5086 (British Colonization: 1580s to 1760s)
First Great Awakening (1730s-1740s)
A Christian revitalization movement that swept Protestant Europe and British America, and especially the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, leaving a permanent impact on American religion. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of deep personal revelation of their need of salvation by Jesus Christ. Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, it made Christianity intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality. It brought Christianity to African slaves and was a monumental event in New England that challenged established authority. It incited rancor and division between old traditionalists who insisted on the continuing importance of ritual and doctrine, and the new revivalists, who encouraged emotional involvement and personal commitment. It had a major impact in reshaping the Congregational church, the Presbyterian church, the Dutch Reformed Church, and the German Reformed denomination, and strengthened the small Baptist and Methodist denominations. It had little impact on Anglicans and Quakers.
Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643)
A Puritan woman, spiritual adviser, mother of 15, and important participant in the Antinomian Controversy that shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Her strong religious convictions were at odds with the established Puritan clergy in the Boston area, and her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism that threatened to destroy the Puritans' religious experiment in New England. She was eventually tried and convicted, then banished from the colony with many of her supporters. Born in Alford, Lincolnshire, England, she was the daughter of Francis Marbury, an Anglican minister and school teacher who gave her a far better education than most girls received. She lived in London as a young adult, and married there an old friend from home, William Hutchinson, after which the couple moved back to Alford where they began following the dynamic preacher named John Cotton in the nearby town of Boston, Lincolnshire. After Cotton was compelled to emigrate in 1633, the Hutchinsons followed a year later with their 11 living children, and soon became well established in the growing settlement of Boston in New England. She was a midwife, and very helpful to those needing her assistance, as well as forthcoming with her personal religious understandings. Soon she was hosting women at her house weekly, providing commentary on recent sermons, and these meetings became so popular, that she offered meetings for men as well, to include the young governor of the colony, Henry Vane. As a follower of Cotton, she espoused a "covenant of grace," while accusing all of the local ministers (except for Cotton and her husband's brother-in-law, John Wheelwright) of preaching a "covenant of works." Following complaints of many ministers about the opinions coming from her and her allies, the situation erupted into what is known as the Antinomian Controversy, resulting in her 1637 trial, conviction, and banishment from the colony, followed by a March 1638 church trial. With encouragement from Roger Williams, She and many of her supporters established the settlement of Portsmouth in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. After her husband's death a few years later, threats of Massachusetts taking over Rhode Island compelled her to move totally outside the reach of Boston, into the lands of the Dutch where she settled with her younger children near an ancient landmark called Split Rock in what later became Bronx, New York City. Tensions with the native Siwanoy were high at the time, and in August 1643, She and all but one of the 16 members of her household were massacred during an attack, the only survivor being nine-year old Susanna Hutchinson who was taken captive. She is a key figure in the study of the development of religious freedom in England's American colonies and the history of women in ministry. She challenged the authority of the ministers, exposing the subordination of women in the culture of colonial Massachusetts. She is honoured by Massachusetts with a State House monument calling her a "courageous exponent of civil liberty and religious toleration." Her well-publicised trials and the accusations against her make her the most famous, or infamous, English woman in colonial American history.
Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693)
A series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. The preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town.
Jamestown (1607)
A settlement in the Colony of Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14, 1607, it followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. It served as the capital of the colony for 83 years (from 1616 until 1699). The settlement was located within the territory of a political entity known as Tsenacommacah, the state of the Powhatan Confederacy, with around 14,000 native inhabitants, and specifically was in part of the subdivision known as the Paspahegh tribe. The natives initially welcomed the colonists with dancing, feasting and tobacco ceremonies, and they provided crucial provisions and support for the survival of the colonists, who were not agriculturally inclined, although relations with the newcomers also soured fairly early on, leading to the total annihilation of the Paspahegh in warfare within 3 years.
