U. S. History to 1815 - A Play in Three Acts
[For an explanation of the dramatic analogy, click on the word drama].
Prologue - Americanization, the process by which old world colonists became different from those left behind, though not all alike.
Cast of Characters
A. Red
1. From where?
2. When?
3. How many were there?
4. What happened to them?
B. White - What forces propelled them outward, toward the American stage?
1. Crusades
2. Trade
3. Population explosion
4. Navigational improvements
5. Nationalism
6. Religion
a. Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation
b. John Calvin and Calvinism
c. The Reformation in England
(1) Henry VIII
(2) Edward VI
(3) Mary ("Bloody Mary"), 1553-1558
(4) Elizabeth I, 1558-1603
(a) Political stability
(b) Religious toleration
(c) Economic prosperity
(d) Military power
(e) Artistic glory
C. Black - What forces propelled them outward? (see B)
Scene One - Virginia
A. The Debacle of Jamestown, 1607-1619
1. Three representative events
a. Winter 1609-10: "The Starving Time"
b. Summer 1610: Murder of Indian Innocents
c. Spring 1612: Suicide
2. Explanations
a. Lousy leadership
b. Colonists' poor character
c. Socialism
d. Contrast between English expectations of and realities in the New World
3. Summary - 80% mortality, $7 million loss
B. 1619: Turning point
1. New charter
a. Guaranteed English rights, including representative govt.; led to creation of Virginia's House of Burgesses, which was more representative than England's Parliament due to abundance of land in the colony
b. Land incentive; awarded a 50-acre "headright" to any immigrant who paid own way or for passage of another
2. Arrival of women
3. Arrival of Africans (Though probably not permanently enslaved, they suffered discrimination beyond that faced by former white servants, suggesting racism preceded slavery).
4. Recognition of tobacco as cash crop
C. Boom-time Virginia, 1620-1670: Creation of a social and economic dichotomy
1. The planter elite - Means to wealth and power
a. "Tobacco cycle"
b. Marrying a widow and/or intermarrying with other elitists
c. Creating an artificial land scarcity
d. Delaying and/or denying servants' freedom
2. The frontiersmen
Ambitious young men, unattached and volatile; increasingly angry young men
D. CLIMAX - Bacon's Rebellion, 1676
1. Events
2. Significance
a. A rehearsal for Revolution?
b. Conflict among Americans - tidewater vs. frontier, east vs. west, rich vs. poor (class conflict)
c. Deeper significance may be found in a list of the affair's ...
(1) Winners - The planter elite, represented by Governor William Berkeley
(2) Losers
(a) Indians, most immediately
(b) Frontiersmen, still losers
(c) Blacks, who were more often found in Virginia after 1676 for ...
[1] Economic reasons
[a] Falling death rate made slaves a better buy
[b] Disinclination of whites to indenture selves to Va.
[2] Social reasons
Slavery not only provided labor for planters' tobacco fields, it provided new scapegoats in their class conflicts with poor whites, assuring the latter that no matter how poor they might be, someone would always be worse off than them. (To read an essay in which I summarize Edmund S. Morgan's arguments for the long-term significance of Bacon's Rebellion, click here.)
E. Virginia, 1676-1776: "A social dung heap ...
that produced beautiful flowers." How? (see HIS 281 - Fall 2002)
A. The Puritan Promise
1. Scale of migration
2. Self-governing
3. Devotion to the Puritan Dream: "A City on a Hill"
a. Pursuit of virtue, moralism
b. Puritan work ethic
c. Congregationalism (hierarchical but organic communities; community spirit visible in commitment to education)
B. Puritans' problems
1. Humanity
2. Provincialism
a. Handling of dissent
b. Child-rearing techniques
3. Declining devotion to Puritan dream
a. Half-Way Covenant
b. Creeping materialism
c. Declining church membership and attendance
4. External problems
a. Indian raids
b. Crop failures
c. Epidemics
d. England's decision to revoke Puritans' charter after England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688
C. CLIMAX - The Salem Witch Trials of 1692
1. Events
2. Explanations
a. Individual guilt, frustration, jealousy, insecurity
b. The community's shared fear of, yet refusal to admit, failure
C. Summary - Are Puritan contributions to American character (moralism, the work ethic, congregationalism, a belief in education) for better or worse?
