what lead to american settlement in the seventeenth century

In the German-speaking regions of Europe, the oppressive policies of various petty princes -- particularly with regard to religion -- and the devastation caused by a long series of wars helped swell the movement to America in the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Full Answer

What is the history of English settlement in America?

During the course of the seventeenth century, Englishmen on both sides of the Atlantic widely discussed the unfolding story of English settlement in America. A significant number of formal histories of the English plantations, individual or collective, were published.

Why did the English encourage immigration in the 17th century?

At the start of the seventeenth century, the English had not established a permanent settlement in the Americas. Over the next century, however, they outpaced their rivals. 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.

Who colonized North America first?

By the seventeenth century, the English had taken the lead in colonizing North America, establishing settlements all along the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies. Sweden and Denmark also succumbed to the attractions of America, although to a lesser extent.

What problems did the colonists face in the 17th century?

By the end of the seventeenth century the American colonists faced an array of disturbing problems in the conduct of public affairs. Settlers from England and Holland, reconstructing familiar institutions on American shores, had become participants in what would appear to have been a wave of civil disobedience.

What led to the settlement of the Americas?

The settlement of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago).

What were the two main reasons why colonists came to this country in the 17th century?

Colonists came to America because they wanted political liberty. They wanted religious freedom and economic opportunity. The United States is a country where individual rights and self-government are important. This has always been true.

What were the reasons for the first settlement in North America?

The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Many of the people who settled in the New World came to escape religious persecution. The Pilgrims, founders of Plymouth, Massachusetts, arrived in 1620. In both Virginia and Massachusetts, the colonists flourished with some assistance from Native Americans.

Who migrated to America in the 17th century?

The answer may be in some of the major migrations of settlers to the colonies in the 1700s. Two major groups that arrived during that time were the Germans and the Scots-Irish. Detail of Palatine Church, early German immigrants. Library of Congress, FRAMING DETAIL OF ROOF.

What are 3 reasons colonists came to America?

The motivations were the desire for riches, the hope of freedom of religion or freedom from imprisonment, debt or slavery. All of these people and these reasons contributed to the Americas early settlement.

Why did settlers come to America from England?

The British settlers came to these new lands for many reasons. Some wanted to make money or set up trade with their home country while others wanted religious freedom. In the early 1600s, the British king began establishing colonies in America.

What was the most common initial reason for settlement in North America by the first colonists?

What was the most common initial reason for settlement in North America by the first colonists? b. religious freedom -- Consider This: While religion played a large role in subsequent settlement, initially the colonists were interested in the new world for more economic reasons.

What were the first 3 settlements in America?

The invasion of the North American continent and its peoples began with the Spanish in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida, then British in 1587 when the Plymouth Company established a settlement that they dubbed Roanoke in present-day North Carolina.

When did settlers first come to America?

The first settlers of North America arrived in North America by crossing over a land bridge that formed during an Ice Age occurring between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago.

Why did people immigrate to America in the 1700?

It was mainly settled from about 1717 to 1775 by Presbyterian farmers from North England border lands, Scotland, and Ulster, fleeing hard times and religious persecution. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the 18th century.

Who migrated to North America in the 17th century and why did they come?

In 1620, a group of roughly 100 people later known as the Pilgrims fled religious persecution in Europe and arrived at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they established a colony. They were soon followed by a larger group seeking religious freedom, the Puritans, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Why did people move from Africa to the Americas?

The two biggest reasons for this trend have been familial ties and economic betterment. African Americans who have made this return - the vast majority of them have never lived in the South - have returned to areas where their families had been based.

What push factors caused people to leave England for its colonies in the 17th century what pull factors drew them to particular colonies or regions?

[A] The push factors that caused people to leave England to the colonies in the 17th century included religious persecution, economic and financial situations, food shortages, hope for a new life, criminal charges, and limited opportunity to run a business or own property.

What was the primary reason why settlers in the late to mid 1600s founded southern colonies?

