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London Company, also called Virginia Company, one of two English joint-stock companies chartered April 10, 1606, to colonize in North America. The other was the Plymouth Company. On May 14, 1607, the first London expedition, commanded by Captain Christopher Newport, founded the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The company was reorganized in 1609 and again in 1612. In May 1624 it was dissolved because of difficulties in colonizing Jamestown. |
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In the south, when the early European settlers arrived in what is now Jamestown, Virginia, local Native Americans, loosely confederated under the chief Powhatan, were initially cooperative; however, the Europeans quickly made it clear that they planned to extend their settlements onto Native American land. On March 22, 1622, the Native Americans, under Opechancanough, Powhatan’s successor, attacked the English settlements, and 350 colonists (of about 2000) died. The colony survived, however, and retaliated in force. The following decade saw continued warfare, followed by a tenuous peace. On April 18, 1644, another attack by Opechancanough almost destroyed the growing colony. Nearly 500 settlers were killed. The war ended in 1646 when the governor, Sir William Berkeley, captured Opechancanough. English expansion up Virginia’s rivers continued until 1675-1676, when the war with Native Americans that is associated with Bacon’s Rebellion erupted. |
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| Burgesses/Colonial Assembly |
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| Each colony had a representative assembly with authority to make laws covering most aspects of local life. The assemblies had the right to tax; to appropriate money for public works and public officials; and to regulate internal trade, religion, and social behavior. Although the British government was responsible for external matters, such as foreign affairs and trade, the American colonists had a great deal of self-government during the colonial period. The capable leaders of the assemblies took the lead in the independence struggle. These well-functioning representative institutions would form the basis for the new state governments. |
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Who: The Deleware (Lenape) and William Penn's sons
What: The Penns acquired 1200 miles of Deleware land through the use of three runners and likely a false deed
When: 1737
Where: Pennsylvania
Why important: Shows new feeling of distrust between the Delewares and Quakers / Penns |
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Who: The "Society of Friends" interpreted the bible literally and were in stark contrast to the Church of England
What: Rejected organized church, would not pay tithes to the Church of England, met publicly for worship (against the law to meet for worship other than the Church of England)
When: Began to immigrate to the Americas in 1660s, by 1684 7000 in Pennsylvanio
Where: Purchased land in New Jersy in 1674 and William Penn granted land for Pennsylvania colony in 1681
Why important: Pioneers of social reform, friends of native americans, and were not slave owners |
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- English Quaker
- Obtained grant of N. Amer territory from the crown for debt owed father
- Sailed for America in 1682
- Helped Quakers exscape religious persecutiong
- Made land purchases from the Delewares on fair terms |
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The voyage from the African coast to the Americas was called the Middle Passage. For the human cargo of slaves, it was among the most difficult sea passages ever undertaken. On average, 16 percent of the men, women, and children involved perished in transit. The typical ocean crossing might last from 25 to 60 days, depending on origin, destination, and winds. Slaves were kept below at night on decks four or five feet high. They had less than half the space allotted convicts or soldiers transported by ship at the same time. Captains kept slaves above deck through as much of the day as weather permitted. Men remained shackled; women and children were freer; crews encouraged movement and activity. Two meals per day were the norm. The food varied according to purchases at departure: corn and rice from the less-forested regions on the northern and southern extremes; yams from the Niger delta to the Zaire River. Sometimes dried beans from Europe were standard fare. Each person received about a pint of water with a meal. Shipboard hygiene was primitive. Captains made reasonable efforts to guard food and water from contamination and to isolate the sickest slaves, but sanitary facilities were inadequate and slave ships harbored a wealth of diseases. Dysentery was the biggest killer. Mortality rates declined after the mid-18th century. By that time ships had become faster (meaning less time for contamination of food and water and spreading of diseases), and captains had learned how to prevent scurvy with citrus fruits and how to produce fresh water by boiling and evaporating salt water. |
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| Enacted in 1755 by the Virginia assembly in anticipation of a low-yielding tobacco crop, permitted payment of obligations due in tobacco over a ten-month period at a commutation rate of two per pound. In 1758 the assembly passed a similar act of one year's duration. The Anglican clergy, whose salaries were fixed in terms of tobacco, objected to the measure. They secured a royal disallowance of the act and sought to collect the difference between two pence and the market price. The suits to recover back salaries, known as the "parson's cause," proved unsuccessful. |
