AP US History Period 2 Study Notes

AP US History Period 2 Overview (1607–1754)

• Timeframe: Covers a period of nearly 150 years from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1754.
• Colonial Growth: The British established 13 distinct colonies along the Atlantic coast, evolving from struggling trading outposts into permanent agricultural, commercial, and urban societies.
• Interaction with Native Americans: European settlers sought to dominate American Indians, viewing them primarily as obstacles to colonial expansion and agricultural growth.
• Labor Systems: Demands for agricultural labor led to a heavy reliance on European indentured servitude and a rapidly growing dependence on enslaved Africans via the Transatlantic/Atlantic slave trade.
• Maturity and Global Conflict: By 1754, the maturity of these colonies intertwined them directly with European power struggles across North America.
• Historiographical Views on Periodization:
  • Traditional Ends: 1763 (End of Seven Years' War / Treaty of Paris), 1775 (Start of American Revolution), or 1783 (Signing of Treaty of Paris).
  • Cultural Ends: Focus on social/cultural developments rather than military/political dates to emphasize the roles of non-English populations (Scotch-Irish, Germans, enslaved Africans).

Types of Colonial Charters and English Governance

• Charter Definition: A legal document granted by the English monarch giving special privileges and establishing the official relationship between the colony and the Crown.
• Three Colony Classifications:
  1. Corporate Colonies: Operated by joint-stock companies (e.g., Jamestown during its early years).
  2. Royal Colonies: Subject to the direct authority and rule of the King's government (e.g., Virginia after 1624).
  3. Proprietary Colonies: Under the direct authority of individual proprietors granted ownership charters by the King (e.g., Maryland and Pennsylvania).
• English Political Tradition: Unlike Spanish and French colonies, English colonists brought traditions of representative government, including electing representatives to vote on taxes and laws for property owners.

Early English Settlements and the Chesapeake

• Context for English Expansion: Defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 established English naval power. A booming domestic population alongside an economic depression created a large surplus of landless poor seeking American opportunities.
• Joint-Stock Companies: Formed to finance expensive, high-risk colonial projects by pooling the capital of multiple private investors.

Jamestown (1607)

• Founding: Established as the first permanent English settlement in America in 1607 by the Virginia Company after receiving a charter from King James I.
• Early Hardships:
  • Located in a swampy area along the James River, leading to deadly outbreaks of dysentery and malaria.
  • Settlers included gentlemen who refused physical labor and adventurers seeking gold rather than farming or hunting.
  • Trade with local Native Americans was volatile; when conflict arose, trade halted, resulting in severe starvation.
• Survival and Growth:
  • Captain John Smith: Enforced strict discipline to help the colony survive its first 5 years.
  • John Rolfe & Pocahontas: Introduced a profitable new variety of tobacco that became popular in Europe and served as the colony's economic foundation.
• Transition to Royal Colony (1624):
  • Out of 6,000 original settlers, only 2,000 survived by 1624. Heavy debt and mismanagement forced King James I to revoke the Virginia Company charter and turn Virginia into England's first royal colony.

Religious-Motivated Settlements in New England

• Motivation: Settled primarily by English Protestant dissenters seeking freedom from the government-backed Church of England (Anglican Church).
• Theological Roots: Dissenters were influenced by Swiss theologian John Calvin, specifically his doctrine of predestination (the belief that God selects individuals for salvation prior to birth). King James I (reigned 1603–1625) saw religious dissenters as political threats and ordered them arrested.

