Transcript Expansion and Diversity

Expansion and Diversity
The Rise of Colonial America,
1625-1700
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I can explain why New Englanders
abandoned Winthrop’s vision of a “city
upon a hill.”
I can describe why indentured
servitude gave way to racial slavery in
England’s plantation colonies.
I can differentiate the Southern, Middle,
and New England Colonies as it
pertains to social, economic and
political development
England and the
Atlantic World
When Elizabeth I became Queen
she stepped up exploration
 With a militant anti-Catholic foreign
policy, Drake sets out around the
world
 Colonists settle in Virginia: Roanoke
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◦ But the colonists refuse to grow their
own food and the Spanish-English
conflict prevented supplies
◦ 1590 - CROATOAN
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The realities of settlement in
America
◦ Even a well-financed colonizing effort
could fail
◦ Colonists didn’t bring enough for the
first winter and disdained growing
their own food
◦ Future attempts would have to be
self-financed
◦ International conflict made it tough
Beginnings of English
Colonization
Spain began to view the English
as less danger, and gave up claims
in Virginia
 Joint-stock companies form
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◦ Large sums of money with limited
risk to each investor

Two companies
◦ Virginia Co. of Plymouth
◦ Virginia Co. of London: successful
at Jamestown (38 of 105 by 1608)
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Very difficult success
◦ Required military rule
◦ Local officials were corrupt
◦ High death rate due to
malnutrition
◦ Poor relations with the local
Indians
New England Begins
Religious dissent meant treason
 1620 – patent to some London
merchants for a settlement
 24 families (102 people) in the
Mayflower
 They were Separatists who first
settled in the Netherlands
 ½ died within 4 months
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Puritan values of thrift, diligence,
and delayed gratification
 Middle class
 The Great Migration
◦ Push factor – economic
depression, crime, taxes, disliked
◦ Pull factor – “every man his own
master”; played will with middleclass values
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Turned from communal farming to
individually owned plots; farm
surpluses developed; they traded
the surplus corn for furs, etc. This
established better relations with
the Indians
Lasting importance
◦ An outpost for dissenting Puritans
◦ A self-governing society could function
◦ Blueprint for Indian relations
By 1700 more than 250,000
people of European birth or
parentage (mostly English)
 About 1 million Native
Americans had died due to
contact with Europeans by
1700
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The New England Way
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Beginning in 1635 with Charles I
there was a systematic campaign
to eliminate Puritan influence
◦ Must read the Common Book of
Prayer
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Charter secured to colonize Mass.
Bay
◦ 1630, a self-governing colony
◦ Non-separatists; 11 ships with 700
passengers
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John Winthrop’s City Upon a Hill
By Fall six towns had cropped up
nearby; 30% had died and 10%
went home
However, by 1642, 15,000
colonists in New England: it
attracted families of modest
means
The Pequot War, 1637
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One epidemic had wiped up 90% of
New England’s coastal Indians,
dwindling from 20,000 in 1600 to
only a few survivors by the mid1630s
Puritans had already created
“praying towns” – reservations for
those who gave in
◦ They were not to practice their ways
◦ An attempt to Christianize
When settlement moved into the
Connecticut River Valley, the
Pequots protested
 Mass. And Conn. Coordinated
military action in 1637 with the
support of the Mohegan and
Narragansett
 Ruthless (pg. 56)
 The Pequots land was awarded to
the colonists of Connecticut
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Dissent and Orthodoxy
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The New England Way
◦ Education
 Every town of 50 or more households to appoint
a teacher
 Every town of 100 to maintain a Grammar school
 But not compulsory
 Harvard College in 1636 (from 1642-1671 it
produced 201 graduates, including 111 ministers)
◦ Attendance at church
 All adults, and they must pay set rates to support
them
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Roger Williams
◦ He argued that the civil and the
religious should be separated
◦ Opposed any type of compulsory
church
◦ Thought Indians should be properly
compensated
◦ He was banished in 1635 and moved
to Providence (R.I.)
 Or Rogues Island as stated by those who
disliked him
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Anne Hutchinson
◦ Issue of “good works” as “signs”
◦ She charged that only two of the
colony’s ministers had been saved
◦ Her followers were known as
Antinomians- those opposed to
the rule of law
◦ They included Boston merchants,
young men, and the women
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Anne Hutchinson
◦ While on trial for heresy, she
could out knowledge the
General Court on Scripture
◦ Her undoing was claiming a
personal revelation
◦ She and many of her followers
were banished
The biggest threat to the “City
Upon a Hill” was the pursuit of selfinterest.
 Government leaders tried to
regulate prices so that consumers
would not suffer from the chronic
shortage of manufactured goods

