AMERICAN BEGINNINGS.

AMERICAN BEGINNINGS

THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH
17th century No. Am., was an unstable and dangerous environment. Diseases decimated Indian and settler populations alike. Colonies were racked by religious, political, and economic tensions and drawn into imperial wars and conflict with Indians. They remained dependent on the Mother Country for protection and economic assistance.

Without sustained immigration, most settlements would have collapsed. With a population of between 4 million and 5 million, about half of Spain and a quarter of France, England produced a far larger number of men, women, and children willing to brave the dangers of emigration to the New World. In large part, this was because economic conditions in England were so bad.

Between 1607 and 1700 over a half a million people left England. No. Am., was not the destination of the majority of the emigrants. But the population of England’s mainland colonies quickly outstripped that of its rivals.

VA and MD = 120,000 settlers. New England = 21,000 settlers. The Middle Colonies (NY, NJ, PA) = 23,000 settlers. Although the arrivals to NE and the Middle Colonies included families, the majority of newcomers were young, single men from the bottom rungs of English society who had little to lose by emigrating.

IDENTURED SERVANTS

INDENTURED SERVANTS Settlers who could pay their own passage arrived in America as free persons. Most quickly acquired by land. However 2/3 of English settlers came as indentured servants.

INDENTURED SERVANTS Indentured servants voluntarily surrendered their freedom for a specific period of time – usually 5 to 7 years – in exchange for passage to America. Servants” Could be bought and sold Could marry without permission of their owner Were subject to physical punishment Saw their obligation to labor enforced by the courts If women servants became pregnant, her length of indenture would be increased

INDENTURED SERVANTS But unlike slaves, servants could look forward to a release from bondage. Assuming they survived their period of labor, servants would receive payment known as “freedom dues” and become free members of society.

INDENTURED SERVANTS For most of the 17th century, indentured servitude was not a guaranteed route to economic autonomy. Many did not live to end of their terms. Freedom dues many times were so meager that they did not enable recipients to acquire land. Many found life in the New World less appealing than they had anticipated. Many ran away.

ENGLISHMEN AND INDIANS

Land in No. Am., was already occupied. The arrival of English settlers presented the native inhabitants of eastern No. Am., with the greatest crisis in their history. Unlike the Spanish and French, the English were chiefly interested in displacing the Indians and settling on their land.

English communities were obstinately separate from their Indian neighbors. Despite their insistence that Indians had no real claim to the land since they did not cultivate or improve it, most colonial authorities in practice recognized Indians’ title based on occupancy.

The English acquired land through purchase, often in treaties forced upon the Indians after they had suffered military defeat. To keep the peace, some colonial govts., tried to prevent the private seizure of Indian lands, or they declared certain areas off limits to settlers.

These measures were rarely enforced and ultimately proved ineffective. New settlers and freed servants sought land for themselves, and those who established families in America needed land for their children.

The 17th century was marked by recurring warfare between colonists and Indians. These conflicts generated a strong feeling of superiority and separateness among the colonists. Over time the English displaced the original inhabitants of eastern No. Am., more thoroughly than any other European empire. When the English landed in Jamestown, I 1607, the lives of Indians was powerfully altered.

SETTLING THE CHESAPEAKE: THE JAMESTOWN COLONY

Jamestown was founded in 1607. The early history of the colony was not promising. The colony’s leadership changed repeatedly, its inhabitants suffered a high death-rate, and supplies from England proved inadequate. The VA. Company was hoping to make a huge profit from the colony.

The settlers included small farmers, laborers, and sons of the English gentry and high-skilled craftsmen who preferred to prospect for gold rather than farm. Jamestown lay beside a swamp containing malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Disease and the lack of food took a heavy toll.

By the end of 1607, the original population of 104 had fallen to 52. New arrivals (including the first two women in 1608) brought the population up to 400 by 1609. 1610: After a winter long remembered as the “starving time,” only 65 settlers remained alive.

At one point, the survivors abandoned the colony and sailed for England. They were intercepted and persuaded to return to VA by ships carrying a new governor, 250 colonists and supplies. 1616: About 80% of the immigrants who arrived in the first decade were dead.

Only vigorous military discipline held the colony together. John Smith imposed a regime of forced labor on company lands. “He who will not work, will not eat,” Smith declared. His autocratic mode of governing alienated many colonists.

After being injured in an accidental gunpowder explosion in 1609, Smith was forced to return to England. But his immediate successors continued his iron rule.

The VA Company slowly realized that for the colony to survive it would have to abandon its search for gold, grow its own food, and find a marketable commodity. It would also have to attract more settlers. 1618: New policies were adopted that powerfully shaped VA’s development.

SETTLEING THE CHESAPEAKE: THE JAMESTOWN COLONY
The company introduced the headright system – awarding 50 acres of land to a colonist who paid his own or another’s passage. Thus, anyone who brought in a sizable number of servants would immediately acquire a large estate.

In place of the governor’s militaristic regime, a “charter of grants and liberties” was issued. This included the establishment of the House of Burgesses – the first elected assembly in Colonial America. But the House of Burgesses was hardly a model of democracy.

Only landowners could vote. The Company and its appointed governor retained the right to nullify any measure the body adopted. But its creation established a political precedent that all English colonies would eventually follow.

1619: The first 20 blacks arrived in VA on a Dutch vessel. The full significance of this event would not be immediately apparent. But it laid the foundation for a society that would be dominated economically and politically by slave-owning planters.

POWHATAN’S WORLD

POWHATAN’S WORLD When the English arrived in Jamestown, they landed in a region inhabited by some 15,000 to 25,000 Indians in numerous small agricultural villages. Most acknowledged the rule of Powhatan – a shrewd and forceful leader. Powhatan quickly realized the advantages of trade with the newcomers.

