0:01 Oh, hey. If you're here to cram your
0:02 brain full of everything you need to
0:04 know about a push unit 2, then baby,
0:05 you're in the right place. And I hope
0:07 you're wearing your comparison pants cuz
0:09 we about to compare the crap out of some
0:10 historical developments, y'all. So, if
0:11 you're ready to get them brain cows
0:13 milked, let's get to it. Okay, so the
0:15 time period for this unit starts in6007,
0:17 which is the founding of Jamestown, and
0:19 then ends in 1754, which is the
0:20 beginning of the French and Indian War.
0:22 And it's stated as simply as possible,
0:23 the first half of this unit is really
0:25 about how the British colonies in North
0:27 America grew and developed in relation
0:29 to one another and other colonial
0:30 powers. and in relation to indigenous
0:32 nations. And then the second half is
0:34 about how those American colonies got
0:36 increasingly cranky over time regarding
0:38 Big Mama Britain's imperial policy. So
0:39 that's the big idea. Let's get into the
0:41 details. And I reckon we'll start by
0:42 comparing the development of the major
0:44 European colonial empires during this
0:45 period. And I'm sure that you remember
0:46 from unit one that the four major
0:48 players here are the Spanish, the Dutch,
0:50 the French, and the British. But here is
0:52 what you have to remember. So point your
0:53 ear holes this way. All of those were
0:55 European powers, and they were all
0:56 building colonial empires in the
0:58 Americas. Their colonies looked way
1:00 different from each other because each
1:01 power had different goals. Okay,
1:03 comparison pants on. Good. So, let's
1:04 have a look at these empires. And we'll
1:06 start with the Spanish. So, as you may
1:08 recall, Spain's main goal in
1:09 establishing colonies in the Americas
1:11 was to extract wealth. In other words,
1:14 they ked the boom boom. Anyway, at first
1:15 that wealth came mostly in the form of
1:17 minerals like gold and silver. But
1:18 later, it was primarily through the
1:20 export of cash crops like sugar and
1:21 tobacco. And so when they started
1:22 building their empire in the Americas,
1:24 the Spanish tried to accomplish that
1:26 goal by imposing an entirely new social
1:27 order there. In other words, here is
1:29 Spain 1.0 and then they wanted to make
1:32 all of this Spain 2.0. So in order to do
1:34 that, the Spanish imposed certain
1:35 systems that facilitated that goal.
1:37 First, they created the encoma system
1:39 for the purpose of subjugating native
1:41 populations into a massive cadre of
1:42 slave labor. Now, we talked all about
1:44 encoma in unit one, so I'll leave it
1:46 there. But after a while, news reached
1:47 Spain that the encomandos were
1:49 brutalizing their indigenous workforce.
1:50 Not to mention that they were becoming
1:52 too powerful for the taste of the
1:54 monarchs back home. So new laws were
1:56 passed and the hosienda system gradually
1:57 replaced incomienda in order to make
1:59 some needed reforms. Now it was also a
2:01 coerced labor system but hienda focused
2:03 more on agriculture. In the encoma
2:05 system the encomanderos did not own the
2:07 land but in the hosienda system the
2:09 plantation owner did own the land. And
2:10 then the indigenous laborers were tied
2:12 to the land in a kind of debt repayment
2:14 system. But anyway, the main point to
2:16 remember is that the Spanish developed
2:18 social systems to meet their labor needs
2:20 and to consolidate their control over
2:21 indigenous people. And hey, before I
2:22 tell you Spain's second motivation, I'm
2:24 in the mood to mention that this video
2:25 is part of a larger resource that's
2:26 going to help you get an A in your class
2:28 and a five on your exam in May. It's my
2:29 Aush Heimler review guide, and it's got
2:31 everything you need to study as fast as
2:33 possible, including exclusive videos
2:35 that aren't here on YouTube, practice
2:36 questions, practice exams, and all the
2:37 rest. So, you know, if that's something
2:39 you're into, get your clicky finger out.
2:40 That link is in the description below.
2:41 Okay. Second, the Spanish were very
2:43 excited to try to convert indigenous
2:45 Americans to Christianity. To that end,
2:46 they established missions throughout
2:47 their American empire which organized
2:49 settlements into towns with Catholic
2:50 churches at the center. And these
2:52 missions were a key ingredient in the
2:54 Spanish maintaining social and economic
2:55 power over indigenous people. Now, this
2:57 effort was met with grudging tolerance
2:59 among some indigenous peoples, but
3:00 others violently resisted it. And here's
3:02 where I introduce you to the Pueeblo
3:03 Revolt of 1680. Now, at first, the
3:05 Spanish did their best to convert the
3:07 crap out of the Pueeblo. And many of
3:08 them adapted Christianity by adding
3:10 Christian beliefs and practices to their
3:12 own traditional beliefs. And that dear
3:14 pupil is what we call synratism. But the
3:16 Spanish priests were all like uh that's
3:18 no bueno. And they responded by trying
3:20 to suppress and destroy Pueblo beliefs
3:21 and cultural traditions. Now eventually
3:23 the Pueblo got real tired of this
3:25 coercion and rebelled after the Spanish
3:27 killed several of their medicine men.
3:28 They killed hundreds of Spaniards and
3:30 destroyed every church in the area and
3:32 reestablished their own cultural
3:33 customs. Now, to be fair, the Spanish
3:35 did return like 12 years later and again
3:37 subdued the Pueblo with brutality. And
3:38 I'll come back to that later. But the
3:40 point to remember here is that the
3:41 Spanish were trying to impose their
3:43 culture wholesale on the indigenous
3:44 peoples of the Americas and the
3:46 indigenous folks were not having it. And
3:48 then third, the best example of this
3:50 imposition of Spanish values on
3:52 indigenous societies was the Spanish
3:53 cast system or you may have heard it
3:54 called the casta system. Now, we talked
3:56 about that in unit one as well, but by
3:58 way of reminder, this system created a
4:00 social hierarchy that ranked people in
4:01 terms of the amount of white blood they
4:03 had in their veins. The most powerful
4:04 were the pure Spanish folks, and then
4:06 the least powerful were indigenous
4:08 people and enslaved Africans. Okay, so
4:10 now let's compare all of that to the way
4:11 the Dutch and French set up their
4:12 colonial empires in the Americas. And
4:14 I'm kind of lumping them together
4:15 because they pretty much had similar
4:16 goals and outcomes. Okay, so compared to
4:18 the Spanish, the French and Dutch had
4:19 relatively few colonists in the New
4:21 World and they were mostly men and they
4:22 focused on building trading posts. Now
4:24 whereas the Spanish emphasized control
4:26 over native populations, the French and
4:28 Dutch emphasized cooperation with them.
