The Planting of English America

Chapter 2: The Planting of English America

Religion was a huge conflict with the English & the Spanish. It affected England after King Henry was no longer with the Roman Catholic Church but this created the English Protestant Reformation. The religious conflict was settled when Protestant Elizabeth was called to the English throne in 1558 which obviously made Britain mostly Protestant. Due to this, Spain did not agree and their fight became more intense. Ireland then wanted to rebel against Britain so they went to Spain for help but Elizabeth's troops confiscated Catholic lands, planted them with Protestant landlords, & destroy much of Ireland. Although the Spanish & the English were not in any form of fight, the English to promote their religion (Protestantism), they decided to take over Spanish ships & settlements. A man by the name of Francis Drake took over stole the Spanish's ships and started to sell them for "Spanish Booty" (gold). What many didn't know what that his financial banker was Queen Elizabeth. She then knighted Drake on his own ship & this of course made the Spanish very mad so they attempted to get revenge. This failed when they lost in the Spanish Armada in 1588. Luckily for the British, this allowed them to cross the Atlantic Ocean & take over the colonization and power in America. Before the Spanish attacked the British, the British tried to colonize in the New World but that didn't work out. Sir Walter Raleigh and Roanoke Island Colony were to blame for their failure. In 1604, the British & Spanish signed a peace treaty. In 1550, England started to mushroom from about 3 million people and then in 1600, from about 4 million. Since many landlords were "enclosing" croplands, this meant that the poor weren't able to get much land or no land at all. In the late 1500's, a woolen trade economic depression hit so many people lost their jobs. Around the same time, they created laws of primogeniture which stated that only eldest sons were eligible to inherit landed estates. This forced all of the younger sons to move somewhere else to seek their fortune. But things started to turn up in the early 1600's when the joint stock company was perfected. In 1606, the Virginia Company of London received a charter from King James I of England for a settlement in the New World. The charter promised & guaranteed settlers the same rights as Englishmen in Britain. On May 24, 1607 around 100 English settlers, all men, disembarked on a place that was known as Jamestown. There were 2 main problems when they got to Jamestown, the problems were: many diseases & the men wasted time since they were looking for gold instead of doing something useful. A young leader by the name of Captain John Smith, took over in 1608. He came up with line "He who shall not work shall not eat." This straightened out the hungry