IN PERSON: From 1526 to 1607, 11 European colonies in North America failed. The colony in Jamestown, Virginia, nearly failed at least seven times. If it had, the United States as we know it would not exist. This lecture-based course will focus on the forces that drove England to attempt colonization in the New World and the pressures that both the English and Native Americans were under as Jamestown was settled. We will examine how various English narratives differed from the Native American narrative about what happened, including the tale of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. We will look at how tobacco and the labor required to grow and export it on a commercial scale set the stage for the indentured servitude of thousands of poor English people, as well as Atlantic Creoles from the Caribbean, and how that segued into the importation of enslaved labor from Africa. | Lecture + Q&A.
Max enrollment: 40.
Location: Judea Reform Congregation, 1933 W. Cornwallis Rd, Durham NC 27705