POWHATAN’S WORLD The VA Company instructed its colonists to treat the local Indians kindly and to try to convert them to Christianity. Realizing that the colonists depended on the Indians for food, John Smith tried to stop settlers from seizing produce from nearby villages.

POWHATAN’S WORLD In the first two years of Jamestown’s existence, relations with Indians were mostly peaceful. Smith’s departure raised tensions between the two groups. Sporadic conflict began in 1610, with the English massacring villages indiscriminately and destroying Indian crops.

POWHATAN’S WORLD 1614: Peace was restored when the English colonist John Rolfe married Pocahontas, reputedly the favorite among Powhatan’s many children. Having converted to Christianity, she accompanied Rolfe back to England.

THE UPRISING OF 1622

THE UPRISING OF 1622 Once it became clear that the English were interested in establishing a permanent and constantly expanding colony conflict with local Indians was inevitable. The peace of 1614 ended in1622.

THE UPRISING OF 1622 Powhatan’s brother and successor, Opechancanough, led a surprise attack that in a day wiped out ¼ of VA’s settler population of 1,200. The surviving colonists organized themselves into military bands, which then massacred scores of Indians and devastated their villages.

THE UPRISING OF 1622 Indians remained a significant presence on VA., and trade continued throughout the century. But the unsuccessful uprising of 1622 shifted the balance of power. The settlers’ supremacy was reinforced in 1644 when a last desperate rebellion, led by Opechancanough, was crushed after causing the deaths of some 500 colonists.

THE UPRISING OF 1622 VA., forced a treaty on the surviving Indians that acknowledged their subordination to the govt., at Jamestown and required to move to tribal reservations to the west and not enter areas of European settlement without permission. Settlers spreading inland into the VA., countryside continued to seize Indian land.

THE UPRISING OF 1622 The destruction caused by the uprising of 1622 was the last in a series of blows suffered by the VA Company. 1624: The company lost its charter and VA., became the first royal colony, its governor now appointed by the Crown. VA., had failed to accomplish its goals for either the Company or the settlers.

A TOBACCO COLONY

A TOBACCO COLONY The govt., in London for years paid little attention to VA. (salutary neglect) The local elite, not a faraway company, controlled the colony’s development. The elite was growing in wealth and power thanks to the cultivation of tobacco which was introduced by John Rolfe.

A TOBACCO COLONY Tobacco became VA’s substitute for gold.
It enriched an emerging class of tobacco planters, was well as members of colonial govt., who assigned good land to themselves. The Crown also profited form customs duties.

A TOBACCO COLONY 1624: Over 200,000 pounds were being grown, producing startling profits for landowners. 1664: The crop totaled 15 million pounds, and it doubled again in the 1680s.

A TOBACCO COLONY The expansion of tobacco cultivation also led to an increased demand for field labor. This need for labor was met by young, male indentured servants. Despite harsh conditions of work in the tobacco fields, high death rate, and laws mandating punishments from whipping to an extension of the service for those who ran away or were unruly, the abundance of land continued to attract migrants.

A TOBACCO COLONY Of the 120,000 English immigrants who entered the Chesapeake region, ¾ came as servants. VA’s., white society increasingly came to resemble that of England, with a wealthy landed gentry at the top, a group of small farmers in the middle, and an army of poor laborers at the bottom. 1700: The region’s white population had grown to nearly 90,000.

THE MARYLAND EXPERIMENT

Although it began under different sponsorship and remained much smaller than VA during the 17th century, the second Chesapeake colony, Maryland (MD) followed a similar course of development. Tobacco came to dominate the economy and tobacco planters the society. But in other ways, MD’s., history was strikingly different.

1632: MD., was establish as a proprietary colony. A grant of land and authority was given to Cecilius Calvert. The charter made him the proprietor of the colony and gave him the power to control trade and the right to initiate legislation, with an elected assembly confined to approving or disapproving his proposals. Calvert imagined MD., as a feudal domian.

Land would be laid out in manors with owners paying “quitrents” to the proprietor. Calvert disliked representative institutions and believed ordinary people should not meddle in govt., affairs.

But the charter guaranteed to colonists “all privileges, franchises and liberties” of Englishmen. This undoubtedly included the idea of govt., limited by law. Here was a recipe for conflict, and MD., had more than its share during the 17th century.

Adding to the instability in the colony, Calvert, a Catholic, envisioned MD., as a refuge for persecuted Catholics in England. He hope that Catholics and Protestants could live in a harmony unknown in Europe.

The first group of 130 colonists included a number of Catholic gentlemen and two priests. But Protestants always formed a majority of settlers. Most came as indentured servants but others took advantage of MD’s., generous headright system to acquire land by transporting workers to the colony.

The combination between Protestants and Catholics, the rapid expansion of tobacco planting, and anti-proprietary feeling produced a series of violent episodes in mid 17th century MD. MD., in the 1640s verged on total anarchy. Protestants dominated the assembly which was elected by “freemen” without, at first, a property qualification

To stabilize the colony and attract more settlers, Calvert appointed a Protestant governor and offered refuge to Dissenters (Protestants who belonged to denominations other than the Anglican Church). 1649: MD., adopted an Act Concerning Religion which institutionalized the principle of toleration that had prevailed from the colony’s beginning. All Christians were guaranteed the “free exercise” of religion.

But the Act did not establish religious liberty in a modern sense, since it punished those who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ or the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. A Jewish doctor was arrested under the Act’s provisions. Nonetheless the Act was a milestone in the history of religious freedom in Colonial America.

