The first colonies in North America were along the eastern coast. Settlers from Spain, France, Sweden, Holland, and England claimed land beginning in the 17th century. The struggle for control of this land would continue for more than a hundred years.
The first permanent settlement in North America was the English colony at Jamestown, in 1607, in what is now Virginia. John Smith and company had come to stay. The Pilgrims followed, in 1620, and set up a colony at Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts.
Other English colonies sprang up all along the Atlantic coast, from Maine in the north to Georgia in the south. Swedish and Dutch colonies took shape in and around what is now New York.
As more and more people arrived in the New World, more and more disputes arose over territory. Many wars were fought in the 1600s and 1700s. Soon, the two countries with the largest presence were England and France.
The two nations fought for control of North America in what Americans call the French and Indian War (1754-1763). England won the war and got control of Canada, as well as keeping control of all the English colonies.
By this time, the English colonies numbered 13. They were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Next page > Characteristics of the Colonies
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hi
10/10/2011 03:39:32 am
Founded: 1653 by Virginia colonists
Major Industry: Plantation agriculture (indigo, rice, tobacco)
Major Cities: Raleigh
Colony Named for: from Carolus, the Latin word for "Charles," Charles I of England
Became a State: November 21, 1789
More on Colonial North Carolina
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henry
10/10/2011 03:41:57 am
North Carolina
North Carolina came near being the first of the permanent English colonies in America. Five voyages were made under the Raleigh charter of 1584 with the view of planting a permanent colony on the soil that became North Carolina; but the effort ended in failure, and almost a century passed when other hands carried into effect the noble ambition of Raleigh. Again, the people who founded Virginia had intended to settle in the vicinity of Roanoke Island, but a storm changed their course, and the first colony was planted in the valley of the James.
The first settlements in North Carolina that were destined to live were made by Virginians in 1653, on the banks of the Chowan and Roanoke rivers, in a district called Albemarle from the Duke of Albemarle. A few years later men from New England made a settlement, which they soon abandoned, on the Cape Fear River. In 1665, Sir John Yeamans, an English nobleman of broken fortunes, came from the Barbadoes with a company of planters and joined the few New Englanders who had remained on the Cape Fear River. This district was called Clarendon.
Meantime Charles II had issued a charter, in 1663, granting to eight of his favorites the vast territory1 south of Virginia, and two years later the charter was enlarged and the boundaries defined and made to extend from twenty-nine degrees north latitude to thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, the southern boundary of Virginia, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the "South Sea," or Pacific Ocean, on the west. The grant embraced nearly all the southern portion of the present United States, and the government it created was, like that of Maryland, modeled after the palatinate of Durham. Of the eight men to whom the grant was made the leading spirit was Lord Ashley Cooper,2 afterward the Earl of Shaftesbury, whose name is still borne by the Ashley and Cooper rivers of South Carolina.
The new country had been named Carolina a hundred years before by Ribault, the Huguenot, in honor of Charles IX of France, 3 and the name was now retained in honor of Charles II of England.
An account of the first attempt to govern this colony fills a curious page in American history. Shaftesbury, who was unmatched as a theoretical politician, conceived a plan of government that seems ludicrous to the American reader of today. The plan was supposed to have been drawn up by John Locke, the philosopher, and was known as the Fundamental Constitutions, or the "Grand Model,"4 which proved to be grand only as a grand failure and a model only to be shunned by the liberty-loving American of the future. By this plan the essence of monarchy, of aristocratic rule in the extreme, was to be transplanted to America. It divided the land into counties, and for each county there was to be an earl and two barons who should own one fifth of the land while the proprietors retained another fifth. The remaining three fifths were reserved for the people as tenants, who were to be practically reduced to serfdom and denied the right of self-government. Its one good feature was its guarantee of religious liberty, though the Church of England was established by law.
But the settlers in North Carolina had found even the colonial governments too oppressive and had migrated deeper into the wilderness for the purpose of gaining a larger amount of freedom. Could they now accept such a government as proposed by Shaftesbury? Certainly not willingly; nor was it possible to enforce it, and after twenty odd years of futile attempts to do so, the whole plan was abandoned.
