RAHHHH (UNIT 2) AP REVIEW

English Civil War

• 1642-1651

• Cromwell’s death in 1658 triggered a political crisis that led Parliament to invite Charles II to restore the monarchy

• During this period of instability, American colonies largely managed their own affairs

• The colonies made their own decisions about the nature of the economy, the government, and the social system

• Emerging colonial elites arrived at their own solutions to pressing problems

• Leading men in the colonies claimed authority and hammered out political systems that allowed the colonies to be largely self-governing

• These alliances eroded the power of crown-appointed governors

• Independence ended with the restoration of the crown in 1660

First Navigation Act

• 1651

• Why it was passed: Dutch and French shippers often bought sugar and other colonial products from English colonies and carried them into foreign markets; this was intended to counter this practice

  • According to mercantilism, there was only so much wealth in the world and therefore England was losing their “share of the pie” whenever the colonists gave English gold/wealth to other countries

• What it did:

  • Required that goods be carried on ships owned by English or colonial merchants

  • Later parliamentary acts strengthened the ban on foreign traders– colonists could export sugar and tobacco only to England, and import European goods only through England; three-quarters of the crew on English vessels had to be English

• These policies were backed by military force

• Though colonial ports benefitted from the growth of English shipping, many colonists violated the Navigation Acts

  • Planters continued to trade with Dutch shippers

  • New England merchants imported sugar and molasses from the French West Indies

Charles II

• 1660-1685

• Deeply interested in England’s overseas possessions

• Expanded English power in Asia– married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, whose dowry included the islands of Bombay

• Expanded English power in America– set up Carolina, awarded New Netherland to his brother James, set up NJ, and granted PA to William Penn

• Went on a great land grab– ousted the Dutch from North America, intruded into Spain’s northern empire, and claimed all the land in between

Carolina proprietorship

• 1663

• A proprietorship

• The proprietors envisioned a traditional European society with a manorial system and a mass of serfs governed by a handful of powerful nobles

English capture New Netherland

• 1664

James II

• 1685-1688

• An aggressive and inflexible ruler– admired the authoritarian rule of Louis XIV

• Antiparliamentary– rejected the advice of Parliament

• Openly practiced Roman Catholicism

Dominion of New England

• 1686-1689

• James II targeted New England for stricter control over the colonies

• Revoked the charters of CT and RI, merging them with MA Bay and Plymouth to form the Dominion of New England

• Andros, a hard-edged former military officer, was appointed as governor of the Dominion

• PA and NJ were later added to the Dominion

• The Dominion was governed through an authoritarian model similar to that imposed on Catholic Ireland

• Andros was ordered to abolish the existing legislative assemblies; Andros also banned the existing legislative assemblies

• Andros advocated public worship in the church of England, offending Puritan Congregationalists

• Andros invalidated all land titles granted under the original MA Bay charter

Glorious Revolution

• 1688-1689'

• After James’ wife gave birth to a son, faced with a Catholic heir to the throne, Protestant bishops and parliamentary leaders in the Whig Party invited William of Orange and Mary Stuart to come to England

• William led a quick and nearly bloodless coup, where James II was swiftly overthrown

• Whig politicians forced William and Mary to accept the Declaration of Rights, creating a constitutional monarchy that enhanced the powers of the House of Commons at the expense of the crown

Declaration of Rights

• 1689

• Created a constitutional monarchy that enhanced the powers of the House of Commons at the expense of the crown

Revolt in MA

• 1689

• The Glorious Revolution sparked rebellions by Protestant colonists in the colonies

• When news of the coup reached Boston, Puritan leaders and militiamen seized Andros and shipped him back to England

• William and Mary broke up the Dominion of New England but refused to restore the old Puritan-dominated government, instead creating a new royal colony that absorbed Plymouth and Maine

• The new charter of MA gave the vote to all male property owners (not just Puritans) and eliminated Puritan restrictions on the CoE