William III (1650-1702)
A sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange (Dutch: Willem III van Oranje) over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland. By coincidence, his regnal number (III) was the same for both Orange and England. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is informally known by sections of the population in Northern Ireland and Scotland as "King Billy". In what became known as the "Glorious Revolution", on 5 November 1688 William invaded England in an action that ultimately deposed King James II & VII and won him the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland. In the British Isles, William ruled jointly with his wife, Mary II, until her death on 28 December 1694. The period of their joint reign is often referred to as "William and Mary".
John Smith (1580-1631)
Admiral of New England was an English soldier, explorer, and author. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Bathory, Prince of Transylvania and his friend Mózes Székely. He was considered to have played an important part in the establishment of the first permanent English settlement in North America. He was a leader of the Virginia Colony (based at Jamestown) between September 1608 and August 1609, and led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay. He was the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area and New England. His books and maps are considered extremely important in encouraging and supporting English colonization of the New World. He gave the name New England to that region and encouraged people to migrate by noting, "Here every man may be master and owner of his owne labour and land...If he have nothing but his hands, he may...by industrie quickly grow rich." When Jamestown was England's first permanent fort in the New World, he trained the settlers to farm and work, thus saving the colony from early devastation. He publicly stated "he who shall not work, shall not eat." His courage and tenacity overcame many adverse situations in a new land. This strength of character and determination overcome problems presented from the hostile Indians, the wilderness and the troublesome and uncooperative English settlers. Harsh weather, lack of water, living in a swampy wilderness, English unwillingness to work, and attacks from the Powhatan nation almost destroyed the colony.
King William's War (1688-1697)
Also known as the Second Indian War and Castin's War, it was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (also known as the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg). It was the first of six colonial wars fought between New France and New England along with their respective Native allies before Britain eventually defeated France in North America in 1763. For this war, neither England nor France thought of weakening their position in Europe to support the war effort in North America. New France and the Wabanaki Confederacy were able to thwart New England expansion into Acadia, whose border New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine.According to the terms of the Treaty of Ryswick, the boundaries and outposts of New France, New England, and New York remained substantially unchanged.
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1636)
An American colony of English settlers founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a theologian, independent preacher, and linguist on land gifted by the Narragansett sachem, Canonicus. Williams, exiled from religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, agreed with his fellow settlers on an egalitarian constitution providing for majority rule "in civil things" and liberty of conscience. He named the colony Providence Plantation, believing that God had brought him and his followers there. Williams named the other islands in the Narragansett Bay after virtues: Patience Island, Prudence Island and Hope Island.
Roger Williams (1603-1683)
An English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America, the First Baptist Church of Providence. He was a student of Native American languages and an advocate for fair dealings with Native Americans. He was arguably the very first abolitionist in North America, having organized the first attempt to prohibit slavery in any of the original thirteen colonies.
Province of New York (1664)
An English and later British crown territory that originally included all of the present U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, along with inland portions of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, as well as eastern Pennsylvania. The majority of this land was soon reassigned by the Crown, leaving territory that included the valleys of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, and Vermont. The territory of western upstate New York was Iroquois land, also disputed between the English colonies and New France, and that of Vermont was disputed with the Province of New Hampshire. The province resulted from the surrender of Provincie Nieuw-Nederland by the Dutch Republic to the Kingdom of England in 1664. Immediately after, the province was renamed for James, Duke of York, brother of Charles II of England. The territory was one of the Middle Colonies, and ruled at first directly from England.
