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Jamestown In The 17th Century

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Throughout the 17th century, the English faced many hardships. The settlers of Jamestown had faced misfortune of the new land such as disease and malnutrition, and failure of crops. Over time the English built their economic and social structure with perfecting crops, indentured slaves and building a new society that would spark others to explore. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada the English, invigorated by their victory, began to colonize Americas in 1607. The English envied the wealth the Spanish acquired from the new world. The English created joint stock company such as the Virginia Company to issue propaganda promising land that was “Earth's only paradise” (DOC 1). Of course, they were motivated by settling the colony …show more content…

Over time, certain people helped cultivate Jamestown to be a thriving colony. One of the biggest assets that helped the Jamestown colony is the perfecting of tobacco. John Rolfe spent his time in the west indies perfecting tobacco. This eventually was brought over to Virginia where tobacco could finally be planted and not fail as a crop.(OI) This helped the English very much with their economics because the selling of the tobacco would mean they are making a profit and somewhat starting to rebuild the colony. Tobacco was becoming so popular and was the main crop of Virginia. People started advertising it to increase it’s popularity even more by saying, “Tobacco will thy life renew; then fear not death, nor killing care, Whil’ fl we have left Virginia here”(DOC 3). This advertising is just one of many, tobacco was such a popular production. They guaranteed that tobacco would keep you living and stay far from death as if it was a good thing to smoke a lot of tobacco, which means a lot of tobacco would have to be bought. This is an economic surplus. The more money they make on tobacco, the more money the English make in the old world. Mercantilism was a very big cause on why the new world was also discovered. If they could have profits from somewhere else they could make more money and use it on more stuff. Native American’s were trouble when the Jamestown colony was weak, but with the help of John, …show more content…

This would inspire other countries or groups of people to go out and do the same as the Jamestown colony. A group called the pilgrims who were separatist wanted to leave England because of the persecutions that were happening, they had escaped and were set to Jamestown but landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts where the Massachusetts colonies would begin. There the pilgrims started a government like set up by signing a document known as the Mayflower Compact. Another colony that sparked, that is very similar to Virginia in Maryland. Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore, where they also sold tobacco as the main crop because of the fertile soil just like Virginia. These two colonies show that others wanted to explore and get out of England. This movement would go across nearly all of the eastern border creating the 13 colonies. (OI) As these colonies started developing many people wanted to come over and enjoy the wealth of being in America. Sadly, not everyone had the money to go over to the new world. So a solution was created with something called indentured servants. This where much poor english would come over to America work for a certain amount of years doing farm work usually, or what the owner wants, and then set free. To become an indentured servant contracts were usually made. A contract by Father Andrew white stated at the end, “and at the end of the said time, to give him one whole yeeres

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