ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY PEPS (PEOPLE, EVENTS, PLACES, SIGNIFICANCE)
Colonial History to 1776
Columbian Exchange
Where:New World, Europe and Africa
What:Columbus’s discovery in 1492 began an explosion of trade among Europe, the New World and Africa. That trade is known as the “Columbian Exchange.” Slaves were brought to the new world from Africa; sugar, rice, horses, cows, pigs, and disease (smallpox) were brought to the New World from Europe; and gold, silver, corn, potatoes and disease (syphilis) were carried from the New World back to Europe.
Sig:Disease (smallpox) decimated Indian groups. The horse revolutionized Plains Indian culture. This international commerce is the beginning of what we would now call “globalization.” Note the racial and ethnic diversity that is automatically included in the “exchange.”
Iroquois Confederation- Late 1500’s
Who:Five Native American Nations (Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca)
Where:In the Mohawk Valley which is now New York
What:The Confederation was a powerful force to oppose European encroachment. Fierce tribes fought other Native Americans, and then began fighting the French, English and Dutch for control of the fur trade. They fought for survival. During the American Revolution, the Confederacy split up with most supporting the British.
Sig:Provided the largest organized resistance to the incoming Europeans in the colonial period, yet was at its peak just before the Europeans arrived.
Jamestown 1607
Who: The Virginia Company, John Smith
Where: Jamestown, Virginia
What: The Virginia Company sent young men, with no future in overpopulated England. They were lured by the Virginia Company with promises of land and wealth--much as people were lured to California during the Gold Rush. But there was no gold in Virginia, and these "prospectors" didn't know how to farm, didn't know how to hunt, and, possibly feeling betrayed by the Virginia Company's promises, and lacking any land of their own, were not known for their spirit of cooperation among themselves or with the local Indians of the Powhatan confederacy. They suffered greatly for several years until tobacco became available as a cash crop. While they did not discover gold, tobacco became an adequate substitute.
Sig: Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the new world.
French colonization in Canada 1608
Who:Samuel de Champlain (Father of New France)
Where:Quebec, Canada
What:The French settled in Quebec the year after the founding of Jamestown.
Sig:The French worked better with the Indians than the English or the Spanish, trading and intermarrying with the Indians. Quebec begins the French empire and the 150 years-long contest with the English for control of North America.
Spanish settlement of Santa Fe 1609
What:While St. Augustine, Florida was the first permanent settlement, note that the Spanish founded Santa Fe in about 1609.
Sig:The English, French, and Spanish all started important settlements about the same time (1607-09). Ultimately all three would fight for control of the North American continent.
Plymouth Settlement (1620)
Who: Separatist pilgrims fleeing from Holland
Where: Plymouth Bay
What: The Separatists fled Europe for cultural and religious freedom in America. They agreed to the Mayflower Compact before landing, pledging to obey “all just and equal laws.”
Sig: They weren't significant economically or numerically. However, they were very important morally and spiritually. The Mayflower Compact was crude but laid the foundations for democratic government. The Plymouth colony was merged with Massachusetts in 1691 when Massachusetts became a royal colony.
Puritans (1630)vs. Separatists (1620)
Who/where:Puritans-Boston; Separatists-Plymouth
What:Puritans wanted to reform the Church of England. Separatists (extreme Puritans) wanted to separate from the Church of England. Both were Calvinistic, strict, and religiously intolerant.
Sig:Their religious devotion principally shaped the beginning of English settlements and religious influence in New England.
Puritans early settlement and religious intolerance within the colony
Who:Puritans (not Separatists but those who wanted to “purify” the Church of England)
Where:Massachusetts (Boston)
When:1630
What:They believed in the doctrine of a calling to do Gods work on earth. They had serious commitment to work yet they also enjoyed simple pleasures. They established a bible commonwealth with no tolerance for religious dissent (Williams, Hutchinson were banished for heresy). The colony was economically successful but religiously intolerant.
Sig:Church members had rights (vote) as “freemen.” They were intolerant of others who did not share their beliefs.
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
What: Bradstreet (1612-1672) is an important figure in the history of American literature. Bradstreet's workpoints to the struggles of a Puritan wife against the hardships of New England colonial life, and in some way is a testament to the plight of the women of the age.
Sig:She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and she is a woman.
Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (New York) 1624
Who:The Dutch West India Company
Where:New York (New Amsterdam)
What:Company town: developed for economic benefits of fur trade. Later became aristocratic in its habits and attitudes, having no toleration for religious toleration, free speech, or democracy.
Sig:Its bustling seaports brought many immigrants and great trade.
William Penn’s Settlement of Pennsylvania 1681
Who: William Penn
Where: Pennsylvania
What: King Charles II awarded Penn a tract of land in 1681 to repay a debt owed to Penn’s father.
