Chapter 1Pageant New World Beginnings, 33,000 B.C.-A.D. 1769
AP U.S. History
Review
Mr. Jones
Chapter 1Pageant – New World Beginnings, 33,000 B.C.-A.D. 1769
Themes:
1)The first discoverers of America, the ancestors of the American Indians, were small bands of hunters who crossed a temporary land bridge from Siberia and spread across both North and South America. From them evolved a variety of cultures, which ranged from the sophisticated urban civilizations in Mexico and Central and South America to the mostly seminomadic societies of North America.
2)Motivated by economic and technological developments in European society, Portuguese and Spanish explorers encountered and then conquered much of the Americas and their Indian inhabitants. This “collision of worlds”, or the “Atlantic World” deeply affected all the Atlantic societies – Europe, the Americas, and Africa – as the effects of disease, conquest, slavery, and intermarriage began to create a truly “new world” in Latin America, including the borderlands of Florida, New Mexico, and California, all of which later became part of the U.S.
Summary: Millions of years ago, the two American continents became geologically separated from the Eastern Hemisphere land masses where humanity originated. The first people to enter these continents came across a temporary land bridge fro Siberia about 35,000 years ago. Spreading across the two continents, they developed a great variety of societies based largely on corn agriculture and hunting. In North America, some ancient Indian peoples like the Pueblos, the Anasazi, and the Misssippian culture developed elaborate settlements. But on the whole, North American Indian societies were less numerous and urbanized than those in Central and South America, though equally diverse in culture and social organization.
The impetus for European exploration came from the desire for new trade routes to the East, the spirit and technological discoveries of the Renaissance, and the power of the new European national monarchies. The European encounters with America and Africa, beginning with the Portuguese and Spanish explorers, convulsed the entire world. Biological change, disease, population loss, conquest, African slavery, cultural change, and economic expansion were just some of the consequence of the commingling of two ecosystems.
After they conquered and then intermarried with Indians of the great civilizations of South America and Mexico, the Spanish consquistadores expanded northward into the northern border territories of Florida, New Mexico, and California. There they established small but permanent settlements in competition with the French and English explorers who also were venturing into North America.
Chapter 1 Spirit – Each ignorant of the other’s existence, Native Americans and Europeans lived in isolation on their separate continents for millennia before Columbus’ revolutionary voyage in 1492. For the Europeans, the Native Americans were both a wonder and a mystery, unexplained in either Bible or the classical writings of the ancients that were being revived in the dawning age of the Renaissance. Learned European scholars earnestly debated whether the “Indians” were “true men.” For their part, the Native Americans were no less baffled by the arrival of the Europeans, and they looked to their own folklore and traditions in order to understand this new race of people who had suddenly appeared among them. The Europeans, especially the Portuguese and the Spanish, had begun to penetrate and exploit Africa even before they made contact with the New World of the Americas. A fateful triangle was established as Europe drew slave labor from Africa to unlock American domain, exciting the jealousy of the English, who began in the late 1500s to launch their own imperial adventure in the New World.
Chapter 2 – Pageant – The Planting of English America, 1500-1733
Themes:
1)After a late start, a proud, nationalistic England joined the colonial race and successfully established five colonies along the southeastern seacoast of North America. Although varying somewhat in origins and character, all these colonies exhibited plantation agriculture, indentured and slave labor, a tendency toward strong economic and social hierarchies, and a pattern of wieldy scattered, institutionally weal settlement.
2)The Early southern colonies’ encounters with Indians and African slaves established the patterns of race relations that would shape the North American experience – in particular, warfare and reservations for the Indians and lifelong slave codes for African-Americans.
Summary: The defeat of the Spanish Armada and the exuberant spirit of Elizabethan nationalism finally drew England into the colonial race. After some early failures, the first permanent English colony was established at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Initially it faced harsh conditions and Indian hostility, but tobacco cultivation finally brought prosperity and population growth.
The early encounters of English setters with the Powhatans in Virginia established many of the patterns that characterized later Indian-white relations in North America. Indian societies underwent their own substantial changes as a result of warfare, disease, trade, and the mingling and migration of Indians from the Atlantic coast to inland areas.
Other colonies were established in Maryland and the Carolinas. South Carolina flourished by establishing close ties with the British sugar colonies in the West Indies. It also borrowed the West Indian pattern of harsh slave codes and large plantation agriculture. North Carolina developed somewhat differently, with fewer slaves and more white colonists who owned small farms. Latecomer Georgia served initially as a buffer against the Spanish and a haven for debtors.
