Geog 366: Historical Geography of North America

British Colonial America

A. Partitioning the continent

1. 1750 - patchwork of European claims

a. byproduct of worldwide imperialism

b. lines on the map arbitrary

c. differing development/settlement/admin patterns

2. New Spain

a. administered by central hierarchy

b. audienca of Cuba/Santo Domingo

c. audienca of Guadalajara

d. Vice-Royalty of New Spain in Mexico City

3. New France

a. Governor-General at Quebec

b. But, three distinct regions, connected to Paris

- Louisbourg (coastal/maritime)

- Quebec (St. Lawrence Valley and hinterland)

- New Orleans (Mississippi drainage)

4. English pattern

a. striking contrast to the others

b. 15 jurisdictions - varied greatly in size, shape and types of boundaries

c. settlement from 1606 (Virginia) to 1732 (Georgia)

d. How to demarcate the land???

Patterns of nature

Astral (Earth/Sun geometry) - latitude

e. Virginia Company - two groups of colonizers

London Company 34 to 38 degrees

Plymouth Company 41 to 45 degrees

Included land within 100 miles of the coast

Included all rights to trade with the natives

Included all rights to gold, silver and copper (20% to Crown)

Subsequent charter - landmark (Point Comfort)

Eventually defined by:

Maryland (south bank of Potomac)

Carolina (projection of latitude)

f. British had no consistent patterns - see Figure

shape

boundaries

size

etc.

survey errors numerous

north boundary of Massachusetts (1742)

Mason-Dixon Line (new book????)

B. Patterns on the landscape (land allocations and ownership)

Three distinct types of survey:

1. Metes and bounds

- claim to specific quantity

- freedom to draw boundaries

- piecemeal fashion

- some reflection of natural features

- no central authority; no standardization

2. Regularized Surveys

- marked off in uniform blocks

- imposes rigid geometry on nature

- eventual model for new land west of mountains

Specific type - Riverine

3. Adaptive - blend of al the types

See map of Pennsylvania

SUM: All of this reflects the absence in the English new world empire of a centralized imperial program with prescribed ways of implanting culture and of governing.

Colonization

Discovery era

Cabots

Martin Frobisher - 3 voyages in the 1570s

Elizabethan Sea Dogs - 1558 to 1603

Unsuccessful colonization efforts in 1500s

Colonization - 6 key ideas (motives):

1. England is overpopulated

2. England needs more markets for woolen goods

3. England needs precious metals

4. England needs source of resources in new world

5. England needs short route to Indies

6. England has duty to propagate protestant Christianity

See text chapters:

Chap 5 - through 1700: Europeanization

Chap 6 - 1700s: Americanization

Two nuclei:

Jamestown (1607)

- started as trading post

- early history unsuccessful

- colonists working for stockholders in England

- changed to profitable colony

1. Tobacco economy

2. private property

3. marriage and family

1624- Company dissolved and became a colony

Pattern of settlement

Dispersed and decentralized

Headright system

Plantations, not towns

1670 - major increase in slaves

Removal of Indians - conflict for land

New England

Different objectives - idealistic, religious

Plymouth - first serious permanent settlement

North Virginia Company (The Plymouth Company of Virginia)

Pilgrims - separatists

Mayflower Compact

Great Puritan migration from England starting in late 1620s

Other areas

New Netherlands (Dutch)

Feudalistic arrangement

Restrictive land policies

Patroons

Class society

1664 - taken over by British

1680s - watershed in shaping of Colonial America:

1. coastal Indian resistance eliminated

a. King Phillips War

b. French and Indian Wars in the interior

c. Military towns on the periphery

d. Settlement in New England much as in Chesapeake area

2. commitment to slave labor in Chesapeake

3. founding of Pennsylvania by 1681

4. ride in South Carolina

Demographics- see Tables in Text

Proclamation Line of 1763