The Thirteen Colonies and the British Empire

1
The Thirteen Colonies and the British Empire

• 1607-1750

2
Introduction

• Between the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and the
  founding of Georgia in 1733, thirteen distinctly
  different English colonies developed along the
  Atlantic Coast of North America.
• Every colony received its identity and its
  authority to operate by means of a charter, a
  document granting special privileges, from the
  English monarch.

3
Over time, three types of charters- and three
types of colonies- developed

• Corporate colonies, such as Jamestown (before
  1624), were operated by joint-stock companies.
• Royal colonies, such as Virginia after 1624, were
  to be under the direct authority and rule of the
  crown.
• Proprietary colonies, such as Maryland and
  Pennsylvania, were under the authority of
  individuals granted charters of ownership by the
  king.

4
Unlike those who settled the French and Spanish
colonies in the Americas, the English colonists
brought with them a tradition of independence and
representative government.

• Accustomed to holding elections for
  representatives who would speak for property
  owners and either approve or disapprove important
  measures, such as taxes, proposed by the kings
  government
• While political and religious conflicts and civil
  war dominated England, feelings for independence
  grew in the colonies

5
The Chesapeake ColoniesVirginia and Maryland

• In 1632, King Charles I subdivided the vast area
  that had been the Virginia colony.
• He chartered a new colony located on either side
  of Chesapeake Bay and granted control of it to
  Lord Calvert (Lord Baltimore), as a reward for
  this Catholic noblemans loyal service to the
  crown.
• The new colony of Maryland thus became the first
  of several proprietary colonies.

6
Maryland

• Charles I decided to establish proprietorships
  rather than granting more colonies to joint-stock
  companies because he believed that loyal
  proprietors like Lord Baltimore could be trusted
  to faithfully carry out the kings policies and
  wishes.

• The first Lord Baltimore died before he could
  fulfill his twin ambitions of
• - achieving great wealth in his colony
• - providing a safe haven for his fellow
  Catholics
• Control of the Maryland proprietorship passed in
  1632 to his son Cecilius Calvert- the second Lord
  Baltimore- who set about implementing his
  fathers plan in 1634.

7
Maryland (continued)

• To avoid the intolerance and persecution of their
  Puritan enemies, a number of wealthy Catholics
  emigrated to Maryland and established large
  colonial plantations.
• Catholic settlers, however, were outnumbered from
  the start by Protestant farmers (mostly
  Anglicans).
• The Calverts quickly realized that they
  (Catholics) would always be a minority in the
  colony.

• In 1649, Calvert sent from England the draft of
  an Act Concerning Religion (Act of Religious
  Toleration), which assured the freedom of
  worship, though only within the bounds of
  Trinitarian Christianity.
• One of the earliest laws of religious liberty, it
  was limited to Christians

8
Maryland (continued)

• Despite the passage of the Act of Toleration,
  tensions between the Catholic minority and
  Protestant majority fueled political strife as
  zealous Jesuits and crusading Puritans vied for
  religious dominance
• For a period during the late 17th century, the
  Protestant majority, having triumphed, barred
  Catholics from voting and in 1692 succeeded in
  repealing the Toleration Act.

9
The Chesapeake Colonies

• Due to several factors, the population of the
  Chesapeake colonies grew slowly
• unhealthy climate
• high death rate due to disease and Indian attacks
• imbalance between the number of men and women
• - most of the early settlers were young men from
  England and Scotland brought as indentured
  servants to work the tobacco fields
• - for example, in 1619, for example, a boatload
  of Englishwomen were transported to Jamestown to
  become wives of the colonists. Women were
  purchased for 120 pounds of tobacco

10
TobaccoLarge scale cultivation of tobacco
required large tracts of land and an extensive
labor supply. To meet demand for labor, planters
in the Chesapeake colonies employed a system of
indentured servitude.

