I. Precontact Native Americans

Essential Questions

1. Explain the context for the Columbian Exchange and European/American Indian encounters 

2. Explain how and why various native populations in the period before European contact interacted with the natural environment in North America?

What is context? - The historical circumstances surrounding an event

1. Immediate context (think more like what was going on with the Powhatan Tribe when John Smith landed at Jamestown)

2. Broad context (think more the Age of Exploration that ran from 1400-1600 where Europeans competed for discovery)

A. Complex Societies

1. Horticulture was developed in the area around Mexico ~ 4000 BC

2. Planting crops provided a more stable and nutritious diet

3. This allowed for the rise of powerful, rich, and populous empires

4. The Aztec

   • In Mexico’s central highlands

   • Dominated subject tribes through tribute system

   • Population of 20 million in Mexico

B. North America

Southwest

• Maize cultivation comes later, demands irrigation

• Pueblo civilizations use stacked adobe block homes to adapt to semi-desert of the southwest

Northwest

• Hunting/gathering produced complex societies with less conflict over land because of bountiful fishing and game

• Chinook

***No dense populations or empires

Great Plains

• Nomadic - culture and diet revolved around buffalo

• Sioux Nation

Eastern Seaboard

• Small permanent villages along the Atlantic seaboard, use of mixed agriculture

• Iroquois women farmed, produced much of the necessary food - led to matrilineal systems and positions of ceremonial leadership

C. At the end of the fifteenth century…

1. Native American peoples were diverse, with cultures attuned to their environment

2. North American tribes were dispersed, and experienced regular conflict over territory, trade routes, etc.

3. Despite social diversification, North American tribes were communal and had no use for ideas of private property/land ownership

4. No powerful empires in North America

Imperial Models

Essential Questions

• Explain the context for European encounters in the Americas from 1491 to 1607.

• Explain the causes of exploration and conquest of the New World by various European nations.

• Explain causes of the Columbian Exchange and its effect on Europe and the Americas during the period after 1492.

• Explain the effects of the development of transatlantic voyages from 1491 to 1607.

I. Europe in the 15th Century

1. The rise of nation-states

2. Improvements in technology and trade

   • The Caravel

   • Astrolabe

   • Sextant

3. Increased use of foreign ports

II. Goals

1. God: competition between religious faiths

2. Gold: desire for new sources of wealth through trade or other means

3. Glory: increased national (and personal) status and power

III. Spanish Exploration

Christopher Columbus

• 1492: Columbus lands in the Bahamas

• Legacy of impressive navigation, poor leadership, and atrocity

  a. Amerigo Vespucci

Conquistadores

1. Increased Spanish power in the New World

The Columbian Exchange

1. Definition - the introduction and biological mixing of diseases, ideas, foods, crops, animals, etc. from one side of the world to the other after 1492

2. The effects of this exchange were dramatic and far reaching for all life on earth

3. Effects

   • Potatoes - leads to population boom in Europe, which leads to increases in cheap labor, etc.

   • Small pox to New World - decimates population, destroys oral tradition, alters culture, wipes out tribes

   • Horses - change Native American settlement patterns

   • Tobacco popularized in Old World, leads to plantations in New World, leads to settlement and deforestation, leads to slavery which leads to….

   • Plantations of popularized goods led to development of colonies, increased

   • Globalization and homogenization of world species, invasive species taking over in some contexts

Spain and the Native Americans

1. Early contact will lead to massive population decrease due to small pox

2. Introduction of horses, cows, cash crops will forever change settlement patterns

3. Encomienda System: land, and Native Americans living there, given to Spanish owners (forced labor like serfdom, forced conversions

   • Eventually replaced by slavery

4. Hierarchy in Spanish America

   • Predominantly men traveled to the New World from Spain

   • Race mixing was common, and a strict caste system was established (race *and religion* determined your status)

   • This hierarchy supported Spanish tithing systems, religious goals, and labor systems

5. Evangelicalism in Spanish America

   • Spanish attempted to force conversion an assimilation to Spanish culture and religion

     • First through encomienda system

     • Then through systems of churches and conquistadores

   • This led to conflict and resistance

   • Example: Pope’s Rebellion/Pueblo Revolt

     • Forced assimilation led to bloody revolt in 1680

     • NAs of present-day New Mexico murdered priests and destroyed churches

     • Revolts would lead to some accommodations to NA culture by Spanish

IV. French and Dutch Imperial Models

1. Focused more on trade than religious conversion

   • Notable exception – French Jesuits

     • respectful to Native American culture

2. Used trade alliances and intermarriage to secure fur trading rights

3. Effects on NA Populations

   • Trade alliances led to heightened fighting between NA tribes

     • Example: Beaver Wars - 17th century intertribal violence for European alliances