Scene Three - Pennsylvania
A. Sources of success
1. Geographical advantages, produced economic diversity, stability, prosperity
2. Quaker attitudes and leadership
a. Pacifism
b. Liberal land laws, produced fluid class lines
c. Toleration, produced cultural pluralism
B. Reason for failure
Frontier hostilities eroded Quaker authority, leading to (anti-)CLIMAX - Quiet exodus of Quaker party from the Pennsylvania assembly following Paxton Boys' affair, 1754
C. Legacy
1. Quaker role in Pennsylvania successes
2. Quaker example in giving up power, based on idea that "Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers" (Wm. Penn)
Scene Four - The Colonies at 1750
A. Population
1. 1660 - 50,000
2. 1750 - 1,500,000; this growth due to ...
a. Continuing immigration
b. High birth rates
B. Family life
1. Education of children
2. Women's roles
C. Art
1. Fine arts? Limited due to ...
a. Material concerns
b. Religious inhibitions
c. Prevalence of European styles
2. Folk arts
D. Literature
1. New England
a. Religious preoccupations (Jonathan Edwards)
b. Secular writings (Anne Bradstreet)
2. Southern colonies - The "Secret Diary" of William Byrd II
3. Middle Atlantic region
a. Ben Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac"
b. Peter Zenger case, 1735, establishing that truth was an acceptable defense in cases of libel, setting a precedent for freedom of the press
E. Religion
1. Reasons for declining interest in organized religion by 1720
a. Materialism
b. Dispersion of the population
c. Emergence of deism among the educated elite
2. CLIMAX - Response to disinterest in religion: The Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s
a. Religious impact
(1) Church participation increased from 5% to 80% at height of revival
(2) Effect of Great Awakening on religious toleration in America?
b. Social and political implications
The Awakening was essentially a frontier movement, heightening tensions between the established east and less established west, encouraging the poor to challenge established authority, social and political as well as ecclesiastical
F. Science
1. Accomplishments
2. Religious implications (growth of deism among the educated elite)
3. Social implications (efforts to apply lessons of science to racial attitudes)
4. Political implications (efforts to apply lessons of science to society in the 18th century "Enlightenment", a search for order, in society as in nature)
John Locke's Second Treatise on Government (1689) argued that all men were born with natural rights (life, liberty, property). Governments were contracted to protect these rights, but if it failed in this, its citizens had another natural right, to Revolt! Implications for American colonies?
Americanization, 1607-1760 - Review
A. Political innovations
1. Evidence of democratization
a. Colonial representative assemblies, beginning with Virginia's House of Burgesses (1619), were more representative than England's Parliament, as property (ownership of which was required of voters) was relatively widely distributed.
b. Occasional elimination of property qualifications for voters, as in Roger Williams's Rhode Island
c. Frontier egalitarianism (especially after the Great Awakening, which encouraged the poor to challenge established authority, political as well as ecclesiastical).
d. Other examples?
2. Disestablishment of churches - Movement toward religious toleration
a. Roger Williams's separation of church and state in Rhode Island
b. Maryland's Toleration Act of 1649
c. Quakers' Pennsylvania example
d. Decline in Puritan church's influence, especially with revocation of charter in 1691 and after witch trials of 1692
e. Great Awakening split all sects into "New Lights" and "Old Lights", making each sect minority, eventually making toleration a necessity. Even the Church of Virginia (Anglican) had to be disestablished by 1780s.
f. Other examples?
