Our English Heritage 2

1. Our English Heritage 2 Mrs. Cox Paisley IB Civics/Economics

2. What Influenced Colonial Government? • English citizens made many legal traditions as they dealt with powerful monarchs. In 1215, nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. This gave nobles certain privileges such as a trial by their peers and equal treatment under the law.

3. What Influenced Colonial Government? • In time, officials grew into a lawmaking body, or legislature, called Parliament. England’s Parliament removed King James II from power in 1688-an event called the Glorious Revolution. It also created the English Bill of Rights. This document promised Parliament free elections and fair trials, and it stopped cruel punishments.

4. What Influenced Colonial Government? • English common law was based on many court decisions. Judges looked to precedents to see how similar cases had been decided. Common law applies to our modern laws. • People who were excited by scientific discoveries shaped the movement called the Enlightenment.

5. What Influenced Colonial Government? • Enlightenment writers wanted independence and equality for all people. John Locke thought that freedoms such as life, liberty, and property were natural rights. He described a social contract, which said people should obey their government only as long as it protects their rights.

6. What Influenced Colonial Government? • In France, Baron de Montesquieu said that the branches of government should stop one another from becoming too strong. These ideas were put into the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

7. Colonial Traditions of Self-Government • In the 1600s and 1700s, England created colonies in America, new settlements that were ruled by the English government. The people who moved to these colonies brought with them their English traditions of law and self-government.

8. Colonial Traditions of Self-Government • The first permanent English settlement, in Jamestown, Virginia, was created in 1607. It started as a business investment with London businessmen providing money to colonists. This type of investment was called a joint-stock company. The businessmen were given a charter by King James I, a document giving them land and the power to create a government.

9. Colonial Traditions of Self-Government • Colonists in Virginia were ruled by a governor, but they slowly made their own representative government body, called the House of Burgesses. • An English colony also was started in the North. Colonists known as Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.

10. Colonial Traditions of Self-Government • They had drawn up a plan for government on their trip from England. This agreement, or compact, was named for their ship, the Mayflower. The Mayflower Compact created a system of direct democracy. Citizens held town meetings to talk about problems. Only men who owned property could vote.

11. Colonial Traditions of Self-Government • In 1639, some Pilgrims moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut to have more religious freedom. There, they created the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. This plan of government had elections for representatives.

12. Colonial Traditions of Self-Government • Colonists created thirteen English colonies in America. The colonies were ruled by governors who were elected or appointed by the king. Colonists also had legislatures with elected representatives. People living in America used their knowledge of the English Parliament and English common law to take responsibility for their government and to make their own decisions.

13. The English Colonies 2-2 • By the middle of the 1600s, four colonies had been set up in New England: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. • The Middle Colonies included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. New York started out as a Dutch colony.

14. Settling the Colonies • When it was taken over by the English, King Charles II gave it to his brother. At that point, New York became a proprietary colony. This means it was owned and controlled by the same person. New Jersey was formed from part of New York.

15. Settling the Colonies • New Jersey started out as proprietary colony but later became a royal colony, owned and rule directly by the King. William Penn started the proprietary colony of Pennsylvania when he was given a charter from the king. The colony of Delaware was created from part of Pennsylvania.

16. Settling the Colonies • In the South, Virginia grew from the joint-stock colony of Jamestown and became a royal colony in 1624. Carolina started out as a proprietary colony, but eventually became two separate royal colonies. James Oglethorpe was given a charter to set up Georgia, which was the last English colony.

17. People of the Colonies • Many colonist came to America in hopes of finding religious freedom or improving their fortunes. • The New England and Middle Colonies were settle by colonists who had been treated badly for their religions in England. They were religious dissenters who did not agree with England’s official Anglican religion.

18. People of the Colonies • Colonists in Massachusetts called themselves Puritans because they wanted to cleanse, or purify, Anglicanism. They thought they were on a religious journey, or pilgrimage, and so they also were know as Pilgrims. Quakers in Pennsylvania and Catholics in Maryland also created colonies where they could practice their religion safely.

19. People of the Colonies • Connecticut was founded by a minister who was looking for religious freedom. Rhode Island was the first colony to practice toleration, or acceptance of all faiths. • Colonists in the South had come to North America for the chance to earn money. Some people set up large farms called plantations to make a living growing crops such as tobacco, rice, and indigo.

20. People of the Colonies • Poor people in search of a new way of life came to the colonies as indentured servants. Wealthy people agreed to pay for the coast of indentured servants’ transportation and food. In exchange, the servants agreed to work to pay back their expenses. As farms grew, however, more workers were needed to help on plantations. To meet this need, planters used enslaved Africans.

21. People of the Colonies • As this agricultural system grew, colonists created what became know as the triangular trade. This was a trading system that involved three places. In this trading plan, sugar and molasses were taken from the West Indies to America. There, these goods were made into rum. From America, rum was taken to Africa and traded for enslaved people. Enslaved people were then shipped to the West Indies and traded for sugar and molasses.

