Chapter 4: British North America Flashcards

Overview of European Migration and Colonial Contact

• Motivations for Migration: Transatlantic migration from Europe to British North America was driven by land scarcity, economic displacement, religious persecution, and financial opportunities in commercial trade and agriculture.
• Cultural Disconnect: European colonial lifestyles, based on private land ownership, commercial extraction, individual property rights, and Christian theology, conflicted directly with Indigenous communal land stewardship, seasonal migration, and spiritual traditions.
• Primary Source Accounts of Migration and Contact:
  • Francis Daniel Pastorius (1684): Documented the arduous transatlantic ocean voyage and initial settlement experiences in Pennsylvania.
  • Song about Life in Virginia: Reflected colonial folk narratives and the stark economic realities faced by early Chesapeake settlers.
  • Recruiting Settlers to Carolina (1666) & Letter from Carolina (1682): Promotional materials sent to prospective European immigrants emphasizing fertile soil, religious freedom, and land grants.
  • Thomas Morton's Reflections on Native Americans in New England (1637): Analyzed Native American culture, lifestyle, and social organizational structures from an English perspective.
  • A Gaspesian Man Defends His Way of Life (1641): Preserved an Indigenous critique of European society, asserting the superiority of Indigenous independence, health, and hunting lifestyle over European labor and materialism.
  • Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address: Articulated Indigenous values of ecological balance, gratitude, and communal responsibility toward nature.

Labor Systems: Enslavement of Indigenous Peoples and Indentured Servitude

• Enslavement of Indigenous Populations:
  • English and Dutch colonists in North America and the West Indies initially enslaved Native Americans captured during military conflicts and boundary raids to fulfill labor demands.
  • Factors Limiting Indigenous Enslavement: Indigenous populations possessed intimate knowledge of the physical terrain, enabling effective resistance and escape. Additionally, native populations suffered catastrophic mortality rates due to lack of immunity against European and African diseases.
• Indentured Servitude Structure:
  • Throughout the majority of the seventeenth century, English indentured servants supplied the primary labor force across British North American colonies.
  • Economic Causes in England: Economic restructuring created a severe surplus of displaced, unemployed laborers who were eager for overseas opportunities.
  • Contractual Terms: Servants agreed to bound labor for terms lasting between $4\text{ to }7\text{ years}$ in exchange for transatlantic passage, shelter, food, and basic maintenance.
  • Freedom Dues: Upon successful completion of their service, former servants were legally entitled to received "freedom dues," consisting of agricultural tools, clothing, food supplies, and occasionally land titles.
• Case Study: Indentured Servant's Contract (1746):

*   *Contract Terms of Thomas Clayton:* Signed an indenture in Richmond County binding himself with the explicit consent of his mother as an apprentice to James Griffin, a joiner.
*   *Duration and Trade:* Agreed to a term of $5\text{ years}$ to learn the "art, trade, or mystery" of a house carpenter.
*   *Obligations of the Servant:* Required to serve his master faithfully, keep his secrets, obey lawful commands everywhere, prevent damage to his master or give immediate notice thereof, refrain from playing cards, dice, or other unlawful games, and never absent himself day or night without official leave.
*   *Obligations of the Master:* Bound to use his utmost endeavors to instruct the apprentice in house carpentry and to supply sufficient meat, drink, apparel, and lodging appropriate for an apprentice throughout the term.

Land Scarcity, Social Unrest, and Bacon's Rebellion

• Rise of the Frustrated Freemen:
  • Chesapeake planters imported $100,000$ indentured servants by 1700, representing over three-quarters ($>750/00$) of all European immigrants to Virginia and Maryland.
  • Scarcity of Prime Land: As prime coastal land was claimed by wealthy planters, masters became increasingly unwilling to include arable land grants within "freedom dues."
  • Economic Entrapment: By the late seventeenth century, completing a term of indenture rarely resulted in economic independence; most former servants were forced to work for wages or rent land from former masters.
  • Social Discontent: A growing population of impoverished, landless former servants—predominantly young, single men—faced chronic poverty, lack of property, and inability to find wives.
  • Disenfranchisement: In 1670, the Virginia House of Burgesses formally revoked the voting rights of landless men, exacerbating class tensions.
• Bacon's Rebellion (1676):

