The English Challenge

The English Challenge

The English Challenge – The English commercial penetration of Spain’s American monopoly, a persistent theme of European diplomacy for two and a half centuries, started with the African slave trade. Portugal, having access to the African slave trade, would not allow Spain to purchase slaves during the early colonial period. England, an ally of Portugal, was on the other hand permitted to buy and sell slaves. The Spanish government sought slaves from England through contracts referred to as asientos. John Hawkins, a famous English Sea dog, obtained one of the first asiento contracts from Spain. In 1562 his venture failed, as did most English slave contracts. It was not until the sugar trade entered the Caribbean in the eighteen century that the African slave trade proved highly profitable.

England tried another approach by challenging the Spanish seaborne empire on the Pacific side of America. English businessmen learned of the Spanish Manila Galleon trade route from America to Asia. It was such a successful route that the Spanish Crown set limits on how much profit could be made. Spanish investors were allowed 100% profit, but items such as silk brought as high as 400%. Because the Spanish had no competitors on the Asian/American trade there was no need to protect the one ship that sailed each year.

Related imageDrake

Upon learning of this trade route, Sir Francis Drake sought to capture it. He set sail with five ships in November 1577. The largest ship was the Pelican, later renamed the Golden Hind. He entered the Pacific in September of 1578. He not only captured the Galleon but also sailed as far as 42 or 48 degrees north. With booty from the Galleon, he set sail to the Philippines and from there to England. Drake returned with only one ship and 50 men. The expedition took two years and ten months. This ship was able to pay the investors a handsome profit as well as provide the Crown a fifth of the profit (It was common practice to provide the Crown its Royal Fifth).

Drake convinced Queen Elizabeth to commission an expedition to colonize America. The proposed community was New Albion. Its location was somewhere near present-day San Francisco. In January 1581 Queen Elizabeth ordered Drake to set sail with ten ships followed by an additional six. Political complications in Europe caused the plan to be abandoned. Another expedition was organized and the sequel as told by Mrs. Nuttall, an English historian, was as follows:

“By some intrigue, the command was finally given to Edward Fenton, whom Drake and his men suspected of having dealings with the Spanish Ambassador. It certainly came to pass that orders were disregarded; the fleet was taken to the coast of Brazil, where it was met and attacked by Spanish ships. Suspecting treachery Drake and a small party separated themselves from the expedition, which was then abandoned. Thus the attempt to colonise New Albion and establish trade was frustrated.”

The attempt to colonise (American version is spelled colonize.) New Albion and establish trade on the Pacific failed. Drake’s first visit to California was his last. Had his plan succeeded, English history in America may not have started with Jamestown or Plymouth.

Spanish Armada

English historians argue that England successfully challenged the Spanish monopoly with the victory of 1588. With the sinking of the Spanish Armada, most historians believe, England possessed not only free navigation and fishing rights to America but also rights to occupy the continent. Spanish historians, however, are quick to argue that the Armada was made up of mercenaries and that the Spanish navy was deployed protecting the flotas to and from America. The Spanish monopoly in America, they contend, was never threatened.

Some English historians responded by arguing that the victory for America was not in the sinking of the Armada but in the 1603-04 Treaty of London. The victory was in an omission. The omission was the John Cabot voyage of 1497. In any event, the English interpreted the omission to mean that they were free to settle outside the area of effective Spanish occupation. The Spanish, on the other hand, had never heard of this Italian mariner sent to explore eastern Canada on England’s behalf.

The paragraph containing the famous omission reads as follows: “Without any safe-conduct, or other special or general license the subjects and vassals of both kings may…both by land and by sea and fresh waters…approach, enter and sail to the aforementioned said kingdoms or dominions…to enter any ports in which there was commerce before the war, agreeably and according to the use and observance of the ancient treaties and alliances.”

Since Cabot was there before the treaty of Tordesillas, England argued they legally held claims to North America. England’s claim to America rested on John Cabot though no colonies resulted from his voyage. However, England’s progress was plagued by its feudal society and wars of revenge. How then could England seriously challenge Spain in America? The legend of King Arthur and the round table did not unify England. In order to challenge Spain, England not only needed to end the wars of revenge but it needed to accumulate risk capital.