Plymouth Colony (1620)

• Separatists / Pilgrims: Radical dissenters who wanted an independent church completely separate from royal control.
• Migration Path: Fled first to Holland; left due to economic hardship and the Dutch cultural influence on their children. Secured a charter from the Virginia Company of London.
• The Mayflower Voyage: Set sail in 1620 with roughly 100 passengers (less than half were Separatists). Landed off the Massachusetts coast at Cape Cod instead of Virginia.
• The Mayflower Compact (1620): Signed aboard the ship, pledging the colonists to abide by the will of the majority. It served as an early form of self-government and a rudimentary written constitution.
• Early Years: Half the population perished during the first winter. Friendly local Native Americans assisted them with crops, leading to the first Thanksgiving in 1621. Leaders included Captain Miles Standish and Governor William Bradford. Mainstay economy: fish, furs, and lumber.

Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630)

• Puritans: Moderate dissenters who wished to purify the Church of England from Catholic traditions and governance structures.
• Founding: Persecution spiked under King Charles I (ascended throne in 1625). Puritans obtained a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1629.
• The Great Migration: In 1630, John Winthrop led ~1,000 Puritans to found Boston and neighboring towns. A civil war in England in the 1630s drove an estimated 15,000 more settlers to Massachusetts Bay.

Early Political Institutions and Democracy's Limits

• Virginia House of Burgesses (1619): First representative assembly in America, established to grant colonists input into lawmaking.
• New England Town Meetings & Franchise: In Massachusetts Bay, all "freemen" (male members of the Puritan Church) could vote in annual elections for the governor, his assistants, and a representative assembly.
• Limits to Democracy: Voting was restricted strictly to property-owning males. Women, landless men, indentured servants, and enslaved Africans had few to no political rights. Governors often held autocratic powers, answering only to London investors or the King.

The Chesapeake Colonies: Maryland & Virginia

Religious Issues in Maryland

• Founding: In 1632, King Charles I split Virginia to charter Maryland as the first proprietary colony, granting control to George Calvert (Lord Baltimore). Cecil Calvert (second Lord Baltimore) took over in 1634 to establish a Catholic refuge.
• Act of Toleration (1649): Wealthy Catholics were quickly outnumbered by Protestant farmers. Calvert convinced the assembly to pass the Act of Toleration, the first colonial statute granting religious freedom to all Christians. However, it decreed the death penalty for anyone denying the divinity of Jesus.
• Protestant Revolt: Late 17th-century Protestant civil war led to the repeal of the Act of Toleration. Catholics lost the right to vote in Maryland assembly elections.

Labor Systems and Economic Problems

• Indentured Servants: Under contract with a master who paid transatlantic passage, young people worked 4 to 7 years in exchange for room and board, gaining freedom and land/wages at the end of their terms.
• Headright System: Offered 50 acres of land to (1) any immigrant paying their own passage or (2) any plantation owner paying an immigrant's passage.
• Slavery: In 1619, a Dutch ship brought the first black Africans to Virginia. Initially, English law did not recognize hereditary life bondage, and by 1650, only ~400 African laborers lived in Virginia. By the late 1660s, the House of Burgesses enacted laws establishing permanent hereditary life bondage for Africans and their children.
• Economic Collapse (1660s): Overproduction caused tobacco prices to plummet. London merchants responded to colonial price-setting attempts by increasing export prices on goods sent to Virginia.

Conflict and Discontent: Bacon's Rebellion (1676)

• Governor Sir William Berkeley: Royal governor of Virginia (1641–1652; 1660–1677) who used autocratic powers to protect wealthy planters while neglecting poor frontier farmers facing Indian attacks.
• Nathaniel Bacon: Impoverished gentleman farmer who mobilized an army of volunteers in 1676, raiding Native American villages, defeating Berkeley's forces, and burning Jamestown to the ground.
• Outcome: Bacon died of dysentery, leading to the collapse of the rebel army. Berkeley executed 23 rebels.
• Historical Significance: Highlighted two core enduring colonial issues:
  1. Deep class antagonisms between wealthy coastal planters and poor/landless landseekers on the frontier.
  2. Colonial resistance and defiance against royal administrative control.

