Settling the Northern Colonies 1619-1700

Chapter 3

The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism

• Martin Luther-1517-The Bible alone was the source of God’s word, not the Catholic Church.

• Thus began the “Protestant Reformation”

• This Reformation split people and nations

• Calvinism- “Predestination” –God chose those that he would save the “elect”. One had to live a good life to prove that they were of the “elect”. Calvinism characterized the New England colonies.

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• King Henry VIII broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530’s and made himself head of the church of England

• Puritans -those who wanted to purify the Church from Catholic beliefs

• Separatists –Extreme Puritans who wanted to separate from the Church of England (Pilgrims)

• King James I -1603-1609 head of Church and State

The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth

• Pilgrims set sail from Holland in 1608

• The Virginia Company gave the Pilgrims a charter in Virginia

• Having missed their destination, they landed at Plymouth

• Mayflower Compact – precedent for later written constitutions-an agreement to form a crude government and to submit to the will of the majority under the regulations agreed upon.

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• This compact was a step toward self-government. Town meetings were being held and discussions among adult male settlers were being held.

• 1621 –First Thanksgiving• William Bradford –governor• Plymouth eventually merged

with Massachusetts but was important both morally, governmentally, and spiritually

The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth

• Charles I dismissed Parliament in 1629. Many Puritans saw their rights vanish.

• They formed the Massachusetts Bay Company.

• 1000 immigrants began the colony of Massachusetts (North of Plymouth)

• The Great Migration to the new world -1630’s-population explosion, economic depression, religious repression. 70,000 left England

• More Puritans came to the West Indies (Barbados) than to all of Massachusetts

• John Winthrop –first governor

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• Fur trading, fishing, shipbuilding

• Massachusetts was the biggest and most influential of the New England Colonies

• Massachusetts had a shared sense of purpose- “We shall be a city upon a hill” a beacon to humanity.

Building the Bay Colony

• All “freemen” could vote in provincial elections (adult males who belonged to the Puritan congregations). This became known as the “Congregational Church”

• Town governments were more inclusive- all male property holders could publicly discuss local issues and voting by majority rule

• Religious leaders wielded enormous influence in the Massachusetts “Bible Commonwealth.”

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• The congregation could hire and fire its ministers and set his salary. The clergy could not hold political office.

• In a limited way, the bay colonists endorsed separation of church and state

• Protestant work ethic –if you did not work, you did not eat

• “Blue-Law” state-Connecticut-moral laws

Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth

• Quakers challenged the Puritan theology

• Ann Hutchinson was banished for challenging the theology antinomianism –”a covenant of grace” against the law. Those truly saved did not have to obey the law of God or man

• Roger Williams –demanded that payment be made to the Indians and that a clean break should be made with the Church of England

• Civil government should not regulate religious behavior-against the Puritan idea of government

The Rhode Island “Sewer”

• Roger Williams fled to Rhode Island in 1636

• Complete freedom of Religion. Rhode Island was the most liberal of the New Colonies

• All male suffrage for property holders

• Freedom of opportunity-no special privilege

• Outcasts from the Massachusetts colonies came to Rhode Island

• Rhode Island became strongly individualistic and stubbornly independent

New England Spreads Out

• Reverend Hooker settled a group of Boston Puritans into the Hartford River area.

• The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut 1639–a modern constitution which established a government democratically controlled by the “substantial” citizens. This eventually became the state constitution.

• Maine had been active in fishing and was absorbed into Massachusetts-1677

• New Hampshire was also a fishing colony. It was absorbed into Massachusetts. The king separated New Hampshire from Massachusetts and made it a royal colony-1679

Puritans versus Indians

• Disease had weakened the Indian tribes in New England

• The Wampanoag Indians at first befriended the settlers.

