History of the United States: Chapter 2 Study Notes

Geopolitical Context and Broad Transformations (1500–1750)

• Mid-Seventeenth Century Landscape: North America became a patchwork of imperial designs by the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English, leading to territorial expansion and violent border clashes.

• Native Resistance: Indigenous populations waged wars to drive out invaders, notably in Chesapeake Bay and New England where English expansion provoked conflict.

• Social Convergence: The era marked the first meeting of Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans. Radical social, cultural, and religious differences frequently hindered mutual understanding.

• Reciprocal Impact: European settlement introduced new goods, ideas, and diseases that transformed the Americas. Conversely, Native practices, particularly the use of tobacco, significantly altered European tastes and habits.

• The British Empire: The union of England and Scotland in $1707$ birthed Great Britain, which became a commercial and military powerhouse. Global interests spanned from India (British East India Company) to the West African coast (slave trade) and the West Indies (sugar plantations in Barbados and Jamaica).

• Population Growth: In the early $1700s$, the colonial population was approximately $250,000$. By $1750$, it exceeded $1,000,000$, including British migrants and enslaved Africans, forming a continuous settlement zone from Maine to Georgia.

Spanish Exploration and Colonial Society (2.1)

• Colonial Objectives: During the $1500s$ and $1600s$, Spain expanded into areas now part of the U.S., driven by dreams of gold, silver, and mass conversion of Indians to Catholicism.

• Social Hierarchy: Colonial society was structured by Patriarchy (‐the rule of men over family, society, and government‐). The Spanish placed themselves at the top of the pyramid, with Africans and native peoples beneath them.

• Biological Impact: Smallpox and other European diseases caused horrific loss of life. These diseases killed significantly more native people than Spanish military force.

• Labor Systems:

  • Encomienda System: Authorities assigned Indian workers to mine and plantation owners. Recipients were supposed to defend the colony and teach Christianity, but the system resulted in exploitation.

  • Repartimiento: This later system required Indian towns to supply a pool of labor for Spanish overlords.

• St. Augustine, Florida:

  • Founding: Juan Ponce de Le n claimed the area in $1513$. In $1565$, Men ndez founded St. Augustine, the oldest European settlement in the Americas.

  • Timucua Impact: The Spanish displaced the Timucua from their town of Seloy. The Timucua population plummeted from $200,000$ pre-contact to $50,000$ by $1590$, and just $1,000$ by $1700$.

• Santa Fe, New Mexico:

  • Exploration: Juan de O ate explored the Southwest in the late $1590s$; settlers established Santa Fe in $1610$ as the capital of the Kingdom of New Mexico (under the Viceroyalty of New Spain).

  • The Pueblo Revolt (1680): Native resentment over drought, Apache/Navajo attacks, and the suppression of their religion by Franciscan missionaries led to a coordinated rebellion. The uprising killed over $400$ Spaniards and drove nearly $2,000$ settlers south. The Spanish regained control in $1692$, interpreting the revolt as the work of the Devil.

Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions (2.2)

• New Netherland (Dutch):

  • Focus: A commercial operation centered on the fur trade in Manhattan, Long Island, the Hudson River Valley, and New Jersey.

  • Founding: The Dutch West India Company controlled trade. Peter Stuyvesant (serving $1647$–$1664$) expanded the colony and captured New Sweden in $1655$.

  • Wall Street: Named after a protective wall built by enslaved Africans on the city's northeastern border.

  • Demographics: By $1664$, the population was only $9,000$. Due to labor shortages, the Dutch imported $450$ African slaves between $1626$ and $1664$. The colony was diverse, with $18$ languages heard in New Amsterdam and Jewish immigrants accepted by the $1650s$.

  • Patroonships: Large tracts of land granted to wealthy investors (e.g., Kiliaen van Rensselaer) who paid for the passage of at least $30$ farmers. This created a wealth gap between patroons and rent-paying tenants.

• New France (French):

  • Founding: Samuel de Champlain established Quebec as a fur-trading outpost in the early $1600s$. By $1640$, fewer than $400$ settlers lived there.

