Exploration
The first people to come to North America were prehistoric cavemen. 20,000 years ago, cave men followed herds of animals that they hunted for food. At the time, the Earth was much colder. An Ice Age was upon the world. Much of the Earth’s water was frozen and glaciers of ice covered the northern and southern part of the planets. With so much water frozen at the poles, the water levels of the oceans dropped. This exposed land that connected Asia to North America. This “bridge” from Asia to North America was called the Bering Strait Land Bridge. The cave men followed the herds of animals across the Bering Strait Land Bridge, settling the continent. Within 12,000 years, these cave men, the forefathers of the Native American Indians, had settled all the way to the tip of South America.
The next group to come to North America was the Norse. Sometimes called Vikings, these Scandinavian adventurers were expert sailors. They traveled the oceans in ships they called long boats, often decorated with wooden sea monsters and dragons. The Norse were fearsome raiders. Though they could farm, and did, they often preferred to raid neighboring populations and steal supplies. For many years, the Norse were feared along all the coasts of Europe.
By the year 800 A.D., the Vikings had settled the island of Iceland, halfway across the Atlantic Ocean. As the colony grew, it traded with Vikings in Scandinavia, and raided European costal villages, only to escape back to Iceland when the Europeans tried to fight back.
Eric the Red was a Viking that lived in Iceland. He had been kicked out of Norway after killing the best friend of the Viking king there. But soon, life on Iceland became dull for Eric the Red. And, once again, he got into trouble on Iceland. Kicked out again, Eric the Red sailed west with his family and friends, and settled on Greenland, a cold, barren island, covered mostly with huge sheets of ice.
Eric the Red’s son, Leif Ericson, was born in Greenland. But life on Greenland was dull, and Leif could not go to Scandinavia, because as Eric the Red’s son, he would be punished for his father’s crimes there. So, in the year 1000 A.D., Leif Ericson decided to see what lay further west.
Leif Ericson loaded up his long boats and traveled west. Soon, he ran into North America. At first, the land looked no better than Greenland had been. But, as he sailed south, he soon came upon a land with plenty of trees for making long boats and Viking houses, called long houses. The land he found there also was full of grape vines. So, Leif Ericson named the new land Vineland.
However, Leif Ericson soon ran into the Native American Indians there. After a brief battle, the Vikings won. However, their Viking colony would not be long lived. Vikings were not the best farmers, Europe was too far away to raid for food and supplies, and the Native Americans soon left the area, leaving the Vikings with no one to steal food and supplies from. Since the Vikings did not trade with people, but simply stole their supplies from other people, the Vikings were not a successful colony. The last of Leif Ericson’s Viking descendants died just a few years before Columbus discovered America. Unfortunately, for Leif Ericson, since he never told anyone that he discovered America, he does not get credit for discovering it. To get credit, you have to tell someone about it. But the Vikings NEVER told anyone where they lived! They did not want the people they stole from to be able to find them!
Christopher Columbus Discovers America
In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America. For years, he had been trying to get someone to give him the money and ships to sail west. Other explorers had discovered that if you sailed around Africa, you could get to the Indies and bring back tons of spices, silks, gold, jewels, and other goods to trade and sell in Europe. Christopher Columbus believed that if you sailed west, you could get to the Indies faster.
Many people disagreed with Columbus. Some thought the world was flat and that you would fall off the edge if you sailed west! Others thought that sea monsters would destroy you if you sailed too far out to sea. Still others simply were afraid to sail out of sight of the land. Finally, after years of trying, Columbus convinced Queen Isabella of Spain to give him the ships and money for the voyage, as long as it made her rich with the goods he would bring back!
No one knew that the continents of North and South America stood in the way. Columbus believed the Earth was round, but smaller than it really is. So when Columbus finally discovers America, he really thinks he is in India!
So, Columbus loaded up his ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria in 1492 and sailed west.
The voyage was a long and dangerous one. Many of Columbus’s sailors feared they would never return, and tried to convince Columbus to turn back and even threatened to mutiny. However, after about three months at sea, the sailors sighted land. Columbus and his crew landed on the tiny island of San Salvador.
Since Columbus thought he had discovered an island in the Indies, Columbus named the people there “Indians.” Columbus and his men sailed around the ocean, finding even more islands. But, he still thought he was in Asia. When he found Cuba, he met more “Indians.” Indians there tried to tell Columbus to avoid going further west. They told him that the Indians there were cannibals, and would eat him and his men. However, the Indian word for cannibal sounded like the word “khan,” which was the name of kings in China. Therefore, Columbus really thought he had discovered the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the Indies
Columbus searched for gold and jewels to bring back to Queen Isabella, who was expecting to get rich from her investment in Columbus. However, the islands of the Caribbean have little gold. Columbus finally returned to Spain, bringing Queen Isabella only a few Indians, parrots, corn, tobacco, and some hammocks. He had virtually no precious cargo to return to the Queen.
