Unit 2: Colonial America (1607-1754)

Jamestown

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• First permanent English settlement
• Many settlers died on the trip there, and those who survived fell to starvation or disease
• Settlers were not suited to life in the New World and were more interested in “gold”

Captain John Smith

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• English explorer who helped found and govern Virginia
• Imposed a regime of forced labor; helped the colony get through its first winter (the “starving times”)
• Injured in a gunpowder accident and was forced to return → VA continued to suffer after

Headright System

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• Established by the Virginia Company to attract new settlers and address labor shortages
• Granted 50 acres of land to colonists and any servants they brought if they paid for their passage to the Chesapeake

Indentured Servants

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• Free passage to the New World in exchange for 7 years’ labor
• After gaining freedom, many were supplied with a small piece of property → opened a path to suffrage and land ownership
• Almost half didn’t fulfill their term, but a majority of men who migrated to the Chesapeake were indentured servants

House of Burgesses

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• First elected assembly in colonial America, allowed any property-holding white male to vote
• All decisions still had to approved by the Virginia Company

Powhattan

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• Algonkian chief
• Saw the Europeans as potential allies in his struggle against other Native groups
• Essentially saved the VA colony

Powhattan Confederacy

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• Group of natives that initially supplied Jamestown with food, but stopped after John Smith was sent back to England
• Powhatan Wars → Earliest conflict over territorial disputes, first reservation lands

Opechancanough

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• Powhattan’s brother → after his death, led an attack on the VA settlements in 1622
• Devastating massacre, led the VA Company to bankrupcy
• Forced Virginia to become a royal colony (i.e. under governance of the Crown)

Tobacco

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• Economic salvation of the Virginia colony
• First planted by John Rolfe in 1611, then exported to England 6 years later
  • English demand grew steadily
• Labor: indentured servants (limited effectiveness) and slavery 
• Success inspired further Chesapeake colonization

Maryland

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• Founded by Cecilius Calvert (Lord Baltimore) as a haven colony for Catholics
  • Original intent was to govern autocratically, but eventuall modified to a legislative assembly
• Act of Toleration (1649) → protect religious freedom of most Christians
  • Didn’t stiop a bloody religious civil war from bubbling for the century

Bacon’s Rebellion

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• 1676, Nathaniel Bacon
• Governer George Berkely refused to remove natives to open up land → led to series of attacks that turned into full rebellioin
• Basically a battle between the elite, but Bacon’s principles (removal of natives, reducing taxes, less power for elite) gained support from small farmers
  • + promised freedom and native lands to those who joined
• Bacon briefly became governor after destroying VA, but stopped after English warships came
  • After the rebellion ended and Bacon died, the government took large steps to consolidate their power
• Led to the promotion of race-based unity in order to consolidate poor white farmers

Slave Codes

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• Slave population increased and more rebellions rose → more slave codes
• The implementation of a legal systemic order to limit slaves and free blacks’ rights
  • Restricted slaves’ movements and rights
  • No master was liable for a slave’s death due to punishment
  • Militias of common white planters promoted racial solidarity
  • Interratial marriage outlawed
• Allowed poor white farmers to be more privileged than blacks → racial solidarity among whites

Pilgrims

• Led by Willam Bradford
• Group of Separatists → Protestants who detached themselves from the Church of England and sought a safe haven in the New World
• Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 to Plymouth, where they established the first English settlement in New England

Mayflower Compact

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• Signed when the Pilgrims were still aboard the Mayflower
• Document signed by the Pilgrims agreeing to majority-rule government
  • Consent of the governed, not God → different tone for social order in NE than VA

Puritans

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• Sought to distance themselves from religious corruption in England
• Wanted to “purify” the Church of England of corruption and separatists
  • However, did not believe in religious freedom and punished dissenters

Squanto

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• Tisquantum
• Previously captured as a slave and brought to Europe, where he learned English
• When the Pilgrims arrived, he became their interpreter