Plymouth Colony (1620)
An English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, it occupied most of the southeastern portion of the modern state of Massachusetts. Founded by a group of Separatists and Anglicans, who together later came to be known as the Pilgrims, it was, along with Jamestown, Virginia, one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America and the first sizable permanent English settlement in the New England region. Aided by Squanto, a Native American of the Patuxet people, the colony was able to establish a treaty with Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure the colony's success. It played a central role in King Philip's War, one of the earliest of the Indian Wars. Ultimately, the colony was merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)
An English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Born into the middle gentry, he was relatively obscure for the first 40 years of his life. After undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, he became an independent puritan, taking a generally (but not completely) tolerant view towards the many Protestant sects of his period. An intensely religious man—a self-styled Puritan Moses—he fervently believed that God was guiding his victories. He was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649 and as a member of the Rump Parliament (1649-53) he dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England. He was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland during 1649-50. His forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country - bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. During this period a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics (a significant minority in England and Scotland but the vast majority in Ireland), and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. He also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651. On 20 April 1653 he dismissed the Rump Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as the Barebones Parliament, before being invited by his fellow leaders to rule as Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland from 16 December 1653. As a ruler he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. After his death in 1658 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, but after the Royalists returned to power in 1660 they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded. England's American colonies in this period consisted of the New England Confederation, the Providence Plantation, the Virginia Colony and the Maryland Colony. He soon secured the submission of these and largely left them to their own affairs, intervening only to curb his fellow Puritans who were usurping control over the Maryland Colony at the Battle of the Severn, by his confirming the former Catholic proprietorship and edict of tolerance there. Of all the English dominions, Virginia was the most resentful of his rule, and Cavalier emigration there mushroomed during the Protectorate.
The Pequot War (1634-1638)
An armed conflict spanning the years 1634-1638 between the Pequot tribe against an alliance of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies who were aided by their Native American allies (the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes). Hundreds were killed; hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery to the West Indies. Other survivors were dispersed. At the end of the war, about seven hundred Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. The result was the elimination of the Pequot as a viable polity in what is present-day Southern New England. It would take the Pequot more than three and a half centuries to regain political and economic power in their traditional homeland region along the Pequot (present-day Thames) and Mystic rivers in what is now southeastern Connecticut.
Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629)
An English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions of the U.S. states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Territory claimed but never administered by the colonial government extended as far west as the Pacific Ocean. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance was dominated by a small group of leaders who were strongly influenced by Puritan religious leaders. Although its governors were elected, the electorate were limited to freemen, who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted to their church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership exhibited intolerance to other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies. Although the colonists initially had decent relationships with the local native populations, frictions arose over cultural differences, which were further exacerbated by Dutch colonial expansion. These led first to the Pequot War (1636-1638), and then to King Philip's War (1675-1676), after which most of the natives in southern New England had been pacified, killed, or driven away. The colony was economically successful, engaging in trade with England and the West Indies. A shortage of hard currency in the colony prompted it to establish a mint in 1652. Ongoing political difficulties with England after the English Restoration led to the revocation of the colonial charter in 1684; King James II established the Dominion of New England in 1686 to bring all of the New England colonies under firmer crown control. The dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James, and the colony reverted to rule under the revoked charter until 1692, when Sir William Phips arrived bearing the charter of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which combined the Massachusetts Bay territories with those of the Plymouth Colony and proprietary holdings on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
Queen Anne's War (1702-1713)
As the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession was known in the British colonies, was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought between France and England, later Great Britain, in North America for control of the continent. The War of the Spanish Succession was primarily fought in Europe. In addition to the two main combatants, the war also involved numerous Native American tribes allied with each nation, and Spain, which was allied with France. It was also known as the Third Indian War. The war was fought on three fronts: Spanish Florida against the Carolinas, The English colonies of New England fought with French and Indian forces based in Acadia and Canada, and On Newfoundland, English colonists based at St. John's disputed control of the island with the French based at Plaisance. Following a preliminary peace in 1712, the Treaty of Utrecht ended the war in 1713. It resulted in the French cession of claims to the territories of Hudson Bay, Acadia, and Newfoundland to Britain, while retaining Cape Breton and other islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Some of its terms were ambiguous, and concerns of various Indian tribes were not included in the treaty, setting the stage for future conflicts.
Providence of Pennsylvania (1681)
Founded in British America by William Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted by King Charles II. The name, which translates roughly as "Penn's Woods", was created by combining the Penn surname (in honor of William's father, Admiral Sir William Penn) with the Latin word sylvania, meaning "forest land". The proprietary colony's charter remained in the hands of the Penn family until the American Revolution. The colonial government, established in 1682 by Penn's Frame of Government, consisted of an appointed Governor, the proprietor (Penn), a 72-member Provincial Council, and a larger General Assembly. The General Assembly, also known as the Provincial Assembly, was the largest and most representative branch of government, but had little power.
