Historical Dictionary of Colonial America

The historical dictionaries present essential information on a broad range of subjects, including American and world history, art, business, cities, countries, cultures, customs, film, global conflicts, international relations, literature, music, philosophy, religion, sports, and theater. Written by experts, all contain highly informative introductory essays of the topic and detailed chronologies that, in some cases, cover vast historical time periods but still manage to heavily feature more recent events. Brief A–Z entries describe the main people, events, politics, social issues, institutions, and policies that make the topic unique, and entries are crossreferenced for ease of browsing. Extensive bibliographies are divided into several general subject areas, providing excellent access points for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more. Additionally, maps, photographs, and appendixes of supplemental information aid high school and college students doing term papers or introductory research projects. In short, the historical dictionaries are the perfect starting point for anyone looking to research in these fields.

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HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF U.S. POLITICS AND POLITICAL ERAS Jon Woronoff, Series Editor From the Great War to the Great Depression, by Neil A. Wynn, 2003. Civil War and Reconstruction, by William L. Richter, 2004. Revolutionary America, by Terry M. Mays, 2005. Old South, by William L. Richter, 2006. Early American Republic, by Richard Buel Jr., 2006. Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny, by Terry Corps, 2006. Reagan–Bush Era, by Richard S. Conley, 2007. Kennedy–Johnson Era, by Richard Dean Burns and Joseph M. Siracusa, 2008. Nixon–Ford Era, by Mitchell K. Hall, 2008. Roosevelt–Truman Era, by Neil A. Wynn, 2008. Eisenhower Era, by Burton I. Kaufman and Diane Kaufman, 2009. Progressive Era, by Catherine Cocks, Peter C. Holloran, and Alan Lessoff, 2009. Gilded Age, by T. Adams Upchurch, 2009. Political Parties, by Harold F. Bass Jr., 2010. George W. Bush Era, by Richard S. Conley, 2010. United States Congress, by Scot Schraufnagel, 2011. Colonial America, by William Pencak, 2011.

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Historical Dictionary of Colonial America William Pencak

The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2011

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Published by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2011 by William Pencak All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pencak, William, 1951– Historical dictionary of colonial America / William Pencak. p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of U.S. politics and political eras) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8108-5587-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8108-7527-2 (ebook) 1. United States—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775—Dictionaries. 2. Great Britain—Colonies—America—History—Dictionaries. I. Title. E188.P45 2011 973.2—dc22 2011006199

™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

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For the wonderful secretaries, advisers, and technical support people at Penn State who have been my friends and uncomplainingly helped me with my research and teaching over the past 28 years. Thank you Dave Horner, Vicki Blazer, Sandi Moyer, Mary Jo Schillings, Jennifer Gilbert, Rose Niman, Tiffany Mayhew, Darla Franks, Karen Eberling, Ben Whitesell, Toni Mooney, Karen Weaver, Lynn Moyer, Ed DuMond, Judy Shawley, Judy Donohue, Barb Stutzman, Anne Rowe, the late Dinah Geiger, Phyllis Martin, and Ruth Bodkin, with apologies to anyone I may have left out. And also for the librarians at Penn State who have made my work possible: Sally Small, Deena Morganti, Marge Kruppenbach, Binh Le, Marge Hindley, Jeannette Ullrich, Eric Novotny, and Dan Mack.

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Contents

Editor’s Foreword

Jon Woronoff

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Map

xii

Chronology

xiii

Introduction

1

THE DICTIONARY

17

Appendixes 1. Estimated Colonial Population

269

2. Colonial Governors

273

3. Monarchs of England

285

4. British Prime Ministers

287

Bibliography

289

About the Author

461

vii

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Editor’s Foreword

Looking back on it, the colonial era may seem deceptively simple and straightforward, especially from a distance of several centuries. As they taught us in school, a new continent was discovered in the form of America, it was colonized by sturdy settlers, and the frontier was rolled back creating what has become the world’s mightiest power. And this is true as far as it goes, barring the messy details. The land was coveted by several empires, mainly the British, French, and Spanish, but also the Dutch, the Portuguese, and even the Swedes. The colonists had even more origins than that, coming from all corners of Europe. And they imported slaves from Africa. Alas, there were already inhabitants when they arrived, namely what were then loosely called Indians, and there was relatively little concern about what happened to them. There were, indeed, the original thirteen colonies, but these were sometimes royal and sometimes proprietary, and even they were splintered by rivalries among immigrants of different sources, social classes, economic status, and especially religious convictions, as well as quite ordinary quarrels over land, money, and power. What became the United States was hardly united at that time, and the situation was often muddled, to say the least. This gives special significance to the Historical Dictionary of Colonial America, which covers the period from the arrival of the first immigrants in 1607—and actually long before, since it is necessary to see the broader context—and follows this for a century and a half to about 1763, when the revolutionary period begins. For those who only have vague memories of what they did learn in school, this may be quite unsettling as the picture is much more variegated, even confusing, and the colonists no longer look quite so good. This can already be sensed in the chronology by the reference to numerous wars and conflicts even before the “revolution.” But the introduction is crucial in sorting out the divisions and conflicts and providing the general background. Next the dictionary section fills in the details, whether fairly straightforward historical ones or messier aspects that involve ethics and morality. These focus on the more prominent persons, places, institutions, and events, this including the wars and lesser conflicts. There are also entries that deal with the major colonial empires and some, particularly

ix

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EDITOR’S FOREWORD

interesting, that give a feel for the times, such as the economy and trade or family and religion. Those wishing to take their studies further can turn to the bibliography, which is very extensive and where the titles are carefully organized by topics, making it extremely useful and easy to navigate. It would be hard to find a more suitable author for this volume than William A. Pencak. For the past 35 years, he has been teaching American history, with an emphasis on the colonial period, this mainly at Penn State University, where he is professor of history, but at other outstanding schools as well. He has written and edited numerous books and articles in the field and was the founding editor of Explorations in Early American Culture, the journal that is now Early American Studies, of the McNeil Center in Philadelphia. With such a guide, it will be much easier for readers to understand what really was a rather complicated and sometimes confusing period that led up to the formation of the United States out of anything but united colonies. Jon Woronoff Series Editor

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Acknowledgments

Having edited over 50 issues of scholarly journals and 20 books, I know a great editor when I encounter one. Jon Woronoff responds promptly, courteously, and never with too much information. I also want to thank my teachers, especially Chilton Williamson Sr., Alden Vaughan, Jack Greene, and John Murrin (yes, John, you were and are my teacher), for much of what I know about early American history.

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Chronology

B.C.E. 14,000–17,000 Meadowcroft Rock Shelter archaeological site, approximately 35 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, the oldest human remains in the Americas. 2000

Maya culture emerges in southern Mexico and Central America.

1200

Pueblo culture emerges in the southwestern United States.

C.E. 800 Mississippian Culture (Mound Builders) emerges in Mississippi watershed. 986

Norseman Bjarni Herjolfsson sights but does not land in North America.

1000 Leif Ericson is the first Norseman to land in North America, namely in Newfoundland/eastern Canada. 1004

Thorvald Ericson lands in North America.

1009

Thorfinn Karlsefni lands in North America.

1325

The Aztecs begin conquest of central Mexico.

1347

The last mention in an Icelandic text of a voyage to North America.

1438

The Incas begin conquest of Peru, west coast of South America.

1453 29 May: Conquest of Constantinople by Ottoman Turks interrupts trade in luxury items between Europe and the Far East. 1469 19 October: Queen Isabella of Castille marries King Ferdinand of Aragon, leading to the creation of a united Spanish realm.

xiii

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1477 5 January: Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy is defeated at Battle of Nancy, ending the independent Duchy of Burgundy and creating a united French state. 1485 22 August: Henry VII defeats Richard III and becomes king of England, ending the Wars of the Roses and reestablishing a stable monarchy. 1492 2 January: The final Spanish conquest of the Moors in Granada unites all of what is now Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella. 30 July: The Jews are expelled from Spain, and their wealth is confiscated. 3 August: Christopher Columbus sails with 90 men and three ships to find the Far East. 12 October: Columbus lands (probably) on Watkins’ Island in the Bahamas. December: Columbus founds the first permanent colony in the New World— Hispaniola (Santo Domingo). 1493 15 March: Columbus returns to Spain. 4 May: Papal bull of Pope Alexander VI gives the New World to the Spanish. 15 September: Columbus sails on his second voyage with 17 ships and 1,200 men. 1494 7 June: The Treaty of Tordesillas is signed between Spain and Portugal, which divides the newly discovered lands in the Americas between the two powers. Spain receives most of the Americas except Brazil. 1496

8 June: Columbus returns from his second voyage.

1497 May: John Cabot sails west from Bristol, England, exploring Eastern Canada. 8 July: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama departs Lisbon to reach India by sailing around Africa. 6 August: John Cabot returns from his first voyage. 1498 May: Cabot sails on his second expedition, perhaps lost at sea, perhaps returning in 1500. 20 May: Da Gama reaches India. 30 May: Columbus leaves Spain on his third voyage. 1500 22 April: Portuguese Captain Pedro Alvarez de Cabral, blown off course on a voyage to India, lands in Brazil. October: Columbus and his two brothers are sent back to Spain in chains by Viceroy Francisco de Bobadilla. 1502 11 March: Columbus sails with four ships and about 140 men on his fourth, final voyage. 1504

7 November: Columbus returns from his fourth voyage.

1506

20 May: Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain.

1507 25 April: German geographer Martin Waldseemuller produces the world map and names the new continent “America” after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer.

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1510

• xv

Spain conquers Cuba.

1513 2 April: Juan Ponce de Leon lands in and names Florida, searching for the Fountain of Youth. 13 September: Vasco Nunez de Balboa (or a member of his expedition) becomes the first explorer in the Americas to see the Pacific Ocean. 1517 31 October: Martin Luther presents the Ninety-Five Theses against abuses of the Roman Catholic Church to begin the Protestant Reformation. 1519 19 January: Balboa is beheaded for treason. March: Defying the governor of Cuba, Hernan Cortes lands in Mexico. 20 September: Five ships and about 250 men leave Spain under Ferdinand Magellan to sail to the Far East by way of the Pacific Ocean. 1520 April: Cortes enters Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and takes the Aztec emperor Montezuma prisoner. 1 July: Montezuma is killed by Aztecs rebelling against the Spaniards. 1521 27 April: Magellan is killed in the Philippine Islands. 25 May: Martin Luther is declared an outlaw and a heretic by the Catholic Church at the Diet of Worms. 13 August: Cuauhtemoc, leader of an Aztec rebellion, is defeated and killed. 1522 6 September: Eighteen men on one ship return to Spain from Magellan’s voyage, the first men to sail around the world. 1524 March or April: Sailing for France, Giovanni da Verrazzano explores the North American coast from North Carolina to New England. 1531 12 December: The Virgin of Guadalupe appears and assists in converting Mexican Indians to Christianity. 1532 16 November: The Inca army is defeated by a Spanish force under Francisco Pizarro at the Battle of Cajamarca. 1533

26 July: The Last Inca ruler, Atahualpa, is executed by Pizarro.

1534 10 May: The French explorer Jacques Cartier sails to Canada. November: Henry VIII founds the Church of England. Parliament passes the Act of Supremacy making him head of the English church and repudiating the authority of the pope. 1535 19 May: The second voyage of Jacques Cartier to Canada for France begins. 1538 St. Thomas Aquinas University, the first in the Americas, is founded in Santo Domingo.

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1541 8 May: Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto becomes the first European to reach the Mississippi River. 23 May: The third voyage of Jacques Cartier to Canada for France begins. 1542 20 November: The Spanish New Laws protect Indians and end encomiendas. 1543 The French attempt to settle Canada is abandoned. 13 September: Protestant theologian John Calvin is welcomed to Geneva to reform the city government based on his religious principles, which will also become those of the English Puritans. 1547

28 January: Edward VI becomes king of England.

1551 12 May: The University of San Marcos, the oldest continually operating university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru. 21 September: The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico (now National Autonomous University of Mexico) is founded in Mexico City. 1553

19 July: Mary I becomes queen of England.

1558

17 November: Elizabeth I becomes queen of England.

1565 28 April: A Spanish expedition commanded by Pedro de Menendez lands in Florida and founds St. Augustine, the first permanent colony in what becomes the United States. 1576 7 June: Martin Frobisher’s first expedition from England sets out and lands at Labrador and Newfoundland. 1577 27 May: Frobisher’s second expedition from England sets out and returns to Labrador. 1578 3 June: Frobisher’s third expedition from England explores islands in northern Canada. 1580 26 September: English mariner Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, having sailed around the world. 1585

17 April: The first English expedition to Roanoke embarks.

1587 22 July: The second English expedition lands at Roanoke. 18 August: The first English child is born in the New World, Virginia Dare. 1588 July–August: The defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English navy leads to a gradual decline of Spanish influence in the New World and the widening of English imperial interests.

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1598 11 July: Juan de Onate founds Acoma, the first permanent Spanish settlement in New Mexico and the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the United States. 1603 24 March: King James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England, joining the two crowns. 1604 The first French settlement in Acadia (Nova Scotia) is begun by Pierre du Monts. 1606 10 April: King James I of England charters the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth. 1607 Santa Fe is founded by the Spanish. 14 May: Jamestown is founded by the Virginia Company of London. 1608 January: An additional 110 colonists arrive at Jamestown. 8 July: Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec, the first permanent French settlement in Canada. 10 September: John Smith is elected president of the council in Jamestown. December: Lumber and iron ore are sent from Jamestown to England. 1609 4 April: Henry Hudson, an English mariner, sails for the Dutch East India Company and explores the Hudson River as far as Albany, New York. 25 July: The English vessel Sea Venture is shipwrecked on Bermuda, taking possession for the English. 10 September: John Smith is replaced as president of the Virginia council by George Percy and returns to England. The “starving time” at Jamestown begins. 1610 Santa Fe becomes the capital of New Mexico. 17 April: Henry Hudson sails on his second, final voyage to the New World on behalf of England. 8 June: Sixty survivors, about to leave Jamestown, are met by new governor Lord De La Warr, and the colony is saved. 1611 22 June: Henry Hudson, his son, and seven others are set adrift in a boat in Hudson Bay by mutineers and are never heard from again. 1612

June: John Rolfe exports the first tobacco from Virginia to England.

1614 5 April: Rolfe marries Pocahontas. 17 May: The Dutch lay claim to New Netherland. 1617

21 March: Pocahontas dies in England.

1619 Twenty single women arrive in Virginia (a few married women had been present since 1608). 30 July: The first meeting of a representative

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assembly in the Americas, the Virginia House of Burgesses, is held. August: Twenty Africans are sold by the Dutch in Jamestown as indentured servants, the first blacks in the British mainland colonies. 1620 9 November: The Mayflower, a ship hired by the Pilgrims, lands in New England and establishes the Plymouth colony. 11 November: The 41 men on the Mayflower sign the Mayflower Compact, the first original frame of government drawn up in the New World. 1621 Fall: The first Thanksgiving occurs, but it does not become an annual tradition. 1622 22 May: About 350 settlers, or a third of Virginia’s population, are killed by the surprise attack of Powhatan Indians led by Opechancanough. 1623 The first English settlers arrive in what becomes the province of New Hampshire. 1624 Spring: Thomas Morton and 30 indentured servants establish Merry Mount near present-day Boston, Massachusetts. May: The Virginia Company charter is revoked and Virginia becomes the first royal colony. May: Thirty Dutch families arrive in New Netherland. 1625 25 March: Charles I becomes king of England. 14 May: The British take possession of Barbados. 1626 4 May: Peter Minuit becomes director-general of New Netherland, around which time he purchases Manhattan Island. He names his capital New Amsterdam. 1627

19 March: The Massachusetts Bay Company is established.

1628 April: The Plymouth Colony arrests Thomas Morton and destroys the Maypole erected at Merry Mount. 6 September: John Endecott establishes the first Massachusetts Bay Company settlement at Naumkeag, which he renames Salem. 1630 12 June: John Winthrop, the new governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and about 900 immigrants land at Salem. He preaches the “City upon a Hill” sermon, declaring the colony an example for the world. 17 September: Boston is founded and established as the capital of Massachusetts. 1632 30 June: Maryland is granted to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, by King Charles I, as a haven for Roman Catholics, and plans are begun for a settlement.