The first order of business was to abandon the feudal society. Colonization required peace and the development of capitalism along with an active/participating rich bourgeoisie class. This new class was hardly existent at the beginning of the Tudor period, but near the end of this period, it was rising rapidly. Its development rested on Sheep, as did England’s expansion to America. Without sheep, England may never have settled America.

Let us intellectualize sheep and their role in the colonization of America.

Professor Chapin argued that “The economic factors affecting the settlement of America may be summarized as follows: Government policy supported the development of commercial opportunities by Englishmen; inflation and profit made risk capital available; experiments with corporate forms accustomed Englishmen to think in terms of large enterprise; colonies appeared as potential markets for the expanding woolen industry and as a source of supply that would under grid national prosperity and security; a dislocated rural population looked West for land and employment. From Elizabeth’s time on, economic facts urged government officials, entrepreneurs and the plain people to colonial ventures.”

Sir Thomas More

Sir Thomas More, the man for all seasons, also believed that sheep led/created American colonization. He said, “Shepe devour men by abandoning the open field strip system of cultivation. Plus large agriculture areas were given to sheep for wool commerce plus the sharp inflation of the 16th century created more rural unrest. It would be only in due course that industry would absorb them until the many were to be the vagabonds who were used for American colonization.”

Sheep destroyed the feudal system by creating capitalism. Capital earned from the woolen industry allowed English investors to pool their resources and form corporations. From 1555 to 1698 companies were the prevailing form of organized enterprise. These bodies controlled every variety of progressive business undertaking-domestic, foreign and colonial. There was scarcely an industry or a part of the world in which they were not active. They carried England’s trade into remote corners of the globe; they aided private ventures, such as the search for the Northwest Passage and they were responsible for the beginning of colonization in America. It was they who successfully challenged the Spanish seabourne empire. Their origins were due to sheep and the woolen industry.

(England is very well aware of the importance of sheep to their national history. Can you now historically understand why the English today take pride in their tweeds and woolens? If sheep helped England modernize and industrialize, why not introduce them to Australia. Although Australia concedes they are a nation created by criminals, they must also contend with the fact that they are also a nation created by sheep.)

Muscovy Co.

Companies and Individual Colonization efforts-  Before 1606 there were five chief companies in England. The oldest company was the Merchants Adventurers of York founded in 1357 and incorporated in 1578. The next major company was the Muscovy Company created for the Russian trade route in 1555. The Eastlands Company was founded in 1579 for the Baltic trade route. The Levant Company created in 1592 traded directly in the Mediterranean. And the fifth was the East India Company created specifically to challenge the Dutch beginning in 1600. These companies were the GE and Microsoft companies of that era.

Created by local and private traders, these companies were given special privileges by the Crown. The Crown provided each private venture with a charter. Charters literally made companies governments within the government. Some Charter privileges included the right to create private armies, the ability to coin money and conduct trade with enemies of England. These companies were also licensed and protected by the Crown, not because they embodied any clear-cut deliberate governmental policy, but because they were instruments which the state used in widening the area of its political influence, in helping to fill the royal treasury (one-fifth of all the profits went to the Crown as the Royal Fifth), and aiding in the solution to many diplomatic, administrative and fiscal problems.

Equally representative of the new spirit of mercantile/colonial adventure was the smaller though efficient fishing companies of North America. English companies were formed to fish off the northeastern shelf of America. Their catch, rather than being processed in England, was made ready for sale by permanent fishing colonies in North America. The resultant colonies organized and extended England’s area of food supply increased her complement of seaman and competed successfully with other fishing suppliers, notably the Dutch. They were organized under one of four plans. The first was the Regulated Co. (which was a partnership) followed by a Semi-Joint stock Co. (it held no permanent stock), a Joint-Stock system (the most common stock) and the Voluntary Association (they were unincorporated and without legal standing). The earliest effort to establish fishing communities was made in 1628 when the Greenland Company was chartered.

