Early American Literature
Spring 2003
TRANSATLANTIC TIMELINE (1492 – 1699)
This timeline incorporates course readings from the Heath
Anthology and The Many-Headed Hydra together with historical and
cultural events in the Americas, Europe and Africa.
1492-93
Columbus, Journal of the First Voyage to America
1498-1500
Columbus, Narrative of the Third Voyage.
1501 Spanish royal ordinance gives
official sanction to introduce African slaves to Hispaniola, but colonists
import white slaves because Africans are considered too rebellious.
1502 Portugal lands first cargo of
African slaves in Hispaniola, carried by way of Europe in order to Christianize
them first. Direct import of African
slaves only begins in 1518.
1522 African slaves in Hispaniola
revolt.
1528 Relation of Alvar
Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (first published 1542). Estevanico, an African explorer, accompanies
Cabeza de Vaca for several years.
1527 African slaves in Puerto Rico
revolt.
1531 African slaves in Panama revolt.
1533 African slaves in Cuba revolt.
1537 African mine slaves in Mexico rebel.
1555 First African slaves taken to
England.
1560 The ratio of Africans to
Europeans in Hispaniola is 15 to 1.
1588 Thomas Harriot publishes A
Briefe and True Report of the New Found
Land of Virginia, based on his 1585 visit to the disappeared Roanoke
Colony.
1590-97
Major peak in execution of witches in England.
1596 English conquer Ireland.
1597 Beggar Act authorizes
deportation of beggars, vagrants and petty criminals from England to servitude
in colonial plantations.
1598 Juan de Oñate attacks and
conquers the Acoma Pueblo, in present-day New Mexico.
Late
1500s-
Early
1600s In England, women commonly
lead food riots during famine periods.
1604-18 Samuel de Champlain conducts
exploration voyages in Canada and northern New England, mapping French colonial
claims.
1605 Act of Parliament promotes
draining of fens by terminating commons rights.
1606 Virginia Company formed to
invest in the Virginia colony.
1607 Jamestown and Sagadahoc (in
current-day Maine) are established.
Sagadahoc fails same year.
1608 Midlands Revolt against
enclosures, largest anti-enclosure peasants rebellion in England. In North America, Edward Maria Wingfield,
first governor of Jamestown, describes colonial conditions in A Discourse of
Virginia.
1609 Virginia Company applies to
City of London to deport the destitute and homeless as indentured
servants. Company promulgates second
charter to ensure greater social discipline in Virginia colony.
1609-10 Jamestown endures ‘the starving
time’; most settlers die from malnutrition or Indian attacks; cannibalism
rampant. In winter 1609-10, one in
seven Jamestown colonists deserts to the Powhatan Indians from hunger during
winter.
1610 Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, Historia
de la Nueva México.
1610-11 Shakespeare’s The Tempest
set on an idyllic Carribean-esque island, with Caliban as the native.
1610-12 Military expeditions capture
deserter colonists in Virginia; they are hanged, burned, broken on wheels,
staked, and shot.
1614 In Ireland, Belfast established
on reclaimed land.
1619 Virginia Company transports
several hundred children from prison to Virginia; of 165 known names, only 12
remain alive by 1625. The first African
slaves arrive in Virginia.
1620 Plymouth Colony founded by Pilgrims.
1622 Powhatan attack on the Virginia
Colony kills 347 settlers, nearly a quarter of the colony’s European
population. In England, Francis Bacon
publishes An Advertisement Touching on Holy War, arguing that native
inhabitants had no legal standing and should be treated as possessions.
1623 The Virginia Company collapses
and is re-organized.
1624 John Smith publishes his
colonial memoir, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the
Summer Isles. There are 24 Africans
in Virginia.
1626 The Dutch purchase Manhattan
for sixty guilders from Indians who have no concept of land purchase. Dutch town grows slowly, reaching only 1300
settlers by 1660.
1629 Massachusetts Bay Company
organized to invest in New England.
John Winthrop delivers sermon “A Modell of Christian Charity” aboard the
Arabella, sailing for Massachusetts.
Slavery introduced into Connecticut Colony.
1630 Massachusetts Bay Company
founds Boston and ten other settlements.
Massachusetts introduces the first fugitive slave law; other colonies
follow. About 20,000 English immigrants
arrive in New England during the 1630s.
William Bradford begins Of Plymouth Plantation; completes writing
in 1650. In Virginia, a white man who
had sex with a black woman is denounced for an “abuse to the dishonor of God
and shame of Christians”, is whipped publicly, and required to apologize to the
community.
1634 Maryland Colony established by
Lord Baltimore.
1634-36
First English settlements established in the Connecticut
River Valley.
1636 Roger Williams founds
Providence in Rhode Island after being expelled from Massachusetts (1635) for
religious non-conformism.
1637 Approximately 600-700 Pequot
massacred in Connecticut, ending the Pequot War.
1639 First Swedish settlement – Fort
Christiana, near present-day Wilmington, Delaware – establishes New Sweden.
1640-44 Second major
peak in execution of witches in England.
1640 English Revolution begins; in
December 1641, Charles I receives the Grand Remonstrance listing complaints
against his rule.
1642 In England, first Civil War
breaks out. In Canada, Father Jerome
Lalemont captured by Mohawks in Canada; publishes his experiences in The
Relation of 1647.
1644 Second war breaks out against
the Powhatan Confederacy in Virgina; the Confederacy is destroyed and submits
to English sovereignty in 1646.