◦ 1635- no good was to be priced more
than 5 % above its cost
◦ Those who violated this were fined
and shamed
Power of the Saints
They did consider themselves
members of the Church of
England, but self-governing;
ignoring the bishops authority
 Control of the congregation was in
the hands of the male “saints”
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◦ By majority vote these saints chose
their ministers, elected a board of
elders and decided who else
deserved recognition as saints
These saints did not just have to
profess the Calvinist faith, repent
their sins, and live free of scandal
(this was the English way)
 In America they had to stand
before the congregation and
provide a convincing “relation”
or account of their conversion
experience
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However, political participation
was more liberal in New
England
◦ Voters or officeholders did not
have to own property; you just
had to be a male saint
◦ By 1641, 55% of the colony’s 2300
men could vote (by contrast only
30% in England)
◦ 1644- the General Court was
bicameral (town’s deputies and
appointed Governor’s Council)
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New England legislatures
established a town by awarding a
grant of land to several dozen
landowner-saints
◦ Established a church
◦ Distributed the land amongst
themselves
◦ Established a town meeting
◦ Each town determined its own
qualifications for voting and holding
office (although most all male
taxpayers, including nonsaints, to
participate
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Women’s roles
◦ Sharply curtailed after Anne Hutchinson
◦ “Community of Women” to enforce morals
and protect the poor and vulnerable
◦ Matrimony was a contract rather than a
religious sacrament
◦ Divorce, though uncommon, was allowed (it
was a civil institution that the courts oversaw)
◦ Only 27 from 1639-1692
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Women’s roles
◦ Had no property rights unless
called for in the will or the
husband had no other heirs
◦ A widow could usually only claim
no more than 1/3 of and estate
◦ In charge of the work in the
house, barn, garden
New Englanders lived longer and
had larger families than the rest
of the colonists
 New England did not suffer the
same prospects of disease as
Virginia
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◦ Minimal travel between towns
◦ Winters
◦ East access to land provided an
adequate diet
Half-Way Covenant, 1662
By 1650 fewer than half the adults in
the Boston congregation were saints
 Why? Public subjection to grilling
 The second generation’s unwillingness
to provide a conversion relation
meant they were not saints, and
Puritan ministers only baptized the
children of saints
 Most third generation children were
unbaptized
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The compromise was the HalfWay Covenant
◦ Permitted children of baptized adults,
including nonsaints, to receive
baptism
◦ Allowed the second generation to
transmit potential church
membership to their grandchildren,
leaving their adult children “halfway”
members who could not vote or
take communion
Expansion and Native
Americans, 1650-1676
The fur trade became a
liability by midcentury
 King Phillip’s War
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Social and economic also
undermined the New
England Way
◦ “outlivers” vs. townspeople
◦ Distribution of wealth
becoming uneven
◦ These issues were evident in
Salem (2nd largest port)
Witches
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1691- what starts out as a few
girls asking a slave woman to tell
them their fortune, ends up in a
colony-wide panic that got to the
root of growing problems
◦ A large number of the 342 accused
witches were women who had
inherited, or stood to inherit, more
than the usual 1/3. They were
assertive women.
The widespread fear led judges to ignore
the law’s ban on spectral evidence
 The jails filled up
 The village’s troubled section accused the
wealthier from the eastern division of
town
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2/3 of the accusers were 11-20
More than half had lost one or both parents
Most worked as servants for others
They accused middle-age wives and widows
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By early 1693 the Governor pardoned all those
convicted or accused (his wife was one of the
accused)
◦ 55 women confessed (they were isolated,
saved, but reinforced the belief in witches)
◦ A few were successful at fleeing
◦ 19 try to bet the accusation and are hanged
◦ One 71 yr.old man was pressed to death
◦ Five (?) die in jail
◦ Over 200 accused
Chesapeake Society
Very different from the New England
Way of family farms and
agricultural/economic subsistence
 They were not the wealthiest stock, but
they were touchy about their standing
(not as educated or refined as they
thought they were)
 However, they became a few wealthy
planters with a majority of indentured
servants and a growing number of slaves
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The State and
Church in Virginia
Not set up to be a representative
govt.
 Made so by Charles I in exchange for a
tax on tobacco exports and a
transferring the cost of the colony’s
government to Virginia’s planters
 After 1630 the burgesses met
regularly (taxation)
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◦ Eventually split into two chambers
◦ House of Burgesses and Gov. Council
(life)
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1634 – Virginia adopts the
county court system
Justices and sheriffs (adm.
During the court’s recess)
appointed by Gov.
Most everywhere south of
New England was run by the
unelected county courts until
1710
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The Church of England
◦ Required to pay fixed rates to
the Anglican Church
◦ In each parish were six
vestrymen (chosen amongst
the wealthy) who handled
church finances, etc.
◦ Hard to get ministers (10
served 45 parishes)
Maryland
1632 – Lord Baltimore (Cecilius
Calvert)
 Proprietary colony – control
given to him
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◦ Power to appoint all sheriffs and
judges
◦ Secured freedom from taxation
◦ The crown controlled war and
trade as well as the requirement
that an elected assembly approve
all laws
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A refuge for Catholics
◦ 2% of the pop.
◦ Couldn’t worship in public
◦ Had to pay tithes to the Anglican
Church
◦ Barred from holding office
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Adopted Virginia’s headright system
◦ Wealthy settlers bring others at their
own cost
◦ What they got was a 2000 acre manor
for 5 adults (moved to 20 by 1640)
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Settlement did not go as planned
◦ Most were Protestant
◦ They bought their own land to avoid
being tenants
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Act of Religious Toleration in
1649
◦ Maryland was second to Rhode
Island in granting religious toleration
 But was mostly successful symbolically
 Punishment for blasphemy; banned Catholics
form voting; did not protect non-Christians;
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In 1654 the Protestant
majority banned Catholics
from voting and repealed the
Toleration Act
◦ They ousted the pro-toleration
Governor
◦ He raised an army, was defeated,
imprisoned and 3 Catholics
were hanged
Death, Gender, Kinship
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Tobacco lured population to
the Chesapeake (110,000 from
1630 to 1700)
◦ 90% indentured servants
◦ 80% male (only 1/3 could find a
bride)
◦ Female ind.servants faired
better; often hooking up with
wealthy planters who bought
their years
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Greatest diseases
◦ Typhoid, dysentery, salt poisoning,
malaria after 1650
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Life expectancy for males was 48;
females 44 (New England was 70)
Servants usually died within 6
years of arrival
½ of those married became
widows within 7 years
Women had more property
rights here
 Death created very complex
family patterns (pg. 70)
 High death rates and male
immigration retarded
growth
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Tobacco Shapes a
Region, 1630-1670
Population was dispersed (6 per
sq.mi)
 Most did not travel far from home
 In the isolated world tobacco was
king, even when it lost 97% of its
former value
 Grown on fertile river bank soil
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◦ transportation
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Indentured servants faced a
bleak future
◦ Entered the world
impoverished
◦ Some states obliged masters
to provide clothes, corn, ax,
hoe, even land (Maryland 50
acres)
However, by the 1660s and 1670s the
tobacco prices plummeted
 England had a law that all of their
tobacco was to be shipped exclusively to
England in English ships (to drive Dutch
merchants out)
 The Dutch retaliated by burning farms
 Even the Governor was commenting on
the colonies addiction to the “vicious,
ruinous plant.”

