The English Civil War in America and the Atlantic commonwealth: 1640-1660

Question 1

Colonies Prior to the civil war (How were they governed, what were their economies based on?)

Answer 1

-nearly all governed by chartered companies or semi-feudal proprietors
-small population: combined pop. of around 50,000
-economies mostly based on small-scale farming and fishing (other than tobacco in Virginia and sugar in Barbados)

Question 2

What precipitated the English Civil War?

Answer 2

Conflict between Charles I and Parliament:
- House of Stuart (royal house of England) favoured “Royal absolution”
- Centralize power as much as possible in the hands of the king in the hands of the crown
- New concept in 17th century
- Distrusts Protestantism and favours Anglicanism
- Constitutional roles of the crown vs. parliament very murky

Question 3

Civil war in England (1642-1648) what was the name of the group that opposed Charles vs. the group that supported Charles

Answer 3

Charles raises an army to put down what he views as a parliamentary rebellion
-parliament raises an army against what they see as a tyrannical king, causing an outbreak of the civil war
-upper nobility supported Charles (cavalliers)
-roundheads were people that opposed Charles
-Charles is captured by Parliament and is taken into custody

Question 4

Trial and Execution of Charles I (1649)

Answer 4

-english civil war begins as an armed constitutional crisis between the king and the parliament and in some cases developed into more of a revolution
-was there a desire to make more fundamental lasting changes to the structure of English society and government?
-because there was change over time (the original roundheads most seemingly wanted something like a constitutional monarchy)
-as the conflict continues, there is a kind of growing radicalized sentiment particularly in the army

Question 5

what was America’s stance?

Answer 5

-most colonial governments tried to remain neutral during the conflict
-they heavily relied on trade with England
-certain colonies like Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda, Newfoundland, Maryland and Virginia all openly declare for Charles the second as king
-outright rebellion against the commonwealth as opposed to New England which openly accepts the new commonwealth government
-Prince Rupert of the Rhine who was probably the most famous of the royalist commanders engages in Prince Rupert’s voyage
-most of the navy was loyal to parliament
-but the bits that were loyal to the crown
-leads this fleet to the West Indies (seems to be with the intention of supporting the colonies that were in favour of the king)

Question 6

The commonwealth government and imperial reform

Answer 6

-this brief period in the 1650s under the commonwealth was an experiment
-autocratic theocracy
-Oliver Cromwell (Lord Protector)
-dancing and alcohol was outlawed
-important 10 years (emergence of political theories)
-for the first time in early modern Europe, you have a king that has been overthrown and a new government that is put in place
-order of government was established by god
-what is government there for?

Question 7

describe the navigation act that was passed during the commonwealth period

Answer 7

• Puts trade regulation, particularly colonial trade, under the central control of the state
• All colonial goods had to be carried on English flagged vessels staffed with crews that were ¾ English and the destination for all colonial goods had to be in England
• You can’t trade with the Dutch or Spanish anymore
• All of your trade flows into England the idea being that this will strengthen England

Question 8

Describe Cromwell’s “western designe” and the reshaping of the English Atlantic world

Answer 8

-campaign called “western designe”
-commonwealth hates spain wants to take Spain’s colonies from it (one being cuba and the other being santo domingo on the island of Hispaniola)
-ultimately not reasonable
-so they take a smaller colony (Jamaica)

Question 9

The Stuart Restoration (1660), who dies and what happens as a result?

Answer 9

-Oliver Cromwell dies in 1658
-no clear leader of the parliamentary forces
-kinda resulting in fighting between these factions
-majority of parliament votes to bring Charles the second back who is still in exile
-desire a return to normality within Britain
-the New England colonies were rather supportive of parliament
-so after the stuart restoration, one of the more punitive things that the king does is want to punish the regicides, the people who are directly responsible for the death of his father
-so many of them try to flee and three of them flee to the Americas

Question 10

The Stuart Restoration to the glorious revolution of 1688 (Describe some of the Colonial Restructuring from 1660-1680, what were some of the new colonies/charters/colonial companies?)

Answer 10

-New colonies: Carolina, New York and New Jersey, Pennsylvania
-New charters: Connecticut, rhode island, New Hampshire
-New colonial companies: Hudson’s bay company, royal African company

Question 11

what was the Royal African company?

Answer 11

-company chartered in 1672 with a monopoly to take over the slave trade, the English slave trade to supply the English colonies with enslaved Africans in order to undercut the Dutch, who were the most active in terms of slaving at the time
-one of the major owners of the company was King’s brother, James
-by the 1680’s they’re shipping over 5,000 enslaved people a year

Question 12

In 1664, there was a war between the Dutch and the English (what was the outcome of this war?)

Answer 12

-New Netherland and its capital New Amsterdam are captured and renamed York after James, the Duke of York
-the Dutch population would still remain predominant until the middle of the 19th century

Question 13

Pennsylvania (describe the origins of Pennsylvania, who founded it? what were its characteristics?)