Revolt in MD

• 1689

• End of the tobacco boom hurt poorer farmers, who were overwhelmingly Protestant, while taxes and fees paid to mostly Catholic proprietary officials continued to rise

• The Protestants mustered a force to remove the Catholic governor

• Baltimore’s proprietorship was suspended, royal government was imposed, and the CoE became the legal religion in the colony

Revolt in NY

• 1689

• A Dutchman named Leisler led the rebellion against the Dominion of New England

• Although Leisler initially enjoyed broad support, he soon alienated many English-speaking New Yorkers and well-off Dutch residents

• When William and Mary appointed Henry Sloughter as governor, Leisler was indicted for treason, hanged, and decapitated

Two Treatises on Government

• 1690

• Written by political philosopher John Locke to justify the Glorious Revolution

• Locke rejected the divine-right monarchy celebrated by James II, arguing that the legitimacy of government rested on the consent of the governed

• Stated that individuals had inalienable natural rights to life, liberty, and property

• Significance: Locke’s celebration of individual rights and representative government had a lasting influence in America, where many leaders wanted to expand the powers of colonial assemblies

Board of trade

• 1696

• Created by Parliament to oversee colonial affairs

• The Board continued to pursue mercantalist policies that made the colonies beneficial, but permitted local elites to maintain a strong hand in colonial affairs

Salutary neglect

• 1714-1750

• George I and George II allowed for the rise of american self-government as royal bureaucrats, pleased by growing trade and import duties, relaxed their supervision of internal colonial affairs

• Developed by Sir Robert Walpole, the Whig leader in the House of Commons

• Walpole practiced patronage– the practice of giving offices and salaries to political allies

War of Jenkins’ Ear

• 1739-1741

• Walpole subsidized GA to protect the valuable rice-growing colony of South Carolina

• Britain’s expansion into GA outraged Spanish officials, who were already angry about the rising tide of smuggled British manufactures

• Spain’s naval forces stepped up their seizure of illegal traders; Walpole declares war on Spain

• The war ended up being a disaster for the English

• The war quickly became part of a general European conflict, the War of the Austrian Succession

• French armies battled British-subsidized German forces in Europe, and French naval forces roamed the West Indies

Molasses Act

• 1733

• By the 1720s, the British sugar islands couldn ot absorb all the flour, fish, and meat produced by mainland settlers

• Ignoring Britain’s rivalry with France, colonial merchants sold their produce to the French sugar islands, buying cheap molasses in exchange

• What it did: The West Indian sugar lobby in London persuaded Parliament to place a high tariff on French molasses, making them unprofitable to import

• Colonits protested that the Molasses Act would cripple the distilling industry by slashing colonial income, reducing the mainland’s purchase of British goods

• American complaints were largely ignored, and they resumed smuggling molasses by bribing customs officials

• Colonial defiance prompted an end to salutary neglect– the Board of Trade vowed to impose more rigorous imperial control under Townshend

Stono Rebellion

• 1739

• The Catholic governor of Spanish FL instigated the revolt by promising freedom to fugitive slaves

• When war between England and Spain broke out, 75 Africans rose in revolt and killed a number of whites near the Stono River, marching towards FL

• Despite substantial numbers, the Stono rebels were soon met by a well-armed, mounted force of SC militia; the revolt was swiftly repressed

• Significance: Illustrated the improbability of success for slave revolts

  • Frightened South Carolinians cut slave imports and tightened plantation discipline

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle

• 1748

• Returned Louisbourg, which had been captured by the British, to the French

• Dismayed New England Puritans, who feared invasion from Catholic Quebec

• Made it clear to colonial leaders that England would act in its own interests

Tribalization

• The adaptation of stateless peoples to the demands imposed on them by neighboring states

• Tribalization occurred due to catastrophic circumstances such as disease, which killed off broad swaths of Native communities

  • Many polities disappeared altogether

• By the 1700s, the surviving groups had all been transformed

  • Some new groups were formed from the remnants of formerly large groups

  • Others declined in number but sustained themselves by adopting many captives

  • New alliances were formed– became coherent groups to deal more effectively with their European neighbors

