The Middle Colonies
Back in England… King Charles I was worse than King James as far as the Puritans were concerned. They hated Charles so much that he was beheaded in 1649, and Oliver Cromwell took over.
Sir Anthony VanDyck, Charles I: King of England at the Hunt, 1635 Musée du Louvre, Paris King James
Back in England… Cromwell was a Puritan and a military dictator during the 1650's, and made a miserable time for Catholics, but he didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the colonies.
Oliver Cromwell
Back in England… But, soon enough, Cromwell died (1658), and Charles II came to the throne. This is called the Restoration. Charles II repaid his supporters by making them Proprietors in the New World.
King Charles II, 1685 by Godfrey Kneller ( )
New Netherlands becomes New York After the Restoration, King Charles II decided to go to war with the Netherlands, and sent their ships to Manhattan Island in 1685.
New Netherlands becomes New York A guy named Stuyvesant was the governor of the colony, and because he was so rotten, England was able to take over without a fight.
New York New York was ruled by the Duke of York, the brother of Charles II. This is called a proprietary colony. New York grew quickly and prospered. New York City rapidly became a center for trade.
The Duke of York James, the brother of the King
Pennsylvania: In 1681, King Charles II gave some land between New York and Maryland to William Penn, because the King owed a debt to Penn's father.
Pennsylvania: Penn was a Quaker, a.k.a. the Society of Friends, a small religious group that was also unpopular in England.
Pennsylvania: Quaker religious beliefs: o 1. Each person had an "inner light" o 2. All people were equal before God. o 3. Each person had a "spark of divinity"
Pennsylvania: Each person had an "inner light" that could be used to communicate with God directly, C of E thought this was an offensive idea, since it was believed only the ministers were to do this.
Pennsylvania: The Quakers were a religion that believed all people were equal before God: men and women, rich and poor, noble and common, and this disrupted the social order.
Pennsylvania: If each person had a "spark of divinity," then if a person did something bad, it was in a way saying God did something bad, since God was a part of every person; people could not be expected to pay taxes, fight wars, etc.
Pennsylvania: Penn decided to make Pennsylvania a "Holy Experiment," kind of a New England for the Quakers, but Penn also believed in religious toleration, so all faiths were welcome.
A Quaker family holding a prayer meeting.
Pennsylvania: Penn was very liberal, and because of this Pennsylvania grew faster than any other colony, attracting colonists from all over Europe. Philadelphia was even bigger than London by the time of the Revolution.
Philadelphia, By the 1770s Philadelphia had become a highly cultured and prosperous city, the largest in America.
Delaware and New Jersey: Delaware was a part of Pennsylvania until after the Revolution. New Jersey became a Royal colony in 1702.
Middle Colonies, 1685
Crouch, Nathaniel. English Empire in America. London, 1685