Answer 13

-Charles the second also grants this territory which is the size of the Kingdom of England
-The Crown owes William Penn debt. So rather than pay him they give him a tract of land that is unsettled by the English and William Penn was also a Quaker
-Pennsylvania was a place for Quakers to relocate to (Anglicans did not really like Quakers)
-William Penn actually does move to Pennsylvania and tries to make it a “model colony”
-he wants to make it a place that is tolerant and diverse and welcome to all sorts of different people
-maintain good relations with the Indigenous people in the area and have no slavery
-the city of “brotherly love”

Question 14

Describe the origins of the Carolinas

Answer 14

-a “colony of a colony?”
-totally different from Pennsylvania
-Carolinas basically start as more or less a colony of Barbados
-almost like a colony for Barbados so Barbados would have more food
-So Barbados would focus on sugar while the Carolinas could provide them with food
-first cash crop was rice
-named after King Charles

Question 15

New Charters: Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire (what are these new charters able to do? and granted by whom?)

Answer 15

-Charles the second grants new charters to Connecticut in 1662 and then one year later to Rhode Island
-these charters grant Connecticut and Rhode Island almost complete autonomy
-able to elect their own governors

Question 16

James II and the dominion of New England, 1686-1689 (what happens once James becomes king and replaces Charles the second?)

Answer 16

-promotes catholics to high office
-James is more like his father Charles the first than his brother
-James wants to revive his father’s plan of royal absolutism which is invoked by the 1680s
-wants to centralize control as much as possible in the crown
-desires a reform of the colonial administration by centralizing the government of these northern colonies
-creates the dominion of New England that includes both the New England colonies and New York within the single administrative unit called the Dominion of New England
-dispatches Sir Edmund Andros to become the sole governor who would rule the entire dominion of New England from Boston
-he was supposed to go around with a group of armed men and take the existing colonial charters. Declare them revoked and make voting based on property qualifications rather than church membership
-establish the Anglican church as the only established church throughout New England
-not super popular
-protests about that (infringing on the rights of Englishmen, but Andros says they have no right as Englishmen since they left England)

Question 17

Charter Oak Incident and Boston Revolt

Answer 17

-revolt in Boston
-why does the glorious revolution kick off in Britain?
* James was not particularly popular, but the major triggering event was that he baptizes his son and future heir to the throne as catholic (English protestants did not like this)
-rebellion against the House of Stuart
-also a rebellion against Sir Edmund Andros and the Dominion of New England
-When he comes back he is arrested and sent back to England
-all the old colonial assemblies come back and they reassert the original charters

Question 18

Leisler’s Rebellion and the Maryland Rebellion

Answer 18

-takes place in New York where Jacob Leisler who leads this rebellion against the authorities in New York during this time is eventually arrested and put down by royal troops after the end of the sole struggle caused by the glorious revolution
-In Maryland during this time you have a protestant revolution
-Maryland was originally established as a haven for catholics
-however the number of settlers were increasingly protestant
-situation where catholics had privileges that the protestants didn’t have
-sitting on the assembly was only for catholics
-growing kind of protestant presence
-this breaks out in a rebellion in 1688, overthrowing the catholic government of Maryland

Question 19

William and Mary and the English Bill of Rights of 1689

Answer 19

-rearranges the power dynamic between the crown and parliament
-leader of the Netherlands William is invited by Parliament
-deposes James
-swore his oath to uphold the church of England, and that by baptizing his son as catholic he has violated that oath so he is no longer king
-we are inviting the head of the Netherlands to become king
-Mary, James’s daughter (although her dad was catholic she was protestant) they are able to say that he is marrying the daughter of the king so it’s not a complete break
-but they essentially rule as co-monarchs (why they are called William and Mary)
-important because this establishes the idea that Parliament is kind of sovereign on its own authority and has the right to determine the disposition of the crown
-i.e. they can declare a king deposed and declare who gets to hold the crown
-William and Mary agree to that power and to a number of rights of Parliament in what becomes the English Bill of Rights
-all of the British colonies in North America (aside from Georgia and Nova Scotia) had been founded prior to the glorious revolution
* This is important because they were founded based on an older conception of the British constitution, one where power was less clearly delineated
* Certainly not one where parliament was sovereign
* The idea of sovereign parliament begins after the glorious revolution of 1688
* So these colleges are funded under an older paradigm, under older conception of the British Constitution where power and soverignty was not just residing in parliament but divided between parliament, the crown, the church, local nobility, towns that held semi-independent charters, craft guilds, where power was somewhat more divided
* This will become an issue later on in that colonists had a different idea about how power should be allocated within the British constitution. That changes significantly after 1688
* Settle things down as far as Britain is concerned (Britain had been under almost constant civil wars even in the period prior to the 15th century
* This calms things down where there will be no more civil war
* Allows Britain to breathe and grow after this period of stability

Question 20

Describe the 1628 petition of right and how it relates to the start of the english civil war

Answer 20

• Customary practice for parliament to grant the King at the time the ability to levy certain taxes and customs duties
• In terms of direct taxes, there was still no conception that direct taxes should be kind of a normal, ongoing all the time thing (this is something that should be granted only in times of war)
• But parliament refused to grant Charles the first the ability to levy customs duties unless he agreed to this petition of rights, because many in parliament were opposed to him (his move towards absolutism and him marrying a French Catholic)
• Petition of right: recognizing that parliament has control over taxation, that the kind cannot levy taxes
• Charles agrees to it but doesn’t really follow through so the Parliament withdraws the formal authorizations to him
• Uprising of Scottish covenanters: Scottish Presbyterians who are opposed to establishing an Anglican church in Scotland creating this thing called the Bishops war
• Leads to the English civil war