Videos

Crash Course Ep 2 - Colonizing America

Added May 06, 2017 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//hs.elkhartisd.org/apps/embed/?v=146402" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Period 1

Show Transcript

hi I'm John Green this is Crash Course u.s. history and today we're going to tell the story of how a group of Plucky English people struck a blow for Religious Freedom and founded the greatest freest and fattest Nation the world has ever seen these Brits start a Barren land containing no people in quickly invented the automobile baseball and Star Trek and we all lived happily ever after so getting an A in this class most Americans grow up hearing that the United States was founded by pasty English people who came here to escape religious persecution true of the small proportion of people who settled in the Massachusetts Bay and created what we now know is New England but these pilgrims and Puritans there's a difference were the first people or even the first year of to come to the only part of the globe we didn't paint over because was named not for Queen Elizabeth's epicness but first opposing Chastity anyway those first English settlers weren't looking for Religious Freedom they wanted to get rich colony in America was founded at Jamestown Virginia in 1607 I say successful because they were two previous attempts to colonize the region they were both epic failures the more famous of which was the colony of set up by Sir Walter Raleigh which is famous because all the colonies disappeared leaving only the word Croatoan carved into a tree full of the Virginia how many which existed to make money for its investors something it never did find gold in the Chesapeake region like the Spanish had in South America so they were in disproportionate number of homesmiths in Jewelers there to fancy up that gold which of course did not exist the island once said that they would rather starve than Farm all the starving time the number of colonists said dwindled to 65% and it became where to find new colonists acres of land for each person that is said to bring over what is the name of the creation of a number of large Estates which were mostly worked on and populated by indentured servants he bought and sold in they had to do with their Master's command what time is that worked out but often either the money wasn't enough to buy a farm or else they were too dead to collect it even more ominously in 1619 just twelve years after the founding of Jamestown the first shipment of African slaves arrived in Virginia tobacco in Mexico since at least 1000 BCE but the Europeans had never seen it and it proved to be kind of a thank you for the smallpox here's some lung cancer gift from the interesting the King James hated smoking he called it a custom load some to the eye and hateful to the nose but he loved him some tax revenue and nothing sells like drugs 1624 Virginia was producing more than 200,000 pounds of tobacco per year by the 1680s more than 30 million pounds per year things with very little in the way of towns or infrastructure to hold the social order together a strategy that always works out brilliantly in society off most of the people who came in the 17th century three-quarters of them we're servants oh Virginia became a microcosm of England a small class of wealthy landowners sitting atop a mass of that sounds kind of dirty but it was mostly just sad this is all so overwhelming male servants were more useful in the tobacco fields in fact the outnumbered women 521 women who did come over when mostly indentured servants and if they were to marry which they often did because they were in great demand they had to wait until their term of service this met delayed marriage which meant fewer children which further reduce the number of females life was pretty tough for these women but on the upside of a swamp guy that created a small class of unmarried women who because of their special status could make contracts and own property so that was good can with the second Chesapeake Colony founded in 1632 and by now there was no messing around the joint stock companies there was a proprietorship a massive land grant to a single individual name CVS Calverton Maryland into like a medieval feudal Kingdom to benefit himself and his family and he was no fan of the representational institutions that were developing in also Calvert with Catholic and Catholics were welcomed in Maryland which wasn't always the case elsewhere speaking of which let's talk about Massachusetts recent today is probably better now this is not be talking about Thanksgiving is alive the difference between pilgrims and Puritans and also to talk about most of the English men and women who settled in New England were over Protestant Puritans who believed the Protestant Church of England was still too Catholic he visits kneeling and incense and how did Archbishop the particular Puritans who by the way did not call themselves that other people did who settled in New England were called congregationalists because they thought congregation should determine Skip and worship structures not Bishops they wanted to separate more less completely from the church of England so first they fled to the Netherlands currently too corrupt for them so they rounded up investors in finance the New Colony in 1620 they were supposed to land in Virginia but in what perhaps should have been taken as an omen they were wild we off course in ended up in what's now Massachusetts founding