Midterm key terms

Question 1

English Liberty

Answer 1

An idea of unique freedom based on several factors in England: parliament, the constitution, unanimity on religion, and freedom to riot for particular views. 17th century?

Question 2

War of Jenkin’s Ear

Answer 2

was a conflict between Britain and Spain lasting from 1739 to 1748. The seeds of conflict began with the separation of an ear from Jenkins following the boarding of his vessel by Spanish coast guards in 1731, eight years before the war began. Popular response to the incident was tepid until several years later when opposition politicians and the British South Sea Company hoped to spur outrage against Spain, believing that a victorious war would improve Britain’s trading opportunities in the Caribbean.[6] Also ostensibly providing the impetus to war against the Spanish Empire was a desire to pressure the Spanish not to renege on the lucrative asiento contract, which gave British slavers permission to sell slaves in Spanish America.

This war was a coercive use of warfare for private gain.

Question 3

Luxury goods VS commodities

Answer 3

Trade took forever to transport and didn’t have refrigeration, so there were some goods that were only used by the rich and elite due to their transport cost. These would be luxury goods, which typically aren’t worth the effort .
Commodities are used by everyone and have long shelf lives and/or are abundant. Ex: Silk, spices.

Question 4

Constantinople

Answer 4

Constantinople was considered “The Rome that never fell” and was a Christian stronghold until it fell in 1453. Capital of the Byzantine Empire. When it fell in 1453, Europeans worried it would signify the spread of Muslim power. It was a major loss to lose this trade port.

Question 5

East India Company

Answer 5

Founded in 1600, dissolved in 1874.Was self-financed but supported by Brit rulers. Britain could not afford to pay voyagers at this time since they weren’t much of an empire at this point. The EIC were merchants (mercantilism is a term- maximize gold and wealth). The EIC traveled to India and worked with the Mughals, and they were reason Britain was able to develop such strong a strong political and economic foothold in India. They also were the primary actors that led to the Opium War. An idea of mercantilism is that if you control territories, they can only trade with you.

Question 6

Military drills

Answer 6

The Dutch developed complex drills that would allow soldiers to load firearms in the most efficient way. They would sell these techniques to establish a relationship within the East.

Question 7

Aurangzeb

Answer 7

The Mughals were lead by him, and they conquered most of India in the mid 17th century. He was opposed to the Muslim support that had grown in India for a while. When the Mughal empire died out, many other states scrambled to take over. They all wanted British help with military and other support which allowed Britain to gain a stronger foothold in India.

Question 8

English Wool

Answer 8

England’s main export is wool, which makes up 75% in the 1600s

Question 9

Jamestown

Answer 9

The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.Mortality was very high at Jamestown itself due to disease and starvation, with over 80-percent of the colonists perishing in 1609–10 in what became known as the “Starving Time.” The reason Brits settled here was because they had no overseas expansion during the Elizabethan period, and establishing themselves in the New World would be a great way to do that. This location would allow them to interfere with Spanish ships and trade wool and tobacco.

Question 10

Azores and Canary Islands

Answer 10

Sugar cane production spread to these islands as early as the 15th century. Methods were developed here that would be used later on in the Americas, especially when Portuguese bring these concepts to Brazil.

Question 11

Brazil’s Plantations

Answer 11

After Portugal learned about sugar cane plantations from the Azores and Canary Islands, they brought these methods to Brazil. 1537 marks the year that the first plantation shows up in Brazil, and by 1600 Brazil has 100,000 slaves (half of all slaves in the New World) working on plantations.

Question 12

Indentured Servants

Answer 12

Indentures servants are cheaper than slaves. 50% of English that go to the New World are indentured servants who work for 10 years then are granted freedom and land.

Question 13

West India Interest

Answer 13

The combination of West Indian planters and merchants, coupled with colonial agents in England, constituted the powerful West India interest of the 18th century. In the classic age of parliamentary corruption and electoral venality, their money talked. They bought votes and rotten boroughs and so got into Parliament. Their competition forced up the price of seats. No private hereditary English fortune could resist this torrent of colonial gold and corruption.

Question 14

Rotten Boroughs

Answer 14

18th century, ends in 1832. West India Interest members would buy these rotten boroughs, which had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain unrepresentative influence within the unreformed House of Commons. It allowed 2 MPs to be sent to the House of Commons while many new towns, which had grown due to increased trade and industry, were entirely unrepresented. the actual votes of the electors were a mere formality, all or a majority being willing to vote as the patron instructed them, with or without bribery.

Question 15

Sugar Tariff

Answer 15

The Sugar Duties Act 1846 was a statute of the United Kingdom which equalized import duties for sugar from British colonies. It was passed in 1846 at the same time as the repeal of the Corn laws by the Importation Act 1846. The Act, combined with the recent abolition of slavery, had a devastating effect on Caribbean economies, which had previously enjoyed reduced import duties.With no cheap labour force and no preferential tariff protection, the plantation-owners in the British West Indies could not compete with Cuba and Brazil, where sugar was still produced using slave labour. The rise of European sugar beet as a cheap alternative to sugarcane further worsened their position. Plantation owners in the West Indies felt betrayed by the legislation, as they had understood that the tariff protection would remain in place as a quid pro quo for their agreement to the abolition of slavery eight years earlier.