Dissent and Expansion in New England

• Puritan Intolerance: Puritan leaders banished dissidents who questioned their religious teachings.
• Rhode Island:
  • Roger Williams: Banished from Boston in 1631/1636 for teaching that conscience was beyond church/civil control. Founded Providence in 1636. Paid Native Americans for land and permitted full freedom of worship for Catholics, Quakers, and Jews. Founded one of America's first Baptist churches.
  • Anne Hutchinson: Promoted antinomianism (the belief that faith alone, not good works/deeds, is necessary for salvation). Banished from Mass. Bay, she founded Portsmouth in 1638.
  • Unification: In 1644, Parliament chartered Rhode Island, combining Providence and Portsmouth into a refuge for diverse beliefs.
• Connecticut:
  • Hartford: Founded in 1636 by Reverend Thomas Hooker and Boston Puritans.
  • Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639): First written constitution in American history, establishing a representative legislature elected by popular vote and an assembly-elected governor.
  • New Haven: Founded in 1637 by John Davenport; merged with Hartford in 1665 to form Connecticut under a limited self-governing royal charter.
• New Hampshire: Separated from Massachusetts Bay by King Charles II in 1679 to form a royal colony under an appointed governor.
• Halfway Covenant (1660s): To maintain church influence as fewer native-born Puritans experienced full profound conversions, clergy offered partial church membership without requiring a full conversion experience.
• New England Confederation (1643–1684): Military alliance between Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven to defend against Native Americans, Dutch, and French during the English Civil War. Established a precedent for unified colonial action.
• King Philip's War (1675–1676): Wampanoag chief Metacom (King Philip) united southern New England tribes against expanding English settlements. Thousands died, and dozens of towns burned. Colonial forces killed Metacom, breaking Native American resistance in New England.

The Restoration Colonies

• Context: Founded following the 1660 Restoration of King Charles II to the English throne after the Puritan rule under Oliver Cromwell.

The Carolinas (Chartered 1663; Split 1729)

• South Carolina (Charlestown founded 1670): Developed large rice-growing plantations worked by enslaved Africans, replicating the plantation culture and economy of the West Indies.
• North Carolina: Settled by Virginia and New England farmers running small, self-sufficient tobacco farms. Lacked good harbors; had less reliance on slavery and earned a reputation for democratic views and autonomy from Crown control.

New York and New Jersey

• New York (1664): King Charles II granted land between Connecticut and Delaware Bay to his brother James, Duke of York. British naval forces seized New Amsterdam from Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant. James granted religious freedom to the Dutch but levied taxes without an assembly until forced to concede civil/political rights and an assembly in 1683.
• New Jersey (1664/1702): James divided NY, giving territory between the Hudson River and Delaware Bay to Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret (East and West New Jersey). Sold to Quakers; combined into a single royal colony in 1702.

Pennsylvania and Delaware

• Quakers (Religious Society of Friends): Believed in gender equality, nonviolence, resistance to military service, and that religious authority resided in the individual's soul ("Inner Light"), rather than the Bible or clergy.
• William Penn: Converted Quaker who received a land grant in 1681 ("Penn's Woods") to settle a royal debt owed to his father.
• The "Holy Experiment":
  • Provided a refuge for persecuted Quakers and others.
  • Frame of Government (1682–1683): Guaranteed an elected assembly.
  • Charter of Liberties (1701): Guaranteed written freedom of worship and unrestricted immigration.
  • Designed Philadelphia on a grid layout and treated Native Americans fairly by purchasing their land.
• Delaware (1702): Penn granted the lower three counties of Pennsylvania their own assembly, effectively creating Delaware as a separate colony sharing Pennsylvania's governor.

Georgia: The Last Colony (1732)

• Dual Purpose:
  1. Acted as a defensive buffer protecting South Carolina plantations from Spanish Florida.
  2. Served as a debtor colony to relieve overcrowded English prisons.
• James Oglethorpe: Founded Savannah in 1733 with strict bans on rum and slavery. Regulations failed to thrive; taken over as a royal colony in 1752, adopting South Carolina's slave plantation model.