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1634 25 March: About 200 settlers, mostly Roman Catholics, land in Maryland. 1635 23 April: The first public school in British North America, the Boston Latin School, is founded. 1636 June: Roger Williams founds Providence, Rhode Island, after being banished from Massachusetts. June: Hartford, Connecticut, is founded by Thomas Hooker. 20 July: The murder of trader John Oldham begins the Pequot War in New England. 28 October: The Massachusetts legislature establishes the New (later Harvard) College. 1637 1 May: The first meeting of the Connecticut legislature occurs. 26 May: The main Pequot settlement at Mystic, Connecticut, is destroyed, and most of the survivors are massacred by Puritans and their Indian allies. November: Anne Hutchinson is convicted of heresy in Massachusetts and banished. 1638 Stephen Daye begins the first printing press in British North America in Cambridge, Massachusetts. April: Anne Hutchinson leaves Massachusetts, her banishment postponed because of the winter and her pregnancy. 14 April: John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton found the town of New Haven and the New Haven Colony. 20 August: The Providence, Rhode Island, compact is signed by Roger Williams and others, guaranteeing religious toleration. 1640 November: Parliament is summoned for the first time in 11 years by King Charles I of England, leading to the English Civil War. 1641 Massachusetts permits the enslavement of captives taken in a just war, thereby allowing Indian slavery and opening the door to African slavery as these slaves were captured by others. 1643 23 February: The director-general of New Netherland, Willem Kieft, attacks Indians near New Amsterdam, beginning Kieft’s War. 19 May: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Haven, and Plymouth form the United Colonies of New England, a military confederation. 1644 18 April: Opechancanough leads the Powhatan Indians in a final, unsuccessful effort to dislodge Virginia settlers. 1645 August: The Indians and Dutch stalemate in Kieft’s War and establish a truce. 1647 May: Massachusetts requires communities with 50 houses to support a school and requires all adults to learn to read.

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1648 August: Massachusetts clergymen agree on the Cambridge Platform, which establishes rules for church government and supervision of individual churches by consociations of ministers. 1649 30 January: King Charles I of England is executed by Parliament, which assumes the government. 1651 9 October: The first English Navigation Act is passed, forbidding foreign ships from trading with the colonies. 1652

10 July: The First Anglo-Dutch War begins.

1653 20 April: Oliver Cromwell dissolves Parliament. 16 December: Cromwell becomes protector, or supreme ruler, of England. 1654 4 April: The First Anglo-Dutch War ends inconclusively. September: Twenty-three Jewish refugees from Dutch Brazil arrive in New Amsterdam, joining a few merchants already there. These are the first Jewish inhabitants of colonies that become the United States. 1655 10 May: The English conquer Jamaica from the Spanish, taking permanent possession. 1657 27 December: The Flushing Remonstrance protests the persecution of Quakers in New Amsterdam. 1658 3 September: Oliver Cromwell dies and is succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell. 1660 29 March: King Charles II of England ascends the throne. 1 June: Quaker Mary Dyer is executed by Massachusetts Puritans for refusing to leave the colony. 13 September: A new Navigation Act forbids the colonies from exporting tobacco and sugar outside the British Empire. 1662 22 April: Connecticut is granted a royal charter confirming its selfgovernment, and New Haven is incorporated into Connecticut. 1663 24 March: King Charles II grants Carolina (now North and South Carolina) to eight proprietors, although no effort is made to settle it. 5 July: Rhode Island is granted a royal charter confirming its self-government. 27 July: Under the second Navigation Act, most imports to the English colonies are to be shipped through England. 1664 24 June: The Duke of York (future King James II) grants East Jersey to Sir George Carteret and West Jersey to Sir John Berkeley. 8 September: An English fleet compels New Netherland to surrender without a fight before war is formally declared.

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1665 10 February: Proprietors Carteret and Berkeley of East and West Jersey grant the “Concessions” establishing religious toleration. 4 March: The Second Anglo-Dutch War is formally declared. 1667 31 July: The Second Anglo-Dutch War ends, and the English conquest of New Amsterdam is confirmed. 1669 March: On behalf of the proprietors, John Locke drafts The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina; only its provision for religious toleration is implemented. 1670 23 March: Settlers from Barbados establish the first English settlement in Carolina near present-day Charleston, South Carolina. 2 May: The Hudson’s Bay Company is founded to import furs to England from the land north of French Canada. 1672 12 March: The Third Anglo-Dutch War begins. 19 March: Henry Morgan captures Panama for the English, unaware that peace with Spain had been negotiated, making him a pirate. 27 September: The Royal African Company obtains a monopoly of the English slave trade. 1673 February: With the Revenue Act of 1673, customs commissioners are established in the colonies to enforce the Navigation Acts. 17 May: Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet begin the exploration of the Great Lakes region for France. 9 July: A Dutch fleet recaptures New York. 1674 10 February: The Treaty of Westminster ends the Third AngloDutch War. English maritime supremacy is established, and New Netherland is returned to England. 1675 20 March: Indians attack Swansea, Massachusetts, beginning King Philip’s War. 1676 10 April: A peace treaty signed between Sir Edmund Andros, governor of New York, and the Iroquois initiates the Covenant Chain of friendship between the Iroquois and the English colonies. 10 June: Edward Randolph arrives in Boston, marking the beginning of serious English attempts to curtail Massachusetts’ and Connecticut’s independence. 1 July: Lord John Berkeley deeds West Jersey to three Quakers including William Penn. 30 July: Nathaniel Bacon issues the “Declaration of the People” proclaiming rebellion against Governor Sir William Berkeley of Virginia. 2 August: King Philip is killed by an Indian friendly to the English, as the war winds down with English victories. October 26: Nathaniel Bacon dies of the “bloody flux,” and his rebellion falls apart.

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1677 December: John Culpeper leads a rebellion in North Carolina to protest the limitation of colonial trade under the Navigation Acts. 1679 18 September: New Hampshire is separated from Massachusetts and becomes a royal colony. December: Culpeper is arrested in North Carolina, but pardoned as there is little proprietary authority in the region. 1680 10 August: The Pueblo Indians revolt against Spanish rule, driving out all Spaniards from New Mexico. 1681 4 March: Pennsylvania is granted to William Penn by King Charles II, who insists the colony be named for Penn’s father. 1682 6 February: French explorer Sieur de La Salle reaches the Mississippi River after extensive explorations, claims the region for France, and names it Louisiana. May: Tobacco cutting riots in Virginia try to raise the price of tobacco, which had been lowered by overproduction. 27 October: William Penn arrives in Pennsylvania to initiate his “Holy Experiment” of a pacifist, multiethnic society practicing religious toleration. 1684

August: William Penn leaves Pennsylvania and returns to England.

1685 6 February: The Duke of York succeeds Charles II and becomes King James II of England. 30 July: James II appoints Sir Edmund Andros governor-general of the Dominion of New England with absolute power, ending the right of colonists to elect their own assemblies and deprive nonPuritans of religious liberty. 2 October: The Edict of Nantes is revoked by King Louis XIV of France, forcing Protestants to leave home; some become the Huguenot immigrants to British America. 1688 18 April: Germantown Quakers and Lutheran Daniel Pastorius write the first protest against slavery in British North America. 1689 12 February: William, stadtholder of the Netherlands, and his wife Mary become king and queen of England after the “Glorious Revolution” overthrows King James II. April: John Coode leads Protestant Associators to overthrow the Roman Catholic proprietor of Maryland. 18 April: The Dominion of New England is overthrown in Boston and Governor Sir Edmund Andros is imprisoned. 31 May: Lieutenant-Governor Francis Nicholson of the Dominion of New England is overthrown at his headquarters in New York by Leisler’s Rebellion. June: Abenaki Indians led by French Canadians attack New England settlements, beginning King William’s War. 1690 8 February: The village of Schenectady, New York, is destroyed by the French and Indians. August: Tobacco cutting riots in Virginia protest

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overproduction that has lowered prices. 24 October: A Massachusetts fleet and army commanded by Governor Sir William Phips departs from Quebec after unsuccessfully attempting to conquer Canada. 1691 19 March: Jacob Leisler is arrested by the newly appointed governor of New York, Henry Sloughter. 16 May: Leisler is executed for treason. 27 July: Royal Governor Nathaniel Blakiston replaces, and later pardons, John Coode in Maryland. 7 October: Massachusetts is granted a new royal charter, which stipulates that the crown will appoint its governor. 1692 February: The British crown authorizes Thomas Neale to establish a privately run intercolonial postal service. May: The witch craze begins in Salem village, leading to 20 executions. October: The craze subsides. 1693 8 February: The College of William and Mary is chartered in Middle Plantation (later Williamsburg) Virginia. 1696 20 April: The new Navigation Act establishes the Board of Trade (Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations) to report on and formulate colonial policy. 1697 20 September: King William’s War is ended by the Treaty of Ryswick, leaving territories in North America as before the war. 1698 The Wool Act passed by Parliament forbids the exportation of woolen products outside of the colony where they were produced to encourage importation of British wool. 5 July: The Royal African Company monopoly on slave trade ends, opening it to all English (as of 1707 British) subjects. 1699

Virginia’s capital is relocated from Jamestown to Williamsburg.

1701 23 May: William Kidd, who sailed from New York to capture pirates, is hanged for piracy in London, England. 24 July: The French establish a settlement at Detroit. 9 October: The Collegiate School (later Yale College) is chartered in New Haven, Connecticut. 1702 8 March: Anne becomes Queen of England. 15 April: The proprietary colonies of East and West Jersey are united as the royal colony of New Jersey. 3 November: In response to the declaration of the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe, forces from Charleston, (South) Carolina, unsuccessfully attack St. Augustine, Florida. 1704 29 February: Deerfield, Massachusetts, is attacked by French and Indians, and its inhabitants are all killed or taken captive. 24 April: The first permanent newspaper in the British colonies, the Boston News-Letter, is first published.

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1705 The Virginia slave code is enacted, confirming blacks as slaves without civil rights. It becomes a model for other colonies. 1707 1 May: The Act of Union unites England, Scotland, and Wales as the United Kingdom of Great Britain. June–September: An unsuccessful effort is made by Massachusetts to capture Port Royal, the capital of French Acadia (Nova Scotia). 1708 September: The Saybrook Platform is adopted in Connecticut, providing for collective ministerial supervision of congregations’ behavior. 1710 June: Approximately 3,000 Palatine immigrants begin to arrive in New York. 2 October: Port Royal in French Acadia is conquered by British and New England troops. 1711 1 June: The Post Office Act passed by Parliament in 1710 takes effect, placing the post office under royal control. 22 August: Eight ships sink and 850 men drown in a storm, compelling a British/New England expedition attacking Quebec to withdraw. 22 September: The Tuscarora War breaks out in North Carolina. 1712 6 April: Fires are set in New York City, leading to the execution of 21 people in the New York slave conspiracy of 1712. May: Carolina is divided into North and South Carolina. 1713 11 April: The Peace of Utrecht ends Queen Anne’s War. The principal result for North America is that the French cede Acadia to Britain; it becomes Nova Scotia. 1714

1 August: George I becomes king of England.

1715 11 February: The Tuscarora Indians are defeated in North Carolina. 15 April: The Yamasee War begins in South Carolina. 1716 The first theater in the British colonies opens in Williamsburg, Virginia. 1717 Indians on the South Carolina frontier cease their attacks, ending the Yamasee War. 1718 New Orleans is founded by the French. 22 November: Blackbeard the pirate is killed in North Carolina by an expedition sent from Virginia. 1719 This is the approximate date of the organization of the Boston Caucus, the first political organization formed in colonies; it is designed to oppose the policies of a royal governor.

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1721 26 June: The first smallpox inoculation in North America is given by Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of Boston, following an idea suggested by Onesimus, the African slave of Cotton Mather. 7 August: The New England Courant, the first protest newspaper in the American colonies, is founded by James Franklin in Boston. 1722 10 September: Indians allied with the French attack Georgetown, Maine, beginning (William) Dummer’s War between Massachusetts and the Abenaki and Norridgewock Indians. 1724 23 August: Father Sebastien Rale, a French priest encouraging Indian attacks in Maine, is killed by Massachusetts troops. 1725 26 March: The Explanatory Charter is issued by the crown to Massachusetts. It permits the governor to veto the assembly’s choice of a speaker and to dissolve that body at his pleasure. 31 July: Dummer’s War ends. 1726 William Tennent opens the Log College in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, to instruct future Presbyterian ministers. 1727

11 June: George II becomes king of England.

1729 June: North Carolina and South Carolina become royal provinces. 30 July: Baltimore, Maryland, is founded. 1730 October: Conflict breaks out between Maryland and Pennsylvania over their boundary (Cresap’s War). 1731 1 July: The first public library in British North America, the Library Company of Philadelphia, is founded by Benjamin Franklin. 1732 10 May: The proprietors of Maryland and Pennsylvania agree to a boundary line between their colonies. 29 September: The Hat Act is passed by Parliament to prohibit the exportation of hats out of the colony in which they were manufactured. 28 December: The first issue of Poor Richard’s Almanac is published in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin. 1733 The Great Awakening begins when Jonathan Edwards inspires the revival of religion in Northampton, Massachusetts. 12 February: The first English settlers arrive in Georgia. May: Parliament passes the Molasses Act, placing a prohibitive tax on the importation of molasses, rum, and sugar from non-British colonies into the North American colonies. 1734 17 November: Printer John Peter Zenger is arrested in New York for libeling Governor William Cosby.

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1735 5 August: Zenger is acquitted in New York by a jury on the grounds that his statements were true. 1736 12 February: The Dock Street Theater, the oldest continuously operating theater in the United States, opens in Charleston, South Carolina. 7 December: Franklin founds the Union Fire Company, the first volunteer fire company in the British colonies. 1737 25 August: The Walking Purchase occurs, the first dishonest seizure of Indian lands in Pennsylvania. 1739 10 July: English ships are authorized by Parliament to attack Spanish vessels, beginning the War of Jenkins’ Ear between the two powers. 9–10 September: The Stono Rebellion begins and is immediately suppressed in South Carolina as slaves try to reach Spanish Florida. November: Evangelical preacher George Whitefield lands in Philadelphia, beginning the first of five trips throughout the colonies during which he inspires religious revivals. 1741 March–May: British and colonial forces are badly defeated by the Spanish at the Battle of Cartagena. March–August: The New York slave conspiracy of 1741 occurs and ends with the execution of 38 blacks and whites. 2 April: Moravians obtain land and begin the settlement of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. 25 April: Parliament passes a law abolishing the private banks (Land and Silver) begun in Massachusetts the previous year. 8 July: Jonathan Edwards preaches his most famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” 1742 1 October: An election riot in Philadelphia is fomented by Anglicans and Presbyterians unsuccessfully seeking to end Quaker dominance. 1744 15 March: France declares war on Britain, initiating King George’s War between their colonies in the Americas. 4 July: By the Treaty of Lancaster (Pennsylvania), the Iroquois agree to relinquish claims to land in Maryland and Virginia. 1745 Land riots begin against New Jersey proprietors and continue sporadically until 1754. 16 June: Forces primarily from Massachusetts capture Louisbourg, the French fort guarding the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada. 1746 The College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) is founded in Elizabethtown. 1747 17–20 November: Anti-impressment rioters in Boston seize British naval officers as hostages, but are compelled to release them under threat of bombardment.

