APUSH Unit 2

Between 1607 and 1754 the British North American colonies developed regional characteristics influenced by the original purpose of each colony and the environment in which it was settled. Between 1607 and 1754 the British North Americans developed a shared experience in and expectation of “self-government” in all aspects of colonial life; social organization, economic upward mobility, political participation, and religious autonomy. Paradoxically, these shared experiences and expectations both encouraged stronger bonds with Great Britain and resistance to Britain’s control through the creation of a unique “American” Identity.

Queen Elizabeth

Religious and political unity (rise of England as a powerful “nation-state”)

• She gave England purpose in the larger world

• “Protestantism and plunder” –especially against Spain

England and Ireland

England’s Relationship with Ireland shows:

• 1. first place the “rivalry” between Spain and England emerges, and shows England emerging as “victor”

• 2. foreshadows the tactics England will use against Indigenous

The Spanish Armada

Defeat of Spanish Armada started the change to England becoming the dominant force in the New World and on seas—turning point

Enclosure and Primogeniture

Landlords “enclosed” their lands

• Forcing small farmers off land and into cities (wool districts)

• Many of THESE people would become early migrants to English colonies

PRIMOGENITURE – second son’s looking for something to do (Gilbert, Raleigh, Drake)

The Virginia Joint-Stock Co.1606

• Joint-stock company incentivized exploration

• J-S-C continued to view N.W. Colonies as “resource hub”

• “short-term” financial goals shows the “hodge-podge” nature of most of England’s first colonial efforts

Summary of English colonization

1. Elizabeth makes modern nation state

2. England takes on Spain, wins…Spanish Armada

3. Enclosure/population growth/unemployment creates people willing to go; Primogeniture creates leadership of “adventures”

4. New business model/structure, joint-stock company (VA Co.) encourages commercial ventures

5. “religious freedom” – IRONIC!!!! (and we’ve really not discussed it yet! Remember…the religious motivation of colonization may not rank as highly as one might assume)

6. SMALL (but not insignificant) DETAIL → Peace with Spain (1604) allowed England to colonize east coast of North America

Charter of the VA Co.

Colonists of VA Co granted the “Rights of Englishmen” (the rights to tax and govern selves at local level)

John Smith and Jamestown VA (1607)

e showed that in the New World you would have to work to live

working hard=better life

The (2) Powhatan Wars: (1610-14 + 1644-46) in VA colony

FIRST WAR BEGINS WITH Lord De La Warr 1610

• Comes with orders from VA Co.

• Used “Irish Tactics”

• SIGNIF? - overall, British colonists were in almost immediate conflict with Native American

• Fragile peace made in 1614

BETWEEN WARS:

• Land-hungry colonists (raid Native American settlements as they expand)

• Disease undercuts Native American resistance

• Native Americans raid Jamestown (killed 347 colonists)

THE SECOND POWHATAN WAR:

• Native Americans felt urgency to “dislodge” colonists - Lost 2nd war

• In “Peace Treaty” Powhatan Native Americans banished from Jamestown - SIGNIF? → a formal separation between English colonists and Native Americans (by 1669 on 10% of Natives left in region)

Colonists’ commercial/mercantile/pre-capitalist economic system begins to “overwhelm” Native American economic systems (horses, guns – more to come)

Colonists come to view Native Americans as having no useful purpose in colony

Disease, Disposability, Decentralization

The House of Burgesses (1619-1624!!! [5yrs])

Representative government (1619) – House of Burgesses – “representative” assembly

but….VA Co. appointed Governor of VA wielded arbitrary control over HoB Assembly

Tobacco Cultivation

John Rolfe’s Tobacco

• colony as $$ maker, resource for M.C.

• colonists as profit seekers

• plantation style agriculture taking hold

• desire to push into frontier for more land for planting

• African Slavery’s first arrival to a British colony

The Maryland Act of “Toleration” (1649)

Maryland founded for English Catholics (for both religious and $$ reasons!)

• Catholics surrounded by Protestants in New World

• Act of Toleration passed by a local assembly in 1649 -granted toleration to all “Christians” (Cs and Ps)

• WHY? To protect Maryland Catholics from encroaching Protestants

• IRONY?

• Not really “tolerant”

SIGNIFICANCE→

New World as “sort of diverse” – diverse Christians….for now…

New World as “sort of tolerant”

Salutary Neglect [or Benign Neglect]: THE “UNOFFICIAL” POLICY OF ENGLAND TOWARD THE COLONIES BETWEEN 1607-1754[63]

SALUTARY NEGLECT –

• Parliament/Crown relaxed enforcement of mercantile trade laws (that existed since the mid 1600s) and other forms of direct intervention in colonial affairs

WHY DO THIS?

