Beginning of colonization:
England and Ireland; England's methods to subdue Ireland in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries established patterns that would be repeated in America.
England and North America The English crown issued charters for individuals such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize America at their own expense, but both failed.
Motives for Colonization
Anti-Catholicism had become deeply ingrained in English popular culture.
A Discourse Concerning Western Planting argued that settlement would strike a blow at England's most powerful Catholic enemy: Spain.
National glory, profit, and a missionary zeal motivated the English crown to settle America.
It was also argued that trade, not mineral wealth, would be the basis of England's empire.
Indentured Servants
Two-thirds of English settlers came to North America as indentured servants.
Indentured servants did not enjoy any liberties while under contract.
Land and Liberty
Land was the basis of liberty.
Englishmen and Indians
The English were chiefly interested in displacing the Indians and settling on their land.
Most colonial authorities acquired land by purchase.
The seventeenth century was marked by recurrent warfare between colonists and Indians.
Wars gave the English a heightened sense of superiority.
The Transformation of Indian Life
English goods were quickly integrated into Indian life.
Over time, those European goods changed Indian farming, hunting, and cooking practices.
Growing connections with Europeans stimulated warfare among Indian tribes.
Key Terms:
Puritans- a member of a group of English Protestants of the late 16th and 17th centuries who regarded the Reformation of the Church of England under Elizabeth as incomplete and sought to simplify and regulate forms of worship.
elect-choose (someone) to hold public office or some other position by voting.
Separatists,- a person who supports the separation of a particular group of people from a larger body on the basis of ethnicity, religion, or gender.
Pilgrims,-A pilgrim (from the Latin peregrinus) is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journey (often on foot) to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system.
Mayflower Compact,-The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the male passengers of the Mayflower, consisting of separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. The Puritans were fleeing from religious persecution by King James of England.
Massachusetts Bay Company- The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay
Great Migration- The Great Migration was the movement of six million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1916 and 1970. Until 1910, more than 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the American South.
Patriarchal- relating to or characteristic of a patriarch, of a system of society or government controlled by men.
Roger Williams- Roger Williams was a Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a staunch advocate for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with American Indians, and he was one of the first abolitionists.
Anne Hutchinson- Anne Hutchinson was a Puritan spiritual adviser, mother of 15, and an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy which shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638.
Pequot War- The Pequot War was an armed conflict that took place between 1636 and 1638 in New England between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the colonists of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies and their allies from the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes.
Half-Way Covenant- The Half-Way Covenant was a form of partial-church membership adopted by the Congregational churches of colonial New England in the 1660s. The Puritan-controlled Congregational churches required evidence of a personal conversion experience before granting church membership and the right to have one's children baptized.
Jamestown/ Virgina:
Once the English decided on a permanent colony instead of a trading post, the conflict was inevitable. Opechancanough led an attack on Virginia's settlers in 1622. Through a treaty, the English forced Indians to recognize their subordination to the government at Jamestown and moved them onto reservations. The Virginia Company surrendered its charter to the crown in 1624.
Tobacco was Virginia's substitute for gold. The expansion of tobacco production led to an increased demand for field labor.
Virginian society lacked a stable family life. Social conditions gave women roles rarely assumed in England.
Maryland
The Maryland Experiment Maryland was established in 1632 as a proprietary colony under Cecilius Calvert. The charter granted Calvert "full, free, and absolute power." Calvert envisioned Maryland as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. Most appointed officials initially were Catholic, but Protestants always outnumbered Catholics in the colony. Although it had a high death rate, Maryland offered servants greater opportunity for land ownership than Virginia.
Puritanism emerged from the Protestant Reformation in England. Puritans believed that the Church of England retained too many elements of Catholicism. Puritans considered religious belief a complex and demanding matter, urging believers to seek the truth by reading the Bible and listening to sermons. Puritans followed the teachings of John Calvin, Many Puritans immigrated to the New World in hopes of establishing a Bible Commonwealth that would eventually influence England. They came to America in search of liberty and the right to worship and govern themselves. Puritans were governed by a "moral" liberty, "a liberty to that only which is good," which was compatible with severe restraints on speech, religion, and personal behavior.
Pilgrims sailed in 1620 to Cape Cod aboard the Mayflower. Before going ashore, the adult men signed the Mayflower Compact, the first written frame of government in what is now the United States. Local Indians provided much valuable help to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621.
