Answer A, B, and C: A. Briefly explain one reason the British implemented a mercantile system with their American colonies. B. Briefly explain one result of the British system of mercantilism. C. Briefly explain another result of the British system of mercantilism.

Believing they had to control trade with the colonies to reap their economic benefits, English ministers wanted agricultural goods and raw materials to be carried to English ports in English vessels. In reality, Dutch and French shippers were often buying sugar and other colonial products and taking them to market around the world. To counter this practice, the Navigation Act of 1651 required all goods to be carried on English ships. Navigation Acts in 1660 and 1663 strengthened the ban on foreign traders as colonists could export sugar and tobacco only through England and three quarters of the crew had to be English. In 1673, the Revenue Act imposed a tax on American exports of sugar and tobacco. The English government backed these policies with force and expanded their merchant fleet on both sides of the Atlantic. Though the colonial ports benefitted from the growth of English shipping, many colonists violated the Navigation Acts. Planters continued to trade with Dutch shippers, and New England merchants imported sugar and molasses from the French West Indies. The Massachusetts Bay assembly went as far as to assert the laws did not apply to America. In order to deal with increased colonial resistance, in 1686, England under King James II put all of the New England colonies under authoritarian control by creating the Dominion of New England. Led by Edmund Andros, legislative assemblies were banned and the English Anglican Church took precedence over the colonial Puritan congregations. The American colonies were furious, but Andros’ rule was removed from power after the Glorious Revolution in 1688. (In England, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 overthrew James II and installed the constitutional monarchy of William and Mary). In 1696, Parliament created the Board of Trade to regulate the colonies. While they publicly supported continued mercantilism, the colonies regained a great deal of autonomy. The relaxed approach that England took towards the colonies was known as salutary neglect. During this time, the colonies developed their economies. American merchants controlled 75% of transatlantic trade in manufactures and 95% of commerce between the mainland and the British West Indies. By the 1720s when the British sugar islands could no longer buy all of the fish, flour, and sugar produced by the colonies, the Americans began to sell to the French sugar islands. American distillers also bought French molasses to produce rum. England responded by passing laws to regulate colonial trade much to the dismay of the colonists.

Navigation Act Purpose Compliance Act of 1651 Cut Dutch Trade Mostly ignored Act of 1660 Ban foreign shipping Partially obeyed Act of 1663 European imports go through England Partially obeyed Woolen Act 1699 Prevent export of textiles Partially obeyed Hat Act 1732 Prevent export of hats Partially obeyed Molasses Act 1733 Cut American import of French molasses Extensively violated Iron Act 1750 Prevent manufacture of iron products Extensively violated Currency Act 1751 End use of paper currency in New England Mostly obeyed

KEY TERMS: mercantilism, Navigation Acts, colonial response to Navigation Acts, Dominion of New England, salutary neglect, smuggling

Answer A, B, and C: A. Briefly explain one change in colonial America from 1607-1754. B. Briefly explain one continuity in colonial America from 1607-1754. C. Briefly explain the reason for either A or B.

Most of the colonists were from England, but a number of immigrants from other European countries settled mainly in the middle colonies. From 1700-1780 almost 115,000 Scots-Irish, 100,000 Germans, and thousands of other came to New York and Pennsylvania. While they maintained many of their customs and practices and had conflicts with government powers at times, they submitted to rule by the English crown and were generally Anglicized. This means they followed English laws, participated in the English economic system, and became part of the emerging American identity. The colonies generally developed similar political systems. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the colonists were generally left on their own during a period known as salutary neglect. Each colony developed a system that based power in the representative assemblies and tried to limit the power of the royal governors. The powerful assemblies represented voters (usually land owning white males) and had the power to pass laws and tax. They were generally responsive to needs of the voters and the emerging republican model (government with elected officials) worked well for the most part. Local assemblies were able to control the royal governors appointed by the king with the power of the purse. Since local assemblies paid the governor’s salary, they would simply withhold pay until the governor agreed to their demands. The English Atlantic trade system shaped the North American colonies. New England farmers supplied the sugar islands with bread, lumber, fish, and meat. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania farmers shipped wheat, corn, and bread to the Caribbean. The southern colonies bought slaves and sold tobacco and sugar to England. Merchants in booming cities like Newport, Charleston, Boston, New York and Philadelphia were based on the shipping industry’s varied jobs. To support the shipping industry, artisans, skilled workers, and lawyers developed in the towns. Englishmen, Scots-Irish, Germans, and African slaves all played a role in the developing Anglicized American identity. Colonial transportation was mainly water based using the Atlantic Coast and interior rivers. Atlantic trade expanded rapidly. In 1700 Britain had 40,000 sailors, but by 1750 they had 60,000, more than half from the colonies. Hundreds of ships landed annually in the coastal port cities. Traders used the rivers like the Hudson to bring goods to the interior spurring the development of taverns, horse stables, and inns. A primitive system of roads began to take shape and the ride from Boston to New York was shortened to eight days by 1704. All of these water and land trade routes also carried information as letters, newspapers, books, and pamphlets began to circulate widely. The trip across the Atlantic was shortened from months to weeks and colonists were awash in information. Although material continued to arrive from England, by 1720 Boston had five printing pressing and three newspapers. By 1776, the thirteen colonies had 37 newspapers which made the exchange of information and ideas possible. As the power of the press increased, the trial of New York Weekly Journal publisher John Peter Zenger in 1733 was of particular importance. As editor of the newspaper, he published several articles that were critical of the royally appointed New York governor, William Cosby. He was charged with libel, which at the time meant he was critical of the government. He never denied publishing the articles, but refused to name the authors of each piece. His lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, was the most famous attorney in the colonies. In a stirring appeal to the jury, Hamilton pleaded for his new client's release. "It is not the cause of one poor printer," he claimed, "but the cause of liberty." The judge ordered the jury to convict Zenger if they believed he printed the stories, but the jury returned in less than ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty. This trial marked the emergence of the idea of freedom of press.

