Colonial America: New England, Chesapeake, Middle Colonies & Slavery

New England Colonies

Founded primarily by Puritans seeking to establish a community of like-minded religious believers.

Puritanism/Congregationalism

17th century religious group in England that aimed to purify the Church of England.

Moral Liberty

A liberty to only do what is 'good', with severe restrictions on religion, speech, and behavior.

City set upon a hill

John Winthrop's vision of a Puritan city that would influence England positively.

The Pilgrims

Separatist group that left the Church of England in the early 17th century and established Plymouth.

Mayflower Compact

Agreement by adult men on the Mayflower to obey 'just and equal laws'.

The Great Migration to Massachusetts Bay

Chartered in 1630, it sent over 21,000 Puritans to Massachusetts by 1642.

Demographics of New England Colonies

Included families and servants, mostly Puritans, with various trades and professions.

Patriarchy in New England

Carried on male authority, with women having slightly more freedom but still required to submit.

Effect of Climate on Population

Healthier than England, women married earlier and had more children, growing the population to 91,000 by 1700.

Organization of Towns

Structured around male authority, with schools established for children to learn to read the Bible.

Self-Government of Towns

Settlers received land grants and ruled the colony without interference.

Congregational Church

Each town had its own church, formed by voluntary agreement among members.

Body of Liberties

Document outlining the rights and responsibilities of Massachusetts colonists.

Privileges of Church Membership

Granted prestige and power, requiring demonstration of divine grace.

Hierarchical Social Structure

Elected ministers, visible saints, Puritan men, women and children, non-Puritans, and slaves.

Bible Commonwealth

Political and social system where laws were modeled by the Bible.

Relationship between Church & State

Closely interconnected, with taxes supporting the church.

Intolerance of Dissent

Religious tolerance was not practiced; dissenters faced banishment or death.

Roger Williams & Rhode Island

Believed in religious freedom and formed Rhode Island after being banished.

Anne Hutchinson

Advocate for different beliefs, banished for rejecting traditional Puritan views.

Major Economic Activities

Included landownership, craft status, trade, and farming.

Major Products for Agriculture and Trade

Fishing, timber, and family farms with a surplus for local markets.

Sources of Labor

Used women, children, and men due to a lack of slaves or indentured servants.

Degree of Stratification

Highly strict religious requirements limited full church membership.

Competency in New England

Strong due to equal land distribution and comfortable independence.

Merchant Elite

A strong merchant class emerged due to trade and land distribution.

Half-Way Covenant (1662)

Religious deal that made it possible to be baptized and gain a half church membership to people in colonial New England if their parents were not in the first Puritan elect.

The Chesapeake

The Chesapeake colonies and North Carolina relied on the cultivation of tobacco, a labor-intensive product based on white indentured servants and African chattel.

Founding of Jamestown

Founded as capital of Virginia, mouth of Chesapeake Bay and inland of James River in 1607.

Jamestown Early Struggles

Leadership changed, high death rate, low supplies, and many starved during the winter.

Headright System

New system giving 50 acres of land to any colonist that paid for his own or someone else's travel to the Americas.

Tobacco

Crop introduced from the West Indies by John Rolfe, seen as a hot commodity on the English market.

House of Burgesses

First elected assembly established in America, specifically Virginia (1619), where only free men could vote.

First Africans

Arrived in 1619 through trans-Atlantic trade as Englishmen needed more labor for tobacco.

Slavery in the Americas

Different in the sense that it was plantation-based.

Tobacco Cultivation Consequences

Commodity of mass market in England, replaced the role of gold in Virginia.

Gender Roles in Virginia

Large amount more men than women, leading to a high death rate and delayed marriages.

Dower Rights

Women were able to possess ⅓ of her husband's property if he died before she did.

Femme Sole

A woman alone, independent legal identity denied to a married woman.

Social Structure

White men that owned plantations > women, farmers, slaves, indentured servants.

Maryland as a Proprietary Colony

Established in 1632 under Cecil Calvert, with full power and absolute control of trade.

Refuge for English Catholics

Lord Baltimore wished for Maryland to be a place for persecuted coreligionists.

Indentured Servants

Many came in as indentured servants, using the headright system.

High Death Rate

Very high, with marriages lasting about 8 years before someone died.

Act Concerning Religion (1649)

Law preventing persecution of any Christian in Maryland, allowing toleration and free exercise of religion.

Origins of Slavery in the Chesapeake

1660s laws of VA & MD referring to slavery began to appear.

Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

Post-confrontation between colonists and Indians, leading to extermination/removal of Indians.

Nathaniel Bacon

A wealthy planter who led a rebellion against Governor William Berkeley's corrupt government.

Bacon's Rebellion

A rebellion that called for the removal of Indians, reduction of taxes, and an end to corruption.

Governor William Berkeley

The governor of Virginia for 30 years, allied with tobacco planters and known for corruption.

Shift to African slaves

Resulted from the rebellion, leading to fewer free indentured servants and more lifelong servants.