Turmoil still prevailed. 1650s: MD., was placed under the control of a Protestant council, which repealed the Toleration Act and forbade Catholics from openly practicing their religion. 1657: Calvert’s authority was restored and with it MD’s., experiment in religious freedom.

THE NEW ENGLAND WAY: THE RISE OF PURITANISM

A very different social order emerged in 17th century New England. The early history of N.E., is connected to the religious movement known as Puritanism which arose in England late in the 16th century. Puritanism came to define a set of religious beliefs and a view of how society should be organized.

All Puritans shared the conviction that the Church of England retained too many elements of Catholicism. Many rejected the Catholic structure of religious authority. These Puritans were called Congregationalists.

Puritans followed the teachings of John Calvin – a French born Swiss theologian. He believed that the world was divided between the elect and the damned. He advocated the idea of predestination.

A minority of Puritans became Separatists (Pilgrims) abandoning the Church of England entirely to form their own independent denominations. When Puritans emigrated to N.E., they hoped to escape what they believed to be religious and worldly corruptions of English society.

John Winthrop stated that the Puritans would be a “city set on a hill,” a Bible commonwealth whose influences would flow back across the Atlantic and rescue England from godlessness and social decay.

Puritans came in search of liberty, especially the right to worship and govern themselves in what they deemed a truly Christian manner. To them, freedom was a spiritual affair.

THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH

The first Puritans to emigrate to America were a group of separatists known as Pilgrims. Sept. 1620: The Mayflower carrying 150 settlers and crew embarked from England sailing for VA.

Blown off course, they did not land in VA. Instead they landed on Cape Cod. Here they established the colony of Plymouth.

Before landing, the Pilgrims leaders drew up the Mayflower Compact in which the adult men going ashore agreed to obey “just and equal laws” enacted by representatives of their choosing. The was the first written frame of govt., in what is now known as the USA.

They arrived in an area whose native population had recently been decimated by smallpox. They established Plymouth on a site of an abandoned Indian village, whose fields had been cleared before the smallpox epidemic and was ready for cultivation. Yet half the settlers died the first winter.

The colonists survived with the help of local Indians especially Squanto. He served as their interpreter, taught them where to fish and how to plant corn. He helped in the forging of an alliance with Massasoit, a local Wampanoag chief.

1621: The Pilgrims invited their Indian allies to a harvest feast celebrating their survival, the first thanksgiving.

The Pilgrims hoped to establish a society based on the lives of the early Christian saints. Their govt., rested on the principle of consent, and voting was not restricted to church members. All land was held in common, until 1627, when it was divided among settlers. Plymouth remained an independent colony until 1691 but it was soon overshadowed by Massachusetts Bay to its north.

THE GREAT MIGRATION: MASSACHSUETTS BAY COLONY

THE GREAT MIGRATION: MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
1629: The Mass Bay Company was founded by a group of London merchants who hoped to further the Puritan cause and turn profit through trade with the Indians. : Some 21,000 Puritans emigrated to MA. – this is known as the Great Migration. This flow of population represented less than one-third of English emigration in the 1630s. But the Great Migration established the basis for a stable and thriving society.

The settling of N.E. was unique. Most settlers arrived in Mass Bay as families. They came for many reasons: desire to escape religious persecution, anxiety about the future of England, and the prospect of economic betterment. The number of men and women was equally balanced.

Because of the even sex ratio and N.E.’s healthier climate, the population grew rapidly every 27 years. 1700: N.E.’s white population of 91,000 outnumbered that of both the Chesapeake and West Indies. Nearly all were descendants of those who crossed the Atlantic during the Great Migration.

GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY IN MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY

Unlike the dispersed plantation-centered society of the Chesapeake, the leaders of Mass Bay organized the colony in self-governing towns. Groups of settlers received a large land grant from the colony’s govt., and then subdivided it, with residents awarded lots in a central area and land on the outskirts for farming.

Much land remained in commons, either for collective use or to be divided among later settlers or the sons of the town’s founders. Each town had its own Congregational Church. Each town, according to a law of 1647, was required to establish a school, since the ability to read the Bible was central to Puritan belief.

To train an educated ministry, Harvard College, was established in 1636. 1638: The first printing press in English America was established in Cambridge.

The govt., of Mass Bay reflected the Puritans’ religious and social views. The shareholders of the Mass Bay Company emigrated to America, taking with the charter with them and transforming a commercial document into a form of govt.

At first, the eight shareholders chose the men who ruled the colony. 1634: A group of deputies elected by freemen was added to form a single ruling body called the General Court. 1644: Company officers and elected deputies were divided in two legislative houses. The freemen of the colony elected their governor.

The principle of consent was central to Puritanism. Church govt., was decentralized. Churches were formed by voluntary agreement among members, who elected the minister. No important church decision was made without the agreement of the male members.

Towns governed themselves and local officials, delegates to the General Court, and the colonial governor were elected. Puritans, however, were hardly believers in equality.

Church membership was a restrictive category. Anyone could worship but to be a full member of the church required demonstrating that one had experienced divine grace and could be considered a “visible saint” usually by testifying about a conversion experience. Voting in colony-wide elections was limited to men who had been accepted as church members. This requirement at first made for a broad electorate, especially compared to England.

But as time went on it meant that a smaller and smaller percentage of the population controlled the govt. Puritan democracy was for those within the circle of church membership. Those outside the boundary occupied a secondary place in the Bible Commonwealth.

NEW ENGLANDERS DIVIDED

Puritans exalted individual judgment. That is why reading the Bible was important. Modern ideas such as individualism, privacy, and personal freedom would have struck the Puritans as quite strange. They considered too much emphasis on the “self” as dangerous to social harmony and community stability. In N.E, residents carefully monitored each others behavior and chastised or expelled those who violated communal norms. Tolerance of difference was not high on the list of Puritan values.