Never the less, Queen Isabella was happy, Columbus had discovered a new continent, one that still might make her rich. She had Columbus return and enslave the Indians to grow sugar cane and other crops to sell in Europe. Columbus’s discovery led to the enslavement, and eventual destruction of the Indians of the Caribbean islands. When Columbus ran out of Indians to enslave to work his fields, he turned to African slaves, importing the first African slaves to the New World.
In all, Columbus made four voyages to the New World. Though he died still believing he had found Asia, rather than a new continent, his voyages opened up North and South America for exploration and exploitation by later Spanish and European explorers.
Spanish Exploration and Conquest of the New World
Over the next few centuries, Spanish explorers searched the New World for riches to make Spain wealthy. In their searching, they explored much of North and South America. In Central America, Cortez defeated the Aztecs, and took the Aztec’s gold and silver making Spain rich. In South America, Pizarro defeated the Incas, discovering even more gold and silver for the Spanish. With these discoveries, Spain became the wealthiest nation in the world! Believing even more gold and silver must lie in the north, Spanish explorers traveled into what is now the United States, looking for riches. Though they never found the riches they desired in North America, they did explore the land, claim it for Spain, and establish missions to teach the native Indian populations Christianity.
The Race to Colonize the New World
With Spain gaining riches and territories in the New World, it did not take long for the rest of Europe to want to get some territories, and even more importantly the gold and silver, that Spain had found. Soon, explorers from France and England began to explore.
France sent explorers up the mighty Mississippi river, claiming the entire river valley, vast amounts of land for France. Not to be outdone, England began to send explorers to the New World to gain riches and territory too.
Though the English explored parts of North America, they did not find gold and silver, as did the Spanish. Sir Walter Raleigh tried to establish a colony on Roanoke Island, off the North Carolina coast. The colony is called the “Lost Colony” because when Raleigh returned four years later, the island was deserted, and the only trace that his men had ever been there was the word “Croatan” carved into the trunk of a tree. No one knows what happened to that colony!
Still, the English desired a colony in North America. One reason they wanted it was that they still hoped to find gold like the Spanish had. Another reason was that the English ships wanted a North American base from which to raid and capture Spanish ships returning to Spain loaded with Inca and Aztec gold. England grew rich stealing plunder from the Spanish. Spain tried to punish England with and invasion; the mighty British navy defeated the Spanish fleet. After defeating the Spanish fleet, England saw nothing in their way from colonizing the New World.
Jamestown and the Virginia Colony
The First Successful English Colony in America
English settlers had many reasons to come to the New World. English kings dreamed of an empire in the New World to make them rich. Traders and merchants in England wanted to invest in new colonies, hoping to get rich off of whatever the colonies found, or crops they grew to sell to Europe. Lower classes in England dreamed of a better life in the New World. In England, serfs, lower class workers who did not own their own land, dreamed of a better life, owning their own land, and making a better life for their children. England did not offer political freedom either. In England, the king and his nobles decided what the laws were, and what the people could, or could not do. The New world offered freedom from kings, and a chance for the people to form their own governments. Equally important, however, was the desire for religious freedom. Many European kings persecuted people with different religions than their own. The New World offered a place to worship as people saw fit, and an escape from religious persecution.
In 1607, the Virginia Colony, the first successful British colony, was settled at Jamestown, on the banks of the James River. Investors in England financed the colony, hoping to make a profit from whatever products a colony found, or grew, and sold back to Europe. These investors had formed a company called the Virginia Company. The Virginia Company received permission from the King of England to settle these lands, provided the king received part of their profits! Jamestown and the James River were named after the king of England, King James, and the colony, the Virginia Colony, was named after the queen of England, Queen Virginia. The Virginia Colony struggled to survive. A hard winter, too little food, and lack of shelter killed all but 38 of the colonies 105 men the first winter. The colony struggled to survive. The colonists grew food, met the Powhatan Indians, and slowly grew their colony.
In 1612, the colony discovered that it could grow the tobacco that the Indians introduced them too. John Rolfe had discovered a way to cure the tobacco so it would survive the long ocean voyage back to England for sale. Soon, the colony was making a profit for the investors, growing tobacco, and selling it to Europe. Tobacco was the first successful cash crop, it made Jamestown successful.
Since England was so far away, the Virginia Colony was forced to decide things for themselves. The colonists formed the Virginia House of Burgesses. The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first representative assembly in America. There, representatives from the towns of the Virginia Colony met and decided their own laws. This planted the idea that the settlers could govern themselves better than the English could from across the ocean.
Jamestown also saw the first African slaves that came to America. In 1619, seeking labor for the farms, the English imported the first slaves to America. At first, they were indentured servants, people who are slaves for a few years, then allowed to go free, and are given land to farm for themselves. Soon, however, the English stopped this practice, and all other Africans remained slaves for life. Many Europeans came to the colony as indentured servants too. Unable to pay for the voyage to the New World, but wanting a new life in America, Europeans sold themselves into slavery for a period of years in return for their passage and the promise that when they would be freed, they would get land of their own to farm.
