The First Settlements in the New World: North America

St. Augustine, Florida – SpanishRoanoke, VirginiaJames Town, 1607

The Legacy of Captain John Smith

Travel Narratives

• 1. Who is the author of the travel account?• 2. What kinds of interests motivated the

traveler and the author of the travel account?• 3. What form does the travel account take?• 4. What topics does the author find it

worthwhile to discuss?• 5. What influence has the travel account had

during its own and later times?

• The mainland of the North American continent was first sighted by the Spanish explorer and treasure hunter Don Juan Ponce de Leon on Easter, March 27, 1513.

• He claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida, meaning "Land of Flowers".

• Between 1513 and 1563 the government of Spain launched six expeditions to settle Florida, but all failed.

• The French succeeded in establishing a fort and colony on the St. Johns River in 1564 and, in doing so, threatened Spain's treasure fleets which sailed along Florida's shoreline returning to Spain.

• As a result of this incursion into Florida, King Phillip II named Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, Spain's most experienced admiral, as governor of Florida, instructing him to explore and to colonize the territory.

• Menendez was also instructed to drive out any pirates or settlers from other nations, should they be found there.

St. Augustine, First American City• The oldest permanent European settlement in North America was not Jamestown, but

rather St. Augustine.

• Saint Augustine was established by a Spanish Admiral and Governor named Pedro Menendez de Aviles on September 8, 1565.

• The French, having witnessed the wealth Spain was gaining from the New World were becoming interested in establishing a foothold there themselves.

• The French King, being Catholic, had a small problem of Papal recognition of the Spanish as the rightful owners of all the lands there, even those they had not attempted to settle.

• One such area was “Florida.” To the Spanish, this name applied to basically all the lands north of Cuba.

• Taking advantage of the “heretic” status of French Huguenots in the eyes of the Pope, the French King (or more likely his scheming de Medici mother) made secret arrangements for a colony of these protestant Frenchmen in “Florida.”

Read more at Suite101: St. Augustine, First American City: Although settled by the Spanish St. Augustine is the first city | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/st-augustine-first-american-city-a25821#ixzz1YmbYPRi4

• St. Augustine was founded forty-two years before the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, and fifty-five years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts - making it the oldest permanent European settlement on the North American continent.

Roanoke• The Roanoke Colony

– Primary Source: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HARIOT/1590titl.html A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, Sir Walter Raleigh

– A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia , 1590 by Thomas Hariot http://manybooks.net/titles/hariotthetext038nflv10.html

• Present-day North Carolina

• A late 16th-century attempt to establish a permanent English Settlement

• The enterprise was financed and organized by Sir Walter Raleigh and carried out by Ralph Lane and Richard Grenville, Raleigh's distant cousin.

• The final group of colonists disappeared during the Anglo-Spanish War, three years after the last shipment of supplies from England.

• The settlement is known as "The Lost Colony," and the fate of the colonists is still unknown.

Virginia Dare• First person of English descent born in North America…

– @ August 18, 1587– born to Ananias Dare and his wife, Elinor White.

• Virginia's grandfather was John White, a scientific illustrator and painter who had previously been to Roanoke as part of a failed expedition in 1585. – Under the authority of Walter Raleigh, the elder White acted as governor of the new colony. – Nine days after his granddaughter was born, White returned to England for supplies.– His return was delayed by England's war with Spain, and when he reached Roanoke again in

1590 the settlement had been abandoned and there was no trace of the colonists.

• Carved into a post was the word "Croatan," possibly signifying a native tribe or nearby island (Hatteras), but the colonists were never seen again.

• http://www.answers.com/topic/virginia-dare#ixzz1YmdKpU6F

Jamestown 1607

• Jamestown was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg.

• The founding of Jamestown, America’s first permanent English colony, in Virginia in 1607 – 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts – sparked a series of cultural encounters that helped shape the nation and the world.

• The government, language, customs, beliefs and aspirations of these early Virginians are all part of the United States’ heritage today.

A Colony Based on Investment• The colony was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, a

group of investors who hoped to profit from the venture.

• Chartered in 1606 by King James I, the company also supported English national goals of counterbalancing the expansion of other European nations abroad, seeking a northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion.

