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?