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| Plan originated by the English statesman Robert Harley, 1st earl of Oxford, in 1711, for the retirement of the floating national debt of Great Britain. Under the plan, the debt was assumed by merchants to whom the government guaranteed for a certain period annual payments equal to $3 million. This sum, amounting to 6 percent interest, was to be obtained from duties on imports. The monopoly British trade in the South Seas and South America was given to these merchants, incorporated as the South Sea Company, and extravagant ideas of the riches of South America were fostered. In the spring of 1720 the company offered to assume practically the whole national debt, at that time equal to more than $150 million. Companies of all kinds were floated to take advantage of the public interest in obtaining South Sea Company stock. Speculation soon carried stock to ten times its nominal value. The chairman and some directors sold out, the bubble burst, and the stock collapsed. Thousands of stockholders were ruined. Parliamentary investigation revealed complicity by some company officials. Two members in the royal court of George I were also implicated in the scandal. However, a political crisis was averted through the efforts of Sir Robert Walpole, 1st earl of Orford, who at that time was serving as the chancellor of the Exchequer. About one-third of the original capital was recovered for the stockholders. |
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The king also faced opposition from critics such as political reformer John Wilkes, a member of Parliament who was arrested for libel when he criticized one of the king’s speeches. Wilkes became an advocate of freedom of the press and a champion of parliamentary reform. One of Wilkes’s proposed reforms involved redrawing parliamentary districts. He advocated the elimination of rotten boroughs—parliamentary districts in depopulated rural areas. The boundaries of many of these boroughs had not been adjusted since the 15th century. In some rotten boroughs, a few dozen voters returned members to Parliament, while the entire city of Manchester went unrepresented. Parliament defeated a bill to eliminate the worst of the rotten boroughs in 1785, largely because many members of Parliament depended on the patronage system, which was controlled by politicians who came from these boroughs. “Wilkes and Liberty!” became the cry of a host of discontented groups within English society. |
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| Meeting convened in 1754 to strengthen ties between the Native Americans and the American colonies in preparation for war with France. It was attended by representatives of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the New England colonies, and the Iroquois Confederacy. The meeting was held in Albany, New York. It is best known for its espousal of a plan for colonial union devised by Benjamin Franklin. The Albany plan called for a common representative council elected by the colonial legislatures and a president-general appointed by the Crown. Although never implemented, the plan prefigured the later union of states. |
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Uprising in 1676 of Virginia farmers against the colonial authorities headed by Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia. The rebellion began when a group of former indentured servants led by Nathaniel Bacon, a young plantation owner, accused Governor Berkeley of failing to protect them from raids by Native Americans. Under Bacon's authority, the men formed an army to punish the raiding tribes. Berkeley denounced the men as rebels and accused them of attacking and killing not just hostile Native Americans, but members of friendly tribes. After defeating the Native Americans, Bacon and his men occupied Jamestown, the capital of the colony. The farmers, who were now demanding governmental reforms in addition to protection from hostile Native Americans, forced the governor to flee. Bacon then led another expedition against the Native Americans, defeating them at the Battle of Bloody Run. While Bacon was engaged in this effort, Berkeley began to raise a force to fight him. Marching against Jamestown a second time, Bacon captured the city and burned it in September 1676. In the following month, Bacon died suddenly and his rebellion immediately collapsed. The governor took revenge upon Bacon's followers, executing some and confiscating the property of others. |
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General revival of evangelical religion in the American colonies, which reached its peak in the early 1740s. Local revivals had occurred previously, inspired by the teaching of such clergymen as the congregational theologian Jonathan Edwards. In 1739 and 1740 the English evangelist George Whitefield made extended tours along the Atlantic seaboard, attracting large crowds as he preached the necessity for sinners to be converted. Others followed his example of itinerant preaching, and many small local revivals merged into a general “great awakening.”
In community after community, the Great Awakening produced tension, discord, and factional rivalry, so that whatever religious harmony and uniformity had existed was disrupted. Nevertheless, evangelical fervor drew supporters of the revival together, producing a sense of unity transcending denominational and political boundaries. The Great Awakening was thus a significant intercolonial movement, which contributed to a sense of American nationality before the American Revolution. |
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| In 1736 Whitefield was ordained deacon in the Church of England and two years later followed the Wesley brothers to Savannah, Georgia, as a missionary. Shortly thereafter, Whitefield returned to England and was ordained a priest. Because of his unconventional manner of preaching and conducting services, many Church of England pulpits were closed to him; he therefore began to preach in the open air and attracted vast crowds by his eloquence. In 1739 he returned to America and participated with the American Congregational clergyman Jonathan Edwards in inaugurating the revival movement that later became known as the Great Awakening. |
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What: A tax on specific goods and services as opposed to a graduated income tax |
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What: Ended the 7 Year War in Europe and the New World part of the conflict The French and Indian War between the French and the British. The French and Indian War began in America but extended to Europe and Asia. All French possessions east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, are given to the British. All French possessions west of the Mississippi are given to the Spanish. France regains Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. Lucia.