  • Although imperial warfare threatened Indigenous communities, some took advantage of colonial conflict

South Atlantic System

• Centered in Brazil and the West Indies, where sugar was the primary product

• European merchants, investors, and planters garnered the profits– furnished the plantations with tools and equipment to grow and process the sugarcane, and ships to carry it to Europe

• The Atlantic slave trade helped the system run

• New England farmers supplied the sugar islands with bread, lumber, fish, and meat– the economies of New England and the West Indies were closely interwoven

• Farmers and merchants in NY, NJ, and PA also began shipping wheat, corn, and bread to the Caribbean

• In return for the sugar planters sent to England, West Indian planters received credit from London merchants that they used to buy slaves from Africa and to pay North American farmers and merchants

• The mainland colonists exchanged the bills for British manufactures such as textiles and iron goods

African American communities

• Enslaved workers came from many places in West Africa and Central Africa– planters welcomed ethnic diversity to deter revolts

  • Plantations drew laborers of many languages

• Initially, enslaved workers did not think of themselves as Africans but as members of a specific family, clan, or people; only very gradually did they discover common ground

• A somewhat balanced sex ratio encouraged marriage and family formation– in the Chesapeake, some slaves were able to create strong nuclear families and extended kin relations

• Many carried on some African practices such as hairstyles, motifs used in wood carvings and pottery, the design of houses, and musical instruments, and some religious values

African Americans

• Many women were raped by planters– a ubiquitous feature of master-slave relations

• Freedom of action was dramatically circumscribed– it was illegal for them to learn how to read and write

• Some managed to run away

  • In Jamaica, runaway slaves were able to form large, independent Maroon communities

  • Some who possessed artisanal skills fled to colonial towns, where they tried to pass as free

• Many attempted to negotiate with their owners– bartered extra work for better food and clothes; sought Sunday as a day of rest

Elite planters

• Many were shunned in England– dubbed “colonials” and forced to accept their destiny as members of the colony’s elite

• Used their wealth to rule over white yeomen and tenant farmers, relying on violence to exploit enslaved African Americans

• Used black workers to grow food, tobacco, to build houses, wagons, and tobacco casks, and to make shoes and clothes

  • Survived the depressed tobacco market due to their self-sufficient plantations

• The gentry found ways to assist middling and poor whites– gradually lowered taxes, encouraged smallholders to use slave labor, and allowed some poor yeomen and tenants to vote

• The elite bribed voters with rum, money, and the promise of minor offices, expecting the yeomen and tenants to elect them to office and defer to their rule in exchange

• Set themselves apart culturally through gentility– modeled themselves on the English aristocracy

  • Stressed refinement and self-control

  • Educated their children in England, expecting them to return home and manage the plantation

• Women emulated the English elite– read English newspapers and fashionable magazines, wore English clothes, and dined in the English fashion

  • Some parents hired English tutors for their children

Gentility

• A method of conduct embraced by southern gentility; modeled on the English aristocracy

• Stressed refinement and self-control

• Planters educated their children in England, expecting them to return home and manage the plantation

William Penn

• A Quaker, a group that condemned extravagance

• Urged colonists to sit down lovingly alongside the Indigenous inhabitants

• Wrote a letter to the leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy alerting them to his intention to settle a colony, and arranged a public treaty with the Delaware Indians to purchase the land that Philadelphia and the surrounding settlements would occupy

Quakers

• Condemned extravagance

• The Quakers sought to restore Christianity to its simple spirituality, but rejected the Puritans’ pessimistic Calvinist doctrines, which restricted salvation to a small elect

• The Quakers believed that God had imbued in all men and women an “inner light” of grace and understanding

• Preached gender equality

Iroquois

• Played French and English interests off against each other

• Made alliances with both empires, declaring their intention to remain neutral in conflicts between them