Bacon’s Rebellion
Anger over poor lot was taken out on
the Indians
 Though many Indians had agreed to stay
on specific lands, continued white
encroachment and being outnumbered
the Indians and whites were in constant
conflict
 The govt. didn’t care to do anything
about it – protecting their fur trading
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Gov. Berkeley (page 147)
 His cronies got the best land,
paid little taxes and
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June 1675 – Virginia and Maryland militia
pursue the wrong tribe, murdering 14
 Frontier folk wanted the least costly solution
– war of extermination
 They chose Nathaniel Bacon
 He is give free reign at first but then Gov.
Berkeley recanted
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◦ Bacon and his force march on Jamestown and
burn it; the rebels offered freedom to those
who supported them
◦ Bacon dies of dysentery and the Governor
hangs 23
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Slavery in the Chesapeake
◦ 1689- more open competition
◦ Declining white migration
◦ Began passing laws restricting
slave behavior (30 lashes for
threatening remarks)
◦ No white could free a slave
without paying for their way out
of the colony
◦ Free blacks would not bear arms,
hold office, vote or employ white
servants
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Lasting impact
◦ Economic opportunism (frontiersmen)
◦ Racism – increased attacks on Natives
◦ Briefly a more stringent royal control fell
upon Virginia
◦ Reinstituting the headright system
◦ Increased slavery
◦ Rise of the Great Planter (landed gentry)
◦ Seeds of the American Revolution
Sugar and Slaves:
The West Indies
The Dutch suggested to the French and
English to raise and then process sugar cane
(they would market it)
 It took 3x as many workers per acre
 Slaves did cost 2-4x more than servants, but
they were a long-term investment
 Increasing demand for slaves (from 40,000
to 130,000 in 1713) diverted white
migration to North America
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1650 – more white
colonists lived in the West
Indies than Chesapeake and
New England combined
◦ 44,000 to 12,000 + 23,000