   • Introduction of guns and alcohol increased social problems and political instability in Native populations

   • American Indians used competing European alliances to their advantage

V. Summary

• Spanish: tight control of Native Americans, forced conversion and assimilation, intermarried with indigenous peoples, mostly male settlers, planted cash crops

• French & Dutch: focus on fur trade, temporary settlements/traders, mostly male traders used marriage alliances for access to beaver pelts

• Difference between the English?

VI. Conflict Over Empire

1. The discovery of the New World will trigger heightened competition between European powers

Settling British America

Essential Questions

• Explain how and why environmental and other factors shaped the development and expansion of various British colonies from 1607-1754

• Explain how and why interactions between various European nations and American Indians changed over times

• Explain the causes and effects of slavery in the various British colonial regions.

CONTEXTUALIZING British Settlement in America

1. Sent Henry Cabot in 1497 to explore - established loose claim to North America

2. Slow to colonize due to:

   • Religious upheaval in Britain (break with Catholic Church)

   • Lack of funds

   • Little motivation

3. Heightened competition with Spain and growing power

   • Raiding of Spanish ships full of gold

4. Initial settlement spurred by:

   • Businesses hopeful of profit

   • Victims of British overcrowding

   • Religious zealots

Jamestown, Virginia, 1607

I. Creation of Jamestown

1. Joint Stock Company (Virginia Company) given charter for settlement

   • Definition of Joint Stock Co. - a business where wealthy investors pooled $$ to fund often risky business ventures

2. First settlers were predominantly male employees of the Virginia Co.

II. Jamestown Struggles

1. Missed the planting season

2. The brackish waters near the settlement spread disease

3. Few were willing to work, expected quick riches

4. Despite fertile soil most died of starvation or disease

5. Despite early kindness, conflicts with Powhatan tribe decimated those that survived

Jamestown Mortality

1. 1607: 104 colonists

2. By spring, 1608: 38 survived

3. 1609: 300 more immigrants

4. By spring, 1610: Starving Time 60 survived

5. 1610 – 1624:Third supply 10,000 immigrants

6. 1624 population: 1,200 (***Virginia Company goes out of business, and the British crown takes control over Jamestown)

7. Adult life expectancy: 40 years

8. Death of children before age 5: 80%

III. Salvation in Tobacco

1. The Chesapeake region had fertile soil, long growing season, PERFECT for large scale agriculture

2. First planted by John Rolfe (Married Pocahontas) in 1612

3. Fortune seekers came to Jamestown despite mortality rates Increased settlement

Tobacco Production

1. 1618 — Virginia produces 20,000 pounds of tobacco.

2. 1622 — Despite losing nearly one-third of its colonists in an Indian attack, Virginia produces 60,000 pounds of tobacco.

3. 1627 — Virginia produces 500,000 pounds of tobacco.

4. 1629 — Virginia produces 1,500,000 pounds of tobacco.

IV. Social Tensions

1. Creation of a planter elite “upper class”

   • To incentivize migration, the Virginia Company gave 50 acres of land for every settler or those they paid to travel through headright system

   • Wealthier colonists brought families and laborers and received large plantations

   • These elites dominated the political assembly, The House of Burgesses

2. Creation of a “lower class” of servants and poor freemen

   • Indentured servants worked for 4-7 years for “freedom dues”, many died

   • Those that outlived indenture eventually created a poor underclass with little access to safe, arable land

   • Angry, indebted freemen would revolt in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 - leading to the transition to slavery

V. In Summary: Chesapeake Bay = Jamestown = Virginia = The Southern Colonies

Is Jamestown part of the New England, Middle, or Southern colonies?