• Indentured Servants
• In exchange for payment of their passage to
  America, young people from the British Isles
  entered into labor contracts with landowners
  obligating them to work for a specified period of
  time (usually seven years) in exchange for room
  and board
• In effect, indentured servants were under the
  absolute rule of their masters
• At the expiration of the specified period, they
  gained their freedom

• Headright System
• In an effort to attract new settlers and workers,
  the headright system was established, first in
  Virginia and later in Maryland.
• In Virginia, the headright system offered fifty
  acre grants of land which new settlers could
  acquire in a variety of ways.
• - each new settler who paid for his own passage
  received fifty acres
• - anyone (new settler or old) who paid for the
  passage of other immigrants to Virginia would
  receive an additional headright for each new
  arrival.

11
Turbulent Virginia and Bacons Rebellion

• Economic problems
• - beginning in the 1660s, low tobacco prices,
  due in part to overproduction, brought hard
  times to the Chesapeake colonies
• Economic distress fueled political unrest
• Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of
  Virginia (1641-1652 1660-1677), adopted policies
  that favored the large planters and used
  autocratic powers to govern on their behalf.
• - By 1670, the vote was restricted to
  landowners, and elections were rare
• - each county continued to have only two
  representatives, even though some of the new
  counties of the interior contained many more
  people than the older counties of the tidewater
• - Thus, settlers of the backcountry, many of
  them former servants and recent arrivals, were
  underrepresented in the colonys government in
  Jamestown

12
Bacons Rebellion

• In 1676, backcountry unrest and political
  rivalries combined to create Bacons Rebellion
• Nathaniel Bacon, newly arrived from England and a
  member of the backcountry gentry, seized upon
  the grievances of western farmers to lead a
  rebellion against Berkeleys government.
• Bacon and those who joined him resented the
  economic and political control exercised by the
  Jamestown elite

13
Bacons Rebellion

• Howard Zinn describes Bacons Rebellion as not
  easily classifiable as either anti-aristocrat or
  anti-Indian because it was both.
• According to Zinn, Bacons Declaration of the
  People of July of 1676 shows a mixture of
  populist resentment against the rich and frontier
  hatred of the Indians.
• Bacon indicted the Berkeley administration for
• 1. unjust taxes
• 2. putting favorites in high positions
• 3. monopolizing the fur trade
• 4. for not protecting western farmers from the
  Indians

14
Bacons Rebellion

• Backcountry settlements constantly under the
  threat of attack from Indians angry about
  European intrusions (encroachment) into their
  lands
• Begins with a series of attacks by frontier
  settlers against Indians to defend western
  districts from Indian raids
• As fighting intensified, Bacon and other
  backcountry farmers, angry with Berkleys
  cautious and indecisive response to their cries
  for help in fighting the Indians, perpetrated a
  series of unauthorized raids and massacres
  against Indian villages on the Virginia frontier.
• In response, Berkeley proclaimed Bacon and his
  men rebels and what had started as an
  unauthorized assault on the Indians became a
  military challenge to the colonial government
  and the most powerful, violent, insurrection
  against established authority in the history of
  the colonies until the Revolutionary Era.

15
Bacons Rebellion

• Bacons army (a motley force of Englishmen and
  Negroes, a mixture of freemen, servants, and
  slaves) succeeded in burning Jamestown and
  forcing the governor into exile
• Bacons death of dysentery in the fall of 1676,
  however, coupled with the arrival of British
  troops from England enabled the colonial
  government under Berkeley to quickly bring the
  rebellion to an end.
• - Servants and slaves were eventually captured
  and delivered up to their masters. In the end,
  twenty-three rebel leaders were hanged (Zinn, A
  Peoples History, 34)

16
Significance of Bacons Rebellion

• Bacons Rebellion exposed (revealed)
• the continuing struggle to define the boundary
  between Indian and white lands in Virginia
• the bitterness of the competition between
  eastern and western landowners
• the potential for instability in the colonys
  large and growing population of free, landless
  men
• - these men-most of them former indentured
  servants, propertyless, unemployed, with no real
  prospects made up the majority of Bacons Army
• - what had begun as a conflict against Indians
  became a violent manifestation of class
  resentment directed at the tidewater gentry
• -according to Zinn, what was especially
  fearsome for the wealthy white planters was that
  white servants and black slaves joined forces
• How might these potent forces of social unrest be
  kept in check?

