AP United States History
Mr. M. Pecot
Bailey, Chapter 3:
I. The Protestant Reformation and the Puritan background
a) Martin Luther -- Wittenberg, Germany
1. Marks beginning of Protestant Reformation
§ 1517 - 95 Theses nailed on door of Wittenberg's cathedral
- denounces authority of church hierarchy
- sola scriptura = scripture alone: the scriptures are the only source of God's word (not the Church)
- sola fides = faith alone is the source of salvation (not sacraments or good works)
§ Marks the beginning of a wave of new denominations--each moving further from Catholic forms
b) John Calvin -- Geneva, Switzerland
1. Expounds on ML's teachings: Calvinism
§ the root of Puritanism, Scottish Presbyterianism, the French Huguenots, and the Dutch Reformed church
2. 1536 - Institutes of the Christian Religion
§ Principles of Calvinism:
- God is all-powerful and all good
- Humans are weak and wicked
- Predestination:
- from the moment of creation, the elect had already been chosen for heaven--the rest are bound for hell.
- Visible saints: demonstrate their membership in the elect by living holy lives
b) The Church of England (Anglicanism)
1. King Henry VIII
§ Breaks with the Catholic Church in England
- Anglican Church maintains most of the Roman Catholic rituals and creeds
2. Dissenters within the Anglican Church
§ Puritans
- seek greater purification of the Anglican Church (want it less Roman)
- believe only "visible saints" should be admitted into Church
§ Separatists
- extreme Puritanism
- share the fundamental beliefs of the Puritans but believe the Anglican church was beyond reform…therefore they sought separation from the Anglican church
- James I (1603-1625) sees this religious defiance as possible political defiance and begins crackdowns on the Separatists
II. The Pilgrims and the founding of New England
a) The Separatists seek refuge
1. in Holland (1608-1620)
§ distressed by the worldliness and the "Dutchification" of their children
2. in the New World -- Plymouth Plantation
§ secure the right to settle in Virginia from the Va. Co.
§ 1620 - Mayflower sets sail
- misses the Va and lands in New England (present day Massachusetts)
- squatters (no legal right; under no government)
- Mayflower Compact
- 41 males sign a written agreement to submit to majoritarian rule and abide by certain laws
- a step toward self-gov't
3. Life and leadership in Plymouth Colony
§ 1620-21 - first winter: only 44/102 survive
§ By 1621 colony is on its feet
- begins trade in fur, fish, and timber
§ Leadership
- Capt. Myles Standish (Indian fighter and negotiator)
- William Bradford (elected governor 30 times)
- journals reflect fear of outsiders (non-Puritans) might corrupt the "godly experiment"
§ Plymouth will eventually merge with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691
b) The Massachusetts Bay Colony
1. Founded 1629
§ more moderate Puritans (non-Separatists)
§ royal charter granted to the Mass. Bay Co.
§ starts off on a larger scale than any other colony
- 11 vessels, 1000 people
2. Great Puritan Migration 1630-1642
§ waves of Puritans fleeing persecution and disruption in England
- 11,000 to New England, 11,000 to Chesapeake Region; almost 50,000 to West Indies (esp. Barbados)
3. Life and Leadership
§ Gov. John Winthrop
- wealthy, upper class Englishman
- felt he had a calling to lead a religious experiment
- MBC = a "city on a hill"
§ Early colonial democracy
- Provincial Government
- vote granted to all "freemen" (male member of the Congregational Church) = 2/5 of all males
- annual ly elect governor and assistants, as well as General Court (a representative assembly)
- Town Gov'ts
- all male property owners may speak publicly and vote in town meetings
- Undemocratic elements
- open only to members of the Church
- enforced religious precepts on believers and non believers alike
§ Religious leaders
- wield profound influence over church members
- public interrogations of to determine "conversion"
- e.g., John Cotton
- prominent clergyman…defends gov'ts duty to enforce religious rules
- limits to clergy's power
- Congregations hire and fire ministers and set salary
- clergyman barred from holding official public office
§ Puritan values
- Protestant work ethic
- God "calls" us to certain work…
- intense interest in moral behavior
- Blue laws
- Unity of purpose sought above all (not interest in tolerance of other opinions)
4. Dissenters in the Bay Colony
§ Quakers
- persecuted with fines, floggings, and banishment
§ Ann Hutchinson
- strong-willed, independent
- endorsed antinomianism - an extreme interpretation of predestination
- tried in 1638 and claims she had a direct revelation from God
- banished to Rhode Island…
§ Roger Williams
- Salem minister & Separatist
- challenged legality of the Bay Colony charter and criticized the taking of Indian lands without compensation
- also challenged authority of government to regulate religious behavior (and opposed forcible conversion of natives: "forced religion stinks in the nostrils of God."
