characteristics of the British North American colonies

• expansionistic
• ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse
• less restrictive than Europe and the British Isles
• literate
• part of the Atlantic "World"
• part of the British empire
  • *Mercantilism
  • *Navigation Acts(1650-1696)

major regions of British North America

• New England
• Middle Colonies
• Southern Colonies
  • Tidewater colonies of Virginia and Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay
  • "Low country" colonies

four variations of colonial society

• farming society of the North
• plantation society of the South
• urban society of the seaboard commercial towns
• the "backcountry"

*King Philip's War(1675-77)

• Wampanoag war against New England expansion
• Wampanoag loss due to disease and food shortages
• results of war
  • New England expansion westward slowed for 40 years
  • 52 of 90 New England towns attacked; 13 destroyed
  • 1200 homes in ruins, 8000 cattle dead
  • decimation of Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Narraganset
    

*Bacon's Rebellion(1676)

• outgrowth of land competition
• provoked by Virginia frontiersmen attack on Susquehannocks in the west
  • attack repudiated by Governor Wm Berkeley
• Bacon's march on Jamestown
• The rebellion ended w/
  • Bacon's death
  • restoration of order by arriving British troops
• results
  • planters encouraged to rely more on slaves than indentured servants for labor
  • further hardened racial divisions

Glorious Revolution

• impact in British North America
  • solidified the appeal of
    • liberty
    • colonial autonomy

developments in eighteenth-century British North America

• growing diversity of British North America
  • based on new immigrants from Africa, the British Isles, and the German states
    • Africa
      • source of the largest number of immigrants among these three groups
    • German states and Switzerland
    • British Isles
      • During the 18th century the number of immigrants from England to British North America declined relative to the numbers of immigrants from Africa, other parts of the British Isles, and Europe.
• growing number of Protestant denominational churches, as well as Catholics and Jews
  • *Great Awakening
    • contributed to diversification and growth of religion in British North America
    • series of religious revivals during the 18th century
    • participants
      • *George Whitefield
      • *Jonathan Edwards
    • resulted in
      • development of religious pluralism
      • strengthening the idea of separation between church and state

• active and dynamic participation in politics

• based on further development of the concept of liberty
  • characteristics of the 18th century British concept of liberty
    • limits on government
    • property requirements for participation in politics
  • articulated by John Locke
• particularly at the provincial level
• growing power of the lower houses of the colonial legislatures
• most likely participants
  • members of the upper classes
  • members of the urban working classes

Benjamin Franklin

*Albany Plan of Union(1754)

• produced the the 1754 Albany Congress