Colonial Life, “American” Identity Interdependence Enlightenment Awakening War.
-
Upload
pauline-parks -
Category
Documents
-
view
216 -
download
2
Transcript of Colonial Life, “American” Identity Interdependence Enlightenment Awakening War.
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