1646 In Massachusetts, Thomas Shepard
completes his Autobiography.
1647 In England, Putney Debates
held. In Naples, a popular revolt
seizes the city for ten days; the first modern popular urban rebellion.
1648 In Massachusetts, the Cambridge
Platform adopted; it specifies Puritan orthodoxy. Also, Massachusetts passes a law (unenforced) that condemned
rebellious children over sixteen to death for striking their parents.
1649 In England, Charles I executed
in January, a revolutionary regicide.
Oliver Cromwell departs for Ireland in July; carries out a bloody
campaign of genocide, enslavement and mass deportation. One-sixth of Irish adult males, about 34,000
men, enslaved and transported to the colonies.
In Virginia, there are about 300 African slaves.
1659 In Rhode Island, Anne
Bradstreet publishes first volume of American poetry, The Tenth Muse Lately
Sprung Up in America. In England,
Press Act (followed by Naval Discipline Act of 1661) establishes severe
maritime discipline. Press gangs become
ubiquitous. Three of four pressed men
die within two years.
1660 English monarchy restored under
Charles II. Religious oppression
increases. The first Navigation Act
enumerates permissible exports from the colonies.
1661 In Massachusetts, Michael
Wigglesworth publishes The Day of Doom, an hugely popular epic poem
admonishing pursuit of salvation. In Virginia, slave law declares that children
take the status of their mother. In
Gambia, the English establish James Island fortress for slave-trading.
1663 Second Navigation Act regulates
exports to the English colonies.
1660-63 Third major
peak in English witch-hunting.
1664 In England, the Conventicle Act
prohibits nonconformist worship. English capture New Netherland during Second
Dutch War; establish New York.
1665 In England, Five Mile Act
prohibits nonconformist ministers from living within five miles of any town.
1670s First wave of European pirates,
off Africa, in the Caribbean, and on the American coast.
1672 Virginia passes a law sanctioning
and rewarding the killing of Maroons.
1673 The third Navigation Act regulates
intercolonial trade.
1674 King Philip’s (Metacomet’s) War
breaks out in New England. Twelve
Massachusetts towns destroyed; one of every 15 adult English men killed; most
Wampanoags, Narragansett and other New England coastal Indians dispersed,
killed, or sold to West Indian slavery by summer 1676; remaining Indians in
Massachusetts organized into four ‘praying townships’ under close religious
control.
1676 In Virginia, Bacon’s Rebellion
becomes first major European anti-colonial revolt in North America; issues
concerned resentment over high taxes imposed by royal governor and frontier
settlement demands for military action against Indians; 23 colonists hanged for
treason. Nathaniel Bacon issues Manifesto
Concerning the Present Troubles in Virginia.
1680 In New Mexico, the Pueblo
Revolt under the leadership of Popé ends Spanish rule of the territory for 12
years. In Carolina Colony, settlers
first kidnap and enslave Westo Indians, then exterminate them. Colony proprietors angered because fur trade
with Westos was the only profit on their investment.
1681 Philadelphia founded by William
Penn and Quaker investment group. Tobacco worker riots break out in Gloucester
County, Virginia.
Late 17th
century James Revel publishes
poem, “The Poor Unhappy Transported
Felon’s Sorrowful Account of his Fourteen Years Transportation, at
Virginia, in America”
1682 In Massachusetts, Mary White
Rowlandson publishes A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs.
Mary Rowlandson, a popular bestseller.
1685 James II ascends to the English
throne and attempts to restore Catholicism; suspends the Test and Corporation
Acts in 1687, permitting Catholics to serve in the army and hold public
office. In France, revocation of the
Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV ended toleration of Protestantism and increased
immigration of Huguenots into North America.
1686 In Virginia, black slaves revolt; a
period of lawlessness follows.
1688 William III invades England
from Holland, overthrows James II and initiates the Glorious Revolution. In Pennsylvania, Daniel Pastorius and a
group of fellow Mennonite Quakers issue a public statement against slavery; it
is the first known antislavery protest in the English colonies.
1689-91 Jacob Leisler and poor Dutch
followers – “all men of mean birth, sordid Education, and desperate Fortunes” –
revolt and seize power in New York.
Leisler hanged and followers expelled to New Jersey.
1689-92 League of Augsburg formed; war
begins in Europe. Approximately 250,000
colonists in English colonies.
1690 John Locke (1632-1704)
publishes his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which lays the
foundation for the empirical school of philosophy, and his Second Treatise
on Government, the basis for liberalism.
1692 In Massachusetts, the Salem
Witch Trials begin. Cotton Mather
publishes Wonders of the Invisible World. In New Mexico, Don Diego de Vargas reconquers the lost Spanish
colony; suppresses another Pueblo Revolt in 1696.
Maryland passes a law requiring
seven years of slavery for any white man who married or had sex with a black
woman.
1693 Rice culture introduced into
South Carolina, drawing on Gambian agricultural skills and labor. In Virginia, the College of William and Mary
is chartered.
1696
Peace of Ryswick signed, ending King William’s War and English conflict
with the
French and Indians in New
England. Boundaries and settlements
restored, but the parties begin conflict again shortly after with Queen Anne’s
War in 1704.
1698 Parliament ends monopoly of
Royal African Company, making it legal for New England merchants to engage in
the slave trade. In Pennsylvania,
William Southeby attacks slavery and eventually is expelled from his Quaker
community for continued attacks on the institution.
1699 Cotton Mather publishes Decennium
Luctuosum: An History of Remarkable Occurances in the Long War.