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1748 4 January: The Independent Advertiser, an antiwar protest newspaper, is founded in Boston by Samuel Adams and others. 18 October: By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Britain returns Louisbourg to France in exchange for Madras in India. 1749 Celeron de Bienville deposits several metal plates, claiming the Ohio Valley for the French. 26 January: Massachusetts institutes a currency backed by silver received from Britain to compensate it for the costs of the 1745 Louisbourg expedition. 13 November: The first meeting is held of the board of trustees of the College of Philadelphia, the future University of Pennsylvania. 1750 24 June: Parliament passes the Iron Act, encouraging the production of raw iron but prohibiting its refinement in the American colonies. 1751 Land riots begin against New York proprietors in the mid-Hudson Valley and continue sporadically for 15 years. 11 May: The Pennsylvania legislature issues a charter for the Pennsylvania Hospital, the first in the British American colonies, which opens in 1752. 29 September: The printing of paper money by the New England colonies is prohibited by an act of Parliament. 1752 13 June: The Treaty of Logstown between the Iroquois and Pennsylvania opens settlement of lands south of the Ohio River to whites. 19 December: Benjamin Franklin first describes his kite experiment, which establishes that lightning is caused by electricity. 1753 11 June: What is later known as the Liberty Bell is first rung in the state house in Philadelphia. July: The Susquehannah Company is founded in Windham, Connecticut, to claim and organize Connecticut settlement of what is now northern Pennsylvania. 1754–1763

French and Indian War takes place.

1754 17 February: The French begin construction of Fort Duquesne at the present-day site of Pittsburgh. 28 May: George Washington, commanding Virginia militiamen, defeats a French force commanded by Sieur de Jumonville near Fort Duquesne, beginning the French and Indian War. 19 June–11 July: Colonial representatives meet at the Albany Congress. 17 July: The first classes begin at King’s College (later Columbia) in New York City. 29 October: John Reynolds, Georgia’s first royal governor, arrives. 1755 9 July: General Edward Braddock’s British/Virginian force is surprised and decimated by French and Indians near Fort Duquesne. 8 September: A French force under Baron Dieskau is defeated at the Battle of Lake

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George by colonials commanded by Sir William Johnson. 16 October: Indians in western Pennsylvania begin to attack settlers (Leroy Massacre), with disastrous consequences for the frontier. 1756 15 May: Britain declares war on France, and the Seven Years’ War begins warfare in Europe as well as in America. 14 August: French general the Marquis de Montcalm captures Fort Oswego from colonial troops. 8 September: Pennsylvania militia launch a surprise attack on Delaware Indians at the Battle of Kittanning, rescuing prisoners. December: William Pitt becomes secretary of state for the Southern Department and leader of the House of Commons. He escalates the war against France. 1757 27 July: Benjamin Franklin arrives in London as Pennsylvania’s agent. He spends 16 of the next 18 years in Britain. 9 August: The Marquis de Montcalm captures Fort William Henry and intervenes to stop the massacre of British prisoners by his Indian allies. 1758 Philadelphia Quaker Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker begins a diary that records life in the city for over 50 years. July: Some 16,000 troops under James Abercrombie fail to capture the French Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga). 27 July: British forces under Sir Jeffrey Amherst capture Louisbourg, the French fortress at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. 12 October: The Virginia legislature passes the Two-Penny Act, permitting debts to be paid in tobacco with the commodity valued at two pennies per pound. 26 November: The French blow up Fort Duquesne and abandon it to British forces commanded by General James Forbes. 1759 January: War begins between Cherokees on one side, with Virginia, South Carolina, and British troops on the other. 16 June: Sir William Johnson captures Fort Niagara from the French. July–August: General Amherst captures Forts Crown Point and Carillon (Ticonderoga) from the French. 10 August: King George II vetoes Virginia’s Two-Penny Act. 13 September: General James Wolfe captures Quebec. He and French general Montcalm both die in the battle. 20 November: The British navy destroys the French fleet at Quiberon Bay (France), preventing the French from reinforcing Canada. 1760 Thomas Hutchinson is appointed chief justice of Massachusetts, which begins a feud between the Otis and Hutchinson families that becomes a cause of the American Revolution. 8 September: At Montreal, the final major French army surrenders Canada to the British. 25 October: George III becomes king of England.

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1761 February: James Otis, Jr., argues the writs of assistance case in Boston. November: The Cherokees sign peace treaties with South Carolina and Virginia. 1762 4 January: Britain declares war on Spain. March–August: The British attack and capture Havana, Cuba. 1763 Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon begin surveying the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania that had been agreed on in 1732, completing the Mason-Dixon Line in four years. 10 February: By the Treaty of Paris ending the French and Indian War, France cedes Canada to Britain and Louisiana to Spain. Britain obtains Florida from Spain in return for Cuba. May: An Indian confederation under the Ottawa leader Pontiac begins all-out warfare against the British, destroying all forts in the west of the colonies except for Detroit, Niagara, and Pitt, which are besieged. 5–6 August: The Indians are defeated at the Battle of Bushy Run, lifting their siege of Fort Pitt. 7 October: Britain issues the Proclamation of 1763, banning colonial movement west of the Appalachian Mountains while opening up Canada and Florida to settlement. November: The siege of Detroit ends with the fort holding out against Pontiac. December: A Virginia court grants Anglican priest James Murray one penny in damages for his lost salary under the Two-Penny Act in the Parson’s Case. 14 December: The Paxton Boys massacre the Conestoga Indians in central Pennsylvania.

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Introduction

The years between 1450 and 1550 marked the end of one era in world history and the beginning of another. Most importantly, the focus of global commerce and power shifted from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, largely because of the discovery of the New World. The conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 interrupted the spice and silk trades from East Asia on which the European nations had depended for their luxury goods. The Italian city-states and sailors who had conducted much of that trade began to work for the Atlantic powers, as the names of some leading explorers reveal: Cristoforo Colombo, alias Cristobal Colon in Spain and known to us as Christopher Columbus; Giovanni da Verrazzano, who sailed for France; Amerigo Vespucci, a Portuguese explorer who gave his name to the New World; and Giovanni and Sebastiano Caboto, John and Sebastian Cabot, who led the pioneering voyage for the English. What used to be called the “discovery” of America—the preferred term now is the “encounter” between the Native Americans, or Indians, and Europeans—came about because of Columbus’s great mistake. He miscalculated the circumference of the globe and somehow persuaded the Spanish to finance an expedition to reach Asia that smarter minds knew was impossibly long. But what really made the encounter of Europe with America possible was the formation of three united states: Spain in 1469, France in 1477, and England in 1485. These nations could turn their attention away from internal wars and muster the men and ships to expand their realms. Holland and Portugal, although leaders in exploration, mostly established commercial posts in Africa and East Asia, with few exceptions (notably Portuguese Brazil), as they did not have the population or power to compete with the big three. THE PROMISE OF THE NEW WORLD The New World was more than a geographic novelty. It opened the way for new human possibilities, possibilities that were first fulfilled by the British colonies of North America and have since become a reality for much of Europe, 1

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and will, perhaps, someday spread to the rest of the world. Columbus sensed this from the start, as he ended his first letter, dispatched while he was still at sea. He stated that the Spanish should be thankful “for the temporal benefits which will bring solace and profit not only to Spain but to all Christians.” The Old World was filled with poverty, crime, war, and a landscape that was being depleted by deforestation, overcultivation, and especially raising sheep, which displaced peasants, a problem to which both Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote and Thomas More in Utopia called attention. In America, on the other hand, there were “many harbors on the sea coast beyond comparison with any I know in Christendom, and so many good, wide rivers that it is a marvel. . . . There are marvelous pine groves and broad meadows, and there is honey and there are many different kinds of birds and many varieties of fruit. In the interior there are many mines of metal.” Thus America offered solutions to Europe’s problems.1 Over a century later, John Smith, one of the founders of English Virginia, specifically noted how America’s vast resources would provide opportunities for the very people who were superfluous in Europe. In his final book, Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Anywhere, he predicted that America “may entertain all the poor artificers and laborers in England which are burdensome . . . for want of work . . . for there is vast land enough for all the people in England, Scotland, and Ireland.”2 Many of the Europeans had no doubt that the Christian God had directed them to the New World. Columbus himself was the first to note this: “Our Redeemer has given glorious success to our most illustrious King and Queen, and to their kingdoms rendered famous by this glorious event, at which all Christendom should rejoice.” But it remained for John Winthrop and the Puritans who founded Massachusetts to put forth the idea that America not only provided the solution for Europe’s population, class, and ecological problems, but it could serve as a spiritual example to the Old World as well. Speaking to colonists about to disembark from their ships in 1630, he urged them to “consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.” By keeping “the Articles of our Covenant with Him . . . we may live and be multiplied, and the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it.”3 Of course, the opportunity for Europeans who came to America was built upon the tragedy of those they encountered. The best recent scholarship has estimated the population of the Americas at between 50 and 100 million on the eve of the European encounter: about half living in central Mexico, 10 to 12 million in Peru, 5 million in Brazil, and 10 to 12 million north of the Rio Grande. By 1600, these numbers had dropped over 90 percent in the worst demographic disaster in human history. Most of the deaths came even before the Indians had seen a single European; germs spread by the initial contact spread far more rapidly than settlement.4

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Thus, Europeans encountered a population not only greatly reduced, but with its faith in its gods and culture deeply shaken. Many colonists considered Indian depopulation a sign that their extinction was God’s will. Even Benjamin Franklin, noted for his belief in a rational universe and deity, writing in his Autobiography, considered it “the design of Providence to extirpate these savages to make room for cultivators of the earth.”5 Africa, too, became a means to the creation of the Europeans’ New World. That continent’s tragedy, while not as numerically overwhelming as the Indians’, is perhaps even more horrific because it was deliberately engineered almost solely for the purposes of growing sugar and tobacco for profit. The best estimate of Africa’s population between 1500 and 1800 is that it remained stagnant at about 100 million.6 Natural increase was matched by the number of deaths and deportations caused by the Atlantic slave trade. Between 10 and 12 million slaves reached the shores of the Americas, but that number was probably equaled by Africans who died in wars fighting slavers, perished on the journey to the coast, or expired in the holds of the ships in which they were crammed on the voyage to the New World.7 The development, side by side, of apparently incompatible ideals has characterized the Americas ever since, as indeed it has all of world history. But the seizure of an entire continent and the displacement of its people, along with the unprecedented, long-term slave trade, required new rationalizations. The greater the crime, the more lofty the principles required to justify it, both to the world and to satisfy the consciences of those committing it. Thus, it was claimed, Indians and Africans were heathens whose souls could only be saved if they were placed in contact with Christians; earthly slavery was a small price to pay for eternal bliss (although missionary efforts, especially in the English colonies, were sporadic at best). Non-Europeans were lazy, proven by the fact that they did not cultivate their land as intensively as Europeans, who could teach them work habits (although most slaves worked hard while most masters did not). They wore few clothes, sensible considering their climates, but proof that they were savages in need of civilization. Within a century or less, the encounter of Europe with America and Africa relegated perhaps a quarter of the globe’s population to something less than full human stature while convincing those who exploited them that they were on a mission from God.8

VARIETIES OF EMPIRE Nevertheless, despite a common sense of mission and desire to profit from the New World, the different European powers developed radically different systems of colonization. This occurred both because of the different Indian populations they confronted and because their different attitudes toward immigration

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to the colonies. Francis Parkman, a 19th-century historian of the 18th-century conflict between the French and British colonies, summed it up with a reasonable measure of accuracy: “Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him.”9 The Spanish, the first to establish a New World empire, were lucky in two ways. They found the enormous deposits of gold and silver in Mexico and Peru, and these were mined by highly civilized people who lived in highly stratified societies similar to those in Europe. As such, they were used to obeying their rulers, and once the rulers were removed, the Spanish could easily take their places and continue giving orders. That many of these Indians had been recently conquered caused them to look at the conquistadors as liberators. The Spanish set up a society much like that of feudal Spain, and with a good deal of continuity with the preconquest past. Indians were not enslaved but placed on estates called encomiendas where a Spaniard ruled over them like a feudal lord. Relatively few Spaniards came to the Americas, and they needed labor in the mines and fields. The Spaniards lived in towns, the Indians in surrounding villages. Indian caciques, or chiefs, served as go-betweens and did much of the actual ruling. A relatively small number of soldiers were able to control a large population, in part because higher authorities were careful to keep exploitation within customary limits. Spanish government in the New World mirrored that in the Old. A viceroy (literally, a stand-in for the king) ruled in Lima, Peru, and in Mexico City. Gobernadores ruled provinces, and alcaldes or mayors ruled the towns. On each level, a council of important men provided advice. In practice, because domains were so vast and bureaucracy so cumbersome, local elites came to dominate everyday life and decision making. Spain attempted to centralize the economy and maximize revenue by requiring ships to sail in gigantic convoys guarded by the navy, but bribery was rampant and evasion easy. Spanish administration encouraged disrespect for the law; for instance, wealthy people of color could purchase “purity of blood” certificates stating that they were white and entitled to all the privileges of whiteness, including holding public office and becoming members of the clergy. The Portuguese Empire was run along the same lines, although it relied mostly on African slaves to labor in its principal colony of Brazil, the main difference being that authority was even looser. The northern English colonists did not need a large native labor force; they wanted land of their own. England encouraged migration—especially of people whose religion made them difficult to handle at home—and the settlers wanted land. North American Indians were hunters and primitive

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agriculturalists. Efforts to enslave them failed, so the tobacco and sugar colonies turned to European servants—whose passage was paid for in return for several years’ labor—criminals, or African slaves. In the northern colonies, people largely owned their own family farms. The small number of Indians who survived early wars or did not live in the interior were placed on reservations, where (except for a few praying Indians) they were generally ignored and lived in poverty. The French, on the other hand, came to Canada primarily to trap furs. Few moved to the New World, and agriculture was largely limited to a strip of land along the St. Lawrence and the rivers that flowed into it. Trappers, alone or in small parties, ventured as far west as the Rocky Mountains, requiring that they befriend the Indians both to do business and for sexual companionship. Canada was governed, as were French provinces, by a governor who handled military affairs and law and order and an intendant who was in charge of finances. Farmers worked on feudal estates, but the seigneurs kept rents reasonable and administered justice leniently. It was important to retain the loyalty of a European population that numbered only 80,000 by 1750 and could easily move to the frontier. In one area, however, all the empires were united: the sugar-producing territories of the West Indies and South America. Here, whites were outnumbered severalfold on plantations where death from disease and overwork required constant replenishment of African slaves. Discipline was brutal, but the great powers were willing to sacrifice not only Africans but their own soldiers and sailors by the thousands in wars in one of the unhealthiest regions of the globe. About a half million immigrants who came to the British West Indies before 1700 resulted in a population of only 150,000.10 This massive slaughter was for sugar; struggles over who would control not only Brazil and Jamaica, but St. Kitts, Dominica, and other tiny islands went on from the 16th through 19th centuries, as these were the only lands where the most profitable crop in the world economy could be grown. And although the West Indies may have been geographically distant from the mainland British colonies, they were vital to their survival and prosperity.

