The Colonies Come of Age

The Colonies Come of Age

England and Its Colonies • England and its largely self-governing colonies prospered under mutually beneficial trade relationship. • The colonial system was the forerunner of our modern system of self-governing states. • Many colonist benefited from the trade relationship with the home country, the real purpose of the colonial system was to enrich Britain.

The British interest in establishing colonies was influenced by the theory of mercantilism. What is mercantilism? • That a country’s ultimate goal was self-sufficiency and that all countries were in competition to acquire the most gold and silver. • Colonies under mercantilism were expected to supply those materials that the mother country lacked , England discouraged the manufacturing of colonial goods that competed with producers back home.

By the mid-1600s the American colonist were fulfilling their role at least partially. • The colonist exported to England large amounts of raw materials and staples- lumber, furs, fish and tobacco. • The colonist would purchase from England such things as furniture, utensils, books, and china. • Not all the exports the colonist produced would be shipped to England. • Some colonists’ lumber and tobacco made it to Spain, France and Holland.

Many of the colonist could not see just sending their goods to England when they could increase their wealth by selling to other countries. • England saw this as an economic threat. Why? • According to the mercantilist theory any wealth flowing from the colonist to another nation came at the expense of the mother country. • As a result beginning in 1651 England’s Parliament the country’s legislative body pass the Navigation Acts. What were these? • A series of laws restricting colonial trade.

What were the requirements of these Navigation Acts? • No country could trade with the colonies unless the goods were shipped in either colonial or English ships • All vessels had to be operated by crews that were at least three-quarters English or colonial. • The colonies could export products only to England. • Almost all goods traded between the colonies and Europe first had to pass through an English port.

The system created by the Navigation Acts benefited who? • England and proved to be good for most colonists as well. Why? • Passing all foreign good through England yielded jobs for English dockworkers and import taxes for the English. • By restricting trade to English or colonial ships the acts spurred a boom in the colonial shipbuilding industry.

Did all the colonist like the acts if not why? • Number of the colonist resented the trade restrictions, and many continued to smuggle or trade illegally, goods to and from other countries. • For years England did little to stop the violations. • Finally in 1684 Charles II acted punishing colonist whom he believed most resisted English authority; the leaders of Massachusetts.

Crackdown in Massachusetts • In 1684 after failing to get Massachusetts to obey the English laws, England revoked the colony’s corporate charter. • Massachusetts which had been a“Puritan Utopia” was now a royal colony and came under direct control of the British crown. • Now allowing England to take sanctions against Massachusetts. • This allowed England to punish those merchants who continued to disobey English laws by smuggling their goods.

King James II who would succeeded Charles revoked the charters of Connecticut, and Rhode Island and merged them with Massachusetts and Plymouth to create a royal province called the Dominion of New England. • New York and New Jersey also would become part of this Dominion. • The king would abolish the colonial assemblies and appointed the province’s governor and councilors.

Dominion of New England • King James II appointed Sir EdmundAndros to be the first governor-general. • Andros a former soldier and governor of New York was loyal to the king. • His contempt for the Puritan religion and his determination to overturn the systems of government in the colonies heightened tensions there.

Andros declared all deeds and land titles issued under the Massachusetts charter invalid, and if anyone wanted a new deed they would have to pay an annual tax to the government.

Why did James II created the Dominion of New England? • Merged the colonies into one province as a punishment to the New England Colonies for refusing to abide by the Navigation Acts.

Glorious Revolution of 1668 • Many people in England opposed King James II. • The king often refused the advice of Parliament and openly practiced Catholicism. • Parliament leaders feared another civil war.

James insisted upon his divine right to rule. (Catholic) • What is divine right? • God gave him the power and only God can take the power away. • James's Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William, were to succeed James on the throne.

Glorious Revolution of 1668 • Parliament was unwilling to have a Catholic dynasty so it asked William and Mary to assume the throne. • When William arrived James fled and William became king. • This bloodless change of power became known as theGlorious Revolution.

Before William and Mary took the throne they had swear to obey the laws of Parliament. • In 1689 Parliament would read a EnglishBill of Rights to William and Mary on what was required of them. This would abolish the kings’ absolute power to suspend laws and create his own courts. 2

England Loosens the Reins • After 1688 England largely turned its attention away from the colonies and toward France which was competing with England for control of Europe. • The home country still expected the colonies to perform their duties of exporting raw materials and goods. • As long as they did this Parliament had little reason to devote large amounts of money and large numbers of soldiers to aggressively enforcing its colonial laws.

Salutary Neglect • England would usher in new policies of neglect with an attempt to increase its control over colonies. • In the years immediately following the Glorious Revolution Parliament strengthened the Navigation Acts in two ways: 1. Moved smuggling trials from the colonial courts to admiralty courts. 2. It created the Board of trade and advisory board with powers to monitor colonial trade.

