The Birth of America
Struggling from one peril to the next, the Jamestown settlers planted the seeds of the nation's spirit
The Good Friday massacre also spelled the end of the Virginia Company. In 1624, James I dissolved the company and turned Virginia into a crown colony.
No longer were the settlers mere laborers toiling for a stock company. They became free citizens with power to seek landed estates for themselves and their heirs. From calamities and despair emerged a permanent colony, sustaining the aspirations of an early Jamestown ballad: "Wee hope to plant a nation / Where none before hath stood."
Elsewhere... Trouble in the Melting Pot
In 1626, the Dutch West India Company landed the whole island of Manhattan for just $24. Of course, there has never been a bargain in Manhattan that came without a catch. While the Dutch thought they'd bought the island, the Indians thought they'd merely sold rights to share it. New Netherland—with towns called Lang Eylant, Breuckelen, and Staten Eylant—prospered nevertheless, cashing in on Europeans'appetite for beaver hats and its budding slave trade. By 1664, slaves made up as much as one fifth of the population of what would become New York. Colonists also hailed from Germany, Scandinavia, and France. The melting-pot-to-be was not without troubles: Slave trade aside, director-general Peter Stuyvesant also suppressed Jews and had Quakers beaten.
Elsewhere... Idealism on Cape Cod
Thanksgiving and cranberry sauce were not the legacy the Pilgrims set out to leave when they landed on Cape Cod in November 1620. Communalism and godliness would have been more their speed; to avoid the materialism they'd detested in England, the Pilgrims determined to share work and land in the close quarters of a single tight-knit village. But the idealism quickly derailed as reality set in: In the village, soil was subpar, but when the Pilgrims dispersed to private farms, they found better land—and more of it. Unlike Jamestown colonists, Plymouth residents interpreted England's dominion flexibly, keeping the laws they liked (bestiality remained a crime) and relinquishing those they didn't (in England, the oldest son inherited all the land, but in Plymouth, his brothers got some, too).
Elsewhere... Mapping New France
It took Samuel de Champlain 29 trips across the Atlantic to found and secure the city of Quebec, and all he got for his trouble was what looked at first like the wimpiest of the European colonies: In 1627, Quebec (founded in 1608) had only 55 settlers, who had cleared only 1
Elsewhere... A 40-Year Head Start
The first continuously settled American colony began as an act of war. In 1564, the French threatened Spain's monopoly in the Americas by founding a fort on the coast of Florida, smack in the middle of Spain's shipping route. Philip II was determined to fight back—with a whole new colony. So fleet captain Pedro Menéndez de Avilés marshaled craftsmen, professionals, and families. English pirates, disease, and the lack of a sound economy hurt. But then, profit was never St. Augustine's purpose. It was meant to be a military post and a center for religious conversions. Yet friars' prayers could not compete with English guns, and governors could not block an attack by Francis Drake in 1585. Spain gave St. Augustine to the United States in 1821.
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