DIVERSE BRITISH COLONIES The West Indies, like the tobacco colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina and the rice colonies of Georgia and South Carolina, all shared an important characteristic: they existed to supply Europeans with valuable crops, and most of these were grown by unfree labor. While European indentured servants preceded black slaves almost everywhere, by 1750 most of the

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export production was done by slaves. These numbered at least three-quarters of the population in the Caribbean and in low-country South Carolina, 40 percent in Virginia, and a third in the other colonies. A major consequence of such large black populations was political harmony among the whites: realizing they needed the support of the white majority who were not slave owners, the large planters cultivated the votes of middling whites and provided frontier lands for them to settle. Two of the most important trends in U.S. history thus developed in the colonial South. The colonies were not settled for religious reasons, or for ideals, but for profit. And racial distinctions, between black and white (slave and free), became far more important for society than class distinctions. White indentured servants had proven unruly and desirous of the rights of Englishmen, as Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 showed. But once slavery became prevalent, and the possibility of land and slave ownership was held out to more people, southern whites united in a regime based on fear of the black population and the curtailment of personal liberty in the interest of community survival. The New England colonies could not have been more different. The early settlers came to exercise their religion, whether Puritans in Massachusetts or the closely related Separatists (Pilgrims) in Plymouth. Many of them had been prosperous and willingly moved to what they knew would be a primitive agricultural society from the more advanced towns of England. They also knew that most colonies still had a very high death rate. Who was a devout Puritan was easy to decide in England—it meant willingness to undergo persecution. In New England, the Puritans controlled access to land and political power. Hence, disagreements over who was sufficiently godly led to spin-off colonies in Rhode Island, New Haven, and Connecticut. But New England prospered, and because its inhabitants came to the New World in families who grew food for themselves in a healthy climate, about 40,000 immigrants had grown to a population of 150,000 by 1700. This was opposed to the heavily male southern mainland colonies, which had only 100,000 people although 150,000 had immigrated in the same period.11 Those who were Puritans, except in tolerant Rhode Island, enjoyed something like democracy among themselves; but those who were not were unwelcome. Few people came to New England after 1640. Fish, exported to feed the West Indies, which could not give up scarce sugar-producing land to grow food, became the principal source of the region’s prosperity. Most of the middle colonies, on the other hand, were characterized by religious and ethnic diversity. New Netherland was settled by the Dutch as a commercial company to supply furs for Europe and food for Brazil, which the Dutch ruled from 1630 to 1654. Like heavily Dutch northern New Jersey, profit was the motive. Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, however, were

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planned by Quakers, a religious sect devoted to toleration and pacifism. Joining them were large numbers of Germans, a few belonging to pacifist sects such as the Moravians and Amish, but most were Lutheran or Reformed (Calvinist). Most immigrants to the British colonies after the initial period of settlement came to Pennsylvania, the gateway to the backcountry. New England filled up quickly and was intolerant, and the best land in the southern low country belonged to plantation owners. Furthermore, the soil of the middle colonies was richer and the growing season longer than in New England; prosperity here came through grain rather than fish. Wheat was milled along dozens of streams and rivers and sent to the West Indies. As with New England, the middle colonies were only able to move beyond subsistence farming because the slaves of the West Indies needed to eat.

A NEW WORLD OF POLITICS No one intended that British North America, alone of any region in the world at the time, would enjoy self-government by a majority of adult (white) men. After diverse initial experiments, the colonies’ governments came to be modeled on the king, lords, and commons that collectively comprised the British Parliament. In the colonies, a governor stood in for the king, a council for the lords, and an assembly for the commons. As in Britain, each could vote down laws passed by the others. The U.S. president, Senate, and House of Representatives today follow the same model, as do our state governments, although the president’s and governors’ vetoes can now be overridden. Britons and British Americans both equated this form of government with the special freedom that they believed only Britons enjoyed. Legislatures representing aristocrats, towns, the clergy, and ordinary folk had been abolished in the other leading nations of Europe in the age of absolute monarchy. Only Britain kept the “mixed government” lauded by Greek philosopher Aristotle in The Politics as the best form; unchecked monarchy would lead to tyranny, unchecked aristocracy to exploitation by the rich, and unchecked democracy to anarchy, but mixed together as “the three negatives,” which they were frequently called, the advantages of each could be preserved—the monarch’s ability to act decisively, the wisdom of an elite, and the desire of the majority to guard its own interests. However, in the colonies, there was no aristocracy. Neither the elite, simply those who had more property and influence than other people, nor the governor, appointed by the crown or (in Pennsylvania and Maryland) by the proprietor, had the prestige of the monarch or aristocracy. Unlike the king, the governor did not have at his disposal a large number of profitable offices

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to which he could appoint influential members of the legislature or their relations. This enabled the crown to work in harmony with Parliament during most of the colonial period. On the other hand, by the mid-18th century, a majority (frequently three-fourths or more) of adult white males could meet the standard British qualification for voting, about 40 pounds of property, as opposed to a small minority in the mother country.12 Combined with the fact that the assembly had the power of the purse, especially the right to decide what salary the governor would receive, the colonial assemblies became the dominant branch of the legislatures. This was not intended to be democracy, but it was becoming a fair approximation. A political ideology arose in the colonies to fit the rise of the assembly. The executive always had to be watched with great care by the representatives. Otherwise he would be prone to tyranny, like the English rulers Charles I and James II and just about every monarch of Europe who had no assembly to check him. The people and their representatives had to preserve their civic virtue, their unwillingness to be seduced by government jobs or special deals, and be devoted to their country and its liberty. The ideas of a limited government, and good citizen participation, both stronger in the United States than in most countries of the world, had colonial roots. Accompanying widespread political participation in the colonies was a growth in what historians call “the public sphere.” Newspapers and pamphlets, as well as coffeehouses, taverns, and inns where they were read and discussed, gave people access to information apart from government and clerical pronouncements. Participation was voluntary, as it was in the voluntary associations that people formed to solve problems the government did not. Elsewhere, the clergy, professional guilds, or the ruler would undertake worthwhile projects, suspecting the independent action of ordinary people as possibly tending to rebellion. But America had no church hierarchy or guilds, and only a weak governor with no other source of revenue than his constituents. Benjamin Franklin is most famous for beginning these associations, such as the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first lending library in the colonies; a fire society; and a voluntary defense force when the Quaker government would not act. But he was only the most prominent of many. To be sure, as we do today, colonials elected to office wealthy people of wide experience with the leisure and money to devote to politics. Usually there was a community of economic interest among the classes in a given constituency. The main political quarrels were between different regions, religions, or simply families contending for control. But as fiercely contested elections in a few places showed—in the towns of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—the voters could remove unpopular representatives if they so desired.

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A NEW ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL WORLD Just as colonial politics proved far more uncontrollable than the British expected, so did the colonial economy. Beginning in the 1650s in New England, the 1660s in New York, the 1670s in New Jersey, and the 1680s in Pennsylvania, the northern colonies prospered because they ignored the British Acts of Trade and Navigation requiring them to sell their grain and fish only to the British West Indies, and only to import goods from Britain rather than the European continent. Had the laws been enforced, the predominant economic theory of the age, known as mercantilism, would have become reality. The point was to maximize the amount of gold and silver in the mother country; if it did not have mines, it then sought crops (such as sugar and tobacco) that other nations craved and for which they would pay good money. This was not simply designed to maximize the profits of those in Europe at the expense of the colonies; self-defense and the ability to survive in a world of nations required countries to pay for an army and navy. Countries without money would find themselves helpless before their enemies. Nevertheless, the colonies brought wealth to Britain not through obeying the rules of mercantilism, but through something approximating what would later be called free trade. Adam Smith realized this in The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, which used many examples from the colonies. The colonies could make more money getting the best price for their grain and fish if the Dutch, Spanish, French, and British sugar islands competed. They could then use the extra profits either to produce more rum, buy more slaves, or buy more goods from England. These they would not only consume themselves but import into the southern and West Indies colonies, which did not have their own merchant fleets. Thus the northern colonies not only created more wealth by handling different countries’ trade; they built a good deal of the merchant marine of the British Empire, the “nursery of seamen” that manned the navy as well as the commercial fleet. The colonies knew this. As Jeremiah Dummer, agent for Massachusetts, argued in his 1721 Defence of the New England Charters, “London has arisen out of the plantations, and not out of England. ’Tis to them we owe our vast fleets of merchant ships, and consequently the increase of our seamen, and improvement of our navigation. ’Tis their tobacco, sugar, fish, logwood, and other commodities which have enabled us to . . . make the figure we do at present.”13 Further, since the colonies had to send almost all their gold and silver to England or Europe to pay for imports, they became comfortable dealing in a world of paper money and extensive credit similar to that of today. To create currency for local expenses, colonies would issue notes stating they were

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payable in taxes in a certain year; then people would have to acquire the notes in order to pay their taxes. And since merchants and shopkeepers who bought fish, food, grain, and other commodities—the colonies had become major producers of iron, timber, tar, pitch, turpentine, rice, and indigo by 1750—did not always have cash or desirable goods on hand, they would issue bills of credit that obtained their value from the merchants’ reputations. As the colonial merchants were linked to British merchant houses that supplied them, they too would do business on credit. Elaborate chains of credit and debt stretched from the frontiers of America to England and east to India. Paradoxically, while nowhere else in the world did so many people participate in a complicated economy of multiple currencies and credit arrangements, simplicity was another major feature of colonial economic and social life. At the bottom were the poor (usually a small number), slaves (ranging from almost none in New England to over three-quarters of the population in low-country South Carolina), indentured servants, immigrants, and tenants. Then came the farmers who owned their own property, fishermen who owned their own boats, and the artisans and shopkeepers who operated their own establishments. At the top were merchants in the North and plantation owners in the South. Manufacturing was limited to a few industries—iron and related industries such as making guns, especially in the middle colonies; logging; and shipbuilding. The professions—clergy, physicians, and (late in the colonial era) lawyers—were also members of the elite. But neither a military, a strong clergy, merchant or craft guilds, nor a powerful royal court, all of which had many gradations of status, existed as in Europe. Most occupations in early America were dedicated to supporting the farming economy in which nearly all the population participated. Artisans made farm implements; shipbuilders and merchants carried them to market. Millers processed grain into flour; distillers processed molasses into rum. Cities would have been small European market towns—Philadelphia with 30,000 people on the eve of the Revolution, New York with 20,000, and Boston with 15,000, were the largest cities in British North America. Then came Charleston, South Carolina (12,000), and Newport, Rhode Island (10,000), followed by a number of places with 3,000 to 5,000 people.14 These were the secondary market towns, usually a day’s journey or more from the ports, where farmers in the backcountry could rest on their way to the cities or exchange products with shopkeepers. Thus the colonies paved the way for the American ideal of the virtuous, independent farmer as the backbone of a free society, notably in the writings of Thomas Jefferson—who, of course, was totally dependent on his slaves for producing his crop and on merchants for selling it at a profit. This new society was largely middle class, where for the most part poor whites who worked diligently did not stay poor for long. American society

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was a new phenomenon, in that both the very rich who ruled in Europe and the very poor who were omnipresent did not exist. For example, no house in early America had more than a dozen fireplaces, whereas the great houses of England had over a hundred. At the same time, except during the initial settlement period of some of the colonies, starvation and beggary were unknown. Even the poor, who were defined officially as those who could not support themselves, could partake of the plentiful, cheap food supplies. While there were always indentured servants, slaves, and tenants arriving to work on plantations, by the 18th century, most white families owned their own farms or shops and could be termed middle class. The main effect of this novel, flourishing economy was that people lived, thrived, and multiplied as never before in history. Women had, on average, six children, most of whom survived.15 Benjamin Franklin noticed this as early as 1751 in his famous essay Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind: “Thus there are supposed to be now upwards of one million English Souls in North America (though ’tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over sea). . . . This million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another century be more than the people of England, and the greatest number of Englishmen will be on this Side the water. What an accession of power to the British Empire by sea as well as land! What increase of trade and navigation! What numbers of ships and seamen!” As Franklin’s words revealed, his British patriotism was inseparable from his sense of American destiny. As with Jeremiah Dummer, he had no doubt that Britain had become dependent on its colonies, rather than the other way around.

A NEW RELIGIOUS WORLD If anything, Britain encouraged colonial religious dissent. This was untrue of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese territories, where Roman Catholicism was the only worship permitted. King James I’s famous statement that he would “harry them out of the land” with respect to the Puritans was considered by them as a great opportunity to present a model society to the entire world. In fact, the Puritans were much better able to keep religious dissenters under control—as with Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, by harrying them out of the land as well—than the Church of England in those colonies where it was established. Establishment meant everyone had to pay taxes to the established church even if they did not worship in it. Rhode Island, Delaware, and Pennsylvania never had an established church; in the other New England colonies, Congregationalism (Puritanism) was established, while New York, New Jersey, and the southern colonies were Anglican. The problem there was

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a shortage of Anglican priests, all of whom had to be ordained in England, and the reluctance of those priests to move to the colonies. Further, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, the Carolinas, Delaware, and Pennsylvania embraced religious toleration from the first. Colonial New York, in fact, was the only place on earth besides Holland where Jews could vote and hold public office. Nevertheless, in most communities until a phenomenon known as the Great Awakening swept the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, most colonial religious practice would have been familiar to people in Europe. A minister preached to a congregation that attended a particular church regularly; most ministers were renowned, if at all, for kindness and diligence rather than charisma. The fervor of the early settlers died out as many of the leading Quaker families of Pennsylvania and Puritan families of Massachusetts joined the Church of England because it was socially more respectable and morally less rigorous. The Great Awakening changed that. In 1739, George Whitefield, an English evangelist, toured the colonies speaking to up to 20,000 people who came great distances to hear him. His powerful speaking undercut many local ministers and encouraged people to select which preacher they would hear, thus marking the beginnings of the voluntary church that characterizes the United States to this day. Furthermore, the Awakening subverted local social hierarchies. The poor, women, and blacks who demonstrated saving faith gained a status denied to unconverted members of the elite, many of whom denounced the Awakening as consisting of people deluded by their own emotions. The Baptist and Methodist churches began their American careers at this time, rising to become the most numerous in the new nation. Also, as King George’s War broke out in 1744, the old idea of the colonies as God’s chosen people resurfaced, providing continuity between the old Puritans and the recasting of this sense of destiny during the American Revolution.

