APUSH Unit 2 European Colonization

Spanish Colonization

• Spain sought precious metals, gold and silver. Spanish conquistadors conquered the Natives such as the Aztecs, Tenochtitlán (Hernan Cortes) in 1519 and the Incas in Peru (Francisco Pizarro) due to advanced weapons and disease.

• Royal officials were mostly appointed from Spain, rather than the colonies.  Most settlers were men which led to intermarriage with Natives and Africans.  Thus the emergence of a caste system that included Mestizos (mixed Spanish and Native) and Mulattos (mixed Spanish and African).

Spanish Interactions with Natives

• Natives were often seen as “uncivilized.”  

• The Spanish utilized the encomienda system which forced Native Americans to work on plantations or in mines.  

• The mission system created by the Spanish in the New World sought to spread Christianity and specifically Catholicism.

French Colonization

• Samuel de Champlain looking for a northwest passage founded Quebec in 1608.

• The French sent fewer individuals than the Spanish and English.  Mostly men went to the New World and like Spain, the French intermarried, leading to a new ethnic group, the Metis.

Why did France go to the Americas

France focused on trading with the Natives which resulted in mostly friendly relations.  The bulk of trade would include furs from animals such as beavers. 

• The French did not take a substantial amount of Native land, like the British did.  

• The French did not force the Natives into slavery or a labor force, like the Spanish did.  

• As with the British and Spanish, the French brought diseases that killed Natives who were not immune.

Who led French colonies?

French colonial governments were led by a governor-general that was appointed by Paris and there were no representative assemblies.

Dutch Colonization

• Henry Hudson looking for a northwest passage, found the Hudson River in 1609.

• The Dutch established trading posts in present day Manhattan (New Amsterdam) and Albany. 

Why was the Dutch in America?

• Like the French, the Dutch sent small numbers and focused on the profitable fur trade.  

• They created the joint stock company, the first being the Dutch East India Company.  This process would help lead to modern capitalism.

Dutch Interactions with Natives

Depending on Native Americans to hunt animals for their pelts, they cultivated friendly relationships with Native American through intermarriage and military alliances.

British Colonization

The British established the first permanent settlement at Jamestown in 1607. They settled along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. The British sent large numbers of both males and females.* Due to this, there was little intermarriage with Native Americans.

Factors that lead to British Colonization

Some of the factors that led to British immigration the New World include the opportunity for social mobility, economic prosperity, religious freedom (Puritans in Massachusetts, Catholics in Maryland, etc.) and improved living conditions.

British Colonial Agriculture

British colonists focused on agriculture, tobacco in the southern colonies, grains in the middle colonies and subsistence farming in the New England colonies.

Government in the British Colonies

English colonies were more democratic than other European colonies.  They promoted mercantilism where the colonies existed to provide raw materials and markets for the mother country. 

• The British put in place the Navigation Acts in which the colonies were forced to trade only with England, though many colonists smuggled goods in spite of the act.

British Interactions with Natives

The British lived separate from the Native Americans and while the Natives helped colonists survive the early years by teaching them to grow crops and fish, long term the relationship would sour.  The British took Native lands which led to frequent conflict.

The New England/Northern Colonies

This region includes Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. 
Due to the reasoning for immigration, many families made up the population in this region.

Who started the New England/Northern Colonies

It was initially settled by Puritans who wanted to “purify” the Church of England, the Anglican Church.  Massachusetts Bay was led by John Winthrop, a minister, known for his “City Upon a Hill” message.  The Puritans were not religiously tolerant.  Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were banished for challenging the Church. 

Exception to the Northern Colonies

Rhode Island was the exception, known for its toleration.  It was founded by Roger Williams. He believed that Natives should be paid for their land.  This was not common practice in the colonies as a whole. 

Commerce in the Northern Colonies

The Northern Region was made up of small towns where families would farm, but not on plantations like in the South, more subsistence farming.  Northern colonies had a mixed economy, based on agriculture and commerce. Merchants, shipbuilding, lumber, and whaling are just a few of the focuses in the North.  Slavery did exist, just on a smaller scale when compared to other regions.

The Breadbasket/Middle Colonies

New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware make up the Middle Region. 

For the most part, men made up the demographics.  There were large numbers of indentured servants and slaves as well.

Who started the Middle Colonies?