3. Miscellaneous legal innovations
B. Contributions of religious groups
1. Puritans
a. Work ethic
2. Quakers
a. Egalitarianism
b. Humanitarianism, including abolitionism
c. Nativism (fear of foreigners)?
3. Revivalists (various sects)
a. Egalitarianism, democratization
b. Anti-intellectualism
4. Other groups?
C. Environmental forces
1. Abundance of land encouraged a fluid class system, wide access to the franchise
2. The frontier encouraged individualism. (Historian Frederick Jackson Turner's "frontier thesis" argued that the lack of established institutions required of Americans self-reliance, reinforced as they maintained contact with a westward-moving frontier. This individualism led Americans relatively quickly to demand a role in their government and society).
3. Diversity of the American landscape encouraged economic and regional diversity, sectional conflict.
D. Diversity, Americans most distinctive trait, was a result of heterogeneous immigration and the American environment and was visible in colonists' regional, religious, and sectional differences (see pages following).
1. Colonists' regional diversity
| a. Southern colonies | b. New England colonies | c. Mid-Atlantic colonies | |
| (1) Political structure | Planter elite dominant; property ownership required of voters; organized by counties | Puritan church dominant, church membership and property required of voters until 1691, organized by townships | Property ownership required of voters but wide distribution of property and Quaker influence produced broadly-based political system |
| (2) Religious orthodoxy and toleration | Anglican (Episcopal) Church established but fairly tolerant | Puritan church dominant till 1691, influential thereafter; intolerant | Quakers influential though tolerant of all others |
| (3) Economic diversity and stability | Staple crop system, allowing only large planters to withstand wildly fluctuating economy | Moderate diversity with Puritan work ethic encouraged general stability and steady economic growth | Geography, Quaker practicality, and heterogeneous population produced great diversity, stability, and prosperity |
| (4) Social structure and mobility | Tidewater/frontier, rich/poor dichotomy with little chance for upward mobility | Hierarchical but organic society, led by Puritan clergy and commercial elite. Moderate mobility possible | Middle class society with property widely distributed; urban centers required diverse skills; great mobility possible |
| (5) Miscellaneous regional characteristics | Elite's desire for labor, scapegoats in class conflicts with poor whites encouraged racism, slavery after Bacon's Rebellion | Puritan legacy apparent in work ethic, close-knit communities, "Yankee ingenuity" | Cultural pluralism |
2. Colonists' religious diversity
| Attitudes toward: | a. Anglicans | b. Puritans | c. Quakers | d. Revivalists | e. Deists |
| 1. Worldly success | Anglicans established; beliefs no obstacle in pursuit of success | Success a sign of salvation, so driven by work ethic; generally successful, sometimes materialistic | Thrifty, practical, so generally successful, though not materialistic | Usually poor though often ambitious; many reject established churches' message to be content with, hope for better in heaven | Educated elite, independent, wealthy, with time for science; may be beyond material concerns |
| 2. Other sects | Fairly tolerant | Intolerant | Tolerant | Not tolerant, but forced to be by multiplicity of sects after Great Awakening | Believed traditional faiths based on superstition, but may help maintain discipline until society becomes more enlightened |
| 3. Education | Positive, practical, clearly beneficial to ruling class, though not for everybody | Practical and essential to understand God's plan | Not necessary for spiritual insight, though may be practical | Not necessary, may even be negative; some revivalists were anti-intellectual | Rigidly scientific |
| 4. Man and society | Paternalistic; elite should help less fortunate | Man viewed as inherently evil; saw selves as the elect, so organized hierarchical society | Man basically good; all equal before God, so tendency toward egalitarianism, humanitarianism | Man evil, but redeemable; poor encouraged to challenge establishment, seek opportunity; egalitarian, democratic | Man potentially perfectible if intellect fully developed; in meantime, enlightened may provide leadership, maintain order |
| 5. The afterlife | Salvation through faith, good works | Predestination; only the elect to be saved, all else to hell | Universal salvation; all eligible through love for fellow man | All eligible, but must be born again | Not applicable; if there is to be a heaven, man must (and can) make it her |
3. Colonists' sectional (east/west) conflicts
a. Issues
(1) Frontier's need for, tidewater's indifference to, protection from Indians
(2) Frontier's lack of access to markets, economic opportunity
(3) Underrepresentation of frontier in colonial assemblies
(4) General, usually unfocused, resentment by frontier for the eastern-oriented establishment
(5) Religious tension, especially following Great Awakening
b. Dramatic episodes of east/west conflict
(1) Bacon's Rebellion, which produced ...