• Their neutrality made them more sought-after as allies

Urban elites

• Wealthy merchants dominated the social life of seaport cities

• Urban merchants imitated the British upper classes

Urban middle-class

• Artisans and shopkeepers formed the middle ranks of seaport society

• Innkeepers, butchers, seamstresses, shoemakers, weavers, bakers, carpenters, masons, and dozens of other skilled workers toiled to gain sufficient income

• Most artisans were not well-to-do

• Threatened by stagnant commerce– dependent on the South Atlantic System and cycles of imperial warfare, which brought both economic uncertainty and opportunity

The urban poor

• Comprised of laboring men and women, who often included enslaved blacks and indentured servants

• Poor white and black women made a living by washing clothes, spinning wool, or working as servants or prostitutes

Colonial assemblies

• Representative assemblies copied the English Whigs and limited the powers of crown officials

• The legislatures gradually took control of taxation and appointments, angering imperial bureaucrats and absentee proprietors

• Led largely by colonial elites– only men of wealth and status stood for election

  • Oftentimes, political authority remained within family lines

• Neither elitist assemblies nor wealthy property owners could impose unpopular edicts on the people– purposeful crowd actions would oppose unpopular policies

• Significance: Expressions of popular discontent and the growing authority of assemblies created a political system that was broadly responsive to popular pressure and increasingly resistant to British control

Seaport cities

• Merchants in seaports invested their profits from the West Indian trade in new ships; set up manufacturing enterprises, etc.

• Many seaport cities became distilleries that refined molasses into rum

• American port cities grew in population, size, and complexity as transatlantic commerce expanded

• Smaller coastal towns emerged as centers of the lumber and shipbuilding industries

• The South Atlantic System extended far into the interior, creating a network of taverns, horse stables, and other accommodations that serviced the traffic

The Chesapeake

• West Indies-style slavery came to VA and MD following Bacon’s Rebellion

• Slavery progressively became a core institution, no longer just a form of unfree labor

• Slavery was now clearly defined in racial terms

• Violence was common and extreme punishments were the norm– whipping, branding, and scarring

• Due to the tobacco-based economy, enslaved workers labored in better conditions than those in the West Indies

  • Tobacco cultivation required steadier and less demanding labor in a more temperate environment compared to rice and sugar

  • Diseases were not as easily spread– plantation quarters were less crowded and more dispersed

  • Because tobacco profits were lower than those from sugar, planters treated their slaves less harshly

North Carolina

• The proprietors envisioned a traditional European society with a manorial system and a mass of serfs governed by a handful of powerful nobles

• The first settlers were a mixture of poor families, runaway servants, and English Quakers, an equality-minded Protestant sect

• Most refused to work on large manors, instead choosing to raise corn, hogs, and tobacco on modest family farms

South Carolina

• The leading white settlers were migrants from overcrowded Barbados

• The settlers hoped to import Barbados’ slave hierarchy, so they used enslaved workers– both Africans and Native Americans– to raise cattle and food crops for export to the West Indies

• Opened a lucrative trade in deerskins and Indigenous slaves with neighboring peoples

• Discovered rice cultivation in 1700– used the swampy estuaries of the coastal low country to create ideal rice-growing conditions, forcing enslaved people to do the work

  • Most rice plantations lay in inland swamps, and the work was dangerous and exhausting

  • Pools of stagnant water bred mosquitoes, which transmitted diseases that claimed hundreds of lives

  • Others died from exhaustion

• After rice cultivation was discovered, the African population exploded and constituted two-thirds of the population by 1740

Pennsylvania

• Ethnic diversity, pacifism, and freedom of conscience made PA the most open and democratic of the English colonies

• Marked by unity of purpose– all who came hoped to create a prosperous neo-European settlement similar to that of England

• PA was designed as a refuge for Quakers

• Set up religious freedom by prohibiting a legally established church and promoted political equality by allowing all property-owning men to vote and hold office

• Penn published pamphlets in Germany promising cheap land and religious toleration to attract immigrants– thousands of Germans soon followed