• Primary Sources:– The First Virginia Charter 1606

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1600-1650/the-first-virginia-charter-1606.php

– The Second Virginia Charter 1609 http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1600-1650/the-second-virginia-charter-1609.php

• The Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, carrying 105 passengers, one of whom died during the voyage, departed from England in December 1606 and reached the Virginia coast in late April 1607.

• The expedition was led by Captain Christopher Newport.

• On May 13, after two weeks of exploration, the ships arrived at a site on the James River selected for its deep water anchorage and good defensive position.

• The passengers came ashore the next day, and work began on the settlement.

• Initially, the colony was governed by a council of seven, with one member serving as president.

John Smith and Jamestown• (baptized Jan. 6, 1580,

Willoughby, Lincolnshire, Eng. — died June 21, 1631, London)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBQpVnbdqjA&feature=related

• Jamestown: The True Story of Survival http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrkRAafygIs&feature=related

• http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap1/smith.html

John Smith: Man or Legend….

• Virginians know him as one of the first American heroes.

• He was proud and boastful – difficult to know which parts of his life are fact and which are fiction. – Born in 1580 in Willoughby, England, John Smith left home at age 16 after his father died. – He joined volunteers in France who were fighting for Dutch independence from Spain. – Two years later, he set off for the Mediterranean Sea, working on a merchant ship. – Fighting in the Holy Crusade– In 1600 he joined Austrian forces to fight the Turks in the “Long War.”– He quickly climbed in rank and was promoted to Captain while fighting in Hungary, then in

Transylvania two years later in 1602 – here he is wounded in battle, captured, and sold as a slave to a Turk.

– This Turk then sent Smith as a gift to his lover in Istanbul – and - According to Smith, this girl fell in love (Charatza Tragabigzanda) with him and sent him to her brother to get training for Turkish imperial service.

– Smith reportedly escaped by murdering the brother and returned to Transylvania by fleeing through Russia and Poland.

– After being released from service and receiving a large reward, he traveled all through Europe and Northern Africa.

– He returned to England in the winter of 1604-05.

The American Hero is born…• As the legend (Smith’s own

narrative) goes:• Smith was:

– After his bloody Crusade, Smith returned to England via Africa, got bored, signed on for Virginia and made his mark.

– Bored and restless in England– became actively involved with plans

to colonize Virginia for profit by the Virginia Company, which had been granted a charter from King James I.

– Set sail on December 20, 1606– Reached Virginia in April 1607– When the sealed box that listed the

names of the seven council members who were to govern the colony was opened, Smith's name was on the list.

– On May 13, 1607 the settlers landed at Jamestown….

– Captain John Smith became the colony’s leader in September 1608 – the fourth in a succession of council presidents – and established a “no work, no food” policy.

– Smith had been instrumental in trading with the Powhatan Indians for food.

– However, in the fall of 1609 he was injured by burning gunpowder and left for England.

– Smith never returned to Virginia, but promoted colonization of North America until his death in 1631 and published numerous accounts of the Virginia colony, providing invaluable material for historians.

– But according to Smith:• We get the greatest look into the early Jamestown

colony, this is what he tells us:– The Colonists were not ready to work or

cooperate with the natives….– That He had already saved the fledgling

colony, explored the Potomac River, and had his famous encounter with Native American "princess" Pocahontas.

– That he was always prone to speaking his mind despite the consequences, Smith had been thrown into prison, sentenced to death by Jamestown leaders and nearly killed in multiple Indian attacks.

• But failures, history insists, are doomed to spend Eternity in a Purgatory of footnotes.

• Here's what happened to Smith's colony: – In 1610, wounded and half-dead, Captain John Smith lay huddled below decks of a ship

bound from Jamestown Colony back to England. – Going Out With A Bang…So-To-Say:

• 1610 – Smith 29 yrs old - battling the severe burns he received in an explosion at Jamestown - by the spark from a comrade's tobacco pipe that ignited Smith's gunpowder bag as he slept.

– Smith’s departure was followed by the “starving time,” a period of warfare between the colonists and Indians and the deaths of many English men and women from starvation and disease. • In his absence, Jamestown had all but fallen to bits when about 500 colonists died of starvation,

some even turned to cannibalism.

