Northern English Colonies
Roots and Colonization
Discord in England
• Thought the Church of England
was corrupt and needed
purified from within, they
stayed members.
• John Winthrop
• 1630
• Massachusetts Bay
• 1000 people
• By 1690 had 90,000 people
• Royal Charter
• Thought the Church of
England was corrupt and to
fix it they needed to
separate from the Church.
• William Bradford
• Went to Holland first and
then to Plymouth in 1620
• 100 people
• By 1690 had 7,000 people
• Mayflower Compact
John Winthrop
William Bradford
The Pilgrims End their Pilgrimage at
Plymouth
– Fled to Holland first
• Left to America to avoid the Dutchification of their kin
– Colony begins 1620
• 102 people, only half were Separatists
• Got permission to settle in Virginia
– missed, maybe on purpose
– Mayflower Compact
• Agreement to form a government based on the majority
– Hard times
• Only 44 of 102 survived the first winter
– Economy
• Fish, fur, timber
– Only 7000 people by 1691
The Bay Colony Bible Commonwealth
– Charles I dismissed parliament 1629 began persecuting
Puritans
• Puritans got charter to start Mass Bay
– Sizable start
• 1,000 settlers arrived in 1630
– Great Migration 1630’s
• 70,000 leave England
• 20,000 go to Mass Bay
• Most go to Barbados
– Who Came?
• Puritans
• Families
• Fairly wealthy, educated
Building the Bay Colony
Trouble in the Bible Commonwealth
– Religious dissension
• Quakers
– Flogged, fined, even hung
• Anne Hutchinson
– Antinomianism
» Living holy didn’t mean you were saved
– Direct revelation from God
– Banished
• Roger Williams
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Salem Minister
Separatist
Separation of Church and State
Banished
The Rhode Island “Sewer”
– Founded by Roger Williams in 1636
– Religious Freedom
– No state supported church
– More liberal than any English settlement
– Simple manhood suffrage
– Individualistic and independent
• “the traditional home of the otherwise minded”
Puritan Versus Indians
– Before the Separatists arrived in 1620 Indians were hit
with a smallpox epidemic
• Killed more than ¾ of the population
• Left fields vacant and ready for planting
– Local Indians (Wampanoag) originally befriended the
settlers (Thanksgiving)
– 1637 Pequot War
• English wiped out the Pequot Indians
– Praying Towns
• Villages where Christian Indians settled in the colonies
– King Philip’s War 1675-76
• Metacom (King Philip) created an Indian alliance against English
• Hundreds died, Metacom killed, slowed the westward expansion
of the Mass colonies for years
Dutch Residues in New York
– Surrounded by English colonists
• English saw the Dutch as intruders
– Duke of York is granted the area by Charles II
– York sends a fleet to oust the Dutch and they
surrender without firing a shot
– Area remained autocratic, aristocratic
– Dutch left behind names, games, social customs,
etc
• Santa Claus, waffles, bowling, skating, golf, etc
Penn’s Holy Experiment in
Pennsylvania
– Society of Friends—Quakers
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Wouldn’t pay taxes to the Anglican Church
No paid clergy
Everyone could participate in congregations
No oaths—test oaths to prove not Catholic
Refused military service
William Penn converted in 1660
– Penn gets land grant in 1681
• King owed his father money
– Pennsylvania
• Best advertised colony
• England, Netherlands, France, Germany
• Liberal land policy—cheap
– Brought in a lot of people
Quaker Pennsylvania and Its Neighbors
– Squatters along the Delaware River
• Made settling the area easier
– Penn bought the land from the Indians
• Peaceful relations by the Quakers
• Non Quakers ruined the peace on the frontier
– Unusually liberal
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No tax supported church
Representative assembly
However no Catholics or Jews allowed to vote
No military
No immigration restrictions
Disliked slavery
– Ethnic and religious mix
• Misfits expelled from New England
• Germans, Scots-Irish, English, French
– Neighbors
• Delaware and New Jersey
– Established in large part by Quakers
– Very similar to Pennsylvania
The Middle way in the Middle Colonies
– New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and
Pennsylvania
– Certain common features
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Fertile soil—bread colonies
Broad slow rivers
Large amount of industry
Good harbors pushed commerce
Landholdings were medium in size
Population was the most ethnically mixed
Religious toleration