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Chapter 8: British Empire in America: Growth and Conflict (1650–1750)
Important Keywords:
Mercantilism: An economic system practiced by European powers in the late seventeenth century stating that economic self-sufficiency was crucial; as a result, colonial empires were important for raw materials.
Navigation Acts (1660): Acts passed by the British Parliament increasing the dependence of the colonies on the English for trade.
These acts caused great resentment in the American colonies but were not strictly enforced.
Triangular trade system: Complex trading system that developed in this era between Europe, Africa, and the colonies.
Europeans purchased slaves in Africa and sold them to the colonies, raw materials from the colonies went to Europe, while European finished products were sold in the colonies.
Middle Passage: Voyage taken by African slaves on horribly overcrowded ships from Africa to the Americas.
Salem Witch Trials (1692): Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, after which 19 people were executed as witches; historians note the class nature of these trials.
Salutary neglect: Early eighteenth-century British policy relaxing the strict enforcement of trade policies in the American colonies.
Key Timeline
1651: First of several Navigation Acts approved by British parliament
1676: Bacon’s Rebellion takes place in Virginia
1682: Dutch monopoly on slave trade ends, greatly reducing the price of slaves coming to the Americas
1686: Creation of Dominion of New England
1688: Glorious Revolution in England; James II removed from the throne
1689: Beginning of the War of the League of Augsburg
1692: Witchcraft trials take place in Salem, Massachusetts
1702: Beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession
1733: Enactment of the Molasses Act
1739: Stono (slave) Rebellion in South Carolina
1740: George Whitefield tours the American colonies—the high point of the Great Awakening
Part of an Empire
Most European leaders supported mercantilism.
Mercantilists believed a state's economic health depended on a favorable trade balance.
Governments encouraged exports and discouraged imports with high tariffs.
Colonies produced cheap raw materials and staples and consumed the mother country's finished goods.
Mercantilists believed that the world's wealth was finite and that governments had to maximize their share.
Tobacco, rice, fish, and lumber from the American colonies supplied England in this mercantilist scheme.
The first law regulating American trade was passed by Parliament in 1651.
In 1660 and 1663, King Charles II passed the Navigation Acts, which were revised in the 1670s.
These acts boosted English trade while hurting Dutch competitors.
These acts restricted English goods to English ships with majority-English crews.
Tobacco, sugar, and rice shipped to Europe had to first be taxed in England.
The Navigation Acts raised colonists' living and business costs.
In 1684, an English court convicted the Massachusetts Bay Colony of violating the Navigation Acts because New England ignored English trade regulations.
In 1686, King James II created the from New England, New York, and New Jersey.
Sir Edmund Andros, the king's appointed governor, had more power under this new structure.
Planters blamed the Navigation Acts when tobacco prices fell in the 1660s.
Western Virginians believed that Sir William Berkeley was more interested in profiting from his office than protecting the colonists from Native American raids.
In 1676, a landowner named Nathaniel Bacon raised the standard of rebellion.
Bacon's Rebellion was a 400–500-man army that attacked Native American settlements, some of which had been at peace with the colonists, to intimidate the colonial government.
At one point, Bacon’s men burned down Jamestown. After Bacon died of dysentery, Berkeley defeated the rebels and hanged 23 of them.
Growth of Slavery
In 1662, a law was passed in Virginia declaring that the child of a slave mother was also a slave.
In 1682, their monopoly ended, lowering slave prices in the English colonies.
A labor force of enslaved Africans became increasingly attractive to prosperous planters.
Portuguese explorers and merchants began trading with west African slavers in the 1440s.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the triangular trade system relied on the slave trade.
This Atlantic-wide trade and economic interdependence linked Africa, the Caribbean, South and North America, and Europe.
European goods were traded for African slaves, who were sold in the Western Hemisphere to produce staple goods for Europe.
The Middle Passage transported African slaves to the Americas.
Disease in these cramped quarters killed slaves and crews.
Most African slaves were sent to South America or the Caribbean.
The British North American colonies' slave populations grew through natural reproduction.