Sir William Berkeley, one of the proprietors and governor of Virginia, had appointed as governor of Albemarle, the northern portion of Carolina, William Drummond, a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, whom he afterward put to death for following Bacon. Samuel Stephens, succeeding Drummond in 1667, called an assembly to frame laws and erelong the settlement was in a steadily growing condition. A law was passed with a view of attracting settlers. It exempted all newcomers from paying taxes for a year, outlawed any debts they may have contracted elsewhere, and provided that for five years no one could be sued for any cause that might have arisen outside the colony. This plan had the effect of attracting many of a worthless class, so that the Albemarle settlement came to be known in Virginia as "Rogues' Harbor". Governor Stephens and his successor made strenuous but fruitless efforts to put the Fundamental Constitutions in force.
The Navigation Laws were later put into operation, and they greatly interfered with a lucative trade with New England. The people were heavily taxed and at length, in 1678, they broke out in an insurrection led by John Culpeper, who seized the government and held it for two years. This followed in the train of the Bacon Rebellion in Virginia.
The proprietors next sent Seth Sothel, now a member of the company, to govern the colony. Sothel proved to be a knav
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henry
10/10/2011 03:42:49 am
North Carolina and South Carolina were twin-born. Though settled at different times by different peoples, both were included in the famous charter of 1663, both were intended to be governed by the Grand Model, and as they were not separated politically until 1729, their histories run parallel for many years, and much that we have said of the one will apply to her twin sister to the south.1
It was the shores of South Carolina that Ribault, under the direction of the great Coligny, had attempted to settle with a colony of Frenchmen, but failed, and now, after a hundred years had passed, it was left for the English to lay the permanent foundations for a commonwealth. The first English settlement was made in 1670, when William Sayle sailed up the Ashley River with three shiploads of English emigrants from the Barbados, and they pitched their tents on its banks and built a town, which has since wholly disappeared. In 1671, Sir John Yeamans, whom we have met in North Carolina, joined the colony, bringing with him about two hundred African slaves, and ere this year had closed two ships bearing Dutch emigrants arrived from New York. Ten years after the first settlers arrived, a more favorable site for the chief town being desired, a point between the Cooper and Ashley riverts was chose, and here Charleston was founded in 1680.
South Carolina differs from most of the colonies in not having had to battle against impending dissolution during its first years of existence, and from all the others in depending largely on slave labor from the beginning.
Popular government found a footing in South Carolina from the first. Scarcely had the first immigrants landed when a popular assembly began to frame laws on the basis of libery. Sayle was their leader and first governor, but he soon died and was succeeded by Yeamans, who ruled for four years, when he was dismissed for having enriched himself at the expense of the people. Yeamans was followed by John West, an able and honorable man, who held the office for nine years. In 1690 the notorious Sothel, who had been driven from North Carolina, came to South Carolina, usurped the government, and began his career of plunder; but the people soon rose against him and he was forced to flee. After this, several of the governors were common to both North and South Carolina.
No attempt was made during the early years of the colony to introduce the Fundamental Constitutions; but when, about 1687, a vigorous effort was made to do so, the people resisted it, basing their rights on the clause in the charter which conferred the right of making laws on the proprietors only "by and with the advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen." The people were determined in their resistance; they refused to be trampled by the heel of tyranny; their very breath had been the pure air of liberty. The contest covered several years, and the people won. That abortive "model" of government was at last set aside and no attempt was ever again made to enforce it in America.2
Prosperity now began to dawn on the twin colonies as it had not done before. About this time came the wise Archdale as governor, and he was followed by Joseph Blake, a man of like integrity and wisdom, a nephew of the great admiral of that name. The close of the century was marked by the coming of the Huguenots to South Carolina. In 1598 the sovereign of France, "King Henry of Navarre," had issued the "Edict of Nantes," granting toleration to the Protestants or Huguenots of his kingdom. This edict was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV the Huguenots were not only forbidden to worship God in their own way, but also forbidden to leave their country on pain of death. Many, however, probably half a million, escaped from the land of their cruel king and settled in various parts of the world. They were a noble and intelligent people, who "had the virtues of the English Puritans without their bigotry," and their coming to America infused into colonial life another element of stanchness of character that was felt all through colonial days. Among their descendants we find such men as Paul Revere, Peter Faneuil, and John Jay. These people were at first coldly received on the shores of South Carolina, but in time they came to be regarded as a substantial portion of the population. It was Governor Blake that first recognized the worth of the Huguenot immigrants, and he secured for them full political rights.