The West Indies

• Early settlers were small-scale English farmers and indentured servants who exported tobacco and livestock hides

• After 1650, sugar transformed Barbados and the other islands into slave-based plantation societies

• A small group of elite planters grew to dominate more than half of the island with thousands of indentured servants and more than half the enslaved population

Britain

• The South Atlantic System generated massive profits that propelled the Europeans to world economic leadership

• The Navigation Acts kept the British sugar trade in the hands of British merchants, who exported sugar to foreign markets

• Also profited enormously from the slave trade– the cost of an enslaved worker was only one-tenth to one-third of the value of the crops those slaves produced, allowing traders to sell enslaved workers for three to five times what they paid

The Middle Passage

• The naval passage to the Americas that enslaved African Americans endured

• The captives had little to eat or drink, and some died from dehydration

• Poor sanitation– feces, urine, and vomit belwo decks prompted outbreaks of dysentery

• Some captives jumped overboard to drown; others staged violent shipboard revolts

Proprietorships

• A colony created through a grant of land from the Crown to an individual or group, who then set up a form of government largely independent from royal control

Covenant Chain

• The name for the alliance between the Iroquois and New York

  • Became a model for relations between the British Empire and other Native American peoples

European Enlightenment

• 1543

• In 1543, Copernicus published his observation that the Earth traveled around the sun, not vice versa

• Copernicus’ discovery suggested that humans occupied a more modest place in the universe than initially thought

• Newton, in 1687, used math and physics to explain the movement of the planets around the sun

• Philosophers used empirical research and scientific reasoning to study all aspects of life

  • Emphasized the idea that through observation, new knowledge could be discovered

• Enlightenment thinkers emphasized the lawlike order of the natural world, the power of human reason, the “natural rights of individuals,” and the progressive improvement of society

• Significance: Added a secular dimension to colonial life and advanced political ideals that contributed to the Revolution; emphasized individualism with a shift away from group-prescribed understanding

Print Revolution

• Improved maritime networks– in the late 1730s, more than 550 ships arrived in Boston annually

• A road network began to take shape– by the 1750s, the “Great Wagon Road” carried migrating families as far down as the Carolinas

• Improved networks carried people, produce, finished merchandise, and information; letters, newspapers, pamphlets, and books began to circulate widely

• Until 1695, Parliament had the power to censor all printed materials, but Parliament let the Licensing Act lapse, prompting dozens of printshops to open

  • These print shops printed poetry, ballads, sermons, handbills, cards, and advertisements

  • Large booksellers also printed scientific treatises, histories, etc.

• Significance: Print was essential to the transmission of new ideas; material travels to the colonies

Germans and Scots-Irish in the Middle Colonies

• 1710-1730

Jonathan Edwards in New England

• 1720-1730

• Edwards encouraged a revival in MA that spread to towns throughout the CT River Valley

• Published an account titled A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, first published in Boston, and then in German and Dutch

  • Its publication highlights the transatlantic network of correspondents that gave Pietism much of its vitality

The Great Awakening

• 1739

• George Whitefield transformed hte local revivals into a Great Awakening

• Whitefield used his public charisma– eloquent gestures and acting– to deliver his sermons

• Many listeners suddenly felt a “new light” within them

• The rise of print aided the Great Awakening– Whitefield regularly sent excerpts of his journal to be printed in newspapers; printed accounts of whitefield’s travels, conversion narratives, sermons, and other devotional literature helped confirm the Pietists in their faith

• Significance:

  • Undermined legally established churches and their tax-supported ministers

  • Itinerant preachers who stressed the power of “heart religion” and downplayed the importance of formal ministerial training found a ready audience

  • Challenged the authority of all ministers whose status rested on respect for their educaiton and knowledge of the Bible

  • New Lights progressively felt that ministerial authority came from conversion experience

  • A sense of authority among the many

Conflict between Old Lights and New Lights

• 1740-1760

• The Old Lights were dubbed passionless; they condemned the dramatic conversions of New Lights

