Lesson 1: Jamestown and the Southern Colonies

Lesson Focus

Explore England's shift from piracy to organized colonization after 1600. We'll see how naval power, financing, and a population seeking opportunity led to the first permanent English colonies in America.

People to Know

Captain John Smith, John Rolfe, Lord Baltimore

Learning Objectives

• Explain how Virginia’s environment shaped its early settlement, economy, and lifestyle, from swampy beginnings to agricultural success.
• Describe the economic drivers, like the tobacco trade and demand for labor, that fueled the growth of the Southern Colonies.

After early failures like the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke, England’s King James I chartered the Virginia Company to establish a new settlement.
In 1607, settlers founded Jamestown, but the swampy site led to disease, and a focus on finding gold over farming led to starvation.
Despite Captain John Smith’s leadership, the colony suffered through the “starving time” (1609–1610), where a vast majority of the colonists died, nearly ending the entire venture.

The Jamestown colony was failing to produce profits for the Virginia Company.
In 1612, John Rolfe introduced a popular West Indies strain of tobacco, which quickly became a valuable cash crop in high demand in England.
This shift transformed Virginia into a profitable agricultural economy. Pay special attention to how this created a massive demand for labor to work the fields, leading to the recruitment of thousands of new settlers.

Virginia's tobacco plantations required a large, inexpensive workforce.
Initially, the colony relied on indentured servants, who worked for a set period to pay for their passage. However, in 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived. Virginia law first recognized slavery in 1661.
By 1670, changing economic conditions made enslaved Africans more desirable than servants. Note that a 1662 law made slavery a permanent, inherited condition, creating a race-based labor system.

Low tobacco prices and conflicts with Indians angered poor frontier farmers and former indentured servants.
In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led these angry colonists in a revolt against the government, which they felt only protected wealthy planters. They even burned Jamestown before the rebellion collapsed.
As a result, wealthy planters grew fearful of rebellions from landless freemen and increasingly relied on enslaved people, whom they could control more easily, accelerating the growth of slavery.

The economic success of Virginia inspired English nobles to create more colonies.
In 1632, Lord Baltimore founded Maryland as a refuge for Catholics, which led to the Religious Toleration Act of 1649. In 1663, King Charles II granted a charter for Carolina to eight proprietors.
These new southern colonies expanded England's territory in America. Like Virginia, they developed economies based on agriculture and plantation farming, though each had unique social and political characteristics.

The King of England granted colonists the same rights as English citizens.
Initially, an appointed governor ruled Virginia with absolute power. However, in 1619, the London Company allowed settlers to form the House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in America, giving them a voice in government.
Over time, the House of Burgesses gained significant influence, including the “power of the purse” to control officials' salaries, establishing a tradition of self-government in the colonies.