Royal Africa Company

Its monopoly on the English slave trade ended, leading to lower prices for slaves.

Slave codes

Laws that defined slaves as property and restricted their rights and freedoms.

Restrictions on Free Blacks

Free or enslaved Black people could not own arms, hit a white person, or vote.

Virginia law on freed slaves

Required freed slaves to be banished, limiting their pathways to freedom.

Atlantic economy

Created a shared labor market and exchange of goods, including the African slave trade.

British racial superiority

Belief that reinforced the system of enslaving black people in perpetuity.

Southern colonies' economies

Developed based on staple crops using slave labor, with Africans often being the majority population.

Cultural preservation among Africans

Despite slavery, Africans maintained varying degrees of cultural and linguistic adaptations.

Enumerated products

Certain products, like tobacco, were required to be sent to specific locations under the Navigation Acts.

Benefits of colonies

Membership meant relaxed trade enforcement and protection by the Royal Navy.

Founding of Carolina

Established in 1670 as a plantation colony, replicating the plantation system of Barbados.

Yamasee War

Conflict between Yamasees and English settlers over trade and land, leading to the decline of the Yamasee population.

Rice as a staple crop

Made Carolinians the wealthiest elite in the mainland English colonies.

Entrenchment of American Slavery

By the 1650s, slavery became a significant part of American life with no rights for slaves.

Plantations

Large-scale agricultural operations essential to wealth, employing hundreds of slaves.

Interdependence in the Atlantic World

The connection between diverse populations and economies across the Atlantic.

Slave society

A society where enslaved individuals were vital to the economic process.

Economic process

The system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Cultural adaptations

Changes in African culture and kinship due to the conditions of slavery in the colonies.

Tobacco economy

The economic system in Virginia heavily reliant on tobacco production and slave labor.

Planter elite

Wealthy landowners who benefited from the slave economy and controlled political power.

White indentured servants

Sometimes white laborers worked alongside African servants and could still be enslaved.

English views of foreign 'alien' peoples

New arrivals of Africans were seen as slaves even if they weren't.

Race and racism in the law

African women were subject to a poll tax; Black men couldn't serve in Virginia militia and faced stricter laws.

Slavery and Empire

Slaves were vital to world commerce and produced the first mass consumer goods in international trade.

The Atlantic Slave Trade

A crime against humanity involving the mass exportation of Africans to plantations in the Americas and West Indies.

Atlantic Trade

18th-century exchange of manufactured goods to Africa, colonial products to Europe, and Africans to the Americas.

The Middle Passage

The dangerous section of triangular trade where 12 million Africans were transported, with a mortality rate of 1 in 5.

Three Systems of Enslavement

Tobacco in Chesapeake, rice in South Carolina and Georgia, and small-scale non-plantation in New England.

Task system in South Carolina

Rice plantation work where slaves were assigned daily tasks and could rest or work on their own crops if completed.

Georgia's founding

James Oglethorpe established a colony free of slaves and liquor in 1732, which later adopted slavery.

Slavery in the North

Less established, smaller, and urban; most families had 1-2 slaves who worked as farm hands or artisans.

The process of becoming African American

Africans bonded through shared experiences of slavery, creating a new identity that combined various cultural elements.

Cultural diversity

Differences among African ethnic groups like Ashanti, Yoruba, and Ibo were significant.

Assimilation

Process where African-born slaves and their American-born descendants (creoles) adapted and re-Africanized.

Religion and syncretism

Some Africans adopted Christianity, blending it with their own beliefs, known as syncretism.

Means of cultural preservation

Three slave systems led to different African cultures developing in America.

Gullah

Language created by rice plantation slaves in the Carolinas, mixing various African roots.

Tobacco/Chesapeake culture

Large reproduction and small plantations allowed slaves to learn English and participate in religious revivals.

Rice/Carolinas culture

Harsh conditions led to low birth rates and formation of distinct African-based cultures and languages.

Non-Plantation culture in Carolinas & Georgia

Servants and skilled workers gained freedom and founded communities for people of color.

Non-Plantation culture in the North

Slaves were fewer in number, lived closer to whites, and had less independence.

Stono Rebellion (1739)

One of the first rebellions, inspired by others from the 1710s/30s/40s, in New York and other places, took the lives of two dozen whites in a slave rebellion.

New York City (1741)

Panic took over NYC when rumors spread that some slaves and white allies planned to burn the city, resulting in arrests and killings based on assumptions.

Middle Colonies

Demographically, religiously, and ethnically diverse, supported a flourishing export economy based on cereal crops.

Colonization of Eastern North America

Government of England chartered new trading ventures, like the Royal African Company, given a monopoly of the slave trade.

Conquest of New Netherland

Seized during Anglo-Dutch Wars (1664-1674), gained Dutch trading posts.

New York and the Dutch

Given to brother James, Duke of York, who had full absolute power; transformed into an important imperial outpost.