U.S. History

Chapter 3...

"England Discovers Its Colonies: Empire, Liberty and Expansion"

A. The Atlantic Prism and the Spectrum of Settlement.
1. Diversified populations: hundreds of distinct cultures and languages
2. The American prism: America became a spectrum of settlement; provinces shared common traits
3. The most pronounced differences: life expectancy, sex ratio, and family structure
a. Demographic differences had consequences: old society vs. young society
b. The West Indies already had a large slave majority
c. English settlers had a firm grip on wealth and power.
d. Delaware and Hudson valleys had less Africans
e. Middle Atlantic region was a new ethnic mosaic.
f. New England was the most English of all the colonies
g. New France was as French as New England was English
4. Intensity of religious observance: varied--ranging from irreverence to intense piety
a. 17th century formal education: based on religion--literacy based on the same pattern
b. College of William and Mary: founded in 1693 and provided formal education for Chesapeake settlers.
c. Harvard College: founded in Massachusetts in 1636 for formal education
d. Massachusetts: required every town to have a writing school or grammar school
e. Their purpose: "to frustrate old deluder Satan"
f. Quebec: Jesuits founded a college there; France sent a bishop and established seminary school
g. Established (state) church of the mother country was the legally established church in the West Indies and southern mainland colonies
h. The battle was between the established churches and dissent
i. Toleration claimed victory in New York
j. Pennsylvannia had full religious liberty
k. New England: Old world dissent became New world establishment
5. Forms of government: varied
a. The Parish: took on secular functions like poor relief; there were few in the Middle Atlantic Colonies
b. The County: developed with English conquest of New Netherland in New England
c. Royal governments: in West Indian colonies
d. Proprietary governments: dominated mainland south of New England except Virginia
e. Corporate forms of government: in New England in which all officials were elected--this form survived in Connecticut and Rhode Island
6. Unifying trends
a. Language: London English affected every colony and softened contrasts
b. Warfare: Armies consisted of volunteers, not polished professionals
c. Law: there was an absence of lawyers which made everything simple and uncomplicated; organized legal profession did not emerge until the 18th century
d. Inheritance: women could acquire and inherit property; there was less of primogeniture in which the eldest son receives most of everything
B. the Beginnnings of Empire
1. The Critical 1640s
a. Royal ppower: collapsed in 1640s
b. Colonies demanded and received: elective assemblies
c. The Dutch seized control of: trade in and out of England's West India Chesapeake colonies
d. Result: most sugar and tobacco products were exported to Amsterdam, not London
e. During the English civil wars: there was no effective control over the colonies
f. The Amerindians outnumbered seettlers and were belligerent
g. The English civil wars gave the Amerindians an unique opportunity to resist settlers; civil war disrupted trade with England and threatened to cut off regular supplies of muskets and gunpowder
h. The New England Confederation: a defensive alliance against Indians
i. The English people had little interest in the colonies until 1650
j. After the civil war the extent of Dutch commercial domination was obvious
k. 1650: England discovered their colonies' importance
2. Mercantilism as a Moral Revolution
a. A state's power depended on underlying economy rather than armies
b. Power derived from wealth of a country
c. Wealth required vigorous trade
d. Colonies became essential to trade and wealth
e. States must control commerce of colonies
f. The Dutch favored virtual free trade within Europe
g. England: preferred some kind of state regulation of domestic and imperial economy
C. Indians, Settlers, Upheaval
1. Indian Strategies of Survival
a. Contact with Europeans led to devastating diseases
i. European diseases magnified tribal need for captives
ii. Increased intensity of tribal wars to probably the highest point ever
a. "Mourning Wars" were initiated by a widow, sister or mother of deceased who insisted the men of the tribe take revenge
b. Adult male prisoners were tortured to death in case later they tried to get revenge
c. Women and children were adopted and assimilated into the new tribe
d. Indians of the Five Nations: most were adopted and not native
e. Result: Confederacy remained strong and rivals declined as tribes assimilated into other tribes
iii. European products were new to Indians
a. Price: Indians abandoned traditional skills
b. Dependent on trade with Europeans
iv. Alcohol
a. Indians drank to alter moods and receive visions
b. Drunkennuss became a major--if not intermittent--social problem
v. Staying on good terms with the Indians
a. Pieter Stuyvesant tried to improve relations with New Netherland
b. Edmond Andros was governor (1674-1680) and cultivated friendship of Iroquois league
c. Covenant Chain of Peace: 5 nations agreed to make New York the easternmost nation of link in Covenant Chain of Peace
2. Puritan Indian Missions
a. Indian missionaries in Massachusetts
i. Martha's Vineyard: Thomas Mayhew Sr. and Jr. made serious efforts to convert Indians there
ii. John Eliot tried to make Indian town of Natick into a model mission community
b. Strategies
i. Mayhews: worked with sachems and only challenged powwows (spirit men; faith healers)
ii. Eliot challenged sachems, powwows, tradtional tribal structures and was less successful but more well-known.