  • Opposed New Lights for allowing women to speak in public

• New Lights refused to be silenced– they roamed the countryside, condemning the Old Lights as “unconverted” and willingly accepted imprisonment

• New Lights left the Congregational Church and founded “separatist” churches that supported the clergy through voluntary contributions

The freehold ideal threatened

• 1740-1760

• Most New Englanders wanted farms that would provide a living for themselves and ample land for their children

• A father’s duty was to provide an inheritance for his children

  • Hoped to secure competency for their families– passing down solvent households to their children, often giving them land

• Children in wealthy families received a marriage portion, either comprised of land, livestock, or farm equipment, in exchange for allowing their parents to choose their spouse

• A rapidly growing population led to very small farms that could not be divided further 

• Parents lost control over their children’s lives without marriage portions– arranged marriages broke down as young people engaged in premarital sex and used the urgency of pregnancy to win permission to marry

• Families adapted by having fewer children, abstaining from sex, or petitioning for frontier land grants

• Others improved farm productivity by replacing traditional English crops with high-yield maize and potatoes

  • Shifted away from a grain economy to a livestock economy, becoming a major exporter of salted meat

Presbyterian revivals in VA

• 1743

• A democratization of religion challenged the dominance of the Anglican Church and the planter elite

• Morris, a bricklayer inspired by Whitefield’s sermons, invited a group of Virginia Anglicans out of their congregation, welcoming a New Light Presbyterian (Davies)to lead their prayer meetings

• Davies’ sermons, filled with erotic devotional imagery, evoked strong emotion within Christians, sparking Presbyterian revivals across the Tidewater region

• Planters used churches to flaunt their wealth– fancy clothing, fancy carriages, etc.; a loss in attendance from freeholders diminished their power

• VA governor William Gooch denounced the Presbyterian revival, and Angelican justices of the peace closed Presbyterian churches; this harassment kept most white yeomen and poor tenant families in the CoE

Industrial Revolution begins in England

• 1750s

• After gaining control of many oceanic trade routes from the Dutch in 1700, Britain had become the dominant commercial power in the Atlantic and Indian oceans

• The first country to use new manufacturing technology and work discipline to expand output

• Mechanical power– water mills and steam engines efficiently powered a wide array of machines

  • New machinery produced woolen and linen textiles, iron tools, furniture, and chinaware in greater quantities and lower cost

Consumer revolution

• 1750s

• To pay for British manufactures, mainland colonists increased their exports of tobacco, rice, indigo, and wheat

• Americans used their profits and the credit extended from overseas to buy English manufactures

• Although the consumer revolution raised living standards, it landed the colonies as a whole in debt, pushing the colonies into an economic recession

French and Indian War begins

• 1754

• The French maintained their vast claims through a network of forts and trading posts

• The French had tenuous claims in the Ohio Valley

  • Many displaced Native Americans lived here

  • British traders began trading down the Ohio River, drawing French-allied Native Americans away from French posts

  • The Ohio Company of Virginia then received a claim from the crown to establish a new settlement on the upper Ohio, threatening French claims

• The British sent Iroquois leaders to maintain influence on the Ohio

• French authorities built a string of forts from Lake Erie to the Ohio; the British responded by sending an expedition led by George Washington

• Washington’s party fired on a French detachment, sparking war

Albany Congress

• 1754

• The Iroquois Confederacy was unhappy with its British alliance, believing that they were being neglected while settlers frmo NY pressed onto their lands

• To mend relations with the Iroquois, the British Board of Trade called a meeting at Albany

Franklin’s Plan of Union

• 1754

• Proposed at the Albany congress

• Proposed the formation of one general government for the colonies, creating a continental assembly to manage trade, Indigenous policy, and colonial defense

• The plan would have compromised the independence of colonial assemblies and the authority of Parliament– was largely neglected

