Life in the English Colonies

Chapter 5

Section 1: Forms of Government

• The English colonies in America all had their own governments.

• Each government was given power by a charter

• The three types of charters were:– Propriety: This meant that one or more

individuals had authority over the colony.– Company: This meant that a business of

businesses had power to make law.– Royal: This meant that the king in England had the

authority over the colony.

Colonial Governments• The English monarch owned all of the colonies and had sole power

to grant charters. • A group of royal advisers called the Privy Council set English

policies in the colonies.• The Privy Council allowed most colonies to run their own affairs

most of the time. There was confusion sometimes though. For example, Rhode Island’s 1644 charter stated that all of the colony’s laws should agree with those of England’s. At the same time, the charter stated that the colonists had “full power and authority to rule themselves.”

• Each colony had a governor who served as head of the government. In royal colonies, the king or queen of England chose the governor. In a propriety colony the governor was selected by the groups in power, and in the other colonies the governor was selected by the people.

Colonial Assemblies• In the colonies the people also elected

representatives to help make laws and set policy. These officials served in assemblies. They based the assemblies on Parliament., England’s national legislature, or lawmaking body.

• Parliament is a bicameral legislature, or a lawmaking body made up of two houses, or groups.

• Colonial assemblies worked like parts of Parliament, they had the power to raise taxes and organize local government.

• Whatever laws were made in these assemblies, the Privy Council had the ultimate review to make sure they followed English law.

The House of Burgesses

• Virginia’s assembly, founded in Jamestown in 1619, was the first colonial legislature in North America.

• At first it met as a single body, but then split into two bodies.

• The first house was known as the Council of State.

• The second house was called the House of Burgesses.

• The House of Burgesses was made up of colonists and plantation owners.

Town Hall Meetings

• Legislatures were not the only important political bodies in the colonies.

• In the center of New England politics was the town meeting.

• In town meetings people talked about and decided issues of local interest, such as paying for schools.

• They usually met one or more times a year.

Colonial Courts• Colonial courts made up another important

part of colonial governments.• Most courts were designed to control local

affairs.• Sometimes colonial courts also protected

individual freedoms. For example, the court case of John Peter Zenger dealt with the issue of freedom of the press.

• In 1733 Zenger began criticizing the royal governor of New York in Zenger’s newspaper. Officials charged him with libel, making false accusations about someone for the main purpose of ruining their reputation.

• In the end, the courts said that Zenger could say whatever he wanted to say as long as it was true.

The Dominion of New England• In 1685 James II became king of England.• Having a thirst for power, he believed

that the northern colonies were too independent. He wanted them more connected to each other and to England.

• In 1686 James united the northern colonies under one government called the Dominion of New England. It included the colonies of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.

• James appointed Sir Edmund Andros as royal governor of the Dominion. Andros ruled as governor with strict authority making him very unpopular in the colonies.

The Glorious Revolution• The new policies of James II were

unpopular in England as well as in the colonies. Catholics, Parliament, and Protestants felt threatened by James.

• To stop the king, leaders of Parliament asked James’ daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, to rule England.

• William, the leader of the Netherlands, landed in England with his army in the fall of 1688.

• James left the country. This overthrow was called the Glorious Revolution.

The English Bill of Rights

• When the residents of the Dominion of New England first heard of the overthrow, they immediately remove Andros as governor.

• William and Mary replaced the Dominion with new charters for each colony.

• In England, the political ideas from the Glorious Revolution led to the English Bill of Rights. Under this act, powers of the English monarch were greatly reduced and Parliament gained power.

Section 2: The Growth of Trade

• Trade was one of England’s main reasons for founding its American colonies.

• In the late 1600s England, like most western European countries, practiced mercantilism. Using this economic system, nations created and maintained wealth by carefully controlling trade.

• Mercantilism is an idea that a country can maintain its wealth by having a good balance. This means that a country has more exports than it does imports.

The Navigation Acts• Between 1650 and 1696 Parliament passed a

series of Navigation Acts. These Acts required colonists to do the bulk of their trading with England.

• These Acts also set duties, or taxes on imported goods, on some of these products traded.

• Many colonists wanted more freedom to buy and sell goods in whatever markets offered the best prices.

• Within the colonies many merchants practiced free enterprise, economic competition with little government control.

