APUSH MC 1607-1763

The Conquistadores

They unknowingly brought with them diseases like smallpox that killed enough part of the population to allow the Spaniards to succeed in their second attempt of conquest.

Ordinances of Discovery and Catholic missions

Starting in the 1570s a new Spanish law (Ordinances and Discovery) prohibited brutal conquests. Instead, they would begin colonizing the Americas by establishing European civilizations and making Catholicism the only religion allowed. They also began to use catholic missions as another form of settlement in the Americas.

Differences of Spanish Empire vs British/French

The Spanish government was able to successfully control its colonies and govern them, and was also able to obtain gold and silver from its colonies. This is what differentiates the Spanish empire from the British empire because the British was never able to control its colonies and did not have as much success with finding silver and gold.  Also, unlike the Spanish Empire, the British and French empires focused more on creating permanent settlements for the new families coming from Europe. The Spanish Empire focused more on acquiring gold and silver than focusing on agriculture and commerce being more successful. 

Biological & Cultural Exchanges (Columbian Exchange)

The Europeans introduced new crops and domestic livestock to the Americas which the native populations began to learn how to grow and use.

The Europeans unknowingly brought with them many diseases that decimated the native populations.

There were also cultural and racial exchanges that happened over time. The natives fused together their original beliefs with christianity and created a christian culture

 The natives and the Spaniards began to reproduce together creating a new racial hierarchy where mestizos (native and spanish) were below the spanish but above the natives.

African slaves being imported to the Americas after the decimated native population was not able to meet labor standards.

African Empires

African empires were matrilineal. They engaged in trade with the Mediterranean which brought in lots of different goods and also introduced Islam. They were able to forge strong trading relationships and had  diverse options of goods in their empires. 

Beginnings of African Slave Trade

The European demand for sugarcane grew rapidly and after seeing that the sugar cultivation in the mediterranean did not suffice, European slave traders turned to Africa. African kingdoms began trading slaves in exchange for european goods. During the 17th century the Dutch dominated the slave market but by the 18th century, it was the English who dominated it. 

Mercantilism

 Mercantilism in Europe consisted of the nation states trying to find markets for their exports and trying to limit their imports. Mercantilism flourished in England with the wool trade but it quickly died out. As a result of mercantilism, European states began to want to obtain colonies as a way to produce their own goods instead of having to purchase them from other nations.

Anglican Church vs. Puritan Separatists

The Anglican/ The Church of England was created by King Henry VIII who wanted to divorce his wife. Because divorce was not possible in the catholic church, he created the Church of England. The puritans went against the Anglican Church because they wanted more changes to the Church, wanted to reform the local clergy which consisted of greedy men, and wanted to take away some of the bishop's power who were corrupt. 

Subjugation of Ireland

The Irish spoke their own language, were catholic, and showed resistance against the English. Seeing them as beasts, the English decided that it would be better for them to become suppressed. 

Jamestown

 In 1607, a group of 104 English settlers which were all men arrived in North America. Their task was to send goods back to England which they were doing poorly at. Without any crops or food they were constantly sick due to their poor diet and were riddled with malaria which impeded them from working. They were not able to create a functioning society due to the fact that they were all men and no women. 

Emergence of Tobacco

Tobacco first emerged in 1612 when John Rolfe started to experiment with a strain of tobacco which was already being grown by the natives. His crops were successful and he began to sell them to buyers in England.

An Act Concerning Religion

In 1649, “the Act Concerning Religion” was drafted and it promised freedom of worship for the christians.

The Mayflower Compact

The Mayflower compact instituted a civil government and the groups allegiance to the king. They were able to settle on a piece of land that once held a native village that was most likely decimated by European diseases. They encountered natives who were weakened from disease and got along with the people of the Mayflower instead of fighting them.

Puritans & the Congregational Church

Then, a group of Puritans decided to find economic wealth in America and acquired land that is now mostly modern day New Hampshire. The group that they were going to send to America did not only view the opportunity as an economic one. They began moving to America and established themselves there. Each town regulated its own affairs and was independent. This parish organization is called the Congregational Church. 

Wars with Native Americans

Tensions began to rise as the white settlers continued to want more land in order to herd livestock for food. The white settlers began to view the natives as savages after a while and began to view them as a threat to their Puritan community. They sought to convert the natives to christianity in order to civilize them, but in some cases some groups wanted to displace or kill them.