Governor Blake died in 1700, and South Carolina entered upon a long season of turbulence and strife. Sir Nathaniel Johnson became governor in 1703, and the trouble began. His first act was to have a law passed by sharp practice excluding all Dissenters, who composed two thirds of the population, from the assembly. The people discovered the trick, and the next assembly voted by a large majority to repeal the law. But Johnson refused to sign their act. The assembly then appealed to the proprietors, but they sustained the bigoted go
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north carolina
10/10/2011 03:44:03 am
The last, as well as the first, of the English colonies planted in North America belongs to the southern group. Seventy-five years had elapsed between the founding of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and twelve English colonies were now flourishing on the soil of North America. Then came a lapse of fifty years at the end of which Georgia, the last of the famous thirteen, came into existence.
The founder of Georgia was James Oglethorpe, who alone of all the colony planters lived till after the Revolution and saw the thirteen colonies become an independent nation. Oglethorpe is remembered in history chiefly as the founder of Georgia, but aside from this he was a man of much prominence. While still a youth he served in the European wars under Marlborough and Prince Eugene and witnessed the battle of Blenheim and the siege of Belgrade. Returning to England, he became a member of Parliament and took a high stand among his fellows, as he had done in the army. While in Parliament his attention was drawn to the miserable conditions of the debtor's prisons, lately replenished by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble, and he devised the plan to transplant the unfortunate inmates to the wilderness of America.
A charter was granted for twenty-one years to a board of trustees for the land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers and westward to the "South Sea". The new country was named Georgia, from George II who had granted the charter. The liberties of Englishmen were guaranteed to the colonies, and freedom in religion to all except Catholics. The object in founding the colony was threefold: to afford an opportunity to the unfortunate poor to begin life over again, to offer a refuge to persecuted Protestants of Europe, and to erect a military barrier between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. Oglethorpe was chosen governor and with thirty-five families he sailed from England, reaching the mouth of the Savannah in the spring of 1733, and here on a bluff overlooking the river and the sea he founded a city and called it by the name of the river.
The character of Oglethorpe's company was better than that of the men who had founded Jamestown a hundred and twenty-five years before, but inferior to the character of the first settlers of Maryland or of South Carolina. The year after the founding of Savannah a shipload of Salzburgers, Protestant refugees, a deeply religious people, sailed into the mouth of the Savannah and, led by Oglethorpe, they founded the town of Ebenezer. This same year the governor sailed for England and soon returned with more immigrants, among whom were John Wesley, the great founder of Methodism, who came as a missionary, and his brother Charles, who came as secretary to Oglethorpe. Scotch Highlanders soon came in considerable numbers and settled nearest the Spanish border. George Whitfield, the most eloquent preacher of his times, also came to Georgia and founded an orphan school in Savannah.
Georgia was the only colony of the thirteen that received financial aid by a vote of Parliament -- the only one in the planting of which the British government, as such, took a part. The colony differed from all others also in prohibiting slavery and the importation of intoxicating liquors. The settlers were to have their land free of rent for ten years, but they could take no part in the government. The trustees made all the laws; but this arrangment was not intended to be permanent; at the close of the proprietary period the colony was to pass to the control of the Crown.
Oglethorpe's military wisdom was soon apparent. In the war between England and Spain, beginning in 1739, the Spaniards became troublesome and the governor, this same year, made an expedition against St. Augustine with an army of over two thousand men, half of whom were Indians. The city was well fortified and he failed to capture it; but three years later when the Spaniards made an attack on the colony Oglethorpe, by the most skillful strategy, repulsed the enemy and drove him away.