4:30 So the French emphasis in the Americas
4:31 was not on establishing permanent
4:33 settlements like the Spanish or the
4:34 British, but rather on growing wealthy
4:36 through trade partnerships with the
4:37 various indigenous people groups. And of
4:39 chief importance to the French was the
4:41 beaver fur trade. By allying with
4:42 American Indian groups as well as
4:44 intermaring with them, French fur
4:45 trappers were able to satisfy the
4:47 growing demand among the European elite
4:49 for furry hats and such. Now, the French
4:50 did send missionaries like the Spanish
4:52 did, but they made relatively few
4:54 converts since they didn't feel like the
4:55 need to apply brutal force as did the
4:57 Spanish. And then, as for the Dutch,
4:59 they, like the French, had primarily
5:00 economic motivations for establishing
5:02 colonies, particularly for that juicy
5:04 fur trade and had no interest in
5:05 converting the native populations to
5:07 Christianity. They established the
5:08 colony of New Amsterdam, which became a
5:10 significant trading port that attracted
5:12 merchants from all over. In fact, one
5:13 account says that more than a dozen
5:15 languages could be heard spoken in the
5:17 streets. So just to sum up, the Spanish,
5:19 French, and Dutch all had economic
5:20 motivations for building their empires.
5:22 But the Spanish sent metric buttloadads
5:24 of colonizers compared to the French and
5:26 Dutch in order to fundamentally remake
5:28 the new world into their own image. But
5:29 the French and Dutch sent relatively few
5:31 colonizers and were strategic and
5:32 accommodating with various indigenous
5:34 groups in order to fulfill their
5:35 economic aims. And finally, we need to
5:37 get the British up in this comparison
5:39 party. So compared to the other European
5:41 powers, way more people came from Great
5:42 Britain to settle in North America. And
5:44 they did so for four reasons. First,
5:45 they came for social mobility. And if
5:46 you don't know what that is, think of it
5:48 kind of like a high school lunchroom.
5:49 There are tables full of people with
5:51 enormous amounts of social power. And
5:53 then over there are the theater kids.
5:54 And based on this picture, I don't think
5:55 I have to tell you where I sit. Anyway,
5:57 if 17th century England was like a
5:58 lunchroom, then a lot of people felt
6:00 like there was no way to move from the
6:02 lower tables to the upper tables because
6:03 there was a limited amount of tables,
6:05 which is to say land, in a tiny
6:06 lunchroom, which is to say Great
6:08 Britain. So, they looked to the colonies
6:09 and thought maybe there was a better
6:11 lunchroom over there. And as it turns
6:12 out, they were right. For example, in
6:14 England, a set of primogenature laws
6:16 dictated that only the oldest son could
6:17 inherit the family's land. And that
6:19 meant that younger brothers who had some
6:21 social ambition looked to the new world
6:22 for the land that they were denied back
6:24 home. Okay. Second, British colonist
6:26 moved to pursue economic prosperity. The
6:27 first British colony, you'll recall, was
6:29 Jamestown, which was established in
6:31 1607, and it was mostly populated by
6:32 single young men looking to strike it
6:34 rich by extracting gold. Now, as it
6:35 turned out, they wanted gold so bad that
6:37 they didn't bother to plant many crops.
6:38 And when they found out that you can't
6:40 actually eat gold, many of them starved.
6:42 I mean, that kind of suggests that they
6:43 did find enough gold to eat, but they
6:44 really didn't find much at all. Anyway,
6:46 it wasn't until the colony decided to
6:48 start planting tobacco that wealth began
6:50 flowing. So, put that in your pocket and
6:51 we'll get back to it. Okay. Third,
6:53 British colonists came to find religious
6:54 freedom. Now, without getting too far
6:56 into the theological and political
6:57 weeds, you just need to know that during
6:59 this period, England was a hot mess
7:01 religiously and going through massive
7:02 changes from Catholicism to
7:04 Protestantism. And two major opposition
7:05 groups rose in response to this
7:07 lingering Catholicism in the Church of
7:09 England. The Puritans initially wanted
7:10 to stay in England and purify the Church
7:12 of England from the inside. The
7:13 separatists who became known as the
7:15 pilgrims, thought the Church of England
7:16 was, to use the technical historical
7:18 term, a smoking hot turd. And therefore,
7:20 the pure church could only be
7:22 established by separating from it. And
7:23 needless to say, since religion and
7:25 politics were emphatically not separate
7:27 entities during this time, King James I,
7:28 who also happened to be the head of the
7:30 church, got real cranky about these
7:32 opposition groups, saying that his
7:33 church was corrupt. So, he started
7:34 putting pressure on them. And that led
7:36 some groups to head for the new world to
7:37 practice their religion without some
7:39 dumb king or church authorities telling
7:40 them what to do. And then the fourth
7:42 reason English people came to America to
7:44 find improved living conditions. So
7:46 during the 17th century, two realities
7:47 were converging that made life hard for
7:49 the lower classes. First, there was
7:50 significant population growth. Second,
7:52 the enclosure movement enabled wealthy
7:54 land owners to claim public lands which
7:55 had previously been reserved for poor
7:57 farmers to graze their livestock. So you
7:59 had metric buttloads of people who were
8:00 increasingly unable to scratch out a
8:02 living in Britain. Not to mention those
8:04 pesky primogenature laws restricting
8:06 land to the oldest son. And so many of
8:07 them started looking to the new world in
8:09 order to find better living conditions.