New York

The Dutch and English had tensions due to territories. Dutch territories divided northern and southern English colonies. New York was very diverse and did not have any religious tensions between different religious groups.

The Quakers

The Quakers originated around the 17th century in England and were also called the Society of Friends. They also allowed women a position in the church, in contrast to the Puritans. hey were democratic and peaceful, refusing to fight wars. They seeked asylum in America and went to Rhode Island, New England, and Northern Carolina. 

Sugar & slavery

English planters in the Caribbean needed more workers to maintain the crops which were already very labor intensive. They brought servants from England, but those servants could not endure the tropical climate. This is why the English planters turned more towards African slavery. 

Slave Rebellions

The white population of the Caribbean grew fearful of slave revolts, seeing as the African population was much greater than the white population. This led to slave owners harshly controlling their slaves and even going to the extent of being able to kill them without any consequence.

The Middle Ground

The Middle Ground exhibited the dominance and power of the British Empire In the end, it was them who became the most prominent group of the Middle Ground. 

The Navigation Acts

 The three navigation acts were established by Charles II. They were adopted in order to regulate colonial commerce in a more strict manner. The first act did not allow the colonies to trade with anything except goods that came in English ships. Any goods being shipped to the colonies had to pass by England in order for them to be taxed. Finally, the third act was passed in 1673 because of evasion of the first two acts by colonial shippers. 

The Dominion of New England

Charles II increased his control over it by making it a royal colony and taking away its authority over New Hampshire. James II took the reshaping further by combining the governments of Massachusetts with The New England colonies, and combining the governments of New York and New Jersey, and appointed Sir Edmund Andros as the administrator. 

Indentured servitude

Indentured servants were promised tools and clothing and on some occasions land. This was not the case for many indentured servants. After serving around five years, they would leave with nothing. This group of servants was usually criminals, war prisoners, and orphans. 

NE vs. Chesapeake

It took the southern colonies a much longer time to begin to reach longer life expectancies because of the conditions of their regions. This was the opposite for the North because their climate and disease-free environment gave them an advantage.

Women & Families in the Chesapeake

Women in the Chesapeake had more freedom than ever before. Contributing factors were that families did not remain intact for long periods of time due to the high mortality rates, which caused male authority to become undermined. This in turn gave more power to the women as when they were widows they were the ones who took care of the farm or plantation and would have economic power.

Women & Families in NE

 Longer life expectancies for families in New England also caused women to be less independent compared to the Women in the Chesapeake.

The Middle Passage

The middle passage was responsible for allowing slavery to continue to grow to very high numbers. Millions of African people were captured and sent to the New World where they had to endure terrible conditions both on the passage and once they got to their destination.

The Origins of Slavery

The origins of slavery can be traced to racism from Europeans because they viewed the African people as inferior, but it also began because they needed a workforce that was able to work on the crops that needed more tending and that was more extraneous work.

Changing Sources of Immigration

The changes in the immigrating groups to America caused a change and diversity in the religions of the colonies, specifically the northern ones. More religions like Presbyterianism and French and German Protestantism began to gain more popularity in the New World.

Tobacco

 The Southern colonies did not have a diverse economy. There were only three main focuses in their economies which were Tobacco, Rice, and Indigo. Cultivating these crops was also a lot of hard work which is why many landowners heavily relied on African slaves to be able to do the work that white laborers were reluctant to accomplish. 

Northern economy

 In the Northern colonies they had to resort to different forms of making money because they did not have a lot of viable land.

Triangular Trade

The Triangular trade can be defined as a process where merchants from New England exchanged their merchandise (rum and other goods) for slaves from Africa, and then exchanged them for other goods like sugar and molasses in the West Indies.

Slave Culture

Enslaved people working in the Southern colonies fused christianity with their own African beliefs and created their own unique religion, and they did the same thing with their language. They created a language that was a mix of both English and African tongues.

Puritan democracy

Colonial towns had the freedom to establish their own governments once settled. Only adult men were allowed in meetings and the government. The biggest requirement to enter the government in the colonies was faith. Men were only accepted if they belonged to the church.   

Roots of Religious Toleration

Religious Tolerance was the clear distinction between America and England, which already began to separate the two. Religious toleration also continues to flourish as the colonies develop which can contribute to less fighting between religions groups.

