Settling the Northern & Middle
Colonies Chapter 3
Warm Up
• Read Mayflower Compact & answer the
questions with your partner (A day)
• SFI World History Activity (B day)
Political Life in England (1603 -1688)
• After the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the crown
passed to the Catholic Stuarts (James I )
▫ chronic conflict with the Protestant majority of
Parliament
▫ Charles I attempted to rule w/o Parliament
• English Civil War (1640-49); Charles I beheaded
• Puritan Oliver Cromwell rules as ‘Lord Protector’
until his death
• Restoration of Stuarts (Charles II) in 1660
• 1685, James II begins Catholic drama again
• 1688, Glorious Revolution
▫ William & Mary (monarchy must be head of the
Church of England)
▫ English Bill of Rights establishes precedent of
documenting the protected rights of citizens
Calvinism is America
• Puritans wished to rid-English Christianity of all
Catholic (papist) elements
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God is all-knowing & all-powerful
Humans are weak & prone to sin
It is predetermined which souls go to heaven
Only during conversion might one receive a sign that
he/she had been saved
• Separatists believed that only ‘visible saints’ should be
members of the Church of England
▫ But all of the King’s subjects were entitled to membership
▫ Needed to break away completely from C of E
• James I threatened their leadership
▫ went to Holland, then secured the right to settle in the VA
Company’s lands in 1620
▫ Arrived in Plymouth Bay as squatters, needed to create
gov’t & gain right to the land
Plymouth Colony
• Wrote the Mayflower Compact as
▫ a basic plan of gov’t
▫ Demonstration of their fidelity to King James I
• Of the 102 who arrived on the Mayflower, only
44 survived the first winter
▫ Celebrated “Thanksgiving” with the Wampanoag
tribe who helped them survive the first winter
• Lead by William Bradford, who was their elected
governor 30 times
• Believed that non-Puritans would corrupt their
“errand into the wilderness’
▫ Only 7,000 people by the 1690s
“A City Upon a Hill”
The Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Founded by Puritans in 1630 who wished to escape
potential persecution by Charles I
• More than 1,000 settlers, many who were educated
& well-off
• Will come to specialize in shipbuilding & timber as
industries
• Increased in size during the Great Migration of the
1630s
• John Winthrop called it “a city upon a hill’ –their
covenant with God to build a holy society
▫ Only church members ‘freemen’ could vote on
provincial matters
▫ In most towns, all propertied men could vote
▫ Everyone paid taxes to support the church
▫ Clergymen could not hold political office
The Great ‘Puritan’ Migration, 1630-40
‘Rogues Island’
• Rhode Island became home to
theological dissidents exiled from
Massachusetts Bay
• Anne Hutchinson -1638
▫ Holy life was no sign of salvation
• Roger Williams -1635
▫ Civil gov’t cannot regulate
religious behavior
▫ Founded the city of Providence as
a place of religious toleration for
all faiths, including Jews
Connecticut Colony
• Founded by Rev. Thomas
Hooker in 1639 & other
Boston Puritans
• Fertile region of New
England
• Produced first written
constitution, The
Fundamental Orders of
Connecticut
War & Peace in the Puritan World
• 1643, Mass. Bay, Plymouth, New Haven formed
the New England Confederation of Puritan
colonies due to a lack of British support during
the English Civil War
• Destroyed the Pequot tribe by uniting with the
Narragansett Indians in Connecticut during the
1637 Pequot War
• 1675, King Phillip’s War, the Wampanoag
Indians united with other tribes to stop the
spread of Puritans into Western Massachusetts
Diversity in the Middle Colonies
• Colony of New Netherland established by the Dutch
Republic in 1624
▫ As a port city, a diverse population of Swedes, Finns,
Germans and Africans emerged
• New York established in 1664 after the British
invade Manhattan island and surrounding lands
• New Jersey (proprietary colony) will split into 2
colonies due to land purchases by Quakers
• Delaware will not have its own governance until
after the Revolution
• Middle colonies will become heavy exporters of
grain & lumber
Quakers in America
• Quakerism was persecuted in England for turning
away from the Calvinist belief in predestination
▫ Everyone possessed an “inner light” that offered
salvation
▫ Egalitarian; no titles, no oaths, no clergy, no slavery
• 1681, William Penn secures a grant for his ‘holy
experiment’ of Pennsylvania
▫ Advertised honestly for skilled workers & offered
freedom of worship
▫ Philadelphia, planned city, unlike most colonial
settlements