Give Me Liberty! Chapter Outlines

CHAPTER 1

A New World

Chapter Study Outline

[Introduction: Columbian Exchange]
The First Americans
The Settling of the Americas
"Indians" settled the New World between 15,000 and 60,000 years ago
Indian Societies of the Americas
North and South American societies built roads, trade networks, and irrigation systems.
Societies from Mexico and areas south were grander in scale and organization than those north of Mexico.
Indians north of Mexico lacked literacy, metal tools, and scientific knowledge necessary for long-distance navigation.
Mound Builders of the Mississippi River Valley
Built approximately 3,500 years ago along the Mississippi River in modern-day Louisiana, a community known today as Poverty Point was a trading center for the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys.
Located near present-day St. Louis, the city known as Cahokia flourished with a population of 10,000-30,000 around the year 1200.
Western Indians
Hopi and Zuni ancestors settled around present-day Arizona and New Mexico and built large planned towns with multiple-family dwellings, and traded with peoples as far away as Mississippi and central Mexico.
Indians of Eastern North America
Indian tribes living in the eastern part of North America sustained themselves with a diet of corn, squash, and beans and supplemented it by fishing and hunting.
Tribes frequently warred with one another; however, there were also many loose alliances.
Indians saw themselves as one group among many; the sheer diversity seen by the Europeans upon their arrival was remarkable.
Native American Religion
Religious ceremonies were often directly related to farming and hunting.
Those who were believed to hold special spiritual powers held positions of respect and authority.
Land and Property
The idea of owning private property was foreign to Indians.
Indians believed land was a common resource, not an economic commodity.
Wealth mattered little in Indian societies, and generosity was far more important.
Gender Relations
Women could engage in premarital sex and choose to divorce their husbands, and most Indian societies were matrilineal.
Since men were often away on hunts, women attended to the agricultural duties, as well as the household duties.
European Views of the Indians
Europeans felt that Indians lacked genuine religion.
Europeans claimed that Indians did not "use" the land and thus had no claim to it.
Europeans viewed Indian men as weak and Indian women as mistreated.

Indian Freedom, European Freedom
Indian Freedom
Europeans concluded that the notion of freedom was alien to Indian societies.
European understanding of freedom was based on ideas of personal independence and the ownership of private property-ideas foreign to Indians.
Christian Liberty
Europeans believed that to embrace Christ was to provide freedom from sin.
"Christian liberty" had no connection to later ideas of religious tolerance.
Freedom and Authority
Europeans claimed that obedience to law was another definition of freedom
Under English law, women held very few rights and were submissive to their husbands.
Liberty and Liberties
Liberty came from knowing one's place in a hierarchical society and fulfilling duties appropriate to one's rank.
Numerous modern civil liberties (such as freedom of worship and of the press) did not exist.

The Expansion of Europe
Chinese and Portuguese Navigation
Chinese admiral Zheng He led seven naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433, even exploring East Africa on the sixth voyage.
The caravel, compass, and quadrant made travel along the African coast possible for the Portuguese in the early fifteenth century.
The Portuguese established trading posts, "factories," along the western coast of Africa.
Portugal began colonizing Atlantic islands and established plantations worked by slaves.
Freedom and Slavery in Africa
Slavery was already one form of labor in Africa before the Europeans came.
The arrival of the Portuguese accelerated the buying and selling of slaves within Africa.
By the time Vasco da Gama sailed to India in 1498, Portugal had established a vast trading empire.
The Voyages of Columbus
Christopher Columbus, an Italian, got financial support from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.
In the same year, 1492, the king and queen completed the reconquista.

Contact
Columbus in the New World
Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492 and colonization began the next year.
Nicolas de Ovando established a permanent base in Hispaniola in 1502.
Amerigo Vespucci sailed along the coast of South America between 1499 and 1502, and the New World came to be called America.
Exploration and Conquest
News could now travel quickly, especially with the invention of Gutenberg's movable-type printing press in the 1430s.
John Cabot had traveled to Newfoundland in 1497 and soon many Europeans were exploring the New World.
Balboa trekked across Panama and was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. Magellan led an expedition to sail around the world.
Two Spanish conquistadores, Cortés and Pizarro, led devastating expeditions against the Aztec and Inca civilizations, respectively, in the early 1500s.
The Demographic Disaster
The Columbian Exchange transferred not only plants and animals, but also diseases, such as smallpox and influenza.
The native populations were significantly depleted through wars, enslavement, and disease.

