US History from 1607 to 1945: Discovery of America and Early Settlements, Study notes of American Language

Download US History from 1607 to 1945: Discovery of America and Early Settlements and more Study notes American Language in PDF only on Docsity! US History from 1607 to 1945 Introduction: The Discovery of America and the early settlements Columbus and the Spanish English settlements: Jamestown New England The Pilgrims New York Maryland The Carolinas Georgia -Columbus and the Spanish Columbus wanted to reach the Orient by sailing west The king of Portugal would have none of his scheme, and neither would anyone else until Queen Isabella of Spain, who was not an expert, decided to take a chance. • In the very year that the consolidation of the Spanish monarchy was completed by the conquest of Granada from the Moors, she persuaded her husband, Ferdinand II, to pay for an expedition of three ships and to give Columbus authority, under Spain, over any lands he might discover on the way. • Even after Ferdinand Magellan carried out Columbus's original intention by sailing around the tip of South America (1519-22), explorers continued for two centuries to probe hopefully up American rivers in search the Pacific. But the Spanish recognized at once that Columbus's substitute for China might have advantages surpassing the original. • With approval of Pope Alexander VI, they joined the Portuguese in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), dividing the world by a line drawn north and south, 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands (between the present 46th and 47th meridians). • Spain was authorized to take possession of all the heathen lands it found to the west of the line; • Portugal could do the same to the east. • Thereafter, the Spanish swarmed over the Caribbean islands and onto the mainland of the North and South America. English settlements Jamestown In 1606, a number of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants joined to petition the king (James, Elizabeth I successor) for authority to establish colonies in America. joint-stock company: participants profited or suffered in proportion to the number of shares they purchased. • The joint-stock company became the principal instrument of England's early overseas expansion. New England James I stopped the Virginia Company but not the flow of colonists to America. The social, religious, and economic forces that had made their appearance in the time of Henry VIII were still at work, upsetting the lives of an increasing number of people. Prices were still rising, lands were changing hands, and sheep were grazing where men once arove their plows. To make matters worse, a depression settled over the woolen industry in the 1620s. It lasted through the next decade that sent food prices soaring. The land seemed "weary for her inhabitants, and the new king made it seem wearier by levying taxes without the consent of Parliament and expensive measures against religious dissenters. • The result was a large-scale exodus to the New World, mostly of young men in their teens and twenties, unable to find work at home. • In the course of the century, more than 300,000 people left the British Isles to man the tobacco plantations of the Chesapeake and the first English sugar plantations of the West Indies. • By 1640, despite catastrophic death rates, they had raised the Virginia population to 8,000 and had helped to people English colonies in Maryland, Bermuda, Barbados, St. Kitts, and other West Indian islands. • During the 1630s, while a host of young men embarked for the plantation colonies, some 15,000 people of a different character headed farther north in a “Great Migration to New England. • There were single men and women among them, but they came mainly in families, often from the same town, looking for something more than a way to make a living. They were looking for a truly new and holier England • Led by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a Devonshire man who had also been the leading spirit of the Plymouth group, they gained from the king a charter establishing them as the Council for New England and granting them propriety and governmental rights over the whole area from the 40th to the 48th parallels and from the Atlantis to the Pacific. • Pilgrims: as Americans have come to call them, were as poorly equipped in everything but courage as any group that ever landed in America. They had guns but knew little about shooting. They planned to become fishermen but knew nothing about fishing. They expected to settle in Virginia but landed in New England without enough supplies to last the winter. • Like their predecessors and contemporaries in Virginia, many of them sickened and died. But the living stuck it out and justified their own estimate of themselves. • Since New England was outside the jurisdiction of Virginia's government, the Pilgrims established a government of their own by the Mayflower Compact, which 41 adult males subscribed before going ashore.