![[Pasted image 20250201184834.png]] England came late to the colonization race. As [[Jamestown]] limped along in the 1610s, the Spanish Empire expanded around the world and grew rich from its global colonial project. In addition to dominating the Caribbean, Central, and South America, the Spanish also conquered the Philippines (named after King Philip II) in 1565. And Spain did not completely ignore North America. Also in 1565, they established the first permanent European settlement in North America at St. Augustine in Florida. Florida would remain a Spanish territory most of the time until the early nineteenth century and several wars were fought between Spanish Florida and the British colonies to its north, which may help explain why St. Augustine is not better remembered as the first European settlement.  After Jamestown’s founding, English colonization of the New World accelerated. In 1609, a ship bound for Jamestown foundered in a storm and landed on Bermuda (some believe this incident helped inspire [Shakespeare’s 1611 play *The Tempest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tempest)*). The ship's commander, [[George Somers]], claimed the island for the English crown. The English also began to colonize small islands in the Caribbean that had been overlooked by the Spanish, establishing themselves on [St. Kitts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Kitts) (1624), [[Barbados]] (1627), [Nevis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevis) (1628), [Montserrat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat) (1632), and [Antigua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua) (1632). ![[1632_Cardona_Descripcion_Indias_(11).jpg]] From the start, the English West Indies focused on commerce and produced the cash crops tobacco and sugar. Very quickly, by the mid-1600s, Barbados became one of the most important of English colonies based on profits from the sugar produced there. Barbados specialized in sugar to such an extent that the colony depended on slaves for labor and on New England and the Mid-Atlantic colonies for food and animal feed. Barbados, which emulated the Spanish plantation model, became a model for other English slave societies in the Caribbean and later on the American mainland; a model that differed radically from England itself, where slavery was not practiced.  English [[Puritan|Puritans]] also began to colonize the Americas in the 1620s and 1630s. These intensely religious migrants dreamed of creating communities of reformed Protestantism where they would have opportunities for social advancement denied them in England. One of the first groups of Puritans to move to North America, known as [[Pilgrim|Pilgrims]] and led by [[William Bradford]], had originally left England to live in the Netherlands. But after ten years, fearing their children were losing their English identity among the Dutch, in 1620 they settled at [[Plymouth]], the first successful English settlement in New England. The Pilgrims differed from other Puritans in their insistence on separating from what they saw as the corrupt [[Church of England]]. ![[John_Winthrop_17th_cent._American_Antiquarian_Society_portrait.jpg]] *John Winthrop* Like [[Jamestown]], Plymouth occupies an iconic place in American national memory. The tale of the 102 migrants who crossed the Atlantic aboard the [[Mayflower]] and their struggle for survival is a well-known "Thanksgiving story" that includes the signing of the [[Mayflower Compact]], a 1620 document some see as an early expression of democratic spirit because of the cooperative nature of the agreement to live and work together. In 1630, a much larger contingent of Puritans left England to escape conformity to the Church of England and founded the [[Massachusetts Bay Colony]]. Although the Bay Colony’s leader, John Winthrop, wrote eloquently of their goal to create a “City upon a Hill” at Boston that would be an example of pious life, leaders of the colony were also very interested in material success. Winthrop, the Puritan leader who helped establish Boston and who was Governor of the colony four times before 1650, had sent his second son Henry to help establish Barbados in 1626. When [[Oliver Cromwell]]’s Civil War halted the flow of commercial shipping between England and the ten-year-old Bay Colony in 1640, trade with the West Indies saved Boston’s economy. Governor Winthrop’s younger son Samuel joined the growing community of New England merchants in the Caribbean sugar islands in 1647. --- Next: [[3.1 First Spain]] Back: [[2.24 New Netherlands]]