Why important: The French and Indian war caused the British to change relationship with the colonies. Peace terms reflect British military success. British debt increased after war leading to taxation of the colonies. British fustrated at Americans failure to cooperate--military expeditions to Canada etc. during the war and felt need for tighter grip on colonies. The colonists concerned that the British standing army threatened liberty and representative government. |
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Movements of nativism (the assertion of traditional values in the face of foreign encroachment) and revitalization (the revival of traditional culture, often involving explicit rejection of European civilization) have arisen, led by Native American prophets who claimed to have received revelation from the aboriginal deities, often in dreams and visions. These prophets have frequently shown evidence of Christian influence in their moral codes, their missionary zeal, and their concern for personal redemption and social improvement. Sometimes their teachings have led to military advances against European invaders. For example, in the early 1760s the Delaware prophet Neolin helped inspire the rebellion of Ottawa warrior Pontiac against the British. Similarly, the preaching of Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa bolstered the military efforts of his brother Tecumseh against the United States Army between 1808 and 1813. The revivals of preachers such as the Iroquois Handsome Lake in 1799 and the Salish John Slocum in 1882 spawned new religions—part native, part Christian—that have endured in their respective communities to the present day. |
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Who: King George III of England
What: British proclamation that established boundaries and governments for the American colonies including land W. of the Appalachians for the indegenous people
When: 1763
Where: Throughout the colonies including Quebec, Florida, and Grenada
Why important: The colonies resented the restrictions on trade which helped spark the American Revolution (1775-1783) |
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Who: The British parliament
What: Replaced the Molasses Act, this act raised the duty on sugar and lowered the duty on molasses. Allowed the British to have profitable control of the import of sugar to the Americas from the West Indies
When: 1764
Where: Largest importers were New England
Why important: An indirect cause of the American Revolution |
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Who: British prime minister
What: Required colonists to buy and place stamps on all legal docs, newspapers, pamphlets, playing cards. Newspaper publishers esp. hit. Colonial merchants agreed to stop importing British goods until the Stamp Act repealed
When: 1765, repealed 1766
Where: Throughout colonies
Why important: One of the chief causes of the American Revolution |
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| In 1765 Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. The same year, the British Parliament infuriated the colonies by passing the Stamp Act, a form of direct taxation. Henry led the fight against the act in the House of Burgesses and presented seven resolutions condemning it. The resolutions asserted that only the colonial legislatures could levy taxes on the colonies. In support of his resolutions, Henry warned, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third … may profit by their example.” In answer to cries of treason from conservative members, Henry replied, “If this be treason, make the most of it.” The resolutions started a chain reaction that deeply affected opinion in other colonies. |
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Assembly of delegates from nine of the American colonies, convened in October 1765 at New York City to protest against the Stamp Act. Held in response to an invitation sent to all 13 colonies by Massachusetts, the congress comprised representatives of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, and South Carolina. The delegates expressed the opposition of the colonists to the oppressive Stamp Act in three documents: a Declaration of Rights and Grievances, an address to the king, and a group of petitions to both houses of the British Parliament. Although the congress recognized the authority of Parliament, its petitions were refused for formal consideration by the House of Commons as coming from an unauthorized body. In America, several of the colonial assemblies and the Sons of Liberty officially supported the congress. The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, largely as a result of pressure from British business interests. The principles of independence enunciated by the congress, such as the right of trial by jury and particularly the ringing denunciation of “taxation without representation,” were later adopted by the leaders of the American Revolution and were incorporated into such revolutionary instruments as the Declaration of Independence. |
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| American merchants refused to import goods carried in British ships (1765) |
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| A secret patriotic society organized in the American colonies in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act. After the act was repealed in 1766, the society, which consisted of numerous local chapters, formed Committees of Correspondence to foster resistance to oppressive British economic and political actions. The Sons of Liberty also helped enforce the policy of nonimportation. Leaders include Samuel Adams and Paul Reveere. |
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| British colonial administrator. John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, was born in Scotland. A member of the British House of Lords from 1761 to 1770, he was appointed governor of New York in 1770 and of Virginia in 1771. He dissolved the Virginia Assembly in 1772, 1773, and 1774 because of its revolutionary attitude. An action against the Shawnee people in 1774, which he supposedly instigated to protect his own property, became known as Lord Dunmore's War. In April 1775, having had news of the battles of Lexington and Concord, he prompted a revolutionary uprising by transferring part of the colony's gunpowder stores from Williamsburg to the British warship Magdalen. After a riot at the June session of the colonial legislature, Dunmore transferred the seat of government to the British man-of-war Fowey, anchored off Yorktown. The colonial burgesses declared that he had abdicated, and they vested a committee of safety with executive powers. Dunmore equipped a flotilla and used it to attack Hampton. After he had burned Norfolk on January 1, 1776, the Americans drove him from his station on Gwynn's Island in Chesapeake Bay. Dunmore then sent his fleet to the West Indies and returned to England. He was governor of the Bahamas from 1787 to 1796. |