  • Indigenous Alliances: The French relied on the local Algonquian, supplying them firearms for their war against the Iroquois. This competition over beaver pelts led to the "Beaver Wars."

  • Jesuit Missions: Members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) aimed to convert natives. Their annual reports, the Jesuit Relations, detail Indian life and progress of faith beginning in the $1620s$.

  • Healing Traditions: Jean de Brbeuf ($1636$) described the "Aoutaerohi" remedy (a small demon in the body) and the use of "crosse" (lacrosse) as a healing game for the sick.

English Settlements in America (2.3)

• Growth Contrast: England outpaced rivals by encouraging mass emigration. Colonies served as relief for overcrowding and poverty at home.

• The Chesapeake Colonies (Virginia and Maryland):

  • Founding Philosophy: Commercial orientation focused on tobacco profits.

  • Jamestown (1607): Early years were unstable due to infighting, inability to grow food, and conflict with the Powhatan. John Smith exercised dictatorial control to stabilize it.

  • "The Starving Time": The winter of $1609$–$1610$ nearly destroyed the colony; George Percy recorded settlers eating horses, dogs, cats, and in some cases, corpses.

  • Labor Systems:

    • Indenture: A labor contract (usually $5$–$7$ years) in exchange for passage, food, and "freedom dues." Total of $100,000$ servants arrived in the $1600s$.

    • Headright System: Granted $50$ acres of land to those who paid their own passage plus $50$ additional acres per servant/family member.

  • Bacon’s Rebellion (1676): Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising of black and white laborers against Governor William Berkeley. Bacon wanted land on the frontier and a policy of extermination toward all Indians. The rebellion led to the burning of Jamestown.

  • Transition to Racial Slavery: After the rebellion, wealthy whites shifted from indentured servants to lifelong racial slavery to prevent future alliances between poor whites and blacks. Virginia laws in $1680$ and $1682$ curtailed black freedom and institutionalized lifetime enslavement for Africans based on the mother's status (partus sequitur ventrem).

• Puritan New England:

  • Founding Philosophy: Religious orientation aimed at creating a "New English Israel." Puritans followed John Calvin and sought to "purify" the Church of England of Catholic elements.

  • Social Values: Denounced pastimes like bearbaiting and theater. Emphasized literacy to ensure all could read the Bible, leading to the first American printing press ($1636$) and the Bay Psalm Book ($1640$).

  • Plymouth (1620): Founded by the Pilgrims (Separatists) led by William Bradford. They signed the Mayflower Compact.

  • Massachusetts Bay Colony: Led by John Winthrop, who envisioned a "City upon a Hill."

  • Dissenters: Roger Williams (founded Rhode Island for religious tolerance) and Anne Hutchinson (who claimed direct religious revelation) were banished for challenging Puritan authority.

  • Witchcraft: Supernatural belief led to hundreds of accusations. The Salem Village trials ($1692$) resulted in $19$ executions.

  • Relations with Natives: Initial peace (Wampanoag treaty, $1621$) gave way to expansion. The Pequot War (1637) saw a massacre of natives by the Mystic River. King Philip’s War (1675–1676), led by Metacom (King Philip), destroyed half of the frontier towns but ended with Metacom's death and captives sold into slavery.

• The Restoration Colonies:

  • The Carolinas: Established after the restoration of Charles II ($1633$ settlers/$1670$ Charles Town). Split into North and South Carolina in $1729$. South Carolina produced rice and indigo; North Carolina produced turpentine and tar. The Yamasee War ($1715$–$1718$) nearly wiped out the colony until the Cherokee allied with the English.

  • New York and New Jersey: English took New Netherland from the Dutch during Anglo-Dutch wars ($1650s$–$1660s$). The Duke of York oversaw the transition.

  • Pennsylvania ($1681$): Granted to William Penn. Home to the Quakers (Society of Friends). They believed in the "inner light," social equality, and pacifism. They established the $1701$ treaty with the Susquehannocks and enjoyed relative peace.

