The Protestant Reformation Produces Puritanism

• In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral which had many ideas including the Bible alone being the source of God’s word and people being saved simply by having faith in Christ alone

• Luther’s actions led to the Protestant Reformation which produced Puritanism

• John Calvin advocated for Calvinism which emphasized “predestination”

  • Predestination meant that those that are going to either Heaven or Hell have already been determined by god

• In England, in the 1930s, King Henry VIII broke ties with the Holy Roman Catholic Church

• This breaking of ties influenced Puritans to completely reform the church of England

• Puritans believed that only “visible saints” should be granted church membership

• Separatists vowed that they would break away from the Church of England with this becoming Pilgrims

• King James I, badgered Separatists out of England as he thought that if people could defy him as their spiritual leader, they may also go onto defying him as their political ruler/King

The Pilgrims End Their Pilgrimage at Plymouth

• Pilgrims/Separatists fled to Holland after leaving England with them wanting a place in which they were free to worship their own religion and in which they could live and die as Pilgrims

• The Pilgrims/Separatists negotiated with the Virginia Company, and left Holland and sailed for 65 days at sea on the Mayflower until they arrived on the coast of New England in 1620

• Less than half the pilgrims on board the Mayflower were in actuality, Separatists

• Pilgrims decided to settle at Plymouth, far from Virgina with them not having the legal right to the land or have authority to establish government

• The Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact (set of rules by which they had to obey) which set the standard for later constitutions and became the first step towards self-rule in the Northern colonies

• The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621

• Plymouth merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691

The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth

• Non-Separatist Puritans received a royal charter from england in 1629, which allowed them to settle in the New World

• John Winthrop was elected governor for 19 years

  • He helped Massachusetts prosper in shipbuilding, fur trading, and fishing

Building the Bay Colony

• After the establishment of the colony, the right to vote was extended to all “freemen”

• Freemen were adult males who belonged to Puritan congregations (two-fifths of the male population)

• Men and Women without a church weren’t allowed to participate in matters of government (the government wasn’t a democracy)

• Winthrop called democracy the “meanest and worst” out of all forms of government

• Religious leadershad powerful influence over the admission to church membership with a congregation having the power to hire and fire their ministers at will
  

Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth

• Tensions arose in Massachusetts with Quakers being fined, flogged, and/or banished

• Anee Hutchinson claimed that a holy life wasn’t a sure sign of salvation and those that were truly saved didn’t need to obey the law of God or man with this concept being known as “antinomianism”

• Hutchinson’s claims caused her to be brought to trial in 1638, with her boasting that her beliefs were directly from God

• Hutchinson was banished from the colony and then made her way to Rhode Island and died in New York due to an Indian attack

• Roger Williams was a radical idealist badgered by fellow clergymen to sever ties with Church of England

  • Williams denied that civil government could and should govern religious behavior and was banished in 1635 and then went on to found the Rhode Island Colony

The Rhode Island “Sewer”

• Those that went to Rhode Island weren’t similar to each other, they were simply unwanted everywhere else and were against special privilege

• Rhode Island came to be known as “the traditional home of the otherwise minded” and secured a charter in 1644

New England Spreads Out

• Hartford, Connecticut was founded in 1635

• Thomas Hooker led a group of Puritans west into Connecticut

  • Settlers of the new Connecticut River Colony drafted a document called the Fundamental Orders in an open meeting in 1639 which was a modern constitution

• New Haven was founded in 1638 and was gradually merged into Connecticut

• Maine was absorbed by Massachusetts in 1623 and New Hampshire was also absorbed into Massachusetts in 1641

• The King separated Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1679 and made New Hampshire a royal colony

Puritans Versus Indians

• Three quarters of the Indian population were killed due to an epidemic before the Puritans' arrival in 1620

• At first the Indians tried to befriend the Europeans but in 1637, due to mounting tensions, English settlers and the Pequot tribe fought in the Pequot War

• The King Philip's War slowed down the colonial western match, with Metacom (English’s name for King Philip) was beheaded and quartered