The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening started in the 1730s and was an American revival that appealed to women and younger generations. It gave them a new opportunity to create something new for their futures, especially because they were already looking uncertain as many young men were starting to inherit less and less land.

The Enlightenment

The radical ideas of the Enlightenment undermined traditional authority in the colonies because many younger people were turning to reason without religion. This was an age where religion was not the center of everything, specifically for younger generations in the colonies. 

Colonial Governments

 The English crown did not like that the colonies were being self-governed and did not like that they did not have as much power over them as they would’ve liked. This is the reason why the English crown wanted to have greater control over the colonies.

The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World

The Portuguese empire had the highest percentage of slaves who were mainly taken to Brazil. South America received the highest percentage of slaves coming from Africa, while the British colonies, specifically the mainland ones had the lowest percentage of slaves.

How did slavery differ regionally?

Compared to the South, the slaves in the North had more rights. They were able to get married, physical brutality against them was prohibited, they could pass down their land to their children, and could testify in court. 

Indian slavery

South Carolina and Georgia had a different system for slavery. They targeted the native population and used them as slaves, specifically for the production of rice. Indian slavery originated from native american tribes doing trade with the settlers by trading them slaves who were usually war captives. Later on, they began to go to war to acquire more war captives for trade. 

The Rice Kingdom

Rice and indigo cultivation led to economic development in the Southern colonies. African slaves were already familiar with rice and were the ones who taught the European settlers how to cultivate it. They were also partially immune to malaria which prompted planters to have slaves cultivate rice because of the watery fields that it grew in.

Slave culture & slave resistance

The one thing that they all had in common was the need for freedom. They would mount dozens of rebellions and would have the courage to try and resist an oppressive regime. 

A Tradition of Neglect (salutary neglect)

After the Glorious Revolution, the English parliament began to gain more power, dealing with things such as controlling a majority of parliament. They began to loosen imperial organization and instead turned to the support of merchants and landowners. They also loosened the Navigation Acts because they believed they would help increase commerce. The weakness of the Administrative Authority from the British government weakened their power over the colonies due to them needing more knowledge of the conditions there and because many of them had never been to the colonies before.  

Power of Colonial Assemblies

This independence within the colonial assemblies allowed them to become small parliaments, where they had total control over their colony. In addition, this furthered the rift of power between England and the colonies, with the colonies becoming more and more independent. 

“Join or Die”

The Join or Die cartoon was first published on May 9, 1754, by the Pennsylvania Gazette. It represented the need for unity between the colonies and the adoption of Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan.

Ohio River Valley

The relations between the French, English, and Natives began to decline after King George’s War. This decline caused hostility and uncertainty between the three groups. The French believed that the English would use the trading concessions that the Iriquos granted them as a way to expand into French lands. In 1749 the French built a fortress in the Ohio River Valley that conveyed the message of a potential threat to the British, which prompted them to build their own fortresses. Due to the disbalance of power that the Iriquois tried to prevent, they allied with the British. 

The Iroquois Confederacy

The Iroquois Confederacy was one of the most powerful tribal presences in the Northeast since the 1640s. They did everything in their power to maintain control that it would eventually get out of hand and lead to their demise. They pitted the French and English against each other, not realizing that it would eventually get out of hand and negatively affect them as well. 

Washington & Fort Necessity

 In the summer of 1754 George Washington and a militia were sent by the governor of Virginia to the Ohio Valley to challenge the expansion of the French. Their attack was unsuccessful, and they ended up trapped in Fort Necessity until Washington surrendered after a third of his men had perished fighting. 

Peace of Paris (1763) & Consequence

The French surrendered all of the land that they had on the mainland of North America to the British and Spanish. The British and the American colonies benefited from the French and Indian War because they acquired more land as a result of that conflict. Despite this, the debt of the British government increased, and they began to grow angry of the colonies because they were making few financial contributions, and that they were doing trade with the French while the conflict was happening. These factors caused the British government to increase their control over the colonies. 

War Debt

Britain was accumulating great debt due to war, which prompted British merchants and landlords to increase the already high taxes in the colonies. The debt was only increasing due to the British government spending money on defending their American settlements. They believed that the colonial governments would not help financially, which is why they raised the taxes instead.