Barbados was the key. It
housed 30,000 English (only
166 sq. mi.)

Slaves
◦ Each laborer had to dig at least 60 hole
by hand a day
◦ Between 1645-55 the English govt.
shipped captives from rebellions (Scots,
Irish Catholics)
 But they could pass a freemen if they
escaped
◦ Switched to the distinctively colored
slave
◦ Barbados becomes the first English
colony with a black enslaved majority
27,000 to 26,000 in 1660 (and by 1680
17:1 ratio of slaves to indentured
servants
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Slave Code
◦ Definition – Heathenish, brutish,
uncertain, and dangerous
◦ Property with no legal or political
rights
◦ Owners required to provide pants,
cap, (females a petticoat). Nothing
about shoes, shirts, diet, or working
conditions
◦ No penalty for whipping
◦ Govt. compensated owners for
executed slaves
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Slave code
◦ Mandated strict policy of surveillance
◦ No slave could leave the plantation
without written approval
◦ Slaves could not beat drums, blow
horns, or use loud instruments
◦ To encourage black cooperation, those
who turned in fugitives got fancy new
clothes
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The English refused any
attempt to convert slaves
However, those that survived
in the West Indies did preserve
much more of their native
languages and customs
Barbadian planters goal was
personal wealth; they
developed a siege mentality
and walled themselves
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Due to the growing elite on
Barbados and the massive slave
population, common whites move
to Jamaica
◦ The Gov. encouraged it with
generous quantities of land: 30 acres
to each planter, plus 30 more for
each family member, servant, and
slave
◦ Problem with the Spanish solved by
Capt. Henry Morgan
◦ By 1680 Port Royal was the 3rd
largest town in English America
behind Bridgetown and Boston
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Jamaican maroons
◦ Runaway slaves that could
escape to the densely
vegetated mountains and
other secluded areas and live
autonomously
◦ They developed formidable
bush fighting techniques
Rice and Slaves: Carolina
Carolina becomes a Restoration Colony
(King Charles II in 1663)
 Located boldly close to Spanish America,
it needing settlement – 50 acres for
every family member, indentured servant
or slave
 Govt. – set up a 3-tiered nobility system
that would control 2/5 of the land (not
really followed), religious toleration,
political representation and English
Common Law
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Colonists in the Northern part
exported tobacco, lumber, pitch (it
became North Carolina in 1691 due
to stubborn independence)
Colonists in the Southern part
raised livestock and traded Indian
slaves and then Rice
◦ Rice earned annual profits of 25%
◦ Required 65 slaves per 130 acres
 Africans because (1) they new rice and (2)
immunities to yellow fever and malaria
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The colonists agreement
with the Indians over
returned slaves equaled a
gun and three blankets for
each
◦ There was a fear amongst
Carolinians that the slaves
and the Indians would
conspire against them
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In 1702 “South Carolina” quickly
stifled the policy of religious
toleration and barred non-Anglicans
from holding office and established
the state-sponsored Anglican church
In 1719 (in a coup) they staged their
own little revolution to rest control
from the proprietors in a attempt to
become a royal colony. It worked.