Question 16

William Pitt (come back to)

Answer 16

was a British statesman of the Whig group who led the government of Great Britain twice in the middle of the 18th century.Pitt was a member of the British cabinet and its informal leader from 1756 to 1761 , during the Seven Years’ War. He again led the ministry between 1766 and 1768. He was a rotten boroughs representative and moved into his first term in an interesting way

Question 17

Potential prompt: Seven Years War (come back to later)

Answer 17

The Seven Years’ War was a global conflict fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved every European great power of the time and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain (including Prussia, Portugal, Hanover, and other small German states) on one side and the Kingdom of France (including the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, Bourbon Spain, and Sweden) on the other. Meanwhile, in India, the Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, tried to crush a British attempt to conquer Bengal.

Although Anglo-French skirmishes over their American colonies had begun with what became the French and Indian War in 1754, the large-scale conflict that drew in most of the European powers was centered on Austria’s desire to recover Silesia from the Prussians. Seeing the opportunity to curtail Britain’s and Prussia’s ever-growing might, France and Austria put aside their ancient rivalry to form a grand coalition of their own, bringing most of the other European powers to their side. Faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned itself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution. However, French efforts ended in failure when the Anglo-Prussian coalition prevailed, and Britain’s rise as among the world’s predominant powers destroyed France’s supremacy in Europe, thus altering the European balance of power.

Question 18

The Quebec Act of 1774

Answer 18

passed by the British Parliament to institute a permanent administration in Canada replacing the temporary government created at the time of the Proclamation of 1763. It gave the French Canadians complete religious freedom and restored the French form of civil law. The Thirteen Colonies considered this law one of the Intolerable Acts, for it nullified many of the Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west. The concessions in favor of Roman Catholicism also roused much resentment among Protestants in the Thirteen Colonies. Although it thus helped to bring on the American Revolution, the act, for which Sir Guy Carleton was largely responsible, was very influential in keeping Canada loyal to the crown during the Revolution. It was replaced by the Constitutional Act of 1791.

Question 19

Navigation Act 1660

Answer 19

The Navigation Act 1660: ships’ crews had to be three-quarters English, and “enumerated” products not produced by the mother country, such as tobacco, cotton, and sugar were to be shipped from the colonies only to England or other English colonies. This cuts out European middlemen ships and creates a monopoly on trade, since everything to and from Britain were on British ships. They reflected the policy of mercantilism, which sought to keep all the benefits of trade inside the Empire, and to minimize the loss of gold and silver to foreigners.

Question 20

Lord Rockingham

Answer 20

Whig. Prime Minister from 1765–1766: Rockingham’s administration was dominated by the American issue. His main concern was how the thirteen colonies could gain enough wealth to overthrow British government. Rockingham wished for repeal of the Molasses Act and Stamp Act 1765 and won. Rockingham also passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted that the British Parliament had the right to legislate for the American colonies in all cases whatsoever. Second term 1782: after Lord North steps down. Pushed for an acknowledgement of the independence of the United States, initiating an end to British involvement in the American War of Independence. At home, unemployment rates were high and he focused on bringing them down. His second term was short due to his death 14 weeks after he got in office.

Question 21

Declaratory Act

Answer 21

1766: was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the changing and lessening of the Sugar Act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. The declaration stated that the Parliament’s authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament’s authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies.

Question 22

Lord North

Answer 22

was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. and he alienated colonies due to his old school mercantilist mentality. He was very opposite of Rockingham. He wanted to punish those rebelling in America and doesn’t support their independence. He resigns in 1782 because he predicts defeat in the American War.

Question 23

Adam Smith’s “A Wealth of Nations”

Answer 23

Smith was a Scottish economist, philosopher and author as well as a moral philosopher, and a pioneer of political economy. This book was written in 1776 before American independence. It heavily influence Rockingham’s reactions by explaining what makes the best state via economics and philosophy. This idea of free trade replaces mercantilism. The book encourages Brits to take down tariffs because all would benefit from free trade. Get rid of aristocracy by getting rid of their protections from lack of tariffs. They will spend away their money. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets. Smith also wrote “Theory of Moral Sentiments” in 1759 which discusses how economics changed during the 7 years war. States that you need a bigger economy to create more wealth, and the state should step in when it benefits society. Britain needs universal education. This book led to Smith getting a moral philosophy teaching job at Glasgow University

Question 24

Edmund Burke

Answer 24

was an Irish[3][4] statesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after moving to London, served as a member of parliament (MP) for many years in the House of Commons with the Whig Party.

Burke was a strong proponent of maintaining solid moral virtues in society, and of the importance of religion in attaining that virtue and keeping society together.Burke criticized British treatment of the American colonies, including through its taxation policies. He also supported the American Revolution, believing both that it couldn’t affect British or European stability and would be an innovative experiment in political development because the Americas were so far away from Europe and thus could have little impact on England. Burke is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and for his staunch opposition to the French Revolution. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke claimed that the revolution was destroying the fabric of good society, traditional institutions of state & society, and condemned the persecution of the Catholic Church that resulted from it.