Great War for Empire

• 1756

• Two expansionist-minded war hawks– William Pitt and Lord Halifax– persuaded the British prime minister to launch an American war

• Stage 1– 1754-1756

  • Britain sends military aid– general Edward Brattuck

  • Brattuck’s techniques were largely useless, and he was quickly defeated and replaced with George Washington

  • The English suffered heavy losses and the settlers were left to fend for themselves

  • Each colony viewed itself as an independent nation

• Stage 2– 1756-1758

  • William Pitt convinced England to send more money and forces, bringing the war under English control

  • Pitt forcibly recruited citizens to join, sparking mass resistance

  • Pitt also allowed troosp to demand shelter and food from the colonists without paying, prompting additional discontent

Baptist revivals in VA

• 1760s

• The vigorous preaching and democratic message of New Light Bapitst ministers converted thousands of white farm families

• Enslaved people were welcome at Baptist revivals; African Americans welcomed the message that all people were equal in God’s eyes

• Sensing a threat to the racial hierarchy, the House of Burgesses imposed heavy fines on Baptists who preached to slaves without permission

• Baptists threatened gentry authority because they repudiated social distinctions and condemned the decadent lifestyles of planters

  • The gentry responded with violence

• The Baptist revival challenged customary authority in families and society but did not overturn it

  • Rejected the pleas of evangelical women and kept authority in the hands of male members

• Significance: Infused the lives of poor tenant families with spiritual meaning; shrunk the cultural gulf between blacks and whites; gave some blacks a new religious identity

Proclamation Line

• 1763

• Confirmed Native American control of the west and declared it off-limits to colonial settlement

Scots-Irish Paxton Boys

• 1763

• As landowners moved west, they sparked conflicts over Native American policy, political representation, and debts

• Scots-Irish settlers demanded the expulsion of all Native Americans, but Quaker leaders refused

• A group of Scots-Irish frontiersmen called the Paxton Boys massacred twenty Conestoga Indians, a peacefully assimilated community

• When John Penn tried to bring the murderers to justice, armed Scots-Irishmen advanced on Philadelphia

Treaty of Paris

• 1763

• Granted Britain sovereignty over half of North America, including French Canada, all French territory east of the Mississippi River, Spanish FL, and conquests in Africa and India

Regulator revolt

• 1771

• Violence broke out in SC, where land-hungry Scottish and Anglo-American settlers clashed with Cherokees during the war with France

• A group of land-owning vigilantes known as the Regulators demanded that the eastern-controlled government provide western districts with more courts, fairer taxation, and greater representation

• Fearing slave revlots, the lowland rice planters compromised, creating western courts and reducing the fees for legal documents

Regulator movement in NC

• 1776

• With the economic recession of the early 1760s, many farmers could not pay their debts

• When their properties were seized, North Carolina’s debtors defied the government’s authority

• Disciplined mobs intimidated judges, closed courts, and freed their comrades from jail

• The Regulators proposed reforms such as lower legal fees, tax payments in the “produce of the country” rather than in cash, and demanded greater representation

• All demands were ignored– the Royal Governor William Tyron defeated the Regulator force and Tyron executed seven insurgent leaders

John Locke

• A major contributor to the Enlightenment

• In Essay Concerning Human understanding, Locke stressed the impact of environment and experience on human behavior and beliefs, arguing that the character of individuals and societies could be changed through education, rational thought, and purposeful action

• Two Treatises of Government– advanced the revolutionary theory that political authority was not given by God, but was derived from the consent of the governed

  • The rulers were obligated to preserve the natural rights of the people

• In Locke’s view, the people should have the power to change government policies and even their form of government

Franklin

• A printer and founder of the Pennsylvania Gazette, which became one of the colones’ most influential newspapers

• A deist

• Repudiated slavery, recognizing the parallels between racial bondage and the colonies’ political bondage to Britain

• An inventor

German immigrants

• Many Germans had fled their homeland because of military conscription, religious persecution, and high taxes