COLONIAL WARS, CRISES, AND THE COMING OF THE REVOLUTION By the 1750s, the colonies’ greatest blessings—prosperity, population growth, and personal freedom—turned into their worst curse. Men had been accustomed to obtaining land for all their male children, an opportunity available nowhere else in the world. This land hunger was fueled further by a famine in Northern Ireland in the 1740s. It sent thousands of Ulster Scots to Philadelphia, where they headed to what is now western Pennsylvania as the land in the east was taken. There they encountered Indians who had been

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bought out and moved west in Pennsylvania’s peaceful policy of expansion, with their new homelands guaranteed. At the same time, Virginians and French Canadians were moving into the same region. The clash of these four peoples in the early 1750s provoked the French and Indian War in 1754. Also known as the “Great War for the Empire,” this struggle differed from earlier conflicts. These had either been regional affairs against Indians (the Pequot War and King Philip’s War in New England; the Yamasee War in South Carolina) or European wars where the French, Spanish, and English commanded their colonies to begin hostilities because of European issues— King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, and King George’s War. These very names indicate that the wars began in the colonies to support the sovereign. But the very name “French and Indian War” tells a different story—for once, the British decided to make a frontier skirmish on the edge of its empire the reason for an international conflict. Between 1755 and 1759, the British sent thousands of soldiers to the colonies annually, finally driving the French from Canada. While removing the French menace from colonial borders, the new interest the imperial government showed in its mainland colonies proved a mixed blessing. British generals were angered by the poor showing of colonial soldiers in the campaigns against Canada, the unwillingness of colonial cities to quarter thousands of young soldiers with nothing to do over the winter, and the refusal of colonial merchants to cease trading with the French and Spanish as they had in peacetime. At the same time, the colonies raised over 20,000 soldiers on their own and handled nearly all the defense of the frontiers located closest to the main areas of colonial population.16 They spent large sums of money—so much that the British reimbursed them over a million pounds for what they called “extraordinary” expenses.17 And they found the arrogance and elitism of British officers appalling. Both the colonies and Britain emerged from their great victory in 1763 with a new sense of empire. But these were vastly different. The colonies looked forward to an expanding frontier and continuation of their astonishing growth as roughly equal partners with the mother country. Britain saw militarily incompetent colonies, disloyal traders with the enemy (and thus traitors), and thoughtless provokers of Indian wars by their unregulated movement into the west. The war defeated the French, but not the Indians, as proven by the Creek War in the South and Pontiac’s War in the North that broke out in the early 1760s. The British looked forward with dismay to an unending series of costly Indian wars in which they would have to protect colonists only too willing to disrupt the peace to acquire land. British colonial policy in the 1760s thus attempted to provide solutions to problems raised during the French and Indian War. The Proclamation of 1763

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INTRODUCTION

forbidding settlement west of the Appalachians hoped to forestall the sort of conflict that had provoked the war in the first place. Effectively regulating colonial trade was an appealing idea because colonial food shipments had prevented enemy islands in the West Indies from being starved into surrender. Taxation would not go to pay off the war debt; the British realized that was too huge and hopeless. But they thought the colonies could at least pay taxes for their own defense, the purpose of the Stamp, Townshend, and Tea acts of 1765–1770. In regulating the colonies more stringently, the British were participating in a European-wide trend known as “enlightened despotism,” whose chief exponents were Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Charles V of Spain. George III belonged to this group. The first English monarch since Queen Anne to be born in the country, learn its language well, and take an interest in its government, he was determined to curtail local privileges and inconsistencies in the interests of efficiency and national unity. The colonists sometimes blamed British corruption for the new laws imposed on them, but they had it wrong: the real problem was a king, supported by his chief minister Lord North, who wanted to integrate them into a united empire. At the same time that Americans were quarreling with Britain, they began to suffer from other problems, also the result of expansion. As colonial population grew from roughly a million in 1750 to two million by 1770, border conflicts between New York and New Hampshire and Pennsylvania with Virginia and Connecticut (which claimed northern Pennsylvania) became violent. Backcountry settlers in the Carolinas clashed with the low-country elites that ran those colonies, resulting in the Regulator movements. Settlers moving into lands claimed by proprietors in New York and New Jersey refused to pay rents and rioted when collectors appeared. Colonial cities found themselves filled with war widows and demobilized veterans, especially Boston. Massachusetts had contributed the most men to the war and suffered the most from customs officers and a local elite disposed to cooperate with Britain once the war ended. Boston filled up with demobilized soldiers once the war was over, where they joined the inhabitants of a city in the midst of a postwar depression. They all found a helping hand in John Hancock, who put them to work, and political direction from his friend Samuel Adams, who directed their anger against the British government and its local representatives. By the time the Revolution broke out in 1775, the British American colonies had been building, on their own, a unique society for the past century and a half. Popular participation in government, general economic prosperity, religious freedom, free trade, and the world’s first sustained population explosion had all occurred in a region where British control had been nearly nonexistent. The American Revolution was conservative because the colo-

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nists wanted to preserve their way of life; the British were the ones seeking radical change. On the other hand, the reason the American Revolution was conservative is that American society was radical by contemporary standards, which is why the European powers regarded the American example as a threat to contaminate their own people throughout the 19th century. Perhaps the colonial period, and its relationship with the Revolution, is best summed up by an interview that historian Mellen Chamberlain conducted in 1842 with 91-year-old Levi Preston, veteran of the Battle of Concord. Asked why he turned out to fight, he first pointed out that he never read any of the political pamphlets, drank tea, or paid a tax to Britain: “Young man, what we meant in going after those Redcoats was simple. You see, we had always governed ourselves, we always intended to govern ourselves, and they didn’t mean that we should.”18

NOTES 1. “Columbus, Letter to Luis de Santangel,” online at http://www.ushistory.org/ documents/columbus.htm. 2. John Smith, Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New England, or Anywhere (Boston: W. Veazie, 1865), 19–20, online at Google Books. 3. “John Winthrop—City Upon a Hill,” online at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/ acad/intrel/winthrop.htm. 4. Alan Taylor, American Colonies (New York: Penguin, 2002), 50. 5. “Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography,” online at http://www2.hn.psu.edu/ faculty/jmanis/franklin/a_b_benf.pdf. 6. Mwesiga Barigu, “The African ‘Population Problem’: Situational versus Historical Perspectives,” 24, online at http://www.archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African% 20Journals/pdfs/Utafiti/vol9no2/aejp009002003.pdf. 7. David Eltis, “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 58 (2001): 45. 8. Ruth Danenhower Wilson, “Justifications of Slavery, Past and Present,” Phylon Quarterly 18 (1957): 407–412. 9. Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 131. 10. John M. Murrin, Beneficiaries of Catastrophe: The English Colonies in North America (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1991). 11. Murrin, Beneficiaries of Catastrophe. 12. Chilton Williamson, American Suffrage: From Property to Democracy, 1760– 1860 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960), 49. 13. Jeremiah Dummer, Defence of the New England Charters (London: J. Almon, 1765), 75, online at Google Books.

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14. Estimates vary. These are derived from Stella Sutherland, Population Distribution in Colonial America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 38, 86, 167, 254. 15. “The History of Private Life: Limiting Births in Early America,” Gilder Lehrman Institute website, online at http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/ limitingbirths.cfm. 16. Albert H. Smyth, ed., Benjamin Franklin, Works, vol. 4 (New York: Macmillan, 1906), 75, available online at Google Books. 17. Jack P. Greene, “The Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution: The Causal Connection Reconsidered,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 8 (1980): 85–105. 18. Mellen Chamberlain, John Adams: The Statesman of the American Revolution and Other Essays (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1889), 248–249, online at Google Books.

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A ABENAKI. The Indians who lived in northern New England, southeastern Quebec, and what became the maritime provinces of Canada were known as the Abenaki. They were divided into about 20 eastern (coastal) and western (Connecticut Valley) groups. In the 17th century, they probably lost about three-quarters of their preconquest population, an estimated 40,000 people, in multiple epidemics. They befriended the French in Quebec as Puritan settlers in Maine took over their lands. They struck back during King William’s War and devastated most of the towns in Maine between 1689 and 1692. Sporadic violence over the next three decades led Massachusetts’ lieutenantgovernor, William Dummer, to launch attacks against the Abenaki. In 1724, his forces destroyed Norridgewock, the main Abenaki town, and killed priest Sebastien Rale, the French missionary who served as their principal contact with Quebec. In 1725, another Massachusetts expedition commanded by John Lovewell defeated another Abenaki force, leading to the withdrawal of the Abenaki to Quebec, where they joined other Indians who had fled New England following King Philip’s War. ABERCROMBIE, JAMES (1706–23 APRIL 1781). A Scottish officer who was promoted to major general in 1757, Abercrombie is noted for his disastrous assault in 1758 on the French Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) in the French and Indian War. He lost 2,000 out of 15,000 men, being defeated by the Marquis de Montcalm and 3,500 well-entrenched troops. He left the service and sat in Parliament for the rest of his life. ABOLITION. See ANTISLAVERY; SLAVERY. ACADIA. Although first discovered in 1497 by John Cabot, who was sailing for the English, the French established their first colony at this site, with its capital at Port Royal, in 1604. The English claimed the territory as well, and a number of Scots erected a rival settlement called Nova Scotia in 1629. The French ceded their colony to the English in 1631. Expeditions from New England conquered Port Royal in 1690 and (after Acadia was returned to

17

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France in 1697) again in 1710. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) gave possession to the British. During the French and Indian War, the British feared the ethnically French majority and in 1755 deported 12,000 Acadians. Some were sent to other British colonies but most to Louisiana, then a Spanish colony, where “Acadians” turned into “Cajuns.” Since the 1990s, historians have compared this expulsion to contemporary instances of ethnic cleansing. Following the war, New Englanders began to move north into Nova Scotia, with its capital of Halifax, and they were joined by many loyalists at the end of the American Revolution. ACTS OF TRADE AND NAVIGATION. Usually referred to more simply as either the Navigation Acts or Acts of Trade, the term describes laws passed in 1651, 1660, and 1663 by England to regulate colonial trade. The 1651 act, which stipulated that ships from other European powers could not trade with the colonies, was nullified in 1660, as the earlier law had been passed under Oliver Cromwell. The new act provided that ships trading with the colonies had to have crews that were three-quarters English (British after the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707) and that the colonies’ most lucrative cash crops, such as sugar and tobacco, could be exported only to England. The 1663 act reconfirmed the 1651 provision that ships from other nations had to send goods intended for the colonies to England in order to be reshipped in English ships. Directed principally at the Dutch, the acts over the next century were principally designed to prevent the colonies from supplying the French and Spanish colonies in the West Indies with food and provisions. However, loose enforcement failed to prevent smuggling on a wide scale. Only following the French and Indian War did the British Empire attempt to enforce the laws stringently, which became a major cause of the American Revolution. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. AFRICAN AMERICANS. In this book, the term blacks is used rather than African Americans because the slave trade continued throughout the colonial era, which meant that many of the people sent to the American colonies were not Americanized; they still spoke African languages and followed African customs. AGENTS. The American colonies employed agents to represent their interests before the British government. Sometimes they were influential people in Britain, but more frequently they were colonists themselves. Frequently they were chosen only by the colonial assembly to protest unpopular governors. The most famous agents were Jeremiah Dummer of Massachusetts, who published his Defence of the New England Charters in 1721, and Benjamin Franklin, em-

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ployed by Pennsylvania beginning in 1757 but subsequently by several other colonies, thus becoming the “Voice of America” during the colonial crisis with England from 1764 until 1775. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. AGRICULTURE. Most early Americans were farmers. Fewer than 10 percent of the population lived in towns of more than 2,000 people. North of Maryland, most inhabitants practiced subsistence farming, growing crops such as squash, potatoes, and corn, along with raising animals such as pigs, chickens, and cows. Yet they also produced a surplus that enabled them to trade with merchants for imported goods such as housewares and clothing. The middle colonies shipped much of their grain to the West Indies, which found it cheaper to import food than to give up prime sugar-producing land to feed their overwhelmingly slave population. The New England colonies’ principal export to the West Indies was fish. There was much smuggling of foodstuffs, in exchange for molasses and sugar, into the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies in the West Indies given the lax enforcement of the Acts of Trade and Navigation. Mainland southern colonial exports were produced for the most part by black slave labor. Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina exported tobacco, nearly all of it to Great Britain. South Carolina and (to a small extent) Georgia grew rice, which could legally be sold to nations bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, South Carolina planters were the richest plantation owners of all the thirteen colonies. See also ECONOMY. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, PEACE OF. See KING GEORGE’S WAR. ALBANY. Originally the site of a French settlement, the town that became Albany, New York, began in 1540. In 1614, the Dutch rebuilt it as Fort Nassau, renamed Fort Orange in 1624, to conduct the fur trade with the Iroquois and other Indians. In 1654, the settlement and surrounding area were incorporated as Beverwyck. The name was changed to Albany in 1664 when the English conquered New Netherland. Albany grew from about 500 inhabitants in 1686 to 3,500 in the first federal census of 1790. Its main commercial life consisted of trading posts where local farmers exchanged agricultural products for imported goods and where trappers and Indians sold their furs. In wartime, it was an important supply depot for British troops invading Canada (Quebec) through the Champlain Valley. See also DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. ALBANY CONGRESS. Delegates from seven British colonies met from 19 June to 11 July 1754 in Albany, New York, to discuss selling land to

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the Indians and defense plans against French Canada. The Iroquois sold much of what is now Pennsylvania to that colony over the objections of the Delaware and other peoples who inhabited the region. As a result, these displaced groups would attack the Pennsylvania frontier in 1755 following the defeat of General Edward Braddock’s expedition to capture the French Fort Duquesne at the present site of Pittsburgh. Benjamin Franklin, supported by Thomas Hutchinson, also proposed what is known as the Albany Plan of Union at the conference. It provided that the colonial legislatures would choose representatives to a common American parliament, presided over by a British governor-general, that could levy taxes for imperial defense, especially the anticipated war with the French that broke out that year. But the colonial legislatures did not want to surrender the power of taxation, and the British imperial administration did not want to delegate this power to a colonial body. The failure of a united defense plan was one of the reasons that, in the 1760s, the British began to tax the colonies to provide for their military protection against the Indians.

The first political cartoon in early America: In 1754, Benjamin Franklin conceived and published “Join or Die” to urge the British colonies to unite against the French and Indians. Source: Library of Congress.

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ALBANY PLAN OF UNION. See ALBANY CONGRESS. ALCOHOL. The American colonies manufactured, consumed, and imported alcohol. Hard cider was the most frequent homemade drink; beer was not produced in large quantities until German immigrants arrived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Rum made from molasses imported from the West Indies was the most common form of hard liquor consumed at taverns and other houses licensed to sell liquor. Frequently widows were given these licenses to support themselves, hence the “widow” taverns found throughout the states that were then the thirteen colonies. Wine was primarily consumed by the upper classes, sherry, madeira, and port (in ascending order of potency) being the principal varieties, as in England. Colonials were generally tolerant of drinking: courts would not certify a criminal as drunk—usually a reason for acquittal or lighter punishment—if he could either stand up or find his way home. Toasts were frequently given at the taverns—which were the principal places for small groups of inhabitants to meet, as well as for travelers to spend the night—to popular local or imperial figures. Failure to participate in a toast or accept a drink was considered rude. Alcohol was sold in great quantity to the Indians, who frequently became addicted to it. ALGONQUINS. The Algonquins were a language group consisting of the various Indian peoples who lived in what are now middle and New England states and southern Canada (Quebec). They included the Abenaki, Delaware, Pequot, Munsee, Narragansett, and other groups. Their territory was bordered on the west and north by the Iroquois and Hurons. For the most part they lived in small communities and appear to have suffered catastrophic losses from epidemics before the first permanent Dutch and English settlers arrived in the 1620s. In 1663, Puritan minister John Eliot of Massachusetts published the first Bible in colonial British America in the Algonquin language for those Indians who remained in the several praying towns governed by the colonists. By the late 17th century, most Algonquins had been displaced into northern New England and Canada by European settlers and the Iroquois. In February 1690, Algonquin Indians joined with the French Canadians to destroy the New York town of Schenectady, killing about 60 people who could not escape to Albany. Today, about 11,000 Algonquins live in Canada. See also POWHATAN. ALIQUIPPA (?–23 DECEMBER 1754). A powerful leader of the Seneca branch of the Iroquois nation in what is now western Pennsylvania, Aliquippa negotiated with Conrad Weiser and George Washington during the French and Indian War. She was pro-British and was forced to flee after Washington was defeated at Fort Necessity in 1754. She died shortly thereafter.