Companies were not the only agencies promoting the settlement of America. Individuals interested in freedom of worship, the tillage of the soil, and building a new start made their way to America. These people were the Puritans, Catholics, Quakers and the many proprietors who sought lands, tenants, and rents in the New World. They too were equally responsible for the settlement of America. They too were stimulated by the promotion of the commercial spirit of the seventeenth century. Though many believed that the company was much more likely to succeed than the individual, the company as a promoter of colonization had, in reality, a shorter life. The private initiative was by far more responsible for the greater number of English colonies in America. Both, however, were to succumb to the greater authority and centralizing influence of the state.

Each colony’s success was dependent on the way the settlement was managed. By Charter, each colony was required to create a resident council. The resident council consisted of thirteen members empowered to have charge of all local matters.  A president elected by the resident council members oversaw each resident council. The resident council served as the sole governing board of the colony. In 1660 there were twenty colonies and therefore twenty resident councils.

The Royal Council in England was superior to these local bodies. The Royal Council consisted of selected members (14 and later it was 26), who was entrusted with the general oversight of the entire colonial region. Members of the Royal Council were appointed by the king from the lesser councils that controlled/oversaw the companies. The king retained the general political and administrative control by the king; only the actual business of settlement, trade, and maintenance was left to the companies. However, as the Royal Council had superior authority but no financial responsibility and as the companies had no administrative control and were responsible only to a limited extent for maintenance, the securing of suitable colonists and the building up of a self-supporting and profitable colony was likely at best to be a difficult matter. Thus at the very outset, the form of control provided by the charter was not well adapted to promoting a successful colonizing movement. Calamity followed calamity, as we shall observe from the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth.

Jamestown and Plymouth – In the settlement of Virginia the first Resident Council members included  Capt. Newport, Capt. Gosnold,  Winfield, John Smith, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and George Kendall. Winfield was the first president. The Resident Council could at any time dispose of the president and expel any member by majority vote. The council first exercised this privilege when it expelled John Smith for being mutinous on the voyage. Due to a Rev. Hunt, Smith was finally restored to his place in the council.

John Smith

The first Virginia settlers (144 men) came to America in the hope of finding riches. They were looking for precious metals and were not above plunder; they were not the type of men willing to plow. Before the first installment had arrived from England in Jan. 1608, they exhausted their provisions. The settlement was an endless scene of quarrels, bickering, and plots, which culminated in the execution of Capt. George Kendall for hatching a mutiny. After seven months and with only 38 men remaining alive in the colony, Jamestown became a ghastly epic of misfortune. The company sought to change the personnel, form, and character of the government in England since the Virginia Company was not proving profitable. In 1609 a new charter and corporation were created. It was known as the Treasurer and Company of Adventurers and Planters of the City of London for the first colony of Virginia; commonly known as the Virginia Company. (Please note that an Adventurer was an investor who purchased shares by using currency and a Planter purchased shares by providing items such as cows and feed.) The new corporation consisted of 56 companies in London and 650 wealthy investors. The royal council of 1606 had been eliminated, but the body of the company was not yet entrusted with governing powers.

Jamestown 1607

Rather than a Governor, a Treasurer headed the new company. He was nominated by the Crown but afterward elected by a majority vote of company members. The first Treasurer was Sir Thomas Smith, a man of 51 years of age who was among the most active commercial promoters of his day. He had been governor of the East India Company for more than 20 years, ambassador to Russia, one of the four principal officers of the navy, and a Member of Parliament for 14 years. Smith was the accepted and recognized head and at the forefront of all important commercial operations in London for a quarter of a century.

With too many reputations at stake, neither the investors nor Sir Thomas Smith had intentions of deserting the colony. Jamestown could not become another Roanoke settlement. The new company sent two installments. The first installment of supplies led by Sir Thomas Dale arrived on May 23, 1611. He had three ships carrying 300 colonists and ample stores of provisions. With these colonists, the settlement increased to 450. Sir Thomas Dale made peace with the Indians (John Smith failed and the love story with the Indian maiden is too Disney for history; she married John Rolfe.), repaired and restored buildings, and built “Dales” town. The second installment arrived with Sir Thomas Gates in August 1611. He arrived with 200 men (all artisans) and 20 women including his own wife and daughters.