Oglethorpe was governor of Georgia for twelve years when he returned to England. In four respects the settlers were greatly dissatisfied. They wanted rum, they wanted slaves, they greatly desired to take a hand in their own government, and they were not content with the land system, which gave each settler but a small farm that must descend in the male line. In all these points the people won. On account of these restrictions the colony grew but slowly and at the end of eighteen years scarcely a thousand families had settled in Georgia. The people claimed that the prohibition of liquors drove the West India trade away from them and at length the prohibition was withdrawn. As to slavery, it still had its opponents -- the Salzburgers, the Scotch Highlanders, the Wesley brothers. But the great majority favored its introduction on the plea that slave labor was necessary to the development of the colony. On this side we find the great preacher, Whitfi
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hi
10/10/2011 03:44:51 am
The last, as well as the first, of the English colonies planted in North America belongs to the southern group. Seventy-five years had elapsed between the founding of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and twelve English colonies were now flourishing on the soil of North America. Then came a lapse of fifty years at the end of which Georgia, the last of the famous thirteen, came into existence.
The founder of Georgia was James Oglethorpe, who alone of all the colony planters lived till after the Revolution and saw the thirteen colonies become an independent nation. Oglethorpe is remembered in history chiefly as the founder of Georgia, but aside from this he was a man of much prominence. While still a youth he served in the European wars under Marlborough and Prince Eugene and witnessed the battle of Blenheim and the siege of Belgrade. Returning to England, he became a member of Parliament and took a high stand among his fellows, as he had done in the army. While in Parliament his attention was drawn to the miserable conditions of the debtor's prisons, lately replenished by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble, and he devised the plan to transplant the unfortunate inmates to the wilderness of America.
A charter was granted for twenty-one years to a board of trustees for the land between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers and westward to the "South Sea". The new country was named Georgia, from George II who had granted the charter. The liberties of Englishmen were guaranteed to the colonies, and freedom in religion to all except Catholics. The object in founding the colony was threefold: to afford an opportunity to the unfortunate poor to begin life over again, to offer a refuge to persecuted Protestants of Europe, and to erect a military barrier between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. Oglethorpe was chosen governor and with thirty-five families he sailed from England, reaching the mouth of the Savannah in the spring of 1733, and here on a bluff overlooking the river and the sea he founded a city and called it by the name of the river.
The character of Oglethorpe's company was better than that of the men who had founded Jamestown a hundred and twenty-five years before, but inferior to the character of the first settlers of Maryland or of South Carolina. The year after the founding of Savannah a shipload of Salzburgers, Protestant refugees, a deeply religious people, sailed into the mouth of the Savannah and, led by Oglethorpe, they founded the town of Ebenezer. This same year the governor sailed for England and soon returned with more immigrants, among whom were John Wesley, the great founder of Methodism, who came as a missionary, and his brother Charles, who came as secretary to Oglethorpe. Scotch Highlanders soon came in considerable numbers and settled nearest the Spanish border. George Whitfield, the most eloquent preacher of his times, also came to Georgia and founded an orphan school in Savannah.
Georgia was the only colony of the thirteen that received financial aid by a vote of Parliament -- the only one in the planting of which the British government, as such, took a part. The colony differed from all others also in prohibiting slavery and the importation of intoxicating liquors. The settlers were to have their land free of rent for ten years, but they could take no part in the government. The trustees made all the laws; but this arrangment was not intended to be permanent; at the close of the proprietary period the colony was to pass to the control of the Crown.
Oglethorpe's military wisdom was soon apparent. In the war between England and Spain, beginning in 1739, the Spaniards became troublesome and the governor, this same year, made an expedition against St. Augustine with an army of over two thousand men, half of whom were Indians. The city was well fortified and he failed to capture it; but three years later when the Spaniards made an attack on the colony Oglethorpe, by the most skillful strategy, repulsed the enemy and drove him away.
Oglethorpe was governor of Georgia for twelve years when he returned to England. In four respects the settlers were greatly dissatisfied. They wanted rum, they wanted slaves, they greatly desired to take a hand in their own government, and they were not content with the land system, which gave each settler but a small farm that must descend in the male line. In all these points the people won. On account of these restrictions the colony grew but slowly and at the end of eighteen years scarcely a thousand families had settled in Georgia. The people claimed that the prohibition of liquors drove the West India trade away from them and at length the prohibition was withdrawn. As to slavery, it still had its opponents -- the Salzburgers, the Scotch Highlanders, the Wesley brothers. But the great majority favored its introduction on the plea that slave labor was necessary to the development of the colony. On this side we find the great preacher, Whitfi
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hi
10/10/2011 03:45:57 am
William and Mary College. -- The second college founded in America was William and Mary, Harvard alone preceding it. The father of this college was the Rev. Dr. James Blair. and the object was to train young men for the ministry. Blair was sent to England in 1691 to secure funds. He met with fair success until he approached Sir Edward Seymour, the treasury commissioner. When Blair declred that the people of Virginia had souls to save as well as the people of England, Seymour exclaimed: "Souls! damn your souls. Grow tobacco!" The good doctor, however, succeeded. He returned in 1698 with the charter, became the first president of the college, and held the position for fifty years. The college was located at Williamsburg. Next to Blair its best friend was Governor Nicholson.
