Settling the Northern Colonies

“Settling the Northern Colonies”

1. 
   What role did religion play in the founding of the New England colonies? Do you see any irony in the founding of Plymouth/MBC and the growth and development of subsequent New England colonies?
   
2. 
   How were religion and politics related?
   
3. 
   In what ways did Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams religious attitudes influence later colonial political actions. Compare Hutchinson, Williams, and Bacon in terms of political impact.
   
4. 
   Describe the relationship of NE colonists with the natives? What do you believe was the significant factor in tensions that develop?
   
5. 
   How Andros’s actions continue the growing colonial resentment to British authority?
   
6. 
   How were the Middle colonies truly the middle colonies? Consider political, economic, and social aspects.
   
7. 
   How was Pennsylvania different?
   
8. 
   How are the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies similar? Different? Consider economic, political, and social aspects.
   
9. 
   Based on your understanding of the colonial experience in the 17^th through the mid 18^th century, was the American Revolution inevitable? What are the three most important factors?
   

1. 
   The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism
   
   1. 
      Beginnings
      
      1. 
         In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral.
         
         1. 
            He ignited the Protestant Reformation.
            
      2. 
         John Calvin preached Calvinism
         
         1. 
            Basic doctrines were stated in the 1536 document entitled Institutes of the Christian Religion.
            
         2. 
            Stated that all humans were weak and wicked.
            
         3. 
            Only the predestined could go to heaven, no matter what.
            
         4. 
            Calvinists were expected to seek “conversions,” signs that they were one of the predestined, and afterwards, lead “sanctified lives.”
            
      3. 
         In England, King Henry VIII was breaking his ties with the Holy Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s.
         
      4. 
         Some people, called Puritans, were influenced to totally reform the Christian faith.
         
   2. 
      Puritans
      
      1. 
         All believed that only “visible saints” should be admitted to church membership.
         
      2. 
         Separatists vowed to break away from the Church of England because the “saints” would have to sit with the “damned.”
         
      3. 
         King James I harassed the Separatists out of England
         
         1. 
            believed that if people could defy him as their spiritual leader, they might defy him as their political ruler.
            
         2. 
            Moved to Holland
            

2. 
   The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth
   
   1. 
      The Voyage
      
      1. 
         They wanted a place where they were free to worship their own religion and could live and die as good Puritans.
         
      2. 
         After negotiating with the Virginia Company, the Separatists left Holland and sailed for 65 days on the Mayflower
         
         1. 
            arrived off the rocky coast of New England in 1620, a trip in which only one person died and one person was born.
            
         2. 
            Less than half of the pilgrims on the Mayflower were actually Separatists.
            
         3. 
            The Pilgrims became squatters, people without legal right to land and without specific authority to establish government.
            
      3. 
         Captain Myles Standish (a.k.a. Captain Shrimp) proved to be a great Indian fighter and negotiator.
         
      4. 
         Before disembarking from ship, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact, a set of rules by which to obey. (Read Mayflower Compact)
         
         1. 
            Though it wasn’t a constitution, it did set the standard for later constitutions.
            
      5. 
         In the winter of 1620-21, only 44 of the 102 survived.
         
      6. 
         1621 brought bountiful harvests, though, and the first Thanksgiving was celebrated that year.
         
      7. 
         William Bradford, chosen governor of Plymouth 30 times in the annual elections, was a great leader, and helped Plymouth to survive and trade fur, fish, and lumber.
         
      8. 
         In 1691, Plymouth finally merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
         
3. 
   The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth
   
   1. 
      Settling In
      
      1. 
         In 1629, some non-Separatist Puritans got a royal charter from England to settle in the New World.
         
      2. 
         well-equipped group of which about 11,000 people came to Massachusetts.
         
      3. 
         John Winthrop was elected governor or deputy governor for 19 years, helping Massachusetts prosper in fur trading, fishing, and shipbuilding.
         

4. 
   Building the Bay Colony
   
   1. 
      Government
      
      1. 
         Soon after the establishment of the colony, the franchise was extended to all “freemen:” adult males who belonged to the Puritan congregations (later called the Congregational church), making people who could enjoy the franchise about two fifths of the total population.
         
         1. 
            Unchurched men and women weren’t allowed in.
            
      2. 
         The provincial government was not a democracy.
         
         1. 
            Governor Winthrop feared and distrusted the common people, calling democracy the “meanest and worst” of all forms of government.
            
      3. 
         Religious leaders wielded powerful influence over the admission to church membership.
         
      4. 
         John Cotton, a prominent clergy member, was educated at Cambridge and had immigrated to Massachusetts to avoid persecution from his criticism of the Church of England.
         