– Just when the colonists decided to abandon Jamestown in Spring 1610, settlers with supplies arrived from England, eager to find wealth in Virginia.

– This group of new settlers arrived under the second charter issued by King James I. – This charter provided for stronger leadership under a governor who served with a group of

advisors, and the introduction of a period of military law that carried harsh punishments for those who did not obey.

– After three years in the New World, his short term as "president" of America's first permanent settlement was already over.

– He would never see Virginia again, but by 1610 Smith had already carved one future notch in US history textbooks

Additional Accomplishments:

• The mapping and naming if New England:– Smith turned his sights on uncharted "Northern Virginia" which at that

time stretched into modern day Canada - His strategy was simple: he promised investors he would search for gold and jewels ,but would focus on furs, fish and timber

– within six months he returned, and the impact of his trip continues to this day. • He found no gold; but a surplus of furs, dried fish and fish oil.. • He made the investors and himself rich and eager for more• While his men had been fishing the cod rich banks of "New England" as he named

the area, Smith had sailed from Nova Scotia to Rhode Island in a small portable boat.

• His sketch became the first accurate Map of New England - the map that would ultimately lead Europeans in droves to a brave new world.

• In April 1614, he returned to the New World in a successful voyage to the Maine and Massachusetts Bay areas, which he named New England, with the approval of Prince Charles.

• Long before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Smith vowed he would start a colony here and he almost pulled it off.

Captain John Smith was suddenly the hottest investment in London, and Smith wanted to return to New England to found a permanent colony.

He would not repeat the mistakes of the Virginia Colony:Why New England is so successful: Unlike in Virginia, Smith's New England colonists would be tough, skilled and quickly self-supporting.

Their Focus: fish – whales – furs – timber – and They would work with, not against the native tribes.

This was a long term, low-risk proposition, Smith explained - he had scouted a number of ideal spots including Monhegan Island in Maine, others near modern day Boston and Plymouth, Massachusetts, and an area now called Portsmouth, New Hampshire near the Isles of Shoals, which he named "Smith Isles" after himself.

In 1615 Smith set sail, fully equipped, with his team of super colonists, determined to start the first permanent colony in New England….but It was over in days - Within 400 miles of England the two ships were ravaged by a storm, and only good for salvage…all the cash was lost - but Smith decided to make another fishing run to build back his cash and investor confidence - Disaster struck again – Smith’s ship was raided by pirates – but Smith knew the captain from his days as a soldier and convinced the enemy ship to join him on a profitable fishing run to New England – but then attacked by French Pirates….and it was over…

He was denied further opportunities to return to America due to his independent nature and spent the rest of his life writing books until his death in 1631 at age 51.

The Written Word of John Smith:His book A True Relation about the first years of Jamestown made him the toast of literary London.

• Filled with: honesty, radical ideas, - this frustrated the rich and investors of the day…

• He wrote about the corporate "money men" were looking to get rich quick – compared them to the Spanish in South America, they wanted gold.

• A True Relation:• http://content.wisconsi

nhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/aj&CISOPTR=4840

• The Introduction: http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/aj&CISOPTR=4840

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXobSnfm-gc

The Natives of Jamestown• Three distinctive Native American tribes dominated the territory now

known as Virginia during the late 16th century through the 17th century.

• These tribes spoke three different languages — Algonquian, Siouan and Iroquoian — and lived in organized villages along the banks of the coastal waterways, in woodlands and mountain valleys.

• They worshipped, hunted and fished, planted crops and traded goods, much like we do today.

• Chief Powhatan and his famous daughter Pocahontas lived among the Pumunkey Tribe, the most powerful in the Powhatan Empire.

• They spoke the Algonquian language and were the first Indians encountered by the Englishmen at Jamestown.

• Serious problems soon emerged in the small English outpost, which was located in the midst of a chiefdom of about 14,000 Algonquian-speaking Indians ruled by the powerful leader Powhatan.

• Relations with the Powhatan Indians were tenuous, although trading opportunities were established.

• An unfamiliar climate, as well as brackish water supply and lack of food, conditions possibly aggravated by a prolonged drought, led to disease and death.

• Many of the original colonists were upper-class Englishmen, and the colony lacked sufficient laborers and skilled farmers.