*   *Leadership:* Led by Nathaniel Bacon, a 29-year-old planter and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, who mobilized an armed coalition of $1,000$ poor colonists, landless freemen, and bound laborers.
*   *Core Grievance:* Resentment against Virginia Governor Sir William Berkeley's frontier policies, which colonists accused of favoring peaceful Native American trade networks at the expense of protecting English frontier settlers from border attacks.
*   *Rebellion Events:* Bacon's forces conducted indiscriminate massacres against frontier Indigenous communities, drove Governor Berkeley from the capital at Jamestown, and burned Jamestown to the ground.
*   *Suppression:* Following Bacon's sudden death from dysentery, Governor Berkeley crushed the lingering resistance and executed 23 rebel leaders by hanging.
*   *Social Impact:* The uprising demonstrated the volatile potential of class conflict, uniting poor white former servants, backcountry settlers, and enslaved African laborers against the elite patriarchal colonial authorities.

• Shift from Indenture to Enslaved Labor:
  • Fearing further class insurrections from landless European indentured servants, Virginia's planter elite turned toward African chattel slavery as a controllable labor force.
  • Demographic Pivot: First brought to Jamestown in 1619, enslaved Africans remained a minority labor source for decades due to high initial purchase costs. By the mid-1680s, newly arrived enslaved Black laborers outnumbered incoming white indentured servants in the southern plantation colonies.
  • Legal Suppression: Virginia authorities enacted harsh new legal statutes severely restricting the movements, labor, and civil rights of both free and enslaved Black people.

Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Legal Codification of Slavery

• Scope of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1500–1860):

*   Over $11\text{ million}$ enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the Western Hemisphere across the three centuries following Christopher Columbus's voyages.
*   *Regional Destinations:* The vast majority of captives were taken to sugar plantations in the West Indies ($4,800,000$) and Brazil ($3,900,000$). Spanish Mainland territories received $430,000$, Europe received $100,000$, and mainland North America received approximately $400,000$ ($360,000$ in direct import records).
*   *African Regional Origins:* Primary slave-trade supply regions included Senegambia, Sierra Leone, the Windward Coast, the Gold Coast, the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra, the Congo, and Angola (with key embarkation ports at Luanda and Benguela).

• The Middle Passage:

*   *Conditions:* Enslaved Africans were crammed beneath the decks of slave ships under brutal, unsanitary conditions during the transatlantic voyage, with mortality rates reaching up to $200/00$ per passage.
*   *Primary Sources:* The 1789 print diagram of the slave ship *Brookes* documented the inhuman packing arrangements. Olaudah Equiano published an autobiography in 1789 describing the horrors, disease, stench, and trauma of the Middle Passage.

• Legal Codification and Hereditary Slavery:
  • Early Legal Fluidity: In the early seventeenth century, legal status was fluid. A small number of African immigrants secured freedom, such as Anthony Johnson, who acquired land and held African slaves himself.
  • Racialization of Law: As the Black population expanded, white colonists enacted laws establishing race as the primary determinant of legal status.
  • Hereditary Slavery (1662): Virginia passed a law declaring that a child's legal status (free or enslaved) followed the legal status of the mother ($\text{partus sequitur ventrem}$). This made slavery permanent, generational, and guaranteed enslavers full legal ownership over natural reproduction.
  • Religious Status: Colonial assemblies enacted explicit laws ruling that conversion to Christianity or baptism did not grant legal freedom to enslaved persons.
  • Primary Source: In 1715, Rose Davis, a woman of mixed ancestry, was sentenced by a colonial court to lifelong slavery.
• The Caribbean Model and Barbados Slave Code:
  • Sugar Trade: Sugar constituted England's most profitable colonial commodity in the Caribbean. Over $250,000$ enslaved Africans were imported to West Indian plantations between 1640 and 1690.
  • Demographics: By 1700, enslaved Black people outnumbered white English colonists in the Caribbean by nearly $4:1$
  • Barbados Slave Code (1661): Denied enslaved people basic legal rights and granted masters total authority to inflict horrific physical punishments or execution for minor infractions.
  • Transmission to Mainland: Displaced Barbadian planters settled Carolina in 1670, bringing enslaved laborers and the Barbados legal model. Carolina formally adopted a modified version of the Barbados slave code in 1696.