William Penn established Pennsylvania as a “Holy Experiment.”  Quakers made up much of the population in that colony.  The people there (and the region as a whole) were religiously tolerant and like Rhode Island, the Quakers paid Native Americans for their land. 

Commerce in the Middle Colonies

The economy in this area was based on grains such as wheat.  Due to this makeup, the region is sometimes referred to as the Breadbasket Colonies.  There would also be some shipbuilding and lumber aspects of the economy as well.

The Chesapeake Colonies

The Chesapeake Colonies are made up of Virginia and Maryland and named such due to their location on the Chesapeake Bay. 

Indentured servants made up most of the work force in the region prior to Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. 

• While some families moved into the region, for the most part it was white, male, indentured servants.  The life expectancy in the Chesapeake was lower than in New England or the Middle Colonies.

• Maryland was a safe haven for Catholics fleeing England.  They wrote the Maryland Act of Toleration which established that Christian religions, those based on the Trinity, would be tolerated.

How did the Chesapeake colonies start?

Indentured servants were brought over to the New World via the Headright System in which wealthy landowners would pay for the passage of a servant and the servant would pay the debt usually with a seven year period of servitude.  For each servant, whoever paid for the passage would acquire 50 acres of land. 

Commerce in the Chesapeake Colonies

This region is known for its agriculture and rural settlements. Tobacco is the cash crop that initially was grown in the region.  This crop required arduous, labor-intensive work to grow.

Chesapeake Colonies Change in Demographic

Though after 1676, African slave labor replaced indentured servants due to the repercussions of Bacon’s Rebellion.

Bacon’s Rebellion

Bacon's Rebellion, fought from 1676 to 1677, was an uprising against Governor William Berkeley's rule in colonial Virginia driven by an interplay of forces, including high taxes, falling tobacco prices, and escalating Anglo-Native conflicts along the western frontier.

The Southern Colonies

The Southern Region was made up of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, though the West Indies were similar. 

In many cases, African slaves made up most of the population.  Slaves sought to maintain their culture, language and religion when they could, though many would adopt European practices.

Commerce in the Southern Colonies

The economy was based on export of staple crops such as tobacco, sugar and rice. These products were grown on large plantations. 

English Colonial Governments

The first thirteen colonies were very democratic for the time. 

Voting was limited to land-owning, white, male, church members in the north, there was no separation of church and state.  In the south, politics were dominated by elite planters.  Though the governor was appointed by England.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

This is from Connecticut and was the first written constitution in the colonies. This landmark document created a system of self-governance, including an elected governor, an annual legislative assembly, and provisions for the election of magistrates and deputies.

Mayflower Compact

Written by the pilgrims and made in the New England colonies, it was a legal instrument that bound the pilgrims together when they arrive. It established a framework for self-governance and promised allegiance to a "civil body politic".

The Virginia House of Burgesses (1619)

This was from the Chesapeake region, where it was the first democratically elected legislative body in British North America, established in 1619. It served as the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly and played a crucial role in shaping the colony's governance and the events leading up to the American Revolution.

The House of Burgesses represented the first elected representative government in the British American colonies.

Atlantic Economy

Trade between Europe, Africa, and the Americas became known as the Triangle Trade. People, goods and ideas were exchanged. Raw materials or cash crops from the Americas (fur, grain, tobacco, rice, indigo, etc.) were being imported to Europe, made into finished goods and exported.

Mercantilism

• Mercantilism became the driving force of trade, the goal was to export more than what was imported. 

• For example, sugar and rum (made from sugar) were shipped to Britain, goods manufactured in Britain were shipped to Africa, the West Indies and North America and slaves from Africa were shipped to the West Indies and North America.

Navigation Acts

The Navigation Acts were passed in the late 1600s proclaiming that anything shipped to North America or to other British colonies had to be transported in English ships, and everything shipped from the colonies had to be transported in English ships bound for England.  Smuggling was an easy way around the acts and was utilized across the colonies.  This process led to massive wealth for merchants and plantation owners.

Enslaved Africans

As items were traded across the Atlantic and the need for labor increased, and especially after Bacon’s Rebellion, African slaves were imported in larger numbers from Africa.

Middle Passage

• The enslaved Africans were brought via the Middle Passage, the portion of the journey from Africa to the Americas.  Slaves were chained together and packed in the ship “like books upon a shelf….”  