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Measures passed by the British Parliament in 1767, affecting the American colonies. The first measure called for the suspension of the New York Assembly, thus penalizing it for not complying with a law, enacted two years earlier, requiring the colonies to provide adequate quartering of British troops in the New World. The second measure, called the Revenue Act, imposed customs duties on colonial imports of glass, red and white lead, paints, paper, and tea. A subsequent legislative act established commissioners in the colonies to administer the customs services and to make sure the duties were collected. The Townshend Acts were tremendously unpopular in America. In response to a published criticism of the measures, the British crown dissolved the Massachusetts legislature in 1768. Subsequently, the Boston Massacre occurred in March 1770, when British troops fired on American demonstrators. These events brought the colonies closer to revolution. |
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| American colonial governor, born in Boston, and educated at Harvard College (now Harvard University). He began his public career in 1737, at times serving simultaneously in the Massachusetts legislature, the governor's council, as a delegate to the Albany Congress, and as chief justice of the superior court. He was lieutenant governor (1758-71) and served as acting governor (1769-71) and royal governor (1771-74). Although he opposed British colonial taxes as injurious to trade, Hutchinson upheld the British right to levy taxes. He thus came into conflict with those who denied this British right. During a controversy over the Stamp Act, a mob in 1765 ransacked his home. Further tension resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Hutchinson became even more unpopular when his letters, written between 1768 and 1769 and asserting British supremacy, were made public. In 1773 his refusal to accept a demand that tea-laden British ships be returned without unloading precipitated the Boston Tea Party. In 1774 Hutchinson was given permission to sail for Great Britain, where he spent the rest of his life. Hutchinson's most important writings were the three-volume History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (1764-1828). |
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| Legislation passed by the British Parliament in March 1774, designed to punish the people of Boston for their destruction of tea in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773—one of the so-called Intolerable Acts. Provisions of the bill included the virtual closing of Boston Harbor to commerce, the removal of the seat of government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from Boston to Salem, and the supplanting of Boston by Marblehead as a port of entry until the town had paid for the tea that had been destroyed and had fulfilled other specified conditions. The bill aroused widespread indignation, and June 1, the day on which the bill went into effect, was observed as a day of fasting and prayer. To enforce the legislation, British troops occupied Boston, and the harbor was blockaded. Towns in New England, however, frustrated the British effort to force submission by sending grain and other foods to Boston. The Boston Port Act was one of the measures that led to the calling of the First Continental Congress |
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Four laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 in response to the Boston Tea Party. The Intolerable Acts, also called Coercive Acts, were intended to punish the colony of Massachusetts for destroying tea that belonged to the East India Company and to show the other American colonies what might happen if they disobeyed British policies. Resentment of these acts contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. The people of Massachusetts had already defied various British policies they considered repressive. For example, they had resisted the Stamp Act in 1765, and in March 1770 they had openly shown their resentment of the quartering of British troops in Boston. In December 1773 they showed their opposition to the Tea Act by dumping tea loaded on British ships into Boston Harbor rather than pay duty on it. After this so-called Boston Tea Party, Parliament enacted four measures soon known as the Intolerable Acts as an example to the other rebellious colonies. First, the Boston Port Act closed the port of Boston to all trade until the destroyed tea was paid for. Second, the Massachusetts Government Act revoked the colony’s charter and forbade town meetings, except by written consent of the colony’s British governor. The upper house of the Massachusetts legislature had until then been elected each year by the lower house. Under the Massachusetts Government Act, the British government would appoint members of the upper house. Third, the Quartering Act required the colonists to provide quarters for British soldiers. Fourth, the Impartial Administration of Justice Act removed British officials from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts courts. These officials were responsible for carrying out British laws and suppressing riots. If any charges were brought against them, they could be removed from Massachusetts for trial. |
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First, the Virginia Company encouraged wealthy individuals to establish settlements called "hundreds" along the James River. Each hundred was authorized to send representatives to the first General Assembly in 1619. Starting in 1618 and lasting through the 17th Century (and technically until cancelled by the General Assembly in 1779), the "headrights" system authorized the grant of 50 acres for every individual brought to Virginia.1 The colony had an excess of land and a shortage of people, so it was public policy to encourage population growth through immigration and to induce immogration through promises of cheap land. |
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| Many settlers died from famine and disease in the winter of 1609-10. The survivors were encouraged to stay in Jamestown by the arrival of new settlers and supplies the following June. In 1612 tobacco growing was started. The colony prospered and became the capital of Virginia. In 1619 the first representative assembly in America was held here. In the same year, at Jamestown, the first Africans were imported into the original 13 English colonies. The village was often attacked by Native Americans. In 1622, 350 colonists were killed; 500 in 1644. Colonists rebelling against the rule of Governor William Berkeley burned Jamestown in 1676 (see Bacon's Rebellion). The seat of government was moved to the Middle Plantation (now Williamsburg) in 1699, and Jamestown was deserted. |
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| Pequot, warlike North American tribe of the Algonquian language family and of the Northeast culture area. They formerly occupied the coast region of northeastern Connecticut from the Rhode Island border westward. Once identified with the Mohegan people, they were virtually wiped out by the English in the Pequot War (1637). They tried to get the Narraganset to side with them against the English, but the Narraganset sided with the English. |