The Spanish Empire
Governing Spanish America
Spain established a stable government modeled after Spanish home rule and absolutism.
Power flowed from the king to the Council of the Indies to viceroys to local officials.
The Catholic Church played a significant role in the administration of Spanish colonies.
Colonists and Indians in Spanish America
Gold and silver mining was the primary economy in Spanish America.
Mines were worked by Indians.
Many Spaniards came to the New World for easier social mobility.
Indian inhabitants always outnumbered European colonists and their descendants in Spanish America.
Spanish America evolved into a hybrid culture-part Indian, part Spanish, and, in places, part African.
Mestizos are persons of mixed Indian and Spanish origin.
Justifications for Conquest
To justify their claims to land that belonged to someone else, the Spanish relied on cultural superiority, missionary zeal, and violence.
A missionary element existed from the church's long holy war against Islam, and was renewed with the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
A primary aim of the Spaniards was to convert the Indians to the "true faith."
Piety and Profit
The souls to be saved could also be a labor force in the gold and silver mines.
Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote about the injustices of Spanish rule toward the Indians.
He believed that "the entire human race is one," but favored African slavery.
Reforming the Empire
Las Casas's writings encouraged the 1542 New Laws, which forbade the enslavement of Indians.
The Black Legend was an image, put forth in part by Las Casas, that Spain was a uniquely brutal and exploitive colonizer.
Exploring North America
Spanish explorers migrated into what is now the United States in search of gold; first was Juan Ponce de León in Florida (1513).
Large Spanish expeditions traveled through Florida, the Gulf of Mexico region, and the Southwest (1520s-1540s).
These expeditions, particularly Hernando de Soto's, brutalized Indians and spread deadly diseases.
Spain in Florida and the Southwest
Florida, the first present-day U.S. area colonized by Spain, had forts as early as the 1560s to protect Spanish treasure fleets from pirates.
As late as 1763, Spanish Florida had only 4,000 inhabitants of European descent.
Juan de Oñate led settlers into present-day New Mexico (1598).
Oñate destroyed Acoma, a centuries-old Indian city, in response to an attack.
The Pueblo Revolt
In 1680, Pueblo Indians, led by Popé, rebelled against the Spanish colonists in present-day New Mexico for forcing the Indians to convert to Christianity.

The French and Dutch Empires
French Colonization
Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608, and others explored and claimed the entire Mississippi Valley for France.
Relatively few French colonists arrived in New France. The white population in 1700 was only 19,000.
New France and the Indians
With few settlers, friendly relations with the Indians were essential for France.
The French prided themselves on adopting a more humane policy toward the Indians than Spain, yet their contact still brought disease and their fur trading depleted the native animal population.
The métis were children of Indian women and French men.
The Dutch Empire
Henry Hudson sailed into New York Harbor and claimed the area for the Netherlands (1609).
The Dutch West India Company settled colonists on Manhattan Island (1626).
The Netherlands dominated international commerce in the early seventeenth century.
Dutch Freedom
The Dutch prided themselves on their devotion to liberty; freedom of the press and a broad religious toleration were unique to the Dutch.
Amsterdam was a refuge for many persecuted Protestants and Jews.
New Netherland was a military post, not governed democratically, but the citizens possessed rights.
Slaves had some rights, women enjoyed more independence than their counterparts in other colonies, and there was more religious toleration.
Settling New Netherland
Cheap livestock and free land after six years of labor were promised in an attempt to attract settlers.
New Netherland and the Indians
The Dutch came to trade, not to conquer, and were determined to treat the Indians more humanely, although conflict was not completely avoided

CHAPTER 2

Beginnings Of English America, 1607-1660

Chapter Study Outline

[Introduction: Jamestown]
England and the New World
Unifying the English Nation
England's stability in the sixteenth century was undermined by religious conflicts.
England and Ireland
England's methods to subdue Ireland in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries established patterns that would be repeated in America.
England and North America
The English crown issued charters for individuals such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize America at their own expense, but both failed.
Motives for Colonization
Anti-Catholicism had become deeply ingrained in English popular culture.
A Discourse Concerning Western Planting argued that settlement would strike a blow at England's most powerful Catholic enemy: Spain.
National glory, profit, and a missionary zeal motivated the English crown to settle America.
It was also argued that trade, not mineral wealth, would be the basis of England's empire.
The Social Crisis
A worsening economy and the enclosure movement led to an increase in the number of poor and to a social crisis.
Unruly poor were encouraged to leave England for the New World.
Masterless Men
The English increasingly viewed America as a land where a man could control his own labor and thus gain economic independence, particularly through the ownership of land.