Regional Divisions: Colonial Categories

• New England Colonies: Massachusetts (1630), New Hampshire (1622), Rhode Island (1636), Connecticut (1636).
• Middle Colonies: New York (1626), Pennsylvania (1681), New Jersey (1664), Delaware (1664).
• Chesapeake Colonies: Virginia (1607), Maryland (1632).
• Southern Colonies: North Carolina (1663), South Carolina (1663), Georgia (1732).

New England Colonies: Religious Dissent, Governance, and Conflict

• Puritan Dissent and Regional Expansion:

*   *Anne Hutchinson:* Challenged the political and religious orthodoxy of Massachusetts Bay Colony by preaching antinomianism—the doctrine that the truly saved were exempt from obeying human or divine laws. She further claimed to have received direct personal revelations from God. Court authorities convicted her of high heresy and banished her in 1638. She moved to Rhode Island and subsequently New York, where she and her family were killed in an Indian war.
*   *Roger Williams:* Minister at Salem who advocated extreme Separatism, demanding a full break from the Church of England. He condemned Massachusetts Bay's legal charter for confiscating Indigenous land without financial compensation and denied civil magistrates authority over religious conduct. Banished in 1635, he fled with Native assistance to found Providence, Rhode Island in 1636.

• Establishment of Rhode Island:
  • Roger Williams built the first Baptist church in North America at Providence.
  • Established absolute freedom of conscience and religious tolerance for all faiths, including Jews, Catholics, and persecuted Quakers.
  • Abolished compulsory church attendance, state church taxes, and mandatory religious oaths.
  • Initially instituted universal male suffrage, though property qualifications were added later. King Charles II granted Rhode Island a royal charter in 1663.
• Expansion Across New England:

*   *Connecticut:* Founded in the 1630s by Thomas Hooker, who led Boston Puritans seeking land into the Connecticut River valley.
*   *Fundamental Orders (1639):* Drafted by Connecticut River settlers, creating the first written modern constitution to establish a democratically controlled government.
*   *New Haven:* Founded in 1638 by John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton as an ultra-strict Puritan settlement; forcibly merged into Connecticut by royal charter in 1662.
*   *Maine & New Hampshire:* Massachusetts Bay Colony annexed Maine in 1677. New Hampshire was separated from Massachusetts Bay by royal decree and made a royal colony in 1679.

• Salem Witch Trials (1692):
  • Triggered when adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts accused older women of practicing witchcraft.
  • The resulting mass hysteria ended with the court executions of 20 individuals.
  • Social Causes: Reflected acute socioeconomic stratification, as accused women generally belonged to prosperous families involved in Salem's commercial market economy, while accusers came primarily from poor subsistence farming families. It also highlighted fear among religious traditionalists that commercialism was destroying Puritan religious piety.

New England Wars with Indigenous Nations

• Pequot War (1637):

*   As settlers pushed west into the Connecticut River valley, peaceful co-existence with native groups dissolved.
*   Marked the first major armed conflict between English settlers and Indigenous people in New England.
*   English colonial militiamen allied with Narragansett and Mohegan tribes to encircle a palisaded Pequot fort near the Mystic River.
*   Colonists set fire to the village and systematically shot Pequot men, women, and children attempting to escape, killing nearly $3,000$ people and annihilating the Pequot nation.

• King Philip's War / Metacom's War (1675–1676):
  • Alliance: Wampanoag leader Metacom (termed King Philip by English Puritans) established an intertribal alliance across southern New England to stop English territorial invasion.
  • Conflict: Divided Indigenous communities, with some tribes joining Metacom and others siding with the English or remaining neutral.
  • Destruction: By 1676, Native forces attacked 52 Puritan settlements and completely destroyed 12 towns.
  • Outcome: Colonial forces defeated the alliance, executed Metacom, killed over $3,000$ Indigenous people, and sold thousands of captives into West Indian slavery.
  • Demographic Shift: The Native American population in New England plummeted, dropping from $250/00$ of the total regional population down to $100/00$.