Differences of opinion about how to organize a Bible Commonwealth emerged from the founding of Massachusetts Bay. With its emphasis on individual interpretations of the Bible, Puritanism contained the seeds of it own fragmentation. The first sustained criticism of the existing order came from the young minister Roger Williams who arrived in Mass Bay in 1631.

ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE FOUNDING OF RHODE ISLAND
Williams began to insist that Mass Bay’s congregations withdraw from the Church of England and the church and state be separated. “Soul liberty,” he believed required that individuals be allowed to follow their consciences wherever they led.

Williams also believed that any law-abiding citizen should be allowed to practice whatever form of religion he chose. If the govt., forbade religious liberty then it violated the principle that genuine religious faith is voluntary.

His aim was to strengthen religion not weaken it. He insisted that the embrace of govt., corrupted the purity of Christian faith and drew believers into endless religious wars. He rejected the conviction that Puritans were an elect people on a divine mission to spread the true faith. He denied that God had singled out any group as special favorites.

1636: Williams was banished from Mass Bay. He and his followers moved south and established the colony of Rhode Island. R.I., became a beacon of religious freedom.

R.I., had no established church. No religious qualification for voting until the 18th century. Its’ govt., was also more democratic. The assembly was elected twice a year, the governor annually, and town meetings were held more frequently than elsewhere in N.E.

THE TRIALS OF ANNE HUTCHINSON

More threatening to the Puritan establishment was Anne Hutchinson. She arrived in Mass Bay in 1634. She began to hold meetings in her home, where she led religious discussions among men and women, including a number of prominent merchants and officials.

In her view, salvation was God’s gift to the elect and could not be earned by human effort. Most Puritans also believed this. But she charged that nearly all the ministers in Mass Bay were guilty of faulty preaching for distinguishing “saints” from the damned by activities such as church attendance and moral behavior rather than by an inner stare of grace.

Her critics denounced Hutchinson for practicing Anti-nomianism – a term for putting one’s own judgment or faith above both human law and the teachings of the church. 1637: She was placed on trial for sedition.

She more than held her own when questioned by Puritan leaders. But when she spoke of divine revelations, of God speaking to her directly instead of through ministers or the Bible, she violated Puritan doctrine and sealed her own fate.

Hutchinson and a number of her followers were banished. Her family made its way to R.I. and settled in Portsmouth. They moved to Long Island where she and most of her relatives perished during an Indian war.

THOMAS HOOKER AND THE FOUNDING OF CONNECTICUT

1636: Minister Thomas Hooker established a settlement at Hartford. Its govt., embodied in the Fundamental Orders of 1639, 2w modeled on that of MA. But men did not have to be church members to vote.

Quite different was the colony of New Haven, founded in 1638 by emigrants who wanted a an even closer connection connection between church and state. 1642: Hartford and New Haven received a royal charter that united them as the colony of Connecticut.

PURITANS AND INDIANS

PURITANS AND INDIANS N.E., like other colonies, had to deal with the difficult problem of relations with the Indians. The native population of N.E., numbered perhaps 100,000 when the Puritans arrived. But because of recent epidemics, the migrants encountered fewer Indians near the coast than in other parts of eastern North America. In areas of European settlement, colonists quickly outnumbered the native population.

PURITANS AND INDIANS Some settlers, like Roger Williams, sought to treat the Indians with fairness and justice. He learned complex Indian languages. He insisted that the king had no right to grant land already belonging to someone else.

PURITANS AND INDIANS John Winthrop believed uncultivated land could legitimately be taken by colonists. He recognized the benefits of buying land rather than seizing it. But he insisted that such purchases must carry with them Indian agreement to submit to English authority and pay tribute to the colonists.

PURITANS AND INDIANS To N.E., leaders, the Indians represented both savagery and temptation. In Puritan eyes, they resembled Catholics with their false gods and deceptive rituals. They enjoyed the wrong kind of freedom. Winthrop condemned as undisciplined “natural liberty” rather than the “moral liberty” of the civilized Christian.

PURITANS AND INDIANS 1642: The General Court of CT., set a penalty of 3 years at hard labor for any colonist who abandoned “godly society” to live with Indians. Puritans announced that they intended to convert the Indians but they did nothing in the first two decades of settlement to accomplish this. They saw Indians as an obstacle to be pushed aside, rather than as potential converts.

PURITANS AND INDIANS Indians in N.E., lacked a paramount chief like Powhatan. Coastal Indians initially sought to forge alliances with the newcomers to enhance their position against inland rivals. But conflict between white settlers and Indians was inevitable.

THE PEQUOT WAR

THE PEQUOT WAR The turning point came in 1637 when several CT., settlers were killed by Pequots – a powerful tribe who controlled the southern N.E., fur trade and exacted tribute from other Indians.

THE PEQUOT WAR A force of CT., and MA., soldiers, augmented by Narragansett allies, surrounded the Pequot village in Mystic and set it ablaze. Over 500 men, women and children lost their lives in the massacre. By the end of the war, most of the Pequot had been exterminated or sold into Caribbean slavery.

THE PEQUOT WAR The treaty that restored peace decreed that the Pequot name be wiped from the historical record. The destruction of the Pequots not only opened the CT. River valley to white settlement but also persuaded other Indians that the newcomers possessed a power that could not be resisted.

THE PEQUOT WAR The colonists ferocity shocked their Indian allies, who considered European military practices barbaric. A few Puritans agreed. But to most Puritans the defeat of a “barbarous nation” by the “sword of the Lord” offered further proof that they were on a sacred mission and that Indians were unworthy of sharing N.E., with the visible saints of the church.