8:10 So all this to say, compared to the
8:11 other imperial powers in the new world,
8:13 the English came to North America to
8:15 create a new English society completely
8:17 separate from the indigenous people who
8:18 lived there. And while profits were
8:20 definitely a strong motivation for the
8:21 creation of some settlements,
8:22 >> I'm looking at you, Jamestown.
8:24 >> Others like Plymouth were more about
8:25 establishing a religious society. Okay,
8:27 now that was a lot to remember, but
8:28 maybe this might help your overloaded
8:30 brain. You might say that Spain grabbed
8:32 at the new world. They took all the
8:33 people, the belief systems, the towns,
8:35 the institutions and squeezed them tight
8:37 and were like, "This is mine." The
8:38 French and the Dutch, on the other hand,
8:40 shook hands with the new world. They
8:41 could see that profit could be made in
8:42 this venture. And so, they partnered
8:44 with the people they found there and
8:45 were like, "Hey, let's work together."
8:46 And then the British shoved the new
8:48 world away. They came for various
8:49 reasons, but common to all of them is
8:51 that they wanted to live their lives
8:52 entirely separate from indigenous
8:54 peoples and were like, "Get away, and if
8:55 you touch me, then you're going the
8:57 right way for a proper British smack
8:58 bottom." Okay, now how about we forget
9:00 that those other imperial powers exist
9:02 for a minute and focus on the British
9:03 colonies themselves. And I hope you're
9:04 still comfortable in your comparison
9:05 pants cuz they're staying on for this
9:07 section, too. Now, by the end of this
9:09 time period, 1754, there were 13
9:10 distinct British colonies on the eastern
9:12 coast of North America, which we can
9:13 naturally group into four distinct
9:15 regions. So, our job here is to compare
9:17 the similarities and differences between
9:19 those regions and try to understand why
9:21 they developed their distinct features.
9:22 And I'm feeling saucy, so I'm going to
9:24 run through this geographically instead
9:25 of chronologically because I think it
9:26 lends to clearer comparison. So let's
9:28 start up here with our friends in the
9:29 New England region. This area was
9:30 settled by the pilgrims who I mentioned
9:31 earlier. And do you remember the
9:33 separatists who were tired of the turd
9:35 James I and the corruption in the
9:36 Anglican church? Yeah, these were the
9:38 pilgrims who came to the new world to
9:40 start a religious society out from under
9:41 the stanky tyrannical thumb of the king.
9:43 So in 1620 they landed in the new world
9:45 and established the Plymouth colony.
9:46 It's going to be important for you to
9:48 know that these folks largely immigrated
9:49 in family groups for the purpose of
9:51 creating a whole new society. And in
9:53 order to facilitate that new society,
9:54 they drew up and signed the Mayflower
9:56 Compact, which was an agreement to form
9:58 a simple government that ruled by the
9:59 will of the majority, which was an
10:01 unusually democratic style of governance
10:02 for the time. Anyway, they adopted
10:04 agriculture, but since the winters were
10:06 long and butt cold, not to mention the
10:07 land was pretty rocky, they were, for
10:09 the most part, not much more than
10:10 subsistence farmers, which is to say
10:12 they're only growing what they needed to
10:13 survive. Anyway, fast forward 10 years
10:15 and something like a thousand Puritans
10:16 left England and established the
10:18 Massachusetts Bay Colony. And it was
10:20 very similar to Plymouth in that
10:21 families settled there to create a
10:23 society based on biblical principles. In
10:24 this colony, all freemen who owned
10:27 property could vote on policy matters. A
10:29 far larger proportion of eligible voters
10:30 than existed in England. They debated
10:32 their policies in town hall meetings and
10:33 the will of the majority carried the
10:35 day. However, to be clear, only strict
10:37 Puritans were considered freemen. So,
10:39 you know, it it smelled like democracy,
10:41 but the boundaries for exclusion were
10:42 pretty clear. Anyway, eventually
10:44 Massachusetts and Plymouth merged into a
10:45 single colony. And because the region
10:47 made large-scale farming difficult,
10:49 these people created an export economy
10:51 based on the abundant resources in the
10:52 region like fur and timber and fish.
10:54 Okay, so now let's head south to the
10:56 middle colonies, namely New York, New
10:57 Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. And
10:59 if you wanted to neatly summarize the
11:00 chief characteristics of this region,
11:02 and I know that you do, then I'd use the
11:04 words diversity and trade. So in terms
11:06 of diversity, this region was home to
11:08 lots of different kinds of people, and
11:10 religious toleration became a defining
11:11 feature of these colonies. Now, compare
11:13 that to New England, which was decidedly
11:15 not diverse since it was mainly English
11:17 Puritans and decidedly not tolerant of
11:19 other beliefs. I mean, the Puritan
11:20 colonial flag bore the motto, you can
11:22 believe anything you want as long as
11:24 it's exactly what we believe. And if you
11:25 don't, we'll burn you as a witch. And in
11:27 case it's not clear, I feel like I
11:28 should say that was a joke. So, please
11:30 do not write that in your essays.