Carolinians were very good
at the gun trade
◦ It brought lucrative animal
hides and human slaves
◦ Depleted the Natives by
requiring them to over hunt
◦ Pitted tribe against tribe
◦ Made them dependent on
whites for ammunition
Georgia
Set up in honor of King George II, it
appealed to a group of wealthy
philanthropists and social reformers
(1732)
 “to alleviate English urban poverty by
shipping miserable wretches and
drones to a new southern colony,
where hard work on their own farms
would cure indolence” and so they
could defend the empire on a colonial
frontier
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It was the first colony funded by
the taxpayers of Britain
 Headed by James Oglethorpe
 How?
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◦ Restricted amount of property (>50
acres)
◦ No slaves
◦ Grow compact, high value crops
◦ No alcohol
◦ No lawyers
◦ No elected assembly
They actually rallied behind the
slogan “Liberty and Property
without restrictions”
 1751 – permitted slaves and
surrendered Georgia to the
crown
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Middle Colonies
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New Netherland
◦ The Dutch buy to sell again, take in to
send out
◦ It was a liberal government that adopted
policies of intellectual freedom and
religious toleration
◦ 1625: New Amsterdam was settled, and
America’s first multiethnic colony of New
Netherland was formed
 Barely ½ its colonists were Dutch
 Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims (but
religion counted for little)
 18 languages
1/5 of the colonists were
dissident Puritans (Anne
Hutchinson)
 Favored slaves were
granted “half-freedom”
 Women got half her
husband’s property after
his death
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◦ Its privatization led to an influx of guns,
which went to Iroquois allies
◦ Upriver Dutch – trade with the Indians
◦ Downriver Dutch – get the Indians out
(missions were an unnecessary
expense)
 They used these in the “beaver wars” against
the French and their allies
 However, relations with coastal Indians
weren’t to good. A massacre set off Kieft’s
War (1600 to 700) (Anne Hutchinson died
during this)

New Sweden
◦ Actually originally settled by disgruntled
Dutch (former New Netherland’s governor
Peter Minuit on behalf of the Swedish
◦ The trading post lost money and the Dutch
settlers sold it to the Swedish Crown
◦ Then most of the settlers came from
Finland (they did leave the log cabin)
◦ 1655 – New Netherland’s Gov. Peter
Stuyvesant appeared with 7 warships and
300 men to take it over

However the New Netherland
colony failed
◦ Smaller pool of emigrants
◦ Less incentive for those to
emigrate
◦ Indian wars
◦ Navigation Acts
 In an effort to curtail Dutch colonial
trade
 Began in 1651, and then strengthened
in 1660 and 1663
Navigation Acts

1. Only English ships could carry trade with any
English colony
◦ An English ship was one built within the empire,
owned and captained by an English subject and
sailed by a crew at least ¾ English

2. a few “enumerated commodities” produced
in the colonies could be shipped only to the
mother country
◦ Those that yielded the greatest profit to
merchants and the highest revenues to the
customs: tobacco and sugar

3. all European goods carried to the colonies
had to pass through an English port, where
they paid customs duties

This was a mercantilist
political economy: policies
aimed at guaranteeing
prosperity by making a
nation as economically selfsufficient as possible
◦ Eliminate dependence
◦ Damage foreign competitors
◦ Increase stock of gold and
silver