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Significance of Bacons Rebellion

• According to Morgan, there was an obvious lesson
  in the rebellion, although Virginians did not
  immediately grasp it
• Resentment of an alien race might be more
  powerful than resentment of an upper class.

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Significance of Bacons Rebellion

• If freemen with disappointed hopes should make
  common cause with slaves of desperate hope, the
  results might be worse than anything Bacon had
  done. The answer to the problemwas racism, to
  separate dangerous free whites from dangerous
  slave blacks by a screen of racial contempt
  (Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom,
  328).
• And so, the most significant effect of Bacons
  Rebellion is the shift toward slavery, toward
  racism. Recognizing the need to prevent social
  unrest from below, large plantation owners of the
  Chesapeake increasingly turned to the African
  slave trade to fulfill their need for labor.

19
Development of New EnglandA Theocratic Society
in Massachusetts

• Ministers had no political power, but exerted
  great influence on church members, who were the
  only people who could vote or hold office
• Government, in turn, protected the ministers,
  taxed the (members and non-members alike) to
  support the church, and enforced the law
  requiring attendance at religious services
• Dissidents had no more freedom to worship than
  the Puritans had had in England
• - Puritan religious leaders were intolerant of
  anyone who questioned the religious teachings
  and practices of the colony
• - A common method for dealing with dissidents
  was to banish them from the Bay Colony
• Colonial Massachusetts could be described as a
  theocracy, a society in which the line separating
  church and state was hard to see

20
Development of New EnglandRhode Island and
Connecticut

• As the population of Massachusetts increased,
  many settlers- those who did not accept all the
  religious tenets of the colonys leaders or those
  who lacked church membership (and hence, the
  right to vote) left and began to spread
  settlement throughout present-day New England.
• Dissidents formed the nucleus for the founding of
  several colonies in New England, which would
  ultimately develop into Rhode Island and
  Connecticut

21
Rhode Island

• Roger Williams went to Boston in 1631 as a
  respected Puritan Minister
• He believed, however, that individual conscience
  was beyond the control of any civil or religious
  authority (Liberty of Conscience).
• Denied the authority of civil government to
  regulate religious behavior (in effect, an
  endorsement of separation of church and state)
• In conflict with other Puritan leaders, Williams
  is banished from the Bay colony.
• Leaving Boston, he flees southward to
  Narragansett Bay where he and several followers
  found the settlement of Providence in 1636

• Providence
• The new colony is unique in two respects
• It recognized the rights of Native-Americans and
  paid them for the use of their land
• Williams government provided for complete
  religious toleration by allowing Catholics,
  Quakers, and Jews to worship freely
• - for example, no oaths regarding religious
  beliefs, no taxes to support a state church, no
  compulsory attendance at worship

22
Anne Hutchinson

• Dissident who questioned the doctrines of Puritan
  religious leaders
• Openly challenged the right of the Massachusetts
  clergy to exercise authority over their
  congregations
• Also created alarm by affronting prevailing
  assumptions and norms regarding the proper role
  of women in Puritan society by hosting religious
  gatherings in her home

• Branded an antinomian (someone who refuses to
  obey the laws of god or man), she was placed on
  trial and banished from the Bay colony
• Founded the colony of Portsmouth in 1638, not far
  from Willliams Providence
• Eventually settled in New Netherland and was
  killed in an Indian uprising (Kiefts War)

23
Rhode Island (continued)

• In 1644, Roger Williams was granted a charter
  from the English Parliament joining Providence
  and Portsmouth into a single colony, Rhode Island
• Because this colony offered religious freedom for
  all, it served as a refuge for people of various
  faiths

24
ConnecticutTo the west of Rhode Island, the
fertile Connecticut River Valley attracted
settlers who did not agree with all the religious
tenets of the leaders of Massachusetts

• Hartford
• The Rev. Thomas Hooker led a large group of
  Boston Puritans into the valley and founded the
  colony of Hartford in 1636.
• The Hartford colonists drew up the first written
  constitution in American history, the Fundamental
  Orders of Connecticut (1639), which established a
  representative government consisting of a
  legislature elected by popular vote and a
  governor chosen by that legislature.

