Foundations Of The Atlantic World - Jamestown

COLONIZATION AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION HIST 1301 | History Jamestown After Roanoke Island, joint stock corporations were established to supply English colonial activities with better finance than the English crown could provide. Similar to a contemporary corporation, a joint stock firm sold investors shares in order to obtain money for its projects. The business then carried out activities, such as colonisation projects in the Americas, using the combined capital. Although they could not lose more than their initial investment and were not held legally responsible for the firm's decisions, shareholders may make significant gains if the joint stock business was successful. The combination of restricted liability with the promise of substantial profits made joint stock companies an alluring investment for members of England’s burgeoning merchant class, and the businesses generated significant quantities of money beginning in the early 1600s. England encouraged colonisation for political and religious purposes, but because of its financial dependence on private investors, the initiative was frequently diverted into lucrative endeavours. 144 men and boys were transported to North America by the Virginia business, a joint stock business founded in 1606 and named for Queen Elizabeth, often regarded as the "virgin queen" due to her single status. On the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in what is now Virginia, these immigrants established Jamestown in 1607, naming it after the newly installed English monarch, James I. The younger sons of wealthy families, who were keen to avoid losing the property that their elder brothers had claimed in England, made up a large number of the settlers. Many others were craftsmen, such as jewellers and goldsmiths, unaccustomed to the arduous physical labour needed to establish a colony on a new continent. Like many other Europeans in the 1600s and 1700s, the Jamestown settlers based their economic theories on mercantilism, an economic theory that holds that global wealth, expressed in gold and silver, is limited and that, as a result, a country's increase in wealth corresponds to a nation's loss. Mercantilist countries anticipated that their colonies would buy things from the home nation in exchange for exporting raw materials, most notably precious metals like gold and silver, back to the colony. The English government was hoping that the Virginia Company would locate gold in order to boost the country's riches and trade balances. Many at Jamestown likewise dreamed of striking gold, which would make them wealthy without requiring them to work hard or endure any hardships. The lack of mineral richness in the area prevented the Jamestown immigrants from finding gold, but they did discover misery from famine, sickness, harsh weather, internal political unrest, and wars with the Powhatan tribe (named for its chief). The Powhatans came to despise the immigrants for bringing bloodshed and illness to their country. Known as "the starving time," the winter of 1609–1610 claimed the lives of many colonists. Less than a hundred people remained by May 1610, and the colony—which had not turned a profit for the Virginia Company—was on the verge of collapse. Tobacco farming did, however, bring prosperity and success to the early colonists in Virginia. Despite the challenging working conditions and long hours required, Jamestown started exporting tobacco to Europe in 1614, generating revenue for the Virginia Company. In Europe, smoking the plant's extremely addictive dried leaves became commonplace. English colonists struggled to produce agricultural commodities with just their own labour, just as their competitors the Spanish. Rather, they were mostly dependent on indentured servants, European immigrants who usually accepted a four- to seven-year labour contract in exchange for colony transportation and the prospect of starting a new life at completion of their service. Indentured slaves from up to 100,000 people—mostly impoverished men in their twenties—went to the English colonies in the 1600s. Many perished from illness, exposure, and overwork, but those who made it through their time of duty frequently developed into respectable and generally comfortable citizens of the expanding communities. A few lucky ones even made it big as plantation owners. The first Africans came to Virginia around 1619. At first, they had the same chances as European immigrants to gain their freedom and amass fortune, but things rapidly went south for them. They were a part of a movement that started a century ago when the Spanish and Portuguese brought the first Africans to the Americas. By the mid-1600s, American rules were taking shape that would bind Africans to life in slavery, in contrast to European indentured servants who were liberated at the end of their contract. Similar to their counterparts in Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, European colonists in Virginia looked for means to keep a steady labour supply, particularly as it became impossible to get enough indentured workers from Europe. Too much opposition would have existed to force other Europeans to labour under duress. When a rising group of disgruntled, impoverished White former servants attempted to topple the colony's government in 1676, Virginia's aristocracy tried to find a solution by creating legal divisions between those of European and African heritage. In addition to denying Africans of their independence, they pushed European settlers to view Africans as lesser beings best suited for physical labour by giving White people benefits that Black people were not granted. In this way, racial divides that had not existed previously were established, and slavery began to be connected with African heritage. The foundation upon which the colonial labour system was constructed was racism. The Virginia legislature outlawed the carrying of weapons, public assembly, and unapproved travel by African slaves in 1680, passing "an act for preventing Negroes Insurrections." In Virginia and the other English colonies built in the southern region of what would become the United States, extending from Maryland, the colony founded as a shelter for English Catholics immediately north of Virginia, to Georgia, enslaved Africans became the main source of forced labour. Only in 1865, following a bloody civil war and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, did slavery in the United States come to an end. In other countries of the Western Hemisphere, slavery persisted; Brazil did not outlaw it until 1888.