• British colonies

• The first British colony in North America was founded at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1607 a group of people contained
hundred men set out for the Chesapeake Bay. To put an end to conflict with the Spanish this colony settled in a
territory which was 60 km up the James River from the bay. They intended to find gold in the new land. The settlement
was financed by a London company which expected to get a profit from the settlement. The group was not ready to
begin a new jive because they faced with starvation, Indian attacks and quarrels. Under John Smith the little colony
began to vivify. Firstly he enforced discipline in that colony in its first year. But anarchy reigned in the colony when John
returned to England in 1609. During the winter of 1609-1610 the colonists great in number died of hunger and disease.
In May 1610 the town of Henrico (now Richmond) was established farther up the James River.
• Gradually Virginia’s economy developed on account of tobacco trade. The Virginians earned money by growing
tobacco which the first shipment of this tobacco reached London in 1614. So it had become Virginia’s chief source of
revenue. Between 1607 and 1624 about 14,000 people migrated to the colony. In 1624 the king dissolved the Virginia
Company and made it a royal colony.
• In the XVI century a group of men and women who are called Puritans settled in New England (the north-eastern
region of US). They wanted to establish a colony based on their own religious ideals. Their first demand was that many
practices and rituals connected with Roman Catholicism should be replaced by ordinary Protestant forms of faith and
worship. A radical group of Puritans thought that the Established Church of England was beyond the chance of
reformation and in 1607 they went to Leyden, Holland. They were given asylums and some of them were provided
with low-paid jobs. But other members took offence with this discrimination and decided to go to the New World.
• In November 1620, one group of Puritans, called the Pilgrims set out for Virginia in the ship Mayflower. Because of heavy storm they were obliged to
settle in New England. These Pilgrims intended to live sacred lives according to biblical commands and together with it they aimed at building a ”city upon
a hill”. The idea put forward by John Winthrop. On the ship Mayflower they reached Plymouth, Massachusetts in December, 1620. In the same year with
the participation of Winthrop 41 settles accepted their charter. It was called «Mayflower Compact». So this colony’s government set up in Massachusetts,
not in England. About half of the Pilgrims died of diseases and they began to grow maize as Indians did. The next autumn they collected a lot of corn.
Besides they enlarged the trade with furs and lumber. After the adoption of «Mayflower Compact» the Puritans agreed that once a government had been
established, they would obey the commands of its leaders. The charter guaranteed the Puritans to be the dominant political as well as religious force in
the colony and the General Court elected John Winthrop as a governor.
• In 1630 by the direction of King Charles I the new immigrants arrived on the shores of Massachusetts Bay to establish a colony as a large Puritan colony
– the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the prosperity of the New England region.
• But not everybody liked the rigid orthodoxy of the Puritan rule. A young clergy man named Roger Williams objected to colony’s relations with the
Church of England. He purchased land from the Narragansett Indians is now Rhode Island, 1636. In this island he established the first American colony
where complete separation of Church and state as well as freedom of religion was practiced. By the 1630s Orthodox Puritans tried to overcome the
danger of Indians attack to obtain level ground and deep, rich soil. Other settlements began to appear along the New Hampshire and Maine coasts,
because immigrants looked for the land and liberty the New World offered them.
• The Mayflower Compact

• We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France
and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc.
• Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the
First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually n the presence of God and one of another, Covenant
and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by
virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be
thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, into which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness
whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James,
of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini 1620.
• Over time, the British colonies in North America were also occupied by many non-British national groups. In 1609 Henry Hudson explored the
area around what is now New York City. Successive Dutch voyages caused early settlements in the area. Their aim like the French was to provide
fur trade. In 1617 Dutch settlers constructed a fort at the junction of the Hudson and the Mohawk Rivers, where Albany now is situated. In 1619
African slaves first arrived in Virginia. Settlement on the Manhattan Island began in the early 1620s. In 1626, Dutch settlers purchased it from
local Indians for $24 and it was renamed New Amsterdam. To involve settlers to the Hudson River region, the Dutch created the “patron” system.
It was a king of feudal aristocracy. It was such a system a patron or stockholder who could bring fifty adults to his estate over a four-year period
was given a 25-kilometer river-front plot, exclusive fishing and hunting privileges, civil and criminal jurisdiction over his lands. Besides he
provided tools and buildings. The tenants paid the patron rent and gave him first option on surplus crops.
• During this period New Sweden was gradually absorbed into New Netherland, later Pennsylvania. A charter for land was accepted by the
Calvert family in 1632 which became known as Maryland. The family incited fellow Catholics to settle in this area because the charter didn’t
prohibit the establishment of non-Protestant churches. Maryland’s first town, St. Mary’s was established in 1634 hear where the Potomac River
flows into the Chesapeake River. The Calverts also aimed at creating profitable estates and to get rid of trouble with the British government they
also encouraged Protestant immigration. One after another independent farms appeared and their owners demanded a voice in the affairs of the
colony. So Maryland’s first legislature met in 1635.
• Facts about British Colonies

• In 1578 Humphrey Gilbert, the author of a treatise o the search for

Northwest Passage, received a patent from Queen Elizabeth to colonize
the «heathen and barbarous lands» in the New World which other
European nations had not yet claimed. It would be five years before his
efforts could begin. When he was lost at sea, his half-brother, Walter
Raleigh, took up the mission. In 1585 Water established the first British
colony in North America on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina.
It was later abandoned, and a second effort two years later also proved a
failure. It would be 20 yeas before the British would try again. This time, at
Jamestown in 1607 the colony would succeed, and North America would
enter a new era.