whether she was better roasted boiled or carbonadoed i know not but of such a dish as powdered wife i never heard of captain john smith oh hi mr lahaske here and today we begin looking at the british colonies in north america the british joined spain france and the netherlands in the race to colonize the new world and it's from these settlements that the american independence movement will eventually spring but i'm already getting ahead of myself so let's slow down you already know that the united states grew out of 13 colonies in north america but what you may not know is exactly how different those 13 colonies were the british colonies exhibited wide-ranging economies political systems and cultures and while these colonies were founded four centuries ago many of our current cultural and political dynamics can be traced back to these original settlements did you ever wonder why southerners tend to be more suspicious of the federal government while northerners seem to be more tolerant of it or why americans statistically work more hours and take less vacation time than people in other post-industrialized nations or even why americans have a cultural notion of being different or special as compared to their international counterparts the answers to all of these questions can be found in the history of american colonial society now we won't have time to discuss each colony individually so instead we'll look at them by region the northernmost region contains the new england colonies massachusetts rhode island connecticut and new hampshire moving down the atlantic seaboard we find the middle colonies new york new jersey delaware and pennsylvania the two southern regions include the chesapeake maryland virginia and north carolina and the southernmost atlantic colonies south carolina and georgia today's lecture will focus on the chesapeake region but first we need to ask a big question to what extent did geography shape colonial society we learned in our discussion of native americans that geography played a huge role in the development of indigenous societies but what will happen when the british colonists bring their own culture motivation and biases to a new geographic region attempting to build a society from scratch the founding and growth of the chesapeake colonies gives us insight into this issue to get things started we're going to take a close look at virginia in fact whenever you see a reference to the chesapeake region i want you to think virginia virginia was the first british colony in the chesapeake and it became the most populous the other chesapeake colonies reflected many of virginia's characteristics so virginia gives us a nice case study for the region the first permanent british settlement jamestown virginia was established in 1607 but before we dive into jamestown we need to talk about why the british wanted to settle the new world in the first place this brings us to our first big idea while the mechanism of british exploration differed from the spanish both were driven by economic factors we're going to do a lot of comparing and contrasting of the spanish and british colonies in america we learned last week that the spanish were motivated by god gold and glory the british too will have religious economic and political motivations to explore the western hemisphere but when it comes to settling the chesapeake region economic motivation loomed largest we know that spain's new world colonies proved to be very profitable ventures so naturally britain wanted in on the action in particular gold and silver operations in new spain seemed enticing but england was experiencing other economic stressors that also played a role in its desire to colonize the west the enclosure movement in england which took place between the 1400s and 1700s forced thousands of poor farmers off of communal lands and into cities where they struggled to find work the british were hopeful that the mines and fields of the new world could offer an outlet for england's unemployment problem and so 115 years after christopher columbus planted the spanish flag in the caribbean england moved to establish a new world empire of its own but from the very beginning we can observe differences between the spanish and british efforts the spanish explorers and conquistadors have been funded directly by the spanish crown but the british government was in no position to finance the establishment of new colonies most of the british colonies including virginia were privately funded ventures by joint stock companies joint stock companies were early corporations which appealed to private investors the investors would pool their money in order to pay for the ships supplies and workers needed to start a new world colony they received a charter from the british government which gave them permission to establish the colony under the flag of the crown but the government provided no additional funds if the colony made a profit either through the discovery of riches or the establishment of other economic activity the value of the joint stock company would grow and the partners would receive a return on their initial investment of course this meant that the colony would only survive if it could remain profitable after a number of british colonization efforts failed most notably at roanoke island off the coast of north carolina the joint stock virginia company established the first permanent british colony at jamestown in 1607 and that brings us to our second big idea the geography of the chesapeake rendered settlement of virginia initially difficult but the colony eventually grew profitable thanks to the rise of tobacco plantation agriculture for its first several years jamestown teetered on the brink of disaster the mucky water of the chesapeake bay caused sanitation issues harsh winters precluded resupply efforts from europe and settlers made quick enemies of the local powhatan tribe virginia company leaders had hoped to discover gold and silver on the north american continent but there was none to be found in the marshes of virginia in 1610 the colony was on the brink of collapse when a settler named john rolfe arrived and changed virginia's fortune and trajectory rolfe had come from the caribbean and had brought with them a species of tobacco plant that was in high demand in europe virginia's geography allowed the crop to thrive tobacco agriculture was perfectly suited for the fertile soil and long hot growing seasons of the virginia tidewater region the colonists abandoned their search for precious metals and instead established plantations on which to grow the new cash crop tobacco soon came to dominate the economic activities in virginia and the colony really grew up around this burgeoning industry this is our third big idea the agricultural economy the chesapeake shaped its demographic patterns social construction and belief systems we've already established the role that geography played in establishing virginia's economy now let's look at how the economy shaped colonial life in the chesapeake first its demographic patterns if you were to travel to virginia in the early 1600s one thing you would definitely notice would be the lopsided gender dynamics for decades virginia featured a male dominated population after the struggles at jamestown it was no secret that life in virginia was difficult the dramatic range of hot and cold weather did not make for much comfort and plantation work was anything but glamorous as a result migration to the colony was not an attractive option for established english families instead the colony mainly attracted single males of the working classes who were desperate for economic opportunity because this created a male saturated environment many settlers did not view virginia as a permanent move colonists who did earn money in virginia often became frustrated by the lack of marital prospects and returned to england to settle down this presented a problem for the virginia company which could not afford to hemorrhage valuable workers back to europe so the company devised a number of plans to solve both the worker shortage and the female shortage first in 1615 they petitioned the british government to help with the labor