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| Originally, a confederation of four Native North American tribes of the Iroquoian family, living in the region between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Early in the 17th century, when the first French settlers and missionaries arrived in this region, the Huron were at the height of their power, with their main concentration in about 25 villages near Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake Huron, and a population that has been variously estimated at from 10,000 to 30,000. Their numbers, however, were greatly reduced about 1625 by smallpox and other epidemics. The French missionaries began to establish Jesuit missions among them about this time and brought a measure of stability to the communities in which they worked |
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Involvement w/French Indian war:
The last of the conflicts between Britain and France for control of North America was the French and Indian War. It began in the struggle for control of the Ohio Valley. For more than a generation, the powerful Iroquois Confederacy, an alliance of several Native American nations from the Iroquoian language family, dominated a middle ground between the French and British colonies in North America. The Iroquois, originally centered in western New York, had gained control of a vast region in the interior of the continent by alliances with other Native American peoples and had successfully excluded the European nations from this territory. The Iroquois were able to maintain their power against that of both the British and the French, but this three-way balance of power began to break down during the 1740s. British traders penetrated deep into the Ohio country and established direct relations with tribal groups who previously had been controlled by the Iroquois or had traded only with the French. Overview:
Important confederacy of Native American tribes of the Iroquoian language family and of the Northeast culture area. The Iroquois Confederacy, thought to have been founded in the late 16th century, originally consisted of five tribes—the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca—in what is now central New York State. The confederacy came to be known among Europeans as the League of Five Nations. In the early 18th century the Tuscarora, an Iroquoian people of present-day North Carolina, migrated to New York and, in 1722, were formally admitted to the alliance; the confederacy then became known as the League of Six Nations, or simply the Six Nations. |
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| Author of The Sovereignty and Goodness of God. This work is a firsthand account by a colonist who was taken captive by Narragansett Indians during King Philip’s War. It presents a dramatic tale of suffering and of Rowlandson's efforts to make sense of that suffering. Her story became the model for a new genre of early American literature: captivity narratives. Such accounts became staples of American prose and eventually provided material for American fiction. While still religious in tone and purpose, captivity narratives emphasized the experiences of individuals rather than the progress of nations. They also incorporated many of the fundamentals of fiction, making use of sympathetic characters, dramatic action and setting, and vividly portrayed sources of evil in stereotypic renditions of Indian savagery. |
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| Originally named Metacomet, he was called Philip by the English settlers. In 1662 Philip succeeded his brother and formally renewed the treaties of his father, which he honored for some years. The colonists, however, made continual encroachments on native lands. In retaliation Philip formed a confederation of tribes and in 1675 led an uprising now known as King Philip's War. They burned towns and killed many of the inhabitants. In return the colonists captured Native American women and children, destroyed crops, and promised immunity to Native American deserters. In December 1675 the colonists won a major victory. During the spring of 1676 the Native Americans held out, but their numbers steadily diminished, and in August, Philip was killed. The war then ended, and resistance to further colonial settlements in southern New England ceased. |
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| Movement arising within the Church of England in the latter part of the 16th century that sought to purify, or reform, that church and establish a middle course between Roman Catholicism and the ideas of the Protestant reformers (see Church of England). It had a continuous life within the church until the Stuart Restoration (1660). Puritanism reached North America with the English settlers who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It remained the dominant religious force in New England throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. |
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In this sense, congregationalism contrasts with hierarchical polities, such as episcopacy and presbyterianism (see Church; Clergy). Episcopacy asserts that authority in the church is exercised by the order of bishops. Presbyterianism is organized into a hierarchical structure, which, in ascending order of its parts, consists of the local congregation, the presbytery (representing a number of congregations), the regional synod, and an over-all general assembly. Each of these presbyterian bodies exercises a certain amount of authority over its constituent bodies. The differences among these polities may be illustrated by the power to ordain. In episcopacy, it rests with the bishops; in presbyterianism, it is by action of the presbytery; but in congregationalism, the local church may ordain its own minister. Congregationalism is the polity of many religious bodies besides those that have used the term congregational in the name of the denomination. These include the Baptists, the Unitarians, and churches of the Campbellite tradition such as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). |
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The Atlantic slave trade developed after Europeans began exploring and establishing trading posts on the Atlantic (west) coast of Africa in the mid-15th century. The first major group of European traders in West Africa was the Portuguese, followed by the British and the French. In the 16th and 17th centuries, these European colonial powers began to pursue plantation agriculture in their expanding possessions in the New World (North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean islands), across the Atlantic Ocean. As European demand grew for products such as sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, and cotton, and as more New World lands became available for European use, the need for plantation labor increased. West and west central African states, already involved in slave trading, supplied the Europeans with African slaves for export across the Atlantic. Africans tended to live longer on the tropical plantations of the New World than did European laborers (who were susceptible to tropical diseases) and Native Americans (who were extremely susceptible to “Old World” diseases brought by the Europeans from Europe, Asia, and Africa). Also, enslaved men and women from Africa were inexpensive by European standards. Therefore, Africans became the major source, and eventually the only source, of New World plantation labor. |