Imperial Policies: Mercantilism and Control

• Mercantilism: Economic system holding that trade, colonies, and wealth accumulation form the foundation of a mother country's military and political power. Colonies exist solely to enrich the parent country.
• Acts of Trade and Navigation (1650–1673):
  1. Trade to/from colonies must be carried only on English or colonial-built ships with English/colonial crews.
  2. All goods imported into colonies (except perishables) must pass through English ports.
  3. Specified ("enumerated") goods—originally tobacco—could be exported to England only.
• Colonial Impact: Boosted New England shipbuilding and gave Chesapeake tobacco an English monopoly, but limited manufacturing, forced low crop sales prices, and raised costs on imported goods.
• Enforcement: Lax enforcement ("salutary neglect") fueled widespread smuggling, especially in New England. Massachusetts Bay's charter was revoked in 1684 due to persistent smuggling.
• Dominion of New England (1686–1689): King James II combined NY, NJ, and New England colonies into a single unit under Governor Sir Edmund Andros, who levied taxes, limited town meetings, and revoked land titles.
• Glorious Revolution (1688): Deposed James II, replacing him with William and Mary. Ended the Dominion of New England; colonies reverted to separate charters.

The Institution of Transatlantic Slavery

• Population Expansion: By 1750, enslaved Africans made up 50% of Virginia's population and 66% of South Carolina's population.
• Factors Driving Demand:
  1. Reduced English Migration: Higher domestic wages reduced the inflow of indentured servants.
  2. Controllable Workforce: Planters feared poor white/indentured servant uprising after Bacon's Rebellion.
  3. Cheap Labor: Rice and indigo required large, inexpensive labor forces.
• Slave Laws:
  • Massachusetts (1641): First colony to recognize slavery of "lawful" captives.
  • Virginia (1661): Decreed that children automatically inherited their mother's slave status for life.
  • Maryland (1664): Ruled that baptism did not free an enslaved person and banned white women from marrying African American men.

Triangular Trade Routes

• Route Step 1: New England ports (e.g., Boston) exported manufactured rum across the Atlantic to West Africa.
• Route Step 2: Rum was traded in West Africa for hundreds of captured Africans, who endured the deadly, brutal Middle Passage across the Atlantic to the West Indies, where they were traded for sugarcane.
• Route Step 3: Sugarcane/molasses was shipped back to New England to manufacture rum, generating immense profit at each point.

Key Terms by Theme

• Religion (CUL): Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore), Act of Toleration, Roger Williams, Providence, Anne Hutchinson, antinomianism, Rhode Island, Halfway covenant, Quakers, William Penn, Holy Experiment, Charter of Liberties (1701).
• Crops (GEO): Rice plantations, tobacco farms.
• Early Settlements (MIG): John Cabot, Jamestown, Captain John Smith, John Rolfe, Pocahontas, Puritans, Separatists, Pilgrims, Mayflower, Plymouth Colony.
• Massachusetts Bay Colony: John Winthrop, Great Migration, Virginia, Thomas Hooker, John Davenport, Connecticut, New Hampshire.
• Later Settlements (MIG): The Carolinas, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Georgia, James Oglethorpe.
• Conflict (MIG): Wampanoags, Metacom, King Philip's War.
• Self-Rule (POL): Mayflower Compact, Virginia House of Burgesses, Sir William Berkeley, Bacon's Rebellion, Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639), New England Confederation, Frame of Government (1682).
• Authority (WOR): Corporate colonies, royal colonies, proprietary colonies, Chesapeake colonies, joint-stock company, Virginia Company.
• Royal Authority (WOR): Mercantilism, Navigation Acts, Dominion of New England, Sir Edmund Andros, Glorious Revolution.
• Labor (WXT): Indentured servants, headright system, slavery, triangular trade, Middle Passage.