Despite some differences, all the southern colonies depended on staple plantation agriculture for their survival and the institutions of indentured servitude and African slavery for their labor. With widely scattered rural settlements, they had relatively weak religious and social institutions and tended to develop hierarchical economic and social orders.
Chapter 2 Spirit – The spectacular success of the Spanish conquerors excited the cupidity and rivalry of the English and partly inspired Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s ill-fated colony in New Foundland in 1683 and Sir Walter Raleigh’s luckless venture on Roanoke Island, off the North Carolina coast, in the 1580s. But England, though suffering from blighting economic and social disruptions at home, was not prepared for ambitious colonial ventures until the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the perfection of the joint-stock company – a device that enabled “adventurers” to pool their capital. Virginia, which got off to a shaky start in 1607, was finally saved by tobacco. Launched in 1634 by Lord Baltimore as a Catholic have, Maryland profited from Virginia’s experience and assistance. In all the young colonies, people of diverse cultures – European, Native American, and African – commingled, and sometimes clashed.
Chapter 3 - Pageant – Settling the Northern Colonies – 1619-1700
Themes:
1)The Protestant Reformation, in its English Calvinist (Reformed) version, provided the major impetus and leadership for the settlement of New England. The New England colonies developed a fairly homogeneous social order based on religion and semicommunal family and town settlements.
2)The middle colonies of New Netherland (New York), Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware developed with far greater political, ethnic, religious, and social diversity, and they represented a more cosmopolitan middle ground between the tightly knit New England towns and the scattered, hierarchical plantation South.
Summary: The New England colonies were founded by English Puritans. While most Puritans sought to “purify” the Church of England from within, and not to break away from it, a small group of Separatists – the Pilgrims – founded the first small, pious Plymouth Colony in New England. More important was the larger group of nonseparating Puritans, led by John Winthrop, who founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 as part of the “great migration” of Puritans fleeing persecution in England in the 1630s.
A strong sense of common purpose among the first settlers shaped the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because of the close alignment of religion and politics in the colony, those who challenged religious orthodoxy, among them Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, were considered guilty of sedition and driven out of Massachusetts. Williams founded Rhode Island, by far the most religiously and politically tolerant of the colonies. Other New England settlements, all originating in Massachusetts Bay, were established in Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire. Although they shared a common way of life, the New England colonies developed with a substantial degree of independence.
The middle colonies took shape quite differently. New York, founded as New Netherland by the Dutch and later conquered by England, was economically and ethnically diverse, socially hierarchical, and politically quarrelsome. Pennsylvania, founded as a Quaker haven by William Penn, also attracted an economically ambitious and politically troublesome population of diverse ethnic groups.
With their economic variety, ethnic diversity, and political factionalism, the middle colonies were the most typically “American” of England’s thirteen Atlantic seaboard colonies.
Chapter 3 Spirit – The English authorities, angered by the efforts of Puritans to de-Catholicize the established Church of England, launched persecutions that led to the founding of Plymouth in 1620 and the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. The Bay Colony early fell under the leadership of Puritan (Congregational) clergymen. Although they had been the victims of intolerance in old England, they understandably sought to enforce conformity in New England by persecuting Quakers and banishing dissenters like Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams. Partly as a result of the uncongenial atmosphere in Massachusetts Bay, settlements in Connecticut and Rhode Island sprang into existence. These offshoot colonies, as well as the older ones, developed the pure-democracy town meeting and other significant institutions. All the colonies sometimes had troubled relationships with the Indians, especially in King Philip’s War, 1675-1676. A more hospitable atmosphere in the Quaker colonies, notably William Penn’s Pennsylvania, attracted heavy immigration, largely German. The Dutch in New Netherland, after precarious existence form 1624-1664, were finally absorbed by the English, who renamed the colony New York.
Chapter 4 – Pageant – American Life in the Seventeenth Century, 1607-1692
Themes:
1)In the Chesapeake region, 17th century colonial society was characterized by disease-shortened lives, weak family life, and a social hierarchy that included hardworking planters at the top and restless poor whites and black slaves at the bottom. Despite the substantial disruption of their traditional culture and the mingling of African peoples, slaves in the Chesapeake developed a culture that mixed African and new-world elements, and developed one of the few slave societies that grew through natural reproduction.
2)By contrast, early New England life was characterized by healthy, extended life spans, strong family life, closely knit towns and churches, and a demanding economic and moral environment.
Summary: Life was hard in the 17the century southern colonies. Disease drastically shortened life spans in the Chesapeake region, even for the young single men who made up the majority of settlers. Families were few and fragile, with men greatly outnumbering the women, who were much in demand and seldom remained single for long.