• Squanto aided the settlers• Chief Massasoit signed a treaty

with the Plymouth Indians and celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621

• As settlers pushed into the Connecticut River Valley, more tensions grew with the Indians

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• Intertribal unity became the only hope for the Indians in New England. Massasoit’s son Metacom (King Philip) forged an Indian alliance and attacked English villages throughout New England

• King Philip’s War ended in 1676 with fifty-two towns attacked and twelve destroyed completely

• King Philip’s War slowed the westward march of the English but drastically weakened the Indians in New England

Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence

• The New England Confederation-1643-This was a defense against the Indians, French, and Dutch

• Each colony had two votes• Inter colonial issues were handled

by the Confederation• This was a Puritan alliance: two

Massachusetts colonies (Bay Colony and Plymouth); two Connecticut colonies (New Haven and the scattered valley colonies) Rhode Island and Maine were excluded

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• The New England Confederation was the first notable milestone toward colonial unity and making laws through representation

• The king paid little attention to the colonies thus allowing them to become semiautonomous commonwealths

• King Charles II -1660 tightened his control over the colonies. The Massachusetts Bay Colony charter was revoked in 1684 by the London authorities

Andros Promotes the First American Revolution

• Massachusetts suffered further humiliation in 1686 when the Dominion of New England was created by royal authority

• This effected all of New England and New York and East and West New Jersey

• The Dominion of New England was designed to bolster colonial defense and promote better administration of the English Navigation Laws

• Sir Andros oversaw the Dominion• Town meetings were banned,

restricted the courts, the press, the schools and revoked all land titles

• Taxed the people without the consent of elected legislatures

continuation

• The Glorious Revolution (1688-1689) Catholic James II dethroned and Protestant rulers of the Netherlands, Dutch-born William III and his English wife, Mary daughter of James II.

• The Dominion of New England collapsed

• 1691 Massachusetts made a royal colony; a new charter; new royal governor; loss of voting privileges of only church members. All male property holders could vote

• Salutary Neglect was instituted by England (an ignoring of the strict Navigation Laws)

• The effects of Charles II remained within the colonies

Old Netherlands at New Netherland

• The Netherlands rebelled against Catholic Spain

• The seventeenth century was a golden age in Dutch history

• Leading colonial power especially in the East Indies-The Dutch East India Company

• The Dutch West India Company established enterprises in the Caribbean and along the Hudson River (New Netherland 1623-1624)

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• Manhattan Island was cheaply purchased from the Indians.

• New Amsterdam later became New York City-This was run for business profit only-no religious tolerance; vast feudal estates (patroonships)

• A colony of immigrants since a sea-town

Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors

• New Sweden on the Delaware River trespassed on Dutch claims

• Peter Stuyvesant led a Dutch military expedition in 1655 to end Swedish rule.

• Swedish culture remained (log cabins, names, etc.)

Dutch Residues in New York

• 1644 the English under Charles II captured New Amsterdam and renamed it New York after Charles’ brother.

• English rule now reigned from Maine to the Carolinas

• Dutch culture remained: names (Harlem, Brooklyn); social customs, etc.

Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania

• The Quakers arose in England druing the 1600’s. They were known as the Religious Society of Friends.

• They refused to support the established Church of England with taxes

• William Penn adopted the Quaker faith and founded the colony of Pennsylvania

• William Penn advertised for colonists through pamphlets and paid agents

• His liberal land policy encouraged substantial holdings and was instrumental in attracting a heavy inflow of immigrants

Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors

• Penn launched his colony in 1681

• Philadelphia –”brotherly love” was more planned than most colonial cities and had wide streets

• Penn bought land from the Indians including Chief Tammany, later patron of New York’s political Tammany Hall

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• Non Quakers (Scots-Irish) caused tensions with the Indians

• Representative assembly elected by land owners

• Freedom of worship was granted to all (England denied Catholics and Jews the right to vote or hold office)

• No restriction on immigration; cultural diversity; dislike for slavery

• Economic opportunity, civil liberty, religious freedom

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• New Jersey was started in 1664 and was a small Quaker settlement

• Delaware also consisted of some Quakers and was granted its own assembly in 1703. It remained under the governor of Pennsylvania

The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies

• New York, New jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania

• Soil fertile, expanse of land• “Bread Colonies” exports of grain• Rivers were broad and calm

aiding trade and westward expansion, lumber and shipbuilding, harbors, seaports

• Smaller land ownership in size than South but larger than small-farms of New England

• Less industry than New England; more than the South

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• Rivers did not lend to waterwheels as in New England

• Local meetings• Population more ethnically mixed

in the Middle Colonies; religious toleration; democratic control

• Middle Colonies were very much “American”

• Quakers added personal freedoms; land easy to acquire

• More social and economic democracy

• Benjamin Franklin typified the middle colonies (Pennsylvania)