Clay pots and jars facilitated cooking, transportation, and storage of food and water. As time progressed, tools, pottery, and textile production became more sophisticated. Domestication of animals and cultivation of crops increased as Woodland peoples settled in larger groups. Perhaps one of the greatest advances was the introduction of new cultivated species, including squash, beans, tobacco, and corn. To ensure adequate supplies, native farmers used fire to clear fields from forested land.
They used raised beds, hoes, and digging sticks to improve crop yields and let shrubs grow between garden plots for erosion control. Woodland peoples began to live in towns generally located near sources of firewood, water, and fertile soil.
Towns lasted as long as the resources did—typically 10 to 20 years. When soils became depleted, the people moved to a new location. As towns, technology, and agriculture became more complex, so did political systems.
Over time, small bands, or tribes, became larger, forming chiefdoms, a political unit that included a number of permanent towns headed by a single powerful leader. Generally, chiefdoms encompassed large geographic areas. The Powhatan tribes, headed by a paramount chief known as Powhatan who lived from about to , included many Coastal Plain settlements between the York and James rivers. We know about Powhatan and the late Woodland people of the Chesapeake through archeology and through the writings of Captain John Smith and other Europeans who explored the region and began to settle here in the 17th century.
The best-known explorer of the Chesapeake Bay is Captain John Smith because of the detailed map and descriptions he made of his travels through the region between and But he was not the first European to enter the Bay. The earliest written record of possible contact was in a report describing the voyage of Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian sailing under the French flag. John White, an English explorer and artist, provided the first detailed information about the native people, flora, and fauna of the eastern coast of North America in his paintings and drawings between and White sailed with the earliest expedition to the area then called "Virginia" on the present-day North Carolina coast.
His drawings of the Algonquian Indians and the region's plants and animals are the only surviving visual record of England's first settlement in North America—the famed Lost Colony of Roanoke.
Most of the early interactions between the Woodland people and Europeans were brief occasions of trading, but this changed in when the English established a permanent settlement at Jamestown on the James River in what is now Virginia.
The Virginia Company of London organized an expedition to the "Bay of Chespioc" in search of gold, silver, and a water route through North America to the riches of the Far East—the famed "Northwest Passage.
They landed on April 26, , near present-day Cape Henry, Virginia. The English moved their ships up the James River looking for a place that had potable water, a deep channel for anchoring close to shore, and an inland location hidden from rival Spanish ships. On May 14, , the leaders selected an island near the north shore, which they named "Jamestown" in honor of King James.
Establishing a permanent colony was not easy. Food and potable water were in short supply. Diseases such as malaria, dysentery, and yellow fever preyed upon the colony. Of the original settlers, only 38 were alive to greet the first supply ship in January As the colonists built Jamestown, they also began exploring neighboring lands for riches and food. Captain John Smith, one of the expedition's leaders, made two voyages that explored nearly 3, miles of the Chesapeake Bay, its tributaries, and nearby lands.
The English foothold at Jamestown was the beginning of waves of immigration and settlement that forever transformed the Bay and its people. Although many colonists did not survive the disease, starvation, and conflicts that challenged the new settlements, Europeans continued to found new colonies across the region. They were motivated by reports of the region's abundant resources, the desire to escape unpleasant conditions in Europe, or simply the search for a new life.
In , William Penn received a charter to establish the Pennsylvania colony. With each new colony, settlers cleared land for farms and harvested timber for fuel and the growing shipbuilding industry.
As they moved to the interior for farmland, they met increasing resistance from the native population. At first the Indians were willing to trade and form alliances, but as they saw their land consumed, conflicts escalated. Diseases introduced by the colonists hastened the decline of the Indians. By , the Indian population was down to 2, inhabitants, about one-tenth of the estimated pre-contact population. Decimated by epidemics and forced from the fertile land and productive waters of the Chesapeake, Indians moved to other parts of the country or adapted to non-native lifestyles.
Europeans now dominated the landscape with a population that had reached 13, by With growing numbers and more efficient land-clearing tools, they moved into the Piedmont and higher elevations. They cleared the majestic virgin forests for wood products and farmland. The rivers became sources of energy for mills, and roads crisscrossed the countryside connecting farms and new interior towns.
The fall line became a cultural divide in the colonial development of the Chesapeake region. For Maryland and Virginia, the fall line limited expansion of plantation society. The upland areas were typically characterized by small farms and diversified economies.
Below the fall line, plantations developed along navigable rivers—especially the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac, which were navigable for long distances. Direct shipping between the plantations and London merchants led to close economic and political ties with Great Britain. By the mids, almost the entire Chesapeake Bay region was settled by Europeans.
The impact of humans on the environment had changed drastically from the time of native hunter-gatherers. Before the arrival of the European colonists, old-growth forest covered approximately 95 percent of the region; by , the forest acreage had dropped to 70 percent.