Sig: Penn, representing persecuted Quakers, advertised Pennsylvania as a colony known for freedom and religious toleration. (Even though Penn was a Quaker, he enjoyed the King’s support.)
Mercantilism—theory
Where:British Empire (England to 1707: Britain thereafter)
What:Justified British control over the colonies. This theory proposed that wealth was power and that a country’s economic wealth could be measured by the amount of gold or silver in its treasury. A favorable balance of trade must be created by exporting more expensive goods to colonies and importing less expensive raw materials from colonies. The mother country produced finished goods; colonies supplied markets for finished goods and raw materials. Gold and silver would flow to the mother country as a result (finished goods are more valuable than raw materials.) Trade within the empire should not permit outsiders (Dutch, French, Spanish) to profit, lest gold and silver be shifted to them.
Sig:Mercantilism was the foundation for the economic relationship between the colonies and England up to the Revolution.
Mercantilism in practice
What:Navigation and Trade Acts brought mercantilism to life. The Navigation Acts from 1650 to 1663 required that all goods flowing to and from the colonies could be transported only in British ships. The captain of the ship must be English, and the crew must be ¾ English. Certain commodities must be shipped to England first before going to Europe from the colonies or to the colonies from Europe. Various Trade Acts included the hat and iron acts, which prohibited final colonial manufacture of hats and iron goods. Tariffs were imposed to protect British sugar planters, such as the Molasses Act of 1733 which imposed a duty of 6 pence per gallon on imported foreign molasses (thus favoring British molasses). The 6 pence was not meant to be paid and was, therefore, not really a tax. (When the Act was amended in 1764 to lower the rate to 3 pence per gallon, which was meant to be paid, the issue of taxation without representation arose and led in time to the Revolution.)
Sig:The colonies did not object to Navigation and Trade Acts in part due to “salutary neglect” (weak enforcement of the acts), and the colonies smuggled around the acts anyway.
Salutary neglect
What: Even though England believed in a system of Mercantilism, Sir Robert Walpole espoused a view of "salutary neglect.” This is a system whereby the actual enforcement of external trade relations was lax. He believed that this enhanced freedom for the colonists would stimulate commerce and be, in the end, beneficial to all.
Sig: The colonies were allowed to trade freely in spite of trade acts. When after 1763 the British began serious enforcement of the trade acts, thus abandoning salutary neglect, the colonists were resentful, believing that their freedom was being eroded.
The Half Way Covenant of 1662
Who: Troubled ministers of the Puritan church.
Where: New England
What: An agreement in response to the decline in “conversions.” Baptism in the church was extended to children of parents who were not able to experience the “evangelical experience” as did the first settlers from England did. Since full church membership was required for voting, this was an important issue.
Sig:Ironically, it actually weakened the distinction between the elect and its members, therefore diluting the spiritual ‘purity’ of the first settlers.
Dominion of New England 1686-1689
Who:Edmund Andros, Governor of the Dominion
Where:New England
What: The Dominion of New England was a short-lived administrative union of English colonies that was decreed by King James II. The Dominion of New England was governed by Edmund Andros. The dominion was created in an attempt to bolster the colonial defense in the event of war with the Native American and the French. It was also designed to promote urgently needed efficiency in the administration of the Navigation Acts.
Sig:The Dominion of New England was disliked by the colonists because the dominion was enforcing the Navigation Acts which prohibited the colonist from trading with whom they wanted and forced them to rely on England. This anger eventually leads to the overthrow of Edmond Andros and the end of the Dominion of New England (which was linked to the Glorious Revolution occurring in England—the King was being overthrown in both England and New England).
Indentured Servitude (including increase in slavery after 1675)
When:17th and 18th centuries
Who: Poor English
Where: Colonies in America
What: A majority of English migrants came to America as ‘Indentures’ and, in exchange for a paid passage, worked as servants for 4-7 years.
Sig: Indentured servants were used as America’s main labor force before 1675. They were used to maintain the growing tobacco industry and to bring profit to their masters. The servants’ growing discontent and threatening behavior, a dramatic decrease in new indentures after prosperity to England returned in the 1670s, and the ever increasing wealth of masters led to a great increase in the African slave trade and the rise in the slave population from the 1680s on.
Agricultural developments in colonies 1612 on
Where: Mainly Southern and Middle Colonies
What: Virginia and the south: tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar
Middle colonies: rye, oats, barley, wheat, beef and pork
Sig: The production of tobacco and food crops by hand methods created an insatiable demand for labor in the coloniesforcing servants and slaves to be brought in, raising the population dramatically and making the economy flourish.
