An empire reformed: the 13 colonies in the 18th century british empire Flashcards
Connections between the 13 colonies and the West Indies: piracy (explain what pirates did and how trade changed from the 17th century to the 18th century)
-Spanish were the dominant power in the West Indies
-English captured Jamaica and then Barbados
-in the 17th century, piracy was more important than trade
-by the 18th century, piracy declined due to trade
-pirates depend on landed communities to make piracy work
-much of what they were taking were trade goods and enslaved people
-need communities with which they could trade
-but as trade continued to increase they became less interested in supporting pirates
-Newfoundland was a pirate region
Connections between the 13 colonies and the West Indies: trade and smuggling
-wealth was achieved through commodity production and trade
-idea of finding the next peru or another place was not sought out anymore
-much of the commerce was illicit
-Newport Rhode Island was a major smuggling destination (contraband trade)
Connections between the 13 colonies and New France (also describe the characteristics of Louisbourg)
-much of this trade was conducted along the Montreal/Albany axis
-Indigenous acting as middlemen (Mohawk and Iroquoi)
-in 1713 you have the creation of louisbourg
-largely re-constructed
-incredibly important destination
-fortified port city that existed on present day cape breton island, at the time it was still french and one of the largest fortifications in NA
-major destination for trade
-don’t have to worry about navigating the saint laurence
Virginia and the chesapeake (explain the major export out of Virginia and relevance of slavery)
By 1700, Virginian society more closely resembled Old England than it did New England
Massive increase of tobacco exports
Supplying england and germany
Prices for tobacco drop
Continued decline of white indentures and explosion of slave importation. Transformation from ‘Society with Slaves’ into a ‘Slave Society’
Bank of England, 1694
(explain how the bank of england came about)
-finances are a mess after william the third
-nine years war after william takes the throne
-they have to re-build the navy
-idea of creating a state-chartered bank to be a government lender
-english public debt was viewed as being a very good investment (mutually beneficial for everyone involved)
-reason why britain became such an imperial power because of its greater borrowing capacity
Navigation act of 1696 and colonial vice-admiralty courts (explain what a vice-admiralty court is and what it allowed for)
-creation of customs houses that are established in colonial ports
-creation of vice-admiralty courts (within the royal colonies they would be staffed by people who carried royal commissions that were dedicated to enforcing these imperial trade laws
-tightens metropolitan control over colonial economic affairs
-building on that first navigation act
-establishment of vice-admiralty courts
-admiralty courts do not follow a common law system (operated under a separate system of jurisprudence)
-common law system: precedent from higher courts (supreme court for example) carry force of law.
-the vice-admiralty courts were also responsible for enforcing some of these other colonial restrictions on trade i.e. royal monopoly on certain types of wood that would be used for ship construction
-so trees would be marked with “the king’s broad arrow” where they were reserved solely for the use of the royal navy regardless on whose property
Board of trade and secretary of state for the southern department, 1696 (explain the board of trade and its role)
-pattern with the navigation act in 1696 (period of reform and renovation)
-originally part of the king’s privy counsel
-responsible for engaging in correspondence with royal governors
-all laws in the royal colonies had to get approved
-unlike the french or spanish, the english colonies are left to deal with their own affairs
-increasing use of colonial agents by the colonies (especially lobbyists)
Board responsible for engaging correspondence, all laws passed needed to be approved by them, no ability to pass binding regulations on their own (needed parliament)
The black majority of the Carolinas (what did the increase of black slaves in the Carolinas result in?)
Dominated by planters from barbados
Rice, food export to barbados later grow into tobacco, cotton
Major destination for barbadian slaves
Led to first black majority in the western part of the Carolinas
Increase of enslaved pop. means that you have increasingly oppressive racial laws
Negro act of 1722 (deprived free people of colour the right to vote, register, etc.)
1715 yamasee war–indigenous group (ended in a colonial victory and allowed for an extension of plantations in the Carolinas)
Black people fighting on both sides
Georgia, 1732: an experiment in colonial philanthropy gone wrong (explain how Georgia was originally viewed as a colony)
last of the 13 colonies to be established
established by a group of british colonists to be a debtors colony
Idea that rather than sending debtors to prison, we could send them to this colony
slavery was originally illegal in Georgia because they wanted to encourage a place for white debtors
Debtor (someone that cannot pay their debts)
made it a debtors colony alternative to prison and advanced objectives of the state
THE FINAL ENGLISH COLONY IN NORTH AMERICA: NOVA SCOTIA
Acadia ceded to Britain in 1713.
English settlement only began with creation of Halifax in 1749. First centrally-planned ‘imperial’ city in British North America.
1754 establishment of Supreme Court; Colonial assembly in 1758
THE FIRST “GREAT AWAKENING” AND NEW COLONIAL UNIVERSITIES
Religious revival began in New England then spread to the other colonies (1730s)
Resurgence in religious sentiment by 1730s. Johnathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Universities created to train new ministers
Colonial universities pre-Great Awakening:
1636 – Harvard (MA; Congregationalist)
1693 –William & Mary (VA; Anglican)
1701 – Yale (CT; Congregationalist)
what is mercantilism and how does it relate to the 13 colonies?
-nationalist economic policy
-Wealth as finite (trade is an extension of war because every state wants to monopolize as much of it as possible and keep much of it as it can for itself) thus the state should enact policies that create positive trade inflows and restrict outflows in order to generate surpluses
Policy should be designed to create a positive balance of trade (state gets stronger)
Colonies were producers of raw goods