  • Philip’s wife and son were sold to slavery

Seeds of Colonial Unity and Independence

• Four colonies came together to form the New England Confederation in 1643 with them being weak and almost all Puritan, which was a milestone towards American unity

  • The colonies were allowed to be semi-autonomous commonwealths

• Charles II’s orders were ignored by Massachusetts

• A punishment was a sea-to-sea charter given to their rivals, Connecticut in 1662 and Rhode Island in 1663

• Massachusetts’ charter was revoked in 1684

Andros Promotes the First American Revolution

• The Dominion of New England was created to strengthen colonial defense against Indians in 1686

  • The Dominion enforced Navigation Acts which forbade American trade with nations besides Britain leading to smuggling becoming common

• Sir Edmund Andros was the head of the Dominion of New England

  • Andros established the headquarters in Boston, his soldiers despised Americans, he responded to opposition by restricting courts and the press, curbing town meetings, and by revoking all land titles, and taxed people without their consent

• The Glorious Revolution ensued in England, instating William and Mary as the monarchs, leading to the Dominion of New England collapsing

• Massachusetts received a new charter in 1691 which allowed all landowners to vote

Old Netherlanders at New Netherland

• Netherlands revolted against Spain in 17th century and gained independence with the help of Britain

• The Dutch East India Company was established with it often raiding instead of trading

• Dutch East India Company bought Manhattan Island for worthless trinkets

• Henry Hudson claimed went to Delaware and New York Bay and claimed area for the Netherlands

• New Amsterdam was a company town run for and by the Dutch company with it being run in the interests of stockholders

• New Amsterdam attracted people of all types and races

Friction with English and Swedish Neighbors

• New England was hostile towards Dutch Growth

• Swedes trespassed Dutch reserves by planting colony of New Sweden on the Delaware River

• Dutch sent Peter Stuyvesant to besiege the main Swedish fort

• Stuyvesant won, ending the Swedish colonial rule

Dutch Residues in New York

• Charles II gave modern-day New York to his brother, the Duke of York in 1664

• In the same year, British troops defeated the Dutch and kicked them out of the Americas

• New Amsterdam was renamed New York

• Dutch names for cities remained along with architecture and things such as Easter eggs, Santa Claus, bowling, waffles, skating, and golf

Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania

• Quakers were offensive to religious and civil rule

• Quakers didn’t swear oaths as Jesus had said “Swear not at all” which was a problem as one had to swear a test oath to prove that they weren’t Roman Catholic

• Quakers were simple, devoted, and a democratic people that opposed war and violence

• William Penn, a born Englishmen embraced the Quaker Faith and managed to secure a large grant of fertile land from the King in 1681

  • The land was later named Pennsylvania and was the best advertised of all the colonies

Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors

• Philadelphia, a city in Pennsylvania was more carefully planned than most cities

• Penn’s treatment of the Indians was friendly to the point where Quakers could walk through Indian territory without fear of being hurt

• As more and more non-Quakers came to Pennsylvania the relationship deteriorated as they mistreated Indians more and more

• Everyone besides jews and Catholics had freedom of worship with the death penalty being only for murder and treason

• There were no restrictions on immigration with naturalization being easy

• Quakers developed opposition towards slavery

• Pennsylvania attracted a variety of people from all classes, races, and religions

• By 1700, only Virginia was richer and possessed a larger population

The Middle Way in the Middle Colonies

• New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey all had fertile soil and large expanses of land and exempt Delaware, all exported a lot of grain

• The Middle Colonies were the middle way between the southern plantation states and New England and were more ethnically mixed compared to other colonies

• Americans slowly began to realize that they weren’t just surviving, they were in fact, thriving

Makers of America: The English

• Engalnd was going through a massive population boom in the 1600s with 75% of English immigrants being indentured

• Some of the immigrants were young men from the “middling classes”, some had fled during the cloth trade slump, and others had been forced off their land due to enclosure

• In the late 17th century the supply of indentured servants gradually ran out, leading the Southerners resolving the situation by employing African slaves