• Although most colonists wanted a free enterprise, the English government forbade it with other countries. This led to an unfavorable balance of trade for the colonies.

Colonial Trade

• Despite complaints, trade restrictions continued into the 1700s.

• In 1733 Parliament passed the Molasses Act, which placed duties on sugar, molasses, and rum. In response, the illegal practice of smuggling started.

• The English government didn’t deal much with smuggling at first, they were making too much money through trade.

• Sugar was being made and traded in the West Indies. The colonies were making and trading raw materials and crops, and England was making and trading finished products.

• This trade eventually became called the triangular trade.

The Triangular Trade

The Middle Passage

• One version of the triangular trade had a much greater cost in human suffering.

• It began with New England traders exchanging rum for slaves on the West African coast.

• The traders then sold the enslaved Africans in the West Indies for molasses or brought them back to the colonies to sell.

Middle Passage Cont’d• The slave trade brought around 10

million Africans across the Atlantic Ocean.

• This terrifying and often deadly voyage was called the Middle Passage.

• This journey lasted as long as three months.

• Slaves were chained by the necks and legs and placed in the lower decks of the ship in a space of about the size of a small man.

• The traders had one philosophy: the more slaves in a trip, the more profit.

Olaudah Equiano

• Olaudah Equiano was sold into slavery when he was about 11.

• In his book, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, he described his journey:“I received such a smell in my nostrils,

as I had never experienced in my life…I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat…The groans of the dying made the whole a scene of horror almost unbelievable.”

Opposition to Slavery

• Some colonists opposed slavery.• In 1688 Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania

made the first recorded protest against slavery.

• The Quakers believed that slavery was immoral and unchristian. They believed it went against God’s Word in the Bible.

• Even though the Quakers began to publicly oppose slavery, the institution continued to be practiced in the colonies.

Section 3: The Colonial Economy

• The economies of the southern colonies depended on agriculture.

• Their main exports were crops (tobacco, corn, wheat, indigo, and rice), lumber, and tar.

• The crops that helped the economy more than anything. These crops sold for profit were called cash crops.

• Indigo (a crop used to make a blue dye) was introduced by Eliza Lucas Pinckney after she learned to grow it on her plantation.

Slaves on Plantations

• Most of the southern colonies passed slave codes, or laws to control slaves.

• Colonies with the largest slave populations had the strictest codes.

• Codes could range from slaves not being able to own weapons to runaway slaves could be whipped or killed on sight.

Industry and Trade in New England

• Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and Massachusetts were very different from southern colonies. These colonies were known as the New England colonies

• The often harsh climate and rocky soil meant that few New England farms grew cash crops.

• As a result slave labor was minimal in New England.

Business in New England

• Trade was vital to New England’s economy.

• Entrepreneurs, people who undertake new businesses to make a profit, traded locally encouraged local economies by trading with local Indians and colonies.

• Fishing and shipbuilding became two of the largest businesses in New England. Because of this merchants exported dried fish, oil for lamps, and whale meat.

Shipbuilding in New England

• The shipbuilding industry prospered in New England for several reasons.– The region had plenty of forests– The local fishing industry needed ships– As the New England ports grew, so did the need to

higher quality ships

Apprentices

• The diverse economy in New England needed skilled craftspeople.

• Families would send their sons off to work and train in trades like blacksmithing, weaving, shipbuilding, and printing.

• These young boys became known as apprentices.

The Middle Colonies

• The middle colonies consisted of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.

• These colonies had a strong farming region allowing them to grow staple crops, crops that are always in need.

• Staple crops in the middle colonies were wheat, barley, and oats.

• Farmers also raised and sold livestock.

Economy of the Middle Colonies

• Slaves were more important in the middle colonies than they were in the New England colonies due to the need for staple crops.

• Indentured servitude was the primary method of work.

• The middle colonies exported flour made from wheat and barley.

Section 4: The Great Awakening

• In the early 1700s many church leaders worried that colonists were losing their religious faith.

• They wanted to bring back the sense of religious duty held by the previous generations.

• They began to hold revivals, emotional gatherings where people came together to hear sermons and declare their faith.

Revival• Because of these ministers’ work many colonists

experienced a “great awakening” in their religious lives.

• This Great Awakening reached its height between the 1730s and 1740s.

