Connecticut began as an extension of Massachusetts Bay Colony along the Connecticut River.

1. Connecticut Connecticutbegan as an extension of Massachusetts Bay Colony along the Connecticut River. In 1636, Massachusetts congregations ventured into the region where they founded Wethersfield, Hartford, and Saybrook. The settlements were originally governed from the Massachusetts General Court, but as they grew they chose to avoid the arduous travel to Boston and established their own legislature. In 1637, the settlements created Connecticut. In 1639, they wrote the “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.” In Connecticut a man did not have to be a church member to participate in government. Thus the “Orders” represent a democratizing of colonial government.

2. New Hampshire was created by a royal charter in 1622. One of the main settlements, Exeter, was founded in 1638 by the Rev. John Wheelwright. Wheelwright was a supporter of Anne Hutchinson. In 1637, the 46 year-old midwife, pregnant with her 16th child, got into trouble in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by preaching the “covenant of grace.” That meant that one was freed from moral law by one’s faith and by God’s grace. She also contended that people could be in direct contact with God and receive His direct inspiration. This was heresy. Puritans argued that being among God’s elect proved that you had to show your election through works; and that it was a sin of pride to believe that God would have direct contact with any human. Hutchinson was forced out in 1638. She sought refuge in Providence. Finding none, she made her way to Long Island to live among the Dutch. In 1643, she was killed in an Indian attack.

3. from the Trial of Anne Hutchinson, 1637 Hutchinson “If you please to give me leave I shall give you the ground of what I know to be true. Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the Church of England, I had like to have turned Separatist. Whereupon I kept a day of solemn humiliation and pondering of the thing; this scripture was brought unto me—he that denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh in antichrist. . . . He that denies the testament denies the testator, and in this did open me and give me to see that those which did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of antichrist, and upon this he did discover the ministry unto me, and ever since, I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which was wrong. . . . Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.” Mr. Nowel: “How do you know that was the spirit?” Hutchinson: “How did Abraham know . . .?” Dep. Gov. Thomas Dudley: “By an immediate voice.” Hutchinson: “So to me by an immediate revelation.” Hutchinson: “By the voice of his own spirit to my soul. I will give you another scripture, Jeremiah 46:27-28 – out of which the Lord showed me what he would do for me and the rest of his servants. . . . You [the Court] have power over my body but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul; and assure yourselves this much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go in this course you begin, you will bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Gov. John Winthrop: “I am persuaded that the revelation she brings forth is delusion. The court hath already declared them selves satisfied . . . Concerning the troublesomeness of her spirit and the danger of her course amongst us. . . . Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and are to be imprisoned till the court shall send you away.” Q1. What sense do you get of Anne Hutchinson from this transcript excerpt? Why do you think Hutchinson was considered “dangerous” by the Court?

4. Hutchinson has become a symbol as a victim of Puritan religious intolerance. But her life is more complicated than that. She did not fit in anywhere and was a victim of a time that did not respect the opinions of women. Winthrop called her death, “a special manifestation of divine justice.”

5. New England in the 1640s Unlike in the Chesapeake, conditions in New England remained stable enough after the defeat of the Indians in the Pequot’s War (1637) that the crown left New Englanders alone. But events in the 1670s rocked colonial society and pushed England to take greater control over the region.

6. King Philip’s War, 1675-1676 Named after Chief Metacomet, whom the English called King Philip, the warwas sparked by events in the 1670s, but had deeper, long-term causes, as Wampanoag-English relations deteriorated as more settlers came and encroached on Indian land. Tensions began when Philip’s older brother Alexander was imprisoned in Boston where he caught a fever and died. Then an Indian who had converted to Christianity and had testified against Alexander was murdered. When the English settlers executed 3 Wampanoag tribesmen for the murder, Metacomet retaliated by destroying the town of Swansea, killing 8. Colonial volunteers formed a brigade to avenge the town. Philip held the upper hand throughout the spring of 1675 until the third day of a siege at Brookfield when colonials killed eighty Indians.