THE NEW ENGLAND ECONOMY

The leaders of N.E., prided themselves on the idea that religion was the primary motivation for emigration. But economic motives were hardly unimportant to Puritans. One promotional pamphlet of the 1620s spoke of N.E., as a place “where religion and profit jump together.”

Most Puritans came from East Anglia an internationally known cloth-producing region. East Anglia was suffering from a series of poor harvests and the dislocations caused by a decline in the cloth trade. Many emigrants were weavers, tailors, or farmers. While they were leaving a depressed region, they were relatively well-off. They sought religious liberty and economic advancement.

Lacking a market stable staple crop like sugar or cotton, New Englanders turned to fishing and timber for exports. But the economy centered on family farms producing their own food for their own use and a small marketable surplus.

Although the Body of Liberties of 1641 made provision for slavery in the Bible Commonwealth, there were very few slaves in 17th century New England. Nor were indentured servants as central to the economy as in the Chesapeake. Most households relied on the labor of their members including women in the home and children in the field.

Wealth was more equally distributed in N.E., than in the Chesapeake. Most families achieved the goal of owning their own land, the foundation for a comfortable independence. Economic development produced a measure of social inequality.

THE NEW ENGLAND COLONY N.E., gradually assumed a growing role within the British empire based on trade. By the second half of the 17th century, N.E., merchants shipped and marketed the staples of other colonies.

N.E., merchants and shippers supplied Europe with fish, timber, and agricultural produce gathered at home. In Boston, a powerful class or merchants arose who challenged some key Puritan policies, including the subordination of economic activity to the common good.

Puritans never abandoned the idea that economic activity should serve the general welfare. But eventually Boston merchants came to exercise decisive influence in public affairs. The govt., of Mass Bay actively promoted economic development. The Puritan experiment would evolve into a merchant-dominated colonial government.

THE HALF-WAY COVENANT

THE HALF-WAT COVENANT In the mid 17th century, some Puritans leaders began to worry about their society’s growing commercialization and declining piety. 1650: Less than half the population of Boston had been admitted to full church membership. MA., church leaders were forced to deal with a growing problem – the religious status of the third generation. Children of the elect were baptized but never became full members of the church since they could not demonstrate the necessary religious commitment or testify to a conversion experience.

THE HALF-WAY COVENANT The Half-Way Covenant of 1662 tried to address this problem. It allowed for the baptism and kind of “half-way” membership for grandchildren of those who emigrated during the Great Migration. In a significant compromise of Puritan beliefs, ancestry not religious conversion became the pathway to inclusion among the elect.

THE HALF-WAY COVENANT Church membership remained stagnant.
1660s-16707s: Ministers were castigating the people for straying away from Puritan beliefs. These warnings called “jeremiads” interpreted crop failings and diseases as signs of divine disapproval and warned of punishment to come if N.E., did not amend its ways.

THE HALF-WAY COVENANT Yet hard work and commercial success in one’s chosen calling had always been central to Puritan beliefs. In this sense, the commercialization of N.E., was much a fulfillment of the Puritan mission in America as a betrayal.

THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES

By the middle of the 17th century, several English colonies existed along the Atlantic coast. Established as part of an ad hoc process rather than arising under any coherent national plan, they differed in economic, political, and social structure.

In N.E., settlements centered on small towns and family farms while in the Chesapeake the seeds had been planted for the development of plantation societies based on unfree labor.

Throughout the colonies, many residents enjoyed freedoms they had not possessed at home, especially access to land and the right to worship as they desired. Others found themselves confined to unfree labor for many years or an entire lifetime. The next century would be a time of crisis and consolidation as the population expanded, social conflicts intensified, and Britain moved to exert greater control over its flourishing No. Am., colonies.

THE DUTCH EMPIRE

THE DUTCH EMPIRE 1609: Two years after the settlement of Jamestown, Henry Hudson, and Englishmen employed by the Dutch East India Company, sailed into New York Harbor searching for a Northwest Passage to Asia. He claimed the area for the Netherlands.

THE DUTCH EMPIRE 1614: Dutch traders had established an outpost at Fort Orange, near present day Albany. 1624: The Dutch West India Company settled colonists on Manhattan Island – paying the native inhabitants, according to legend, a sum equivalent to $24.

THE DUTCH EMPIRE The Dutch prided themselves on their devotion to liberty. In the 17th century, they enjoyed two freedoms: freedom of the press and broad religious toleration. The Dutch came to America to trade, not to conquer.

THE DUTCH EMPIRE The Dutch were less interested in settling the land than in exacting profits from it. Mindful of the Black Legend, the Dutch were determined to treat the native inhabitants more humanely than the Spanish. Initially, they aimed less to displace or convert the Indians than to employ them in the profitable fur trade.

THE DUTCH EMPIRE Dutch authorities recognized Indian sovereignty over the land and forbade settlement in any area until it had been purchased. But they also required tribes to make payments to colonial authorities.

THE DUTCH EMPIRE But New Netherland was hardly free of conflict with the Indians. The expansionist ambitions of Gov. William Kieft, who had in the 1640s began seizing fertile farmland from nearby Algonquian Indians, sparked a three year war that resulted in the death of 1,000 Indians and over 200 colonists.

FREEDOM IN NEW NETHERLAND

Despite the Dutch reputation for cherishing freedom, New Netherland was hardly governed democratically. New Amsterdam, the main population center, was essentially a fortified military outpost controlled by appointees of the West India Company. Although the governor called on prominent citizens for advice from time to time, no elected assembly was established. In other ways, however, colonists enjoyed more liberty, especially in religious freedoms. Even their slaves had rights.