Settlers in the Southern colonies came to America to seek economic prosperity they could not find in Old England. The English countryside provided a grand existence of stately manors and high living. But rural England was full, and by law those great estates could only be passed on to the eldest son.

When was the United States first colonized?

The invasion of the North American continent and its peoples began with the Spanish in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida, then British in 1587 when the Plymouth Company established a settlement that they dubbed Roanoke in present-day North Carolina.

Why did colonists resent British taxes?

Many colonists felt that they should not pay these taxes, because they were passed in England by Parliament, not by their own colonial governments. They protested, saying that these taxes violated their rights as British citizens. The colonists started to resist by boycotting, or not buying, British goods.

Why did some emigrants come to America?

Some emigrants who came to Colonial America were in search of religious freedom. London did not make the Church of England official in the colonies—it never sent a bishop—so religious practice became diverse.

What countries were colonized in 1750?

Main articles: New France and French colonization of the Americas. The 1750 possessions of Britain (pink and purple), France (blue), and Spain (orange) in contrast to the borders of contemporary Canada and the United States.

What was the New England colony under?

Under King James II of England, the New England colonies, New York, and the Jerseys were briefly united as the Dominion of New England (1686–89). The administration was eventually led by Governor Sir Edmund Andros and seized colonial charters, revoked land titles, and ruled without local assemblies, causing anger among the population. The 1689 Boston revolt was inspired by England's Glorious Revolution against James II and led to the arrest of Andros, Boston Anglicans, and senior dominion officials by the Massachusetts militia. Andros was jailed for several months, then returned to England. The Dominion of New England was dissolved and governments resumed under their earlier charters.

What was the first successful colony in the world?

The first successful English colony was Jamestown, established May 14, 1607, near Chesapeake Bay. The business venture was financed and coordinated by the London Virginia Company, a joint-stock company looking for gold. Its first years were extremely difficult, with very high death rates from disease and starvation, wars with local Indians, and little gold. The colony survived and flourished by turning to tobacco as a cash crop. By the late 17th century, Virginia's export economy was largely based on tobacco, and new, richer settlers came in to take up large portions of land, build large plantations and import indentured servants and slaves. In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion occurred, but was suppressed by royal officials. After Bacon's Rebellion, African slaves rapidly replaced indentured servants as Virginia's main labor force.

What river was the western border of the United States?

In the 1780s, the western border of the newly independent United States stretched to the Mississippi River. The United States reached an agreement with Spain for navigation rights on the river and was content to let the "feeble" colonial power stay in control of the area.

What was the name of the island that Columbus landed on?

In September 1493, Christopher Columbus set sail on his second voyage with 17 ships from Cádiz. On November 19, 1493 he landed on the island of Puerto Rico , naming it San Juan Bautista in honor of Saint John the Baptist. The first European colony, Caparra, was founded on August 8, 1508, by Juan Ponce de León, a lieutenant under Columbus, who was greeted by the Taíno Cacique Agüeybaná and who later became the first governor of the island. Ponce de Leon was actively involved in the Higuey massacre of 1503 in Puerto Rico. In 1508, Sir Ponce de Leon was chosen by the Spanish Crown to lead the conquest and slavery of the Taíno Indians for gold mining operations. The following year, the colony was abandoned in favor of a nearby island on the coast, named Puerto Rico (Rich Port), which had a suitable harbor. In 1511, a second settlement, San Germán was established in the southwestern part of the island. During the 1520s, the island took the name of Puerto Rico while the port became San Juan .

How did the British colonists find themselves more similar than different?

Another point on which the colonies found themselves more similar than different was the booming import of British goods. The British economy had begun to grow rapidly at the end of the 17th century and, by the mid-18th century, small factories in Britain were producing much more than the nation could consume. Britain found a market for their goods in the British colonies of North America, increasing her exports to that region by 360% between 1740 and 1770. British merchants offered credit to their customers; this allowed Americans to buy a large amount of British goods. From Nova Scotia to Georgia, all British subjects bought similar products, creating and anglicizing a sort of common identity.