7. The war raged throughout New England, colonials answering every Indian assault with an equally vicious attack. In a fierce battle near South Kingston, Rhode Island, the colonials destroyed the Indian settlement and killed more than 700, wounding and leaving for dead another 300 or so. By summer 1676, the Wampanoag had had enough. Philip tried to run away but was found and killed in a last showdown. Colonials forced the Indians into submission, taking their land. By the time it ended, thirteen colonial towns had been destroyed and at least six hundred settlers had been killed and nearly two thousand wounded.The defeated Indians fared far worse, losing more than one thousand to death and many of the remaining were captured and sold into slavery in the West Indies.

8. New Netherland In 1609, the Dutch East India Company hired Henry Hudson to find the “Northwest Passage.” Hudson sailed the coast of North America and located the river that now bears his name. He sailed as far up-river as he could but was stopped by rapids at what is now Albany, New York. Not able to go farther, he met with the local Mohican Indians and negotiated a contract for the Mohicans to provide furs to the Dutch. They sealed the deal with a few kegs of brandy.

9. In 1614, the Dutch established trading posts at Fort Orange (near modern day Albany, NY). Ten years later, the Dutch West India Co. began a settlement at the mouth of the river. In 1626, Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Indians and moved the settlement there, calling it New Amsterdam. The colony spread west to the Delaware, east to the Connecticut, and north to the Mohawk River, but remained thinly populated because its focus was on furs.

10. Patroon System To encourage settlement, the company established the patroon system, modeled after the European manorial system. A stockholder governed a patroonship, an estate on the river, if he peopled it with 50 adults within four years, and established herds, barns, mills, and other necessities for farming. The tenants treated him as lord of the manor, paying him rent, using his mill, and submitting to his authority. The patroon system did little to entice settlers because too much open land was available and few Dutchmen wanted to volunteer for serfdom.

11. The Restoration In 1648, King Charles I was executed by victorious Puritans in the English Civil War. The Puritan Oliver Cromwell governed England until his death in 1659. In 1660, Charles’ son became king. The event is called the Restoration. Charles II’s rule led to new expansion into the new world. During the English Civil War, the Dutch had expanded their territories. After the Restoration, the British Crown fretted over the Dutch presence dividing the English colonies and Dutch control of the best routes into the interior of North America (the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers).Charles II decided to push the Dutch out. In 1664, English warships reached New Amsterdam. The Dutch Governor vowed to fight, but the Dutch surrendered without a shot. Charles II granted the lands to his brother James, the Duke of York, and the colony became New York. Some of the Dutch returned to Holland, but most stayed.

12. Taking New Netherland gave England control of land between the Hudson River and Delaware Bay. The Duke of York gave it to his friends, John Berkeley and George Carteret. The land became known as New Jersey. New Jersey had a policy of religious toleration. Many settlers were members of the Society of Friends, the Quakers. The Friends believe that an “inner light” burns in all people and so all people have dignity and value. When the light burned bright within them, they might shake a bit under its force. Critics called them Quakers. The Friends are pacifists, insisting that war is never the answer, and oppose slavery in any form.

13. A leading Quaker was William Penn. Penn converted to Quakerism and in the middle 1670s became interested in America. In 1681, Charles II gave Penn a proprietorship to land west of New Jersey. Penn named it Pennsylvania, meaning “Penn’s woods.” He also took control of Delaware. Penn hoped to establish a “Godly experiment” in the New World. In 1683, he founded Philadelphia —”the city of brotherly love.” By 1700, Pennsylvania’s population topped 21,000.

14. Motives of Quaker migration were economic, moral, and political, but religious freedom predominated. In the 1680s, persecution against Quakers intensified. Charles II dissolved Parliament and began to rule without constitutional restraint. Penn recruited settlers from throughout Britain and Europe. English and Welsh Quakers made the journey, as did members of German dissenting religions such as Mennonite, Amish, Moravian; and Lutheran Rhenish Germans. Later, Scots-Irish immigrants joined the English, Welsh, German, Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish settlers.Most settlers were tradesmen; many others were merchants.

15. The last colonies settled in the 17th century were the Carolinas. A proprietorship for south of Virginia was arranged in 1629 when Charles I gave Attorney General Robert Heath the tract. Heath called it “Carolina”--a Latin form of Charles--but he did not organize it. Some settlers ventured to around Charleston, but by the Restoration, the land was under royal control.