The Coming of the English
English Emigrants
Sustained immigration was vital for the settlement's survival.
Between 1607 and 1700, a little over half a million persons left England.
They settled in Ireland, the West Indies, and North America.
The majority of settlers in North America were young, single men from the bottom rungs of English society.
Indentured Servants
Two-thirds of English settlers came to North America as indentured servants.
Indentured servants did not enjoy any liberties while under contract.
Land and Liberty
Land was the basis of liberty.
Englishmen and Indians
The English were chiefly interested in displacing the Indians and settling on their land.
Most colonial authorities acquired land by purchase.
The seventeenth century was marked by recurrent warfare between colonists and Indians.
Wars gave the English a heightened sense of superiority.
The Transformation of Indian Life
English goods were quickly integrated into Indian life.
Over time, those European goods changed Indian farming, hunting, and cooking practices.
Growing connections with Europeans stimulated warfare among Indian tribes.

Settling the Chesapeake
The Jamestown Colony
Settlement and survival were questionable in the colony's early history because of high death rates, frequent changes in leadership, inadequate supplies from England, and placing gold before farming.
By 1610, only 65 settlers remained alive.
John Smith's tough leadership held the early colony together.
New policies were adopted in 1618 so that the colony could survive.
Headright system
A "charter of grants and liberties" provided an elected assembly (House of Burgesses), which first met in 1619.
Powhatan and Pocahontas
Powhatan, the leader of thirty tribes near Jamestown, eagerly traded with the English.
English-Indian relations were mostly peaceful early on.
Pocahontas married John Rolfe in 1614, symbolizing Anglo-Indian harmony.
The Uprising of 1622
Once the English decided on a permanent colony instead of merely a trading post, conflict was inevitable.
Opechancanough led an attack on Virginia's settlers in 1622.
Through a treaty, the English forced Indians to recognize their subordination to the government at Jamestown and moved them onto reservations.
The Virginia Company surrendered its charter to the crown in 1624.
A Tobacco Colony
Tobacco was Virginia's substitute for gold.
The expansion of tobacco production led to an increased demand for field labor.
Women and the Family
Virginian society lacked a stable family life.
Social conditions opened the door to roles women rarely assumed in England.
The Maryland Experiment
Maryland was established in 1632 as a proprietary colony under Cecilius Calvert.
The charter granted Calvert "full, free, and absolute power."
Religion in Maryland
Calvert envisioned Maryland as a refuge for persecuted Catholics.
Most appointed officials initially were Catholic, but Protestants always outnumbered Catholics in the colony.
Although it had a high death rate, Maryland offered servants greater opportunity for land ownership than Virginia.

The New England Way
The Rise of Puritanism
Puritanism emerged from the Protestant Reformation in England.
Puritans believed that the Church of England retained too many elements of Catholicism.
Puritans considered religious belief a complex and demanding matter, urging believers to seek the truth by reading the Bible and listening to sermons.
Puritans followed the teachings of John Calvin.
Moral Liberty
Many Puritans immigrated to the New World in hopes of establishing a Bible Commonwealth that would eventually influence England.
They came to America in search of liberty and the right to worship and govern themselves.
Puritans were governed by a "moral" liberty, "a liberty to that only which is good," which was compatible with severe restraints on speech, religion, and personal behavior.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth
Pilgrims sailed in 1620 to Cape Cod aboard the Mayflower.
Before going ashore, the adult men signed the Mayflower Compact, the first written frame of government in what is now the United States.
Local Indians provided much valuable help to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621.
The Great Migration
The Massachusetts Bay Company was charted in 1629 by London merchants wanting to further the Puritan cause and to turn a profit from trade with the Indians.
New England settlement was very different from settlement in the Chesapeake colonies.
New England had a more equal balance of men and women.
New England enjoyed a healthier climate.
New England had more families.
The Puritan Family
Puritans reproduced the family structure of England with men at the head of the household.
Women were allowed full church membership and divorce was legal, but a woman was expected to obey her husband fully.
Government and Society in Massachusetts
Massachusetts was organized into self-governing towns.
Each town had a Congregational Church and a school.
To train an educated ministry, Harvard College was established in 1636.
The freemen of Massachusetts elected their governor.
Puritan democracy was for those within the circle of church members.
Puritan Liberties
Puritans defined liberties by social rank, producing a rigid hierarchal society justified by God's will.
The Body of Liberties affirmed the rights of free speech and assembly and equal protection for all.
Although ministers were forbidden to hold office in Massachusetts, church and state were closely interconnected.