While England appeared to loosen its grip on the colonies. • English officials only lightly enforced the new measures as they settled into an overall colonial policy that became known as salutary neglect. • Salutary meant beneficial and Neglect meant that England relaxed is enforcement of most regulations in return for the continued economic loyalty of the colonies.

The colonies and England both benefited from salutary neglect- Colonies • Enjoyed greater freedom England • Decreased administrative costs • Continued to received raw materials and retained a market for manufactured goods 1

The Agricultural South • In the Southerncolonies a predominantly agricultural society developed. • A cash crop grown primarily for market rather than a famer’s use. • What would be one of the main cash crops grown in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina? • Tobacco • In South Carolina and Georgia would be rice and later indigo.

The long deep Southern rivers allowed planters to ship their goods directly without the need for city docks and warehouses. • Due to a large growth in the entire colonies’ export trade, caused a significant rise in colonial standards during the 18th century. • Colonist along the Chesapeake where tobacco prices had fell dramatically saw the greatest economic boom from 1713 to 1774.

The Role of Women • Women in Southern society and Northern society shared a common trait: they were considered second-class citizens. • Women had few if any legal or social rights. They could not vote nor preach. • Even daughters of wealthy Southern planters were usually taught only the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

Instead of the basic education women were taught the more social graces or in domestic task such as canning and preserving food, sewing and embroidery. • The average Southern women worked over a hot fire baking bread or boiling meat. • Her outdoor duties included milking the cows, slaughtering pigs, and tending to the garden. • She was also expected to wash clothes, and clean the house. • Women of the planter class escaped most of these task as servants took care of the household chores. • Regardless of their class women were expected to bow to their husbands.

Slavery Becomes Entrenched • The English colonists gradually turned to the use of African slaves people who were considered property of others after efforts to meet their labor needs with enslaved Native Americans and indentured servants had failed. • During the 1600s and 1700s plantation owners and other colonists would subject hundreds of thousands Africans to a life of intense labor and cruelty in North America. 3

African slaves were though to be economical in the long run Africans were also thought better able to endure the harsh physical demands of plantation labor in hot climates. • Before the English began the large-scale importation of African slaves to their colonies the slave had been laboring for years in the West Indies. • During the 17th century Africans had become part of a transatlantic trading network known as what? • Triangular trade

The triangular trade referred to a three-way trading process merchants carried rum and other goods from New England to Africa in Africa they traded their merchandise for slaves whom they transported to the West Indies for molasses these goods were shipped to New England where they distilled it into rum. • The voyage that brought the Africans to the West Indies and later to North America was known as what? • Middle Passage • It was considered the middle leg of the transatlantic trade triangle.

Sickening cruelty characterized this journey. • In the ports European traders branded African with red hot irons for identification purpose and packed them into the dark holds of the ships. • On the ships they would be victim to whippings, and beatings from slavers as well diseases across the ship. • The smell of blood, sweat, vomit and human waste.

Africans who survived their ocean voyage entered an extremely difficult life of bondage in North America. • Most slaves probably 80-90 percent worked in fields. • The 10-20 percent were domestic slaves they cooked, cleaned and raised the master’s children. • Slave owners would whip and beat those slaves who were disobedient or disrespectful. • In Virginia the courts did not consider slave owners guilty of murder for killing their slaves during punishment.

TheAfricanswho were transported to North America came from a variety of different cultures and spoke a varied languages. • Not only did they bring with them their culture they also brought with them the agricultural skills and crops one of them was rice. • Africans retained several aspects of their culture they were musical traditions, stories told by their ancestors, religious dance and rituals.

Resistance and Revolt • Enslaved Africans also resisted their positions of subservience. • Throughout the colonies slaves faked illness broke tools, and staged work slowdowns. • Some slaves even pushed for uprisings against their masters.

The Stono Rebellion (sometimes called Cato's Conspiracy or Cato's Rebellion) was a slave rebellion that began on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies, with 42-47 whites and 44 blacks killed. The uprising was led by Native Africans who were likely from the Central African Kingdom of Kongo, as some of the rebels spoke Portuguese. • Their leader, Jemmy, was a literate slave. In some reports, however, he is referred to as "Cato", and likely was held by the Cato, or Cater, family who lived North of the Stono River. He led 20 other enslaved Kongolese, who may have been former soldiers, in an armed march south from the Stono River (for which the rebellion is named). They were bound for Spanish Florida.[This was due to a Spanish effort to destabilize British rule, where they (the Spanish) had promised freedom and land at St. Augustine to slaves who escaped from the British colonies.

The Commercial North • The Northern colonies developed a predominantly urban society, based on commerce and trade. • The theory of mercantilism held that colonies existed only to help the home country mass wealth. • From 1650 to 1750 the colonies’ economy grew twice as fast as Great Britain's economy did. • Much of this growth occurred in the New England and middle colonies.