Charles II (1630-1685)
His father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. Although the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed him King of Great Britain and Ireland in Edinburgh on 6 February 1649, the English Parliament instead passed a statute that made any such proclamation unlawful. England entered the period known as the English Interregnum or the English Commonwealth, and the country was a de facto republic, led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell defeated him at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, and he fled to mainland Europe. Cromwell became virtual dictator of England, Scotland and Ireland. He spent the next nine years in exile in France, the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands. A political crisis that followed the death of Cromwell in 1658 resulted in the restoration of the monarchy, and he was invited to return to Britain. On 29 May 1660, his 30th birthday, he was received in London to public acclaim. After 1660, all legal documents were dated as if he had succeeded his father as king in 1649.
James II (1633-1701)
King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Roman Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Members of Britain's political and religious elite increasingly opposed him for being pro-French and pro-Catholic, and for his designs on becoming an absolute monarch. When he produced a Catholic heir, the tension exploded, and leading nobles called on William III of Orange (his son-in-law and nephew) to land an invasion army from the Netherlands, which he did. He fled England (and thus was held to have abdicated) in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He lived out the rest of his life as a pretender at a court sponsored by his cousin and ally, King Louis XIV.
Charles I (1600-1649)
King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which he believed was divinely ordained. Many of his English subjects opposed his actions, in particular his interference in the English and Scottish churches and the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, because they saw them as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch. The Colony of Carolina in North America - which later separated into North Carolina and South Carolina - was named after Charles I, as was its major city of Charleston. To the north in the Virginia Colony, Cape Charles, Charles River Shire and the Charles City Shire were all likewise named after him, although the king personally named the Charles River.
George I (1660-1727)
King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death, and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) in the Holy Roman Empire from 1698.
George II (1683-1760)
King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death. He was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany.
James VI and I (1566-1625)
King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of England and Scotland were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. In his reign, British colonization of the Americas began.
Connecticut Colony (1636)
Originally known as the River Colony, it was organized on March 3, 1636 as a haven for Puritan noblemen. After early struggles with the Dutch, the English gained control of the colony permanently by the late 1630s. The colony was later the scene of a bloody war between the English and Indians, known as the Pequot War. It played a significant role in the establishment of self-government in the New World with its legendary refusal to surrender local authority to the Dominion of New England, an event known as the Charter Oak incident which occurred at Jeremy Adams' inn & tavern. Two other English colonies in the present-day state of Connecticut were merged into the Colony of Connecticut: Saybrook Colony in 1644 and New Haven Colony in 1662.
Queen Anne (1665-1714)
She ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain. Her Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. Her Protestant brother-in-law and cousin William III became joint monarch with his wife, her sister Mary II. After Mary's death in 1694, William continued as sole monarch until he was succeeded by her upon his own death in 1702. She favoured moderate Tory politicians, who were more likely to share her Anglican religious views than their opponents, the Whigs. The Whigs grew more powerful during the course of the War of the Spanish Succession, until in 1710 she dismissed many of them from office. Her close friendship with Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, turned sour as the result of political differences. Despite seventeen pregnancies, she died without surviving children and was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. She was succeeded by her second cousin George I of the House of Hanover, who was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of James VI and I.
