Mercantilism as a Moral Revolution
 British colonists enjoyed a good deal of
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political autonomy through their elected
assemblies (for example, the Virginia House of
Burgesses).
Euros believed that power came from a nation’s
wealth.
Colonies were necessary for economic growth.
Nations had to control the commerce of their
colonies.
First Navigation Act, 1651
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Balance of trade
Rules governing which goods could enter English
ports and on which ships
Mercantilism (cont’d)
 Navigation Act of 1660
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All colonial trade had to be carried out on
English ships.
 New rules on nationality of captain and crew
of ships.
 Enumerated commodities that could be
shipped from the colony of origin only to
England or another English colony.
Colonial Economy & Society
By 1750,
• one million people resided in American colonies along the
Atlantic coast.
• population increased to significant proportions,.
 Disease contraction was much reduced.
 Infant mortality rates in the colonies were much lower
than those in England.
 Life expectancy considerably higher.
 By the mid-1800s, just under a quarter million
blacks lived in the colonies, almost twenty times
the number in 1700.
 slave owners increased the demand for slaves
 especially in southern colonies.
 The overwhelming majority of slaves lived in the
southern colonies.
 A typical South Carolina planter, on the other
hand, might own as many as fifty slaves to work
in the rice fields.
Geographical Differences and Slavery
 Although a mainstay of the southern economy,
slavery was not unknown in the northern
colonies.
 For example, slaves made up 20% of the
population of New York in 1746.
 The majority of slaves worked as domestics,
assistants to craftsmen,
or stevedores in the
port cities, they lived
in their master’s home,
as did indentured
servants.
Slave Revolts
 The Stono freedom fighters killed somewhere
between 22 and 25 whites before being defeated
in a bloody battle by a group of South Carolina
militia near the Edisto River; 20 whites and 44
blacks died.
 South Carolina legislature responded harshly to
the Stono Rebellion, inaugurating some of the
first truly restrictive slave laws in the North
American colonies.
 The Negro Act of 1740
banned reading in
English for slaves,
the right to assemble
in groups. raise food,
or earn money.
Colonial Trade and Industry
The Atlantic trading network
England, Africa, and the West Indies.
 The pattern of commerce called the Triangular Trade
 the exchange of products from colonial farms, plantations,
fisheries, and forests with England for manufactured goods and
the West Indies for slaves, molasses, and sugar.
 Colonial industry was
closely associated with
trade. A significant
percentage of Atlantic
shipping was on vessels
built in the colonies.
 Mercantile theory
encouraged the colonies to
provide raw materials for
England’s industrializing
economy.
 pig iron and coal
became important
exports.
Colonial Trade
The social structure of the colonies
 Chesapeake area
 Both in their lifestyles and social pursuits (such
as horse racing), the southern gentry emulated
the English country squire.
 Southern colonies.
 The descendants of the Dutch patroons and the
men who received lands from the English royal
governors controlled estates in the middle
colonies.
• worked by tenant farmers
Indian, Settlers, Upheaval
 Effects of European diseases
 Mourning wars and tribal adoptions
 Algonquians
 Integration of European materials and
products into Indian life
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Iroquois League
Chain of Peace
Indian and Settlers, cont.
The Covenant Chain
 ongoing set of councils and
treaties between the English
colonies in North America
and the Iroquois Confederacy
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These treaties covered such
contentious matters
 trade, settlement, and the
resolution of violence between
colonists and Iroquois.
 The Covenant Chain operated
from the late 17th century until
the middle of the 1750s.
 During most of its operation,
New York took the lead
Metacom’s War, 1675
 Began with simple confrontation in Puritan frontier
town of Swansea before becoming an all-out war
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Pitted Massachusetts and Connecticut against
Wampanoags and Narragansetts
 Indians had firearms and fought fiercely
 Colonists attacked even the settlements of Christian
Indians
 Colonists eventually won, but only with help of
Mohawks and Mohegans
 Metacom killed; hundreds of his supporters sold
into West Indian slavery
Metacom, 1675
The so called Glorious Revolution in England was one of the
most influential events that took place during 1688.
Impact of the Glorious Revolution
in the Colonies
 As colonial population increased, some
English traditions were altered
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Colonies had to educate and train their own
ministers
 Emergence of colonial class of “gentlemen”
 Ireland and Germany main sources of
immigrants after 1720
 Two factors:
 colonial prosperity  the spread of
information
 simple fact of distance
The Enlightenment in Provincial America
 Spread of Enlightenment values through the
colonies
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Found ready audience among colonial elites
 Influence of newspapers and the printed word
 Few settlers owned books
 Newspaper printing widespread in the colonies by
1700s
 Benjamin Franklin at the Pennsylvania Gazette
began branching out to other sources and original
works.
 Other inventions
 Rise of Scientific Revolution
 Natural Laws
 John Locke
 Deism
This eighteenth-century woodcut shows George Whitefield
preaching to a great crowd. Whitefield was an English
minister who preached throughout the British colonies in the
mid-1700s during the First Great Awakening.
The Great Awakening
 Swept Protestant world in 1730s and early 1740s
 Evangelical
 Emphasis on personal conversion experience
 Revival
 Presbytery
 More women than men experienced conversion
 Split established denominations
 Evangelical and non-evangelical sects
 Gave rise to Baptists, Methodists, and other evangelical
denominations
 Spawned founding of several new colleges
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George Whitefield
 Resulted in religious transformation of America
New France, 1670s-1730s
 In 1673, Jesuit Jacques Marquette fur trader Louis
Joliet traveled from Wisconsin down the Mississippi
River.
 in 1702, La Salle explores from Lake Mich. all the
way to the Gulf of Mexico (Louisiana).
 principal motives behind French exploration and
settlement: bringing Catholicism to the native tribes
and expanding the fur trade.
New France, 1670s-1730s
 Louis tried to transform colony into
model absolutist society
 only French Catholics
 population of New France and Louisiana
was quite small.
 Important distinction:
 Unlike the British colonists, the French,
and especially fur trappers, integrated into
Indian culture life customs.
 These trappers still maintained French
identity.
Three Warring
Empires, 1689–1713
 Treaty of Utrecht
 French and Spanish empires fighting mainly
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to survive
New Englanders calling repeatedly for
conquest of New France
King William’s War (1689–1697)
Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713)
Westward thrust strong in Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia
New Territories After
Queen Anne’s War, 1713
Renewal of Imperial Conflict
 King George’s War, 1744–1747
 France joined Spain in its battle with England and
the colonists
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minor border raids
 meaningful results
 The French responded by building a string of
forts in the disputed territory, including Fort
Duquesne near Pittsburgh
 French and Indian (Seven
Years War), 1756–1763
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Origins in desire of English
colonists to expand west
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Led to clashes with both the
French and the Indians
Colonies not united
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1754 plans for joint action at
Albany Congress failed
 Irregular war
 Fort Duquesne
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Washington and Braddock
War went initially against
British
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William Pitt