Northern Merchants and Southern Planters
What: The Northern colonies excelled in trading with both fellow colonies and overseas countries. Their expertise in both sailing and trading contributed to their long lasting success. Using their advantage of fertile soil, Southern Colonies practiced a completely different economy. Producing crops in demand like tobacco and rice, these colonies were able to establish a profitable agricultural economy.
Sig: Both the Northern and Southern colonies established their economies early on, but with very different qualities, the North with merchant trade and South with plantation work. Because of these differences it was very easy for the two to rely on each other. However, eventually these differences would cause a rift between the two entities.
Virginia and Massachusetts as Royal Colonies
What:Virginia and Massachusetts became royal colonies
Why: Virginia was poorly managed and the Indian war eroded the colony’s credibility in London. Massachusetts got swept up in the governmental reorganization related to the Glorious Revolution that brought William and Mary to the throne.
When:1624 (Virginia) & 1691 (Massachusetts)
Sig:Demonstrates the power of the King over previously corporate colonies
Colonial society: role of cities
What: Colonial cities functioned as the center for entertainment, education, religion, politics and courts, commerce (retail shops, blacksmiths), and farm support.
Sig:Colonial cities were the center of an essentially agrarian society.
Emergence of Slavery – 1660s on
Who: Africans, Colonists
Where: Southern Colonies
What: Slavery started for economic reasons. Rising wages in England (1670s) reduced the amount of people willing to become indentured servants to work in the new world. As cheap labor was needed for the tobacco and rice plantations, the need for slaves increased.
Sig: Brought Africans to the colonies and sparked the Southern economy.
Colonial Society: Role of Women 1607-1692
Who:Women in Colonial Era
Where:Colonial America
What:Women were encouraged to marry early and have many children. Child rearing became their full time job. As married women, they were essential to the maintenance of the family unit, with the husband tending the fields and the wife performing all household tasks, including the manufacture of candles, soap, and clothing.
Sig:Think of the married colonial women as fully one-half of an integrated economic unit. Thus her role was absolutely vital.
Married Women Property Rights in Colonial America
Who:Married Women in Colonial America
What:Single women in the colonies did have property rights. Married women in the south often lost their husbands early and had the right to own property to support her family as a widow. Women in the north also had rights but most of them gave them up upon getting married out of the government’s fear that they would have conflicting interest with their husbands. Married women in particular were economically and legally subordinate to their husbands.
Sig:Married women in particular suffered discrimination relating to property rights, even though laws were less restrictive in the south.
Resistance to Colonial Authority: Bacon’s Rebellion 1676
Who: Nathaniel Bacon and single young freemen
Where: Chesapeake Region, Virginia
What: One thousand young men were forced into the back country in search of land where they were attacked by Native Americans. Because the governor would not retaliate, Bacon’s rebels went on a rampage of plundering and pilfering. They destroyed Native American settlements and chased Governor William Berkeley out of Jamestown. The rebellion was crushed.
Sig: Bacon had ignited the smoldering resentments of poor, former indentured servants. These tensions between them and the gentry caused the plantation owners to look elsewhere (African slave trade) for workers.
Resistance to Spanish Colonial Authority: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Who:Pueblo people and Catholic Missionaries
Where:New Mexico: Santa Fe to Taos
What:Roman Catholic missionaries’ efforts to convert the native Indians and suppress their religious customs provoked the uprising, also call Pope’s Rebellion.
Sig:The Pueblo Indians cut off all ties to the Roman Catholic missionaries, thus pushing them further west. It took the Spanish nearly half a century to fully reclaim New Mexico from Pueblo control.
Resistance to Colonial Authority: The Stono Rebellion 1739
Who: South Carolina slaves
What: The Stono Rebellion was the largest slave uprising in the colonial period. Fifty South Carolina slaves marched towards Spanish Florida hoping for freedom, but got stopped by the militia in the process. (Many whites and slaves were killed.)
Sig: Because of the rebellion, a harsher slave code was put into action. They were no longer able to assemble in groups, earn their own money, and learn how to read.
Leisler’s Rebellion 1689-91
Who:Sir Edmund Andros, Jacob Leisler, New England and Chesapeake colonists
Where:New York
What:After the downfall of the highly unpopular King James II by the Glorious Revolution, Jacob Leisler led a rebellion and seized control of lower New York from Dominion of New England Governor Andros. His rebellion was smashed by the forces of the new King William. He was hanged.
Sig:The rebellion represents the problem the English had in maintaining a far-flung empire.
Scots-Irish in the colonial backcountry-18th century
Who: The Scot-Irish were hardy, independent, anti-authoritarian settlers in the colonial backcountry (western parts) of Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia (along the Appalachians). They detested the Anglican Church and the King of England due to religious and economic persecution. While independent, they generally supported the patriot cause against the King.