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| The term jeremiad refers to a sermon or another work that accounts for the misfortunes of an era as a just penalty for great social and moral evils, but holds out hope for changes that will bring a happier future. It derives from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, who in the seventh century B.C. attributed the calamities of Israel to its abandonment of the covenant with Jehovah and its return to pagan idolatry, denounced with "lurid and gloomy eloquence" its religious and moral iniquities, and called on the people to repent and reform in order that Jehovah might restore them to his favor and renew the ancient covenant. |
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He was a notable pulpit orator. The result of his 1734-1735 sermons was a religious revival in which a great number of conversions were made; Edwards received 300 new members into his church. Some of the converted were so obsessed by his fiery descriptions of eternal damnation that they contemplated suicide. In 1740 the British evangelist George Whitefield visited Edwards. Together, the two men started a revival movement that became known as the Great Awakening and developed into a religious frenzy engulfing all New England. The conversions were characterized by convulsions and hysteria on the part of the converts, and the harshness and appeal to religious fear in one of Edward's sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” caused his congregation to rise weeping and moaning from their seats. By 1742 the revival movement had grown out of control, and for the next 60 to 70 years it had the effect on American religion of preventing any attempt at a liberal interpretation of doctrine. |
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| "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" |
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In one of Jonathan Edward's sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” caused his congregation to rise weeping and moaning from their seats. A powerful orator, Edwards led a revival movement known as the Great Awakening to revitalize religious practice in the colonies. Edwards's ideas were a complicated mix, shaped not only by his study and love of the Puritans but also by 17th- and 18th-century European philosophy. Some of Edwards's best religious works were also philosophical investigations. In A Careful and Strict Enquiry into … Notions of … Freedom of Will … (1754), Edwards argues that human actions are predetermined by God, thus negating the notion of free will.By 1742 the revival movement had grown out of control, and for the next 60 to 70 years it had the effect on American religion of preventing any attempt at a liberal interpretation of doctrine. |
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In Pennsylvania, Scots-Irish immigrants who lived along the frontier took matters into their own hands when the Quaker-dominated assembly refused to push Native Americans out of the colony. In 1763 a band of Scots-Irish farmers, known as the Paxton Boys, attacked a small settlement of Native Americans called the Susquehannock and massacred 20 people. When Pennsylvania governor John Penn tried to bring the murderers to justice, about 250 armed Scots-Irish marched on Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin, who had built his reputation as a diplomat, intercepted the angry mob at Lancaster and arranged a compromise, narrowly averting a battle. In the backcountry of South Carolina, clashes between land-hungry white settlers and the Cherokee during the war with France also led to violence. A vigilante group, the Regulators, forcibly imposed order on outlaw bands of whites. The group threatened its own rebellion if the South Carolina assembly, which was controlled by the eastern side of the colony, refused to provide more local courts, fairer taxes, and greater western representation. The assembly satisfied some of the Regulators' demands, and a rival group of western vigilantes, the Moderators, persuaded the western settlers to accept the authority of the colonial government. In North Carolina, another Regulator movement supported an even broader political agenda and was quelled only after a heated battle. |
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| North Carolina Regulators |
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A In North Carolina, a vigilante Regulator movement supported an even broader political agenda and was quelled only after a heated battle. In 1764, in the frontier counties of North Carolina, settlers threatened to rebel against unfair and oppressive practices on the part of corrupt government officials. They demanded that officeholders be held to a stricter account, and in 1768, formed a group known as the Regulation and refused to pay taxes or fees unless the lawfulness of a particular demand could be shown. Outbreaks of violence occurred sporadically. In 1771 the British colonial governor William Tryon ordered a military force to Alamance Creek. In the ensuing battle the insurrection was totally crushed. |
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With the object of driving the British from their frontier possessions and reestablishing Native American autonomy, Pontiac organized a confederacy that embraced virtually all the tribes from the head of Lake Superior almost to the Gulf of Mexico. According to the arrangement the warriors of each tribe, on a concerted day, early in May 1763, were to attack the garrison in their immediate neighborhood. Pontiac himself was to lead the assault at Detroit. In the great wilderness extending from the Pennsylvania frontier to Lake Superior were 14 British posts, of which the most important were Fort Pitt, Detroit, and Mackinaw. The Native Americans captured all but four of the posts, Niagara, Pitt, Ligonier, and Detroit. Mackinaw was taken by a stratagem, and the entire garrison was killed. A plot for the capture of Detroit seems to have been betrayed to the commanding officer by a Native American woman, and failed, but Pontiac at once began a siege that lasted for five months. Reinforcements finally succeeded in entering Detroit; Pontiac's men began to desert him, and the news of the signing of a peace treaty between France and Great Britain removed all hopes of French aid. Pontiac thereupon raised the siege and on August 17, 1765, entered into a formal peace treaty, which he confirmed at Oswego in 1766. Three years later he was murdered by a member of the Illinois tribe. |