• It’s emphasis was primarily on faith in God.• One if its most influential preachers was Jonathan

Edwards, a pastor of the Congregational Church in Northampton, Massachusetts. Edwards used powerful and dramatic sermons urging sinners to seek forgiveness for their sins or face punishment in Hell forever.

• His most famous sermon was titled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It drew up frightening images of “God holding you over a pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or other disgusting insects over a fire.

George Whitefield

• In 1739 British minister George Whitefield made the second of his seven trips to America.

• He held revivals from Georgia to New England.

• He also became one of the most popular ministers of the Great Awakening.

• He preached that all people were born sinners and that they required a Savior to save them from their sins.

Old Lights and New Lights

• Not all colonists believed these new religious ideas. Eventually some congregations divided over these disagreements.

• There were traditionalists who called themselves “Old Lights” and non-traditionalists who called themselves “New Lights”.

• The New Lights were those who followed the Great Awakening.

• The Old Lights argued that the methods being used to save one’s soul were not proper.

The Great Awakening and Society

• The Great Awakening attracted people from different classes, races, and colonies. Women, poor people, and minority were common participants in the services that were held.

• The Great Awakening also affected parts of society that were not directly associated with religion such as politics.

• Politicians began to conduct business with a spiritual code of ethics in mind.

Section 5: American Culture

• During the 1600s Western Europe began to re-examine their world.

• Scientists began conducting experiments to better understand the basic laws that govern nature.

• Their new ideas about the universe began what is known as the Scientific Revolution.

• This revolution began in mathematics and astronomy, but it later changed all areas of natural science.

Scientists and Inventors

• Galileo Galilei was one of the leading figures in the Scientific Revolution. He demonstrated that the planets revolve around the sun.

• Sir Isaac Newton explained how objects on Earth and in the sky behave. His theories prove that the same laws of physics govern both.

• Newton also developed the scientific method. This method today is what scientists use to base their observations and build theories.

Enlightenment• The Scientific Revolution also began changing

the way people viewed human actions.• This change in thought is often called the Age

of reason, or the Enlightenment. It took place during the 1700s.

• Thinkers during this time used reason and logic to study human nature and suggested ways to improve their world.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Baron de Montesquieu all formed ideas about how government should work to best serve the people.

• Other Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke believed that natural rights like liberty and equality belonged to all people.

Colonial Education

• In the colonies few people could afford a formal education. The availability in the northern colonies to schools was also greater than the southern colonies.

• Most northern colonial schools encouraged students to read the Bible and attempted to educate ministers.

• Communities were responsible for paying for their own schools.

• The result was that most students stopped going to school after elementary school, and became apprentices.

Colonial Scientists• Few schools taught Science. Scientists

learned their subject by observing the world around them.

• In 1743 the American Philosophical Society was founded in Philadelphia for the study of Science.

• David Rittenhouse, the society’s second president, designed mathematical and astronomical instruments to help teach students.

• Rittenhouse admired the astronomer and surveyor Benjamin Banneker, a free African American who predicted a solar eclipse. He became the first African American to have his work published in an almanac.

Benjamin Franklin’s Life• Perhaps the most famous colonial scientist was

Benjamin Franklin.• He was born in Boston in 1706 and worked first

in his father’s candle shop and soap shop.• Later he became as apprentice in his brother’s

printing shop.• In 1723 Franklin moved to Philadelphia where

he started a newspaper, Poor Richard’s Almanac.

• He wrote wise sayings like, “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” under the name Richard Saunders.

• Franklin also started the University of Pennsylvania and founded the American Philosophical Society

Benjamin Franklin’s Inventions

• The Lightning Rod: this device helped reduce the risk of fire during lightening storms.

• Wood Stoves: Franklin’s new stove was more affordable, efficient, and practical.

• Bifocals: the glasses contained lenses that corrected both near and far-sightedness.

• Experiments:– He flew a kite in a thunderstorm to prove

lightening is a form of electricity.– He also found the positive and negative

charges in electricity.

Colonial Writers and Artists

• New England poet Anne Bradstreet wrote about her love for her family and her faith. Her poetry was published in The Tenth Muse in London in 1650.

• Phyllis Wheatley also used religious language and imagery in her poetry. In her poem “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Wheatley described how Christianity changed her life.