King Philip's War (1675-1678)
Sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, it was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675-78. The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet, known to the English as "King Philip". Major Benjamin Church emerged as the Puritan hero of the war; it was his company of Puritan rangers and Native American allies that finally hunted down and killed Metacom on August 12, 1676. The war continued in northern New England (primarily in Maine at the New England and Acadia border) until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678. The war was the single greatest calamity to occur in seventeenth-century Puritan New England. In the space of little more than a year, twelve of the region's towns were destroyed and many more damaged, the colony's economy was all but ruined, and much of its population was killed, including one-tenth of all men available for military service. Proportionately, it was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in the history of North America. More than half of New England's towns were attacked by Native American warriors. Nearly all the English colonies in America were settled without any significant English government support, as they were used chiefly as a safety valve to minimize religious and other conflicts in England. The war was the beginning of the development of a greater American identity, for the colonists' trials, without significant British government support, gave them a group identity separate and distinct from subjects of the Parliament of England and the Crown in England.
Roanoke Colony (1585)
The colony in Dare County, present-day North Carolina, United States was a late 16th-century attempt to establish a permanent English settlement in what later became the Virginia Colony. 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. Their disappearance gave rise to the nickname "The Lost Colony."
Province of Georgia (1732)
The colony's corporate charter was granted to General James Oglethorpe on April 21, 1732, by George II, for whom the colony was named. The charter was finalized by the King's privy council on June 9, 1732. Oglethorpe envisioned a colony which would serve as a haven for debtors. An earlier grant to three Montgormery brothers was forfeited when they failed to establish a permanent colony, largely as a result of disease in the marshy area they chose to develop. General Oglethorpe made very strict laws that many colonists disagreed with, such as being alcohol-free. Oglethorpe envisioned the province as a location for the resettlement of English debtors and "the worthy poor". Another motivation for the founding of the colony was as a "buffer state" (border), or "garrison province" that would defend the southern part of the British colonies from Spanish Florida. Oglethorpe imagined a province populated by "sturdy farmers" that could guard the border; because of this, the colony's charter prohibited slavery.
French and Indian War (1754-1763)
The name for the North American theater of the Seven Years' War. The war was fought primarily between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France. In 1756, the war escalated from a regional affair into a world-wide conflict. In Canada, some historians refer to the conflict as simply the Seven Years' War, although French Canadians often call it La guerre de la Conquête ("The War of Conquest"). In Europe, there is no specific name for the North American part of the war. The name refers to the two main enemies of the British colonists: the royal French forces and the various Native American forces allied with them, although Great Britain also had Native allies.
Province of Maryland (1632)
The province began as a proprietary colony of the English Lord Baltimore, who wished to create a haven for English Catholics in the new world at the time of the European wars of religion. Although Maryland was an early pioneer of religious toleration in the English colonies, religious strife among Anglicans, Puritans, Catholics, and Quakers was common in the early years, and Puritan rebels briefly seized control of the province. In 1689, the year following the Glorious Revolution, John Coode led a Protestant rebellion that expelled Lord Baltimore from power in Maryland. Power in the colony was restored to the family in 1715 when Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, swore publicly that he was a Protestant. Despite early competition with the colony of Virginia to its south, and the Dutch colony of New Netherland to its north, the Province of Maryland developed along very similar lines to Virginia. Its early settlements and populations centers tended to cluster around the rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay and, like Virginia, Maryland's economy quickly became centered around the farming of tobacco for sale in Europe. The need for cheap labor, and later with the mixed farming economy that developed when tobacco prices collapsed, led to a rapid expansion of indentured servitude and, later, forcible immigration and enslavement of Africans.
Bacon's Rebellion (1676)
Virginia Colony Nathaniel Bacon Gov. William Berkeley King Charles II Discontented yeoman farmers wishing to move in on Indian lands and upset with Gov. Berkeley's friendly policies toward's Indians and his reluctance to retaliate against a series of Indian raids against frontier settlements. Jamestown was burned to the ground Sept. 19, 1676. Bacon died of dysentery on Oct. 26, 1676 before retribution from British forces. King Charles II relieved Berkeley of his governorship. Indentured servants both black and white joined the frontier rebellion. Seeing them united in a cause alarmed the ruling class. Historians believe the rebellion hastened the hardening of racial lines associated with slavery, as a way for planters and the colony to control some of the poor. "Declaration of the People of Virginia" (July 30, 1676)
John Rolfe (1585-1622)
Was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.