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On the accession of the first Hanoverian king of England, George I, in 1714, Walpole, who had been a supporter of the German-born monarch, was restored to the cabinet, becoming first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the Exchequer in October 1715. Because of a conflict among the king's advisers, Walpole resigned in 1717, but he continued to exercise considerable influence as an opponent of government policy. He returned to the cabinet in 1720, a year of financial crisis caused by heavy speculation in the stock of the South Sea Company, a corporation founded in 1711 for the purpose of assuming the national debt (see South Sea Bubble). Members of the government were accused of manipulating the value of the stock, but Walpole was never proven to have abetted the scheme. He skillfully protected the court and the Whig leadership from political disaster. From 1721 to 1742 Walpole served as leader of the House of Commons, first lord of the treasury, and chancellor of the Exchequer, and he consolidated Whig power through a system of royal patronage. He secured large legislative majorities because his policies of continued peace and low taxation reflected the desires of Parliament, and he displayed an unsurpassed ability to unite the members on political issues. Because of his extensive political power and influence on the domestic and foreign policies of Great Britain during this period, Walpole is considered to have been the nation's first prime minister, although the title itself did not come into common use until much later in the century and became official only in 1905. |
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| Economic policy prevailing in Europe during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, under which governmental control was exercised over industry and trade in accordance with the theory that national strength is increased by a preponderance of exports over imports. Mercantilism was characterized not so much by a consistent or formal doctrine as by a set of generally held beliefs. These beliefs included the ideas that exports to foreign countries are preferable both to trade within a country and to imports; that the wealth of a nation depends primarily on the possession of gold and silver; and that governmental interference in the national economy is justified if it tends to implement the attainment of these objectives. The mercantilist approach in economic policy first developed during the growth of national states; efforts were directed toward the elimination of the internal trade barriers that characterized the Middle Ages, when a cargo of commodities might be subject to a toll or tariff at every city and river crossing. Industries were encouraged and assisted in their growth because they provided a source of taxes to support the large armies and other appurtenances of national government. Exploitation of colonies was considered a legitimate method of providing the parent countries with precious metals and with the raw materials on which export industries depended. |
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| Legislation passed by the English Parliament in the 17th and 18th centuries to promote and protect English industry and commerce against foreign competition. The acts were sometimes called Acts of Trade and Navigation. The Navigation Act of 1651 stipulated that goods imported or exported by English colonies in Africa, Asia, or America be shipped on vessels constructed by English shipbuilders and sailed by crews that were 75 percent English. Goods imported from the colonies into England also had to arrive on English vessels. Goods from foreign countries were restricted to vessels from the exporting nation or to English ships. The term English referred to individual nationality and not to place of residence, and the colonists and colonial shipping were considered English. The act of 1660 specified certain articles—principally tobacco, rice, and indigo—that the colonists could export only to another English colony or to England. Later statutes such as the Woolens Act of 1699, the Hat Act of 1732, and the Iron Act of 1750 were attempts to prevent manufacturing in the British colonies that might threaten the industrial economy of England. |
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During the reigns of George I (1714-1727) and George II (1727-1760), royal bureaucrats relaxed their supervision of internal American affairs. They preferred to encourage the growth of trade with the colonies in tobacco, rice, and sugar. Two generations later, British political philosopher Edmund Burke praised this trade-based colonial policy as being one of “salutary [healthy] neglect.” The American representative assemblies seized the opportunity created by lack of strict imperial controls to increase their own powers. In theory, royal and proprietary governors were the dominant political forces in the colonies. They commanded the provincial militia, and they could recommend members for the upper legislative body or council, approve land grants, and appoint judges, justices of the peace, and other legal officials. In reality, the governors had to share their power with the American assemblies. The colonial legislatures copied some of the methods used by English politicians to boost Parliament's authority such as insisting on controlling taxes and on being consulted on appointments to public office. From 1700 to 1750 political power gradually shifted from the English-appointed governors and councils to the American-elected assemblies. |
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Somebody appointed to public office as a reward for services to a political party and allowed to use that office to satisfy personal greed or ambition
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| Articles of Confederation |
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| Articles of Confederation, first constitution of the United States. The Articles were in force from March 1, 1781, to June 21, 1788, when the present Constitution of the United States went into effect. The Articles were written in 1777 during the early part of the American Revolution by a committee of the Second Continental Congress of the 13 colonies. The head of the committee, John Dickinson, presented a report on the proposed articles to the Congress on July 12, 1776, eight days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. |
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| Loyalists, also known as Tories, colonists whose allegiance remained with Great Britain during the American Revolution (1775-1783). Loyalists were not confined to a particular colony, class, or occupation, although the strongest resistance to the Revolution came from those serving the crown. Because of the animosity from other colonists, many Loyalists fled to Canada during and after the war. |
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| During the Stamp Act controversy, colonial Americans struggled to explain their resistance. They admitted the right of Parliament to regulate commerce through external or indirect taxation, but denied its right to raise revenue through internal or direct taxation such as the Stamp Act. The Americans also disagreed with the British over the concept of representation. British officials claimed that Americans had 'virtual representation,' arguing that Parliament protected America’s best interests even though colonists did not vote for members of the House of Commons. They compared Parliament to the local colonial assemblies that theoretically represented all colonists even though property qualifications prevented many people from voting for delegates. To emphasize their point, the British immediately followed the repeal of the Stamp Act with the passage of a Declaratory Act in 1766. This act asserted Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. Many colonists refused to accept the idea that they were represented in Parliament, and ignored the Declaratory Act just as they had the Stamp Act. |