The quality of the settlers was still far from satisfactory, for as the company reported during the first years, “…they were far too often masters of bad servants and wives of ill husbands an idle crew who clogged the business and would rather starve than lay their hands to labor.” Later the company endeavored to rectify the problem and did so, in part, by sending over not only English artisans but also skilled workers from other countries-Poland, Germany, Sweden, France, and Italy. The Virginia Company also required that the original settlers no longer spend time searching for mines and trafficking with the Indians, but become farmers. Sir Thomas Dale accomplished this by ruling with an iron hand as the absolute governor of the colony. His laws were given the title of “Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall.”

Tobacco made Jamestown profitable when in 1612; John Rolfe introduced a milder form of tobacco from the Caribbean. With enough tobacco to send a consignment to England in March 1614, Jamestown assured itself as a permanent colony. By 1617 over 20,000 lbs. of tobacco were dispatched to England. To assure themselves a monopoly, the wealthy investors in England sought to make a general division of the colony and its lands. In 1618 they introduced the plantation system. The first plantation (Richard) Martin’s Hundred, was a tract of 7,000 acres located seven miles from Jamestown. Its governor was captain Thomas Horsewood and it contained a little over 250 people. Please note that a plantation during the colonial period was defined as a separate, economically self-contained unit possessing its own local government. (Later Puritans requested and received the Plymouth Rock Plantation.)

While the company was encouraging private funding for the purpose of increasing the population and economic strength of the colony, it was also doing as much as it could to promote immigration. Convicts from jails were also sent to America, the first being transported as early as 1617. But still, the population of Jamestown did not increase. Death took its toll as remorselessly as it had done in the early years of the colony. From Easter 1619 to March 1620 the numbers decreased from 1000 to 867. In March 1621, though ten ships had gone across the ocean with 1051 emigrants, only 843 remained at the end of the year. In one year approximately 1095 had died either on the way or in the colony. In 1622 the local Indians attacked and massacred 400 individuals, mostly seasoned colonists. It was not until 1624 that the population began to increase. It was discovered that the business end of the venture was responsible for the demise of so many settlers (How was that possible?).

The solution for Jamestown was to require that each male colonist be adequately provisioned. It was referred to as “A catalogue of such needful things as every Planter doth or ought to provide.” “Vitcuals” for a whole year and so after were 8 bushels of meal, 2 bushels of peas, one gallon of aqua-vita, one gallon of oil, 2 gallons of vinegar and one firkin of butter (one firkin equals 1/4th barrel wooden tub). For apparel, a male colonist should have 3 shirts, one waistcoat, one suit of canvas, one suit of frieze, one suit of cloth, 3 pair of stockings, 4 pair of shoes, 2 pair of sheets, 7 ell of canvas to make a bed (an ell in England equals 45 inches), one pair of blankets and a coarse rug. Each male colonist was armed with one long piece, one sword, 20 lbs. of powder, 60 lbs of lead, a pistol, and some goose shot. Tools consisted of one broad hoe, one narrow hoe, a broad axe and a felling axe, one whipsaw, a hammer, a spade, 2 augers, 4 chisels, a gimlet, a hatchet, and a grindstone. Finally, for household implements, each family was provided with an iron pot, a kettle, one frying pan, 2 skillets and a spit to roast meat. With the household implements came spices including sugar, pepper, clover, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg. “Occasionally investors supplied the colonists with books, nets, hooks, cheese, bacon, cattle and goats.”

plymouth colony Plymouth – While Virginia and Bermuda were rooting themselves, a small group of English people without interests, other than finding a place where they could live and worship in the way most fitting in the eyes of God, were residing in Holland. They departed England in 1608. In 1611 while Jamestown was suffering, they were rejoicing in the purchase of a house of worship.  Living in the community of Leyden, Holland, they referred to themselves as the Leyden Separatists. The Virginia Company proposed a solution to their religious problems in Europe by offering them a colony in America. The Leyden Separatists responded by sending numerous letters to the Company asking for economic help to settle America. The negotiations dragged on until 1618 when they were given a patent from the Virginia Company for a particular plantation. The Pilgrims agreed and over 180 members set sail for Jamestown. Before the year was up, 130 died on what they referred to as the “ill-fated vessel.” News of the terrible disaster reached the Leyden Pilgrims in the summer of 1619.

