Period 2

Contextualization

  • Enlightenment

    • looked for a more rational and scientific way to explain the world we live in

  • Glorious revolution

    • Destroyed the idea of divine-right (absolute) monarchy in England

    • power in the state was divided between the monarch and parliament and the monarch ruled with the consent of the governed

  • Independent Colonial development

    • Enormous population growth

      • 1700-less than 300,000 people

      • 1725- 2.5 million (20% were enslaved African people)

  • British- Joint Stock Companies

    • raised funds and were granted charters

  • Britain is England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales

Regions of the Colonies

  • New England- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire

  • Middle “Bread Basket”- New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware

  • Chesapeake- Virginia & Maryland

    • *Chesapeake colonies are sometimes considered southern colonies

  • Southern- North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia

Colonizing Virginia: Jamestown

  • Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in North America

  • Early years = disaster!

  • One ruler, Powhatan, controlled virtually all of the Native Americans nearby

  • Jamestown is built on a swamp - mosquitoes and malaria

  • Starving time → Cash crops

    • People not fit for farming, starvation and struggle

  • John Rolfe credited with cultivating a pleasant smoking strain of tobacco, 1st profitable export

  • Tobacco would become the feature cash crop of Virginia; “Golden Weed”

Colonizing

  • Headright System: 50 acres per indentured servant

  • Women: a shipload of unmarried women brought and encouraged to marry colonists and begin families

  • indentured servitude: 4-7 year contract in exchange for passage

    • moves into slavery because the people were able to leave after their service

Rebellion

  • Powhatan Wars

  • Bacon’s Rebellion: Virginia, 1676

    • Tension arose between settlers and Native Americans living on the frontier of western Virginia

    • Bacon organized his own militia of hundreds of runaway servants and some slaves

    • summer of 1676- Bacon marches on Jamestown and burns the city

Pilgrims

  • Founded Plymouth 1620

  • William Bradford: Governor of Plymouth

    • signed Mayflower Compact

      • The first social contract for a New England colony. Drafted and signed by 41 adult male separatists fleeing religious persecution by King James of England. Granted political rights to all male colonists who would abide by the colony’s laws.

  • Thanksgiving people

Great Migration

  • Beginning with 700 people led by Governor John Winthrop. A great migration of Puritans from England brought over 20,000 people, mostly families, to Bew England over a 10-year period

Predestination

  • a fundamental Puritan belief that God chose each human being from birth for either salvation or condemnation. Only God knew the fate of each person but during his or her lifetime, a Puritan could search for clues as to the fate of their soul by performing

The Outspoken & Disagreeable

  • Thomas hooker- banished from Massachusetts Bay

  • Roger Williams- separation of church and state, religious freedoms

  • Anne Hutchinson- spoke out against predestination

Disorder

  • Pequot War (1636): Conflict between Pequot Indians and colonists in MA & C. The Indians were outmatched from the beginning and by the end were sold into slavery or driven off

  • Metacom’s War (aka King Phillip’s War) (1675-76): The last significant effort by the Indians of southern New England to drive away English settlers. VERY VERY VIOLENT!

    • Metacom was killed, and his head was put on a stake

Colonial Policy

  • Mercantilism

  • Salutary Neglect

  • Navigation Acts

      1. Trade only in English or colonial ships

      1. Trade must pass through Eng. ports.

      1. Certain goods to English only (began with tobacco and then spread to others)

  • SMUGGLING A PROBLEM

  • Dominion of New England (1686): Charles II revoked the charters of all the colonies NORTH of MD because he believed that the colonists weren’t living in conformity with English law.

Mercantilism

  • Goal: to export more than you import to increase the wealth of the mother country

  • Use colonies to provide raw materials and, later, markets

Salutary Neglect

  • The Navigation Laws were on the books, but they were seldom enforced

  • Many colonists made a fortune in smuggling (e.g., John Hancock)

  • Colonial “power of the purse” informally kept these laws from being enforced

House of Burgesses, 1619 (same years as first slaves in Jamestown)

  • governance: Colonies were to elect 2 “burgesses” or representatives to assemble at Jamestown annually to help make laws for the colony

  • 1st representative assembly in British North American colonies

Role of Women

  • Childrearing

  • Politically and socially subservient

  • Marriage as an economic institution

Education

  • Gradient scale (North to south)

  • New England was dedicated to education

    • stressed Bible reading by community members

    • Primary and secondary schools established early

    • Literacy much higher in New England than the Chesapeake region or deep South where only the privileged enjoyed the benefit of education

  • Middle colonies

    • also had primary and secondary education

      • some tax-supported, some privately owned

      • Spread-out population made creation of good school systems difficult

    • Many wealthy families sent their sons to colleges in England

  • South

    • Educational opportunities limited for most people except the privileged

    • Wealthy planters hired tutors to teach their children

    • population highly dispersed; ineffective educational system for common folks

  • Higher Education

    • Primary focus on the training of new clergy, not academics