English Colonial Society

and Governance PPT 2

SSUSH 2

Colonial Immigration

• Economic and political difficulties arise in England and Europe as a whole

• “Push factors” leading to immigration

• Political unrest

• High taxation

• Religious persecution

Development of Colonial Government

• Colonial Self-Government develops when local assemblies legislate on local

matters due to:

• distance between the colonies and England

• Structure of colonies

• Large number of eligible voters in the colonies

Beginnings of Self-Governance

• Colonial Self-Governance began with the Mayflower Compact

• House of Burgesses sets precedent for colonial legislatures

• Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is first colonial constitution

House of Burgesses

• legislative assembly established by the Virginia Co. in 1617

• similar to England’s Parliament, called the House of Burgesses

• first self governing colonial legislative body in English colonies

• the representatives appointed by the company’s governor and elected by land-owning males of Virginia

• first self-government in the colonies.

Founding Fathers

• House of Burgesses met until the

American Revolution in 1776

• Many of America’s founding

fathers gained political experience

in these colonial assemblies

Basic Colonial Gov’t structure

• Governor and elected legislature

• Colonial Legislatures:

• Representatives: landowning white males

• Made local policies

• Levied taxes on colony

• Levy: impose

Who Votes?

• Colonial voters:

• Landowning white males

• Larger number of eligible voters in the colonies than in other countries, including

ENGLAND

Bacon’s Rebellion: 1676

• Colonists began to expect that the colonial legislatures would look after

everyone, not just the wealthy

• In Jamestown, former indentured servants after serving their debt were

forced to purchase land on the outskirts of a town, in the frontier area close

to the American Indians

• This caused them to face conflict and problems with American Indians

Bacon’s Rebellion

• Although they paid taxes to the House of Burgesses and expected protection in exchange, they were not given it

• Nathanael Bacon leads the poorer citizens (former indentured servants) against the wealthy Jamestown colonists, including the Royal Governor William Berkeley

• wanted harsher action against the Native Americans in retaliation for their attacks on outlying settlements.

• Rebellion ended by governor of Va.

• IMPORTANCE:

• Shows that colonists develop expectation that gov’t serves all citizens, not just wealthy

Bacon’s Rebellion: 1676

• The rebellion had the effect of further weakening the indenture system while

strengthening the reliance on slavery

• Planters didn’t want to use indentured servants who were given land, thus

making them a stronger group of citizens who could threaten political

and social stability

• To stop this, the planter elite begin to import slaves

• No threat because they were never released from servitude

• Cheaper source of labor

Growth of the African Population

• Tobacco farmers and other cash-crop farmers begin to prosper so

they expanded the size of their farms.

• Most cash crops are labor intensive, so they need more

workers available to plant, grow, and harvest the crops

• First use American Indians, Indentured Servants, but move

towards slave labor in 1600s

• First African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619

The Middle Passage

• Sea voyage that carried Africans to North America was called the Middle Passage

• It was the middle portion of a three-way voyage made by the European ships

• Three hundred to four hundred slaves were crammed into low cargo spaces with no standing room and forced to lie side by side.

• Diseases were common

• Two of every ten slaves died during the passage.

Triangular Trade Route

African American Culture

• No single African culture

• Slaves from West Africa had different cultures.

• In an effort to control the slaves, slave owners attempted force the culture of the region on to their slave populations

• Physical isolation of slaves from their masters led to the creation of a new blended culture rather than the replacement of one culture over another.

African American Culture

• Effect: creation of a unique African-American culture

• Foods, such as okra, watermelon, yams (sweet potatoes), rice are blend of African and

European agriculture

• Blending different African tribes on a single plantation led to the creation of blended

language

• Creole in Louisiana

• Gullah in coastal Georgia and the Carolinas

• Economically coastal colonial South Carolina and Georgia owed its prosperity to the

introduction of rice that was propagated by West African and West Indian slaves.

Architecture

• Slaves built their quarters and slave

masters’ homes

• Some influence can been seen in

style, shot-gun style homes seen in

Haiti, and materials, use of tabby

similar to mud and clay techniques

Trans-Atlantic Trade

• Trans-Atlantic Trade: three step voyage around the Atlantic rim: England to Africa to American Colonies, in which each region traded and received specific goods from the other region

Mercantilism

• Mercantilism:

• Economic theory that the best way for a nation to become strong was to acquire the

most gold and silver (wealth equals power)

Mercantilism

• Colonies are vital to Great

Britain because they have raw

materials not available to the

mother country

• Great Britain imports these

raw materials and sell

finished goods to

accumulate more wealth

• In turn, the British used the

colonists as a ready market for

manufactured goods:

• All finished goods were sold by the

British to the colonists at a higher

price

• To ensure that the colonies only sold to the British, which protects the mercantile system of Britain, Parliament passed laws called Navigation Acts :

• Forced colonists to send all goods to Britain on British ships

• Any good that was exported from the colonies had to go to Britain to be taxed before being sent to other European countries

• Forced colonists to sell some goods to Britain only

Navigation Acts:1690s

Navigation Acts:1690s

• Impact of Navigation Acts on colonies:

• Restricted the profits of the colonists (forced to sell without market competition)

• Restricted development of manufacturing in colonies

• Forced colonists to pay higher prices for goods they were only allowed to purchase

from England

• Increased smuggling of goods into colonies by colonists

• Created a demand for New England shipbuilding as colonists could only send goods on

colonial or British ships

Salutary Neglect

• Colonies become more economically productive if not restricted by policies

that limit their ability to trade (ie Navigation Acts)

• From 1720s until 1760s England allows the colonies to build up their own

trade networks and govern themselves (through colonial governments)

• As long as England was receiving the colonial resources they needed

under the mercantile system then they loosen their oversight of the

colonies trade and colonial self-governance practices

• This is called Salutary Neglect:

• Salutary: producing good effects; beneficial.

• Neglect: a disregard of duty

• England looks the other way when the colonies don’t

follow the rules

• Salutary Neglect

Salutary Neglect

• How will this affect colonists views of themselves and their rights going

forward?

The Great Awakening

• Religious movement influenced by

revivals sweeping England and

Europe in 1730s

• Revival placed an emphasis on

individual religious experience

rather than traditional church

experience

The Great Awakening

• Causes:

• Partly in reaction to the

Enlightenment, which stressed

scientific study

• Colonists wanted to have more a

role in their religion

The Great Awakening

• Ministers such Jonathan Edwards, William Tennent, and George Whitefield began to urge Christians to adopt a more emotional involvement in Christianity:

• Through prayer and personal study of the Bible

• Their sermons were more emotional, appealing to the heart not just the head.

• Believed that church members could have an emotional and personal relationship with God, without needed the ministers of the church

The Great Awakening

• Effects:

• New denominations, Baptists, Methodists, gain members

• Religion became an emotional experience

• Enforces ideas of autonomy from England as colonial churches appoint their own ministers and ran their own churches (a break from the England influence of the past)

• This independence reinforced the political ideas of John Locke and Thomas Paine during coming years