Impact on the British colonies
◦ Laid the foundation for Britain
being the foremost shipping nation
in Europe and America’s
shipbuilding industry
◦ Encouraged economic
diversification
◦ Colonies were a protected market
for low-priced consumer goods
from Britain
Back to New Netherland
The English wanted to capture
the fur trade and intimidate
New England, as well as the
fact that King Charles wanted
to give his younger brother
James (the Duke of York) a
proprietary colony
 3 warships later, the Dutch
surrender
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Quaker Pennsylvania
◦ The noblest attempt at carrying
out European concepts of justice
and equality
◦ William Penn- received this
because his dad was owed a huge
debt by Charles II
◦ Penn’s goals
 Launch a holy experiment base on the
teachings of George Fox
 A little something for himself

Quakers
◦ Often came from the bottom
rung of society
◦ Ridiculed for their practices: did
not tip their hats to social betters;
wore them in court and would
not swear oaths; used “thee” and
not “you”, would not bear arms
◦ Believed in the Inner Light that
could inspire anyone
◦ No need for clergy
Penn gave Pennsylvania a strong
executive branch and granted
the lower legislature only
limited powers
 He carefully oversaw land sales
and planned Philadelphia on a
grid plan, laying out the streets
at right angles and reserving
small areas for parks
 Bought land from the Indians

The population grew because they
immigrated as families; relations with
Indians were better than other
colonies (+they had been depleted)
 However, after Penn returned to
England in 1699, the colony struggled

◦ Religious challenge by George Keith
◦ Delaware was formed from some
southern counties
◦ the population of immigrants dwindled
after 1710
Rebellion and War,
1660-1713

Before 1660, England made
little effort to reign in the
colonies and consolidate them
into a coherent empire

Royal Centralization
◦ First evidence was in New York
 Charles appointed former army officers to
about 90% of all gubernatorial positions
 By 1680 “governors generals” ruled 60% of all
American colonists
◦ New England ignored the Navigation Acts
and continued to welcome Dutch traders
 1679- Charles carved out New Hampshire
(royal colony)
 1684- declared Massachusetts a royal colony
and revoked its charter
 1686- consolidated MA, NH, CT, and RI into
the Dominion of New England
 Added NY and Jersey in 1688
The appointed Gov., Sir
Edmund Andros, forced
toleration of Anglicans and
the Navigations Acts
 Colonists feared that they
would by betrayed by the
Catholic officials to France


The Glorious Revolution
◦ William and Mary take back
England and create a limited
monarchy and the English Bill of
Rights are established
◦ Andros is arrested trying to
skip town in women’s clothing

The Dominion of New England is
dismantled, restoration of elected
governors to Connecticut and
Rhode Island, but they retain
authority in Massachusetts
◦ Mass. Got Plymouth and Maine, but not
NH
◦ New charter allowed the crown to
appoint governor
◦ Property ownership, not church
membership
◦ Toleration of Protestants


Overall, William and Mary
dismantled the previous
consolidation and handed
authority back over to the colonial
elites; it reestablished legislative
government and ensured religious
freedom for Protestants
A foundation was laid for an
empire based on voluntary
allegiance rather than submission
to raw power imposed from afar

A Generation for War, 1689-1713
◦ King William’s War
 1st war to embroil colonists and Native Americans
in European rivalries
 New Yorkers and New Englanders launch an
attack on New France in 1690
 Five Nations Iroquois Confederacy suffered the
most – by 1696 French armies had destroyed the
villages of most Iroquois nations (pop. Decline of
20%)
 Grand Settlement – Five Nations made peace
with France: this allowed them to rebuild their
population and gain recognition as a key to the
balance of power in the NE

Queen Anne’s War
◦ Also called the War of Spanish
Succession
◦ This war reinforced the Anglo-American
awareness of their military weakness
 In the north, French and Indian raiders
destroyed several towns in Maine and Mass.
 In the south, the Spanish invade Carolina and
almost take Charles Town
 Treaty of Utrecht (1713) – France gives up
claims to Hudson Bay, but not North America’s
interior (Mississippi River system)

The most important impact of
these conflicts was political, and
not military
◦ Anglo-Americans reinforced their
identity as Protestant and
adherents of political liberty
◦ This also meant acknowledging
their dependence upon the newly
formed United Kingdom of Great
Britain


During the post 1713 peace Britain could get back
to its economic growth
As mercantilism buttressed the growing wealth and
diversity of the colonies colonists began to emulate
the British. This is where the wealth in the new
world went. Commerce was key. Cheap imported
goods created a growing middle-class lifestyle (key
to democratic development)
◦ “Staffordshire pottery might be seen as the Coca-Cola
of the eighteenth century.” The colonists love to sit
and have tea.