Massachusetts Bay Colony

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• Established by the Puritans and John Winthrop in 1630
• Chartered by the Massachusettes Bay Company
• Had more resources and grew quicker than Plymout
  • Plymouth eventually absorbed into MA in 1691
• Religious and social vision often came at odds with settlers → leaders’ control conflicted with settlers’ desire to move into “freely available land”

City Upon a Hill

John Winthrop’s vision of MA → Puritans would be a model for others and spread righteousness throughout the world

Roger Williams

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• Minister in the Salem Bay settlement in MA
• Separation of church and state (controversial) → banished by the Puritans
• Moved to Rhode Island and founded a new colony with freedom of religion in 1635

Thomas Hooker

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• Led a group of followers away from MA and founded Connecticut in 1636
• Fundamental Orders → first written constitution in British North America

Anne Hutchinson

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• Antinomanianism → God’s gifts were instilled mystically into each individual; Christians are not bound by moral law, rather by faith and God’s grace
• Started to attract a gathering, but was banished from MA to Rhode Island

Mary Dryer

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• Followed Hutchinson to Rhode Island and converted to Quakerism
• When she returned to Boston in 1659 to preach Quakerism, she was publicly hanged

English Civil Wars

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• King Charles I vs. Puritans
  • Puritan victory, England was ruled by Oliver Cromwell
• During Interrugnum (between wars), little motivation for Puritans to move to England, but resumed after

Pequot War

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• People living in MA looked to move to CT, but it was already inhabited by Pequots
• Pequots attacked a settlement → Massachusetts Bay Colony responded by killing 400 peopl
  • Basically near destruction of the Pequots
• Made the same error as the Powhattans → saw the English as an ally

The Beaver Wars

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• 1628-1701
• Iroquois Confederacy vs. French-backed Algonquian tribes over fur and fishing rights in the Great Lakes region
• Bloodiest in American history

Huron Confederacy

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• 40,000 people, near Lake Ontaria
• Most died due to smallpox and then over conflicts for fur rights
• Allies with the French

Pueblo Revolt

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• 1680
• Pueblo people in Mexico killed hundred of Spanish colonists and drove the rest out of the region
• Spanish eventually came back in 1692, but were much more accommodating

Chickasaw Wars

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• 1721-1763
• Chickasaw (British) vs. Choctaw (French) over land around the Mississippi
• Had guns, only ended with the 1st Treaty of Paris

King Phillip’s Wa

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• Americans intruded on Wampanoag territory, seeking to assimilate Native Americans to English culture → tribe leader Metacomet led attacks on settlements
• Destroyed many English settlements, but ran out of food + Metacomet died, so the alliance fell
• Marked the end of native prescence among NE colonists

Carolinas

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• 1663 proprietary charter granted by Charles II
• Founders tried to establish their colony using the principles of feudalism (see Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina)
• South Carolina → majority slave population, rice crops which the slaves had experience growing in West Africa
• North Carolina → livestock, tobacco, lumber; less dependent on slave labor
• Split in 1701

Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina

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• 1669, with the help of John Locke
• Outlined a complex government that limited political rights and land use
• 40% of land would always remain in the hands of a fereditary aristocracy
• Never became reality in America → settlers refused to accept the Fundamental Constitutions and the proprietors withdrew their power

Stono Uprising

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• September 1739, South Carolina
• One of the most successful slave uprisings
• 20 slaves stole guns and ammunition, killed whites, and liberated other slaves → fled to Florida, but were caught and punished
• Increased white fear of slave rebellions

Georgia

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• 1733, James Ogelthorpe, proprietary
• Proprietors tried to establish a utopian settlement, but the openness of conditions in American once again prevented it
• Initial: ban slavery and alcohol; economy revolves around silkworms
• 1750 → trustees abandoned the plan and left Georgia to develop on its own

Quakerism

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• Began in England in the mid-1600s
• Believed the spirit of God was expressed through an “inner light,” rather than through an organized church
• Considered the Church of England corrupt, rejected social hierarchy, equality of man and woman, pacifists

