Unit Two: Colonization of America

The British Colonies Part II

Massachusetts Bay Colony • The Massachusetts Bay Company ran by John

White and John Winthrop received a royal charter from Charles I to found a colony in the New World in New England.

• John Winthrop and a group of English Puritans left England because of religious persecution to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

• Winthrop preached a sermon called A Model of Christian Charity, stating that the new colony was to be a “shining city on a hill” to set the example for England to model itself after.

Massachusetts Bay Colony• Due to events in England and the success of the

colony a mass movement of Puritans immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony called the Great Migration.

• The city of Boston was built to be the capital of the Massachusetts Colony.

• Other important towns were Salem, Marblehead, Cambridge, and Braintree.

• The Colony of Massachusetts was a Theocracy (a government ran by God or men inspired by God) ran by the General Court of Freemen (people who owned stocks in the company) , under the governorship of John Winthrop.

Great Migration

Massachusetts Bay Colony• The General Court allowed local towns to

govern their own matters through town meetings (a form of direct democracy where all citizens of a town discuss and vote on all ordinances [local laws]).

• The Massachusetts Colony’s laws were very strict and also banished those thought to be heretics, they did not practice religious toleration ( the accepting or permitting of other religious beliefs and practices).

Splinter Puritan Sects • In Massachusetts during the great migration

many Puritans moved into the colony that did not agree with the General Council.

• Roger Williams was a separatist minister who believed in democracy (all people vote), religious toleration, freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, and that Native Americans should be paid for “their” land.

• Due to Williams’s beliefs and teachings he was exiled from the colony, so he formed his own colony south of Massachusetts called Rhode Island governed from the town of Providence. (William paid the Narragansett for the land)

Splinter Puritan Sects• In Providence, he founded the First Baptist

Church of America in 1638.• Another Massachusetts “heretic”

was Anne Hutchinson who became a minister teaching women’s rights, Antinomianism (salvation through faith alone), that person could never lose their salvation, and said that the bible was not the only spiritual authority.

• Hutchinson was tried for heresy and exiled from the colony, so she and her followers moved to Providence. (She was later exiled from Providence also.)

Connecticut • In 1636 Reverend Thomas Hooker

received the ability from the General Council to move his congregation south along the Connecticut River.

• Along the Connecticut River Valley he formed the town of Hartford as the capital for the colony of Connecticut.

• In Connecticut all freemen were given suffrage (right to vote), they also wrote the first written constitution in the Colonies called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.

• In 1662 the small colony of New Haven was joined with Connecticut.

Maine and New Hampshire

• In 1622, John Mason and Fernando Gorges were given a charter to form a colony in New England.

• The two separated the land at the Piscataqua river with Fernando Gorges forming Maine in the north, and John Mason forming New Hampshire to the South with the capital of Portsmouth.

• The colony of Maine would later become part of the Massachusetts colony.

English Civil War • In England between 1642 and 1651 a Civil War

broke out between the royalists (supporters of the king) and the roundheads (supporters of the Long Parliament dominated by Puritans) which the Puritans won.

• The Puritans formed a Protectorate government under the command of Oliver Cromwell.

• After Cromwell’s death, Puritan rule ended with the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660.

• All of this turmoil in England directly affected the colonies during and after the restoration leading to more intense colonization of America.

Maryland • In 1632 George Calvert (Lord Baltimore)

received a proprietary charter to found a colony north of Virginia named Maryland.

• The capital of Maryland was Baltimore. • The colony of Maryland was formed as a

refuge or haven for English Catholics who were persecuted in England.

• During the English Civil war, a civil war in Maryland broke out that ended with the Maryland Toleration Act (1649) granting religious tolerance to all Christians in Maryland.

New York

• In 1664 the area between Delaware bay and the Connecticut River was given to James II Duke of York by his brother king Charles II which was the Dutch area of New Holland.

• York sent four warships from the Royal navy to seize the land renaming it New York.