The Southern Plantation Colonies

• General Characteristics:
  • Composed of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
  • Economies centered on export cash crops, specifically tobacco, rice, and indigo.
  • Practiced legal chattel slavery (permitted in Georgia after 1750).
  • Vast plantations fostered an elite landed aristocracy (less developed in North Carolina and Georgia).
  • Low population density delayed the formation of major cities, public schools, and formal churches.
  • Continuous demand for fresh agricultural soil drove relentless westward expansion, triggering armed frontier clashes with Indigenous nations.
• Maryland: Catholic Haven:

*   Established in 1634 by Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, as a commercial venture and a safe haven for English Catholics.
*   Demographics were predominantly Protestant, made up of Puritan and Quaker dissenters fleeing Anglican Virginia.
*   *Act of Toleration (1649):* Passed by Maryland's assembly, granting religious freedom to all Trinitarian Christians (Catholics and Protestants), while mandating the death penalty for those who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ.
*   *Puritan Revolt:* In 1650, Protestant settlers revolted, seized control of the government, and temporarily banned Catholicism and Anglicanism until Baltimore restored authority in 1658.

• The Carolinas:

*   Created in 1663 when King Charles II granted a charter to eight proprietary nobles (Lords Proprietors).
*   Offered generous incentives: complete religious liberty, a elected representative assembly, and extensive land grants.
*   *South Carolina:* Founded in 1670 around Charles Town by Barbadian immigrants bringing enslaved laborers. Developed extensive rice and indigo plantations reliant on African, Native, and Latin American agricultural knowledge. By the 1710s, South Carolina became the first British mainland colony with a Black majority population.
*   *North Carolina:* Settled primarily by poor outcasts and squatters from Virginia who grew small plots of tobacco without formal land deeds. Officially separated from South Carolina to become a distinct royal colony in 1712. Maintained fewer enslaved people than South Carolina in its early history.

• Indigenous Slave Trade and Conflicts in the Carolinas:
  • South Carolina settlers created an Indian slave trade, capturing and selling over $10,000$ Native Americans to labor in the West Indies and New England.
  • Coastal Carolina tribes were virtually exterminated by 1710.
  • Tuscarora War (1711): North and South Carolina defeated the Tuscarora tribe, selling hundreds into slavery. Survivors migrated north to join the Iroquois Confederacy as its sixth member.
  • Yamasee War (1715): South Carolina defeated the Yamasee, destroying the last coastal tribal confederacies of the southern Atlantic coast.
• Georgia: The Buffer Colony:

*   Chartered in 1732 under James Oglethorpe and named after King George II.
*   *Dual Purpose:* Designed as a sanctuary for imprisoned English debtors and as a military defense buffer protecting rich Carolina rice plantations from Spanish Florida and French Louisiana.
*   Tolerated all Christian denominations except Catholicism.
*   Faced sluggish initial growth due to diseases, Spanish border raids, and original bans on slavery and rum. The prohibition on slavery was lifted after 1750 to match South Carolina's plantation output.

• Southern Social Hierarchy:
  1. Planter Elites: Owned large plantations and dozens to hundreds of enslaved laborers; monopolized political power and economic wealth.
  2. Small Farmers: Formed the largest social class; owned small family plots with zero to two enslaved people, living hand-to-mouth existences.
  3. Landless Whites: Former indentured servants lacking real estate or political influence.
  4. Indentured Servants: Bound laborers completing service terms.
  5. Enslaved Black People: Deprived of human rights and forced into chattel labor.

The Middle Colonies: Economic Diversity and Toleration

• General Characteristics:

*   Includes New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
*   *Economy:* Rich agricultural soil enabled massive wheat, oat, and rye export production ("bread colonies"). Broad rivers connected fur traders directly with Indigenous trappers. Large pine forests supported lumbering and shipbuilding, while deep harbors hosted major commercial ports in New York City and Philadelphia.
*   *Social Attributes:* Intermediate-sized landholdings, ethnically diverse populations, high religious tolerance, and prevalent social democracy.