Primary Source

• http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/nativeamericans/chiefpowhatan.htm

• Chief Powhatan: Address to Captain John Smith - delivered in 1609

Virginia was started for profit…by men…Unlike New England that was founded by families for permanent change

• The first two English women arrived at Jamestown in 1608, and more came in subsequent years.

• Men outnumbered women, however, for most of the 17th century.

• New England will be more successful as a result of why and how it begins….families…

John Smith: A Literary Pioneer

– Many scholars trace the South's rich literary history back to one of America's earliest settlers, Captain John Smith.

– Though shrouded in legend and controversy, Smith nevertheless embodied the American pioneering spirit and was one of the first authors to write of the southern landscape's beauty and promise.

Smith’s Best Sellers• His second book:• The Proceedings of the English Colony in Virginia.

• A Description of New England

• The Starving Time: In his final years Smith wrote many more books, books including the story of The Starving Time in Jamestown Colony and about his adventures with the princess Pocahontas, who died while living not far from Smith in England.

“The Starving Time”: John Smith Recounts the Early History of Jamestown, 1609

• What we learn:– The organizers of the first English settlement at Jamestown,

Virginia, in 1607 had visions of easy wealth and abundant plunder. – The colonists, a group with little agricultural experience and

weighted with gentry, instead found a swampy and disease-ridden site.

– The local Indians were unwilling to labor for them. – Few survived the first difficult winters. – With the colony in near chaos, he took over the government of the

colony in 1608 and instituted a policy of rigid discipline and agricultural cultivation.

– When a gunpowder accident forced his return to the colonists faced a disastrous winter known as “starving time.” http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6593

• What is often considered Smith's most important work, best known by its abbreviated title A General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, would not appear until 1624. – This work combined elements from his previous works with new

material to create a more complete history of the American colonies.

– Among the most notable additions is a more detailed account of conflicts colonists had with the indigenous peoples as well as an account of Pocahontas's aid to him and the colony.

• In all of his works, but most especially in A General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, Smith wrote exuberantly of the resources and advantages available to American colonists.– For him, the New World was a new Eden, a paradise with

unlimited potential.

• In all of his works, but most especially in A General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, Smith wrote exuberantly of the resources and advantages available to American colonists.

• For him, the New World was a new Eden, a paradise with unlimited potential.

Class/Group Work…Please look at Smith’s Description of New England:

• John Smith, Description of New England – How does Smith’s vision of America compare with

Columbus’s?

– According to Smith, for what reasons should people come to America?

– To what extent do these reasons form a foundation for the "American dream" as we know it today?

– How does Smith construct an image of Americans?

Profit in Jamestown

• In order to make a profit for the Virginia Company, settlers tried a number of small industries, including glassmaking, wood production, and pitch and tar and potash manufacture.

• However, until the introduction of tobacco as a cash crop about 1613 by colonist John Rolfe, who later married Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas, none of the colonists’ efforts to establish profitable enterprises were successful.

• Tobacco cultivation required large amounts of land and labor and stimulated the rapid growth of the Virginia colony.

• Settlers moved onto the lands occupied by the Powhatan Indians, and increased numbers of indentured servants came to Virginia

Do you know the true story of Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe)?

• http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/ednkc001.html

Africans to Jamestown• The first documented Africans in Virginia arrived in 1619.

• They were from the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola, West Central Africa, and had been captured during war with the Portuguese.

• While these first Africans may have been treated as indentured servants, the customary practice of owning Africans as slaves for life appeared by mid-century.

• The number of African slaves increased significantly in the second half of the 17th century, replacing indentured servants as the primary source of labor.

The First Representative Government

• The first representative government in British America began at Jamestown in 1619 with the convening of a general assembly, at the request of settlers who wanted input in the laws governing them.

• After a series of events, including a 1622 war with the Powhatan Indians and misconduct among some of the Virginia Company leaders in England, the Virginia Company was dissolved by the king in 1624, and Virginia became a royal colony.

• Jamestown continued as the center of Virginia’s political and social life until 1699 when the seat of government moved to Williamsburg.

• Although Jamestown ceased to exist as a town by the mid 1700s, its legacies are embodied in today’s United States.