a colony called Plymouth while still on board their ship the Mayflower 41 of the 150 or so colonists when signed an agreement called the Mayflower Compact and which they all bound themselves to follow quote just and equal laws that their chosen Representatives would write up since this the first written framework for government in the US it's kind of a big deal but anyway to Massachusetts with six weeks before winter and they had the good sense not to bring very much them or any farm animals half of them died before when they didn't all die are grateful that they can survive mainly due to the help of an alliance with the local Chief Massasoit and because the Indians had taught them how to plant corn and where to catch fish the pilgrims held a big feast first Thanksgiving thanks on the Thursday in November not mid-october as it celebrated in some of these green areas what America pilgrims on the site of his former Village and then died of disease because it is always ruining everything so the pilgrims struggled on until 1691 when their colony was subsumed by the larger how much more successful Massachusetts Bay Colony Massachusetts Bay Colony was started in 1629 by one did merchants who like the founders of the Virginia Company hope to make money the board of directors relocated from England to America which method in Massachusetts they had a greater degree of autonomy and self-government and they didn't virginity was also much more important Massachusetts then it was in Virginia or the rights of the individual in the North and South about the I'm government would continue until now or got it time for the mystery document what are simple I read the mystery document which I have not came before if I get it right then I do not get shocked with the shock pen if I get it wrong I do thoughts  we must be knit together in this work as one man we must entertain each other in brotherly affection we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities superfluities I don't know for the supply of others Destiny's we must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekness gentleness patience and liberality for we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill the eyes of all people are upon us so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us we shall be made a story and Dubai word through the world first thing I know how many religious individual and the community in question seems to embrace something near socialism abridging the Superfluous for others necessities for everybody and because of that metaphor I know exactly where it comes from the sermon a model of Christian charity by John Winthrop this is one of the most important sermons in American history it shows us just how religious the Puritans were but it also shows us that their religious Mission wasn't really one of individualism but of collective in other words the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one on the hill metaphor is the basis for one kind of American exceptionalism the idea that we are so special and so Godly that we will be a model to other nations as long as we act together 1989 farewell address the only people who could vote or hold office were church members and to be a fool church member you had to be a quote visible Saint so really power stayed in the hands of the the same went for a quality was better than in the Chesapeake as it be rich and some poor by an eminent in power and dignity others mean and in subjection as historian Eric foner put it in a quality was considered an expression of God's Will and well some please applied to all inhabitants there were separate lists of Rights for Freeman women children and servants there was also slavery in Massachusetts the first slaves were recorded in the how many in 1640 in one sense they wanted everyone to be able to read muscles for not properly instructing their children and making them literate so when Rodger Williams called for citizens to be able to practice any religion they chose he was banished from the, so was Anne Hutchinson who are church membership should be based on inner Grace and not on outward manifestations like church attendance Williams went on to found Rhode Island so that worked out fine for him but Hutchinson who was doubly threatened Massachusetts because she was a woman preaching unorthodox ideas was too radical and with further banish to Westchester New York where she and her family were killed by Indians someone who doesn't die of disease or starvation so Americans like to think of their country is being founded by pioneers of religious freedom who were seeking Liberty from the oppressive English party scene that's only partly true for one thing Puritan ideas of equality and representation weren't particularly Equitable or representation whole truth America was also goodbye indigenous people and by Spanish settlers and the earliest English colonies weren't about religion they were about money we'll see this tension between American mythology and American history again and also every week thanks for watching I'll see you next time tricky to Raoul Mayer in myself and our Graphics team if your questions about today's did you order anything about American history ask them in comments the entire crash course team and many history for skills are there to help you crack please make sure you're subscribed and as we say in my hometown don't forget to be awesome

Uploaded by Shawn Mize.

Videos

Crash Course Ep 2 - Colonizing America

More videos from Shawn Mize