11:31 Anyway, because New York, for example,
11:33 had excellent seapports and rivers, not
11:35 to mention fertile soil, the purpose of
11:37 the colony was mainly economic, focused
11:38 on the export of grain. And so merchants
11:40 of many different cultures lived there
11:42 in order to facilitate trade and
11:43 commerce. And then Pennsylvania was
11:45 created by our boy William Penn and it
11:46 became the poster child for religious
11:48 tolerance. Pen himself was a Quaker and
11:50 they were a Christian sect who were also
11:52 persecuted in England for their non-
11:53 Anglican beliefs. So Penn established
11:55 this colony as a refuge for Quaker
11:57 denters and all other denters who longed
11:58 for the freedom to worship as they
11:59 pleased. Now compared to the other
12:01 British colonies, Pennsylvania was
12:03 unusually democratic and at least in the
12:04 beginning was far more concerned to
12:06 treat the indigenous people fairly. So
12:07 decisions were made by an elective
12:09 representative assembly who were chosen
12:11 by land owners. And given Pennsylvania's
12:13 non-discriminatory practices, it
12:15 attracted a very diverse population as
12:16 was common in the rest of the middle
12:18 colonies. And so in this environment,
12:20 Pennsylvania's economic sector grew
12:21 rapidly, particularly in the export of
12:23 grain and other crops. And now let's
12:25 move south to the Chesapeake and North
12:26 Carolina region and see what fodder for
12:28 comparison we can find there. So as I
12:29 mentioned before, Jamestown was the
12:30 first English settlement in North
12:32 America. And no bones about it, the
12:34 people who came to what would eventually
12:36 become the Virginia colony came in order
12:38 to get stupid rich. And that's the big
12:39 difference here between this and the New
12:41 England region. Remember, New Englanders
12:43 came over as families in order to start
12:44 a whole new society. But in the early
12:46 years, most of the folks who came to
12:47 Jamestown were single men. They didn't
12:49 come to start a society. They came to
12:51 find enough gold to make a leprechaun
12:53 poop his miniature magical pants. Now,
12:54 as it turned out, there wasn't much gold
12:56 to be found here. But eventually under
12:57 the leadership of John Ralph, they
12:59 started planting tobacco and the export
13:01 of that crop made the colony all kinds
13:03 of wealth. Anyway, that discovery shaped
13:05 the society and the geographic layout of
13:07 the region. In order to grow tobacco in
13:08 abundance, they divided the land into
13:10 huge plantationstyle plots which had the
13:12 effect of isolating the colonists in
13:13 this region. Additionally, in the
13:15 beginning, the main labor source for
13:17 this region was indentured servitude in
13:18 which the people sign a contract to work
13:20 for a period of years and then they go
13:22 free, usually with the promise of a plot
13:23 of land that they could own and work.
13:25 However, starting in 1619, African
13:26 slavery would gradually replace
13:28 indentured servitude as the main labor
13:29 system of the region. Now, as far as
13:31 governance goes, there were some
13:32 democratic elements in this region, too.
13:34 And probably the best example is the
13:36 Virginia House of Burgesses, which acted
13:37 as a representative government for the
13:38 colonist, although it was generally
13:40 limited to landowning men. Okay. And
13:42 finally, let's head all the way down
13:43 south and consider the British colonies
13:45 on the southern Atlantic coast and the
13:47 British West Indies. Now, by far the
13:49 highest concentration of enslaved labor
13:50 was found in the British West Indies.
13:52 Thanks to its proximity to the equator,
13:54 these islands enjoyed long, warm growing
13:55 seasons. And it quickly became apparent
13:57 that the most profitable crop to grow
13:58 here would be sugarce. Now,
14:00 geographically, that situation led to
14:02 the chief feature of the land, namely
14:04 large sprawling plantations. And as
14:06 demand for sugar spiked throughout
14:07 Europe, that intensified demand for
14:09 enslaved laborers from Africa. And soon,
14:11 the black population outnumbered the
14:14 white population 4 to1. And to put it
14:15 mildly, that made the white folks more
14:17 than a little twitchy. So in response,
14:19 they passed the Barbados Slave Code,
14:20 which stripped all rights from black
14:22 workers and granted white planters
14:24 complete power over them, which led to
14:26 brutal and vicious punishments for the
14:27 enslaved. Now, I started with the West
14:29 Indies because they kind of dictated how
14:31 society and economics would go up here
14:32 on the mainland. What I mean is South
14:34 Carolina's main job for a while was
14:35 growing and exporting food to the West
14:37 Indies. However, planters from the West
14:38 Indies started showing up in South
14:40 Carolina and bringing their slave codes
14:42 with them. And in doing so, South
14:44 Carolina was gradually transformed into
14:45 a kind of mirror image of the West
14:47 Indies, except instead of majoring in
14:49 sugarcane, they focused on growing rice
14:50 and indigo. And since their growing
14:52 number of African slaves had experience
14:54 in rice cultivation, slavery became
14:56 downright entrenched in their society.
14:58 And so these strict slave codes quickly
15:00 created a rigid social hierarchy in
15:02 which a few wealthy planters were on top
15:03 and then common white planters were in
15:05 the middle and the dominant black
15:06 population was on bottom. And as such,
15:08 these elite planters with their massive
15:10 tracks of land dominated the affairs of
15:12 local politics. Okay, now let's talk
15:14 about the wider world of economics into
15:16 which these colonies fit. So by the
15:17 middle of this period, the American
15:19 colonies had more or less found their
15:20 economic footing and were doing pretty
15:22 well. As a result, their participation
15:24 in a highly profitable transatlantic
15:26 trade generated economic interdependence
15:28 for them and fabulous profits for all
15:29 involved. Now, one of the major systems
15:31 of trade in which the American colonies
15:33 participated was known as the triangular
15:35 trade, which is a good name because the
15:37 routes roughly formed a, you know,
15:38 triangle. And to be clear, this was just
15:40 one of many transatlantic trade routes
15:41 that shipped manufactured goods from
15:42 Europe. Anyway, the basics of the
15:44 triangular trade went like this. New
15:46 Englanders would ship rum to West
15:47 Africa. Then the rum was traded for
15:49 enslaved Africans. And then the enslaved
15:50 Africans were shipped to the British
15:52 West Indies via the Middle Passage to be
15:54 traded for sugar or molasses, which was
15:56 then sent to New England to be distilled
15:58 into rum. And then on and on around the
15:59 triangle it went. And it's also going to
16:00 be important for you to know that
16:02 American Indians were also sold into
16:04 slavery by the millions, especially
16:05 after Metacom's war. But I'll tell you
16:06 more about that later. Now, although
16:08 British colonists were tied into a
16:10 growing global network of trade, you're
16:11 going to need to remember that they
16:13 continued to trade with indigenous
16:14 groups in North America, and that had
16:16 some significant effects. First, trade
16:18 introduced European goods like metal
16:19 tools and firearms and cloth to native
16:21 societies, and that fundamentally
16:23 altered their traditional economies and
16:24 the power dynamics between various
16:26 groups. Then the second effect of this
16:27 trade was that it continued to spread
16:30 European diseases like smallox to native
16:31 people which devastated some
16:33 populations. Okay, now back to the
16:34 transatlantic trade. And I know the
16:35 question you're asking at this point.