• Distance

• Officials in Britain sought to focus on European politics and “cement its role as a world power”

PREDICT THE EFFECTS OF THIS POLICY:

• Helped colonists develop a robust trade (that wasn’t always with England!!)

• led the colonies to create self-governing institutions that were unusually “democratic” for the time period.

Virginia: Jamestown 1607

1607, VA Co of London (Joint-stock)

•  John Smith

–Starving Time (1609-1610)

• Lord De La Warr -harsh

• Powhatan Wars

• 3-Ds of American Indians

• John Rolfe-Tobacco

–Plantation economy, push for more land and labor (indentured servants)

• House of Burgesses

• 1624- King James “distrusts the HoB and he revoked the charter and made VA a “royal” colony

• But…expectation of “self-rule” established

Maryland: 1634

Lord Baltimore (proprietor)

• Catholic “feudal” plantation colony

• “haughty land barons (big planters) surrounded by resentful backcountry (small) planters”

–Tobacco plantation labor → white indentured servants

–Like VA, MD prospered via tobacco

• Act of Toleration (1649)

West Indies

England got a foothold in West Indies when Spain “relaxed” its grip—Jamaica first official colony 1655

• Plantation crop – sugar, the “rich man’s” crop

–Black slave labor used (4-1 by 1700!)

–Barbados slave code (1661) – denied rights, gave masters total control, right to punish with force

–Big planters get bigger on W.I. islands – push small farmers off land (roughly around 1670)

The Carolinas: ( S - 1670; N - 1712)

• SOUTH: 1670, 8 nobles (proprietors) controlled from England(?) + “small, pushed off farmers” settled there– hoped to profit by providing for West Indian sugar plantations with food

• Rice becomes the cash crop in the Carolinas – rice grown in Africa…so Africans slaves seemed desirable

• OF COURSE → Settlers brought their ideas of slavery/slave trade (Natives used as slaves too—sent some to W.I.s)

• NORTH: (1653—VA outcasts, squatters)1712 – formally separated

• spirit of resistance to authority? most democratic? Least aristocratic colony?

• Raised tobacco, had few/no slaves, at first….

• Like Chesapeake settlers “disposed” of local American Indians

Georgia: 1733

“buffer” colony

• Spain - FL

• French - LA

• James Oglethorpe

• colony for debtors, no slavery…at first.

New Amsterdam; 1623→ New York; 1664

• Established by Dutch West India Company (a secondary interest to DEIC)

• New Amsterdam/York as “company town” – run by DWIC - “harsh and despotic” and also…

• Aristocratic (patroonships on Hudson), not democratic (yet), no religious toleration (must be Dutch Reformed)

→ Although…

New Amsterdam was somewhat cosmopolitan (as most bustling sea ports are) and protests by colonists eventually lead to the creation of a limited local legislature

• The surrounding growing English colonies were hostile to New Amst. and the Swedes (in Delaware) were hostile too

• 1664 Dutch forced to surrender to English

Pennsylvania: 1681

• Founded by a Quaker (William Penn) and quakers didn’t support the Anglican Church

• Penn → Proprietor – all the land belonged to him! –(until he gave it to others)

• PA advertised to get colonists!

THUS → it became a diverse colony! → No restrictions on immigration – most ethnically mixed colony

Quakers → suspicious of authority → Penn hoped to establish his colony as a place of liberal and democratic ideas

Pennsylvania:

• Quakers were pacifists who had friendly policies toward Native Americans

–A QUICK NOTE – ironically, friendly Native American policies of Quakers hurt the Quakers and Indians when immigrants (Scots-Irish) moved in and attacked the Quaker government for being so friendly!

• No black slavery

• No military defense or forced military service

• Representative gov’t- meetinghouses at local level, Representative Assembly elected by landowners at colony level

• No tax-supported church; there was freedom of worship

• Good business people

PENNSYLVANIA is a good example of the “middle-ness” of the Middle colonies - diverse, democratic, “middle sized” land holdings, prosperous commercial trade and agriculture

MA Colonies: Plymouth, 1620

• Plymouth-1620, Puritan Separatists

• A dif purpose from other colonies? (or not?…. “Fewer than half of the entire party were separatists….”