• Quaker Principles and William Penn:

*   The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) emerged in mid-1600s England, rejecting religious and civil hierarchies.
*   *Quaker Beliefs:* Refused to pay taxes supporting the Church of England, held unordained worship without paid clergy, allowed any member to speak when moved, refused to remove hats or bow before social superiors, avoided honorific titles, and refused military service and legal oaths.
*   William Penn, an aristocratic Englishman, converted to Quakerism in 1666.

• Pennsylvania's "Holy Experiment":

*   In 1681, King Charles II granted William Penn a charter for Pennsylvania to settle a debt owed to Penn's deceased father.
*   *Indigenous Relations:* Penn bought land directly from the Delaware (Lenni Lenape) tribe to construct Philadelphia, establishing fair treatment and long-term peaceful co-existence (later damaged by non-Quaker immigration).
*   *Promotional Recruitment:* Distributed brochures across Europe soliciting skilled artisans, stonemasons, shoemakers, and farmers.
*   *Government Structure:* Features an elected representative assembly, freedom of worship, no state church, no mandatory military defense, and unrestricted immigration. Experienced rapid economic growth through grain exports.

• Slavery and Antislavery Movements in Pennsylvania:
  • High demand for labor led to the importation of enslaved Africans; slaves accounted for $100/00$ of Philadelphia's population, working on urban farms, dockyards, workshops, and domestic households.
  • 1688 Germantown Petition: German Quakers in Germantown drafted the first formal written petition against African slavery in North America.
  • 1693 George Keith Tract: George Keith published An Exhortation & Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes in Philadelphia, the first printed antislavery pamphlet in British America.
• New York, New Jersey, and Delaware:
  • New York: Established when the English navy seized New Netherland from Dutch control in 1664. New York City developed into a diverse, multi-ethnic trade hub with a $200/00$ enslaved population.
  • New Jersey: Created in 1664 when the Duke of York granted land to two proprietors. West New Jersey was sold to Quakers in 1674; East New Jersey was later acquired by Quakers. The two territories were combined into a single royal colony in 1702.
  • Delaware: Remained under the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania's governor until the American Revolution.

Imperial Governance, British Political Turmoil, and Salutary Neglect

• English Civil War and Colonial Impact (1640s–1650s):
  • The political conflict between King Charles I and Parliament forced colonies to navigate imperial trade disruptions.
  • Colonial Loyalty: Virginia and Maryland favored the Crown; Puritan New England supported Parliament.
  • Following Charles I's execution in 1649, six colonies pledged loyalty to Charles II. Parliament responded by passing the Embargo of 1650 and the Navigation Act of 1651, requiring all colonial goods to be transported exclusively on English ships to English ports.
• Restoration, Imperial Consolidation, and the Dominion of New England:
  • After Charles II took the throne in 1660, the monarchy attempted to curb colonial independence, targeting Massachusetts Bay's defiance of royal mandates.
  • Proprietary Grants: Charles II rewarded loyalists with proprietary grants (Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania) and granted new charters to Connecticut and Rhode Island.
  • Dominion of New England (1686): King James II consolidated New England, New York, and New Jersey under a single administrative authority directed by royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros. Andros alienated colonists by suppressing local assemblies, imposing arbitrary taxes, and revoking land titles.
  • Glorious Revolution (1688): James II was overthrown; Parliament crowned his Protestant daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband William III.
• Salutary Neglect and Colonial Political Authority:
  • English Bill of Rights (1689): Established a constitutional monarchy, parliamentary legislative supremacy, and individual civil liberties.
  • Salutary Neglect: British monarchs relaxed enforcement of commercial trade regulations, leaving the Navigation Laws largely unenforced.
  • Corrupt Colonial Bureaucracy: Many imperial judges, customs collectors, and officials posted in America were corrupt or incompetent, blocking local colonial leaders from gaining higher political appointments and fostering anti-British resentment.
• Colonial Government Models by 1775:
  1. Provincial Colonies (Royal): New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. Governors were appointed directly by the British Crown.
  2. Proprietary Colonies: Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware. Governors were selected by proprietor families.
  3. Charter Colonies (Self-Governing): Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island. Governors were elected directly under colonial charters.
  • Colonial Assemblies: Elected representative bodies in all colonies maintained exclusive control over local taxation, public infrastructure funding, social services, and business legislation.