16:36 But Heimler, was there some kind of
16:38 European economic ideology that dictated
16:40 the rules of this growing and globalized
16:42 trade system? What an insightful
16:43 question, my dear people. And the answer
16:45 is there was. So one of the most
16:47 significant effects of the growth and
16:48 development of the transatlantic trade
16:50 was Big Mama Britain's increasing
16:52 efforts to control its colonies
16:54 economically. And the big fat cause for
16:55 that was everybody's favorite
16:58 state-driven economic ideology known as
17:00 mercantalism. Now by definition
17:02 mercantalism was an economic system that
17:04 operated on a very simple principle
17:06 namely to maintain a favorable balance
17:07 of trade. And basically that means that
17:10 a mercantalist economy wants to maximize
17:12 exports while minimizing imports. And
17:14 why says you? Well says I because
17:16 mercantalist economies measure wealth in
17:18 terms of gold and silver. And that means
17:20 that there's only a limited amount of
17:21 wealth in the world. So if you're
17:23 exporting goods that means that gold and
17:25 silver is coming in but if you're
17:27 importing goods gold and silver is going
17:28 out and the big thing to remember here
17:30 is that mercantalism was very much a
17:33 statriven economic system which is to
17:34 say the government made all the
17:36 decisions. So then it shouldn't surprise
17:37 you that in the world of mercantalism
17:39 the main purpose of establishing
17:40 colonies was to make them servants of
17:43 the imperial parents economy mainly as
17:45 suppliers of raw materials and buyers of
17:46 finished manufactured goods. And that
17:48 started causing some problems when
17:49 Britain used the system to try to impose
17:51 control over the colonies who at this
17:52 point in their development were kind of
17:54 like in their teenage years. Whatever
17:55 mom, this is my life.
17:57 >> But big mama in no mood to abide
17:59 adolescent sass clamped down on the
18:01 colonies in order to tightly integrate
18:02 them into the British economy. And to
18:04 that end, Britain imposed the navigation
18:06 act which forced colonial economies to
18:08 serve big mama Britain. And that had the
18:09 effect of stripping the American
18:11 colonists of their autonomy and making
18:13 economic decisions that best served
18:15 them. And needless to say, they started
18:16 getting a little saucy about that. So,
18:18 Connors resented what they considered an
18:20 infringement on their economic
18:21 independence. But soon, they found that
18:23 in a lot of cases, they could ignore the
18:25 navigation acts without punishment. And
18:27 that is known as salutary neglect, which
18:29 means that due to Britain's distance
18:30 across the ocean, and the distraction of
18:32 the nearly constant wars with France,
18:34 enforcement of the navigation acts was
18:37 at times somewhat lax. And as you might
18:38 expect, colonists kind of got used to
18:41 this arrangement of skirting or outright
18:42 ignoring British laws. And I have a
18:44 feeling that might cause some problems
18:46 later. So, you know, stay tuned. Okay.
18:48 Now, let's turn the corner and bring our
18:49 focus back to what's going on in North
18:51 America. And specifically, let's see how
18:52 it's going between Europeans and
18:54 American Indians. And the short answer
18:56 is that it was uh complicated. You see,
18:58 during this period, all major European
19:00 powers allied with American Indian
19:01 groups. And that at times led to
19:03 conflict, especially since indigenous
19:05 groups already had complex sets of
19:07 alliances before the Europeans even
19:08 showed up. And maybe one of the best
19:09 examples of that kind of conflict was
19:11 the Beaver Wars, which was a series of
19:13 conflicts that occurred intermittently
19:14 throughout the 17th century. So
19:16 basically, the Irakcoy Confederacy
19:18 facing the depletion of beavers in their
19:19 territory sought to expand their
19:21 dominion into the Ohio River Valley and
19:22 the Great Lakes region. And so since
19:24 Europeans were allied with groups on
19:25 both sides of this conflict, they got
19:27 yonked right into it. Just for poops and
19:29 giggles, here are the alliances. France
19:30 was allied with this massive list of
19:32 groups, and the Dutch and British were
19:34 allied with the Ira. Doth my ears
19:35 deceive me or do I hear the faint
19:37 twitchings of your brain's gray matter
19:40 trying to make an interunit connection?
19:42 I do. So, let me help. Now, remember
19:43 that I said that I showed you this list
19:45 for poops and giggles, but I must
19:47 correct myself. There were no poops and
19:49 emphatically no giggles in my decision
19:51 to show you this list of alliances. You
19:52 don't need to memorize all of this or
19:53 anything, but it's a great illustration
19:55 of what we talked about earlier. Do you
19:56 remember the difference between French
19:58 and British attitudes towards indigenous
19:59 groups? The French shook hands with them
20:01 while the British shoved them away. And
20:03 you can see those different attitudes
20:04 reflected in this alliance system of the
20:07 war. Neurop pathway unlocked. Anyway,
20:09 these alliances were to many indigenous
20:10 groups kind of a necessary evil. Them
20:12 white folks keep on coming. So I guess
20:13 we better figure out what to do with it.
20:15 But in general, European intrusion into
20:16 the Americas was to put a mildly an
20:18 unwelcome development. And so that
20:20 tension usually resulted in one of two
20:22 outcomes. Accommodation or conflict. And
20:23 probably the best example of
20:25 accommodation is the Pueblo revolt,
20:27 which I mentioned earlier, but I didn't
20:28 finish telling you the story. Now, what
20:30 I told you earlier was definitely a
20:32 conflict response. What with the Spanish
20:34 brutalizing the pueblo and the pueblo
20:35 brutalizing the Spanish right back.