22. Colonial Society 2-3 • In New England, the soil was rocky and winters were long. Because the land was not suited to farming, many people made their living from the sea, by fishing, whaling, and making ships. Others had small businesses in which they sewed clothes or made furniture.

23. The Economy • The soil and climate of the Middle Colonies were better for farming. Colonists in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware were able to grow extra corps to sell for profit. Also, these colonies had industries such as sawmills, mines, and iron works. European immigrants became an important source of workers.

24. The Economy • The Southern Colonies, with warm weather and rich soil, were best for farming. Rice and tobacco were grown in the Tidewater area near the seacoast and transported to markets by river. The large plantations of the South needed many workers, so plantation owners depended on enslaved African workers. The are did not have the industry or trade found in the New England and Middle Colonies.

25. An American Identity • American colonies had different traits. Even with their differences, however, the colonies had a culture that kept them together. • Religion was one important part of the new American culture. Many colonists had come to America looking for religious freedom. In Massachusetts, laws enforced religious beliefs.

26. An American Identity • Other colonies separated religion from government and encouraged tolerance. The American colonies slowly created a policy of accepting many religions. The Great Awakening in the 1720s helped the American colonists have new faith.

27. An American Identity • Education also helped shape American culture. Colonists founded colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, and William and Mary to train ministers. Children were educated so they could read the Bible, and some colonies started public schools. However, laws stopped enslaved people from learning to read or write.

28. An American Identity • In early American culture, families were the center of society. Men headed families, and women and children did chores. Older children assisted with the family’s farm work. Women could not vote. Married women had few rights, but unmarried or widowed women could run businesses and own property.

29. An American Identity • Colonists’ ideas about the importance of equality also brought the colonies together. Their beliefs were shaped by Enlightenment ideas about individualism and natural rights. Also, the Great Awakening encouraged people to depend less on people in power and more on personal religious experience.

30. An American Identity • As a result of these influences, the sprit of egalitarianism, or equality, was born. The colonists were convinced that they should have all the rights Britons had and should have a voice in their government. However, the British government did not let colonists decide their own trade and tax policies. Colonists started joining together against the British government.

31. 2-4 Birth of a Democratic Nation • Under Britain’s loose control, called a “salutary neglect” policy, the colonies had taken on more responsibility. Because of mercantilism, however, Britain wanted to make money. Mercantilism is the idea that a nation’s power depends on its wealth. This program was put into law with the Navigation Acts.

32. Colonial Resistance • Britain had fought a war with France and said that the colonies’ taxes should help pay for war debts. The British government passed taxes such as the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act. These acts were passed in Britain’s Parliament where colonists were not represented.

33. Colonial Resistance • Colonists united to boycott, or refuse to buy, British goods. They formed a Stamp Act Congress, which sent their worries to King George III. Parliament repealed, or cancelled, the Stamp Act. Then, Parliament made new laws. The Declaratory Act said that Parliament had the right to tax the colonies.

34. Colonial Resistance • The Townshend Acts allowed officers to search for smuggled goods. Colonists responded with anger. A 1770 protest in which colonists were killed by British troops become known as the Boston Massacre. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 challenged a tax on tea. The protest led to the Coercive Acts, which colonists called the Intolerable Acts. These laws restricted the colonists’ civil rights.

35. Moving Toward Independence • To the fight the Intolerable Acts, colonists from twelve colonies sent delegates, or representatives, to a meeting in Philadelphia. This meeting, was called the First Continental Congress, made a list of demands for King George III. Delegates said that the king should restore their rights, and they worked to make the boycott of British products bigger.

36. Moving Toward Independence • This first gathering was held in 1774, and they agreed to meet the following year if the king did not respond as they wished. • The colonists’ demands were met with force. Before April 1775, many Americans though of themselves as British subjects. After the battles between colonials and British troops at Lexington and Concord, however, colonists wanted independence. The Revolutionary War had begun.

37. Moving toward Independence • During the Second Continental Congress, held in May 1775, colonists talked about how to respond to Great Britain. Support for independence was growing, in part because of pamphlets such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. He thought the colonies should stop following the king. Still, many people were still loyal to Britain.

38. Moving Toward Independence • Others thought the colonist could not win a war with Britain. However, by 1776, more than half the people at the Second Continental Congress decided to break ties with Britain. • As the colonies broke away from Britain, the Second Continental Congress became their new government. ( This was anarchy by the way.) The colonists decided that a group of people, led by Virginia delegate Thomas Jefferson, would write a declaration of independence. This document would explain to King George III why the colonies should be free.

39. The Declaration of Independence • The Declaration of Independence said that the purpose of a government is to protect the rights of the people. It said that government is based on the agreement of the people, and the people can change or remove a government if it ignores the wishes of the people. On July 4, 1776, delegates approved the document asking for the colonies’ freedom from Britain. Not until a war was fought and won, however, did Great Britain accept the colonies’ independence.