• New York was recaptured by the Dutch in 1673 naming it New Orange, but was given back to the English the next year.

Jerseys • After receiving the land of New York, York

gave to his close friends Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley the colony of New Sweden renamed New Jersey.

• From 1674 to 1702 New Jersey was split in two: West Jersey in the South and East Jersey in the North mostly due to conflicts between Puritans and Quakers.

• The two halves were reunited in 1702 as the Royal colony of New Jersey.

Quakers

• A new religious group called the Quakers (Society of Friends) formed in England by George Fox during the early part of the English Civil War.

• The Quakers were pacifist (do not believe in war) and taught that God spoke to people through their inner light (holy spirit) not religious ceremonies or clergy.

• Due to their beliefs Quakers were persecuted in England and in the colonies, so a wealthy Quaker named William Penn looked to establish a colony as a haven for Quakers.

Pennsylvania

• In 1681 William Penn purchased a charter to establish the Colony of Pennsylvania (Penn’s woods) west of the Jerseys for Quakers.

• Penn called his colony a “holy experiment” because people would have complete religious and political freedom.

• In 1682 Penn signed the Treaty of Shackamaxon with the Lenni Lenape purchasing the land from them and making a peace agreement.

• Penn built the town of Philadelphia (city of Brotherly love) as the capital of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania

Delaware • The area that is Delaware today was

part of the colony of New Sweden, then part of New Holland, and later seized by York as part of New York.

• In 1682 Penn purchased from York the “Lower Counties on the Delaware” for Pennsylvania as an access to the sea.

• The Lower Counties were allowed to have their own assembly that met at New Castle, then in 1776 it became its own government.

Carolina • The first grant to land south of Virginia was

given to Robert Heath in 1629 by Charles I, but Heath never tried to colonize the area.

• In 1663 the charter of land south of Virginia was given to a group of wealthy nobles known as the Lords Proprietors, who named the land Carolina after Charles II.

• Lord Shaftsbury (lord proprietor) and John Locke wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina as a system of government for the colony.

Carolina Split

• The northern and southern halves of Carolina developed differently with the north settling slowly with small farmers, and the south settling quickly with large plantations.

• The capital of Carolina was Charles Town located in the south as a major port.

• In 1729 Carolina split into North and South due to an Anti-proprietary movement led by John Culpepper in the north.

Georgia • The English had settled most of the Eastern

seaboard of America, but a Spanish threat still remained in Florida, so a buffer zone was needed between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

• In 1732 a group of philanthropists led by General James Oglethorpe were given a charter to found the lands south of Carolina to the Mississippi River as a buffer zone, but also as a social experiment for “worthy poor” people in debtor’s prison.

• Oglethorpe named the colony Georgia after George II and made its capital the highly fortified town of Savannah.

• Oglethorpe ran the colony like an army with strict laws and requiring every male be part of the militia (citizen army).

Other British Colonies

• The thirteen colonies along the Eastern coastline were not the only colonial possessions of the British in the Americas.

• The colony of Bermuda was founded by a group of Virginia colonist shipwrecked on the island in 1609, later founded the town of St. George.

• Bermuda was a major stopover point before Atlantic sea voyages, sugar and tobacco farming, and salt production.

Other British Colonies• In 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers

(Puritans) migrated from Bermuda to found the colony of the Bahamas.

• In 1670 the Bahamas was given to the Lord Proprietors to be rent out for sugar plantations and trading outpost but was constantly attacked by pirates like Blackbeard (Edward Teach).

• The colony of Barbados was established in 1625 as a sugar production.

Island Colonies

Dominion of New England• In 1686 the colonies of New England were

joined together by James II into one large colony called the Dominion of New England.

• The Capital of the Dominion of New England was in Boston and was ran by Governor Edmund Andros.

• The measure was to make it easier for England to enforce the Navigation Acts and to plan for mutual defense, but after King James II was deposed by the Glorious Revolution in 1688 the Dominion went back to separate colonies.