Chapter 3: Anglo America: 1660-1750

Chapter Overview: Creating Anglo America, 1660-1750

Timeframe: $1660-1750$
Focus on transition from fragmented settlements to Anglo-American colonial society under English power, with contrasting regional developments, evolving slavery, and expanding mercantile economy.
Key theme: relative colonial autonomy vs. imperial oversight; growth of liberty concepts post-1688 in ways that shape colonial governance.

Major Conflicts, Founding Moments, and Shifts in Power

King Philip’s War: $1675-76$ — conflict between colonists and Wampanoags; native towns attacked; resistance to English encroachment; deepens white–native hostility and justifies harsher measures.
Bacon’s Rebellion (Virginia): $1676$ — frontier settlers vs. colonial elites; leads to land conflicts and shifts toward slavery as a labor system.
Yamasee War: $1715$ — Native alliance regions attack colonists; English shift from Indian to African slave labor due to dangers of Indian captivity raids.
Founding of Carolina: $1663$ — eight proprietors; early economy without large plantations, later rice; envisaged feudal-like structure in the Fundamental Constitutions.
English take New York from the Dutch: $1664$ ; expansion of royal control; later governance under Duke of York with reserved rights for colonists.
Glorious Revolution impacts: $1688-1689$ — colonists gain authorization for self-rule; leads to reassertion of assemblies and local rights.

Carolina and Native Trade

1669 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina: feudal framework with hereditary lords; to attract settlers, grants of land and slaves; slaves granted significant power under masters.
Indian slave trade: exports of captives to West Indies escalate; 1670–1720 more Indian slaves traded than Africans for a period.
Push to peace with Indians vs. settler expansion; plantation-era violence and captivity shape frontier policies.
Yamasee War as turning point: English decision to curb Indian slave trade and rely more on African slavery.

Virginia, Slavery, and Legal Foundations

Early slave codes and status: 1643 African women taxed; 1660s–1670s slavery hardens; 1662 status follows mother (matrilineal for enslavement); 1667 Christian conversion not a path to freedom.
1700s: Slavery becomes central to Virginia’s labor system; by $1700$ , slaves constitute about $10\%$ of Virginia; by $1750$ , nearly $50\%$ of the population connected to slavery.
1705 slave codes: slaves treated as property; restrictions on free Blacks; no guns for free Blacks; controls on interracial actions.
1654–1655 Anthony Johnson case: first Black slave-owner lawsuit establishing legal precedence for slaveholding within Black communities; signifies the beginnings of legally recognized slave ownership by persons of African descent.
Virginia planter aristocracy (cousinocracy): long-term dominance by a few families; shift toward land access and political power, expansion of western lands, and Anglicization among elites.

Pennsylvania and the Quakers: Liberty, Land, and Governance

William Penn charter: $1681-1682$ ; Quaker founder seeking refuge for dissenters; land grants and governance mechanisms.
1682 Liberty to all believers if no licentiousness; Jews barred from office; toleration restricted by religious and moral expectations.
1683 Charter of Liberties: elected assembly by male taxpayers; broad suffrage criteria (100 acres for free immigrants, 50 for ex-servants); majority male vote; religion protected for Protestants.
1682–1683 governance: Penn’s model emphasizes religious liberty, broad but Protestant-leaning toleration, and land-based suffrage; later immigration expands beyond Quakers, altering political dynamics.
Economic openness, land sales, and interactions with Native peoples shape Pennsylvania’s early growth; indentured servitude remains common; more immigrants arrive via advertised land opportunities.

New York and the Dominion Era

1664–1683: New York acquires more land, expands size; relative religious tolerance initially, withCoventry-like protections for Protestants.
1664–1674: Dutch and English contest control; early tolerance policies give way to elite land grants under royal governors.
1683 Charter of Liberties establishes a colonial assembly and property-based voting; by 1700, large landholder families (e.g., Livingston, Phillips) hold vast tracts; ~2,000,000 acres controlled by a few families by 1700.
Dominion of New England: 1686–1689 under Governor Andros; centralized rule with no assemblies; heavy taxation and regulation; collapse after the Glorious Revolution, restores local charters.
Leisler’s Rebellion (New York): 1689–1691; reflects tensions between commercial elites and colonial authorities; symbol of resistance to centralized power.

