Unit 1: Exploration, Settlement, and Revolution

Three Cultures in North America

• Native Americans → 1st cultural group to be in North America

• Land is considered a source of life

• Native Americans were polytheistic (belief in many gods)

  • matrilineal is when women are the most important figures in the family and social life

    • this was very common at the time

• West Africans → forcibly brought to America as slaves

  • they are going to sell their rivals to North America

  • they are also polytheistic as well as worshipping nature and ancestry

  • belief in collective ownership of land

• Western Europeans

  • believe in private individual land ownership

  • practice a monotheistic life (belief in one god)

  • Spain and France = Roman Catholicism; England = Protestant/Anglican Christianity

  • Patrilineal is when men are the most important figures in the family and society

  • ethnocentrism → belief that one’s ethnic group is one’s own culture is superior to all other ethnic groups and cultures

Age of Exploration

• people are coming to set up colonies (pieces of land/geographical area where a nation is going to claim total control over/in possession of)

• the Protestant Reformation is another reason why there was colonization

Colonial Groups in North America

• Spanish Colonies

  • conquistadors → explorers and conquerors

  • location → New Spain, Central America, Caribbean, and Florida

  • culture → marriage was common and made a new ethnicity called mestizos

    • Spanish people are going to make Native Americans convert to Roman Catholicism

  • encomienda system → forced labor system for Native Americans

    • this was the first slave group in Europe

• French Colonies

  • location → Mississippi River, Ohio River, St. Lawrence River Valley

  • culture → marriage will lead to 2 ethnic mixes such as Creole and Cajun

    • Roman Catholicism is not enforced

  • the French economic model will be based on the fur trade (small trading outposts)

• English Colonies

  • location → settle between the Florida and Canada border

  • Roanoke → original attempt to settle at this island

  • Jamestown → most successful English colony

    • it was very unpleasant at first because it was too hot, many diseases were spreading, lots of hunger, and a very high death rate

  • Plymouth/Massachusetts Bay → The majority of the English colonies are going to settle here

English Southern Colonies

• Economy (main priority is to make England money)

  • cash crops are very central to the Southern economy and it is how they are going to make their money

  • plantation agriculture is a minority and the smallest group of people in the colonies, but they control the vast majority of wealth in the southern colonies

  • indentured servitude is when people move to the colonies from England and voluntarily sign a 4-7 year contract saying they agree to be a servant

    • they will later move from indentured servitude → slavery because it is cheaper that way

  • education is limited in the South and women had no rights in the family

• culture → Profit is the primary concern

  • tobacco was the main source because cotton was not made then

English Northern Colonies → come for religious purposes

• Northern Colonists continually have conflicts with Native Americans

• Politics

  • Mayflower Compact was the first plan for self-government in the English colonies, but it was not democratic

    • they thought their job was to show how religious they were to the world

    • Church attendance was mandatory (attend church or be put in prison)

• diverse economy → The southern economy cares about farming

  • taxes are going to the church (“Puritan work ethic”)

• culture → There is better education and more people can afford it

  • Puritan Christianity is a form of Protestant Christianity

  • trying to purify the Anglican Church

  • required to study the Bible for “better” education

The goal of mercantilism is to sell more than to buy

the only way they can make this work is to have colonies

England is the mother country

• the purpose of making colonies is to make England money

• people were only allowed to purchase from England

the triangular trade system is what mercantilism is

• the most important passage of the triangle is the middle passage

  • everyone makes money off the middle passage except for slaves

  • Northern colonies are also making money by building boats

  • Southern colonies make money because of cash crops

  • England sells slaves to the southern colonies to make money

The slave trade was not a pleasant experience because it was overcrowded, had a high death rate, and people were thrown overboard

Monarch → parliament → colonial government → colonial assembly → colonists

Colonial Government

• the British controlled the 13 colonies

• The King will hire a governor so that the governor represents the King

• Governor’s job: make sure the colonies obey mercantilism

Colonial Assembly

• make laws, collect taxes, pay governor their salary

• the first assembly was the House of Burgesses (the first of the colony)

• it was the first democratic institution in the colonies

you had to meet 6 criteria to vote:

• adult

• white

• rich

• well-educated

• land-owner

• male

American Aristocracy

• if you met all 6 criteria to vote, this was the title

Indirect Representation

• colonists had this with Parliament

• Parliament represents them and tells them what to do, but colonists don’t get to vote

Direct Representation

• You get to vote for your representatives

Salutary Neglect

• this was how the King managed the colonies

• as long as England is making money, then the colonial assemblies can do whatever they want

Enlightenment

• John Locke

  • he creates the social contract (between government and people)

  • social contract: people agree to obey the government. in return, the government MUST protect the people’s natural rights: life liberty, and property

  • if the government fails, the people are obligated to overthrow the government and replace someone new