The French and the Spanish systems never quite
matched this. Their wealth went straight to the
mother country and never fully developed their
North American colonies




During the 1st half of the eighteenth century all
three colonial populations quadruped in size to
1.17 mil. For the British; 60,000 for the French; and
19,000 for the Spanish
They limited immigration to Catholics
Spain just wanted a buffer against both the English
and the French – presidios and mission work to
rally Indians
The French are discouraged by cold of Canada and
the Louisiana reputation - the French sent
criminals and paupers there; as well as
encouraging large scale slave imports
◦ By 1732 2/3 of lower Louisiana was black and
enslaved



White women in the British
colonies had eight children and
forty-two grandchildren
Natural increase was the key to the
British growth and stability in the
American Colonies
40% of the newcomers were
enslaved, and the owners
deliberately mixed them to avoid
rebellion (less cohesion)
Slavery was a southern institution,
but 15% lived north of Maryland,
mostly in New York and New Jersey
(NY 1/7)
 By 1750 the rate of natural increase
for slaves was almost equal to
whites
 Creole (American-born) slaves
grew

◦ Sharp differences between them and
the African-born slaves

Differences
◦ Autonomy
◦ Worked in services
◦ Learned to speak

Immigration to the American
Colonies changed as well
◦ A greater percentage of Irish and
Germans came in the first half of the
1700s
 Scots-Irish came as complete families
 Irish were 90% unmarried males
 Germans from the Rhine Valley
 Pattern was that they were poor
 Pg. 99 pie charts




Rising number of immigrants to
the Piedmont, many first
settling in Charles Town
By 1750 1/3 of colonists had
moved into the Piedmont; page
100 map
Many were convicts
Franklin complained of
German influx into
Pennsylvania
Due to the number of children,
rural white men could give to
their heirs little more than 1/6 or
1/7 of their estate
 Often young men turned to the
frontier, the port cities, or the
high seas
 Rural families depended heavily
on women


Colonial Farmers
◦ Impact of rapid deforestation
 Drove away game
 Removed protection from winds
 Hastened run-off of spring waters (heavier
flooding)
 Impediments like mills and floating timbers
 Rapid reduction in fish
 Exhaustion of soil without crop rotation

Urban Paradox
◦ A key to the colonist rising prosperity,
yet held only 4% of the population
◦ Philadelphia, Boston, and New York
◦ ½ of the children died by 21
◦ Adults lived 10 yrs. Less
◦ After 1700 the problem of the urban
poor and how to pay for them
 By 1772 4% of NY required public
assistance; Philadelphia had 11% listed as
poor
Wealth was remaining in the
hands of a few
 Richest 10% owned about
45% of the property
 Urban women often worked
as servants, helping urban
wives with household items


Slavery’s Wages
◦ Black slaves consumed 50 lbs. of
meat a year (whites 200)
◦ Slaves were provided with eight
quarts of corn and a pound of
pork each week, but were
expected to grow their own
vegetables, forage for wild fruits,
and perhaps raise poultry.
◦ Slaves began part-time labor at 7;
full time at 11-14

In South Carolina and Georgia
under tasking allowed slaves to
farm a quarter acre, and even
keep and sell their own hogs
and sell surplus vegetables
◦ One slave even bought his own
slave and then traded his slave
for his freedom

But as the black slave
population became a majority,
the system became harsher
◦ 1721 curfew
◦ 1735 law – dress code on slaves
◦ 1739 Stono Rebellion
 20 blacks grew to 80 blacks; they
killed 20 whites
Result was that slaves came under
constant surveillance
 Master’s were fined for not disciplining
slaves and legislation was required for
manumission
 By midcentury, slaves made up 20% of
New York and a over 50% of Charles
Town and Savannah
 Many slave owners rented out their
slaves – slave artisans

