Mystery of History Volume 4, lesson 2.

The 13 colonies.

Love, love, love the Mystery of History!

First off, a colony is a piece of land under political control of another country.  The controlling country is usually very far away as is the case with England and the American colonies.

A colony is formed when people from another country come in and settle the land, for example, people from all over Europe came to America to settle the land back in the day.  These people were called settlers.  These Europeans settled a total of 13 colonies between 1607 and 1732.

Here is a list of the colonies in order: Virginia 1607, Massachusetts 1620, New Hampshire 1623, Maryland 1632-1634, Connecticut 1636, Rhode Island 1636, Delaware 1638, North Carolina 1663, South Carolina 1663, New York 1664, New Jersey 1665, Pennsylvania 1681, and Georgia 1732.

These settlers did not have an easy go of it.  In fact, more than half of the settlers did not make it past the first winter in Virginia (Jamestown) or the Plymouth Colony.

Most of the colonies were named after the rulers in England at that time.  For example, Virginia gets its name from the Virgin Queen Elizabeth and Georgia is named after George II.  Massachusetts was named after a Native American Indian tribe (Massachusett).

Virginia (Jamestown)-The first English colony in the New World was founded by Captain John Smith on May 14, 1607.  A total of 104 people lived there at the time many of these people were farmers and blacksmiths.  Jamestown was known to have the best tobacco crops.  A group of African slaves were sent to Jamestown and arrived in 1619.

Massachusetts-Founded in 1620 when a group of pilgrims on the Mayflower arrived from England and created the Plymouth Colony.  Only half of the pilgrims on the journey survived.  The Mayflower Compact (a decree for a local government/rules) was conceived by the pilgrims the same year.  Chief Massasoit and his tribe of Wamapanoag Indians assisted the pilgrims in planting crops.  This was also the first Thanksgiving which was shared by the pilgrims and the Wamapanoag Indians.

New Hampshire-Founded in 1622 by Captain John Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges.  The name comes from Hampshire County in England  The colony of New Hampshire was part of Massachesetts, a royal charter in 1679.  The Pennacook and Abenaki Indians were already living in New Hampshire before the Europeans arrived.  A really important fact to know about New Hampshire is that New Hampshire was the first to claim independence from England, a full six month before the Declaration of Independence was signed.  Another interesting fact is that the first potato ever grown in the US was planted in Londonderry Common Field (NH) in 1719.

Maryland- Where tobacco was used the same as money and kids could drink beer!  Founded between 1632 and 1634 by Lord Baltimore and named for the wife of King Charles I, Henriette Maria.  Native Indians already living in Maryland at the time included the Yaocomaco, Susquehannock, Shawnee, Piscatawy, Nanticoke, Accohannock, and the Algonquin tribes.

Connecticut- Founded in 1636 by Thomas Hooker and other from the Massachusetts colony looking for more religious freedom.  Between 1636 and 1637, a war broke out between the settlers and the Pequot Indians, the Pequot War.  The Pequot Indians were pretty much wiped out.  Connecticut comes from the Mohegan Indian word Quinnehtukqut which means long river place.

Rhode Island- Roger Williams founded Rhode Island in 1636.  Williams started a rebellion against the Puritans.  Williams believed that the Indians should be paid for the land so he bought it from them.  The first slaves arrived in RI in 1774, and in 1776, Rhode Island was the first colony to renounce allegiance to Great Britain and declare its independence.

Delaware- Delaware was established in 1638 by Peter Minuit and the New Sweden Company.  Delaware is named from Lord de la Warr (Sir Thomas West) who was the first governor of the Virginia Company.  Interesting note, Dutch explorer Henry Husdon was the first to explore this area in 1609.
North Carolina- North Carolina was founded in 1653 by the Virginia colonists.  The name comes from the Latin name Carolus for Charles IX of France, King Charles I and King Charles II of England.

South Carolina- Founded in 1633 by eight English nobles with a Royal Charter from King Charles II. North Carolina and South Carolina were one colony until around 1729.

New York- It was Peter Minuit who founded New Amsterdam (New York) in 1626, and the Dutch occupied New York until 1674 when the English decided to take it from the Dutch.  They wanted the land because it was ideal for farming.  The name was changed to New York later in honor of James the Duke of York.

