American YAWP Chapter 4 ID's

Consumer Revolution (17th to 18th Century)

• Colonists + English moved from subsistence to consumption of consumer goods
  • due to improvement in manufacturing, transport, and credit availability
• Colonists could purchase goods instead of making them
• Colonists sent material to England and they gave manufactured goods in return
• Ability to buy goods = respect in colonies
• Everyday people buying goods

Commodity Money (1619 - 1750)

• Money with eccentric (representative) value → medium of exchange
• Price of commodity money fluctuates
• 1727, Virginia tobacco notes = certificates of value for physical items used to exchange for goods
  • end of commodity money in Virginia

Bills of Credit (1690)

• paper bills
• Massachusetts first to use in 1690
• only good in the colony it is from
• lost value quickly
• easily counterfeited

Currency Acts of 1751 and 1763

Navigation Acts

Benign Neglect

The Gang System of Labor (17th century)

• Mostly on large plantations with a lot of slaves
• Slaves worked from dawn to dusk
• Managed by white overseer (entrusted with entire plantation) or black driver (watched slaves to ensure productivity)
• Virginia

James Oglethorpe (1732)

• Philanthropist
• Founded Georgia
  • Georgia banned slavery when founded but legalized it by 1750
• Wanted to give British people in debt a 2nd chance in the New World

The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669)

• Document that legitimized slavery in the Carolinas
• coauthored by John Locke
• slaves could only be freed if they left the colony

The Task System of Labor

• Used in South Carolina
• Used on smaller plantations/ estates with fewer slaves
• Slaves given tasks and after tasks done, slave was done with work for the day
• employed due to rice (cash crop) which was grown in swampy conditions → possibility of disease due to mosquitos
• Plantation owner didn’t live on planation b/c they didn’t want to get sick → lived in Charlestown and had an overseer to manage the estate
• Small plots of land given to Slaves to grow personal garden → money from underground market

The Stono Rebellion (1739)

• 80 - 100 African Slaves marched to Florida
• They burned plantations and killed 20 people in the process
• Rebellion was stopped by the militia → slave survivors executed

Provincial, Proprietary, and Charter Colonies

1. Provincial (Royal Colonies)

   • tightly controlled by the crown
   • crown appointed governors
   • governors can veto assembly decisions
   • New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina

2. Proprietary (Lord Proprietor)

   • more liberty + freedom than provincial
   • governor chosen by lord proprietor
   • lord proprietor has rights to colony from the crown
   • still under authority of the crown
   • Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland

3. Charter (Political Corps./Interest groups)

   • legislative, executive, judicial branch
   • governors elected by property holding men in the colony
   • colonial assemblies and colonial councils were below the governor
     • council: prominent men in society that advise the governor
     • assembly: elected men with property that made sure that colonial law adhered to English law, approved taxed, new budgets, and ensured governor didn’t get too powerful
   • Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island

Republican Wives/ Republican Motherhood (18th Century)

• fertility increase
• women asserted more control over their bodies → decreased family size
• Sentimentalism - marriage viewed for its emotional value rather than economic value
• women provided emotional support to husbands and taught children principles of Republican citizenship:
  • Need for virtuous citizenry
  • Freedom
  • State is a bounded community of citizens

Coverture (18th century)

• Women (white women) lost all political and economic rights to their husband at marriage → women had no legal independent identity → divorce rates + abandonment increase

Print Culture

• All forms of printed text and visual communication
• John Adams said the origins of the American Revolutions can be found in the colonies’ print culture
• fueled the great awakening
• The Virginia Gazette = first colonial newspaper (1736)

Great Awakening (1730s to 1750s)

• Early Piety (1711, Increase Mather) → Great Awakening
  • Founding fathers came into wilderness for religious reasons
  • what has new England come to
  • spoke to sense of inferiority → search for reinvigorated religious experience → Great Awakening
• New England → all colonies
• Returning to pious lifestyle, stripping worldly concerns
• Left a profound impact on colonies and made them question the world around them
• revivals gave colonists individualism and reinforced print culture
• led to the American Revolution

George Whitefield (1730s)

• England
• Part of iterant (traveling) preachers
  • spread revival
  • Shared Johnathan Edward’s message
  • looking inside for ones salvation
  • had meetings outside → audiences put into emotional frenzies
• Most popular preacher
• God pleased with heartfelt faith → churches encouraged apathy
• traveled from New York to South Carolina
• former actor → dramatic style + simple message

Seven Year’s War

• Pushed colonists together politically and culturally

• led to imperial reforms on taxation, commerce and politics

  • meant to help Britain pay for the expensive war → colonists saw themselves as a collective group

• Led to American Revolution

Pontiac’s War/Rebellion (1763 to 1766)

• Pontiac + 300 warriors attempted surprise attack on Fort Detroit → 6 month siege → Pontiac lost

• inspired other native groups to attack British Colonists to end British Colonization

• ended b/c of disease and supply shortages

  • British were supplying the Natives and when they waged war the supplies were cut off

• Led to British changing British Native policy

  • to maintain peace they must protect native lands by regulating Anglo American trade

• led to American Revolution

Royal Proclamation of 1763

• Result of the Pontiac War
• Creation of the proclamation line that runs on the west side of colonies and is the boundary between colonists and Natives → discontent among colonists b/c they think the land west of the Appalachian mountains is their reward for helping the British win the war