PERIOD 2: 1607 – 1754
FAST REVIEW
KEY POINTS
TIMELINE
1607 English establish Jamestown
1608 French establish Quebec
1619 First Africans arrive in Virginia
1619 House of Burgesses convenes
1620 Pilgrims found Plymouth
1630 Puritans found Massachusetts Bay Colony
1636 Puritans banish Roger Williams
1637 Puritans condemn Anne Hutchinson for heresy
1651 First English Navigation Acts
1675 King Philip’s War
1676 Bacon’s Rebellion
1680 Pueblo Revolt
1681 William Penn granted Pennsylvania charter
1730 Beginning of First Great Awakening
1754 Beginning of the French and Indian War
NEW FRANCE
1. French colonists used access to key waterways such as the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi River to facilitate trade with Native Americans.
2. French fur traders and trappers dominated the lucrative fur trade. Beaver skins were France’s major “money crop.” In the best years, traders bought and sold over 100,000 beaver skins. For example, in 1693, a fleet of 400 Native American canoes brought furs to French traders in Montreal.
3. French fur traders developed a cooperative relationship with Native American tribes. They used economic trade and intermarriage to expand their influence. Unlike the English settlers, they did not build plantations and farms on lands claimed by Native Americans.
THE CHESAPEAKE COLONIES
1. The Chesapeake colonies included Virginia and Maryland.
2. Jamestown was founded by the Virginia Company, a joint-stock company dedicated to making a profit.
3. Fertile soil, a warm climate, abundant rainfall, and a long growing season enabled Chesapeake planters to successfully cultivate tobacco as a cash crop.
4. Tobacco required a large and inexpensive labor force. Virginia planters initially turned to English indentured servants. They comprised about three-fourths of the 120,000 people who immigrated to the Chesapeake during the seventeenth century.
5. After 1650, improving conditions enabled a growing number of indentured servants to earn their freedom and become independent farmers. But their hopes for success proved to be fleeting. Falling tobacco prices and rising taxes caused mounting frustration and resentment.
6. Discontented frontier farmers, many of whom had been indentured servants, rebelled against the arbitrary rule of Governor Berkeley and the haughty class of wealthy planters he favored.
7. Led by Nathaniel Bacon, the rebels captured and burned Jamestown. But Bacon’s sudden death from dysentery enabled Berkeley to regain the upper hand and crush the rebellion.
8. Although Bacon’s proved to be brief, it had enduring and fateful consequences. It exposed tensions between the wealthy planters and the poor former indentured servants. The threat of violence encouraged alarmed Chesapeake planters to replace unruly and potentially rebellious indentured servants with enslaved Africans.
9. The number of enslaved Africans in Virginia rose from 300 in 1650 to over 100,000 in 1750. Strict laws codified slavery as a system of race-based, inherited, and perpetual bondage. Virginia thus developed a rigid racial system that contrasted with the racially mixed society in New Spain.
THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES
1. The New England colonies included Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. These colonies were founded by a relatively homogenous group of Puritan settlers who fled religious persecution in England.
2. The Puritans had a powerful sense of mission. In his famous “City Upon a Hill” sermon, John Winthrop expressed the Puritan belief that they had a special pact with God to build a “city upon a hill” that would serve as an ideal Christian commonwealth.
3. Although the Puritans came to America for religious freedom, they did not tolerate outspoken religious dissenters. For example, Puritan authorities banished Anne Hutchinson for her unorthodox religious views and Roger Williams for his unorthodox political views.
4. The Puritans settled in families and rarely intermarried with Native Americans.
They typically lived in small tightly knit communities centered around a meetinghouse.
5. The New England environment featured long, cold winters, stony soils, and relatively brief growing seasons. Farmers nonetheless cultivated a healthy mix of crops that included wheat, rye, maize, potatoes, and beans. The dense hardwood forests produced fine lumber for ships.
6. Familiar forms of British institutions such as town meetings and representative assemblies took root in the New England colonies.
THE MIDDLE ATLANTIC COLONIES
7. The Middle Atlantic colonies included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.
8. Geography blessed the region with broad navigable rivers and deep natural harbors that promoted commerce and diverse business opportunities.