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ALLEN, WILLIAM

ALLEN, WILLIAM (5 AUGUST 1704–6 SEPTEMBER 1780). Son of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, Allen studied law in England and served as chief justice of Pennsylvania from 1750 to 1774. He sponsored Pennsylvania painter Benjamin West’s first trip to Italy in 1760 and served as the grand master of the Freemasons of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania from 1747 to 1761. A principal leader of the political faction supporting the proprietary Penn family, he became a loyalist and left for England in 1774; but in 1779 he returned to Pennsylvania where he died. He planned and lived part-time in Allentown. ALMANACS. The most popular locally produced form of literature in the American colonies was annually published almanacs. The first colonial almanac was printed in Boston in 1687. The Astronomical Diary, or Almanack, printed by Nathaniel Ames, Jr. and Sr., of Dedham, Massachusetts, from 1726 to 1775, sold up to 60,000 copies annually; Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack, published in Philadelphia from 1733 to 1758, sold up to 10,000 in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and the West Indies. In addition to the weather and useful information such as tides, sunrise, sunset, and the location and dates of markets and fairs, almanacs included proverbs and scientific and practical essays on topics such as medicine and politics. The three Christopher Saurs of Germantown, Pennsylvania, published a German-language almanac. As they were usually hung by the fireplace and each month torn off as with modern calendars, almanacs did not usually survive, and no copies exist of many almanacs that had small circulations and only lasted a few years. AMHERST, SIR JEFFREY (29 JANUARY 1717–3 AUGUST 1797). The commander of the British forces that conquered Canada from the French between 1758 and 1760, Amherst took Louisbourg, the French fortress at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, in 1758. He then oversaw the forces of Generals John Forbes and James Wolfe that seized Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) and Quebec respectively in 1758 and 1759. Amherst next completed the conquest of Canada in 1760 when the last French army in North America surrendered to him at Montreal. Amherst changed the Indian policy of his predecessors: he had contempt for the Indians as warriors and did not wish to waste money supplying them with arms or presents such as clothing, alcohol, and blankets. He instructed Colonel Henry Bouquet, in charge of pacifying the Indians in the Ohio Valley in the early 1760s, to distribute blankets infected with smallpox to reduce the number of warriors he would face. Amherst’s policies were responsible in large measure for Pontiac’s War. Amherst was commander in chief of all the British armed forces during the American Revolution but did not come to America. See also FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.

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AMISH. A group of Pennsylvania Germans (or Dutch) who originally belonged to the Mennonites (or Church of the Brethren), the Amish broke off with the main branch and take their name from Jakob Ammann (c. 1670–c. 1730). As with all the Mennonites, they were pacifists who practiced adult baptism (Anabaptism) and simple living. They lived mostly in Switzerland and southern and western Germany before many migrated to Berks and then Lancaster counties in Pennsylvania in the early 18th century. The Amish followed stricter rules than most Mennonites, emphasizing communal harmony and conformity. Members who failed to observe the rules were shunned by the rest. Religious meetings were held in homes and communities and governed by older males; once married, men grew beards. Most Amish were, and are, farmers or craftsmen; they frown on more than an elementary education as leading to vanity and individualism and continue to speak Pennsylvania German. “Old Order” Amish continue to live without electricity or automobiles and wear plain clothes. Since the 1700s, they have moved to Ohio and central Pennsylvania and number about 200,000 in the early 21st century. See also BAPTISTS. ANDROS, SIR EDMUND (6 DECEMBER 1637–19 FEBRUARY 1714). An English soldier, Andros served as governor of New York, East Jersey, and West Jersey from 1674 to 1681, and then from 1686 to 1689 as governor of the newly formed Dominion of New England, which included Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, with New York and both parts of what became New Jersey added in 1688. His principal accomplishment was achieving peace with the Iroquois, extending the Covenant Chain that symbolized their friendship with the English. Andros was seized by the inhabitants of Boston, which was his capital, in 1689 when the colony learned that King James II, who had appointed him, was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution. Andros had ruled without the colonial assemblies, imprisoning those such as Reverend John Wise of Ipswich, Massachusetts, who refused to pay taxes and opposed his efforts to enforce the Acts of Trade and Navigation and support the Anglican Church, to which Andros belonged. Sent to England for trial, Andros was soon freed and appointed governor of Virginia by King William III, serving from 1692 to 1698. See also BLATHWAYT, WILLIAM; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. ANGLICAN CHURCH. Also known as the Church of England, and after the American Revolution as the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church was established in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, as it was in England. Establishment meant that the church was supported by taxation levied on all inhabitants

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whether they belonged to it or not. Depending on the colony and governor, efforts were sometimes made to prevent Dissenters, or non-Anglican Protestants, from holding services. Prominent Anglican churches were opened in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1689 (King’s Chapel) and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1695 (Christ Church, which when rebuilt was the tallest building in the colonies at 196 feet). Most Anglican congregations in colonies where the church was not established were supported by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Anglicans complained of a shortage of priests and tried, unsuccessfully, to have a bishop appointed for the American colonies so candidates would not have to travel to England to be ordained. In the northern colonies, Anglicans tended to be members of the elite, and the clergy were personally powerful within the congregations. In the South, the vestry of prominent parishioners tended to control religious matters rather than the clergy. See also ANGLICIZATION; RELIGION; TWO-PENNY ACT; WHITEFIELD, GEORGE. ANGLICIZATION. In the mid-18th century, many elite colonials began to favor the ways of the English aristocracy. They built elegantly furnished country houses in attractive settings outside of cities. Tory Row in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and mansions along the Schuylkill River in what is now Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, are the most prominent examples. They frequently left the Quaker and Congregational denominations for the Anglican faith, dressed elegantly, and sometimes sent their sons to England for an education and the European continent for a grand tour. Many of them became loyalists in the American Revolution. ANGLO-DUTCH WARS. The First Anglo-Dutch War occurred from 1652 to 1654. It was provoked by the first of the English Acts of Trade and Navigation in 1651, which stipulated that goods trading with the colonies had to be English and sent on English ships. Numerous Dutch vessels trading with the colonies were captured for violating this law, and hostilities broke out in 1652. After two years and several battles fought only on the sea, English protector Oliver Cromwell, upset that the two leading Protestant powers were weakening each other while Roman Catholic France and Spain menaced them both, made peace following a blockade of Holland that caused severe food shortages. The Dutch agreed to respect the Navigation Acts, but they did not. Under King Charles II, the Duke of York, later King James II, head of the English navy and the Royal Africa Company, hoped to advance his nation’s interests at the expense of the Dutch, who were weakened by internal factionalism. English ships began seizing Dutch vessels in 1664, the year that also

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saw the conquest of New Netherland and attacks on Dutch ports in Africa. War was declared in 1665, with France, Denmark, and Brandenburg (later Prussia) joining Holland against England and the German state of Munster. The Dutch lost the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665, an invasion of England during which their fleet was decimated, but in 1667 the Dutch sailed up the Thames River and attacked the English fleet at Medway. Fifteen ships were destroyed in the worst naval defeat in English history. The Peace of Breda, signed in 1667, allowed the English to keep New York while the Dutch retained control of the much more profitable sugar-producing colony of Surinam. The Third Anglo-Dutch War occurred between 1672 and 1674. Charles II having made peace with France, the two nations agreed to attack the Netherlands. England’s naval war was largely unsuccessful, New York being retaken by the Dutch in 1673. British public and elite opinion turned against the idea of an alliance with a Catholic power against a Protestant one. The war ended with New York restored to the English and Surinam remaining in Dutch hands. The Acts of Trade and Navigation, while still in effect and technically agreed to by the Dutch, continued to be widely violated by both the Dutch and the colonists. ANNE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND AND (AFTER 1707) GREAT BRITAIN (6 FEBRUARY 1655–1 AUGUST 1714). Daughter of King James II and sister of Queen Mary, she succeeded to the throne on the death of her brother-in-law William III in 1702. Her Tory sympathies led to the appointment of Joseph Dudley as governor of Massachusetts in the first year of her reign; upon her death, he was replaced. Anne’s ministers supported the war that bears her name, sending large forces to Massachusetts in futile efforts to assist that province in conquering Quebec. She was, however, an important voice for peace in ending Queen Anne’s War and the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713 when some of her advisers wanted to continue the struggle. The Act of Union uniting England and Scotland as the Kingdom of Great Britain occurred during her reign in 1707. See also ACADIA; BLATHWAYT, WILLIAM; CROWN; GEORGE I. ANTI-CATHOLICISM. Also known as anti-Popery, a virulent antiCatholicism was an important belief held by most colonials, nearly all of whom were Protestant. England was the leading Protestant power in Europe after Henry VIII repudiated Roman Catholicism in 1533, and the French and Spanish colonies were frequently at war with Britain and its empire. Fears that “Popery,” spread especially by the monastic Jesuit order, threatened both the religious and political liberty of the colonies was a powerful belief that defined English and American British national identity. The

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hierarchical aspects of the Anglican Church—bishops, priests appointed by the royal government, and masses—led Dissenters to consider Anglicanism “Popish” as well. See also MARYLAND; POPE’S DAY. ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY. See HUTCHINSON, ANNE. ANTISLAVERY. Opposition to slavery was rare in the American colonies. In 1688, three Germantown Quakers and their Lutheran leader Daniel Francis Pastorius penned the first antislavery petition in English North America. In 1701, Samuel Sewall of Massachusetts published the first antislavery pamphlet, The Selling of Joseph. The first consistent preachers against slavery were three Quakers, Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lay, and John Woolman, whose efforts persuaded the Philadelphia Quaker meeting in 1758 to condemn slavery. It was not until the American Revolution, in part because of British taunts that the Americans were depriving considerable numbers of people of the rights they claimed for themselves, that an antislavery movement began in the United States. See also BLACKS. APACHE. A group of several Indian tribes who moved into what is now the southwestern United States sometime after 1000 c.e., the Apache spoke an Athabaskan language, which links them to people in Canada and Alaska. They are divided into several groups: Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipans, Mescalero, Plains Apache, and Western Apache. The Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache, who lived mostly in the mountainous region of northern Mexico and southern New Mexico, were fiercely independent and were never defeated by the Spanish during the colonial era. ARCHITECTURE. Construction of buildings in early America followed regional patterns. New England houses were generally made of wood and usually fit the square, box “Cape Cod” style found in southern England; Dutch or German-style houses, frequently made of brick, with steep roofs and gables, were found in New York, New Jersey, and to a lesser extent in Pennsylvania. The log cabin familiar on the frontier derived from the Finns who settled New Sweden in the mid-1600s. Elite southern houses tended to be brick as well, although ordinary folk made do with wood. Beginning in the mid-18th century, well-to-do colonists built “Georgian” houses where symmetrical windows appeared in two-story houses on either side of a central doorway. Unlike earlier elite and lower-class houses, these would have living rooms and parlors. Few houses had more than three main bedrooms, one for the married couple, one for boys, and one for girls, with smaller bedrooms, frequently in attics, for servants. In New England, if more than one generation

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stayed on the same plot of land, smaller “add-on” houses abutted the main residence. Churches, except for the largest ones in the cities, resembled the small country churches of Europe, and public buildings were modeled after English (or in early New York, Dutch) town structures. See also ART; HARRISON, PETER. ARNOLD, BENEDICT (21 DECEMBER 1615–19 JUNE 1678). One of the original 13 settlers of Rhode Island, Arnold spoke the local Indian languages, served as an interpreter, and rose to be elected first governor of the colony under the royal charter of 1663. He served from 1663 to 1666, from 1669 to 1672, and from 1677 to 1678. He probably constructed the tower in Newport that is sometimes erroneously attributed to the Norsemen, and he was the great-grandfather of the revolutionary war general and traitor of the same name. ART. Consciously created art, as opposed to attractive household items produced for use, was a luxury in colonial America. Except for the elite, few people had their portraits painted. Many early portraits consisted of patterns for male and female bodies to which amateur artists added faces. In the 18th century, artists such as John Feke (who executed the first portrait of Benjamin Franklin), Gustavus Hesselius from Sweden (who painted excellent portraits of Indians), John Singleton Copley (portrait painter to Boston’s mid-18th-century elite), and Benjamin West (a Pennsylvanian who moved to England) practiced their trade. Family portraits, sometimes with dogs and servants, became characteristic of the elite by the mid-18th century, frequently with a house, ship, collection of books, or landscape to identify the source of the person’s wealth or fame. Some of the finest works were done by John Valentine Haidt, a Moravian whose The First Fruits depicts the peoples of several continents converted by the Moravians. Silversmiths—of whom Boston’s Paul Revere is the most famous—and goldsmiths did fine engraving work. The Warner House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, features the oldest mural in colonial British America; executed for Captain Archibald Macphaedris around 1716, it features Indian chiefs and settlers being attacked by a French eagle and saved by a British lion. See also ARCHITECTURE; WHITE, JOHN. ARTISANS. There were no large-scale factories in early America, and manufactured goods, if not imported, were made by mostly middle-class craftsmen, known as artisans, who specialized in items for local markets. Principal occupations were coopers, carpenters, wheelwrights, basket makers, blacksmiths, weavers, and shoemakers in both rural areas and towns, and

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milliners, cabinetmakers, apothecaries, printers, silversmiths, house wrights, rope makers, shipbuilders, and wig makers in towns. Young people learned crafts by being apprenticed to master craftsmen; they signed indentures which provided they would be clothed, fed, and taught the trade in return for their labor for a number of years. Most artisans could meet the property qualifications for voting, but only during the era of the American Revolution did artisans begin to engage in independent political action. Artisans lived, usually upstairs, in the shops where they worked. See also ECONOMY. ASSEMBLIES. Houses of representatives, also known as assemblies, existed in all British North American colonies by the end of the 17th century. As in England, their primary purpose was to vote money to the government in the form of taxes, and thus only property owners were represented. Except for a few cases of women property holders who voted in 18th-century Virginia and Maryland, only men aged twenty-one or older could vote. The voters were usually called freeholders and had to possess a minimum amount of property, either a landed estate that would rent for 40 shillings a year, or £40 of taxable property. Assemblies were elected annually in the New England colonies and Pennsylvania and Delaware, and every seven years (except if a new monarch ascended the throne) elsewhere, as was the case with Britain’s Parliament. Assemblies varied in size from about 20 members to over 200—one or two per town—in Massachusetts. Except in Connecticut and Rhode Island, assemblies could be called or dissolved at the discretion of the governor. Assemblies were one of the three branches of the colonial legislature—the other two being the governor and council—except in Pennsylvania, where there was only an advisory council. In most colonies, the assembly became the most powerful branch of the legislature by the mid-18th century because it had the power to vote funds for the government, including the governor’s salary. In Virginia, the assembly was called the House of Burgesses. See also DEFERENCE; POLITICS.