The use of plows led to permanent tillage that deterred reforestation and increased soil erosion. Eroded soils began to fill in streams and wetlands. Where the Indians had lived lightly on the land, the colonists built permanent settlements, using more natural resources for their towns, farms, industries, and a growing export business. In addition to exploiting the region's natural abundance, the colonists also introduced alien species of animals, insects, and plants.
These exotic species upset the natural balance. The settlers introduced destructive grazers like cattle, pigs, and other livestock. They eliminated large predators, such as wolves, cougars, and bobcats, through hunting or loss of habitat. This had both environmental and economic consequences. An example of the changing relationship of people and the land can be seen in the rise and fall of the fur trade.
The lucrative transatlantic trade, particularly in beaver pelts, involved Indians, colonial traders, and English entrepreneurs and played a significant role in the development of Chesapeake Bay colonies.
The popularity in England of felt hats made of beaver fur spurred intense hunting throughout the Chesapeake region. The native people were more adept at hunting and trapping than the newcomers and acted as hunters and middlemen for European traders. Thus, Indians became connected to the consumer markets in England and Europe, and the growing profitability of the fur trade encouraged exploitation of the land and its people. By , beavers had virtually disappeared from the Chesapeake watershed.
Today's beaver are descended from those re-introduced to the area in the 20th century. Indians continued to trade in deer skin and other furs. However, as colonial settlements took over their lands and reduced the forest habitat of many species, the fur trade declined in the Chesapeake and moved farther north and west. The exploitation of natural resources to supply European markets increased with the growing population. The Chesapeake region was perceived as the land of opportunity, and its resources seemed limitless.
The region offered rich farm land to grow high-demand crops such as tobacco, large supplies of commodities such as wood and fur, and ample navigable waterways for accessible ports and connections to the country's interior. As nations competed for control of these resources, armed conflict was inevitable.
The Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries were used to transport troops and supplies and became targets of opposing forces to blockade trade.
In the mids, a group of Virginia investors set their eyes on the land beyond the mountains in the Ohio River watershed. They had a vision of linking the Ohio Valley with the Chesapeake to open the way for harvesting western resources for southern and European markets. This war was part of the larger Seven Years War that involved several European powers. England won the war, forcing France to abandon almost all its land in North America.
Two other outcomes affected the Chesapeake region: 1 formation of a new national identity as English colonists began to think of themselves as American and 2 England's decision to tax the colonies to pay for the war. Following the French and Indian War, anger among the colonists grew, eventually erupting in armed conflict and the start of the American War for Independence in Similar to the rest of the colonies, the residents of the Chesapeake Bay region had divided opinions on breaking away from England.
Some supported the rebellion while others remained loyal to the British king. Within the context of their culture and belief system, southern Indians simply did what was necessary to subsist and survive. Europeans came from an acquisitive capitalist culture that valued individual wealth and accomplishment. In keeping with their Christian beliefs, most Europeans took literally the biblical admonition to subdue the earth and exert dominion over it.
From their perspective, any land that had not been thoroughly settled and cultivated was useless. Colonists failed to understand that southern Indians used some lands—especially hunting and fishing grounds—without cultivating them. Most Europeans believed they had the right to buy such property even if Indians did not fully understand the terms of sale or simply take the land to use as God commanded.
In short, they transformed the land and its resources into valuable commodities that could be sold in the world market. Explorers from Spain brought about the first critical changes in the southern environment. In , Hernando de Soto, a Spanish conquistador, led a three-year expedition from Florida into the southern interior in search of the most valuable commodity: gold.
While in the South Carolina piedmont, de Soto saw several deserted Indian towns, large communities whose populations had apparently been devastated by infectious diseases introduced from Europe. De Soto also had some hogs, brought along as a mobile meat supply, which had the potential to spread diseases such as anthrax which affects both animals and people among native wildlife. Though the exact effects of these early Spanish incursions remain to be discovered, one thing seems certain.
Old World diseases might have reduced some southern Indian populations by as much as 90 percent by the mids. Spain remained a strong presence in Florida and parts of the southeastern interior, but farther north English settlers began to reshape the landscape in their image. French colonists also established an outpost at Mobile on the Gulf Coast in As it became clear that southern soils would yield few precious minerals, all three nations turned their attention to other products from southern forests.
Animal hides, especially deerskins which could be fashioned into leather breeches, gloves, and bookbindings , found ready markets in the Old World. Because native people were already well versed in the rudiments of commerce, European traders initially encountered Indians eager to swap deerskins for metal knives, pots, utensils, jewelry, guns, and ammunition.
Trade between Europeans and Indians, however, was not of equal benefit to both cultures. European traders encouraged native warriors to trade captives taken in battle with other Indians as slaves. As a result, thousands of southern natives were sold to masters in New England and the Caribbean. Europeans also supplied Indians with alcohol, an intoxicant with which the natives had no previous experience and one on which many became dependent.