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 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 did the Puritan labor system differ from the Chesapeake colonies?

Different labor systems also distinguished early Puritan New England from the Chesapeake colonies. Puritans expected young people to work diligently at their calling, and all members of their large families, including children, did the bulk of the work necessary to run homes, farms, and businesses. Very few migrants came to New England as laborers; in fact, New England towns protected their disciplined homegrown workforce by refusing to allow outsiders in, assuring their sons and daughters of steady employment. New England ’s labor system produced remarkable results, notably a powerful maritime-based economy with scores of oceangoing ships and the crews necessary to sail them. New England mariners sailing New England–made ships transported Virginian tobacco and West Indian sugar throughout the Atlantic World.

Why were Puritans a threat to the Church of England?

In the Church’s view, Puritans represented a national security threat, because their demands for cultural, social, and religious reforms undermined the king’s authority. Unwilling to conform to the Church of England, many Puritans found refuge in the New World. Yet those who emigrated to the Americas were not united. Some called for a complete break with the Church of England, while others remained committed to reforming the national church.

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 was the result of the Puritan enterprise in America?

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.

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.

What were the major developments that occurred between 1000 and 1650?

The Reformation, the Renaissance and New Trade Routes. Between 1000 and 1650, a series of interconnected developments occurred in Europe that provided the impetus for the exploration and subsequent colonization of America.

Who explored the Americas?

In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano was commissioned to locate a northwest passage around North America to India. He was followed in 1534 by Jacques Cartier, who explored the St. Lawrence River as far as present-day Montreal.

What technological innovations made exploration possible?

As these religious and political changes were occurring, technological innovations in navigation set the stage for exploration. Bigger, faster ships and the invention of navigational devices such as the astrolabe and sextant made extended voyages possible.

What was Marco Polo's most powerful inducement to exploration?

A Faster Route to the East. But the most powerful inducement to exploration was trade. Marco Polo’s famous journey to Cathay signaled Europe’s “discovery” of Chinese and Islamic civilizations. The Orient became a magnet to traders, and exotic products and wealth flowed into Europe.

What countries were centralized in the Middle Ages?

With the decline of the political power and wealth of the Catholic Church, a few rulers gradually solidified their power. Portugal, Spain, France and England were transformed from small territories into nation-states with centralized authority in the hands of monarchs who were able to direct and finance overseas exploration.

How did Henry Hudson die?

Explorer Henry Hudson died when his crew mutinied and left Hudson, his son and seven crewmembers adrift in a small open boat in the Hudson Bay. Although the Vikings never returned to America, other Europeans came to know of their accomplishments.

Why did European powers conquer the New World?

As European powers conquered the territories of the New World, they justified wars against Native Americans and the destruction of their cultures as a fulfillment of the European secular and religious vision of the New World. The idea of “America” antedated America’s discovery and even Viking exploration.

Why did the early English settle?

Most early English settlements depended heavily on such trade to repay investors who had financed their voyages , and some economies such as New York 's continued to rely significantly on the "Indian trade" through much of the colonial period.

What was the purpose of the Jamestown settlement?

Settlers of Jamestown, the first successful English settlement in North America, shared with the adventurers of the earlier, ill-fated Roanoake settlement of 1585 the hope of tapping into precious sources of New World mineral wealth. The founding settlers expected to exploit Virginia's game, fishing, and agriculture, ...

What did Richard Hakluyt say about North America?

English colonization would open lucrative new American markets for "the Woollen clothes of England " and "sundry [of] our commodities upon the tract of that firme land." The "situation of the climate" and the "excellent soile" would in turn make North America an excellent source of "Oade [a blue dye], Oile, Wines, Hops, Salt," all of which English people could expect to obtain "better cheape than we now receive them." Hakluyt anticipated that the abundance of North American hides, whales, seals, and fish would all give England an edge in a market for these goods which was traditionally dominated by Russian merchants. The "excellent and fertile soile" on both sides of North America 's "greate and deep" natural waterways promised "all things that the life of man doth require," and whatever settlers wanted to plant they could expect to harvest in abundance sufficient to "trafficke in."