On Feb. 20, 1620, Thomas Weston and his Associates obtained a patent for land in Virginia. Shopping around for colonists, he approached the Leyden Separatists. He promised that merchants would look after the business end of the undertaking and fully supply the colony with the necessary funds. Weston had promised the support of what appeared to be a strong financial organization, while the Pilgrims were to furnish the labor. On July 1620 the Pilgrims accepted the contract. Believing that their problems were solved, they sold their property in Leyden. Part of the money was used to purchase common stock for the buying of provisions and other necessities. They used some of the sale proceeds to purchase the Speedwell (the Mayflower belonged to the Associates).

However, as partners in the enterprise, the Pilgrims argued that they should neither be tenants nor servants but were to stand on equal terms with the Associates. Three groups of equal standing were created. The first group was the Adventurers who contributed one or more shares at 10 English pounds (currency) to the share for common stock. The second group consisted of Adventurers-Planters, some of who may have been Pilgrims and who were able to put in 10 pounds in either money or supplies per share. The third group was the Planters, most of who were the Pilgrims, who could contribute nothing except themselves and their capacity for labor. Each group had its own organization. With these arrangements, they set sail for England on July 22, 1620.

Out of a total of 238 members, only 35 plus/minus Leyden Separatists were on the first expedition. The Speedwell was so not seaworthy it was not used for American colonization. The Mayflower left Plymouth, England on Sept. 16, 1620, with a total of 149 passengers; some 48 were the officers and crew and 101 were the actual settlers of which 35 of these were Pilgrims. The vessel was overcrowded and insufficiently provisioned. Three/four crew members and one passenger died on the voyage. The Mayflower landed near Cape Cod rather than its destination of Jamestown. From here, they sent patrols to select a settlement site. Eventually, they picked Plymouth harbor and gradually families/settlers were transferred to the shore. The town was laid out on the site of an old abandoned Indian cornfield. Their first street was called Leyden. On June 1, 1621, they negotiated for a new patent for New England and received it.

The actual investors in England were concerned about the ability of the colony to produce a profit. By 1622 the organization of the merchants began to disintegrate. Members within the company had broken with Weston and bought out his share of stock. They were also beginning to split into factions. Many who took a businessman’s view of the whole affair and wanted some return on their money had withdrawn from the partnership and others were threatening to do the same.

With the disintegration, the colonists of Plymouth were being thrown more and more onto their own resources. Plus many of the merchants were estranged by the extreme religious opinions held by the Pilgrims. They lost confidence in the Pilgrims as business partners because the latter spent too much time arguing and consulting and not enough in working upon the conditions agreed by the patent. When the Pilgrims lost a fishing experiment at Cape Ann (the fishing ship Little James), the merchants finally refused to make any further advances. The year 1625 was the final break with the London merchants whose failure to receive any appreciable profit from their investment led not only to depression and discord but also to such a decline in the value of the stocks as to render them of little or no market value. With the merchants out, Plymouth New England was now a Pilgrim colony. Later its economic opportunities were increased greatly by the settlement of Mass. Bay, which occurred in 1630. Fortunately for the people of Plymouth, local conditions were improving and it truly was a separate economically self-contained unit possessing its own local government. (Was this not what they wanted all along especially after the ill-fated vessel of 1618?)

Incidentally, the Plymouth population in 1624 was 124; in 1630 it was up to 300 and by 1637 there were 549 colonists.  Many of its settlers died (however, not at the rate found at Jamestown). Settlers made their way to America on the Fortune, Charity, Ann, Little James, Handmaid, and Mayflower. Though a minority in numbers, the Pilgrims were in the main a homogeneous group, both in social rating and in religious views and purpose. They formed a covenant or church fashioned after the primitive Christian model, which, according to their own ideas of ecclesiastical polity was separatist and independent and a law unto itself. They were concerned for the preservation of their peculiar form of ecclesiastical polity, and the maintenance of their own way of life, both of which they believed to be sanctioned by the Bible and good in the sight of God.

Related imageThe next lecture will address their world.