Two Virginia Love Stories. -- Governor Francis Nicholson was one of the best governors Virginia had but on one occasion he lost his dignity. He fell madly in love with a daughter of Major Burwell near Williamsburg, but the young lady refused him. Nicholson raved about the matter in public and declared that if any one else married the girl, he would cut the throats of three men the bridegroom, the minister, and the justice who issued the license." Suspecting that a brother of Dr. Blair was the favored one, he threatened vengeance on the whole family of Blairs. In fact the governor made such a fool of himself that he was called to England (1705) at the instance of Dr. Blair. (Fiske's Old Virginia," Vol.11, p.122.)
The other love story ended more happily. The Rev. Professor Camm, the last president of William and Mary before the Revolution, was a middle-aged bachelor. He had a young friend who was desperately in love with a Miss Betsey Hansford. But his wooing was fruitless. He then begged Professor Camm to intercede for him. Camm did so; he bombarded Betsey with Scripture texts to prove that matrimony is a duty, but without avail. At length the young woman suggested that the professor go home and look up II Samuel xii.7. He did so and found the text "Thou art the man," -- and, well, Camm himself married Betsey. (Ibid. p.127.)
Governor Berkeley's Report to the Commissioners of Plantations (1671). Extracts.
15. What number of planters, servants, and slaves?
Answer. -- We suppose, and I am very sure we do not much misco~t, that there is in Virginia above forty thousand persons, men, women, and children, and of which there are two thousand black slaves, six thousand Christian servants. for a short time, the rest are born in the country or have come in to settle and seat, in bettering their condition in a growing country.
17. What number of people have yearly died within your plantation and government for these seven years last past, both whites and blacks?
Answer. -- All new plantations are, for an age or two, unhealthy, until they are thoroughly cleared of wood but unless we had a particular register office, for the denoting of all that died, I cannot give a particular answer to this query, only this I can say, that there is not often unseasoned hands (as we term them) that die now. whereas heretofore not one of five escaped the first year.
23. What course is taken about instructing the people within your government in the Christian religion?
Answer. -- The same course that is taken in England out of towns; every man according to his ability instructing his children. We have forty-eight parishes, and our ministers are well paid, and by my consent should be better if they would pray oftener and preach less.
But of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent us, and we had few that we could boast of, since the persecution in Cromwell's tyranny drove divers worthy men hither. But, I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred year's; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep from both!
Source: "History of the United States of America," by Henry William Elson, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1904. Chapter IV pp. 74-75. Transcribed by Kathy Leigh.
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hi
10/10/2011 03:46:24 am
Introduction to Colonization of New England
Pilgrim Fathers | Massachusetts Bay | Connecticut
Rhode Island and Providence | New Hampshire
Also see: New England Affairs
When North America was first settled by the English race the blessings of religious freedom had not yet fully dawned upon mankind. For a century the Christian world had struggled with the intolerant spirit of the Middle Ages. Much, indeed, had been accomplished, but the evolution was slow, and another century must elapse before one could stand in the broad daylight of religious liberty.
No people were more enlightened during this period than the English, yet England furnishes a striking example of religious persecution. The English Reformation is commonly dated from Henry VIII, but that monarch did little more than transfer to himself the power before wielded by the Pope. The seeds for such a revolt had been sown long before by John Wyclif. It was the leaven of Lollardism that brought about in the English heart the conditions which now made the work of Henry vastly easier than it otherwise could have been. After the death of Henry the religious mind of England swayed to and fro for a hundred years and more with the caprice of the sovereign and the ever changing condition of politics. At length, however, the country settled down to the maintenance by law of an Established Church; but there were many whose consciences could not be bound. There were many who attempted to purify the Church of England and were called Puritans, while still others separated from it and were called Separatists.