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B BACON’S REBELLION. The first major popular uprising in American history occurred in Virginia in 1676. Nathaniel Bacon, nephew of Governor William Berkeley, led frontier inhabitants first against Indians—most of them pacified—to obtain their land. When the governor attempted to keep the peace, Bacon’s forces marched on Jamestown, the colony’s capital. Bacon issued a “Declaration in the Name of the People” calling for expanded voting rights and war against the Indians, while also condemning a corrupt government. White indentured servants and black slaves joined together with the landless tenants who made up much of Virginia’s population. The rebels destroyed both Jamestown and Berkeley’s home of Green Spring. Bacon died during the rebellion at the age of 29, and with the arrival of ships and troops from England, Berkeley put down the insurrection, hanging 23 rebels. The governor, however, was soon recalled to London. Historians regard the rebellion as either a popular, democratic uprising, anticipating the American Revolution, or else foreshadowing the unrestrained warfare committed by frontier people on American Indians. BANKS. There were no banks as we know them today in colonial America, or anything comparable to the Bank of England, which accepted deposits or issued loans. Colonial land banks were proposed in Massachusetts in 1714 and 1740 and in Connecticut in 1732 where private subscribers would issue currency backed by the value of their lands. Connecticut’s bank was approved by the legislature but folded after three years. Massachusetts suffered severe inflation in the 1730s because its currency obtained its value by requiring inhabitants to acquire a certain amount to pay taxes in a given year, and the legislature failed to redeem it as scheduled. To remedy this situation, in 1740 about 1,200 subscribers mortgaged their estates to a land bank that in turn issued them currency they would circulate and repay at interest. Besides providing much needed circulating money, the bank would also cause the bankers’ real estate to rise in value. Unfortunately, the bank was not approved by Governor Jonathan Belcher, which meant it operated without a charter. In 1741 it was disallowed by the British Parliament, and many

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bankers were ruined, notably Samuel Adams, Sr., the father of revolutionary leader Samuel Adams. A rival scheme at the same time, the Silver Bank, was headed by Boston merchants who wanted a medium that would be useful for international as well as local trade. It sought to borrow silver in England and then repay it at interest, but this bank also fell under the general ban on private banks. Massachusetts continued to issue paper money, which suffered great inflation (about 10 to 1) during the 1740s because of expenses during King George’s War. Reimbursement for these expenses from England in 1749 became the basis of a silver-based currency, unique in the colonies, that kept its value until the Revolution. See also ECONOMY. BAPTISTS. At first known as Anabaptists, Baptists encompassed those Protestants who recognized only baptisms undertaken willingly by adults. They included the Mennonites and Amish, as well as individual ministers such as John Clarke and Roger Williams in Rhode Island. The first formal Baptist church in America from which the present denomination emerged was the Philadelphia Baptist Association, founded in 1707. The Baptists minimized religious ritual and stressed effective sermons and emotional conversions. Baptist preachers began to make significant headway in the 1760s following the French and Indian War, attracting large numbers of lower-class converts and people on the frontier. Isaac Backus (1724–1806) who became minister of the Baptist Church of Middleborough, Massachusetts, was the most prominent defender of the rights of Baptists to worship. In Massachusetts and Virginia, they were frequently arrested and punished for disturbing the peace when they held services or tried to convert others; some also were arrested for refusing to pay taxes to the established church. Most persecution ceased with the American Revolution, given both the increasing popularity of religious freedom and the need to recruit the Baptists for the cause. See also RELIGION. BARTRAM, JOHN (23 MARCH 1699–2 SEPTEMBER 1777) and WILLIAM BARTRAM (19 APRIL 1739–22 JULY 1823). The foremost naturalists in early America were John Bartram and his son William. Using his farm on the Schuylkill River just southwest of Philadelphia as a base, John made several journeys from Canada to Florida and as far west as the Ohio Valley, drawing and describing the animals, flowers, and plants, which he published. William joined him on these journeys and extended them into the southwest as far as the Mississippi River. John was appointed botanist to King George III in 1765 and was a founder of the American Philosophical Society in 1769. The Bartrams’ work acquired recognition throughout Europe, and their house and lands are preserved to this day. See also SCIENCE.

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BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. During the French and Indian War, on 8 September 1755, a French force headed by Baron Dieskau moving south from Lake George, New York, was defeated by colonial and Indian forces headed by Sir William Johnson. About 1,500 troops were engaged on each side. BEAVER WARS. From 1610, when Samuel de Champlain first assisted the Huron Indians in fighting their traditional enemies, the Iroquois, until the Great Peace of Montreal was signed in 1701, the Beaver Wars were fought between the Iroquois and their neighbors. Allied with the Dutch and English and supplied liberally with European weapons, the Iroquois were able to conquer their less powerful neighbors and take over their lands to obtain the beaver pelts the Europeans craved. The Hurons allied with the Susquehannocks who lived in southern Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland, but the Iroquois and English defeated the Susquehannocks, and they ceased to exist as a tribe by the late 1670s. The Hurons no longer could live south of French Canada. The Iroquois also used their European weapons to expand westward into the Ohio Valley at this time. The Great Peace meant the Iroquois would be neutral in Queen Anne’s War, but they sided with the British once again in the French and Indian War. BELCHER, JONATHAN (8 JANUARY 1682–31 AUGUST 1757). Son of Andrew Belcher, one of the wealthiest merchants in Massachusetts, Belcher obtained the governorship of Massachusetts in 1730 after he had traveled to Britain and convinced the Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state for the Southern Department, that he could obtain a fixed salary for the governor that would have made him less dependent on the assembly. Although he failed, he held the office until 1741 and successfully negotiated a boundary controversy between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He was removed because of the political machinations of his successor, William Shirley. Belcher returned to Britain where he obtained the appointment as governor of New Jersey in 1747, a post he held until his death. He was instrumental in founding the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, but again quarreled with the assembly over his salary. Also, his support of absentee proprietors trying to obtain rents from settlers led to land riots and added to his unpopularity. See also WENTWORTH FAMILY. BELLOMONT, RICHARD COOTE, EARL OF (1636–5 MARCH 1701). A Protestant Irish landowner who strongly supported King William III, Bellomont was appointed governor of Massachusetts in 1695 and governor of New York and the Jerseys in 1696. The crown also made him commander of

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the militia of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island in the hope he could mobilize a united front against the French in Canada. His efforts came to naught, however, as he could not reconcile the Leisler and antiLeisler factions in New York, and his campaign against piracy was unpopular with colonials throughout the region. See also BLATHWAYT, WILLIAM; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION; POLITICS. BENEZET, ANTHONY (31 JANUARY 1713–3 MAY 1784). Born in France, the Huguenot Benezet moved with his family to Holland, then to England, and in 1731 to Pennsylvania. He converted to the Quaker faith at an early age. A failure in his father’s profession as a merchant, he turned to educating those with few opportunities such as French refugees from Acadia, women (he established the first secondary school for girls in Pennsylvania), and blacks. He is most noted for his crusade to abolish slavery. Among his writings, A Short Account of That Part of Africa Inhabited by the Negroes (1762) questioned the prevailing belief that Africans had no civilization and were thus an inferior people. With John Woolman, he worked to persuade the Quaker meeting to condemn slavery and slaveholders, which happened in 1758, and to disown them, which finally happened in 1776. BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM (3 JULY 1606–9 JULY 1677). Governor of Virginia from 1641 to 1649 and again from 1660 to 1676, Berkeley achieved political stability in the troubled colony through conciliating the wealthy planters, who became known as the “Green Spring faction” after Berkeley’s estate. He was an ardent royalist, intolerant of religious dissenters, and was removed (although allowed to remain on his plantation) after the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The presence of large numbers of landless men and Berkeley’s conciliatory policy toward Indians on the frontier led to Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. Berkeley brutally suppressed the rebellion after Bacon’s death and was recalled to England to account for his administration. He died shortly after he arrived. BERNARD, SIR FRANCIS (JULY 1712–16 JUNE 1779). Son of an Anglican minister, Bernard became a lawyer and married a cousin of Viscount Barrington, a leading dissenter in Parliament who obtained for him the appointment as governor of New Jersey in 1758. Bernard successfully reconciled the political factions representing East and West Jersey and obtained considerable funds and forces for the French and Indian War. His record in New Jersey led to his appointment as governor of Massachusetts in 1760. There, he sided with Thomas Hutchinson, whom he appointed chief justice, and the supporters of imperial administration against the Otis family.

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Along with his determination to uphold British authority, his partisanship undid his good work in supporting Harvard College and motivating the province to support the war in its declining phase. He served until 1769, when he left the province and was replaced by Hutchinson. BLACK BOYS. Following the French and Indian War, frontier settlers in western Pennsylvania continued to fight Indians in Pontiac’s War. They discovered that the British army and Pennsylvania government were allowing trade with western Indians in the hope of pacifying them. Some merchants, however, included guns and knives in their shipments that could be used against the settlers. After meeting in 1765 at Mercersburg at the home of Justice of the Peace William Smith, the settlers went out, intercepted the shipments, and only allowed those without weapons to proceed. They painted their faces black and were thus known as the “Black Boys.” When the British at Fort Loudoun captured some participating settlers and permitted the goods to go through, the Black Boys in turn captured the fort, forcing the British to withdraw. This was the first confrontation between British troops and Americans following the French and Indian War in the years leading up to the American Revolution. BLACKBEARD (c. 1680–22 NOVEMBER 1718). The real name of the most colorful and notorious pirate in North American colonial waters was Edward Teach or Thatch. He only acquired his own ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, in 1717, when the previous captain was removed by the crew. In a little over a year, he blockaded the city of Charleston, South Carolina, and received a pardon from Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina, meanwhile continuing to capture other ships. Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia sent Lieutenant Robert Maynard to North Carolina to stop these depredations, and on 22 November 1718, Blackbeard was killed in a naval battle. Noted for his outrageous behavior—shooting his own men, burning matches in his beard—and great strength, images and legends of Blackbeard became more ferocious after his demise. BLACKS. Africans first came to Virginia, of the colonies that later became the United States, in 1619. They arrived from the West Indies. Early blacks were treated as indentured servants, but even at this time they were listed further down on tax lists than white servants, and almost all of them lacked last names, indicating that racial prejudice predated enslavement. Laws providing for the perpetual enslavement of the children of slave mothers, whether their fathers were white or black, came in the mid-17th century, by 1641 in Massachusetts, by 1660 in Virginia. Only about 2 percent of the population

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of the colonial South consisted of black slaves in the mid-17th century. The number rose as British trade with Africa increased and it became profitable to import slaves directly to the mainland rather than indirectly from the West Indies in the years after 1680. By the eve of the American Revolution, 60 percent of the people in the Chesapeake or Tidewater region of Virginia and Maryland were slaves, as were about 90 percent of low-country South Carolina. Small free black communities or mixed-race communities of poor people existed in Maryland, Delaware, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and the northern colonies. Most were tenant farmers or laborers, although a few owned land and slaves. Slavery also existed in the North, with the black population ranging from about 10 percent in New York and 8 percent in New Jersey to 2 percent elsewhere on the eve of the Revolution. Free blacks were frequently viewed as potential sources of violence and were subjected to curfews. See also ANTISLAVERY; NEW YORK CONSPIRACY OF 1712; NEW YORK CONSPIRACY OF 1741; SLAVE TRADE; SLAVERY; STONO REBELLION. BLATHWAYT, WILLIAM (1650–16 AUGUST 1717). An imperial official who was placed in charge of colonial affairs by King Charles II in 1676, Blathwayt was instrumental in the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1685 and the establishment of the Dominion of New England. He dominated British colonial policy in the last quarter of the 17th century. He favored the French method of colonial rule with strong governors who had military experience ruling large colonies without the benefit of assemblies, although he accepted these popular representative bodies after the Glorious Revolution. Sir Edmund Andros and the Earl of Bellomont were two of his appointees. He switched allegiance from King James II to William III in 1688 and became William’s secretary of war and the most important member of the Board of Trade, which was founded in 1696 to administer the colonies. He continued to favor strong military rulers in the colonies, a policy that lasted until he lost influence during the reign of Queen Anne. He was removed from the secretaryship in 1704 and the Board of Trade in 1707. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. BOARD OF TRADE. The first body with this name was appointed in 1621 by King James I as a committee of the royal privy council, and reconstituted in 1696 as the eight-man Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations by King William III. The board was charged with investigating the commerce of the colonies and the laws governing them. It reported to the crown and the royal ministers concerning colonial affairs and what measures needed to be taken to regulate them. For much of the time, however, its recommenda-

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tions that the colonies obey the Acts of Trade and Navigation were ignored, as influential members of Parliament were uninterested in colonial policy. The most influential members of the Board of Trade were William Blathwayt (served 1696–1707) and the Earl of Halifax (served 1748–1761), who were responsible for urging tighter imperial control of colonies that for the most part ran their own affairs under a policy known as salutary neglect. Blathwayt proposed stronger military governors for the colonies such as the Earl of Bellomont (governed 1698–1701) for New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Halifax was a leader in persuading the government to intervene on behalf of the colonies in the French and Indian War and to try to eliminate illegal trade in the early 1760s. After Halifax’s resignation, the board was moribund and finally dissolved in 1782. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. BOSOMWORTH, MARY. See MUSGROVE, MARY. BOSTON. Boston was (and remains) the capital of Massachusetts and the principal commercial city in New England. It was the center of trade between the farms and fisheries of the region and the West Indies and Great Britain. Its wealthiest citizens were merchants such as Thomas Hancock (1703–1764) and his nephew John (1737–1793) who sold local produce in exchange for molasses from the West Indies and imported goods (books, clothing, housewares, etc.) from Europe. Boston was also the intellectual center of Puritanism, the home of ministers John Cotton, Increase Mather, and Cotton Mather, three leading theologians. The most prominent of thirteen churches were the First Church (Old South) and Second Church (Old North), along with Anglican King’s Chapel. Boston reached its peak population of about 16,000 inhabitants in the early 1730s, a level that remained approximately constant until the American Revolution. High taxes, naval impressment, and the costs of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, King George’s War, and the French and Indian War led to America’s first urban crisis, with poverty increasing and productive inhabitants leaving town. Boston town politics, unlike in most rural areas, was issue oriented, with strong factions supporting or opposing royal authority led by men such as Thomas Hutchinson and Elisha Cooke, Jr. Cooke led the Boston Caucus, America’s first political machine, which turned out voters for the town meetings. BOUNDARY DISPUTES. The charters of many colonies overlapped or were imprecise, leading to boundary disputes with neighboring colonies. Nearly all of these involved either Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. Massachusetts disputed its southern boundary with Rhode Island, its northern boundary with

