Colonial Life, “American” Identity

Interdependence

Enlightenment

Awakening

War

Topic #1

Interdependence in Colonial America

I. Restoration Colonies

A. Dutch influence

1. New Holland/Amsterdam

Hudson, Peter Minuit, 1626

2. Mercantile, tolerant

B. The Restoration Colonies

1. 1660, the Restoration (proprietary)

2. Middle colonies

NY, NJ, PENN, DEL, MDMulticultural, tolerant

C. Southern Proprietary Colonies

1. Carolinas, 1670strade & slaves

2. 1732, James Oglethorpe

social experimentbuffer zone

II. Communities of Trade

A. West Indies

1. Brown gold

2. Absentee landlords

B. Lower South

1. 1730s, rice & indigo productionworld contact

2. Black / white ratio (1720)Sea Islands

C. Chesapeake

1. 18th Century, diversification of

agriculture

2. Market agriculture

D. New England

1. Supplied timber, fish to West Indies

2. Slave trade

3. Least dependenton Britain

E. Middle Colonies

1. Colonial “breadbasket”

2. Cosmopolitan centersNY, Philadelphia

3. Land of opportunity(?)

III. Community & Work in Colonial Society

A. Planter Society & Slavery

1. Early 1700s: white labor drying up

2. Growth in slave trade1700: 13% of Chesapeake black1776: 40%

3. American patriarchy noblesse oblige

4. Plantation household

5. Pressure to move westfew cities or population centers

6. Lack of skilled (free) labor

B. Slave Experience & Culture

1. Middle Passage / seasoning

2. 1620s-1720s isolation

3. Concentration & community- local languages Gullah “Mus tek cyear a de root fa heal de tree.”

- religion animism participatory equality before God

4. Culture as resistance Culture of resistance

5. Limits of resistance Stono Rebellion, 1739

6. The Price of Slavery

militant culture

gender gap

limited economic development

limited democratization

C. Northern/Middle colonies

1. New opportunities (status: economic)

“best poor man’s country”

2. Population explosion (white) 1688, 225K 1775, 2.5M 500K (black)

3. Why?- cheap land, tolerance, skilled labor

4. Tensions: Native Americans Patroons

5. Ethnic communities Scots-Irish, Welsh, Germans, French

6. Market & subsistence patterns “independence”

Interdependence among colonies bondsthese communities together

New living and work patterns erode European traditions

Opportunities add to sense of entitlement

Topic #2

The Enlightenment and Its Impact on America

I. 1600s: Age of Religion

A. Religious concerns dominant1. War

2. Fatalism over optimism

“Great Chain of Being”

Divine Right of Kings

Patriarchy/slavery

Puritanism

II. 1700s: Age of Reason

“Enlightenment”

The search for rational basis of law, government, education, philosophy,

nature.

A. Reason v. faith1. Intellectuals repulsed by warfare (Salem)

2. Enlightened “self interest”southern planters, northern merchants

III. Key Enlightenment Ideas

Rationalism/skepticism

Optimism

Natural Law

A. Isaac Newton

1. 1687 – Principia Mathematica

2. Natural law

3. Explodes religious authority

B. John Locke

1. Propagandist for English liberalism

2. 1689 – Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“tabula rasa”

3. 1690 – Two Treatises on Government

a. Puritans: govt. was “necessary evil”

b. Locke: govt. was a contract

4. Govt. protects “Natural Rights” Life, Liberty, Property

IV. Enlightenment influence on colonies

Empire of Reason

A. Greatest influence

1. Well-educated wealthy urban dwellers/planters

B. Colonial Churches1. Harvard theologians

Jonathan Mayhew – right to revolution

2. Deism

“liberal” ProtestantismUnitarianism

C. Uniquely American perspective

[“What, then, is the American, This New Man?”- Hector St. John de Crevecoeur”]

1. All things governed by usefulness pragmatism

2. First American

Benjamin Franklin

- active, confident, improving

- Voluntary Associations

- Self-education

- Social improvement

Americans are optimistic, not fatalistic

Topic #3: The 1st Great Awakening

That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you.

There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping

mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is

nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that

holds you up.

I. What was it?

A. 1734-1775: revivals sweep the colonies

1. Included different churches Anglicans = George Whitfield Methodists = John Wesley Presbyterians = Gilbert Tennant

2. Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, 1741

- last-ditch attempt to revive Calvinism God-centered universe

predestinationAmerica cannot shirk its destiny

- detested “money-grubbers” moral relativism

B. Why a revival?

1. Class and religious need

2. Economic frustration“River Gods”

3. Women in the Awakening

II. Why was it important?

Not entirely successful, but…

…shapes American religion in two ways

A. Revivalism

1. American style of Protestantismalways looking for converts

2. Blends religious & political issues

1760s Connecticut: Old Lights v. New Lights

3. Denominationalism: religious pluralism - end of state-supported churches - revivals split churches - breaks political power of churches

B. Cultural basis of Revolution

1. Required no education: egalitarian

2. Gave poorer, rural colonists commonexperience

3. Experience was anti-authoritarian

4. Gave colonists common enemySatan “Millennialism”

King of France (Catholic)King of England

Topic #4

The Seven Years (French & Indian) War, 1756-63

War for Empire and the Stirrings of American Nationalism

I. Background

Britain & France

Colonial / mercantile competition

A. Distinctive colonization1. British have numbers

2. French have more Indian allies

3. British colonists imbued w/ Millennialism

B. An “American” conflict1. 1754 – Albany Plan of Union

based on Iroquois Confederacy

2. 1754-56: colonies fail to unify

it’s Britain’s responsibility

1756, Braddock’s defeat

3. 1757 – Pitt the Elder “at His Majesty’s Expense”

30,000 British troops20,000 colonial (militias)

4. Appeal crossed class boundaries

II. Course of the War

A. British losses

1. Strategy, cohesian

2. 1758 – negotiations w/ Eastern Tribes

B. British successes

1. 1759, Quebec 1760, Montreal

Death of General Wolfe – Benjamin West

2. Treaty of Paris, 1763

C. Angry colonists

1. Pontiac’s Rebellion, 1762-64

2. Proclamation Line of 1763

D. Cultural impact of the war1. Benign neglect

- Americans did not take orders well - shocked at treatment of British soldiers

2. Great Awakening - shocked by Brit conscripts

3. National identity – 4x trade, colonial “mixing” newspaper popularity

End of Benign Neglect

Navigation Acts (1664)

1763