Colonies of Empires

Lecture 1

  • Mercantilism

    • Economic idea where countries in the old world want to have a balance of trade - exporting more things than you are importing.

    • Places like England and France want to extract raw materials from the new world and manufacture them in the old world, then sell it back to the new world.

      • Ex. Rice from SC is sold into London, it is then distributed to a Portuguese markets.

    • There isn’t a lot luxury in the new world - things like jewelry and weaponry have to be bought from the old world. They are reliant on the old world.

    • Colonists became annoyed at shipping off the materials and then having to buy the products from them at a higher price.

      • There is a theory that colonists would had debts from London merchants started the Revolution so they wouldn’t have to pay them.

  • William Penn

    • William Penn was the promoter of the colony of Pennsylvania and the city of Philadelphia

    • He lived around the time of the English Civil War - He started his career as a lawyer and joined a religious group called the Quakers.

      • Quakerism was a controversial religion due to it not being a state religion, as well as them being radical.

        • Women could participate in religious practice, and they did not have any kind of clergy.

    • Penn is imprisoned for his religious beliefs and questioning the authority of the Anglican Church. He gets out thanks to his father being connected to Charles II (remember, the Restoration). Instead of wanting cash from the King, he instead asks for a royal charter to found a colony built on religious tolerance.

      • That way, the Quakers can flourish, along with other religious groups needing the leave England as well.

    • He establishes the colony of Pennsylvania afterward.

    • The colony was able to be set up thanks to the goodwill they showed to the American Indians in the area. They made a treaty with them and bought their land from them. They vowed to be fair to them.

      • Penn did not ratify it through oath - not because he wanted to one up them, but because Quakers cannot take oaths!

  • Pennsylvania

    • The colony would be anchored by the founding of Philadelphia - the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection.

    • The area has diver plants, which are used to cure swelling, burns, and cuts.

    • In advertisements about coming to the city, Penn says that the city is carved out of the wilderness - it is between rivers and connected to other areas in the province.

    • When building the city, it was gridded out and sections were given to green life and public squares as to make sure no bad smell and plague would occur

Lecture 2

  • New England - an overview of the late 17th century

    • New England is very anxious at this moment - Puritans just existing, a slave rebellion has the potential to break out, The French and their Indian allies have been raiding villages, older generations were worried younger people didn’t have the fervor of religious practices of their generation.

  • The Halfway Covenant

    • The puritans begin to have tension with new settlers moving in to make a profit, instead of moving for religious faith. The new settlers also had tension since they had no political power since they were not church members.

    • People were also worried that their children who would die in childhood wouldn’t go to an afterlife.

    • Due to these tensions, a deal was struck - the Halfway Covenant.

    • If you were not a member, they were given half member status. What this means is that while they had not undergone conversion narratives, they were able to baptize their children. If the child died, they could go to an afterlife. Because they were baptized, they could also be full members of the church.

  • Salem Witch Trials of 1692

    • In 1692, a daughter of a religious leader falls ill, and the doctor would diagnose her with having a bewitchment - witchcraft was believed to be a real thing at this time.

    • The girls of the town who were afflicted with this bewitchment would then start accusing other members of the town, with 19 men and women who were hung for the crime of witchcraft. The town had a court of witchcraft that used spectral evidence in court - which had the governor, William Pips, come down and break up the court, saying that it was dismissible evidence. 130 People were let go afterward

    • We don’t know why the girls acted like this, but speculation leaves historians to believe they were under the effect of LSD from the grains in their food that had putrefied. Others might’ve faked it to settle scores with people.

  • Conflicts of the edge of empires

    • The colonists were agents of a changing political landscape and the tensions of the old world. We saw many cases of these changes happen in the new world

    • A battle of the English civil war was fought in north America

      • The Battle of the Severn - fought on Severn’s river in 1655

      • The puritans decide that after one of the wars in the civil war is over, that they want to try and regain some power.

      • They decide they wanted to take over Maryland for the Puritans - as such, the Catholics in the area began to fight them for Maryland.

      • The battle is brought to an end quickly, and Baltimore reasserts his dominance over the area.

    • Pequot War and King Phillip’s War

      • Two wars fought between the colonists and Indians groups.

      • In the Phillip’s war, the loss of life from the Indians is immensive, and many indians were sold into captivity.

      • The Puritans were able to use their own Indian Allies against King Phillip and kill him.

    • Some other wars were the 1610 war in Jamestown, a second war 12 years later, and a third in Jamestown - the Tidewater Wars

      • A treaty was made to tell the settlers not to settle west of the line drawn - they did it anyway. Tensions furhter increase.

    • Other wars were going on in Europe at the time as well - if they fight over there, they fight over here as well.