The following chapter will review the history of the South from the discovery of America by Columbus to the end of the 19th century.

 

Chapter Ⅰ: The History of the American South  -From Colonial Days to Independence-

Since 1442 when the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus

“discovered” the New World,　European countries had colonized North America.

 

Thirteen permanent British colonies that would form the United States of America were constructed in three regions:

New England Colonies, Middle Colonies, Southern Colonies.

In 1607, English settlers led by Captain John Smith, under the command of the English, crown James １, established the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

The group aimed to succeed at colonization.

The desire was achieved when one of the English settlers, John Rolfe, who is known as the husband of Pocahontas, the daughter of the paramount chief of an Indian tribe Pawhatan, succeeded in establish a tobacco cultivation method that reinforced the foundation of the colonial economy and produced three social classes.

 

The highest one that consists of white landowners were named

“Gentry”.

They already had their fortune right from the start of colonization.

Young men of the lowest class were known as “Indentured Servants”.

About 75 percent of settlers came to America as Indentured Servants.

 

They were footmen in their homeland, Great Britain.

 

In the colonies, they went into four to five years services in order to pay back travel expenses from Britain to America to their master.

 

People in the middle level were named “Freemen”. 

 

They were impoverished people, even when they finished serving as Indentured Servant s and were freed from their masters’ control.