Download - Chapter 3, Section 1 Colonial England
Chapter 3, section 1
"We please ourselves with the prospect of exporting in a few years a good quantity from hence, and supplying our mother country [Great Britain] with a manufacture for which she has so great a demand, and which she is now supplied with from the French colonies, and many thousand pounds per annum [year] thereby lost to the nation, when she might as well be supplied here, if the matter were applied to in earnest."
Did everyone have this same mentality?
Concept of mercantilism – country’s ultimate goal was self-sufficiency and that all countries were in competition to acquire the most gold and silver
What did the colonies get in return?• Wool, wrought iron, steel• “The American is apparelled from head to foot
in our manufactures…he scarcely drinks, sits, moves, labours or recreates himself, without contributing to the emolument of the mother country.”
Colony Region Economic activityMassachusetts New England Shipbuilding, shipping,
fishing, lumber, rum, meat
New Hampshire New England Ship masts, lumber, fishing, trade, shipping, livestock, foodstuffs
Connecticut New England Rum, iron foundries, shipbuilding
Rhode Island New England Snuff, livestock
New York Middle Furs, wheat, glass, shoes, livestock, shipping, shipbuilding, rum, beer, snuff
Delaware Middle Trade, foodstuffs
New Jersey Middle Trade, foodstuffs, copper
Pennsylvania Middle Flax, shipbuilding
Virginia Southern Tobacco, wheat, cattle, iron
Maryland Southern Tobacco, wheat, snuff
North Carolina Southern Naval supplies, tobacco, furs
South Carolina Southern Rice, indigo, silk
Georgia Southern Indigo, rice, naval supplies, lumber
By mid 1600s not all exportation was to Britain
Britain enforced tarifs – outside trade was threat
1651 Parliament formed and the acts – four parts• 1-no country to trade with colonies unless
goods either in colonial or English ships• 2-ships operated by at least ¾ English or
colonial• 3-certain products only exported to England• 4-goods traded b/w colonies and Europe had to
pass through English port
1684 – King Charles II punished violators of Navigation Acts – mostly wealthy Massachusetts merchants
Mass. Becomes royal colony instead of Puritan utopia
Land from Maine to New Jersey becomes one colony called Dominion of New England• Why might have King Charles II done this?• What did this mean for colonists economically
and socially?
“You have no more privileges left you, than not to be sold for slaves.”
-Sir Edmund Andros-appointed by King
James II to put the pressure on colonists to cooperate
King James II, a Catholic, takes over thrown in 1685
His Catholic beliefs affected outlook in Britain
Would Britain go back to Catholic monarch?
Parliament scared, invited William of Orange and James’s daughter Mary to take over
James fled; 1689 Parliament gave William and Mary thrown – the Glorious Revolution
Parliament has power over any religious monarch – passed in law
Act of Union signed in 1707 – joining Scotland to England and Wales…today devoltionized
In colony world, Massachusetts colonists arrested Andros, restored colonies’ charters
Attention turned towards France – becoming leading force in Europe
Less money for soldiers in colonies Smuggling trials now looked over by
English judges; Board of Trade – monitor colonial trade
Became Salutary neglect: England relaxed enforcement of most regulations so to get continued economic loyalty of colonies
What consequences are there for loosening their control?
Did they have a choice? “The time may come…when the
colonies may become populous and with the increase of arts and sciences strong and politic, forgetting their relation to the mother countries, will then confederate and consider nothing further than the means to support their ambition of standing on their [own] legs.”
How did political events in England affect the lives of the colonists?
Did Britain need the colonies? Why do you think they loosened their “reign” on them?
Britain established policies to control the American colonies but was inconsistent in its enforcement of those policies. What results might be expected from such inconsistency?