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