The SOUTH! Characteristics:

• Long growing seasons, fertile soil

• Plantation agriculture (tobacco)

• Need for large, reliable labor source

• Spread out communities

• Large gap between rich and poor

• Had local political assembly, but ruled by planter elite

• Slave societies

Plymouth & Massachusetts Bay, New England, 1620-1630

I. Contextualizing the Settlement of New England

1. Protestant Reformation begins in 1517

2. Britain breaks from Catholic Church to create the Church of England in 1534, a Protestant church

3. Protestant zealots in Britain called Puritans were upset by the Catholic elements that remained in new Church of England

4. Numbers grew who hoped to “purify” the Church of England or ”separate” entirely

   • Puritans

   • Separatists (Pilgrims)

II. Pilgrim & Puritan Settlement

1. Pilgrims (most radical, very few) → Plymouth 1620

   • Pilgrims left Britain to form a perfect Christian community

   • Paid their way through a Joint Stock Company on the Mayflower, settled Plymouth in 1620

   • Early friendly relations with Wampanoag Indians would lead to Thanksgiving meal

2. Puritans → Massachusetts Bay Colony 1630

   • because of increasing persecution in Britain

   • Great Puritan Migration led thousands to migrate to New World, only some to New England

   • Those going to Massachusetts Bay believed they were “chosen” by God to create a pure Christian commonwealth that would act as an example to England (city upon a hill)

   • Led by John Winthrop

3. Puritan Beliefs

   1. Believed they were chosen by God, and had to follow Him as a community to be “City Upon a Hill”

      • Required mutual watchfulness and responsibility; perfect utopia

      • No toleration of deviance

        • Roger Williams: banished for questioning seizing of NA lands and state-forced religion

          • founded Rhode Island 1630 → religiously tolerant, kind to NA

        • Anne Hutchinson: banished for teaching against church leadership

   2. Believed in predestination:

      1. Humans were sinful and only a few “elect” were chosen for salvation before they were born

      2. Needed to prove this with their life

      3. very paranoid, needed the entire community to be perfect

4. Puritan Society

   1. “Puritan Work Ethic”

      • Despite short growing seasons and rocky soil, Puritan work ethic led to economic success

      • Diverse economy in shipbuilding, rum distilling, fur trapping, etc.

   2. Theocratic Government

      • Only church members could vote

      • All male church members had an equal voice/vote in town meetings

      • Puritanism was state religion and laws were put in place to outline proper behavior (blue laws)

   3. Social Norms

      • Extremely close knit, communal, philanthropic community

      • Migrated as families/community groups

      • Church at center of town literally and figuratively

      • Education was mandated

      • Emphasis on “godly” pursuits

      • No tolerance for deviance, very exclusive

        • Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams (Founded RI)

British/Native American Interactions

• Generally - British did not intermarry or try to convert or assimilate large groups of Native Americans

• British interactions promoted separation between the two groups

• American Indians traded with settlers and allied with whichever colonial power they perceived would be most advantageous to their survival

• Tension grew to violence in every colonial region

  1. In the South, tensions heightened over possession and use of land as plantation agriculture grew

     • Ex: Powhatan Wars

  2. In New England tensions heightened over fast growing settler population and threats to American Indian sovereignty

     • Ex: King Philip’s War (Wampanoags vs New England)

Completing British Settlement

I. Contextualizing Continued Southern Settlement

• Jamestown founded in 1607

• Rise of sugar colonies in West Indies islands (Barbados) 1500s-1600s

• Failure of American Indian labor systems

• Use of slave labor

• Brutal slave codes

• Harsh conditions

• Rise of chattel slavery: form of slavery where the enslaved person is considered a commodity, offspring is enslaved

The South: The Carolinas 1650s

• Aristocrats hoped to grow food to supply West Indies by using The Carolinas

• Rice plantations were like northern outpost of those “plantation” colonies of the British West Indies

  • Harsher slave conditions and codes early on in deep South

• Eastern Seaboard Elites vs. Western Backwoods Farmers

  • no available land for poor, poor settlers can only settle in western, dangerous backwoods

  • Struggled with survival, uncleared lands, Indian attacks, lack of government support and respect from elites, lack of opportunity, no slaves

  • North Carolina broke from South Carolina

  • These tensions bubbled over in almost every colony

Caribbean: British West Indies

• Sugar plantation: rich man’s crop, needed slaves to be profitable, elaborate processing, extensive planting,

• Barbados slave codes denied even the most fundamental rights to slaves

Middle Colonies

I. General Characteristics of Middle Colonies

1. Economically: fertile soil, expansive land: cereal crops

   • Rivers and forests: fur and lumber

   • Landlocked harbors: seaports such as NY and Philadelphia

2. Politically

   • Not as aristocratic as the South, but not as egalitarian as New England

   • Gov: not close knit or spread out

3. Socially

   • Diverse and ethnically mixed

   • Medium sized farms, moderately stratified society

II. Pennsylvania and the Quakers

• William Penn given proprietary colony

• Made it a haven for Quakers

  • Quakers: open and accepting Christian faith

  • Believed in universal salvation, pacifism, egalitarianism

  • Against slavery, allowed women to speak in church

  • Treated NA with respect

• Also to make money

• He offered complete religious liberty and easy access to land. A 5,000-acre country estate, with a city lot in Philadelphia tossed in, would cost 100 pounds. If you could not afford that, you could rent a 200-acre farm from Penn for a penny an acre.