Unlike farms in the South , those in the New England and middle colonies usually produced several crops instead of a single one. • A diverse commercial economy also developed in the New England and Middle colonies. • Grinding wheat, harvesting fish, sawing lumber, and shipbuilding were some of the industries that developed in the North. • The expansion of trade caused port cities to grow. • There was only one major port in the South Charles Town (Charleston)while in the North had Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Northern Society Is Diverse • Northern society was composed of diverse groups with sometimes conflicting interests. • Groups whose interests clashed with those of the people in power included immigrants, African Americans, and women. • There were negative and positive effects with the growing ethic diversity within the colonies. • Negative- Conflict and distrust between the different groups • Positive- Creation of a diverse society.

Women in Northern Society • As in the South, women in the North had extensive work responsibilities but few legal rights. • Most people into the colonies still lived on farms, where women faced unceasing labor. • A colonial wife had virtually no legal rights. • She could not vote. • Most women could not enter into contracts, buy or sell property, or keep their own wages if they worked outside the home. • In New religion as well as the laws kept women under the husbands’ rule.

Witchcraft Trials in Salem • The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. • As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. • By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries.

Witchcraft Trials in Salem • The strict limitations on women’s roles, combined with social tensions the strained relationships with Native Americans, and religious fanaticism were all the underlying causes of the Salem witch hunts of 1692.

New Ideas Influence the Colonist • The Salem trials of 1692 caused many people to question the existence of witchcraft. • During the 1700s individuals began to make changes in the way they viewed the world. • Science before the Renaissance, philosophers in Europe had been using reason and scientific methods to obtain knowledge. • Ideas about nature gained prevalence in the 1700s in a movement called the Enlightenment.

Enlightenment ideas traveled from Europe to the colonies and would be spread through books and pamphlets. • Literacy was particularly high in New England because the Puritans had supported education and wanted everyone to be able to read the Bible. • One of the Enlightenment figures was Benjamin Franklin who embraced the notion of obtaining truth through experimentation and reasoning. 3

The Enlightenment also had a profound effect on political thought in the colonies. • Colonial leaders such as Thomas Jeffersonused reason to conclude that individuals have natural rights, which governments must respect. • What are those natural rights? • Life, Liberty, and property-(Pursuit of happiness)

The Enlightenment led people to conclude that individuals have natural rights that governments must respect Enlightenment principles led many colonies to question the authority of the British monarchy. This would led to a revolutionary movement.

2 The Great Awakening • By the early 1700s the Puritan Church had lost its grip on society and church membership was declining. • The new Massachusetts charter of 1691 forced Puritans to allow freedom of worship and banned the practice of permitting Puritan church members to vote. • Jonathon Edwards preached that church attendance was not enough for salvation; people must acknowledge their sinfulness and feel God’s love for them.

The religious revival known as the Great Awakeninglasted from 1730s to 1740s. • The preachers of the Great Awakening challenged the regular cleric of the colonies. • While the clerics at first welcomed the visiting preachers they soon found that the teachings of the traveling ministers contradicted their own. • Many of the congregations split into two factions:“Old Lights” adherents of traditional religious teaching and “New Lights” followers of evangelistic preachers such as George Whitefield.

George Whitefield in his sermons would first play the role of God and then switch to the role of the devil. • EnlightenmentandGreat Awakening caused people to question traditional authority. • These movements helped lead the colonist to question Britain’s authority over their lives. • The Great Awakening brought many colonists, as well as Native Americans and African Americans into organized Christian Churches for the first time.

The French and Indian War • British victory over the Frenchin North America enlarged the British empire but led to new conflicts with the colonist. • In 1750s, Francewas Great Britain's biggest rival in the struggle to build a world empire and one major area of contention between them was the rich Ohio River Valley. • The colonist favored Great Britain because they thought of themselves as British; as well they were eager to expand the colonies westward from increasingly crowded Atlantic seaboard.

France had begun its North American empire in 1535 when Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence River. • In 1608 Samuel de Champlain founded the town ofQuebecthe first permanent French settlement in North America. • From the start the French colonies in North America was unlike the British in they focused on fur trade rather than on settlements, also the French had friendly relations with the Native Americans.

British Defeats an Old Enemy • In the 1740s the British and French had become interested in the Ohio River Valley. • As the French Empire in North America expanded, it collide with the growing British empire. • In 1754 the French-British conflicts would reignite. • In that year the French built Fort Duquesne at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio- the site of modern day Pittsburgh. • The Virginia governor sent militia to evict the French out of the area.

The small band, led by an ambitious 22 year old office named George Washington he was to establish an outpost calledFt. Necessity 40 miles from Ft. Duquesne. • In May 1754, Washington's militia attacked a small detachment of French soldiers, and the French counterattacked. • In the battle that would follow in July the French would force Washington to surrender. • The battle at Ft. Necessity would be the opening of theFrench and Indian War.

The Colonies Come of Age