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| During the Stamp Act controversy, colonial Americans struggled to explain their resistance. They admitted the right of Parliament to regulate commerce through external or indirect taxation, but denied its right to raise revenue through internal or direct taxation such as the Stamp Act. The Americans also disagreed with the British over the concept of representation. British officials claimed that Americans had 'virtual representation,' arguing that Parliament protected America’s best interests even though colonists did not vote for members of the House of Commons. They compared Parliament to the local colonial assemblies that theoretically represented all colonists even though property qualifications prevented many people from voting for delegates. To emphasize their point, the British immediately followed the repeal of the Stamp Act with the passage of a Declaratory Act in 1766. This act asserted Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. Many colonists refused to accept the idea that they were represented in Parliament, and ignored the Declaratory Act just as they had the Stamp Act. |
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| One of two important battles in the first phase of the French and Indian wars. The French ambushed and defeated forces led by British General Edward Braddock as they attempted to drive the French from Fort Duquesne. The defeat was costly for the British: General Braddock lost his life, more than 900 of his men were killed or wounded, and British prestige among Native Americans in the region declined. British and colonial forces offset these losses by victories in Nova Scotia, where they captured two French forts. Subsequently, the British deported more than 6000 of the French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, known as Acadians, a signal of the growing brutality of the conflict |
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The first general to arrive from Brittain, he was killed at the Battle of Duquesne. Lost pitifully because he was so unfamiliar with the colonies. |
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| Wife of John Adams, second president of the United States, and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. She was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the daughter of the Reverend William Smith, minister of the Congregational church there. Through her mother, Elizabeth Quincy (1721-75), she was descended from the 17th-century Puritan preacher Thomas Shepard (1605-49) of Cambridge. Although she had little formal education, she was among the most influential women of her day, especially as a fashion leader and social arbiter. During and after the American Revolution she was separated for long periods of time from her husband, who was first a delegate to Congress and later a diplomat in Europe. Her letters to him present a vivid picture of the time. After 1800 she lived in Washington, D.C., and thereafter in Braintree, Massachusetts. The Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, Abigail (2 volumes, 1876), published with a memoir by their grandson, Charles Francis Adams, and later collections of her letters show that she was perceptive, sagacious, warmhearted, and generous. |
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| Society for the Propagation of the Bible in Foreign Parts |
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| Among Protestants, in 1698, the missionary Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was founded in England, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts worked among British settlers in the colonies from 1701. Probably the most famous missionary in America in its early days was the English-born Presbyterian John Eliot, the “Apostle of the Indians.” The Moravian church emphasized missionary activity among Native Americans and European settlers in America. In the first half of the 18th century, missionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts were able to baptize some slaves as Anglicans. Many slaves, however, became Baptists or Methodists rather than Anglicans like their owners. |
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| Battle of Saratoga was an important battle. Gates's well-disciplined forces, inspired by a fearless Major General Benedict Arnold, drove the British back to their camp with heavy losses. Burgoyne then withdrew to Saratoga, where, surrounded by the American army which now numbered up to 17,000, he surrendered on October 17. His defeat encouraged France to join the American side and thus proved to be the turning point in the war. |
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| Pan-Indianism is an intertribal movement of native resistance to white domination and assimilation, is characterized primarily by political and religious expression and solidarity |
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| American politics was largely dominated by deference. Competing political parties were nonexistent and voters generally deferred to the leadership of local elites or leading families. Political campaigns tended to be relatively staid affairs. Direct appeals by candidates for support were considered in poor taste. Election procedures were, by later standards, quite undemocratic |
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When Pennsylvania legislators decided to abolish slavery in the state, they knew that a complete and immediate abolition of the practice would cause a financial loss to slaveholders by freeing those persons that were already held in bondage. They also knew that this would be politically unpopular, and might not pass a vote in the legislature. So they decided on a gradual approach, setting a cut-off date, whereby all of the persons held in bondage as of March 1, 1780 would remain in bondage, but all children of slaves born in Pennsylvania after that date would be held in bondage only until age twenty-eight.
This created two classes of slaves. Those born prior to March 1, 1780 and considered slaves for their entire lives would remain "slaves for life." However the children born after that date, to mothers who were considered "slaves for life," would be freed at age 28, and were originally referred to as "indentured servants," but who we now refer to as "term slaves." We do this to distinguish these persons from other servants who were serving an indenture, usually of only a few years, in order to learn a trade or pay a debt. For more information on gradual abolition, see our text of the 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. |
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"Not worth a Continental" |
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| The Continental was the name of a paper currency issued by several American Colonies, as well as by the Continental Congress, after the Revolutionary War began in 1775. With no solid backing and being easily counterfeited, the continentals quickly lost their value, giving voice to the phrase "not worth a continental". |
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