The Dutch dominated the Atlantic slave trade in the 17th century and they introduced slaves into New Amsterdam. By 1650, the colony’s 500 slaves outnumbered those in the Chesapeake.

The slaves enjoyed “half-freedom” – they were required to pay an annual fee to the company and work for it when called upon, but they were given land to support their families. Settlers employed slaves on family farms or for household or craft labor, not on large plantations.

Women in Dutch settlements enjoyed far more independence than women in the English colonies. Married women maintained their legal identity. They could go to court, borrow money, and own property.

Most striking was the religious freedom that attracted a population far more diverse than the Chesapeake and New England. 1630s: 18 languages were spoken in New Amsterdam. Religious toleration extended not only to Protestants but also to Catholics, and grudgingly to Jews.

1654: 23 Jews arrived in New Amsterdam. Referring to them as “members of a deceitful race,” Gov. Peter Stuyvesant ordered them to leave the colony. The Company overruled him.

During the 17th century, the Netherlands sent 1 million people overseas to populate and govern their far-flung colonies. Very few made No. America their destination. Mid-1660s: The European population of New Netherland numbered 9,000. New Netherland remained a tiny backwater in the Dutch empire.

FRENCH COLONIZATION

FRENCH COLONIZATION New France, a far larger colony, also failed to attract settlers. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608.

FRENCH COLONIZATION 1643: Jesuit priest Jacques and the fur trader Louis Joliet located the Mississippi River. 1681: Sieur de la Salle descended to the Gulf of Mexico, claiming the entire Mississippi Valley for the French. Eventually, New France formed an arc along the St. Lawrence, Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers, pinning the English settlements to coastal areas.

FRENCH COLONIZATION Until 1663, when the population of European origin was fewer than 3,000, French Canada was ruled by the Company of New France through a governor appointed in France. There was no representative assembly. 1700: The number of white inhabitants of New France had risen to only 19,000, well below that of the English colonies to the south.

NEW FRANCE AND THE INDIANS

With its small white population and emphasis on the fur trade, the viability of New France depended on friendly relations with local Indians. The French prided themselves on adopting a more humane policy than their Spanish and English rivals.

The French worked out a complex series of military, commercial, and diplomatic connections, the most enduring alliances between Indians and settlers in colonial North America. The Jesuits, a missionary religious order, did seek, with some success, to convert the Indians to Catholicism. They allowed Christian Indians a high degree of independence and did not seek to suppress all traditional practices.

The French brought striking changes in Indian life. Participation in the fur trade brought Indians into the burgeoning Atlantic economy. Indians were soon swept into rivalries between European empires, and Europeans into conflicts among Indians.

New France witnessed considerable cultural exchange and intermixing between colonial and native populations. Indians and whites encountered each other for many years on the basis of relative equality. The French seemed willing to accept Indians as part of colonial society.

The French encouraged the Indians to wear European clothing, adopt the European division of labor between men and women, and speak French. Indians who converted to Catholicism were promised full citizenship. It was far rarer for an Indian to adopt French ways than for French settlers to become attracted to the “free” life of the Indians.

THE CONQUEST OF NEW YORK

1660: Charles II assumed the English throne. The restoration of the monarchy sparked a new period of colonial expansion. The govt., chartered new trading ventures, notably the Royal African Company with a monopoly of the slave trade. Within a generation, the number of English colonies in North America doubled.

First to come under English control was New Netherland, seized in 1664 during the Anglo-Dutch War and awarded to the king brother James, the duke of York. Hence the colony was re-named New York.

English rule transformed a minor military base into an important imperial outpost, a seaport trading with the Caribbean and Europe, and a launching pad for military operations against the French. New York’s European population, around 9,000 when the English assumed control, rose to 20,000 by 1685.

The terms of Dutch surrender guaranteed that the religious freedom and property holdings of the colony’s many ethnic communities would be respected. But the English ended the Dutch tradition by which married women conducted business in their own names and inherited some of the property acquired during marriage.

English rule introduced more restrictive attitudes toward blacks. Blacks who enjoyed the status of “freeman” obtained in birth in the city or by an act of local authorities enjoyed special privileges compared to others. But the English expelled free blacks from many skilled jobs.

THE CONQUEST OF NEW FRANCE
English rule strengthened the position of the Iroquois Confederacy of upstate NY. 1670s: The English and the Iroquois entered into an alliance – The Covenant Chain.

Under this Covenant, the imperial ambitions of both parties reinforced one another. The Five Iroquois Nations assisted Gov. Edmund Andros in clearing NY of rival tribes and helped the British in attacks on the French and their Indian allies.

Andros recognized Iroquois claims of authority over Indian communities in the Ohio Valley. 1680s: Indians around the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regrouped and with French aid attacked the Iroquois, pushing east.

By the end of the century, the Five Nations adopted a policy of neutrality, seeking to play the European empires off against one another while continuing to profit from the fur trade.

Many colonists, meanwhile, began to complain that they were being denied the “liberties of Englishmen,” especially the right to consent to taxation – foreshadowing the American Revolution. Discontent was especially strong on Long Island, which had been largely settled by New Englanders used to self-government. 1683: The Duke of York agreed to call an elected assembly.

The Assembly’s first act was to draft a Charter of Liberties and Privileges. The Charter required that elections be held every three years among male property owners and the freemen of NYC. It reaffirmed traditional English rights such as trial by jury and security of property. It also reaffirmed religious toleration for all Protestants.