Proclamation of 1763

The Proclamation of 1763 allowed the British government to control the westward movement of the white population. This meant that they were going to be able to control conflicts with Native Americans and limit them because they were costly. Many native american groups supported the agreement because they wanted to end the British encroachment. 

Sugar Act

The Sugar Act of 1764 was created to get rid of the illegal trade between the colonies, France, and the Spanish West Indies. It also allowed for smugglers who were tried in court to not get any more benefits.

Stamp Act & Ensuing Crisis

The Stamp Act of 1765 began the taxation of products like newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, wills, deeds, and licenses.

Paxton Boys & Regulators

The Paxton Boys were a group of people from western Pennsylvania. They formed their group in 1763 because they shared the same ideas of demanding relief from colonial taxes and acquiring money to help them defend themselves from the native americans.

The regulators were farmers from Carolina who were opposed to the high taxes that were being collected by the local sheriffs.

Patrick Henry & Virginia Resolves

 Patrick Henry speaking out against the British government and printing and circulating his regulations gave hope to other colonists that something could be done against the high taxes imposed by the government. Specifically, they could rise against the government. 

Sons of Liberty

In the summer of 1765 the Sons of Liberty participated in a series of riots and would go after stamp agents. Many stamp agents resigned after seeing how other agents were being terrorized which caused the sales of stamps in the colonies to cease.

The Boston Massacre

The British government placed four regimes of troops in the city of Boston because the colonists were harassing the new customs commissioners. The colonists felt threatened and oppressed by the presence of the “Redcoats” because they served as a reminder that they were still under British rule and oppression. Another contributing factor to the hatred towards the Redcoats was that they would compete for jobs with the colonists because they were underpaid. On the evening of March 5th, 1770 the Liberty Boys (a crowd of dockworkers) began throwing objects like rocks and snowballs at the soldiers outside the customs house. The panic and intensity of the moment prompted the soldiers to fire into the crowd, killing five people.   

“No taxation without representation”

The American colonists and the English had opposing views on representation. A popular slogan “No taxation without representation” began in America because the colonists believed that people should have the right to be taxed only if they consent.

First Continental Congress

The Continental Congress was one of the first democratic meetings of what would become America's government. This was also one of the first moments where all the representatives of the colonies were able to gather and communicate. 

Lexington & Concord

The colonists had begun preparing to fight and formed the minutemen group. British generals were informed of the amount of gunpowder the minutemen had and reacted accordingly. Paul Revere and William Dawes warned the colonial towns of the attack that was going to come. 

Common Sense

Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called “Common Sense” that helped change the perspective of the colonists towards the war. He argued that Americans should completely break free from the English government.

The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence was a document that was made up of existing American ideologies based on freedom and the want for independence.  

Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation did not make it clear if Congress was going to be the form of government in America which caused problems for the country and its legitimacy of government. 

Foreign Assistance

George Washington received Foreign assistance from the French and Prussia. With this help, he was able to build an army consisting of almost 10,000 men.

Loyalists

The loyalists were a group of American colonists who remained faithful and loyal to the British crown in times of revolt.

The War & Slavery

The war and the conflicts between America and Britain allowed many enslaved people to escape and introduced them to the concept of liberty. This inspired a resistance against white control of the enslaved people.

Native Americans & the Revolution

 The American colonists had told the Native Americans to not join the conflict as it only pertained to themselves and to Britain. Many different native tribes tried to resist and fight the colonists but many times this failed and they ended up ceasing more land to the colonists. 

Women’s Rights & Women’s Roles

Women's roles changed during the war because afterward, they were receiving growing respect for their ideas and roles in American society. 

Pacific Northwest Native Americans

the Pacific Northwest Native Americans established semi-permanent settlements along the coast and would fight over natural resources with other tribes.

Great Plains Native Americans

sedentary farming was their main source of acquiring food.  Despite this, some tribes of the Great Plains participated in buffalo hunting as their source of food. Buffalo hunting was not as efficient until the horse was introduced in North America by European settlers. This is when buffalo hunting was able to support a large population

Eastern Woodlands Native Americans

 Eastern Woodland Native Americans had the biggest supply of food resources. The tribes of the Eastern Woodlands did not conform to only one way of acquiring food but instead did both farming, gathering, hunting and fishing

Southeastern Native Americans

Southeastern Native Americans traded crops like corn and other grains. For a period of time they had permanent settlements and utilized the lands of the Mississippi River Valley to grow their crops.