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III. Pennsylvania Society

Pennsylvania drew religious misfits and diverse ethnic groups through:

Freedom of religion

Elected assembly

Building plan

Immigrants will undermine anti slavery/pro NA Quaker policies

Actually paid for land

Cultivated very equitable relationship

Quakers went among the Indians unarmed.

BUT…….. non-Quaker Europeans flooded PA and undermined the actions of the Quakers!

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IV. New York, NJ, Delaware

British claim territory of New Amsterdam (NYC)

Under threat of British navy, they surrendered without firing a shot

Last Colony: Georgia

• Founded by enlightenment enthusiast James Oglethorpe in 1730s as a refuge for debtors.

• British wanted a buffer between Carolinas and Florida

• Escalates European mercantilist conflict in the Atlantic

• Despite Oglethorpe’s vision, will also become slave society

Transatlantic Trade

Essential Questions:

• Explain causes and effects of transatlantic trade over time.

• How did the British government attempt to incorporate the colonies into a imperial structure?

I. Rise of Mercantilism

Definition: the economic theory that trade generates wealth and you need to export more than you import (which a government should encourage by tariffs/laws)

• Raw materials are taken out of colonies.

• They are then used to make a product.

• That product is sold to people in the home country and the colony.

• Exports>Imports

II. Emergence of the Trans-Atlantic Trade Economy or “Triangle Trade”

• Cheap supply and high demands of both raw materials from the colonies and European goods and slaves created an economic system

  • The Trans-Atlantic Trade is NOT the same as the Columbian Exchange—the Columbian Exchange was the IMMEDIATE swap of animals, diseases, and foods between Am, Eur, and Afr right after Columbus set foot on the Americas

  • You cannot “trade” diseases

• Regular interactions reinforced the exchange of goods and humans, and even ideas, trends, publications

• An important early step towards globalization

Critical Thinking Questions

• What caused this trade network to establish?

• What were the effects of this trade network?

  • Examples of Effects:

    1. Spread of Enlightenment, religious awakenings

    2. Reinforced Anglicanization

    3. Created wealth in Europe and colonies

    4. Led to the rise of capitalism

    5. Drove demand for cash crops

    6. Drove demand for slaves

    7. Stifled manufacturing in Americas

III. Navigation Acts and Salutary Neglect

1. Navigation Acts (1650 - 1763) **These laws were predominantly followed

   • Colonial imports and exports operated by British or colonial ships ONLY

   • European goods went through British ports

   • Enumerated goods could be exported to England only

2. Later Navigation Acts

   1. Molasses Act of 1733

      • Placed a tariff on French molasses

      • Colonists complained it would hurt rum production

      • ignored the act; smuggled frequently

   2. Prohibition of American manufacturing and sale of from textiles, iron products, and hats

   3. Currency Act restricts printing of money - limited to British pound only

3. Enforcement of Economic Policies

   • American ignored taxes, regularly smuggling Dutch and French goods

   • Customs officials notoriously corrupt, were bribed

   • Lax enforcement set a precedent called “salutary neglect” (salutary = beneficial)

4. Salutary Neglect (1700s)

   • British turn a blind eye to non-compliance to the Navigation Acts - unrestricted trade led to wealthier colonists, who bought more British goods

   • This neglect occurred in governance as well

     1. Colonial local assemblies ruled in the colonies, rarely disturbed by colonial governors or imperial oversight

5. Impacts

   1. Positive

      • The American economy boomed

      • New England shipbuilding prospered

      • Chesapeake tobacco monopoly in England

      • English military forces protected colonies from potential attacks from French, Spanish, and pirates

      • Political autonomy allowed strong local democracies* to flourish (emulating the pro-democracy Whig Party in Britain)