The Plymouth Colony
The second successful British colony in America was the Plymouth Colony, established in 1620. Originally trying to go to the Virginia Colony, the settlers of the Plymouth Colony were blown off course in a storm, and landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. The settlers of the Plymouth Colony looked at the land they had run into, and decided to make a new colony there, rather than try to find Jamestown. Since they had missed the Virginia Colony, they would be settling a new place, without any laws already established to govern them. So, the Plymouth settlers sat down before leaving the ship and wrote the Mayflower Compact. The Mayflower Compact was a contract signed by all the male members of the colony. In it, they agreed to follow the laws they would write, for the good of the colony. The Mayflower Compact was the first self-government in America.
Unlike the Virginia Colony, which was founded to try to make the investors rich, the Plymouth Colony was founded for religious freedom. Many of the Plymouth colonists were Puritans who had been persecuted in England for their beliefs. Back in England, they had separated from the Church of England, the only church that the king allowed people to attend. The Puritans were called Puritans because they wanted to “purify” their religion, and worship differently than the king. The dangers of traveling to the New World seemed small compared to certain punishment and persecution by the king in England.
In the Puritan church, the people voted to decide who would be their priest. After the church services, people often discussed what needed to be done in their towns. This led to the Puritans of the Plymouth colony voting on their own leaders such as governors and mayors, just like they voted on their own priests. This experiment in self-government along with the first representative assembly in the Virginia Colony, the House of Burgess, became the roots of democracy, and independence in America.
In Connecticut, the citizens of the colony there wrote the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. This document described the laws by which their colony would be governed and how their government worked. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was the first constitution written in America. Today, we recognize that the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (first written constitution in America), the Virginia House of Burgesses (first representative assembly), and the Mayflower Compact (first self-government in America) were important steps in the development of government in America. Combined together, these documents are the roots to our nation writing the Constitution of the Untied Stated.
The Colonies Grow and Trouble Brews
From 1607 to 1776, the British controlled their colonies in America. The British practiced an economic policy called mercantilism, a favorable trade balance between a nation and its colonies that benefits the “home” country. To ensure that England would grow rich off of her American Colonies, England passed the Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts regulated colonial trade. The colonies were not allowed to sell their products to other nations. They also could not buy things from any country other than England. The Navigation Acts also prohibited the colonies from manufacturing any goods of their own, but instead by all their manufactured goods from the “home” country. This insured a market for the “home” country’s manufactured products without competition from the colonies. The Navigation Acts also made the colonies ship their goods on only British ships, or ships made in the British colonies. If American colonists wanted to sell their products to another country, they had to stop in England first to pay a special tax that ate up the profits they made. This policy made England rich, but it hurt the economies of the colonies.
For a time, England did not enforce the Navigation Acts. This condition was called salutary neglect. Under salutary neglect, American colonists traded with nations other than England in the Triangle of Trade, trade routes linking the colonies, Africa, and England. They would also bribe British officials that tried to enforce the Navigation Acts, or illegally smuggle goods to foreign nations to sell. Over time, the American colonists came to believe they had a right to free trade.
England also made life difficult for the colonist in America. England neglected the colonists’ needs, so long as the colonies kept making them money. England taxed the colonists unfairly. English law since 1215 with the writing of the Magna Carta, the first written English law to limit the power of the kings, was that British citizens could not be taxed without representation in the British Parliament, (British form of congress). Yet, England taxed the colonists and denied them representation in the parliament.
To make matters worse, England took away many of the colonists rights under the law, rights guaranteed to them under English law! It would not be long until these colonists started thinking they’d be better off on their own and independent of England.
As the colonies grew, differences appeared. Though the Original Thirteen Colonies were mostly British colonies, or became British colonies, they were different. One factor was religion. Some colonies allowed religious freedom, while others did not. Some colonies had different customs, and cultures. But, the biggest difference had to do with the geography of the colonies.
In the south, the land was rich and fertile, the long springs and summers allowed for long growing seasons. Combined with plentiful rainfall, this made the south perfect for plantations that grew cash crops. Cash crops are crops grown to be sold to make a profit, not just eaten by the farmers. The south grew cotton for the British textile mills, tobacco to meet the demand of Europe’s smokers, indigo, a plant used to make ink for writing, and rice, a food crop that England could eat, or sell to the rest of the world.
To raise these crops, the settlers used African slaves. The first slaves had arrived in Jamestown in 1619. As the nation grew, plantations in the south required more slaves to farm the fields to grow cash crops for sale to Europe. This was the beginning of the plantation economy, southern plantations growing cash crops for sale to Europe using slave labor. Soon, colonists in the south grew rich. Though most colonists were too poor to own slaves, many of those that did grew wealthy from the labor of the slaves.
In the northern colonies, conditions were different than in the south. The northern colonies had a much shorter spring and summer. The short growing seasons of the northern colonies and the fact that the northern colonies soil was often full of rocks, and not as fertile as that of the south, meant that the northern colonies could not use plantations and slaves to grow cash crops. Instead, the colonies of the north used subsistence farming, farming just enough food to feed them. They also fished the oceans and sold the catches to Europe. They became great shipbuilders using the plentiful forests of the north, and stated shipping companies transporting cash crops from the south to Europe.