• Mayflower Compact

• But soon settlers were making their own laws at “town meetings”

• William Bradford governor (Edward Winslow, “second in command”

• Initiated alliance with Wampanoag

• PLYMOUTH - Small in size, later absorbed into MA Bay BUT a HUGE “moral and spiritual” influence

MA Colonies: Mass Bay 1629

• Mass Bay- 1629, Puritan non-Separatists got charter to form Mass Bay Company

• Large (“great migration” 1630s) colony

• “cod and God” → Commercial colony too! –“fish and ships” [fishing and shipbuilding]

• John Winthrop [Govn’r] – “We shall be as a city upon a hill”, a “beacon” to others

• Full franchise [?] to all “freemen/visible saints/elect” – adult, male, church members (2/5s of all) – had “conversion” → God tells you “you’re saved”

–Freemen elected governor and rep body called the “General Court” – this is the “big” governing body of the entire colony

• Political Participation on a “lower”, more “inclusive” level:

–Congregations had right to hire/fire minister

–Town meetings – most inclusive (all property holders)

****The purpose of government is to enforce God’s law… -PURITAN COLONIES WERE THEOCRACIES!**** NOT DEMOCRACIES….But….a seed was planted…

Connecticut: 1635

• mostly emigrants from MA

• Hartford (1635) and New Haven (1638) – merge in 1662

• Thomas Hooker (Boston Puritan)

• Fundamental Orders (1639) – early constitution

• “democratically controlled gov’t of substantial citizens”??

• Still strong church-government alliance

• New Hampshire- - “grabbed by Mass Bay”, made separate and royal by king in 1679

Rhode Island: 1636, 1644 Crown recognizes as legit

• Roger Williams views/beef with MA Bay:

–He was a separatist (in a non-separatist colony)

–MA Bay took land unfairly from Indigenous peoples

–Can a gov’t regulate religious behavior? RW says NO

–Freedom of religion in RI – no taxes to support church

–Manhood suffrage [?] (later added a property requirement)

• Anne Hutchinson banished to RI

•Antinomianism - “you don’t have to follow laws!...because your goodness flows within you from God’s grace”

•Individualistic

The Southern Colonies and West Indies

• LONG GROWING SEASON→ Export/cash crop oriented → PLANTATION SYSTEM (unfree labor, cash crop)

Sugar, Rice, tobacco – “soil butchery”- constant westward push

• UNFREE LABOR: 1600s Indentured Servitude → Slavery takes hold around 1700 in South:

SC earlier! (1670s)

GA later! (after 1750) and NC later! (after 1720s)

• “aristocratic atmosphere” (except NC)

• Gov’t usually controlled by the largest landholders in the “county” - [the biggest of the colonial “local” govts

Lacked…..

–Religious zeal/purpose (especially when compared to New England colonies!)

–Schools/education (no printing press)

-“some” religious toleration (GA, MD, NC) –but these places were overpowered by the Aristocratic/Anglican parts

• Overtime the ANGLICAN CHURCH became the dominant “tax-supported” church of the Southern colonies

The Middle Colonies:

• Variety of economic activities; exported “cereal”/bread crops to other colonies + vibrant fur trade + ship building + and commercial merchant trade

• Land plots “medium” sized (NE = small, S = large)

• “Most American part of ‘America’?

• Attracted variety of ethnic groups (NY, PA)

• Religious toleration [PA]

• Democratic participation (Gov’t was “between personal town meetings [NE] and county gov’t [S]”)

• Land was easy to acquire AND turn profitable - a sort of “economic democracy”?

The New England Colonies

• Connection between gov’t and church – theocracy

• Puritan Church [later called “Congregational Church” [foreshadowing….a waning zeal]

• Tight knit communities: → Small Towns and families

• Unity of purpose→Conformity

• Democracy??? (sort of below the surface, full political participation limited to full church members, but all could voice opinions at town meetings)

• outward merchant trade/commerce (NOT manufacture [except shipbuilding])

• Agriculture???.......

• “The story of NE was written by the rocks” - Protestant work ethic!

…….Diversified, subsistence agriculture

Similarities IN ALL THREE COLONIAL REGIONS?

FARMING! (Shaped by colony+purpose)

NE - diversified subsistence

MID - broad grain crops

S - Plantation

• EXPORT GOODS TO ENGLAND!/PARTICIPATE IN “ATLANTIC ECONOMY”

• EXPECTATION OF INDIVIDUAL UPWARD MOBILITY

South slightly dif? Maybe?? More “aristocratic”?

• MOSTLY ENGLISH PEOPLE, BUT A HIGH LEVEL OF ETHNIC DIVERSITY OVERALL

• MOST COLONIES HAVE AN OFFICIAL RELIGION (expt RI, PA)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT + BIG “COLONY” GOVERNMENT

NE - town meetings

MID - meeting houses

S - county govts

• INDIGENOUS PEOPLES REMOVED

Economic, Social, Political Forces behind Slavery

Economic:

Need(??) for a less troublesome, less “I gotta give your dues or you’ll kill me” unfree labor system in plantation colonies (IE there was an economic demand for a dif system than white indentured servitude)

•Supply of indentured servants slows (why? [two basic reasons!])