20:36 Anyway, 12 years later, the Spanish
20:38 returned and subdued the pueblo again
20:40 and reestablished control of Santa Fe.
20:41 However, in doing so, the Spanish
20:43 accommodated some aspects of Pueblo
20:44 culture. For example, they offered land
20:46 grants to the Pueblo and appointed a
20:48 representative to monitor and uphold
20:49 Pueblo interests and rights.
20:50 Additionally, although the Spanish
20:52 priests did return, they were far more
20:54 lenient about allowing the Pueblo to
20:55 hold their traditional belief system.
20:57 And to be clear, I am not saying that we
20:58 need to give some kind of humanitarian
21:00 of the year trophy to the Spanish for
21:02 the unfathomable depth of their colonial
21:04 tolerance of people different from them.
21:05 It's nothing like that. It's more like
21:06 the Spanish just didn't want to get
21:08 their pantalooned butts handed to them
21:10 again by the rest of Pueblo warriors.
21:12 But even so, you know, accommodation.
21:14 But then the other response to European
21:16 intrusion was straight up conflict and
21:17 eventual removal. And here, let me
21:19 introduce you to Metaccom's war, also
21:21 known as King Phillips War. Because why
21:22 have one name for a war when you can
21:24 confuse students by giving it two names?
21:25 Anyway, after decades of threats from
21:27 New England settlers pushing further and
21:29 further west into Wampenog territory, a
21:31 conflict erupted. Now, our boy Metacom
21:33 was their chieftain, whom the British
21:34 called King Phillip. And in order to
21:36 oppose the British settlers, he forged
21:38 an alliance with other American Indian
21:39 groups in the area. And after doing so,
21:41 Metacom's forces attacked English
21:42 settlements all over the New England
21:44 region, completely destroying about a
21:46 dozen Puritan towns and killing hundreds
21:47 of colonies. Now, eventually, Metaccom
21:49 was captured and killed. And though his
21:50 efforts dampened colonial expansion
21:52 westward for a while, the amount of
21:54 deaths sustained by the Wampenog and
21:56 their allies meant that resisting these
21:58 white settlers in the future would be
21:59 nearly impossible. So that's kind of a
22:01 bummer. And guess what? It's time for
22:03 yet another bummer because it's time to
22:04 talk about the development of slavery in
22:06 the British colonies. Now, I know it's
22:07 natural to associate slavery with the
22:09 southern colonies, but slavery was
22:11 present in all the British colonies of
22:12 the Americas on account of the terrific
22:14 demand for labor that produced colonial
22:16 goods for export. Even so, slavery was
22:18 not equally distributed among the
22:19 colonies. And in general, if you start
22:21 in the north and go south, you get the
22:22 least amount of enslaved labor to the
22:24 most. Additionally, while indentured
22:25 servitude was the dominant labor system
22:27 early in the era of colonial life, it
22:29 was gradually replaced by African
22:31 slavery. Why says you? Well, says I. One
22:32 of the major events that hastened this
22:34 transition was Bacon's rebellion in
22:36 1676, which was a conflict every bit as
22:38 salty as the man after whom it is named.
22:39 Anyway, one of the conditions of an
22:41 indentured servants's contract was that
22:42 after serving a period of years, they
22:44 would be granted land to work for
22:45 themselves. However, toward the middle
22:47 of this period, as land in Virginia was
22:49 becoming more and more scarce, the newly
22:50 freed workers were giving less desirable
22:52 land on the frontier, some of which was
22:54 already promised to indigenous groups.
22:55 Because this band of former endangered
22:57 servants seemed to be causing trouble,
22:59 Virginia's governor, William Berkeley,
23:00 went ahead and led the legislature to
23:02 revoke these men's voting rights. Or, if
23:04 you're feeling sassy, he
23:06 disenfranchised. As a result, a group of
23:07 these landless farmers led by Nathaniel
23:09 Bacon launched an attack against
23:10 American Indian settlements because the
23:12 indigenous people were defending their
23:14 land against the encroaching settlers.
23:15 and Bacon wanted the colonial government
23:17 to take a stronger stand against them.
23:18 Anyway, after that, Bacon and his men
23:20 came for Berkeley himself. And Berkeley
23:23 summoned all his bravery and fled like a
23:25 chump. But when he heard that Bacon had
23:27 gotten sick and died, he returned with a
23:28 militia and crushed the rebellion. So,
23:30 in the grand scheme of things, this was
23:32 a somewhat small conflict, but it had a
23:33 major effect on the transition from the
23:35 reliance of indentured servitude to
23:37 African slavery. Not surprisingly,
23:38 wealthy planters in the Chesapeake and
23:40 Southern regions got real twitchy about
23:42 this growing problem with indentured
23:43 servants. And so they began to
23:45 increasingly rely on African slaves to
23:46 work their fields instead. So the
23:48 planters were like, "Woo! Problem
23:49 solved." And now we got a labor force
23:51 that can happily work for us and never
23:52 rise up against us. And that relief
23:54 lasted about 5 minutes because when it
23:56 started to dawn on planters that
23:58 enslaved blacks began to outnumber them,
24:01 southern flop sweat began to pour forth
24:03 liberally. They came up with new ways to
24:04 control this population and make sure
24:06 that their slaves remained in their
24:08 places in the social hierarchy. First,
24:09 they developed a new definition of
24:11 slavery, namely chatt slavery. Now, the
24:13 word chatt means property, which means
24:15 that the slave master owned a slave as
24:17 one might own a piece of farm equipment,
24:18 and this became the dominant form of
24:20 slavery in the British colonies. Second,
24:22 new laws were put into place to protect
24:24 the institution, which in many cases
24:25 resembled the slave codes from other
24:27 colonies like Barbados. For example, in
24:28 Virginia, a law was passed decreeing
24:30 that the children of enslaved women were
24:32 also perpetual slaves. Or in Maryland,
24:34 laws were passed prohibiting the
24:35 intermarriage of whites and blacks. And
24:37 I could go on, but here I need to tell
24:39 you something that you cannot afford to
24:41 forget. Namely, that enslaved blacks
24:42 didn't just accept this situation, nor
24:44 were they happy about. You have to
24:45 remember that the enslaved black
24:47 population, the Americas, found many
24:49 ways to resist this system. And there
24:50 are two main flavors of resistance that
24:52 you need to know. The first is covert
24:54 resistance. Along these lines, black
24:55 workers attempted to maintain their
24:57 family structures in secret, even though
24:58 they were under the constant threat of
25:00 separation if a planter decided to sell
25:02 one or the other. Or sometimes they
25:03 worked slowly or broke tools. They also
25:05 retained some of their own cultural
25:06 elements from their ancestral home. For
25:08 example, cowry shells which were used in
25:09 African ritual practices have been found
25:11 in many slave quarters. But then the
25:13 second flavor of resistance is overt.