9. Middle Atlantic farmers grew abundant crops of wheat, corn, and other grains. Enterprising merchants shipped the region’s surplus grains to the sugar plantations in the Caribbean. Killing fall frosts meant they would not be tempted to cultivate tobacco.
10. William Penn founded Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers. Quakers were religious dissenters who believed that all people were equal since every individual possessed a spiritual inner light. Quakers were pacifists who refused to bear arms. They advocated religious toleration, opposed slavery, and allowed women to speak publicly in religious meetings.
THE BRITISH WEST INDIES COLONIES
1. Sugar plantations dominated economic life in the British West Indies. Sugar required expensive equipment, a large labor force, and extensive land holdings.
2. The West Indian sugar economy created a society consisting of a fabulously wealthy planter elite, a vast population of enslaved Africans, and a small number of free whites. The scarcity of land on small islands forced many whites to leave the British West Indies.
TRANSATLANTIC TRADE
1. The exchange of goods and labor between Africa, the Americas, and Europe led to the emergence of a transatlantic economy.
2. Technological advances in navigation and ship construction allowed for improved transportation, communication, and trade volume across the Atlantic.
3. MERCANTILISM was a British economic policy designed to achieve a favorable balance of trade by exporting more goods than it imported. In order to achieve this goal, Great Britain purchased raw materials from its American colonies and then sold them more expensive manufactured goods.
4. Growing Atlantic trade led Parliament to enact a series of Navigation Acts intended to integrate the American colonies into a coherent imperial structure based on mercantilist principles.
5. European wars prevented Great Britain from rigorously enforcing the Navigation Acts. During a period of extended “salutary neglect,” colonial merchants successfully evaded burdensome mercantile regulations.
NATIVE AMERICANS AND THE COLONISTS
1. The New England Puritans and the Chesapeake colonists followed a similar pattern of interaction with Native Americans.
2. Colonists in both regions began by establishing peaceful relations with the
indigenous peoples. However, tensions quickly arose as the expanding colonial population placed relentless pressure on tribal lands and resources. At the same time, colonists began to view Native Americans as “savages” who practiced “cruel and barbarous” religions.
3. Conflicts over land and culture led to a series of costly wars. In Virginia, the Powhatan confederacy launched bloody attacks that failed to dislodge the English colonists. At the same time, New Englanders successfully defeated a coalition led by a Native American leader they named King Philip. The brutal raids claimed the lives of 1,000 settlers and at least 4,000 Native Americans. The clashes in Virginia and New England left the Native Americans a broken and defeated people.
SLAVERY IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES
1. Geography played a crucial role in the growth of slavery in the Southern
colonies. Fertile land, a warm climate, abundant rainfall, and a long growing season enabled planters in Virginia and South Carolina to grow tobacco, rice, and indigo as cash crops.
2. Tobacco and rice required a large supply of inexpensive labor. Enslaved Africans provided a number of economic advantages. Unlike indentured servants, slaves were compelled to work for the duration of their lives.
3. By the mid-1700, a small but powerful group of wealthy planters dominated Southern society. Although the majority of white families in the South did not own slaves, they did aspire to become slave owners. Impoverished whites felt superior to enslaved Africans, thus providing social support for slavery.
4. Few seventeenth and early eighteenth-century white colonists questioned human bondage as either morally unacceptable or a contradiction of their belief in liberty.
5. In 1705, the Virginia General Assembly enacted laws codifying slavery as a system of race-based, inherited, and perpetual bondage. The Virginia statues provided models for similar laws in other Southern states.
COLONIAL SOCIETY AND CULTURE
1. The FIRST GREAT AWAKENING was a religious revival that stressed emotion as a way to achieve personal salvation. In contrast, the ENLIGHTENMENT was an intellectual movement that stressed human reason as a way to discover the natural laws that regulated both the universe and human society.
2. Both the First Great Awakening and the Enlightenment challenged traditional authority. The First Great Awakening challenged the authority of the “Old Light” Puritan and Anglican ministries. The Enlightenment challenged the authority of the British Crown and royal officials in the colonies.
3. The First Great Awakening led to the emergence of a number of Protestant Evangelical sects. Since no one sect was strong enough to dominate the others, the different sects had to tolerate each other. This led to support for freedom of religion in America.
4. The Enlightenment’s concepts of reason and natural rights reinforced the colonial idea that the colonies could govern themselves. The right to self-government is stressed in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.