•Loss of R.A.C monopoly (IE economic supply of slaves increased)

•Economic Forces → individual self interests of English/whites

–SLAVE TRADERS - Slave trade (one slaver says its “all profit”, but is this true??)

–SOUTHERN PLANTERS - The bigger your plantation, the more (and status)

Social Forces

•Society is too “fluid”

-Social Economic mobility

-White Elite (Plantation owners) don’t want additional competition and don’t want their slaves to be absent

•slaves are “easier” to manage than servants?

–Race justifies slavery because Africans were viewed as inferior.

•How did slavery contribute to major demographic changes?

•SC – Highest population of slaves

•Blacks nearly half of all people in VA

•Fear of rebellion strongest in places where blacks outnumber whites

–THUS social demographics like this will directly contribute to the creation of legal definitions and restrictions

Political Forces

•Some of the earliest African servants got freedom – Anthony Johnson

•The legal definitions of “slave” and “servant” were unclear

•Little by little, law by law, distinctions were made by race and heredity (REMEMBER → laws were largely a consequence of social fears and economic desires (however illogical!) of white planter elites)

•MA 1641 recognizes slavery as legal institution

•1661 Barbados slave code – slaves are property and masters can do what they wish to slaves (a fully developed “idea” of slavery comes to SC)

•VA 1662 – you’re a slave based on the condition of your mother

•VA 1680 – non-Christian = slave; killing a slave is not a felony

•VA 1691 – illegal to free a slave

•VA 1705 – slave = property, “chattels” for life

•SC 1739 - The Stono Rebellion creates some intense fear in white planters

The 1740 Negro Act of South Carolina –

–Made it illegal for slaves to….

–Move abroad(runaway), assemble in groups, raise food, earn money, learn to read/write

–AND – it was permitted by masters to KILL slaves who rebelled

Southern Hierarchy

“The ‘rough equality’ of poverty and disease of the early days was giving way to a defined hierarchy of wealth and status” at the end of the 1600s”

»Great Planters/Planter Elite/Aristocracy (had biggest influence over economy and politics, many slaves)

»Small Farmers (largest group in number, maybe one or two slaves)

»Landless whites (often former indentured servants, no slaves)

»Indentured servants

»Slaves

New England demographics

NE Family Characteristics:

•Families migrated together

•Added ten years to their lives

•Families grew fast (8/10 babies lived)

•Population grew fast in NE

•Children were nurtured

•Stable family

•Habits of obedience and thrift important in families

•Women have fewer rights in NE (esp property rights while married)

–“A true wife accounts subjection her honor”

•Some women’s rights were earned – midwifery

•Husbands could not beat their wives

•MARRIAGE – was a very strong force in the community

More NE stuff

NE Meeting House - the symbol of the unity of Church and State

In New England → the “zeal [will] wane”

“Puritans ran their own churches, and democracy in Congregational Church government led logically to democracy in political government”

•Town meeting – adult male property holders voted on:

→ SECULAR STUFF →Officials, schoolmasters, and what to do about road repairs

Population was dispersing “far from the control of church”

•Time “dampened the religious zeal” of the first settlers by the 1650s or so

The Half-Way Covenant - 1662

•“an agreement between the church and its adherents, to admit to baptism (but not full communion) the UNCONVERTED children of existing members

•This new policy weakened the distinction between the ELECT and others

•Strict religious doctrine was sacrificed somewhat to widen total participation

The Salem Witch Trials: 1692

•Group of girls claimed they were “bewitched” by older women.

•19 legally hanged (2 dogs too)

•WHY?

•Unsettled religious and social conditions

•”Witches” were “capitalists/money makers” and the accusers were subsistence (self sufficient) farmers (the old stock folk)

•Reflects change in NE society – money makers vs old Puritan stock – “Yankee commercialism overtakes Puritan heritage”

Daily Life for early Colonists (Late 1600s→1700s)

Most all colonists were farmers

Gender roles:

Women → wove, cooked, cleaned, cared for kids

Men → cleared, fenced, planted, harvested, cut wood, butchered animals

Cities had a skilled artisans, shopkeepers, tradespeople, and unskilled day laborers (at docks)

“Life was humble but comfortable” and “most lived in affluent abundance”

Most migrants to the colonies were not “aristocrats” or the “dregs” (exp maybe indentured servants)