- sentenced to exile in England, but escapes and founds Rhode Island
c) Rhode Island
1. Founded 1636 by Roger Williams
§ A liberal haven
- Freedom of religion (including Jews and Catholics)
- no compulsory attendance at worship or taxes to support a state church
- starts with universal manhood suffrage (property qualifications are added later)
2. Rogue's Island: "the traditional home of the otherwise minded"
§ nature of settlers makes the colony fiercely independent, individualistic and stubborn
3. A squatter colony until 1644 when it became a royal colony
d) Connecticut
1. Founded 1636 by Boston Puritans under Rev. Thomas Hooker
§ Fundamental Orders (1639)
- first modern constitution: establishes a government democratically controlled by "substantial citizens" = "men of property and standing."
2. New Haven (1638)
§ neighboring colony founded by strict Puritans seeking a tighter church-state alliance
§ incorporated into Connecticut by Charles II in 1662
e) New Hampshire
1. A fishing, whaling, and trading center
2. Absorbed by Mass. Bay in 1644, but separated by royal order in 1679
III. Puritan-Indian Relations
a) Initial contacts
1. Indian population already decimated by an epidemic when the Plymouth settlers landed
§ more than 3/4 of all native peoples in New England had been killed
§ in no position to resist, the Wampanoag try to befriend the settlers
- Squanto (interpreter)
- Massasoit signs treaty with the Plymouth settlers in 1621
2. Rapid expansion of New England creates friction
§ 1637: Pequot War in Connecticut River Valley
- English and Narrangansett allies
- Mystic River massacre
§ 1675-76: King Phillip's War
- Metacom (Massasoit's son)
- attempt at pan-Indian alliance to resist English
- frontier settlements hit in a coordinated effort throughout New England
- 52 Puritan towns attacked (12 destroyed)
- hundreds of colonists and Indians killes
- Metacom drawn, quartered, and beheaded
- The last stand of the New England tribes
IV. Attempts at Colonial Unity and Independence
a) The New England Confederation (1643)
1. Four colonies unite for defense against common foes (Indian, French, or Dutch) and to deal with intercolonial problems (e.g., runaway slaves and indentured servants)
§ Mass. Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven
- each has 2 votes regardless of population
b) Salutary Neglect
1. Civil wars in England had allowed the colonies to grow without much royal involvement
§ mercantilist laws limiting trade are generally ignored
2. By 1660s, the colonies are like "little commonwealths"
c) Challenges to the independence of the New England colonies
1. 1660 Charles II -- the Restoration monarch -- returned to the throne after 11 years of Parliamentary rule under Puritan leaders
§ seeks to reinvigorate royal power
§ not a fan of Puritans (who, under Oliver Cromwell had beheaded his father)
2. Attempts to limit "disloyal Massachusetts"
§ 1662 grants land to Connecticut (via a sea-to-sea charter)
§ Rhode Island an official colony in 1684.