• The seven week voyage was a horrifying experience, 25% of slaves died on the voyage. 

The Slave Trade Act of 1788

It was an Act of Parliament that limited the number of enslaved people that British slave ships could transport. It was the first British legislation passed to regulate slave shipping.

Consumer Revolution

The development of the Atlantic economy in the eighteenth centuries allowed American colonists access to more British goods than ever before.

• The buying habits of both commoners and the rising colonial gentry fueled the consumer revolution, creating even stronger ties with Great Britain by means of a shared community of taste and ideas.

New Mexico

• Having found wealth in Mexico, the Spanish looked north to expand their empire into the land of the Pueblo people. 

• The Spanish expected present-day New Mexico to yield gold and silver, but they were mistaken. Instead, they established a political base in Santa Fe in 1610, naming it the capital of the Kingdom of New Mexico. 

• It became an outpost of the larger Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain, headquartered in Mexico City.

Spanish Interactions with the Indian natives

• missionaries built churches and forced the Pueblos to convert to Catholicism, requiring native people to discard their own religious practices entirely.  

• The Spanish demanded corn and labor from the Pueblos, but a long period of drought impeded production, escalating tension in Santa Fe. 

• The Pueblo also suffered increased attacks on their villages by rival native groups, which they attributed to the Spanish presence.

Ecomienda System

• An encomienda consisted of a grant by the crown to a conquistador, a soldier, an official, or others of a specified number of “Indios” (Native Americans) living in a particular area. 

• The receiver of the grant, the encomendero, could exact tribute from the “Indios” in gold or in labour and was required to protect them and instruct them in the Christian faith. 

• The encomienda did not include a grant of land, but in practice the encomenderos gained control of lands inhabited by “Indios” and failed to fulfill their obligations to the indigenous population.

• Native peoples were forced to engage in hard labor in agriculture and mines (gold/silver) and subjected to torture, extreme abuse, and, in some cases, death if they resisted.

Spanish Caste System

• The ordering of social groups or caste systems of the Spanish defined the status of each group.

• The order from top to bottom:

-pure Spaniards, born in Spain

-pure Spaniards born in America (the 

Creoles)

-mixed Spanish and Native Americans 

(the Mestizos)

-mixed European and African (the 

Mulatto)

-mixed African and Native American 

(the Zambos)

-Native Americans

-Enslaved Africans

Powhatans

• Powhatan, leader of a confederation of tribes around the Chesapeake Bay, hoped to absorb the newcomers through hospitality and his offerings of food. As the colonists searched for instant wealth, they neglected planting corn and other work necessary to make their colony self-sufficient. They therefore grew more and more dependent on the indigenous people for food.

John Smith

• As the colony's fortunes deteriorated during its first two years, Captain John Smith's leadership saved the colony. Part of this leadership involved exploring the area and establishing trade with local people. 

• Unfortunately for the Native Americans, Smith believed that the English should treat them as the Spanish had: to compel them to "drudgery, work, and slavery," so English colonists could live "like Soldiers upon the fruit of their labor." Thus, when his negotiations for food occasionally failed, Smith took what he wanted by force.

Native Relations with british changes

• By 1609, Powhatan realized that the English intended to stay. Moreover, he was disappointed that the English did not return his hospitality nor would they marry Native American women (keep in mind many British settlers, especially in the New England region came with families). 

• He knew that the English "invade my people, possess my country." Native Americans thus began attacking settlers, killing their livestock, and burning such crops as they planted. All the while, Powhatan claimed he simply could not control the young men who were committing these acts without his knowledge or permission. Keep in mind, however, that Powhatan's reactions and statements were reported by John Smith, hardly an unbiased observer.

Pocahontas

• In the next decade, the colonists conducted search and destroy raids on Native American settlements. They burned villages and corn crops (ironic, in that the English were often starving). Both sides committed atrocities against the other. Powhatan was finally forced into a truce of sorts. Colonists captured Powhatan's favorite daughter, Pocahontas, who soon married John Rolfe. Their marriage did help relations between Native Americans and colonists.