Worse, the trading paths from the coast to the interior continued to be conduits for pestilence. Serious smallpox epidemics struck the southern interior in , , , and , killing thousands of Indians during every outbreak.
As Indian numbers declined and demand for trade goods soared, native people became enmeshed in the European economy.
Instead of killing animals primarily for food, Indians hunted to obtain deerskins for the overseas market. Native people often insisted that European traders engage in traditional practices such as preliminary gift-giving and smoking tobacco , but native rituals associated with hunting probably became less important as Indians engaged in market hunting.
Only when Indians went to war—either against each other or against one of the European powers—did deer and other get a prolonged respite from native hunters. Because deer reproduced quickly during such interludes, the animals never became extinct, but by , the once-plentiful animals were noticeably scarce throughout the region.
Though the French and Spanish were powerful players in the Indian trade, the transformation of southern agriculture was largely an English enterprise. In addition to corn and other foodstuffs, English colonists planted cash crops—tobacco in the region surrounding Chesapeake Bay, rice and indigo in the Carolina low country—for the European market. Whereas native people had hunted deer and other animals for meat, colonists relied on cattle and hogs raised on the open range in southern forests.
For the most part, planters who raised cash crops engaged in monoculture, the practice of planting only a single crop per field. Tobacco, rice, and indigo—all of which are extremely demanding of soils—quickly exhausted colonial plots. Without the tangle of food plants typical of Indian gardens, English fields were also more subject to erosion and attracted insect pests such as grasshoppers, tobacco flea beetles, and rice worms.
Free-roaming livestock had to be protected from native predators, especially wolves. By the s wolves were extinct in the settled regions, though other animals—such as crows and squirrels—for which officials offered bounties, continued to thrive.
English colonists eventually found ways to turn trees into commodities, too. Lumber from live oaks became important to the shipbuilding industry. Barrel staves made from white oak helped sustain the international trade in molasses and rum.
Bald cypress and Atlantic white cedar became the preferred woods for shingles and clapboard. The resin was then distilled into turpentine, tar, and pitch, products all used in the shipping industry and collectively known as naval stores. North Carolina, which—unlike South Carolina and Virginia—never developed a single-crop economy, led the southern colonies in the production of naval stores. Agricultural clearing and the various forest industries had the overall effect of reducing the forest cover and altering drainage patterns along major rivers.
By the mid-eighteenth century, spring floods spawned by excessive runoff, annually threatened coastal communities. Those trees most in demand, including longleaf pine, disappeared from settled regions, to be replaced by scrubby oaks and less valuable loblolly pines. In the years immediately before the American Revolution, firewood became increasingly scarce and expensive in Charleston, Baltimore, and other burgeoning southern towns. Dams constructed to provide waterpower for sawmills also restricted the annual runs of fish up coastal rivers.
Virginia established a closed hunting season on deer in Other colonies outlawed night hunting and the killing of does, two measures designed to relieve some of the pressure on the deer herds. Such laws, however, were almost impossible to enforce and in , Virginia decided to invoke a four-year moratorium on deer hunting in an effort to save the lucrative trade in leather products. Wringing money from southern soils and forests required an extensive labor force, a need England first met with white indentured servants and, by the early eighteenth century, with African slaves.
The shift to slaves resulted from several factors including a growing shortage of white labor, English racism, and the profitability of the slave trade , but the cash crop economy and the southern environment also played crucial roles in the changeover.
In Virginia and Maryland, as tobacco fields became exhausted, planters eventually developed a system of field rotation in which laborers first cleared a plot in the Indian manner by girdling trees and burning off the underbrush.
The first year, planters grew corn and beans on the new tracts, then as the land became more open and fit for cultivation several crops of tobacco, followed by wheat. A typical Essex shipyard consisted of a plot of land near the water with a few shipways, a shop for yard tools and enough space to store timber. Few shipyards had an on-site office and business was often conducted at the builder's home. Of the 4, vessels built in Essex during its year shipbuilding history, only 5 of the fishing schooners exist today.
Boston Naval Yard Photo from NPS Maritime Heritage Program collection Unlike the Essex shipyards that largely produced fishing vessels, other Massachusetts shipyards constructed vessels that played an important role in the birth, growth and continued effectiveness of the U. The Boston Naval Yard built more than warships, and maintained and repaired thousands of others from to Upon closing after years of service, 30 acres of the navy yard became part of Boston National Historical Park administered by the National Park Service.
The frigate USS Constitution , also known as "Old Ironsides," which is the oldest commissioned warship in the world, and the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Cassin Young are displayed there as representatives of the vessels built and repaired at the shipyard. From humble beginnings in , the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts quickly grew to become the second largest shipyard in the country and remained a leader in the shipbuilding industry for a century.
Kennedy, Jr. Both vessels are now displayed at Battleship Cove, the world's largest naval ship exhibit, located in Fall River, Massachusetts.
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