New Jersey- The Dutch and Swedish settled in New York and New Jersey around 1626 and called the land New Netherlands.  Around 1664, King Charles II took the New Netherlands by force and gave it to his brother, James, The Duke of York.  The Duke of York quickly discovered that the land was too big and gave part of the land away to his good friends Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret in 1664.  King Charles named his piece of land New York and New Jersey became the name of the other piece of land.  Side note, Princeton University was founded in NJ in 1746.

Pennsylvania-William Penn founded Pennsylvania in 1681 but the Swedes were actually the first to find Pennsylvania under the guidance of Peter Minuit in 1638.  Penn was looking for a place to have religious freedom for the Quakers.  There were around 638 people living in Pennsylvania at that time. The name Pennsylvania comes from the Latin word Sylvania which means forests or woodlands and Penn from William Penn's name, i.e. Penn's Forest. Ben Franklin was also in Pennsylvania.

Georgia- Three hundred and forty-five English folks led by James Oglethorpe set up shop in the Georgia Colony in 1732.  This was the last of the English Colonies to be established.  Georgia's name comes from King George II.  Georgia, the last colony founded, was founded 75 years after the first colony, Virginia, was founded.  Georgia was the only colony that forbade slavery.

Learn more:

Land of the brave info.
You can find a great chart here.
Another great site here.
Unit study, free, here.
PDF printables, amazing, here.

Will the real Benjamin Franklin please stand up?

We have been watching a television show called Sleepy Hollow.  C15 and I both love the show and watch it every Monday night at 9 without fail.  This is a show rich in history and historical events but I was finding that they were making a few reference about Benjamin Franklin, in particular, that I had never heard before and since I love to learn new things and have fairly good research skills, I thought I would check a few things out.

Franklin invented many, many amazing inventions in his lifetime.

He taught himself to read Spanish, French, Latin, Italian, and English.
That is quite an amazing feat considering he only had two years of formal schooling by the time he was just 10 years old.
He was self-taught in everything he learned.

I think that most people have at least heard of Ben Franklin.

Ben playing the glass armonica.

He is associated with all kinds of things from bifocals to the creation of the glass armonica.

Franklin usually conjures an image of a wild-haired man flying a kite in a lightening storm, a man who wrote most of and signed The Declaration of Independence, and the face of our $100 bill (my personal favorite image of Ben, never have enough of these) but a few of the lesser known facts I found were a little disturbing at best.

Here is a little of what I found on the hunt for the truth about Ben Franklin.
*It is alleged that he owned slaves.

*He liked to walk around naked.

*He was rumored to be a player and never legally married.  He did, however, have a common law wife, Deborah Read.

*He had as many as 12 illegitimate children with a variety of different woman.  Illegitimate simply means that a woman has a child with someone that is not her husband (and hopefully not the husband of someone else either).  The parents are not legally married.  He was a pretty busy guy to have 12 illegitimate kids!  He is known as a Founding Father but this is a little extreme.

*It is alleged that he was an alcoholic and a drug addict.

*He was also said to be part of the Hellfire Club which was basically a club for people who wanted to take part in immoral acts, very immoral acts. (Occult?)  They actually talked about this exact topic on tonight's show (11/3/2014).  Sounds like a fairly creepy secret society of sorts.  I have links at the end of this post.

*The final juicy tidbit that I came across is that Ben may have been a serial killer, what?  In 1998 while renovating Ben Franklin's old home at 36 Craven Street, ten bodies (4 adults/6 children) were discovered under the house where Franklin lived in London.  These bodies can be dated back to the exact time that Franklin lived in the house.  One theory suggests that these bodies were being used in medical experiments as the bodies were sawed apart and the skulls had holes drilled in them.  In those days performing autopsies and/or experiments on corpses was considered illegal and jail time was the punishment.

Like most things in history, we will probably never have all the answers to our questions and new discoveries are made every day which may contradict what we have learned before.  I think that is why I like researching these types of things.  I am very surprised I found so much negativity associated with Benjamin Franklin.
The Hellfire Club
The History Channel Hellfire Club
Ben Franklin
PBS
Timeline of BF's life
Of course, Pinterest