Britain and its colonies

ENGLISH BACKGROUND

 Isolation from the continent:

British rules shared power with the nobility and the gentry (whose members formed parliament.
House of lords/House of Commons)

It most important power: to enact and modify taxes

1215: Great Charter: a statement of rights and liberties. Everyone was equal before the law.

What is different from Spain as regards the idea of colonization?

Spanish were explorer trying to gather riches. Basically, they were explorers and adventurers. The
British were different because they formed joint-stock companies to expand. Private investors (not
the government) shared the risks and profits of exploration. They provided the FIRST instruments
of British colonization in America.

1603: Queen Elizabeth died (end of the TUDORS)

STUARTS: most of the turbulent 17th century. King James I promoted the theory of divine right:
monarchs responded only to GOD. He promised to eliminate Puritans.

CHARLES I: Broke up Parliament from 1629-1640 systematically persecuted Puritans.

1640 Parliament refused to raise taxes. Charles tried to arrest 5 parliament members/civil wars.
1649: beheaded.

OLIVER CROMWELL: He was a military dictator

RESTORATION OF MONARCHY: Charles II: accepting ruling with Parliament

JAMES II (Brother): Authoritarian Catholic. He imprisoned and murdered his enemies.

Political, religious and military leaders invited king’s Protestant daughter, Mary Stuart, and her
husband to assume the throne. Parliament established its freedom from…

THE BIIL OF RIGHTS (1689): Queen needs Parliament’s consent to do anything.

COLONIES

Roanoke Island 1585

First attempt (lost colony) Sir Walter Raleigh with a group of 115 English:

- Dwindling food supplies

- Indian attacks

1586 they retunred to England aboard a ship captained by Sir Francis Drake
1587, Raleigh sent out another group of 100 colonist under John White. Just as he arrives (1588)
the major naval war broke out between England and Spain. Queen Elizabeth I called on every ship
to confront the mighty Spanish Armada.

VIRGINIA (Chesapeake bay 1607)

- 3 ships, 105 men and boys

JAMESTOWN (after James I) (first permanent town in USA)

They were townsmen or gentlemen adventurers:

- Came looking for gold, friendly Indians and easy living

- They found disease, drought starvation, dissension and death
- 38 survived the first months
- Captain John Smith: appointed by the Virginia Company to manage the colony

1609: Virginia Company sent more colonists, including woman

- With no gold or silver, the company offered land after 7 years of labour
- Tobacco became their source of income
- Indentured servitude (offering land) became the primary source of labour in English
America during 17th century
- 1624: an English court dissolved the Virginia Company: Virginia became a royal colony

PLYMOUTH

Was and still is a southern port.

1620: Puritans (CAPE COD)

- The mayflower: 100 men woman and children led by William Bradford (Pilgrims)
- After first winter: half of them died
- Squanto, an Indian, showed them how to grow corn and catch fish
- 1621: They celebrated the harvest: Thanksgiving
- Separatists: believed the English church could not be fixed, they created their own
congregations
- No use of holy water
- No elegant robes
- No gold crosses
- The Mayflower Compact: an agreement to form a government and to live under the
regulations as seen by the group as a whole. All of the forty-one male colonists signed the
compact.

UNIT 2

COLONIALS WAY OF LIFE

Shaping America

Involved both(capital letters):

 1. CONFLICT (different groups of people getting together)
2. European/natives/African
3. War duplicity, displacement, enslavement
4. ACCOMMODATION;
5. Building homes, planting crops, trading goods, raising families, enforcing laws, worshiping
their gods.

17/18th century massive social migration

Reasons

- Britons and Europeans: political and religious freedom

- Africans: captured and transported against their will (the process of taking slaves into the
Americas was very tragic and criminal)

POPULATION GROWTH

- By 1750: 1.000.000
- By 1775: 2.500.000
- America: land was plentiful and cheap/labourers were scarce an expensive
- Benjamin described population growth
- Consequence: attracted immigrants/colonists had large families (married earlier) so that
children could help

BIRTHRATES/DEATHRATES:

- Young marriage: two additional pregnancies

- Infants had better chance of reaching maturity/Adults had better chances to reach
adulthood

REASONS

- Abundant land =more food supplies

- Plentiful firewood= less deadly winter
- Younger population average=less prone to disease
- More scattered = less disease exposition

ROLE OF WOMEN

Deeply rooted convictions of women’s inferiority:

Prescibed role

- Obey and serve their husbands

- Nurture their children
- Maintain their household

COULD NOT VOTE PREACH, HOLD OFFICE, ATTEND PUBLIC SCHOOL OR COLLEGE BRING LAWSUITS,
MAKE CONTRACTS, OR OWN PROPERTY.

 Scarcity of labour created opportunities

  Puritans emphasis on well-ordered families – led to laws protecting wives from physical
abuse/allowing divorce

MID 18TH CENTURY ENLIGHTENMENT (the light of reason)

It celebrated rational inquiry, scientific research and individual freedom (challenging the bible)

. 1543: Nicolaus Copernicus: heliocentric universe (sun-centered) (heretical)

Geocentricism

- 1687: Isaac Newtown’s theory of gravitation. He depicted that the universe move
according to natural laws, therefore defying the church. Challenged biblical notions of the
cosmos by depicting a mechanistic universe moving according to natural laws
understandable through reason and explained by mathematics.

DEISTS

GOD (They believe in God but God was not a daily presence)

- He was a remote creator

- Planned the universe
- Set in motion
- No longer interacted with the earth-people

EVIL

- Evil was not a consequence of this original sins but rather the ignorance of laws of nature
- To improve society and human nature: application of reason (the highest virtue)

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Represented the Age of Reason

- Born in Boston (Puritan descent)

- 17: left for Philadelphia
- 24: owned a print shop where he edited and published the Pennsylvania Gazzette
- 26: Poor Richard’s Almanack: Homely maxims on success and happiness
- He prized reason over revelation
- Sceptical: divinity of Jesus/Bible as God’s words
- 42 retired from business he had

Found a library/organized a fire company/helped in the foundation of the University of

Pennsylvania

- He led experiments in the fields of medicine, meteorology, geology, astronomy and

physics: glass harmonica, lightening rod

Aphorism: witty saying (don’t act impulsively)