16. South Carolina In 1663, to stop Spanish encroachment north, Charles II gave Carolina to wealthy leaders in other colonies. Many of the proprietors held land in the Barbados.Led by John Colleton, they hoped to use Carolina as an outlet for the growing Barbadian population and to provide the Barbados with food. The Barbadian Adventurers distributed land along a headright system to recruit settlers. Immigrants were given 100 acres of land to settle. Persons too poor to pay their own way could come as indentured servants. The wealthier slaveholders who emigrated from the Barbados received an extra headright for each slave they brought—20 acres for a male and 10 acres for a female slave. The “first fleet” of settlers landed in 1670. About 30% were black—either Creole or African. Charleston became the most important southern port in the colonies, having the best harbor on the Atlantic coast south of Chesapeake Bay.

17. South Carolina’s economy was based on rice production. Slaves from West Africa knew how to grow rice; they were also cattle herders. South Carolina was beef producer for the colonies. With a prospering economy based on slavery, the population swelled.Africans could withstand the diseases of the semi-tropical climate. The cycle cell made them less susceptible to malaria.By 1720, blacks became a majority in the colony. It was the only colony ever to have a black majority. Stono Rebellion, (1739)

18. “Carolina looks more like a [N]egro country than like a country settled by white people.” Samuel Dyssli Report from William Bull re. Stono Rebellion . . . I beg leave to lay before your Lordships an account of our Affairs, first in regard to the Desertion of our Negroes. . . . On the 9th of September last at Night a great Number of Negroes Arose in Rebellion, broke open a Store where they got arms, killed twenty one White Persons, and were marching the next morning in a Daring manner out of the Province, killing all they met and burning several Houses as they passed along the Road. I was returning from Granville County with four Gentlemen and met these Rebels at eleven o'clock in the forenoon and fortunately deserned the approaching danger time enough to avoid it, and to give notice to the Militia who on the Occasion behaved with so much expedition and bravery, as by four a'Clock the same day to come up with them and killed and took so many as put a stop to any further mischief at that time, forty four of them have been killed and Executed; some few yet remain concealed in the Woods expecting the same fate, seem desperate. . . . It was the Opinion of His Majesty's Council with several other Gentlemen that one of the most effectual means that could be used at present to prevent such desertion of our Negroes is to encourage some Indians by a suitable reward to pursue and if possible to bring back the Deserters, and while the Indians are thus employed they would be in the way ready to intercept others that might attempt to follow and I have sent for the Chiefs of the Chickasaws living at New Windsor and the Catawbaw Indians for that purpose. . . . Your Lordships Most Obedient and Most Humble Servant Wm Bull Q1. Based on Bull’s account, what happened during the Stono Rebellion? Q2. how were nearby Indian tribes to be used to keep slaves from escaping in the future?

19. North Carolina The northern region of Carolina was slow to develop. The first settlers were French Huguenots seeking refuge from Roman Catholic persecution in the 1560s. That colony was wiped out by successive attacks by Indians and the Spanish.Sir Walter Raleigh’s failed Roanoke adventure followed in the 1580s. St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 1572

20. Under Lord Albemarle, the region began to be settled in the 1660s. The first settlers were Virginians looking for opportunity. After 1685, it was a refuge for Huguenots and Swiss and German Protestants. It grew very slowly because of its isolation and inadequate harbors. Bath, the colony’s first town, was not founded until 1704. North Carolina did offer economic opportunity once settlement started in earnest and by the Revolution its population topped 110,000. Its staple crop was tobacco, but the colony became equally important as a supplier of stores to the Royal Navy (naval stores): timber, tar, turpentine, and hemp.

21. Georgia The last colony was Georgia. James Oglethorpe received a charter to found a colony south of the Carolinas on land bought from the Creek Indians. King George II wanted a buffer with Spanish Florida. Oglethorpe wanted Georgia to be a “second chance” for debtors. He transported mulberry bushes to the colony, hoping to create a silk industry. And he banned slavery. Settlers founded Savannah in 1733. The colony remained small, disorganized, and unprofitable until after the Revolution. The penal colony failed. The silk industry failed. And settlers turned to slavery to grow rice. Georgia became a royal colony in 1755.