Colonization to Independence

1620-1776

A New World & Its Indigenous People

• When Europeans arrived in what they believed was a “new” world, they were met by an indigenous people who had lived in the land for centuries.

• Settlers in Virginia & Massachusetts were alternately assisted and threatened by these native people.

• The culture of the natives was examined curiously by the settlers, but rarely appreciated.

Why leave Great Britian?

• Personal Freedom

• Financial Success

A Daily Chronicle

• The early settlers believed it was important to make a record of all of their failures and triumphs. Today we can read a day-by-day and month-by-month account of their struggles for survival.

• Journals of John Smith – encounter with indigenous tribes

• Journals of William Bradford – building of a new society

• Journals of Sarah Kemble Knight – travel & living conditions

A struggling heart

• Poems by Anne Bradstreet

• Sermons by Jonathan Edwards

Love of freedom & conflict

• By the 18th Century, love of freedom had brought the colonists into conflict with England. Many new patriots fanned the flame for freedom with their writings.

• Thomas Paine – called for independence in his pamphlet Common Sense

• Patrick Henry – declared his anthem “Give me liberty or give me death!”

• Abigail Adams – letters provide a feminine viewpoint of the war

• Thomas Jefferson – declared the resolve of a new nation in the

Declaration of Independence

• Benjamin Franklin – spelled out the way to personal success

New world; New Mix of Writers

• Phillis Wheatley – a slave writing about her soul in poems and essays

• J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur – a French farmer defined the term American.

John Smith

• American literature begins with John Smith’s book A True Relation of Virginia (1607).

• Here he records the events related to the founding of Jamestown, Virginia.

• The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles (1624) followed later.

William Bradford

• The History of Plymouth Plantation (1656) relates some of the well-known historical episodes such as• Pilgrim’s Landing on Plymouth Rock

• The First Winter in the “wilderness”

• The Meetings and Negotiations with the Indians, Samoset & Squanto

Why Study?

• The following lessons will enable us to consider the purposes and events relating to both accounts of early American, assess their historical significance, and compare and contrast Smith and Bradford’s personal philosophies.

• In order to understand and appreciate the struggle and hardship of the first members of our nation.