Glorious Revolution and Colonial Liberties

The Glorious Revolution deepens the idea of English liberty and limits on monarchical power; Bill of Rights and Toleration Act reinforce protestant rights but exclude Catholics from office.
In America, this translates into greater colonial autonomy and assemblies regaining power; revivals of local governance and resistance to crown-imposed controls.
Salem witch trials (Massachusetts): civil and religious tensions surface; trials represent the last gasps of religious extremism before rationalism and legal constraints curb prosecutions.

Economic System and Social Structure in the Late 1600s–Early 1700s

Mercantilism: Acts of $1651, 1660, 1663$ regulate trade; colonies export raw materials (notably tobacco and sugar) to England, and receive manufactured goods in return; all shipments pass through English ports.
Colonial shipbuilding: New England ships account for roughly a third of the British fleet; trade restrictions channel colonial production toward English firms.
Social elites: wealth concentrated in the top 10%; landholding and merchant networks link colonial elites with London bankers and suppliers; absence of a European-style aristocracy but a clear elite class.
Virginia and Chesapeake: planter aristocracies dominate politics, church, and courts; Anglicization among elites; large slave-based plantations shape society and economy.
South Carolina: wealthiest planters; urban élite culture in Charleston; slave-based plantation economy grows with rice and later staple crops.
No colonial banks; credit relies on London institutions; debt to London lenders exposes elites to imperial financial cycles.
Demographics: population growth increases land demand; urban areas rise slowly; rural agriculture remains dominant; rich–poor divides widen; early urban poor face limited pathways to mobility.
Artisan and consumer economy: rise of artisans and specialized trades; consumer revolution expands access to imported goods; relative improvement in free whites’ living standards, though slavery remains central to the economy.
Walking Purchase and Native displacement: Native lands shrink as European settlers push west; legal mechanisms allow land acquisition through dubious means and competitive land-hungry settlers.

Immigration, Diversity, and Colonial Identity

Immigration and religious diversity: from $1700-1760$ , Pennsylvania and the middle colonies attract Lutherans, Moravians, Mennonites, Catholics, Mennonites, Jews, and Germans; Scots-Irish arrive in large numbers to frontier regions.
Diversity by region: New England and the middle colonies see a mix of English, Dutch, German, Irish, and other groups; movement toward a plural religious landscape with varying degrees of separation between church and state (PA relatively high; others less so).
Walking Purchase: a 1763 tactic (and earlier) that pressures Native lands and prompts land cession by deceitful speed tests.
Colonial identity: by the mid-18th century, a British identity dominates, not a unified American one; many colonists retain European identities and languages; Indians and Africans are excluded from political rights and land ownership; intermarriage and social integration are controversial and restricted.
Economic optimism and social mobility: rising standard of living for free whites, access to land, and a consumer economy; yet persistent racialized slavery and coerced labor structure underpins the economic system.

Quick Reference: Key Dates and Concepts

$1663$ : Carolina founded with proprietary rule; later shift to rice/agriculture.
$1643, 1660s-1670s$ : Early Virginia slave codes begin to codify race-based labor; status of children follows mother (matrilineal for enslavement).
$1675-76$ : King Philip’s War reshapes frontier relations.
$1676$ : Bacon’s Rebellion; prompts elite concern over frontier settlements and labor systems.
$1688-89$ : Glorious Revolution reinforces colonial assemblies and local governance.
$1700-1750$ : Slavery expands dramatically in Virginia; by $1700$ about $10\%$ enslaved; by $1750$ around $50\%$ connected to slavery; slave codes tighten.
$1669, 1670-1720$ : Carolina’s Indian slave trade grows; later shifts toward African slavery.
$1682-1683$ : Pennsylvania religious liberty and governance milestones.
$1683$ : New York Charter of Liberties establishes an assembly; colonial governance increases local autonomy.
$1715$ : Yamasee War accelerates the shift to African slavery as the dominant labor system.
$Walking Purchase$ (mid-18th century): Native land pressure and settler expansion in the Delaware Valley.
$65-70s$ : Mercantilist laws constrain colonial economies but enable volume in shipbuilding and trade networks.

Endnote: Central Takeaways

English liberty and colonial governance evolved through wars, revolts, and reform, giving colonists greater self-rule while binding them to imperial economic practices.
Slavery becomes the dividing line of economic and social order, expanding rapidly by the mid-18th century and shaping law, society, and demographics.
Immigration and religious diversity enrich cultural life and complicate politics; the colonies maintain varied degrees of church-state separation, with PA being a notable exception.
By 1750, a distinct colonial identity anchored in British liberties and economic interests coexists with deep regional differences and persistent exclusion of Native peoples and people of African descent from political rights.