KEY TERMS: colonial immigration, Anglicization, colonial governments, republicanism, power of the purse, colonial trade, colonial port cities, colonial transportation, colonial and trans-Atlantic print, Zenger Trial

Answer A, B, and C: A. Briefly explain one cause of the First Great Awakening. B. Briefly explain one result of the First Great Awakening. C. Briefly explain how Benjamin Franklin’s statement could be used to explain the impact of the First Great Awakening.

After arriving in America with religious fervor in the 1600s, many Americans turned away from religion and focused on other aspects of life by the late 1600s. The Enlightenment in Europe also challenged traditional religious beliefs and faith based practices. In the early 1700s, America experienced a massive religious revival known as the Great Awakening (the first one, a second one will start 100 years later). Led by Jonathan Edwards in New England and George Whitefield in the frontier backcountry, the First Great Awakening reignited the original religious enthusiasm of the many of the original settlers. Jonathan Edwards, a minister in Northampton, Massachusetts encouraged a revival that spread throughout the Connecticut River Valley. He tried to appeal to people’s hearts rather than their minds. His most famous sermon was “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He appealed to people’s emotions and his sermons would cause men and women to grovel on the floor or lay inert on the benches. George Whitefield worked in backcountry of the colonies from New England to Georgia. He was a dynamic speaker who could capture the attention of thousands. As he spoke many of his spellbound listeners would feel the arrival of a “new light” within them. Whitefield took advantage of the developing print industry and Benjamin Franklin published many of his sermons and journals. Like all cultural explosions, the Great Awakening was controversial. Conservative ministers or “Old Lights” condemned the “crying out, fainting, and convulsions” in the revivalist meetings. “New Lights” like Edwards and Whitefield praised the emotional rebirth of their flocks. The Great Awakening undermined legally established churches and tax supported ministers. In New England, New Lights left the Congregational (Puritan) church and founded upwards of 125 “separatist” churches that supported their ministers through voluntary contributions. The Great Awakening challenged the authority of all ministers when it argued that conversion experience, not theological knowledge, would be the source of ministerial leadership. Churches established new colleges to educate their new ministers. Princeton, Columbia, Brown, and Rutgers were all established to train New Light ministers. However, the main intellectual legacy of the Great Awakening was not education for the privileged few but a new sense of authority among the many. A European visitor to Philadelphia remarked in surprise, “the poorest day laborer... holds it his right to advance his opinion, in religious as well as political matters, with as much freedom as the gentlemen.” As individuals of all walks of life challenged religious authority, they would also feel comfortable challenging political authority in the years to come.

Benjamin Franklin on George Whitefield (Franklin did not believe in organized religion) I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building and Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourses, however, he felt a strong desire to give, and applied to a neighbor, who stood near him, to borrow some money for the purpose.

KEY TERMS: Great Awakening, religious revival, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, New v. Old Lights

Answer A, B, and C: A. Briefly define the Enlightenment. B. Briefly explain one cause of the Enlightenment. C. Briefly explain one result of the Enlightenment on colonial society in America.

Traditionally, Christians believed that the earth stood at the center of the universe and God and Satan intervened directly and continuously in human affairs. The scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries challenged these ideas, and educated people –most of them Christians – began to modify their views accordingly. In 1543, Copernicus published his observation that the earth revolves around the sun. In 1687, Isaac Newton used science to explain the movement of planets around the sun. In the century between Newton’s work and the French Revolution in 1789, the philosophers of the Enlightenment used empirical research and scientific reasoning to study all aspects of life, including social institutions and human behaviors. Enlightenment thinkers advanced four fundamental principles: the law like order of the natural world, the power of human reason, the “natural rights” of individuals, and the progressive improvement of society. English philosopher John Locke was a major contributor to the Enlightenment. In his Two Treatises of Government (1690), Locke advanced the revolutionary theory that political authority was not given by God to monarchs. Instead it derived from social compacts that people made to preserve their natural rights to life, liberty, and property. In Locke’s view, the people should have the power to change government policies or even their form of government. His work would later become a basis for the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin was the exemplar of the American Enlightenment. Born in Boston in 1706 to devout Puritans, he grew to manhood during the print revolution. Apprenticed by his brother, a Boston printer, Franklin educated himself through voracious reading. At seventeen he fled to Philadelphia, where he became a prominent printer, and in 1729 he founded the Pennsylvania Gazette, which became one the colonies’ most influential newspapers. Franklin also formed a “club of mutual improvement” that met weekly to discuss “Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy.” These discussions, as well as Enlightenment literature shaped his thinking. As Franklin explained in his autobiography (1771), “From the different books I read, I began to doubt revelation (God revealed truth).” Like a small number of urban artisans, wealthy Virginia planters, and affluent seaport merchants, Franklin became a Deist. Deism was a way of thinking, not an established religion. “my own mind is my own church,” said deist Thomas Paine. “I am sect by myself,” added Thomas Jefferson. Influenced by Enlightenment science, deists such as Jefferson believed that a Supreme Being (or Grand Architect) created the world and then allowed it to operate by natural laws but did not intervene in peoples’ lives. Rejecting the divinity of Christ and authority of the Bible, deists relied on “natural reason” and their innate moral sense to define right and wrong. The European Enlightenment added a secular dimension to colonial cultural life, foreshadowing the great contributions to republican political theory by American intellectuals of the Revolutionary Era: John Adams, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson.

KEY TERMS: Enlightenment, John Locke, natural rights, Benjamin Franklin, deism