shortage king james responded by deporting a hundred convicted felons to virginia unfortunately this only exacerbated the gender problem as virginia developed a reputation for being a land of gamblers and vagabonds not exactly a who's who of britain's most eligible bachelors so in 1617 the virginia company established the head rights system which was intended to attract a wealthier more permanent population to the colony through the headright system colonists who could pay for their own passage to the new world were given 50 acres of land upon their arrival in virginia to sweeten the deal further colonists received another 50 acres for each additional person whose passage they could fund these additional workers often became indentured servants for the plantation owner but more on that a little later in virginia's agricultural economy though land was the root of wealth and the headright system created an extremely wealthy class of plantation owners known as the planter aristocracy thing the head right system failed to do however was bring more women to virginia so in 1619 the virginia company instituted a new program whereby single colonists could trade 150 pounds of tobacco for a wife shipped sight unseen from england you heard me right mail order brides in virginia the tobacco brides as they were sometimes known were single women who typically lack the financial means for a proper marriage in england remember back in those days marriage was more of an economic transaction and less an institution of true love the virginia company recruited these women and offered them passage across the atlantic and sometimes land of their own if they agreed to marry the virginia planter who had placed the order those who accepted approximately 150 women in the program's first three years became the foundation for the female population in virginia and the colony finally began to grow for more on the tobacco brides and the fascinating role the program played in bolstering women's rights in the virginia colony check out the article linked in the description below looking elsewhere in the virginia colony we can find more examples of how the agricultural economy shaped colonial life this influence is especially noticeable in the colony's labor systems and social structure the headright system created a group of ultra wealthy plantation owners but plantation agriculture was labor intensive to meet the demand the planters turned to a form of unfree labor known as indentured servitude indentured servants were contracted laborers who worked to pay off a debt usually this debt was incurred when the planter paid for the worker's passage from england service times typically ranged from three to seven years during which time the servant's contract could be bought sold or transferred from a legal standpoint the servant was considered the property of the planter until the service term expired and the debt was settled the result of this system was a vertically stratified society with distinct social classes the socioeconomic gap between the planter class and poor farmers and endangered servants in virginia would become a source of tension as time went on and eventually the indentured servitude system would be replaced altogether by another form of unfree labor african slavery the first enslaved africans in the british colonies arrived in 1619. and the institution would grow more popular among planters in the mid to late 1600s i'll be dedicating a later episode to the rise of african slavery in the americas but for today i want you to understand that it was the agricultural economy of the southern and chesapeake regions that drove the demand for indentured servants and later enslaved people political and personal belief systems in the colonies also developed as a function of the tobacco economy plantations were large so virginia settlements were spread out as a result a sense of community was generally lacking instead virginia colonists tended to be more individualistic and independent in more extreme cases southern colonists developed an aversion to outsiders altogether the spread out settlements also reduced the practical role that local government could play in everyday life the southerners grew accustomed to this general lack of government involvement and a weariness of big government remains a hallmark characteristic of southern and rural america even to this day so we can see that the chesapeake's demographic patterns labor systems social structure and even political preferences were all connected to the agricultural economy that developed in the region which remember was a function of the region's geographic features now there's one other aspect of colonial society in the chesapeake that we need to discuss and it's laid out in our fourth big idea relations with the native americans of the chesapeake oscillated between fragile peace and open conflict and unlike in the spanish colonies british and native societies remained largely segregated in our discussion of new spain we learned that the spanish colonists often intermarried with native americans their social caste system even had a separate category for the so-called mestizos the children of these unions while this mixing of race and cultures sometimes occurred in the british colonies it was much rarer by and large british colonial society and native american societies remained separated but this does not mean they always coexisted on the contrary conflict between native americans and british colonists was a staple of colonial life and the root of that conflict was almost always land the virginia tidewater region was home to the powhatan tribe when jamestown was established the powhatan made contact with the company's governor john smith but the peace between the two sides soon disintegrated the europeans in powhatan had very different ideas about how the two groups might interact captain smith envisioned the indigenous people as a labor source as was common in the spanish colonies chief powhatan on the other hand believed the europeans would become workers under his rule making metal tools in exchange for food neither side was keen to become the other's labor source so conflict ensued the powhatan and virginias fought a series of three wars between 1610 and 1646. the first was short-lived and ended with a marriage of pocahontas to john rolfe yeah the tobacco guy not john smith like in the disney movie the second anglo-powhatan war began in 1622 as the colony was expanding and europeans occupied more of the native's land the tribe hoped that a surprise attack on the colonists would drive them back to europe but the europeans held their ground the virginia company continued to encroach on traditional tribal lands and european diseases like smallpox decimated the native population in virginia as it had in the spanish colonies the powhatan made their final stand in 1644 but after the british captured and executed the leader of the confederacy the powhatan were forced off their ancestral lands for good so let's circle back to today's big question about geography and colonial life in the chesapeake without question the geography of the chesapeake was the principal factor in the rise of virginia's agricultural economy virginia was male dominated light on families spread out dependent on unfree labor and suspicious of government and all of these features were functions of the tobacco industry there on the other hand the distinct social classes in virginia the planter aristocracy at the top the indentured servants bound by their debt at the bottom that was a european construct one that reflected english society in the 17th century and the racism that fueled the institution of african slavery and the conflict with native americans was also something that colonists brought with them from europe the chesapeake colonies provide a fascinating case study for this reason the society that emerged there was neither purely old nor new it was an adaptation of the two an adaptation that we might just call american next time we'll take a closer look at unfree labor systems in the american colonies including the one that will forever scar the united states of america african slavery see you then you