The tobacco economy first thrived on the labor of white indentured servants, who hoped to work their way up to become landowners and perhaps even become wealthy. But by the late 17th century, this hope was increasingly frustrated, and the discontent of the poor whites exploded in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676.
With white labor increasingly troublesome, slaves (earlier a small fraction of the workforce) began to be imported from West Africa by the tens of thousands in the 1680s, and soon became essential to the colonial economy. Slaves in the Deep South died rapidly of disease and overwork, but those in the Chesapeake tobacco region survived longer. Their numbers eventually increased by natural reproduction and they developed a distinctive African-American way of life that combined African elements with features developed in the New World.
By contrast with the South, New England’s clean water and cool air contributed to a healthy way of life, which added ten years to the average English life span. The New England way of life centered on strong families and tightly knit towns and churches, which were relatively democratic and equal by 17th century standards. By the late 17th century, however, social and religious tensions developed in these narrow communities, as the Salem witch hysteria dramatically illustrates.
Rocky soil forced many New Englanders to turn to fishing and merchant shipping to for their livelihoods. Their difficult lives and stern religion made New Englanders tough, idealistic, purposeful, and resourceful. In later years they spread these same values across much of American society.
17th century American society was still almost entirely simple and agrarian. Would-be aristocrats who tried to recreate the social hierarchies of Europe were generally frustrated.
Chapter 4 Spirit – The unhealthful environment of the Chesapeake region killed off the first would be settlers in droves. Mostly single men, the earliest Virginia and Maryland colonists struggled to put their raw colonies on a sound economic footing by cultivating tobacco. At first, indentured servants provided much of the labor supply for tobacco culture, but after discontented former indentured servants erupted in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, the dominant merchant-planters shifted to importing African slaves. By the end of the 17th century, both white and black populations in the Chesapeake were growing through natural reproduction as well as through continued immigration. New England, in contrast, was settled from the start by colonists in family units, who thrived almost from the outset. As their numbers grew, they built a prosperous, diversified economy, founded schools and tidy towns, and established a tradition of self-government. The Puritan faith pervaded all aspects of New England life, encouraging, in one extreme instance, the persecution of a number of women for witchcraft at Salem in 1692.
Chapter 5 – Pageant – Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution, 1700-1775
Themes:
1)Compared with its 17th century counterpart, 18th century colonial society became more complex and hierarchical, more ethnically and religiously diverse, and more economically and politically developed.
2)Colonial culture, while still limited, took on distinct American qualities in such areas as evangelical religion, education, freedom of the press, and self-government.
Summary: By 1775 the 13 American colonies east of the Appalachians were inhabited by a burgeoning population of 2 million whites and half a million blacks. The white population was increasingly a melting pot of diverse groups.
Compared with Europe, America was a land of equality and opportunity (for whites); but relative to the 17th century colonies, there was a rising economic hierarchy and increasing social complexity. 90 percent of Americans remained agriculturalists. But a growing class of wealthy planters and merchants appeared at the top of the social pyramid, in contrast with slaves and “jayle birds” from England, who formed a visible lower class.
By the early 18th century, the established New England Congregational church was losing religious fervor. The Great Awakening, sparked by fiery preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, spread a new style of emotional worship that revived religious zeal. Colonial education and culture were generally undistinguished, although science and journalism displayed some vigor. Politics was everywhere an important activity, as representative colonial assemblies battled on equal terms with politically appointed governors from England.
Chapter 5 Spirit – The population of the British colonies increased amazingly, owing largely to the fertility of a pioneer people. Slaves arrived from Africa in growing numbers in the 18th century, and they too – like the whites – were soon increasing their ranks through their own natural fertility. Immigrants were pouring in from the British Isles and Europe, and although the English language remained predominant, the now-famed melting pot was beginning to bubble. As the population spread, the austerity of the old-time worship weakened, although it was given a temporary revival by the Great Awakening of the 1730s. The rational thought inspired by the European Enlightenment found a ready disciple in Benjamin Franklin, whose sly pokes at religion no doubt helped undermine the dominance of the clergy. Americans began dealing in international trade, straining against the commercial limitations imposed by British imperial rule. A ruling class of sorts existed in all the colonies, although the governing clique in New York received a sharp jolt in the famed Zenger libel case. The ease with which the individual colonist could rise from one social rung to another, quite in contrast with the Old World rigidity, foreshadowed the emergence of a mobile, pluralistic society.