(a) Winners - The planter elite, whose control of Virginia's political structure and tobacco markets helped produce the rebellion, but who recovered their control of both when the rebellion collapsed following Bacon's death; and
(b) Losers, including Indians, frontiersmen, and blacks, who could furnish not only labor but scapegoats in their class conflicts with poor whites. Racism and slavery became tools of social control, not just of blacks, but of poor whites as well
(2) The Great Awakening, which heightened existing east/west tensions, encouraging the poor to challenge established authority
(3) The Paxton Boys Affair, in which Pa. frontiersmen violently protested the Quaker-dominated assembly's failure to protect them from Indians
(4) The Regulators Affair, in which Carolina frontiersmen violently protested the tidewater- oriented assembly's refusal to meet their needs in the 1760s and 1770s
The American Revolution, Act I - The Revolution in Mind, 1760-1776
Scene One - The French and Indian War, 1754-63
A. Americans' (indifferent) performance
B. Face-to-face contact between Englishmen and Americans
C. Removal of France from North American continent removed the strongest reason for Americans remaining a part of the British Empire
Scene Two (Flashback) - Britain's Pre-1763 Imperial System Mercantilism sought profits through a favorable trade balance. Was this system a cause of the revolution? England's Navigation Acts seemed oppressive but weren't enforced, so it's hard to see this (pre-1763) system as a cause of the revolution.
Scene Three - England's Post-1763 System
A. The Proclamation of 1763
B. The Sugar (or Molasses) Act - 1764
C. The Stamp Act - 1765
1. Why were Americans so hostile and near unanimously opposed?
a. A direct tax
b. A tax for revenue purposes (not to regulate trade)
c. "No taxation without representation"
(1) England's argument for "virtual representation"
(2) Colonists' case for "actual representation"
d. Economics? Yes, but taxes on colonists were light and fell on those most able to pay
e. The novelty of England's demand - The right to tax is the right to govern; to pay the tax would be to admit British sovereignty, which Americans were unwilling to admit after 150 years of "virtual independence". (So the pre-1763 system was an indirect cause of the revolution by spoiling Americans, accustoming them to being left alone).
2. Why the dispute over how to protest?
a. Riots, attacks on property and public officials
b. Wealthy, established Americans met at the Stamp Act Congress, where they organized a BOYCOTT, which did not encourage disrespect for law and order, and which worked, prompting repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766.
D. The Declaration Act - 1766
E. The Townshend Duties - 1767
F. The Quartering Act (1765), enforced against NY in 1767, leading to the "Boston Massacre" (1770)
G. The Tea Act (1767), leading to the Boston Tea Party (1773), which prompted ...
H. The Intolerable (or Coercive) Acts - 1774
1. The Quebec Act (1774), which extended Quebec into the Ohio Valley
2. Boston's harbor closed
3. Massachusetts's assembly suspended and its charter changed
Scene Four - Americans' Response to the Conspiracy They Perceived
A. The (1st) Continental Congress
B. Outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord
C. The 2nd Continental Congress
1. Creation of a Continental Army
2. The search for a commander
D. Publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense
E. The Declaration of Independence
John Adams: "The Revolution was {complete} before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people."
(Here ends the material covered on the first test).