• German immigrants pionieered the redemptioner system, a flexible form of indentured servitude that allowed families to negotiate their own terms upon arrival

• Germans soon dominated many districts in eastern PA, and thousands more moved down the fertile Shenandoah Valley into the Carolinas

• Preserved theri culture by settling in German-speaking communities

• Settlers were willing colonial subjects of Britain’s German-born and German-speaking Protestant monarchs

• Generally avoided politics except to protect their cultural practices

Scots-Irish

• Some were Irish and Catholic

• Most were Scots and Presbyterian, the descendents of the Calvinist Protestants sent to Ireland to solidify English rule there

  • Faced hostility from Irish Catholics and English officials and landlords

  • Heavily persecuted in Ireland, making America seem desirable

• Retained their culture, living in ethnic communities and holding firm to the Presbyterian Church

Women

• Received lesser marriage portions compared to those of their brothers

• Women assumed the role of dutiful helpmates to their husbands

• Spun thread and yarn, knitted sweaters and stockings, made candles and soap, churned milk into butter, fermented malt for beer, preserved meats, and mastered dozens of other household tasks

• “Notable women”-- women who were praised for excelling at domestic arts

• Bearing and rearing children were highly important tasks

• Lives remained bound by legal and cultural restrictions, excluded from an equal role in the church

Quakers

• Quakers set up committees that enforced moral behavior– weekly meetings for worship, etc.

• Quaker meetings allowed couples to marry only if they had land and livestock sufficient to support a family– as a result, the children of Quakers usually married within the sect

  • These marriage rules helped the Quakers build a self-contained and prosperous community

• Reduced to a minority due to the flood of new migrants

• To retain power, Quakers sought an alliance with German religious groups

New York

• Attempts to impose the manorial system largely failed– few migrants wanted to labor as peasants

• Most tenant families hoped that with hard work and ample sales they could eventually buy their own farmsteads– the road to landownership was challenging

Quaker Colonies

• Wealth was fairly evenly distributed, but the proprietors still had enormous land claims

• The unstable balance between shared values and mutual mistrust prefigured tensions that would pervade an increasingly diverse American society

• Growth:

  • Economic growth brought greater prosperity, along with conflicts between ordinary settlers and the proprietors who tried to conttrol their access to land, resources, and political power

  • Penn’s early appeals led the a boom in immigrants and early settlers described the region as “the best poor man’s country in the world”

  • Proprietors were quickly overwhelmed by the demand for more land from new migrants; many new migrants became squatters

• Agricultural capitalism– large-scale farmers, rural landlords, speculators, storekeepers, and gristmill operators

• Residents:

  • Different cultures did not meld together– groups preserved their cultural identities by marrying within their ethnic groups

  • Although the Quakers were most dominatnt in shaping the culture, the growth of German and Scots-Irish populations challenged their dominance

  • Many families came searching for land; others came as laborers; some as unskilled workers

  • One-half of the middle colonies’ white men owned no land and little personal property

• Religion:

  • Freedom of religion– religoius sects enforced moral behavior through communal self-discipline

Coverture

• Placed married women under the protection and authority of their husbands

• Brides relinquished to their husbands the legal ownership of all their property

• The property rights of widows were subordinate to those of the family line

Household mode of production

• Developed in New England due to the swelling population

• Families swapped labor and goods

• Emerged partially because currency was in short supply, instead, farmers, artisans, and shopkeepers recorded debits and credits to “balance” the books

• Helped New Englanders to maximize agricultural output and preserve the freehold ideal

Pietism

• An evangelical Christian movement that stressed the individual’s personal relationship with God; appealed to the hearts of believers rather than their minds

  • Carried by German migrants to America, sparking a revival in PA and NJ

Deism

• A  way of thinking; Deists believed that a Supreme Being had created the world then allowed it to operate by natural laws but did not intervene in people’s lives

• Deists largely rejected the divinity of Christ and the authority of the Bible

• Relied on “natural reason” and their innate moral sense to define right and wrong