• New Haven
• South of Hartford, a second settlement in the
  Connecticut Valley was started by John Davenport
  in 1637
• In 1665, New Haven joined with Hartford to form
  the colony of Connecticut.
• The royal charter for Connecticut granted it a
  limited degree of self-government, including
  election of the governor.

25
New Hampshire

• Last colony to be founded in New England,
  consisting of a few settlements north of Boston
• Originally part of Massachusetts, it was
  separated from the Bay colony by King Charles II
  in 1679 in an attempt to increase royal control
  over the colonies
• Made a royal colony, it was subject to the
  authority of an appointed governor

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Development of New England (continued

• The Halfway Covenant
• by the 1660s, a generation had passed since the
  founding of the first Puritan colonies
• the New England-born settlers showed signs of
  being less committed to religious faith and more
  interested in material pursuits
• especially alarming was the apparent decline in
  conversions testimonials by individuals that
  they had received Gods grace and therefore
  deserved to be admitted to the church as members
  of the elect.
• How was the Puritan church to retain its power
  and influence if younger people failed to become
  church members?

27
The Halfway Covenant

• In an effort to maintain the churchs power and
  influence in New England society, troubled
  ministers in 1662 announced a new formula for
  partial church membership, the halfway covenant
• the halfway covenant offered partial membership
  rights to people not yet converted by admitting
  to baptism- but not full communion- the
  unconverted children of existing members

• Effects
• over time, the halfway covenant helped to open
  Puritan church doors fully to all comers, whether
  converted or not
• widening of church membership gradually erased
  the distinction between the elect and other
  members of society
• from this time onward women were a majority in
  Puritan congregations

28
New England Confederation

• In the 1640s, the various New England colonies
  were under the constant threat of attack from
  Native Americans, the Dutch, and the French
• Because of civil war in England, the colonists
  could expect little aid
• In 1643, four New England colonies (Plymouth,
  Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven
  formed a military alliance known as the New
  England Confederation
• - directed by a board comprised of two
  representatives from each colony
• - limited powers to act on boundary disputes,
  the return of runaway servants, and dealings
  with Native-Americans
• the confederation lasted until 1684, when
  colonial rivalries and renewed control by the
  English monarch brought this first experiment in
  colonial cooperation to an end
• set an important precedent for colonies taking
  unified action toward a common purpose

29
King Philips War

• Causes
• continued encroachment of English settlers onto
  Native American lands sparked Indian resistance
• Metacom, Chief of the Wampanogs, known to
  colonists as King Philip, forged a pan-Indian
  alliance in southern New England by uniting
  several tribes and mounted a series of bloody
  Indian raids against English settlements along
  the frontier

• Effects
• 52 Puritan towns were attacked and 12 destroyed
  entirely
• Hundreds of colonists and Indians died in the
  bloodshed
• although King Philips War slowed the westward
  march of English settlement, the war inflicted a
  lasting defeat on New England Native-Americans
• Reduced in numbers, dispirited, disbanded,
  Native-Americans would never again seriously
  threaten New England colonists

30
Salem Witch Trials

• The Salem Witch Trials, one of the most
  frightening religious episodes in colonial
  American history, was sparked by the accusations
  of adolescent girls who claimed to have been
  bewitched by certain older women
• a hysterical witch hunt ensued, resulting in the
  legal lynching of 20 individuals, 19 of whom
  were hanged and one of whom was pressed to death
• Two dogs were also hanged

• Significance
• revealed deep religious and social conflicts
  within the rapidly evolving Massachusetts village
  in that most of the accused were among Salems
  prosperous merchant ranks while their accusers
  came largely from the ranks of poorer families in
  Salems agricultural hinterland
• episode reflects the widening social
  stratification of New England, as well as the
  conflict between religious tradition and Yankee
  commercialism

31
Restoration ColoniesNew American colonies were
founded in the late 17th century during a period
in English history known as the Restoration .
The name refers to the restoration to power of an
English monarch, Charles II, in 1660 following a
brief period of Puritan rule under Oliver
Cromwell.