Info for Chart pages 99-107
The Massachusetts Bay Company was chartered in 1629 by London merchants wanting to further the Puritan cause and to turn a profit from trade with the Indians. New England settlement was very different from settlement in the Chesapeake colonies. New England had a more equal balance of men and women. New England enjoyed a healthier climate. New England had more families.
Puritans reproduced the family structure of England with men at the head of the household. Women were allowed full church membership and divorce was legal. Government and Society in Massachusetts Massachusetts was organized into self-governing towns.
Harvard College was established in 1636. The freemen of Massachusetts elected their governor. Puritan democracy was for those within the circle of church members.
Puritan Liberties Puritans defined liberties by social rank, producing a rigid hierarchal society justified by God's will. The Body of Liberties affirmed the rights of free speech and assembly and equal protection for all. Although ministers were forbidden to hold office in Massachusetts, church and state were closely interconnected.
The Trials of Anne Hutchinson Hutchinson was a well-educated, articulate woman who charged that nearly all the ministers in Massachusetts were guilty of faulty preaching. Hutchinson was placed on trial in 1637 for sedition. Authorities charged her with Antinomianism (putting one's own judgment or faith above human law and church teachings). On trial she said God spoke to her directly rather than through ministers or the Bible. She and her followers were banished.
Puritans and Indians
Colonial leaders had differing opinions about the English right to claim Indian land. To New England's leaders, the Indians represented both savagery and temptation. The Connecticut General Court set a penalty for anyone who chose to live with the Indians. The Puritans made no real attempt to convert the Indians in the first two decades.
The Pequot War- As the white population grew, conflict with the Indians became unavoidable, and the turning point came when a fur trader was killed by Pequots. Colonists warred against the Pequots in 1637, exterminating the tribe.
Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England from 1649 until his death in 1658, pursued an aggressive policy of colonial expansion, the promotion of Protestantism, and commercial empowerment in the British Isles and the Western Hemisphere.
In 1662, the Halfway Covenant answered with a compromise that allowed the grandchildren of the Great Migration generation to be baptized and be granted a kind of half-way membership in the church.
Origins of American Slavery
Englishmen and Africans: By the seventeenth century, the concepts of race and racism had not been fully developed yet. Africans were seen as alien because of their color, religion, and social practices.
Slavery in History: Although slavery has a long history, slavery in North America was markedly different. Slavery in the Americas was based on the plantation and the death rate which was high in the seventeenth century.
Slavery in the West Indies: By 1600, huge sugar plantations worked by slaves from Africa were well-established in Brazil and in the West Indies. disease had also killed off the Indians, and white indentured servants were no longer willing to do the backbreaking work required on sugar plantations. Sugar was the first crop to be mass-marketed to consumers in Europe.
Slavery and the Law: The line between slavery and freedom was more accessible in the seventeenth century than it would become later on. Some free blacks were allowed to sue and testify in court.
The Rise of Chesapeake Slavery: It was not until the 1660s that the laws of Virginia and Maryland explicitly referred to slavery. A Virginia law of 1662 provided that in the case of a child born to one free parent and one slave parent, the status of the child belonged to the the mother. In 1667 the Virginia House of Burgesses decreed that conversion to Christianity did not release a slave from it’s bondage.
Bacon's Rebellion: Nathaniel Bacon, an elite planter, called for the removal of all Indians, lower taxes, and an end to rule by "grandees." His campaign gained support from small farmers, indentured servants, landless men, and even some Africans. Bacon spoke of traditional English liberties. The rebellion's aftermath left Virginia's planter elite to consolidate their power and improve their image.
Land and Labor in Virginia: Virginia's shift from white indentured servants to African slaves as the main plantation labor force was accelerated by Bacon's Rebellion. Virginia's government ran a corrupt regime under Governor Berkeley. Good, free land was scarce for freed indentured servants.
A Slave Society: By the end of the seventeenth century, a number of factors made slave labor very attractive to English settlers; and slavery began to increase while indentured servants decreased between 1680 and 1700. By the early eighteenth century, Virginia had transformed from a society with slaves to a slave society. In 1705, the House of Burgesses made a strict slave code. From the start of American slavery, blacks ran away and desired freedom.
goods.
Colonial Cities: Although relatively small and few in number, port cities like Philadelphia were important. Cities served mainly as gathering places for agricultural goods and for imported items to be distributed to the countryside. The city was home to a large population of artisans. Trade helped to create a web of interdependence among the European empires. Membership in the empire had many advantages for the colonists.