  • Georgia ($1732$): Founded by James Oglethorpe as a buffer against Spanish Florida and a project for the "worthy poor." Alcohol and slavery were initially banned but later introduced for rice production by the $1750s$.

The Impact of Colonization (2.4)

• The Middle Passage: Transatlantic journey of slaves. The Royal African Company ($1660$) held a monopoly. Between $1672$ and $1713$, the company bought $125,000$ captives, with a mortality rate of $20\%$. Approximately $4,000,000$ Africans were sent to the Caribbean between $1501$ and $1830$.

• Resistance: Slaves formed "maroon" communities (notably in Jamaica) and launched rebellions like the Stono Rebellion (1739) in South Carolina. This led to the Negro Act of 1740, restricting assembly, movement, and literacy among slaves.

• Environmental and Cultural Changes:

  • Commodity Trade: Beaver hats in Europe led to the overhunting and extinction of beavers in the Northeast, destroying wetland habitats.

  • Livestock: Introduced pigs consumed the food sources of indigenous deer, causing scarcity for native hunters.

  • Land Ownership: Conflicts arose between the European concept of private property/fences and the Native concept of usufruct (resource use for common benefit).

  • Disease: Epidemics killed $75\%$ of native people along the New England coast between $1616$–$1618$. Smallpox killed half the Huron and Iroquois in the $1630s$.

• Consumer Revolution: An eighteenth-century increase in British goods (like tea) and printed materials (newspapers, pamphlets) that linked the colonies to Great Britain through shared taste and status.

• Gentry Life: William Byrd's diaries ($1709$–$1710$) show a daily life of reading Greek/Hebrew, managing plantations, and exercising brutal discipline over enslaved people (e.g., Anaka, Jenny).

The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment (2.5)

• The Great Awakening: An $18$th-century Protestant revival focused on emotional, experiential faith.

  • Leaders: Theodorus Frelinghuysen, Gilbert Tennent (founded a seminary), and Jonathan Edwards (author of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God").

  • George Whitefield: An itinerant Anglican minister who electrified crowds with brilliant oratory between $1739$ and $1740$.

  • Impact: Split churches into "New Lights" (revivalists) and "Old Lights" (traditionalists). Led to the founding of Brown and Dartmouth.

• The Enlightenment: The "Age of Reason" emphasized reason, science, and the power of investigation over superstition.

  • Core Concepts: Rationalism (reason for knowledge), Empiricism (knowledge from observation), Progressivism (linear human progress), and Cosmopolitanism (viewing oneself as a citizen of the world).

  • Benjamin Franklin: Exemplified the Enlightenment. A printer and Freemason, he founded the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society.

  • Deism: An Enlightenment belief in a God who created the world but does not continue to intervene in its events.

  • Scientific Achievement: Franklin's experiments with electricity and lightning rods (published in $1751$) applied reason to protect urban infrastructure.

Questions & Discussion

• Reading Guide Questions:

  1. Compare/contrast life in Spanish, French, Dutch, and English colonies (Chesapeake vs. New England).

  2. Describe conversion attempts by European colonists toward native peoples.

  3. Distinguish between chattel slavery and indentured servitude.

  4. How did Pennsylvania's Quaker beginnings distinguish it from other colonies?

  5. Discuss the reciprocal impact of Europeans and Americans on environments and cultures.

• Self-Test:

  • Primary cause of Bacon's Rebellion: Former indentured servants and poor whites wanted more opportunities to expand their territory.

• Key Terms Crossword (Highlights):

  • Across 10: Maroons (runaway slave communities).

  • Across 9: Indenture (labor contract).

  • Across 8: Enlightenment (reason/science movement).

  • Across 6: Middle (Passage transatlantic crossing).

  • Down 7: Headright (land grant system).

  • Down 4: Deism (creator god who doesn't intervene).

  • Down 2: Repartimiento (Spanish labor system).

  • Down 1: Timucua (Native people of Florida).