• The Carolinas
• as a reward for helping him gain the throne,
  Charles II granted a huge tract of land between
  Virginia and Spanish Florida to eight nobles, who
  became the lord proprietors of the Carolinas
• In 1729, two royal colonies South Carolina and
  North Carolina, were formed from the original
  proprietorship

32
The Carolinas (continued)

• South Carolina
• In 1670, in the southern Carolinas, a few
  colonists from England and some planters from the
  island of Barbados founded the town of Charles
  Town
• Initially, the economy was based on trading furs
• prospered through the development of close
  economic ties to the English West Indies by
  providing foodstuffs to provision sugar
  plantations on the islands
• By the middle of the 18th century, rice emerged
  as the principal export crop
• Carolinians paid premium prices for African
  slaves experienced in rice cultivation
• By 1710, blacks constituted a majority of the
  population

• North Carolina
• Primarily settled by farmers from Virginia and
  New England, many of whom were squatters
  without legal right to the soil
• characterized by small, self-sufficient tobacco
  farms
• fewer large plantations and therefore less
  reliance on slavery
• Inhabitants earned a reputation for being
  irreligious and anti-authoritarian
• Officially separated from South Carolina in 1712
  and subsequently each segment became a royal
  colony

33
Stono Rebellion

• Nearly 100 resentful South Carolina blacks along
  the Stono River exploded in revolt in 1739
• Seized weapons, killed several whites and
  attempted to march south to Spanish Florida
• Rebellion was ultimately put down forcefully by
  local militia
• Most participants were executed

34
New Amsterdam becomes New York

• New Amsterdam was a company town run by and for
  the Dutch West India company in the interests of
  stockholders
• Dutch colony was aristocratic, characterized by
  vast feudal estates fronting the Hudson River,
  known as patroonships
• Extraordinarily diverse, the colony was home to a
  heterogeneous population, including Dutch,
  English, Scandinavian, German, French, and
  African settlers (imported as slaves by the Dutch
  West India Company)
• Charles II wished to consolidate the crowns
  holdings along the Atlantic Coast and close the
  gap between the New England and the Chesapeake
  colonies

• In 1664, a British naval fleet seized control of
  the Dutch colony from its governor Peter
  Stuyvesant
• Colony was thereupon renamed New York, in honor
  of the Duke of York (the future James II)
• The Dutch had governed their sprawling colony
  (present-day New York, New Jersey, and Delaware)
  without the benefit of an assembly and so the
  duke saw no reason to trouble his government
  with such a body.
• Ultimately, James was grudgingly forced to yield,
  and New Yorks first assembly met in 1683.

35
New Jersey

• Believing New York to be too large territorially
  to administer effectively, James gave to two
  friends, Lord John Berkelely and Sir George
  Carteret, the lands located between the Hudson
  River and Delaware Bay
• In 1674, one proprietor received West New Jersey
  and the other East New Jersey

• To attract settlers, both proprietors made
  generous land offers and allowed religious
  freedom and an assembly
• Eventually sold they sold proprietary interests
  to various groups of Quakers
• the crown decided in 1702 to combine the two
  Jerseys into a single royal colony

36
Pennsylvania and Delaware

• To the west of New Jersey lay a broad expanse of
  forested land
• Originally settled by a peace-loving Christian
  sect, the Quakers

37
Quakers or members of the Religious Society of
Friends

• Quakers believed in the following
• Equality of all men and women
• Nonviolence
• Resistance to military service
• Quakers furthered believed that religious
  authority was found within each persons private
  soul and not in the Bible or any outside source

• In the 17th century, such views seemed to pose a
  radical challenge to established authority
• Quakers of England are widely persecuted and
  jailed for their beliefs

38
William Penn

• Young convert to the Quaker faith
• Son of a victorious admiral in the service of the
  King
• Elder Penn opposed Williams religious beliefs
  but came to respect the sincerity of his sons
  faith and upon his death left his son
  considerable wealth.
• In addition, the royal family owed the father a
  large debt, which was paid to William in 1681 in
  the form of a land grant in the Americas for a
  colony which he called Pennsylvania or Penns
  woods.