      5. 
         However, congregations could hire and fire their ministers at will.
         
      6. 
         The Puritan concept of Hell was very serious and scary.
         
         1. 
            Michael Wigglesworth’s “Day of Doom,” written in 1662, sold one copy for every twenty people.
            
5. 
   Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth
   
   1. 
      Defiance
      
      1. 
         Tensions arose in Massachusetts.
         
         1. 
            Quakers were fined, flogged, and/or banished.
            
         2. 
            Anne Hutchinson was a very intelligent, strong-willed, talkative woman who claimed that a holy life was no sure sign of salvation and that the truly saved need not bother to obey the law of either God or man.
            
            1. 
               Brought to trial in 1638, Anne boasted that her beliefs were directly from God.
               
            2. 
               She was banished from the colony and eventually made her way to Rhode Island.
               
            3. 
               She died in New York after an attack by Indians.
               
         3. 
            Roger Williams was a radical idealist hounded his fellow clergymen to make a clean and complete break with the Church of England.
            
            1. 
               He went on to deny that civil government could and should govern religious behavior.
               
            2. 
               He was banished in 1635, and fled to the Rhode Island area the next year.
               
6. 
   The Rhode Island “Sewer”
   
   1. 
      Land of the Outcasts
      
      1. 
         People who went to Rhode Island weren’t necessarily similar; they were just unwanted everywhere else.
         
      2. 
         They were against special privilege.
         
      3. 
         “Little Rhody” was later known as “the traditional home of the otherwise minded.”
         
      4. 
         It finally secured a charter in 1644.
         
7. 
   New England Spreads Out
   
   1. 
      More Settling
      
      1. 
         In 1635, Hartford, Connecticut was founded.
         
      2. 
         Reverend Thomas Hooker led an energetic group of Puritans west.
         
      3. 
         In 1639, settlers of the new Connecticut River colony drafted in open meeting a trailblazing document called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (Read)
         
         1. 
            It was basically a modern constitution.
            
      4. 
         In 1623, Maine was absorbed by Massachusetts and remained so for nearly a century and a half.
         
      5. 
         In 1641, the granite-ribbed New Hampshire was absorbed into Massachusetts.
         
         1. 
            In 1679, the king separated the two and made New Hampshire a royal colony.
            
8. 
   Puritans vs. Indians
   
   1. 
      Violence
      
      1. 
         Before the Puritans had arrived in 1620, an epidemic had swept through the Indians, killing over three quarters of them.
         
      2. 
         At first, Indians tried to befriend the Whites.
         
         1. 
            Squanto, a Wampanoag, helped keep relative peace.
            
      3. 
         In 1637, though, after mounting tensions exploded, English settlers and the powerful Pequot tribe fought in the Pequot War, in which the English set fire to a Pequot village on Connecticut’s Mystic River, annihilating the Indians and bringing about forty years of tentative peace.
         
         1. 
            In an attempt to save face, the Puritans did try to convert some of the Indians, though with less zeal than that of the Spanish and French.
            
      4. 
         In1675, Metacom (called King Philip by the English) united neighboring Indians in a last-ditched attack that failed.
         
         1. 
            The King Philip’s War slowed colonial western march, but Metacom was beheaded and quartered and his head was stuck on a sharp pike for all to see, his wife and son sold to slavery.
            
9. 
   Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence
   
   1. 
      A Bit of Unity Shown
      
      1. 
         In 1643, four colonies banded together to form the New England Confederation.
         
         1. 
            It was almost all Puritan.
            
         2. 
            It was weak, but still a notable milestone toward American unity.
            
      2. 
         The colonies were basically allowed to be semiautonomous commonwealths.
         
      3. 
         After Charles II was restored to the British throne, he hoped to control his colonies more firmly, but was shocked to find how much his orders were ignored by Massachusetts.
         
         1. 
            As punishment, a sea-to-sea charter was given to rival Connecticut (1662), and a charter was given to Rhode Island (1663).
            
         2. 
            Finally, in 1684, Massachusetts’ charter was revoked.
            
10. 
    Andros Promotes the First American Revolution
    
    1. 
       Opposition to England Grows
       
       1. 
          In 1686, the Dominion of New England was created to bolster the colonial defense against Indians and tying the colonies closer to Britain by enforcing the hated Navigation Acts.
          
          1. 
             The acts forbade American trade with countries other than Britain.
             
             1. 
                All colonial imports/exports must be on British merchant ships
                
          2. 
             As a result, smuggling became common.
             
          3. 
             Head of the Dominion was Sir Edmund Andros.
             
             1. 
                Establishing HQ in Boston, he openly showed his association with the locally hated Church of England.
                
             2. 
                His soldiers were vile-mouthed.
                
       2. 
          Andros responded to opposition by curbing town meetings, restricting the courts and the press, and revoking all land titles.
          
       3. 
          He taxed the people without their consent.
          
       4. 
          At the same time, the people of England staged the Glorious Revolution, instating William and Mary to the crown.
          
          1. 
             Result, the Dominion of New England collapsed.
             
          2. 
             Massachusetts got a new charter in 1691, but this charter allowed all landowners to vote, as opposed to the previous law of voting belonging only to the church members.