   2. Negative

      • Colonial manufacturing was severely limited

      • Chesapeake farmers received low prices for their crops

      • Colonists paid high prices for manufactured goods from England

      • Colonists mostly left to defend themselves from Native American attacks

6. Exception to Salutary Neglect - Dominion of New England

   • After English Civil War and Restoration, more attention paid to colonies

   • James II fed up with smugglers

   • Mass, Conn, RI, NY, NJ charters revoked, merged into Dominion of New England in 1686

   • Colonists UPSET

   • Authoritarian Measures

     1. Sir Edmund Andros was made governor of the Dominion.

     2. He banned town meetings.

     3. Strongly advocated Anglicanism.

     4. Imposed new taxes.

   • End of Dominion

     1. Glorious Revolution deposes James II

     2. Puritans seized Andros and shipped him back to England.

     3. Assemblies restored, expanded voting rights to non-church members

Essential Question: What were the causes and effects of the slavery in the British North American Colonies?

We will watch the video The Terrible Transformation video about the establishment of slavery in the colonies. We will be having a discussion about the questions below to assess your knowledge. You can also fill out the fill in notes if you want to have more concrete details for your notes.

Rise of Slavery Discussion Questions

1. What was the difference between Spanish and French understandings of race, and British-American understandings? What are some similarities? Why do you think the institution of slavery became so strong and entrenched in British North America, more so than anywhere else in the world?

2. What were instrumental events on the road to American chattel slavery?

3. What social tensions led to Bacon’s Rebellion? Do you think that Bacon and his supporters were justified in their frustrations?

4. How did the development of slavery in British North America change African and European social patterns in the New World – familial, cultural, religious, etc.?

5. How did African slaves show agency in 17^th Century America? (Definition of agency: the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices.)

Fill-in Video Questions

1. _{When did the first Africans arrive in America? How many were there?}

2. Under English law, _________________ could not be enslaved for life.

3. Like most Europeans arriving in the colony, these first Africans came as ________________________.

4. Plantation owners initially intended to rely on who as their principal labor force?

5. What was an “indenture”?

6. Most servants had been promised “freedom dues” after their service: a bushel of corn, a new suit of clothes, and _______________________________________.

7. The headright system provided _________ acres of land for each servant brought into the colony.

8. Who was Antonio (Anthony Johnson)? Why was his story unique?

9. When Antonio arrived, the laws did not yet define ____________________, only _____________________________.

10. By 1650, there were _________________ black people in Virginia out of a population of almost ___________________________________.

11. What significant event happened in 1640 (in terms of the development of slavery)?

12. The English definition of who could be enslaved began to shift from ____________________ to ___________________________.

13. An individual’s status as free or slave depended on the status of his/her _________________

14. Why were indentured servants becoming a problem?

15. What happened in the 1676 servant rebellion?

16. Racial slavery seemed more attractive to southern landowners because they were a permanent, dependent _____________________________ who could be defined as a people _______________________.

17. Slavery tends to work the best when the people being enslaved are described as __________________, allowing them to be put in an inheritable permanent status of slavery.

18. In its first 16 years, the British slave company transported nearly __________________ Africans to the Americas.

19. What racial law was passed in 1691?

20. What laws did the Virginia legislature pass in 1705? Why were they significant?

21. In order to obtain slaves, Africans ______________________________. How did this affect communities?

22. Describe Equiano’s trip to the coast.

23. The Europeans built ___________________________________ along the West Coast of Africa. They were called “___________________.”

24. More than _____________ million Africans have been counted in records that remain- most headed for South America and the ______________________, with 1⁄2 million to mainland North America.

25. The trip from Africa to the New World was called the ________________________, the middle leg of a triangular course that began and ended in Europe.

26. The plantation system of Barbados was admired and imitated particularly by the ___________________________________________ coast

27. What was the cash crop South Carolinians found to make them rich?

28. True or False: The Goosecreek pastor believed that Africans had no eternal soul

29. How were male and female slaves punished for escaping?

30. Africans in America increased in number day by day by both _____________________ and __________________________________

31. What happened in 1710 with the population of South Carolina?

32. What did this lead to?

33. “The entire system of control is based on ____________________________”

34. September 9, 1739 ____________________ slaves start marching towards St. Augustine

35. What did the African slave rebels hope would happen at the end of their rebellion?

36. What happened to the slave rebels that were shot? Why?

37. Where was this rebellion?

38. What were two things that were outlawed to slaves after the Stono Rebellion?

39. What were these new laws called?