39
The Holy Experiment- Penn wanted to test ideas
he had developed based on his Quaker beliefs

• Penn wanted his colony to achieve three purposes
• provide a religious refuge for Quakers and other
  persecuted peoples
• enact liberal ideas in government
• generate income and profits for himself

40
The Holy Experiment

• He provided the colony with a Frame of Government
  (1682-1683 which guaranteed a representative
  assembly elected by landowners and a written
  constitution, the Charter of Liberties (1701),
  which guaranteed freedom of worship for all and
  unrestricted immigration.

• Unlike other colonial proprietors, who governed
  from England, Penn crossed the ocean to supervise
  the founding of a new town on the Delaware River
  named Philadelphia, bringing with him a grid
  pattern of streets later imitated by other
  American cities.

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Pennsylvania

• Penn believed, as had Roger Williams, that Native
  Americans should be reimbursed for their land
• no major conflicts with Indians during his
  lifetime

• Penn successfully attracted settlers from
  throughout Europe by offering political and
  religious freedom as well as generous land terms
• Pennsylvania prospered from the outset because of
  the successful recruitment of emigrants, Penns
  thoughtful planning, and the mild climate and
  fertile soil

43
Delaware

• In 1702, Penn granted the lower counties of
  Pennsylvania their own representative assembly.
• This act, in effect, created a separate colony
  Delaware, although until the American Revolution,
  it had the same governor as Pennsylvania.

44
Georgia The Last Colony

• chartered in 1732
• last of the British colonies and the only one to
  receive direct financial support from the home
  government in London

• Two principal reasons for British interest in
  starting a new southern colony
• to create a defensive buffer to protect the
  prosperous South Carolina plantations from the
  threat of invasion from Spanish Florida
• to provide a refuge for the impoverished and
  debtors to begin life anew

45
Georgia The Last Colony

• Given a royal charter for a proprietary colony, a
  group of philanthropists led by James Oglethorpe
  founded Georgias first settlement, Savannah, in
  1733.
• Oglethorpe acted as the colonys first governor
  and put into effect a plan for making the colony
  thrive.
• Strict regulations included an absolute ban on
  drinking rum, the prohibition of slavery, and
  restrictions on the size of property holdings
  were imposed.

• Because of the constant threat of Spanish attack,
  the colony failed to thrive
• by the early 1750s, the strict rules had been
  loosened (for example, the ban on slavery was
  removed in 1750).
• In 1752, Oglethorpe and his group of trustees
  returned control of the colony to the King and
  Georgia became a royal colony.
• The colony grew slowly by developing a plantation
  system along lines similar to South Carolina

46
Mercantilism and the Empire

• Most European kingdoms in the 17th century
  adopted an economic policy of mercantilism, which
  looked upon trade, colonies, and the accumulation
  of wealth as a basis for a countrys military and
  political power
• According to mercantilist theory, a government
  should regulate trade and production in order to
  become self-sufficient
• Under the system of mercantilism, a colonial
  power seeks to establish a favorable balance of
  trade with her colonies. Colonies provide raw
  materials to the parent country for the growth
  and profit of that countrys industries. In
  addition, colonies provide the parent country
  with a market for her manufactured goods.
• Colonies existed for one purpose to enrich the
  parent country

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Mercantilism and the Empire

• Mercantilist policies had guided both the Spanish
  and the French colonies from their inception.
  Mercantilism began to be applied to the English
  colonies, however, only after the turmoil of
  Englands civil war had subsided.
• Beginning in 1650, Englands government began to
  put in place a mercantilist policy with the
  series of Navigation Acts

49
Acts of Navigation and Trade

• The Acts of Navigation and Trade (1650-1673)
  established three rules for colonial trade
• Trade to and from colonies could be carried only
  by English or colonial-built ships, which could
  be operated only by English or colonial crews
• All goods imported into the colonies, except for
  some perishables, could pass only through ports
  in England
• Specified or enumerated goods from the colonies
  could be exported to England only. Tobacco was
  the original enumerated good, but over a period
  of years, the list grew to include most colonial
  products

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Mercantilism Impact on the colonies

• Positive Effects
• New England shipbuilding prospered
• Chesapeake tobacco had a monopoly in England
• English military and naval forces protected the
  colonies from potential attacks by the French and
  the Spanish