New Englanders Divided
Roger Williams
A young Puritan minister, Williams preached that any citizen ought to be free to practice whatever form of religion he chose.
Williams believed that it was essential to separate church and state.
Rhode Island and Connecticut
Banished from Massachusetts in 1636, Williams established Rhode Island.
Rhode Island was truly a beacon of religious freedom and democratic government.
Other spin-offs from Massachusetts included New Haven and Hartford, which joined to become the colony of Connecticut in 1662.
The Trials of Anne Hutchinson
Hutchinson was a well-educated, articulate woman who charged that nearly all the ministers in Massachusetts were guilty of faulty preaching.
Hutchinson was placed on trial in 1637 for sedition.
Authorities charged her with Antinomianism (putting one's own judgment or faith above human law and church teachings).
On trial she said God spoke to her directly rather than through ministers or the Bible.
She and her followers were banished.
Puritans and Indians
Colonial leaders had differing opinions about the English right to claim Indian land.
To New England's leaders, the Indians represented both savagery and temptation.
The Connecticut General Court set a penalty for anyone who
chose to live with the Indians.
The Puritans made no real attempt to convert the Indians in the first two decades.
The Pequot War
As the white population grew, conflict with the Indians became unavoidable, and the turning point came when a fur trader was killed by Pequots.
Colonists warred against the Pequots in 1637, exterminating the tribe.
The New England Economy
Most migrants came from the middle ranks of society.
Fishing and timber were exported, but the economy centered on family farms.
A Growing Commercial Society
Per capita wealth was more equally distributed in New England than in the Chesapeake.
A powerful merchant class rose up, assuming a growing role based on trade within the British empire.
Some clashed with the church and left to establish a new town, Portsmouth, in New Hampshire.
By 1650, less than half the population of Boston had become full church members.
In 1662, the Half-Way Covenant answered with a compromise that allowed the grandchildren of the Great Migration generation to be baptized and be granted a kind of half-way membership in the church.

Religion, Politics, and Freedom
The Rights of Englishmen
By 1600, the idea that certain rights of Englishmen applied to all within the kingdom had developed alongside the traditional definition of liberties.
This tradition rested on the Magna Carta, which was signed by King John in 1215.
It identified a series of liberties granted to "all the free men of our realm."
The Magna Carta over time came to embody the idea of English freedom:
Habeas corpus
The right to face one's accuser
Trial by jury
The English Civil War
The English Civil War of the 1640s illuminated debates about liberty and what it meant to be a freeborn Englishman.
England's Debate over Freedom
John Milton called for freedom of speech and of the press.
The Levellers called for an even greater expansion of freedom, moving away from a definition based on social class.
The Diggers was another political group attempting to give freedom an economic underpinning through the common ownership of land.
The Civil War and English America
Most New Englanders sided with Parliament in the Civil War.
Ironically, Puritan leaders were uncomfortable with the religious toleration for Protestants gaining favor in England, as it was Parliament that granted Williams his charter for Rhode Island.
A number of Hutchinson's followers became Quakers; four were hanged in Massachusetts.
In Maryland, crisis erupted into civil war.
In 1649, Maryland adopted an Act Concerning Religion, which institutionalized the principles of toleration that had prevailed from the colony's beginning.
Cromwell and the Empire
Oliver Cromwell, who ruled England from 1649 until his death in 1658, pursued an aggressive policy of colonial expansion, the promotion of Protestantism, and commercial empowerment in the British Isles and the Western Hemisphere.
The next century was a time of crisis and consolidation.

CHAPTER 3