William Penn

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• Led a group of Quakers in 1674 to establish a settlement in West Jersey
  • Received a vast expanse of territory in 1681 → became Pennsylvania
• Utopian “peaceable kingdom” → religious freedom for Quakers and all religions; peaceable relations with Natives
• Attracted a number of immigrants, leading to harsher relations with natives
  • Multiethnic settlement

The Great Awakening

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• Wave of religious revivalism in the colonies from 1730 to 1760
• Jonathann Edwards in MA
• George Whitefield → called peopled back to orthodox Calvinism
• Led to competition with different denominations → encouraged separation of Church and State
• Brought women into direct participation, founding of women’s colleges, egalitarian social outlook, first broadly American experience

Calvinism

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• Most settlers of MA were strict Calvinists
• Belief in pre-destination, conversion, and god as the all-powerful and all-mighty
• “Protestant work ethic” → eventual development of a market economy
  • Set up the nation for the Civil War?

Mercantilism

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• Economic life was direct competition for wealth against other nations
  • Most successful nation = the one with most exports and least imports
• Used colonies for their resources and as markets
• Government regulation of economy

Navigation Acts

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• Established English control over colonial commerce
• 1660 → goods had to be shipped on a British-owned ship with a British captain and ¾ British soldiers
  • Items on an “enumerated list” (sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo) could only be exported to British ports
• 1663 → goods sent to the colonies from Europe had to pass through a British port, where import and export duties could be levied
• 1673 → good leaving the colonies would be taxed  (unless on the enumerated list)
  • Customs officials put in place
• Mostly affected those living in New England who had dependence on ports and markets
  • Often resorted to smuggling

New York

• 1664 → England seized the port of New Amsterdam and the entirety of New Netherlands

Lords of Trade and Plantations

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• Aka Board of Trade
• A board established by Parliament to oversee colonial affairs
• 1679 → overruled MA’s claims to New Hampshire, making New Hampshire a separate royal colony
  • Also revoked MA’s original charter and became a royal colony

Dominion of New England

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• Formation of a megacolony under royally appointed rule (Sir Edmund Andros)
• Strengthened colonial defense and allowed the royal gov to establish firmer control over the colonies
  • Representative assemblies were abolished, town meetings were forbidden, and Navigation Acts strictly enforced

Glorious Revolution

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• Overthrow of King James II by William of Orange and English aristocrats
  • James II and his son threatened Catholic succession
• Established Parliamentary supremacy, the birthright of Englishmen, and the King’s subject to the rule of law
• Immediately echoed in Boston and New York, where the Dominion of NY was disbanded

Leisler’s Rebellion

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• A German merchant named Jacob Leisler overthrew the NY Dominion official and ruled the colony from 1689 to 1691
• Was tried for treason and executed in 1691 after falling victim to the elite in the city
• Revealed rifts in New York’s economy and society

Salem Witch Trials

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• 100 citizens, mostly women, were imprisoned on charges of witchcraft → 19 executed
• The only way to avoid prosecution was to blame others → cycle of blame
• Weaving of anxiety, superstition, family, and religious hatred

Molasses Act

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• 1732
• Put a tax on cheaper French molasses to protect British sugar growers in the West Indies
• Evaded by smuggling or bribing customs officials

Wool Act

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• 1699
• Forbade the export of wool from American colonies and the import of wool from other British colonies

Salutary Neglect

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• The first half of the 18th century
• Non-enforcement of trade regulations (eg Molasses Act) and looser control in the colonies
  • Profited without having to do much

New England Confederation

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• Most prominent attempt to have a centralized government in the colonies
• No real power, but allowed colonists to meet and discuss mutual problems

Enlightenment

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• European intellectual movement that emphasized rationalism over emotionalism or spirituality

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Ben Franklin

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• Typified Enlightenment ideals
• Self-made wealthy printer
• Pioneering work in the field of electricity

Life in the Colonies

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• Rural areas → 90% of population, very patriarchal
• Cities → worse conditions than in the country, lots of immigrants
• Black people → mostly enslaved, lived in the south