These Dissenters, or Nonconformists, as they were often called, were very numerous during the reign of James I. James was a narrow-minded pedant, and probably without any very deep religious convictions. Bred in the Presbyterian faith, he despised Presbyterianism because incompatible with his ideas of monarchy. Of the Puritans he said, "I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of the land." They refused to conform, and the cruel monarch did the latter -- he harried them out of the land.
Source: "History of the United States of America," by Henry William Elson, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1904. Chapter IV, page 98. Transcribed by Kathy Leigh.
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hi
10/10/2011 03:47:40 am
The Separatists1 were less numerous by far than other classes of Nonconformists, yet they formed the advance guard of the great Puritan exodus from the mother country to the shores of New England. The town of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire was the center of a scattered congregation of Separatists whose minister was John Robinson and whose ruling elder was William Brewster, the village postmaster. After enduring many persecutions this little band of Christians, who now became "Pilgrims," escaped with difficulty from their native land to Amsterdam, Holland, whence a year later they removed to Leyden. Here they dwelt for eleven years, exiles for conscience' sake, earning their bread by the labor of their hands.
But the Pilgrims felt that Holland was not their home; they could not endure the thought of giving up their language and customs for those of the Dutch, nor were they willing to return to their native England, where religious persecution had not abated. They had heard of the colony of Virginia, and their thoughts were directed to the wilderness of the New World.
Through the friendship and aid of Sir Edwin Sandys, and others, they secured a little money and purchased a little vessel, the Speedwell, hired another, the Mayflower, and determined to cross the wide waters to America, where they might worship God in their own way and still be Englishmen. Having secured a grant from the Virginia Company to settle in the Hudson Valley, and a promise from the king that he would not interfere with them, and having mortgaged themselves to a company of London merchants, they set forth with brave hearts to encounter the unknown perils of the sea and of the wilderness.
The Speedwell proved unfit for the sea, and the little band reëmbarked from Plymouth, England, in the Mayflower alone. Their minister Robinson had remained in Leyden, and Brewster was the leader. He and John Carver were well advanced in years, but most of the company were in the prime of life. William Bradford was thirty and Edward Winslow was twenty-five. Before leaving Plymouth they were joined by Miles Standish, a sturdy soldier of thirty-six, who was in sympathy with the movement though not a member of the congregation.
The "Pilgrim Fathers" with their wives and children, as borne by the Mayflower, numbered one hundred and two; one died on the voyage and one was born. After a perilous voyage of many weeks they anchored off the coast of New England, far from the point at which they had aimed, and here they were obliged to remain.2
Being north of the bounds of the company that had granted them a patent, they occupied a country to which they had no legal right. Before landing they drew up a compact for the government of the colony and chose John Carver governor for the first year. This compact, the "first written constitution in the world," was an agreement by which they pledged themselves "solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another," to form a body politic, to frame such laws as they might need, to which they promised "all due submission and obedience."
The compact was signed by all the adult males, forty-one in number, on the 11th of November, the day on which the Mayflower entered Cape Cod harbor.3 An exploring party went ashore, and they found the country bleak and uninviting in the extreme. The snow was half a foot deep, and the fierce wind blew the spray of the sea upon them where it froze until their "clothes looked like coats of iron."
But the Pilgrims had not sought ease and comfort; they expected hardships and discouragements. They chose Plymouth harbor as a landing place, and on December 16, one hundred and two days after leaving Plymouth, England, they made a landing in the face of a wintry storm, on a barren rock since known as Plymouth Rock. Next they "fell vpon their knees and blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them ouer ye vast and furious ocean."4
In a few days the men were busily engaged in building cabins, returning each night to the ship; but ere they were finished the wintry blasts had planted the seeds of consumption in many of the little band, and before the coming of spring more than forty of them, including the wives of Bradford, Winslow, and Standish, had been laid in the grave. And yet when the Mayflower sailed for England in the early spring, not one of the survivors returned with her, and it is a singular face that nearly all who survived that dreadful winter at Plymouth lived to a good old age. Among those who died the first year was Governor Carver, and William Bradford, the historian of the colony, was chosen to fill the office, and he held the position for thirty-one years.