Slaves developed an African-European culture over time.
They also mixed African and Christian beliefs.
In 1739, South Carolina's Stono Rebellion was the largest slave uprising in British colonies.
100 slaves revolted and killed isolated planters.
Most rebels were killed or executed after losing a pitched battle against militiamen.
After this rebellion, slave laws were tightened.
Political Unrest in the Colonies
Massachusetts and the other New England colonies resented Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of the new Dominion of New England, taking their power.
King James II was overthrown during the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England.
William of Orange and Mary, became England's first constitutional monarchs by respecting Parliament's prerogatives.
The Glorious Revolution inspired political upheaval in the colonies.
Protestant rebels overthrew Catholic Maryland leaders and imprisoned Governor Andros in Massachusetts.
In New York, a militia officer named Jacob Leisler took control of the colony.
Massachusetts became a royal colony with a royal governor after the monarchs abolished the Dominion of New England and restored most representative institutions.
Jacob Leisler ran afoul of the new regime and was hanged as a rebel.
This showed that the royal government wanted to stay involved in colonial affairs.
Salem Witch Trials
Salem's witch trials and executions were unprecedented in the colonies.
A group of girls experienced inexplicable seizures and reported invisible force attacks.
The girls accused witches of persecuting them, triggering a series of judicial investigations.
Before the hysteria abated, over 100 people had been jailed and 20 executed.
Nineteen men and women were hanged, and one man was pressed to death.
Five other people, including an infant, died in prison.
People began to doubt the accusers' claims that so many people were witches.
A new governor put an official end to the proceedings.
Imperial Wars
Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France, attempted to dominate Europe.
English and French wars began in 1689 and ended in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo.
From 1689 to 1697, America's King William's War was the League of Augsburg War.
Schenectady, New York, was destroyed by French and Native American war parties.
In turn, colonists assisted the Iroquois tribe in attacking Canada.
Massachusetts-based troops took Port Royal in Acadia from the French.
Queen Anne's War in America (War of the Spanish Succession) lasted from 1702 to 1713.
In 1704, French and Native Americans raided Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 48 and capturing 112.
Like King William's War, America had no decisive battles.
The Treaty of Utrecht forced the French to give up Newfoundland, Acadia, and other American territories after Marlborough's European victories.
American Self-Government
England and Scotland were formally united with the Acts of Union of 1706 and 1707.
The British struggled to control North America in the early eighteenth century.
Some colonies, like Connecticut and Rhode Island, elected their governors, while others, like the Carolinas, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, had proprietors who appointed governors.
Self-government prevailed throughout British North America. Colonial assemblies were elected, but governors were appointed.
The “people” of this time were men who owned a certain amount of property.
This electorate was larger than that of Great Britain or any other European power.
Starting in the 1720s with Massachusetts, the colonial assemblies resisted Great Britain's pressure to regularize royal governor salaries.
This gave assemblies "the power of the purse" in disputes with governors.
Salutary Neglect
George I and George II's British government focused on international relations and Europe's power balance.
These kings from the Electorate of Hanover focused on Germany and central Europe.
The British government's main goal with its colonies was economic growth.
British officials prevented Americans from making textiles, hats, and iron goods.
American merchants flourished after the Navigation Acts allowed English colonists to own ships and trade.
The Molasses Act of 1733 raised duties on foreign sugar because Parliament was worried about the American sugar trade with the French in the Caribbean.
By 1750, a new generation of British colonial administrators wanted to tighten control over insubordinate Americans.
First Great American Religious Revival
The First Great Awakening shaped American spiritual and intellectual values.
The First Great Awakening challenged religious authorities and called for more personal and emotional worship.
The Great Awakening criticized ministers' intellectual sermons.
Jonathan Edwards preached on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," vividly describing hell and its horrors.
In the 1740s, George Whitefield's sermons drew thousands to the colonies.
The Great Awakening promoted personal equality in the American colonies by scorning the "establishment" and emphasizing fervor over ministerial learning.
Chapter 9: Resistance, Rebellion, and Revolution (1750–1775)