Metacom (King Philip’s) War

King Philip's War, also known as Metacom's Rebellion, was a 1675-1676 conflict in New England between Native American tribes, led by the Wampanoag sachem Meta com (whom the English called Philip), and English colonists. It was the last major attempt by Native Americans in New England to resist English colonization. The war resulted in devastating losses for both sides, including the destruction of numerous settlements and a significant decline in the Native American population. The war would last 14 months eventually ending in late 1676 after much of the natives had been destroyed.

The Enlightment

The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual and cultural movement in the eighteenth century that emphasized reason over superstition and science over blind faith.

• Using the power of the press, Enlightenment thinkers questioned accepted knowledge and spread new ideas about openness, investigation, and religious tolerance throughout Europe and the Americas.

• They questioned traditional hierarchical structures and authority; they argued that humans could develop society through rational thinking.

John Locke

Philosopher John Locke argued that a government's power and legitimacy was based in the support that the people gave it. He stated that the government’s role was to protect the rights of the people. Thus, if the people didn’t view the government as legitimate and consent to its rule or if the government failed to protect the rights of the people, the citizens could overthrow it.

Montesquieu

French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu stated that governmental power should be distributed in a way that would prevent the tyranny of one branch of government.

• 3 branches - legislative, executive, and judicial.

• The branches could check each other’s actions.

Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau explained that a government and its people would be part of a "social contract”. This meant that the citizens would agree to give up some of their rights and obey the authority of the government. For example, citizens could be prosecuted by the government if they committed a crime.

In exchange, the government would be responsible for protecting the people's rights, like their freedom to speak freely, and maintaining political order.

Zenger Trial

John Peter Zenger was a printer and journalist in New York where he published the New York Weekly Journal.

In 1734 Zenger was arrested for libel (a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation) and held for 10 months until his trial in 1735.

Zenger was defended by Andrew Hamilton who successfully got him acquitted. 

• This case established the first important victory for freedom of the press in the English colonies of North America.

The first great Awakening

The first great awakening refers to a period of time in the mid 18th century marked by religious renewal. It was a time that saw a dramatic increase in preaching and church attendance, and religious and spiritual matters were brought to the forefront of American life, more so than they had been since before the enlightenment.

The Old lights

It is a term used in Protestant Christian circles to describe groups that oppose new religious movements or changing theological approaches. Specifically, in the context of the Great Awakening in the American colonies during the 18th century, Old Lights were conservative ministers who rejected the emotional preaching and revivalism of the New Lights. They preferred sober, rational sermons and traditional religious practices. 

The New Lights

It is during the First and Second Great Awakenings refer to individuals who embraced the emotional and personal aspects of the revivalist movement, often joining new evangelical churches. These individuals contrasted with "Old Lights," who favored traditional church practices and were less receptive to the revival's fervor. New Lights were key figures in the growth of Baptist and Methodist denominations, among others, according to the Bill of Rights Institute and the Bill of Rights Institute.

Jonathan Edwards

In Northampton, Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards led an explosion of evangelical fervor. Edwards’s best-known sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, used powerful imagery to describe the terrors of hell and the possibilities of avoiding damnation by personal conversion.

The sermon featured a frightening central image: the hand of all-powerful God dangling a terrified believer over a fiery pit, ready on a moment's notice to drop him into the flames of eternal damnation.

George Whitefield

The foremost evangelical of the Great Awakening was an Anglican minister named George Whitefield.

Drawing on his youthful foray into drama, Whitefield memorized his sermons, spoke without notes, varied the timbre of his voice and gestured with abandon. He drew freely on his own emotions, crying out, "My Master! My Lord!" It was said that he could utter the word "Mesopotamia" so that the entire crowd wept. The effect was electric. Crowds responded with outpourings of emotion. People cried, sobbed, shrieked, swooned and fainted. All of New England, it seemed, was seized by a spiritual convulsion.

Denominations

• The Great Awakening saw the rise of several Protestant denominations, including Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists—who emphasized adult baptism of converted Christians rather than infant baptism. 

• These new churches gained converts and competed with older Protestant groups like Anglicans, members of the Church of England; Congregationalists, the heirs of Puritanism in America; and Quakers. 

• The influence of these older Protestant groups, such as the New England Congregationalists, declined because of the Great Awakening. 

• Nonetheless, the Great Awakening touched the lives of thousands on both sides of the Atlantic and provided a shared experience in the 18th-century British Empire.