25:14 And here, let me tell you about the
25:16 Stono rebellion. So in 1739, a small
25:18 group of recently imported slaves in
25:20 South Carolina gathered by the Stoneo
25:21 River and launched an attack throughout
25:23 the region. They killed any white people
25:25 they found and burned their houses and
25:27 barns to the ground. Now, I'm a simple
25:29 man, but that does not sound like the
25:31 behavior of people contented and happy
25:33 with their lot in life. But, you know,
25:35 what do I know? Anyway, eventually, the
25:36 South Carolina militia met the group in
25:38 battle, and they quickly suppressed the
25:39 rebellion. And like Bacon's rebellion,
25:41 this wasn't a massive conflict in the
25:43 grand scheme of things, but it had a
25:44 significant consequence. See, the chief
25:46 effect of this rebellion was to drive
25:48 fear into the hearts of southern
25:49 planters that their own slaves would
25:51 revolt. And thus, South Carolina's slave
25:53 codes were made more severe to suppress
25:54 any future rebellions. And now for
25:56 something completely different. Let's
25:57 consider what you need to know about
25:59 colonial society and culture. And there
26:00 are two big themes here. The first theme
26:02 is diversity and unity. So in terms of
26:04 diversity, you're going to need to know
26:06 that the 13 British colonies in America
26:07 contained an exceedingly diverse
26:09 population compared to many other places
26:11 in the world. So German immigrants made
26:13 up about 6% of the population, and they
26:14 came on account of religious persecution
26:16 and economic oppression back home. The
26:18 ScotsIrish made up about 7% of the
26:20 population and many of them settled in
26:21 the Appalachian frontier. Now, many of
26:23 these were land Scots forced into
26:25 Ireland by Britain and so they were no
26:26 fans of the British government. And then
26:28 another 5% included a handful of other
26:29 European groups. And then people of
26:31 African descent made up by far the
26:34 largest population minority at 20% and
26:35 they were heavily concentrated in the
26:36 southern colonies. And the point here is
26:38 not to commit those percentages to
26:39 memory, but to remember that this
26:41 poperri of people and cultures and
26:43 languages contributed to a fundamental
26:45 identity of these colonies. Namely, that
26:48 we are not just one people, we're lots
26:50 of different kinds of people. And that
26:52 is one of the most fundamental roots of
26:53 American identity. But on the other
26:56 hand, despite that terrific variety, two
26:57 movements occurred during this period
26:59 that would contribute to a unifying
27:01 identity among the diversity of American
27:02 colonists. The first was a religious
27:04 revival known as the Great Awakening.
27:06 Now, by most standards, the vitality of
27:08 the Christian belief system had declined
27:09 for about a century prior to this. But
27:11 starting in the 1730s, preachers like
27:13 Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield
27:15 encouraged listeners of all backgrounds
27:17 to respond to God, not merely with their
27:18 minds or behaviors, but with their
27:21 emotions and on an individual personal
27:22 level. And the people responded
27:25 emotionally for sure, like fainting and
27:26 shouting and rolling on the floor. And
27:28 this kind of emotionalism would come to
27:29 define American Christianity. But the
27:31 point is the great awakening was
27:32 essentially the first mass movement in
27:34 the American colonies that affected
27:36 people more or less everywhere and that
27:38 had a way of creating a national shared
27:40 identity and belief system throughout
27:41 the colonies. And then the second
27:42 movement that helped create a national
27:44 identity in America was the influence of
27:46 the enlightenment which was a European
27:48 intellectual movement that emphasized
27:49 rationality. Now many of the educated
27:52 colonists got positively giddy about the
27:53 ideas pedled by writers like John
27:55 Lockach and Jean Jacqu Rouso. ideas like
27:57 natural rights and the social contract
27:59 which played a significant role in the
28:00 creation of an American political
28:02 philosophy. And thanks to a robust
28:04 transatlantic print culture, the ideas
28:05 of the enlightenment crossed the
28:07 Atlantic and played a role in uniting
28:09 the colonists as a truly unique people.
28:11 And so taken together, both the Great
28:12 Awakening and the spread of
28:14 enlightenment ideas represented more
28:15 democratic movements in the colonies.
28:17 And that's because both movements in
28:18 their different ways emphasized the
28:20 power of the individual and thus
28:22 encouraged people to view elites of any
28:24 ilk with suspicion. Okay. And then the
28:25 second major cultural theme during this
28:27 period is the gradual anglicization of
28:29 the colonies over time. Now stop right
28:30 there. What in the fresh heck does
28:32 anglicization mean? Well, without
28:34 getting too complicated, it just means
28:35 English or British. So when I talk about
28:37 the Anglicanization of the colonies, I
28:39 just mean that in some ways they were
28:41 starting to resemble English customs and
28:42 culture. And you know, like here's what
28:43 I mean. In some ways, the culture of the
28:45 American colonies was entirely different
28:46 than the culture in Great Britain. In
28:47 the beginning, while there were
28:49 certainly different classes, there was
28:51 no class of titled nobility doineering
28:52 those beneath them. And then the
28:54 landless poppers were far more numerous
28:56 in Britain than they were in America.