THE FOUDNING OF CAROLINA

THE FOUNDING OF CAROLINA
Far more than three decades after the establishment of MD in 1634, no new English settlement was planted in North America. 1663: Charles II awarded eight proprietors the right to establish a colony to the north of Florida, as a barrier to Spanish expansion. 1670: The first settlers arrived Carolina.

At first, the Carolinas armed friendly Indians, employing them on raids into Spanish Florida, and enslaved others, shipping them to other mainland colonies and the West Indies. : The number of Indian slaves exported from Charleston was larger than the number of African slaves imported.

1715: The Yamasee and Creek alarmed by the enormous debts they had incurred in trade with the settlers and by slave trader raids into their territory, rebelled. The uprising was crushed, and most of the remaining Indians were enslaved or driven out of the colony.

1669: The Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolinas proposed a feudal society with an hereditary nobility, serfs and slaves. The Constitutions, to attract settlers, provided for an elected assembly and religious toleration.

The proprietors also instituted a generous headright system, offering 150 acres for each member of an arriving family (in the case of an indentured servant the land went to the employer). Under this headright system, 100 acres were provided to male servants who completed their terms.

The feudal system envisioned by the founders of the colony never was established. Slavery, not feudalism, made Carolina an hierarchical society. The proprietors instituted a rigorous legal code that provided slaveowners “absolute power and authority” over their human property and included imported slaves in the headright system.

Carolina was a slave society from the outset, although in its early days its economy centered on cattle raising and trade with local Indians, not agriculture. Carolina grew slowly until planters discovered the staple – rice – that would make them the wealthiest elite in English No. America and their colony an epicenter of mainland slavery.

THE HOLY EXPERIMENT: PENNSYLVANIA

The last English colony to be established in the 17th century was PA. The proprietor William Penn envisioned it as a place of religious freedom and colonists and Indians would coexist in harmony.

Penn was a devout member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. He was very concerned to establish a refuge for Quakers, who faced increasing persecution. He had already assisted a group of Quakers in purchasing half of what became the colony of N.J>

1677: Penn was largely responsible for the frame of govt., the New Jersey Concessions, one of the most liberal in the area. It created an with the hope of elected assembly with a broad suffrage, established religious liberty, and divided the proprietors’ investment into 100 shares with the hope of promoting the development of a society of small farmers.

Penn hoped that PA., could be governed according to Quaker principles. To Quakers, liberty was a universal entitlement. Penn also treated Indians with consideration almost unique in the colonial experience.

Penn arranged to purchase Indian land before reselling it to colonists. He offered refuge to tribes driven out of other colonies by warfare. Since Quakers were pacifists, peace with the native population was essential.

Religious freedom was Penn’s most fundamental principle. His Charter of Liberty offered “Christian liberty” to all who affirmed a belief in God and did not use their freedom to promote “licentiousness.” There was no established church. Attendance at religious services was voluntary. Jews were barred from office by a required oath affirming belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Quakers upheld a strict code of personal morality. Penn’s Frame of Govt., prohibited swearing, drunkenness, and adultery. Private religious beliefs may not have been enforced by the govt., but moral public behavior certainly was. Not religious uniformity but a virtuous citizenry would be the foundation of Penn’s social order.

THE HOLY EXPERIMENT: PENNSLYVANIA
Penn established an appointed council to originate legislation and an assembly elected by male taxpayers and “freemen.” These rules made a majority of the male population eligible to vote. Penn owned all the land and sold it to settlers rather than granting it outright.

Ironically, the freedoms PA., offered to European immigrants contributed to the deterioration of freedom for others. The opening of PA., led to an immediate decline in the number of indentured servants choosing to sail to VA., and MD., a development that did much to shift those colonies toward reliance on slave labor.

THE COLONIES IN CRISIS

THE COLONIES IN CRISIS The colonies witnessed numerous crises in the last quarter of the 17th century. These crises rocked all the colonies. There were homegrown crises and crises in Europe. All the crises contributed to the emerging American identity and the American Revolution.

BACON’S REBELLION The most dramatic crisis took place in VA.
Gov. William Berkeley had for 30 years run a corrupt regime with an inner circle of the colony’s wealthiest tobacco planters. He rewarded his followers with land grants and lucrative offices.

BACON’S REBELLION At first, VA’s, tobacco boom had benefited not only planters but also small farmers. But as tobacco farming spread inland, planters connected with Berkeley engrossed the best lands, leaving freed servants with no alternatives but to work as tenants or to move to the frontier. Heavy taxes on tobacco and falling prices because of overproduction reduced the prospects of small farmers.

BACON’S REBELLION 1670s: Poverty among whites had reached levels reminiscent of England. In addition, the right to vote, previously enjoyed by all adult white men, was confined to landowners. Berkeley maintained peaceful relations with the Indians. He refused to allow white settlement in areas reserved for Indians. This angered many land-hungry colonists.

BACON’S REBELLION 1676: Long-simmering social tensions coupled with resentment against the injustices of the Berkeley regime erupted into Bacon’s Rebellion. The spark was a minor confrontation between Indians and colonists on VA’s western frontier. Settlers now called for the extermination or removal of the colony’s Indian population to open more land to white settlement.

BACON’S REBELLION Berkeley refused.
An uprising ensued that careened out of control. Beginning with a series of Indian massacres, it quickly grew into a full-fledged rebellion against Berkeley and his system of rule.

BACON’S REBELLION O some extent, Bacon’s Rebellion was a conflict within the colonial elite. The leader, Nathaniel Bacon, was a wealthy and ambitious planter. His backers included men of wealth outside of Berkeley’s circle.

BACON’S REBELLION Bacon’s call for the removal of all Indians from the colony, a reduction of taxes and an end to rule by “grandees” rapidly gained support from small farmers, landless men, indentured servants, and some slaves. He promised freedom (including access to Indian lands) to all who joined his ranks.