• Negative Effects
• Colonial manufacturing was severely restricted
• Chesapeake farmers received low prices for their
  crops
• Colonists had to pay high prices for manufactured
  goods from England

52
Enforcement of the Acts

• Resentment slowly developed in the colonies
  against regulatory laws imposed by the distant
  government in London. Especially in New England,
  colonists would routinely defy the Navigation
  Acts by smuggling in French, Dutch, and other
  prohibited goods.
• The British government was often lax in enforcing
  the acts, and its agents in the colonies were
  known for their corruption
• From time to time, the crown would attempt to
  overcome colonial resistance to its trade laws.
  For example, in 1684, the crown revoked the
  charter of Massachusetts Bay because that colony
  had been the center of smuggling activity

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The Dominion of New England

• A new king, James II succeeded to the throne in
  1685
• He was determined to increase royal control over
  the colonies by combining them into larger
  administrative units and doing away with
  representative assemblies
• In 1686, he combined New York, New Jersey, and
  the various New England colonies into a single
  administrative body called the Dominion of New
  England. Sir Edmund Andros was sent from England
  to serve as governor of the dominion

• The new governor made himself instantly unpopular
  by levying taxes, limiting town meetings, and
  revoking land titles

55
The Dominion of New England (continued)

• James II did not remain in power very long
• As a result of his heavy-handed style of
  asserting his royal powers, he was deposed in the
  Glorious Revolution in 1688 and replaced with two
  new sovereigns, William and Mary
• With James fall, the Dominion of New England
  came to an end and Massachusetts Bay, New York
  and the other colonies again operated under
  separate charters

• Permanent restrictions
• Despite the Glorious Revolution, mercantilist
  policies remained in force
• In the 18th century, there were more English
  officials in the Colonies than in any earlier era
• Restrictions on colonial trade, though poorly
  enforced, were widely resented and resisted

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Institution of Slavery

• Slavery became rooted in American society in the
  closing decades of the 17th century
• The number of slaves grew rapidly from only a few
  thousand in 1670 to tens of thousands in the
  early eighteenth century
• The institution of slavery existed in ALL
  thirteen of the original colonies
• By 1750, half of Virginias population and
  two-thirds of South Carolinas population were
  slaves

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Increased demand for slavesThe following factors
explain why slavery became increasingly
important, especially in the southern colonies

1. Reduced migration an increase in wages in
   England reduced the supply of immigrants to the
   colonies
2. Dependable work force Large-plantation owners
   were disturbed by the political demands of small
   farmers and indentured servants and by the threat
   to the social order posed by Bacons Rebellion.
   Planters believed that slavery would provide a
   stable labor supply that could be better
   controlled
3. Cheap labor As tobacco prices fell, rice and
   indigo became the most profitable crops. To grow
   such crops required large tracts of land and a
   large supply of unskilled labor

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Slave LawsDrawing of the Color Line

• As the number of slaves increased, colonial
  assemblies adopted laws to ensure that African
  Americans would be held in perpetual bondage and
  that their slave status would be inherited by
  their children
• In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony to
  recognize the slavery of lawful captives
• Virginia in 1661 enacted legislation stating that
  children of slaves inherited their mothers slave
  status for life
• By 1664, Maryland passed a law stating that
  baptism did not affect a slaves status and
  barred miscegenation and the intermarriage of
  whites and blacks
• A color line was drawn as both racism and
  slavery became more deeply entrenched in American
  colonial society

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Triangular Trade

• For most of the 17th century, the English trade
  in African slaves had been monopolized by a
  single company, the Royal African Company
• By the late 17th century, the companys monopoly
  expired and New England merchants entered the
  lucrative slave trade and began to compete with
  British slavers
• Merchant ships would regularly follow a
  triangular, or three part, trade route

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AP Free Response

1. How did economic, geographic, and social factors
   encourage the growth of slavery as an important
   part of the economy of the southern colonies
   between 1607 and 1775?
2. Analyze the impact of the Atlantic trade routes
   established in the mid 1600s on economic
   development in the British North American
   colonies. Consider the period 1650-1750.