Footnotes
1The Separatists were often called Brownists, from Robert Browne, the reputed founder of the sect. The sect, however, had its origin before Browne's time. See Eggleston's "Beginners of a Nation," p. 146.[return]
2There had been earlier attempts to colonize the New E
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hi
10/10/2011 03:48:43 am
Puritanism increased mightily in England during the later years of James I and the reign of his son Charles, notwithstanding the cruel persecutions. If the Dissenters hoped for better things by the change of monarchs, they were doomed to disappointment; for if James had chastened them with whips, Charles chastised them with scorpions. But King Charles with all his bigotry was not the moving spirit during his reign in persecuting Dissenters; for this we must look to his more bigoted courtier, William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury.1
Laud was a man of remarkable energy. He was an extreme lover of law and order and a powerful supporter of the royal prerogative. In religion he clung with unyielding tenacity to the letter of the law, but had little conception of its spirit. How a man could, on principle and for conscience' sake, dissent from the Established Church was wholly beyond the comprehension of Laud, nor could he respect the one who did it. It was Laud above all men who visited bitter persecutions upon the Puritans in the reign of Charles, and it was Laud who, all unconsciously, did a great service for humanity -- he caused the building of a powerful Puritan commonwealth in the New World. The great migration set in with the ascendency of Laud; "it waned as he declined and ceased forever with his fall."2
It will be remembered that Puritan and Pilgrim were not synonymous terms. The Puritans, as stated before, were those who sought to purify the English Church and to modify its forms, while remaining within it. The word "Pilgrim," while it has acquired a religious meaning, was not an eccelesiastical term. It was applied only to the Separatists or Independents who settled at Plymouth because of their migration, first to Holland and later to America. But eventually the Puritans became Independents, not only in America, but also in England, and from them have grown the great religious denominations of the English-speaking world -- the Congregationalist, the Baptist, the Methodist,3 and to a great extent the Presbyterian.
During the next ten years following the coming of the Pilgrims in 1620 there were numerous conflicting land-grants made in eastern New England, and various scattered settlements sprang up in the neighborhood of Plymouth. An enumeration of these would only be confusing to the reader.
We have noticed, in our account of Virginia, that King James in 1606 chartered two companies, the London and the Plymouth companies. The former succeeded in founding Jamestown; the latter, after various sporadic attempts, had in 1620 done nothing. Meantime, John Smith of Virginia fame had explored the coast of northern Virginia, as it was then called, made a map of the coast, and named the country New England.
In 1620 the old Plymouth company secured a charter and was henceforth known as the Council for New England. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was its leading member. This charter was for the vast territory between the fortieth and forth-eighth degrees of latitude, the name New England being substituted for northern Virginia.
This new company, in its effort to found colonies, made many land grants, one of which, in 1628, was to six men, of whom John Endicott was the chief. This same year Endicott, who was to play a leading part in the early history of Massachusetts, came out with a following of sixty and settled at a place called Salem, joining a small settlement already there.
But the great Puritan exodus was yet to begin, and as a large number of Puritans were now ready to join the colony, it was deemed far more satisfactory to have a royal charter than a mere land grant. A charter was therefore secured from Charles I in March, 1629, confirming the land grant of 1628, namely, from three miles south of the Charles River to a point three miles north of the Merrimac, extending westward to the Pacific Ocean which was believed to be much nearer than it is. This new company was styled the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England. The government was to be placed in the hands of a governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants, to be elected annually by the company.4
This charter was very similar to the third charter of Virginia of 1612. But there was one remarkable point of difference; it did not provide, as did the Virginia charter, that the seat of government must remain in England. This omission led to the most important results in the building of New England.