What was the main crop of the colony of Maryland?

Tobacco, which the settler John Rolfe began cultivating in 1610, eventually became the staple crop that saved the colony. Europeans loved the crop in spite of the denunciations of smoking by prominent figures, including King James I himself. Jamestown planters were soon cultivating the "stinking weed" wherever they could find suitable land. Tobacco plantations began springing up along Chesapeake estuaries, creating a growing demand for labor and land as successful planters increased their holdings to put even more tobacco into cultivation. Settlers who founded the colony of Maryland in 1634 quickly began following the example of their Virginia neighbors. For much of the seventeenth century, Chesapeake planters relied mainly on the labor of indentured servants from England, occasionally supplementing that labor force with captive Indians or Africans whose status varied from person to person. English indentured servants bound themselves to work for a period of four to seven years, after which they were released. Many Africans brought to North America before 1660 shared that status, but a growing number came as slaves for life. Disease and malnutrition made life miserable for both European and African servants. When the supply of European servants began dwindling after 1660, planters turned increasingly to African slaves. By 1700, the economies of Virginia and Maryland had come to depend on the labor of lifetime slaves of African descent who cultivated the main export crop.

What did the founding settlers expect from Virginia?

The founding settlers expected to exploit Virginia's game, fishing, and agriculture, and establishing a lucrative trade with the neighboring Powhattan empire . Nearly all these hopes were dashed as the Chesapeake colony teetered on the brink of failure for more than a decade.

How did the colonial economy change?

Most historians agree that the colonial economy grew slowly but steadily during the first half of the eighteenth century, stimulating a corresponding rise in the volume of imported British goods. After 1740, however, the volume of cheap British imports to the colonies began an exponential rise in what some historians have termed an Anglo-American " commercial revolution ." English manufacturers using traditional methods of production found ways to make more goods available at cheaper prices than ever before, and English merchants found ways to get these goods to prospective buyers through innovative marketing techniques such as paid newspaper advertisements and attractive shop displays. As the volume of imports rose and the prices dropped more colonists purchased more goods each year. In 1700, for example, only the wealthiest colonists could afford to drink tea regularly, and their homes alone were graced with elegant tea sets. Yet by 1760 tea, like the sugar that sweetened it, had become a "decency" enjoyed by the "middling sort" of colonist as well as the wealthy. The building of market roads and the clearing of river channels carried imported English goods a little further inland every year, and colonists found ways to acquire or reallocate the extra income needed to purchase a growing array of items. They could dress in a widening variety of European fabrics adorned with a growing selection of European lace and buttons, and complete their outfits with fashionable silk stockings, gloves, and wigs. They could pane their windows with imported glass, decorate their parlors with fashionable imported candlesticks, and set their tables with inexpensive ceramic tableware.

How did Massachusetts compensate for the British colonization?

Massachusetts officials sought to compensate by developing overseas markets, successfully establishing a trading partnership with British colonies in the West Indies that continued throughout the colonial period. Yet the bulk of the New England economy rested on family farms. Their production was oriented toward achieving, not the exorbitant profits sought by great tobacco and sugar planters, but a "competence" in which members and heirs of each household could expect to enjoy an adequate diet, clothing, housing, and the modest comfort and enjoyment of family and community life.

Overview

English colonies

England made its first successful efforts at the start of the 17th century for several reasons. During this era, English proto-nationalism and national assertiveness blossomed under the threat of Spanish invasion, assisted by a degree of Protestant militarism and the energy of Queen Elizabeth. At this time, however, there was no official attempt by the English government to create a colonial empire. Rather the motivation behind the founding of colonies was piecemeal and varia…

The goals of colonization

Early colonial failures

New Spain

New France

New Netherland

New Sweden