(while indeed social/economic hierarchies were developing on the eve of revolution…***we’ll say more***) “The most remarkable feature of the social ladder was its openness”

overall there was a “simple sameness” to early colonial life

Demographics on the “eve of Revolution” (1775)

•Population growth

–1700 – 300,000 (20,000 slaves)

•1775 – 2,500,000 (500,000 slaves)

•Largest cities: Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Charleston (SC)

•90% lived in rural areas

•3:1 English (in England) to Colonist (in colonies) ratio [20-1 in 1700]

•Naturally fertile! (population doubling every 25 years) [Slave population almost tripling every 25 years]

•Average age: 16

•NE – least diverse

•Middle – most diverse

•South – most African/African-American slaves

–Slave communities were also very diverse

–Slave trade had mixed peoples from a variety of tribes/groups

•Native-American communities became more intermixed as whites expanded into the frontier (AND praying towns “incorporated” Natives into white society)

Colonial Society became more stratified:

•New England and middle colonies had an influx of “merchant princes” circa 1700

–EX – 10% of Bostonians owned 67% of taxable wealth (by 1750s)

–Poor emerge too…but small in number compared to Europe

–Land became more scarce and existing landholdings became divided

•South—great planters continue to have power/wealth—widening gap

Workaday “America”:

90% of people in agriculture (NE, Middle, South)

Fishing/whaling, next most popular job (all colonies)

The “most honored profession”? → Christian minister

All colonies participate in outward trade → “Triangle Trade”/Mercantilism/ “Atlantic Economy”

(and “coastwise trade”)

(N.E. and Middle MOST)

Colonies largely DID NOT manufacture

But….lumber (kinda manufacture…), shipbuilding (NE, middle), rum and some restricted manufacture of fur hats

1st Great Awakening

Massive, cross-colonial, religious revival that began in western MA and spread across all colonies in the 1730-40s

Particularly popular in western parts of colonies, the frontier areas

Outdoor revival meetings in which all (denominations/religions) were welcome

“New Light” ministers like George Whitefield encouraged people to seek a “spiritual rebirth” → “the transformation of the soul by the holy spirit of God” → which was the classic Protestant idea of man’s individual connection with God

WHy?

“Lay Liberalism” - people pursue secular goals

commercial/economic upward mobility

European “Enlightenment” ideas reach the colonies

Enlightenment says: “religion is irrational”

Official [tax supported] colonial churches (Congregational and Anglican) still preach elaborate theological doctrine [even still when Puritan church has loosened standards]

Old Lights [Charles Chauncy]

Traits of New Light

Traveling revivals with New Light preachers - “the sincerity of a missionary with the thrill of a performer”

Thousands go to revivals (25% of people saw GW in person!)

Evangelical preaching - stories, emotion, love of God

Revivals are multi denominational

Salvation is in the hands of the people - which makes it individual and unique to each person

These characteristics challenged the established church authorities (“Have you, Mr. Establishment minister, had a rebirth?”

Authorities distrust the idea that individuals have power over their religious experience

They believed in order and conformity (“you conform and live a morally good life and your in”)

Signif.

“first spontaneous mass movement of American people”

•New World is “New”, not old world remade in new place

Establishment churches challenged and fragmented

•Colonial divisions blurred as the colonists sensed that they were a “single people, united by a common history”

•The GA inspired the idea of “experience” and “expectation” that the people have “liberty” to shape and make their own lives

•COMPLEXITY –

•It was the “liberty” to “choose” their idea that united them—NOT that they all practiced the same way

A revolutionary idea coalescing…. “We are the people!” - no authority/state can tell you how to worship

AT THE HEART OF “AMERICAN IDENTITY” IS LIBERTY

Colonial gov’t

8 colonies have royal governors (appointed by king)

3 propriety colonies (choose their own governors)

2 elected their governors

Most colonies have bi-cameral legislature

Upper house—appointed by crown/proprietors, or voters

lower house- elected by the people (they need land or fulfill a religious requirement)

1775 America is NOT a democracy

•Property requirements and/or religious requirements to vote and stricter requirements to hold office

• “perhaps” ½ of all colonists disfranchised

•“privileged” people were afraid of democratic excesses OF GIVING!!! … every slack-jawed yokel the vote

•But colonial political institutions were far more democratic than!!! European ones (remember….its “relatively” easy to get…)

•Generally, colonists shared…

•...Democratic ideals of:

–Economic opportunity, freedom of speech/assembly, press and representative self gov’t, some degree of ethnic and religious toleration

•...Colonists mostly….

–Basically English, Protestant