BACON’S REBELLION Bacon gathered a force for a campaign against Berkeley. He refused Berkeley’s order to disband. He marched on Jamestown, burning it to the ground. Berkeley fled, and Bacon became ruler of VA.

BACON’S REBELLION Only the arrival of a squadron of warships from England restored order. 23 of Bacon’s supporters were hanged. Bacon had taken ill and died shortly after Berkeley’s departure.

BACON’S REBELLION The specter of civil war among whites frightened VA’s ruling elite. They took dramatic steps to consolidate their power and improve their image. Planters developed a new political style in which they cultivated the support of poorer neighbors.

BACON’S REBELLION The authorities reduced taxes and adopted a more aggressive Indian policy opening western lands to small farmers. They accelerated the shift from indentured servants to slaves. The Rebellion produced an expansion of freedom for white Virginians. But this freedom rested on the final dispossession of the colony’s Indians and the importation of massive numbers of African slaves.

KING PHILIP’S WAR

KING PHILIP’S WAR The bloodiest and most bitter conflict occurred in Southern New England. 1675: An Indian alliance launched attacks on farms and settlements. It was the most dramatic and violent conflict in the region in the entire 17th century.

KING PHILIP’S WAR N.E.’s described the Wampanoag leader Metacom (King Philip) as the uprising’s mastermind, although in fact most tribes fought under their own leaders. The fate of the N.E. colonies hung in the balance for several months.

KING PHILIP’S WAR 1676: Indian forces had attacked nearly half of N.E.’s ninety towns. 12 in MA., were destroyed. The line of settlement was pushed back almost to the Atlantic coast.

KING PHILIP’S WAR Mid 1676: The tide of battle turned and a ferocious counterattack broke the Indians’ power once and for all. Together colonial forces and Indian forces inflicted devastating punishment on the rebels. Men, women, and children were killed or sold into slavery in the West Indies.

KING PHILIP’S WAR 1,000 settlers were killed.
3,000 Indians were killed. Most of the survivors fled to Canada or New York. Metacom (King Philip) was captured and executed.

KING PHILIP’S WAR Even the “praying , Indians” – about 2,000 Indians converted to Christianity – suffered. Removed from their towns to Deer Island in Boston Harbor supposedly for their own protection, many perished from disease and lack of food. Both sides committed atrocities, but in its aftermath the image of Indians as bloodthirsty savages became firmly established in the N.E. mind.

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION

Turmoil in England also reverberated in the colonies. 1688: The long struggle for domination of the English govt., between Parliament and the Crown reached its culmination in the Glorious Revolution. The G.R., established parliamentary supremacy once and for all and secured the Protestant succession to the throne.

Under Charles II, Parliament had asserted its authority in the formation of national policy. It expanded its control of finance, influenced foreign affairs, and excluded from political and religious power Catholics and Dissenters.

1685: Charles II died and was succeeded by James II, his brother. James II was a Catholic and a believer in the divine right of kings. 1687: James II decreed religious tolerance for Catholics and Dissenters.

1688: The birth of James II’s son raised the prospect of a Catholic succession, alarming those who equated “popery” with tyranny. A group of aristocrats invited Dutch nobleman William of Orange, the husband of James II’s Protestant daughter, Mary, to assume the throne in the name of English liberties.

Nov. 1688: William landed in England with a small army. As the landed elite and leaders of the Anglican Church rallied to William’s cause. James II fled and the bloodless revolution was complete.

The Glorious Revolution was in effect a coup engineered by a small group of aristocrats in alliance with an ambitious Dutch prince. They had no intention in challenging the institution of the monarchy. But the overthrow of James II entrenched more firmly than ever the notion that liberty was the birthright of all Englishmen and the king was subject to the rule of law.

To justify the ouster of James II, the Parliament in 1689 enacted a Bill of Rights. It listed parliamentary powers such as control over taxation as well as rights of individuals including trial by jury.

THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION AND THE AMERICAN COLONIES
The G.R., exposed fault lines in colonial society and offered local elites an opportunity to regain authority that had recently been challenged. Up until the 1670s, the colonies had essentially governed themselves, with little interference from England. This policy is called salutary neglect. But after the G.R., Parliament began ti assert its authority over the colonies.

1680s: England moved to reduce colonial autonomy. : James II, hoping to raise more money from America, combined CT., Plymouth, NH, RI, NY and NJ into a super-colony, the Dominion of New England. It was ruled by NY governor Sir Edmund Andros who did not have to answer to an elected assembly. These events reinforced the impression that James II was an enemy of freedom.

In N.E., Andros’s action alienated everyone not dependent on his administration for favors. He appointed local officials in place of elected ones, imposed taxes without the approval of elected representatives. His rule threatened both English liberties and the church-state relationship at the heart of the Puritan order.

The news of the overthrow of James II triggered rebellions in several colonies. 4/1689: The Boston militia seized and jailed Andros and other officials, whereupon the N.E., colonies reestablished the govts., abolished when the Dominion of New England was established.

After deposing Andros, the N.E., colonies lobbied in London for restoration of their original charters. Most were successful. Not Massachusetts Bay. 1691: The Crown issued a new charter that absorbed Plymouth into Mass Bay and transformed the political structure of the Bible Commonwealth. The governor would now be appointed in London. Massachusetts became a royal colony.

Bacon’s Rebellion, King Philip’s War, and the Glorious Revolution planted the seeds of the American Revolution. The policy of salutary neglect would be changed in 1763 cultivating the seeds of revolution planted in the 17th century.

AMERICAN BEGINNINGS.

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