§ Mass. Bay Charter revoked in 1684
d) The Dominion of New England (1686)
1. Purpose:
§ Royal attempt to bolster the region's defense and to enforce NAVIGATION ACTS
- included all of New England, and later NY and New Jersey
2. Highly unpopular in New England
§ made by royal authority (top-down, not bottom up)
§ Sir Edmund Andros sent to administrate the Dominion: highly unpopular
3. Hostility to Sir Edmund Andros
§ he flaunts his Anglicanism in Puritan Boston
§ presence of British soldiers
§ Suppresses democratic traditions
- curbs town meetings
- dismisses popular assemblies and levies taxes without consent
§ Attempts to suppress smuggling under the Navigation Acts
4. Overthrow of the DNE and Sir Edmund Andros (1688)
§ follows in the wake of the Glorious Revolution in England
- Catholic James II deposed and replaced by William of Orange & Mary (daughter of James II)
5. Effects of the Glorious Revolution
§ Mass. made a royal colony with a royal governor in 1691.
§ William and Mary relax the grip Charles II and James II had put on the colonies:
- a period of salutary neglect begins
§ Remnants of Charles II's administrative controls remain
- more judges, clerks, and customs officials in the colonies
V. The Middle Colonies
a) New York
1. The rise of the Dutch Republic
§ Revolt against Spain - late 16th c.
- aided by Protestant England
§ Conflict with England
- 3 Anglo-Dutch naval wars in the 17th c.
§ Emergence as a commercial power
- Dutch East Indies Co.: 10,000 ships, 190 ships (40 warships)
- Dutch West Indies Co. in Caribbean
2. New Netherland
§ Claimed by Henry Hudson in 1609
§ Permanent claim made in 1623-1624
- est. by the Dutch West Indies Co. for fur-trading
§ Characteristics
- New Amsterdam - major city
- no free speech, democratic practices, freedom of worship
- cosmopolitan town --many different languages, cultures in 1640s
- highly aristocratic
- "patroonships" = feudal estates on the Hudson River granted to those who brought fifty people to settle
§ Conflicts with English and Swede neighbors
- New Sweden (1638-1655)
- Absorbed by the Dutch under Peter Stuyvesant in 1655
- England
- 1/2 of all New Netherlands residents were New England immigrants
- invaded in 1664 by England under the Duke of York
3. New York
§ retains the aristocratic tinge of New Netherlands
- English governors grant huge tracts of land to friends
- ruling "families" wield enormous power in colonial affairs
b) Pennsylvania
1. The Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends)
§ Nonconformists
- refused to pay taxes to support the Church of England
- congregated without a paid clergy (no hierarchy)
- refused to take oaths (including the test oaths)
- pacifists
2. William Penn
§ becomes a Quaker in 1660
§ 1681 - obtains a grant of land in the New World from Charles II (as payment for a debt owed to Penn's father)
§ Penn's Woods (Pennsylvania)
3. Advertising and liberal policies lure immigrants
4. Philadelphia
§ most carefully planned of all colonial cities
5. Characteristics
§ Relatively harmonious relations with the Indians
- land purchased, rather than taken
- peaceful relations collapse as more non-Quaker immigrants flood the colony
§ Liberal
- representative assembly
- all landowners vote
- freedom of worship
- no tax-supported state church
- Catholics or Jews may not hold office, however
- liberal justice: only 2 capital crimes: treason and murder
- no immigration restrictions
§ Prosperous
- grain export
- 3rd largest colony in 1700 (Philadelphia will emerge as the largest colonial city)
c) NewJersey
1. 1664 - Duke of York grants land to two noble proprietors (East and West New Jersey)
2. Attracts New Englanders seeking better farmland
3. 1702 - Crown combines the two Jerseys into one royal colony
d) Delaware
1. Run under the auspices of the PA governor, but has its own assembly.
VI. The Character of the Middle Colonies
a) Breadbasket colonies
1. Fertile soil & broad expanses of land allow for grain cultivation
b) Rivers & seaports
1. broad, slow moving streams: The Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna…allow for fur trading
2. deep estuaries and harbors provide for development of important commercial seaports: NY, Philadelphia, Albany
c) Forests
1. Virgin forests provide for a thriving lumber and shipbuilding industry
d) Ethnically diverse
1. religious toleration
2. ease of obtaining good land attracts landholders