APUSH Chapter 3

John Calvin created the basis of Calvinism, which was the belief that God was all-knowing and decided who was going to heaven or hell from birth, also known as predestination.

Calvinists tended to have doubts about their eternal fate lingering over them, and constantly sought conversion, or the actual personal experience where God revealed to them their heavenly destiny.

King Henry VIII made himself the head of the church in the 1530’s, sparking some English religious reformers to undertake a total purification of English Christianity. These people were called puritans.

The Church of England later enrolled all of the king’s subjects, enraging a small group of puritans to break away entirely from the Church of England. These people were called separatists.

The most famous group of separatists departed for Holland in 1608, distressed by the “Dutchification” of their children. They arrived on the coast of New England in 1620 with 102 persons.

Before leaving for shore, the Pilgrim leaders created and signed the Mayflower Compact, a simple agreement to form a crude government and to submit to the will of the majority of regulations agreed upon.

In Autumn of 1621, bountiful harvests were brought, along with the first celebration of Thanksgiving day.

In 1629 a group of non-separatist puritans secured a royal charter to form the Massachusetts bay colony.

The Massachusetts bay colony was blessed, and the well equipped expedition of 1630, with 11 vessels carrying almost 1,000 immigrants, started off the colony at a larger scale than any other English settlements.

A successful attorney and manor lord in England, John Winthrop accepted the offer to be the Governor of the Massachusetts bay colony, believing he had a “calling” from god.

John Winthrop believed that the colony was to be an example of religious faith to many others, declaring “We shall be as a city upon a hill”.

Only Puritans- the “visible saints” who alone were eligible for church membership could be freemen.

Anne Hutchinson challenged the puritan doctrine of predestination, saying that the truly saved needed not to obey the word of God nor man. For this she was brought to trial in 1638 and banished shortly after.

Roger Williams challenged the legality of Bay colony’s charter, and denied the authority of civil government to regulate religious behavior, a dangerous blow at the Puritan idea of government’s very purpose.

This was kinda a theocracy.^^^^

Williams was later found guilty of “dangerous and new opinions” and banished in 1635. He established complete freedom of religion in Rhode Island, making it more liberal than any other English settlement.

Rhode Island became home to many religious “misfits” such as quakers, Jews, and Catholic Christians.

In 1639, the settlers of a new Connecticut river colony drafted the trailblazing document known as the Fundamental Orders. It was a modern constitution, which established a regime democratically controlled by the “substantial” citizens.

The spread of English settlements inevitably led to clashes with the Natives, who were particularly weak in New England.

At first, the Wampanoag Natives befriended the settlers. Squanto facilitated cultural accommodation, and the Wampanoag Chieftain Massasoit signed a treaty with the Plymouth pilgrims in 1621 and helped them celebrate the first thanksgiving.

Hostility exploded in 1637 between settlers and the powerful Pequot tribe. English militiamen set fire to the Pequot wigwams and shot the fleeing survivors, which wrote a brutal finish to the Pequot war, practically wiped the whole tribe, and facilitated 4 decades of uneasy peace between puritans and natives.

King Phillip’s war was fought around the 1670’s. It was the bloodiest war per capita in American history, and thousands of natives were sold into slavery, imprisoned, or killed.

A groundbreaking experiment in union was launched in 1643, when 4 colonies banded together to form the New England Confederation. The primary purpose of the confederation was defense against enemies or potential enemies, such as the Natives, French, and Dutch.

Each member of colony, regardless of size, had 2 votes, highly displeasing the most populous colony, Massachusetts bay.

It was essentially an exclusive puritan club.

The Dominion of New England was created by royal authority, and unlike the New England confederation, it was imposed from London. It was expanded 2 years after its creation to include New York and west Jersey. It was aimed at strengthening colonial defense in the event of war with the Natives.

The Dominion of New England was designed to promote urgently needed efficiency in the administration of the English Navigation laws. The laws sought to stitch England’s overseas possessions more tightly to the motherland by throttling American tartare with non-English countries.

This resulted in a quiet resistance, and smuggling became increasingly common and honorable.

The people of Old England soon got fed up with the resistance, and in 1688-1689 the English engineered the memorable Glorious (or Bloodless) revolution. Dethroning unpopular Catholic King James II, they enthroned the Protestant rulers of the Netherlands, Dutch-born William III and his English Wife, Mary II (daughter of James II).

When news reached North America, the Dominion of New England collapsed.

Late in the 16th century, the Netherlands rebelled against Catholic Spain, winning its independence with the help of Protestant England.

In the 17th century, the Dutch peaked; they challenged their former benefactor England, and dealt as heavy blows as they received.

The Dutch republic became a leading colonial power, with the greatest activity in the West Indies. The Dutch East India company at one time supported an army of 10,000 men and a fleet of 190 ships, 40 of them men-of-war.

Eager to establish an asylum for Quakers, William Penn managed to secure from the king an immense grant of fertile land, in consideration of a monetary debt owed to his dead father by the crown.

He managed to make the asylum, attracting many misfits that had been cast aside or isolated from other colonies. Even so, blue laws prohibited stage plays, “ungodly revelers”, playing cards, dice, games, and excessive hilarity.