c. Praying towns: converting Indian towns
3. Causes of King Philip's War (1675)
a. Indian resistance to Christianity
b. Settler's lust for Indian land
c. Intrusion of settlers' livestock onto Indian territory
d. Fear that Indian way of life was in danger of extinction
4. King Philip's War
a. Metacom (Philip): a sachem of Wampanoags and son of Massasoit
b. Massasoit: celebrated with pilgrims in the 1st Thanksgiving
c. Cause of war: Plymouth executed 3 Wampanoags
d. Reason: They murdered John Sassamon
e. Settlers killed an Indian for looting an abandoned house
f. However the Indians had been acquiring firearms
g. Metacom wins several engagements against the Plymouth militia
h. The Great Swamp Fight of December 1675: a Puritan army attacked Narragansett Fort and killed hundreds of Indians
i. Indians killed 800 settlers and destroyed 2 dozen towns
j. New England refused convict either side
k. Increase Mather was a prominent Boston minister who saw the conflict as God's punishment
l. Quakers were accused of blasphemy and were blamed for the war
m. William Hubbard, another Boston minister, insisted it was a testing period after which saints will win
n. Daniel Gookin, a follower of Eliot, believed the war was a tragedy for both settlers and Indians
o. 1676 the settlers won the war
p. Metacom was killed by Christian Indian Allies along with his war parties
q. Other Indians were sold into slavery
5. Virginia's Indian War
a. Gov. Sir William Berkeley led the colony to victory over Opechancanough
b. The Doegs were dependent Indian nation in Potomac Valley who feuded with a planter
c. The Susquehannocks were Iroquoian speaking Indians with firearms; they occupied land north of the Potomac
d. John Washington (ancestor to George) united Virginia and Maryland forces and besieged a Susquehannock fort
e. Nathaniel Bacon was a plantation owner and he also owned a trading post; after his arrival, he managed an appointment to the council and was one of the ones excluded from Indian trade under Berkeley
6. Bacon's Rebellion
a. Bacon's frontiersmen found and captured Susquehannock with the assistance of other Indians who were later killed)
b. Berkeley outlawed Bacon and dissolved legislature
c. The 1661 Assembly: general election and discussed issues
d. Bacon forced Berkeley to commission him general of volunteers and compelled legislature to authorize another expedition against Indians
e. Royal government collapsed and settlers plundered Indians and other colonists
f. Bacon's Rebellion was the largest upheaval in American colonies before 1775
g. Berkeley regained control of Virginia
D. Crisis in England and the Redefinition of Empire
1. Introduction
a. Bacon's rebellion triggered political crisis in England; little tobacco was produced during the uprising and revenues dropped
b. Charles II did not have a legitimate heir and forced to name his brother heir to the throne
c. James, duke of York was Charles's brother, a Catholic
d. New House of Commons was terrfied by the concept of a Catholic king (England was Protestant)
2. The Popish Plot, Exclusion Crisis and the Rise of Party
a. The Popish Plot: kill Charles and bring James to power
b. Lord Shaftesburty opposed James in favor of his Protestant daughters
c. Whigs were followers of Shaftesbury and the name came from a group of religious extremists who wanted to assassinate both Charles and James
d. Tories were Charles's courtiers; it's a term for Irish Catholics who murdered Protestant landlords
e. Court forces (Tories) favored legitimate succession, a standing army, revenue, and the Angelican church and an absolute monarchy
f. Country opposition (Whigs) favored exclusion of James, a decentralized militia, monarchy with parliament, and they tolerated Protestants
g. James fled to Scotland in virtual exile
h. Charles got financial support from King Louis XIV of France and dissolved parliament in 1681 and ruled without one in the last 4 years of his reign
3. The Lords of Trade
a. English politics had profound impact on the colonies
b. The Duke of York was the most powerful shaper of imperial policy after the third Anglo-Dutch War
c. The Lords Committee of Trade and Plantations (Lords of Trade) enforced Navigation Acts and administered the colonies
d. The West Indies was the object of most new policies
e. Barbados, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands: king appointed governor for each colony and settlers elected assembly
f. The Privy Council heard appeals from colonial courts and disallowed colonial legislation after governor approved it
g. Colonists' viewpoitn: they believed they had rights to constitutional rule
h. Royal instructions NEVER acquired force of law
i. Colonial claims to self-rule strengthened because colonies paid cost of its own government
j. Compromise of 1681: Jamaica could initiate and amend legislation in turn for agreeing to permanent revenue
k. King Philip's (Metacom's) War and Bacon's Rebellion made these reforms urgent
l. Edward Randolph, a customs officer, recommended the colony's charter be revoked
m. Lords of Trade possessed no effective punishments for violators
n. The Jamaica model assumed each governor would assemble on occassion
4. The Dominion of New England
a. Absolutist New York: a new model for reorganizing New England
b. The New York Charter of Liberties (1683): the assembly was abolished but still produced revenue
c. Sir Edmund Andros, a autocratic governor of New York who governed through appointive council and superior court without assembly, took over new government called Dominion of New England
d. Andro's rigorous enforcement of Navigation Acts alienated merchants and enraged the country
e. Their rights as Englishmen was considered more than their liberties as Puritans