The year of the granting of the charter was the same in which the despotic king of England dismissed his Parliament and began his autocratic rule of eleven years without one. The political situation, therefore, as well as religious persecution, rendered the Puritan party extremely uncomfortable in England. Consequently, a small party of leading Puritans met at Cambridge in August of this year and adopted the "Cambridge Agreement," to migrate to Massachusetts, on condition that the charter and seat of governme
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ri
10/10/2011 03:53:44 am
Founded: 1636 by Roger Williams and others, at Providence
Major Industry: Agriculture (livestock, dairy, fishing), Manufacturing (lumbering)
Major Cities: Providence
Colony Named for: Dutch for "red island"
Became a State: May 29, 1790
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nh
10/10/2011 03:54:44 am
Founded: 1638 by John Wheelwright and others
Major Industry: Agriculture (potatoes, fishing), Manufacturing (textiles, shipbuilding)
anyone who goes to holbrook should sell our vidio games and give the money to holbrook
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wierdo
5/24/2012 05:21:47 am
For the professional wrestling move called "Sliced Bread #2", see Professional wrestling aerial techniques#Shiranui.
A loaf of white bread sliced to uniform thickness by a bread slicing machineSliced bread is a loaf of bread which has been pre-sliced and packaged for convenience. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."[1] This led to the popular phrase, "the greatest thing since sliced bread".
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Effects
3 The 1943 U.S. ban on sliced bread
4 Around the world
4.1 Thickness by country
5 Home slicing
6 Popular culture
7 Notes
8 External links
[edit] History
Chillicothe Baking Company's building in Chillicothe, Missouri where bread was first machine sliced for sale
This photograph depicts a "new electrical bread slicing machine" in use by an unnamed bakery in St. Louis in 1930 and may well show Rohwedder's machine in use by the Papendick Bakery Company
The multiple cutting bands in Rohwedder's 1928 slicer are shown in this diagram from his patent.Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, USA invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire[2] and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 7, 1928.[3] Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success. Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread presliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim.[4] The bread was advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."
St. Louis baker Gustav Papendick bought Rohwedder's second bread slicer and set out to improve it by devising a way to keep the slices together at least long enough to allow the loaves to be wrapped.[2] After failures trying rubber bands and metal pins, he settled on placing the slices into a cardboard tray. The tray aligned the slices, allowing mechanized wrapping machines to function.[5]
W.E. Long, who promoted the Holsum Bread brand, used by various independent bakers around the country, pioneered and promoted the packaging of sliced bread beginning in 1928.[6] In 1930 Wonder Bread, first sold in 1925, started marketing sliced bread nationwide.
[edit] EffectsAs commercially sliced bread resulted in uniform and somewhat thinner slices, people ate more slices of bread at a time, and ate bread more frequently, because of the ease of eating another piece of bread. This increased consumption of bread and, in turn, increased consumption of spreads, such as jam, to put on the bread.[2]
[edit] The 1943 U.S. ban on sliced breadDuring 1943, U.S. officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure.[7][8] The ban was ordered by Claude R. Wickard who held the position of Food Administrator, and took effect on January 18, 1943. According to the New York Times, officials explained that "the ready-sliced loaf must have a heavier wrapping than an unsliced one if it is not to dry out." It was also intended to counteract a rise in the price of bread, caused by the Office of Price Administration's authorization of a ten percent increase in flour prices.[9]
In a Sunday radio address on January 24, Mayor LaGuardia suggested that bakeries that had their own bread-slicing machines should be allowed to continue to use them, and on January 26, 1943, a letter appeared in the New York Times from a distraught housewife:
I should like to let you know how important sliced bread is to the morale and saneness of a household. My husband and four children are all in a rush during and after breakfast. Without ready-sliced bread I must do the slicing for toast—two pieces for each one—that's ten. For their lunches I must cut by hand at least twenty slices, for two sandwiches apiece. Afterward I make my own toast. Twenty-two slices of bread to be cut in a hurry![10]
On January 26, however, John F. Conaboy, the New York Area Supervisor of the Food Distribution Administration, warned bakeries, delicatessens, and other stores that were continuing to slice bread to stop, saying that "to protect the cooperating bakeries against the unfair competition of those who continue to slice their own bread... we are prepared to take stern measures if necessary."[11]
On March 8, 1943, the ban was rescinded. Wickard stated that "Our experience with the order, however, leads us to believe that the savings are not as much as we expected, and the War Production Board tells us that sufficient wax paper to wrap sliced bread for four months is in the hands of paper processor and the baking industry.[9]
[edit] Around the worldBecause of its convenience, sliced bread is popular in many
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