28:58 And more to the point in America more
28:59 opportunities for social mobility
29:02 existed for some people like not all but
29:03 some. However, by the end of this period
29:05 the American colonies were showing signs
29:07 of resembling British culture more and
29:08 more. For example, a class of merchants
29:10 in the New England and middle colonies
29:11 had become so rich that they began to
29:13 look like the English nobility and their
29:14 customs and their dominance of the
29:16 social hierarchy. And their counterparts
29:18 in the south were the handful of elite
29:19 planters that were wealthy enough to own
29:21 many enslaved people and thus dominate
29:23 local politics. And then as land grew
29:24 more scarce, more people at the bottom
29:26 of the hierarchy became landless and
29:27 poor. And I don't know about you, but
29:28 that's starting to sound pretty British
29:30 to me. Anyway, by the end of this
29:31 period, all the colonies shared the same
29:33 basic governmental structure, which
29:34 included a governor and a legislative
29:37 body divided into two houses, which was
29:38 the same structure of government found
29:40 in England. Now, to be clear, there were
29:41 differences in who appointed those
29:42 governors and the members of the
29:44 legislative bodies, but the structure
29:47 was very British in nature, even if the
29:48 more local forms of government were more
29:50 American and representative in nature.
29:52 And equally important, these local
29:53 governments got colonists accustomed to
29:55 a certain degree of local autonomy.
29:57 Okay, now in this final section, let's
29:58 get to the juicy stuff that's going to
30:00 set us up for all the developments in
30:01 unit 3. Now, I've already alluded to
30:03 some of the growing tensions between Big
30:05 Mama Britain and our American colonies.
30:06 But now, let's look them straight in the
30:07 face. And these tensions can basically
30:09 be arranged under three headings. First,
30:10 there was a growing tension regarding
30:12 territorial settlements. So, due to the
30:13 incredible population increase through
30:15 natural reproduction and immigration
30:17 that I mentioned earlier, land became
30:18 scarce in the original colonial
30:19 boundaries. Therefore, many colonists
30:21 desired to push west into the Ohio River
30:23 Valley to create a better life for
30:24 themselves. Like, that's the whole
30:25 stinking reason that they crossed the
30:27 ocean in the first place. But that
30:29 desire created two big honking problems
30:30 for Great Britain. First, they wanted
30:32 peace after so many bloody conflicts
30:33 with the indigenous peoples who lived
30:35 west of their colonial territory and
30:36 further westward migration would only
30:38 reignite those hostilities. Second,
30:39 Britain feared that by encroaching on
30:41 French claims in the region, it would
30:43 spark a conflict with them. And spoiler
30:44 alert, it did. But we'll save that for
30:46 unit 3. Anyway, the British government
30:47 went ahead and put the official kibash
30:49 on colonists claiming land in that
30:50 region, which led to a whole lot of
30:52 resentment on the part of the American
30:53 colonist. Second, there was a growing
30:54 tension regarding the colonist desire
30:56 for self-ruule. You remember the whole
30:57 salutary neglect thing? Yeah, there were
30:59 long stretches of time where the
31:00 American colonists felt like they were
31:02 independent, making their own economic
31:04 and political decisions. But then every
31:06 once in a while, mama came home and was
31:08 all my house, my rules. And there are a
31:09 lot of events I could mention to
31:10 illustrate this, but I'll stick with
31:12 Britain's nasty habit of impressment.
31:14 Essentially, impressment was the act of
31:16 forcing American men against their will
31:17 to serve in the Royal Navy for Great
31:19 Britain's various wars. So, England
31:20 fought a series of three wars concerning
31:22 disputed colonial borders. And when they
31:24 ran short of men, the British Navy
31:25 relied on the practice of impressment of
31:27 American colonists who lived in
31:29 seapports to fight their wars. To put it
31:31 mildly, colonists resented this practice
31:33 and that resentment boiled over in 1747
31:35 when colonists in Boston rioted for 3
31:37 days to resist British impressment for
31:39 King George's war. The big idea to
31:41 remember here is that this rioting was
31:42 an indication that colonists had
31:44 developed their own sense of natural
31:46 rights and refused to allow an imperial
31:48 power to infringe on those rights. But I
31:49 wonder if those beliefs will have any
31:52 consequences in the next period.
31:54 Foreshadowing. And third, tension was
31:56 building over the parameters of trade.
31:58 Now, since the colonial population in
31:59 America was growing like mad, that
32:01 started to strain the system of trade,
32:03 which afforded them the lifestyle to
32:04 which they had become accustomed. More
32:06 Americans meant that they were importing
32:08 more Britishmade goods. But Britain's
32:10 population was relatively stagnant and
32:11 the market for American colonial goods
32:13 was reaching a saturation point. So with
32:15 such an industrious population with
32:16 goods to spare, what were the Americans
32:18 to do? Well, they needed to find other
32:20 countries with whom they could trade. Ah
32:22 crap, I forgot about the navigation acts
32:23 which restricted colonial trade to
32:25 Britain alone. So obviously that led to
32:27 more and more resentment because
32:28 colonists could not explore other
32:30 markets for their goods. So they began
32:32 smuggling goods to other buyers that
32:33 fell outside the authority of the
32:34 Navigation Acts because the American
32:36 colonists resented being told whom they
32:38 could and could not trade with. And this
32:39 worked just fine while Britain was all
32:42 salutary neglecty. But once they started
32:44 cracking down and enforcing these laws,
32:45 it led to more resentment. Well, okay.
32:47 Click here to grab my A Push Heimler
32:48 review guide if you need help studying
32:50 quick, fast, and in a hurry. Or you can
32:51 click here to watch my other unit 2
32:52 videos. And I appreciate you coming
32:53 around, and I'll catch you on the
