main crop of the colony after Smith left?

Conditions deteriorated after Smith left in 1609, but there were important developments over the next decade. John Rolfe introduced tobacco as a cash crop, and even though James I was an ardent antismoking advocate, it quickly became a valuable export for the colony.

Why did the Virginia Company of Plymouth fail?

The Virginia Company of Plymouth founded a colony at Sagadahoc in Maine in 1607, which quickly failed due to hostility from the local tribes, conflicts among the settlers, and inadequate supplies. The same fate almost befell the London Company's effort at Jamestown near Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Most of the colonists were gentry unaccustomed to manual labor who wanted to spend their time looking for gold and hunting. Only the leadership of John Smith, who forced everyone to work and who negotiated with the Indians, guaranteed Jamestown's initial survival.

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