France and Native Americans
1718 – New Orleans is est. as the capital and
port city of Louisiana (France’s principal
focus)
 In Louisiana a mix of white, black and Indian
(Choctow) traded, farmed, etc.
 Illinois was the most successful part of the
colony: they grew wheat
 France attempts to capitalize on trade with
Natives in Ohio Valley country

◦ This will weaken the English
However, the French brutally
suppressed the Natchez in 172030 and enslaved many Native
Americans to labor for them in
the West
 They traded guns to the Indians of
the Plains

◦ These same Indians were acquiring
horses from the remains of the
Spanish in the west/southwest
Native Americans and
British Expansion

Most importantly the Covenant Chain
◦ This was a series of treaties in which the
Iroquois confederacy help the colonies
subjugate Indians who were on land the
English wanted

Walking Purchase in Pennsylvania
◦ Fraudulent treaty with the Delaware that
said the Delaware’s had sold their land as
far west as a man could walk in a day and
a half. PA got 1200 more sq. miles
Spain’s Tenacity
Attempting to repopulate the
Southwest after the Pueblo Revolt,
Spain awards grants of 26 sq. mi. when
10+ families found a town
 Population in New Mexico – 14,000
 Raids from Apaches, Utes, Comanches
 Est. Texas with San Antonio in 1716


The Pueblo Revolt (1680)
◦ The Spanish sought to rule the SW by
subordinating the Pueblo Indians
 Est. churches and limited their indigenous
religious practices
 Set up encomiendas
 Drove a wedge between the Pueblo and
the Apaches and Navajos by forcing the
Pueblo to pay tribute in corn (that surplus
they traded with the Apache)
When skirmishes broke out amongst
the tribes the Pueblos sought to
return to native ways
 Franciscan missioners destroyed their
sacred kivas (ceremonial centers) and
the Gov. ordered soldiers to attack
 After a brief cooling off, in 1680, the
Pueblo killed almost 70 Spanish
colonists, then proceeded to Santa Fe
and killed around 400

This act removed the Spanish
from the SW for 12 yrs. until it
was reconquered
 Then the Spanish eliminated
the encomieda system and the
missionaries were not to
disrupt traditional religious
practices

Public Life in British American,
1689-1750
England’s new Bill of Rights was
the foundation of government and
politics in the colonies
 The Enlightenment and the Great
Awakening are the two major
events
 Significant because more colonists
began to participate in

◦ Politics
◦ Intellectual discussions
◦ New religious movements

Colonial politics
◦ Rise of the assemblies, the only
political body subject to control by
colonists rather than by English officials
◦ Steady assertion of authority by
refusing outside meddling, taking
control of taxes and budgets, and most
importantly reigning in executive
salaries
 Despite executive power to veto acts,
dismiss assemblies, and call new elections,
the Gov. was subject to financial pressure
(they paid his income)

There was a political vacuum
◦ There was a Board of Trade that had the
authority to monitor American developments,
but they rarely exercised authority
Colonial assemblies were the wealthiest 2
percent
 Legal requirements barred 80% of white
men from running for the assembly

◦ You must own at least 1000 acres
◦ Only given living expenses
◦ Most towns chose their legislators among 3-4
families

Voters
◦ In 7 colonies voters had to own 4050 acres
◦ About 40% of free white men could
not meet these requirements
◦ Rural participation was low
 Most governors called elections when he
say fit so they had little knowledge of
them
 You had to state your opinion openly
 Most elections were uncontested“gentleman’s duty”



In the northern seaports a competitive
environment ensued
Journals got involved with mudslinging
1734 case of the Weekly Journal’s
printer, John Zenger, seditiously libelling
the Gov. of New York
◦ Encouraged a broadening political
discussion and participation
◦ Seized on the growing colonial practice of
allowing attorneys so speak directly to
juries
◦ This empowered nonelites such as voters,
readers, and jurors

Then Enlightenment
◦ Literacy and education allowed
colonists to participate in the transAtlantic world of ideas and beliefs
◦ Science and community
◦ Ben Franklin was influential in this
movement in the colonies
 Reading discussion groups
 The American Philosophical Society