French and Indian War

• French and Native Americans on one side

• England and 13 colonies on the other

• the 13 colonies started the war because they wanted to take French territory

• they didn’t want a war because it cost money and England started the war

• after 9 years, England won the war

• the Treaty of Paris, (1763) was the treaty that ended the war

• England won the whole French territory and England had to pay off debt from the war

• After the war has passed, England passes the Proclamation of 1763

  • it protects French culture. They have to acknowledge England because they are in charge (they don’t have to change anything)

  • the English colony is not allowed to move to the French territory

Consequences of the French and Indian War

• England is in huge debt

• England ends Salutary Neglect

Lord George Grenville (Prime Minister of England)

• appointed by King George III to fix the debt of England

• his two-step plan:

  • increase taxes on the colonies

  • strictly enforce mercantilism

Sugar Act

• raise taxes on colonial imports

• the law is going to require the governors to pass out the Writs of Assistance (search warrant)

  • looking for evidence of smuggling and pirating

  • if they find out, the person will be shipped to England and face the royal judge

  • The northern colonists were angry

Grenville passes the Stamp Act

• tax on a document/printed page

• all 13 colonies are angry about this

Colonists’ responses

• Sons of Liberty is the formation of a group

  • they are going to destroy government property

  • produce propaganda

  • assault tax collectors by tar and feathering

the assemblies will start the petition for direct representation (“no taxation without representation”)

all 13 colonies will boycott British-made goods

• England loses money and cancel the Stamp Act

• After repealing the Stamp Act, Parliament passes the Declaratory Act

  • it means that Parliament has the right to tax colonies

Townshend Acts

• raises taxes on colonies

  • new taxes are going to pay for the governor’s salaries

  • this will allow them to enforce mercantilism

• they are going to increase the amount of guards

  • colonies are responsible for housing, feeding, and clothing the soldiers

  • Northern colonists are not happy about this

Boston Massacre

• a riot the colonists started (5 dead)

• significance: 1st time seeing bloodshed between England and the colonies

Tea Act

• East India Company

  • help the EIC

  • only this company was allowed to sell tea in the British Empire

  • Parliament passed the law and took away their money and they couldn’t vote on it

• Boston Tea Party

  • response to Tea Act

  • they dress up as Native Americans, walk on the ships in the harbor, and put 90,000 to approximately 105,000 pounds of tea into this harbor

    • this was a huge destruction of property

  • King George III hears about this and gets angry

  • passed the Intolerable Acts

    • shuts down Boston Harbor

    • occupy the city of Boston and place it under Martial (military) Law

    • Quartering Act: the colonists have to pay and feed the soldiers

First Continental Congress

• help the 12 colonies (Georgia was missing)

• Declaration of Rights and Grievances

  • the colonies give this to the King

  • the right for loyal, British citizens because they are so proud to be part of the British Empire

  • the 2nd part (grievances) is where the King is upsetting the colonists and how he is not respecting their rights

  • The king ends up ignoring them, making the situation worse

Battles of Lexington and Concord

• Royal Army vs Colonial Militia

  • official military armies

  • officially marks the start of the Revolutionary War

2nd Continental Congress

• they send the king the Olive Branch Petition

  • they ask the king to go back to Salutary Neglect and act like the battle never happened

  • the king rejects it the first time

  • the king opens the state of rebellion the 2nd time

  • the rebellion ends on a hard note the 3rd time

“Common Sense” → Thomas Paine

• one of the most important books in American history

• it will change why independence is important

• criticizing monarchies

  • monarchies in general are always going to violate the social contract

• Critical of King George III

  • the king has permanently broken the social contract and cannot go back to fix it

  • the only thing they can do is go with independence

  • this is something that they can do and build a country based on economic and social freedom

• the first person to come up with the American dream

• after the book, the Declaration of Independence was formed

  • Thomas Jefferson makes this declaration

  • the Declaration of Independence is heavily based on John Locke’s social contract

  • Thomas Jefferson: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

  • published on July 4, 1776

the Continental Congress creates the 2nd Continental Army

• George Washington is in charge of the army

• his leadership is what keeps the battles going

Articles of Confederation

• the 2nd Continental Congress created this article

Revolutionary War

• strengths: we have an advantage by fighting on our land (America), Americans do not have to win upright (a tie is good enough for them), and they have to avoid losing the war and show England that they are not worth it

• weaknesses: they have to enlist, train, and equip people and weapons within a year

Battles of Saratoga

• 1st American victory

• the French were supposed to help the Americans beat the British by assisting them with supplies

• Battle of Yorktown

  • the last major battle of the war

  • another American victory and it proves to England that the war is too expensive

the war ends with the Treaty of Paris, 1783

• confirmed American Independence

• specified the national boundaries of the new country

  • North and South: Georgia to Canada

  • East and West: Atlantic Ocean to Mississippi River