APUSH - Topic 2.3 The Regions of British Colonies

Explain how and why environmental and other factors shaped the development and expansion of various British colonies that developed and expanded from 1607 to 1754.

What were the three types of British colonies?

• corporate

  • operated by joint-stock companies

  • Jamestown

• royal

  • under direct rule of the king

  • Virginia (after 1624)

• Proprietary

  • under authority of people granted charters by the kind

  • Maryland, Pennsylvania

What was Jamestown?

• first permanent English colony, chartered by Virginia Company (joint-stock)

• early problems

  • dysentery and malaria

  • many gentlemen who didn’t want to do physical work

  • conflict with Native Americans

How did Jamestown solve its early problems?

• leadership of John Smith

• help of Pocahontas (wife of John Rolfe)

• grew tobacco

  • very profitable in Europe

• recruited more white settlers

  • payed headrights (land given to people who paid for a settler’s journey to the colony)

• colony still in trouble even after tobacco

  • much of population died

  • King James I revoked charter and took control

  • became Virginia (first royal colony)

What was the Plymouth colony？

• Separatists who wanted to create a church separate from royal control

• known as Pilgrims (traveled to other places prior to Americas)

• Mayflower

  • planned to sail to colony of Virginia

  • less than half of 100 passengers on ship were separatists

  • ended up landing 600 miles away from Virginia

  • established Plymouth

• many settlers died after first winter

• Thanksgiving (1621)

• colony grew slowly afterwards

What was the Massachusetts Bay Colony?

• moderate religious dissenters (Puritans)

• wanted to purify Church of England

• persecuted in England

• led by John Winthrop

• Great Migration - many settlers traveled to Massachusetts Bay Colony in reaction to conflict in England

• Puritans founded multiple settlements in NE → mostly small towns and farms (as opposed to plantations in Virginia)

What were the religious issues in Maryland?

• King split off Maryland from Virginia → became first proprietary colony

• wanted to create safe haven for Catholics

• Act of Toleration (1649)

  • Catholics outnumbered by Protestants who held majority in assembly

  • granted religious freedom to all Christians (death to those who denied Jesus)

• Protestant Revolt (late 1600s)

  • civil war (Catholics vs. Protestants)

  • protestants won → repealed Act of Toleration

  • Catholics couldn’t vote anymore

What was Rhode Island?

• Roger Williams

  • individual conscience beyond control of church authority

  • banished for beliefs

  • founded Providence (1636)

  • first Baptist church

  • allowed religious freedom for all + paid Native Americans for use of land

• Anne Hutchinson

  • antinomianism → individuals receive salvation through faith alone

  • banished from Bay colony

  • founded Portsmouth

• charter from Parliament joined Providence and Portsmouth into singular Rhode Island

• religious refuge for many

What was Connecticut?

• people who were unhappy with Massachusetts authorities

• Hartford founded by Thomas Hooker (1636)

  • wrote first constitution in American history: Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)

  • representative govt. and popular vote

• New Haven founded by John Davenport (1637)

• New Haven and Hartford combined to form Connecticut

• royal charter granted limited self-government

What was New Hampshire?

• last colony founded in NE

• separated from Massachusetts Bay (king wanted more power over colonies)

What were halfway covenants?

• individuals in Puritan congregations could become partial members of the congregation without have a conversion (confirmed religious experience)

• strict puritan practice weakened throughout years to maintain membership

What were the Restoration Colonies?

• colonies founded after King Charles II restored to monarchy following brief rule of a Puritan leader

What were the Carolinas?

• land granted by Charles II to eight nobles who helped him regain throne

• South Carolina

  • initially based on fur trading and growing food for West Indies

  • became full of rice plantations worked by Africans (similar to West Indies)

• North Carolina

  • fewer good harbors and bad transportation

  • attracted small tobacco farms rather than slavery and large plantations

  • still some indentured servants and enslaved Africans

How did New York come about?

• King Charles II wanted to close gap between NE and Chesapeake colonies

• Duke of York (brother of king) given power (1664)

  • took middle land from Dutch

  • ordered taxes without representative assembly

  • opposition forced him to yield

  • more rights and a representative assembly granted in 1683

What was New Jersey?

• part of New York split into West and East New Jersey (NY too big)

• both allowed religious freedom and generous land offers (to attract more people)

• lots of confusion over land

• combined into single colony: New Jersey

How did Pennsylvania com about?

• William Penn (son of original leader)

  • was a Quaker (Religious Society of Friends)

    • equality

  • wanted land of religious freedom

• Frame of Government (1682-1683)

  • guaranteed representative assembly and written constitution

• Charter of Liberties (1701)

  • freedom of worship and unrestricted immigration

• mostly treated Native Americans fairly

Delaware

• three lower counties of Pennsylvania given their own assembly (1702)

• same governor as Pennsylvania

What was Georgia?

• last British colony

• only ones to receive direct financial support from king

• why?

  • wanted a buffer between South Carolina’s plantations and Spanish Florida

  • good place to send English people imprisoned for debt

• original proprietary colony founded by James Oglethorpe

  • did not do well

• taken over by British to become royal colony (1752)

  • restrictions on alcohol and slavery dropped

What were some of the early political institutions in North America?

• House of Burgesses (Virginia, 1619)

  • first representative assembly in America

• Mayflower Compact (1620)

  • drafted aboard the Mayflower

  • decisions would be made by will of majority

  • town meetings would be held, all freemen could vote

• limits

  • only free men given full rights (not even indentured servants)

  • many colonies were autocratic