34 Chapter 1 Alien Encounters: Europe in the Americas
Jamestown. The next day his warriors attacked, killing
347 colonists. Most of the survivors fled to the fort.
They remained there for months, neglecting the crops.
When winter struck, hundreds more died of hunger.
Between 1606 and 1622 the London Company
invested more than £160,000 in Virginia and sent
over about 6,000 settlers. Yet no dividends were ever
earned, and of this group, fewer than 1,500 were still
alive in 1624.
That year King James revoked the company’s
charter. Now a royal colony, Virginia was subject to
direct control by the royal bureaucracy in London.
John Smith, The Starving Timeat
myhistorylab.com
“Purifying” the Church of England
Although the prospect of a better material life brought
most English settlers to America, for some, economic
opportunity was not the only reason they abandoned
what their contemporary William Shakespeare called
“dear mother England.” A profound unease with
England’s spiritual state—and therefore with their own
while they remained there—explains why many colonists
embarked on their “errand into the wilderness.”
ReadtheDocumentDespite the attempt of Henry VIII’s older daugh-
ter, Queen Mary, to reinstate Catholicism during her
brief reign (1553–1558), the Anglican Church became
once and for all the official Church of England during
the long reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Like her
father, Elizabeth took more interest in politics than in
religion. So long as England had its own church, with
her at its head, and with English rather than Latin as its
official language, she was content. Aside from these
changes, the Anglican Church under Elizabeth closely
resembled the Catholic Church it had replaced.
This middle way satisfied most, but not all, of
Elizabeth’s subjects. Steadfast Catholics could not
accept it. Some left England; the rest practiced their
faith in private. At the other extreme, more radical
Protestants, including a large percentage of England’s
university-trained clergy, insisted that Elizabeth had not
gone far enough. The Anglican Church was still too
much like the Church of Rome, they claimed. They
objected to the richly decorated vestments worn by the
clergy and to the use of candles, incense, and music in
church services. They insisted that emphasis should be
put on reading the Bible and analyzing the meaning of
the scriptures in order to encourage ordinary wor-
shipers to understand their faith. Since they wanted toATLANTIC
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AMERICA NewfoundlandWest Indies
from 1623Bermuda
1642New England
1620Maryland 1634
Virginia 1607
Carolina 1670LabradorAcadiaPlymouthLeydenBoston
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New Haven
New AmsterdamJamestownNewFranceEnglish settlement
Main Route of
English migrationGreat English Migration, 1630–1650Of the 50,000 English emigrants to the Americas, most were young, single men who flocked to the
tobacco and sugar regions of Virginia and the Caribbean. About 15,000, mostly puritans, headed for the rocky shores of New England. A majority
of this group were mature men and their families.