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2.3 Settling The Chesapeake
2.3 Settling The Chesapeake
Uprising of 1622:
● 1622: Opechancanough (Powhatan’s brother) leads a surprise attack
● Surviving colonists retaliated with massacres
● 1644: last attempt at rebelling
● Forced treaty to surviving coastal Indians
● Virginia failed to accomplish goals
● Local elite controlled colony
Tobacco Colony:
● Commodity, Virginia’s substitute for gold
● Crown profited from custom duties
● New immigrants taking advantage of headright system
● Demand for labor
● Tobacco cultivation → demand for field labor
● Harsh conditions, high death rate, laws mandating punishment
○ Land continued to attract migrants
● ¾ migrants came as servants
Maryland Experiment:
● 1632 - proprietary colony: authority to an individual
● Cecilus Calvert disliked representative institutions
● Yet, Charter guaranteed Englishmen liberties
Religion in Maryland:
● Calvert (Catholic) envisioned Maryland as a refuge
○ Protestants and Catholics could live in harmony
● Protestant majority
● High death rate
● Greater opportunity for land ownership than Virginia
○ Fifty acres of land
● Tobacco planters occupied best land → prospects for landless diminished