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New Hampshire, and its western boundary with New York. Connecticut claimed what is now northern Pennsylvania, Virginia claimed the southwestern corner of the colony, and Pennsylvania’s disputed border with Maryland was settled by the Mason-Dixon Line. New Hampshire also disputed its western border with New York: the land in question ultimately became the state of Vermont. See also RIOTS. BOUQUET, HENRY (1719?–2 SEPTEMBER 1765). A Swiss officer employed by the British army, Colonel Bouquet was an effective second-incommand of General John Forbes’s 1758 expedition across Pennsylvania, which ended in the French blowing up Fort Duquesne. After Pontiac’s War broke out in 1763 and the Indians threatened Pittsburgh, Bouquet led a force from Philadelphia that defeated the Indians on 5 August at the Battle of Bushy Run, thus ending an unbroken string of Indian victories that had captured several British forts. In October 1764, Bouquet, as commander of Fort Pitt, led an expedition into the Ohio Valley, successfully freeing about 200 white captives (some of whom did not want to return) by threatening to destroy Indian villages if they did not release them. At this time, he delivered blankets infected with smallpox to the Indians after he had discussed the matter with his commander, General Jeffrey Amherst. It was ironic that he himself died of yellow fever within days of his arrival as commander of the British forces in East Florida. BRADDOCK’S EXPEDITION. In 1755, about 1,400 British regular soldiers and 450 Virginia militia marched westward from Williamsburg, Virginia, to establish British, and Virginian, control over the eastern Ohio Valley by capturing the recently constructed French Fort Duquesne (later Pittsburgh). Commanded by General Edward Braddock (c. 1695–1755), the force was surprised by about 300 French and Indians who had left the fort; Braddock and about 900 of his men were killed, and the remainder were led back to Virginia by Colonel George Washington, the only officer who was not killed or wounded. Braddock’s loss was so great because he failed to scout adequately the mountainous territory through which he marched and because, once attacked, his troops attempted to form the square that British troops always formed in open-field combat, thus serving as easy targets for the enemy. When his advance party fell back, it collided with the second half of the army, producing chaos. No posts had been built along the way in case a retreat was necessary, a deficiency remedied when General John Forbes, embarking this time from Bedford, Pennsylvania, succeeded in approaching and forcing the French to abandon Fort Duquesne in 1758. See also FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. BRADFORD, WILLIAM (1590–9 MAY 1657). Elected governor of Plymouth Colony for 30 of the years from 1620 until his death, Bradford had a reli-

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gious experience at the age of 12 and left England for Holland with his fellow Separatists—or Pilgrims, as they became known—in 1609. He worked there as a weaver until a minority of the congregation, afraid that their children were adopting Dutch ways, obtained permission from King James I of England to sail to the New World. Bradford succeeded Governor John Carver, who along with half of the 102 original settlers, including Bradford’s wife, died during the first winter. His journal, known as Of Plymouth Plantation, tells the story of the colony and is an American classic. Among the episodes it treats are Captain Myles Standish’s role in defending the colony, the first Thanksgiving, and Bradford’s sorrow that the entire colony grew to the point that it could no longer remain one community. See also MAYFLOWER COMPACT. BRADSTREET, ANNE (c. 1612–16 SEPTEMBER 1672). The first important American poet and woman writer, Bradstreet was the daughter of Thomas Dudley and came with him to Massachusetts; both her father and her husband, Simon Bradstreet, governed the colony. Her brother-in-law John Woodbridge arranged to have her first poems published in 1647 in London, without her knowledge, as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up into America, by a Gentlewoman in such Parts. A second volume, Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, appeared in 1678 after her death. Her poems express her Puritan religious piety and her affection for her family; “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” and “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House” are among her best known works. See also LITERATURE. BRADSTREET, SIMON (FEBRUARY or MARCH 1603–27 MARCH 1697). Husband of poet Anne Bradstreet, Simon Bradstreet was a Puritan who migrated to Massachusetts in 1630. He served on the council for most of his life and as governor from 1679 to 1686 and from 1689 to 1692. A moderate who was willing to accommodate English rule, during his second term he effectively kept the peace among various factions while Massachusetts awaited the settlement of a new government from England following the deposition of Sir Edmund Andros as governor of the Dominion of New England. He was unable, however, to prevent Indian incursions during King William’s War or the outbreak of the Salem witch trials during his regime. BURNET, WILLIAM (MARCH 1688–7 SEPTEMBER 1729). Son of Bishop Gilbert Burnet of Salisbury, William Burnet governed New York and New Jersey from 1720 to 1727 and Massachusetts and New Hampshire from 1728 until his death. He took the part of the Livingston family in New York, earning the enmity of the Delanceys, and became unpopular for trying to curtail the fur trade between northern New York and Quebec. Upon moving to

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Massachusetts, his entire tenure was spent in an unsuccessful effort to obtain a regular salary to lessen the governor’s dependence on the assembly. He died following a carriage accident. BYRD, WILLIAM (28 MARCH 1674–26 AUGUST 1744). The son of a wealthy Virginia tobacco planter, Byrd was educated in England and Holland where he was trained as a lawyer. Upon his return to Virginia, he served on the council and was a leader of the defenders of colonial rights against the governor. He built an impressive mansion on his Westover estate, planned the city of Richmond, and owned probably the largest library—about 4,000 volumes—in the colonies. He is most noted for several literary works: The History of the Dividing Line, which zestfully tells of primitive culture on the frontier; A Journey to the Land of Eden; A Progress to the Mines; and, most notably, his Secret Diary. The diary contains confessions of his sexual affairs with his slaves, his harsh punishments of them, and yet his belief that he was loved as an Old Testament patriarch by his people.

William Byrd, who owned several hundred slaves, built Westover around 1730. It is one of the most elegant colonial mansions in Virginia. Source: Library of Congress.

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C CABEZA DE VACA, ALVAR NUNEZ (1500–c. 1555/1557). The first European to explore Texas extensively, Cabeza de Vaca was the treasurer of a 1528 Spanish expedition to Florida that became lost. He was one of four men who survived when the men attempted unsuccessfully to sail to Mexico. The shipwrecked Cabeza de Vaca spent eight years wandering among the Indians, first as a slave, then as a healer. He recounted his adventures in his Report, a classic of the Age of Exploration, after returning to Spain. It sympathetically described the many groups of Indians he encountered. Sent in 1540 as governor of the La Plata region (present-day Argentina and Uruguay) in South America, his attempt to establish a settlement at Buenos Aires failed. His partiality toward the Indians led other Spaniards to have him sent back to Spain in 1545. CABOT, JOHN (c. 1450–1499?). The first person under the English flag to undertake a voyage to North America, with royal sponsorship from Henry VII, Cabot followed in the footsteps of fishermen. Coming from the British Isles and the Basque region of Spain, they had fished in the Grand Banks and had almost certainly landed on the shores of Newfoundland or the mainland before Christopher Columbus. But their voyages did not attract official attention. Probably born in either Genoa or Venice, Giovanni Caboto lived in Venice before he moved to Spain and then Bristol, England’s second largest city and leading seaport. His first expedition (1497) never reached North America; the second, consisting of one ship (the Mathew) and 18 men, probably landed at or near Cape Breton Island at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. The crews of the five ships of his third voyage (1498) mutinied and returned quickly. Cabot received a royal pension until 1499, suggesting that he died that year. See also CABOT, SEBASTIAN. CABOT, SEBASTIAN (c. 1474–c. 1557). John Cabot’s son Sebastian may have undertaken one or more expeditions to America for England before 1508; from 1512 to 1548 he lived in Spain, commanding (from 1525 to 1530) a failed expedition to repeat Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage around the world.

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He spent the last years of his life in England, living in Bristol, making valued charts of newly discovered land. In 1555 he became head of the Muscovy Company, which handled England’s trade with Russia. His royal pension was not paid after 1557, probably the year he died. CADILLAC, ANTOINE LAUMET DE LAMOTHE (5 MARCH 1658– 15 OCTOBER 1730). A French explorer, Cadillac received a grant of land in Acadia in 1683 where he traded alcohol and furs with the Indians and engaged in privateering expeditions against the English. Cadillac moved to Quebec in 1690 after the English destroyed his home. He was appointed commander of the French post at Michilimackinac on Lake Superior in 1694 by Count Frontenac, and in 1701 he led a party of 100 settlers to establish a post at Detroit. In 1708 he was recalled to France following criticisms by Canadian officials of his tyrannical rule and illegal trading with the Indians and English. Nevertheless, he was appointed governor of Louisiana in 1713, where his quarrels with other officials and leading colonists led to his recall in 1716 and a brief imprisonment in the Bastille. He was soon freed and then retired to France. CALIFORNIA. Although Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explored San Diego Bay as early as 1542, the Spanish only took serious interest in the territory of Alta California (the present-day state) when Russian fur trappers began to move into the area of San Francisco Bay. In 1769, Father Junipero Serra founded the first of 21 missions that extended from San Diego northward along the Camino Real (royal road) to San Francisco and beyond. Each mission consisted, usually, of one or two Franciscan missionaries and a number of soldiers who protected it and made sure that surrounding Indians who converted did not run away. Indians were forced to live in the missions, were given Spanish names and blue uniforms, and were forced to labor against their will. They were beaten and in extreme cases executed for disobedience and running away. In 1775, they rebelled, burned down the mission at San Diego, and were brutally suppressed. Most of the estimated quarter-million precontact Indian population of California died from epidemics as a result of close proximity to Europeans in the missions. Besides the missions, sheep and cattle ranches where Indians worked on the estates of wealthy Mexicans were established. Only about 10,000 “Californios,” or Mexicans of Spanish descent, lived in California when the United States conquered it in the war with Mexico in 1846. CALVERT FAMILY OF MARYLAND. The Calverts were the proprietors of Maryland. George Calvert (1579–1632), the first Baron Baltimore, was a

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friend of King James I. He was a Roman Catholic, and he explored possible colonies in the New World for members of his religion. He was the proprietor of Avalon, the first permanent English settlement in Newfoundland, but aside from fishermen, few were interested in this northern territory. Calvert’s son Cecilius (1605–1675), second Lord Baltimore, became the first proprietor of the family’s second colonial venture, Maryland, and Cecilius’s son Leonard (1606–1647) was the first governor who served in the colony itself. Cecilius was succeeded by his son Charles (1637–1715), the third Lord Baltimore, who was followed by his grandson Charles (1699–1751), fifth Lord Baltimore, and then by his son Frederick Calvert (1731–1771), sixth Lord Baltimore. The proprietorship was being disputed between Frederick’s widow and his illegitimate son Henry Harford when the American Revolution broke out. CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM. See CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. CANADA. In the colonial era, Canada referred to the political entity of French (after 1763 British) Canada. Other territories that were ruled by the British before 1763 and are now part of the Dominion of Canada—Acadia (later Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Hudson’s Bay Company—were not considered part of Canada. Territories claimed by the French to the south, especially the Illinois country, which included much of the middle west of the United States, were also considered part of Canada. See CARTIER, JACQUES; CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL DE; FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR; FRENCH CANADIANS; FRENCH EMPIRE; FRONTENAC, COUNT; MONTCALM, MARQUIS DE; QUEBEC. CAPTIVITY NARRATIVES. A popular form of literature produced in early America, most captivity narratives were published in Massachusetts by Puritans who were captured either in King Philip’s War (1675–1676) or at the Deerfield raid in 1704. They detail the horrors of Indian attacks, difficult travels to new homes in Indian villages, the captives’ loyalty to Christianity and European culture, and finally redemption by the authorities. The most famous narratives were The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Together, with the Faithfulness of his Promises Displayed, Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), with a preface by Increase Mather, and John Williams’s The Redeemed Captive (1704). About 1,600 English inhabitants were captured by Indians between 1675 and 1763. CAROLINA. A colony granted to eight proprietors in 1663 by King Charles II, early settlement was located in two widely separated areas, one around Charleston and the other on Albemarle Sound near Virginia. Their

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inability to be governed from the same location led the colony to be separated into North Carolina and South Carolina in 1712. CARTER FAMILY OF VIRGINIA. Robert Carter (1663–1732) was the estate agent for Lord Fairfax, who owned substantial land in Northern Virginia. He accumulated for himself over 300,000 acres and about 1,000 slaves and was the most influential Virginian in politics during the early 18th century. Nicknamed “King” because of his wealth and importance, he built the impressive mansion Nomini Hall. He served as speaker of the assembly before joining the council in 1699, to which he belonged for the rest of his life. He was acting governor from 1726 to 1727. His son Landon Carter (1710–1778) constructed Sabine Hall, and as one of Virginia’s leading planters he became interested in scientific agriculture, writing essays that won him membership in the American Philosophical Society. He supported the rights of Virginians against the royal government and then the American Revolution, writing pamphlets and newspaper essays on behalf of colonial liberty. He is most noted for his journal, one of the finest accounts of 18thcentury southern family life, agriculture, and politics. CARTIER, JACQUES (31 DECEMBER 1491–1 SEPTEMBER 1557). A mariner from St. Malo in Brittany, Cartier undertook three voyages for King Francis I of France in 1534, 1535–1536, and 1541–1542, claiming Canada for that nation. He encountered Indian settlements at Stadacona (Quebec) and Hochelaga (Montreal), but he lost many of his men to illness during the cold winters and established no permanent settlement. He spent much of his time in a fruitless search for gold, but he brought the first specimens of corn (maize) back to Europe. CASAS, BARTOLOME DE LAS (NOVEMBER 1484–18 JULY 1566). Las Casas’s father and uncles accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to America in 1493, which interested him in the New World. He obtained money from them and went to Santo Domingo in 1502, where as a plantation owner he participated in the enslavement and exploitation of the Indians. Then in 1511 he heard a sermon by Father Antonio de Montesinos denouncing these practices. He next established a settlement in northern Venezuela where he attempted to treat Indians fairly, paying them wages for their work, but it was attacked both by other Indians and Spaniards. In 1523, Las Casas joined the Dominican monastic order and began to write and preach extensively against mistreatment of the Indians. In 1537, he successfully preached to, converted, and pacified the warlike Indians of Tuzulutlan in Guatemala.

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In 1542, Las Casas’s writings persuaded the king of Spain to outlaw encomiendas, or grants of labor service of Indians to Spaniards. In 1550 and 1551, he described the sophisticated Aztec and Maya cultures to argue successfully against the enslavement of Indians in a debate before King Charles V. Prominent scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda maintained that they fit Aristotle’s definition of uncivilized peoples who were slaves by nature. Spain’s enemies, especially the English, employed the examples of Spanish atrocities found in Las Casas’s writings to formulate “the Black Legend” that they used to justify their opposition to Spain in the New World. Las Casas’s most important works were The Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (published 1552) and the lengthier Apologetic History of the Indies, which remained unpublished until 1875. CATAWBA. An Indian people whose language resembled the Sioux, the Catawba probably moved from the Great Lakes region to the piedmont (foothills) of the Carolinas and western Virginia, where European settlers encountered them around 1700. They joined the coalition of Indians against South Carolina during the Yamasee War but made an alliance with the colony following the war, and thereafter they frequently fought on its behalf against other Indians. Smallpox epidemics in 1738 and 1759 thinned their numbers by more than half. Yet they maintained their own religion in the face of missionaries and successfully integrated European trade goods into an agricultural economy that also produced pottery for sale. The small number who survived supported the Americans in the Revolution, and they remain in possession of a small reservation in South Carolina. CATHOLICS. See ROMAN CATHOLICS. CATO’S LETTERS. These 144 articles were published by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon in the London Journal and later the British Journal between 1720 and 1723. They took their name from a champion of the Roman republic who preferred death to submission to Julius Caesar. Collected and reprinted several times in the 18th century, they were a major influence on the political thought of colonial Americans and in shaping the American Revolution. They argued that even the people’s own representatives, in Parliament, were subject to corruption from the crown. The letters interpreted history as the perpetual struggle of beleaguered liberty—which only survived where it was carefully protected by men who loved their country unselfishly—against the ever-threatening claws of despotic power. CAUCUS, BOSTON. See COOKE, ELISHA, JR.

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CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL DE (c. 1570–25 DECEMBER 1635). Known as the “Father of New France,” or Canada, Champlain was the son of a sailor who participated in several expeditions to America as a young man. In 1608, he founded the first permanent French settlement in North America at Quebec, and except for two interludes, 1613 to 1615 when he returned to France and 1629 to 1632 when the colony was conquered by the English, he governed it in fact although not in title. He sided with the Huron Indians in their long-standing feud with the Iroquois, thereby determining that the former would side with the French and the latter with the English until the end of the colonial era. He also encouraged the migration of the clergy to Canada, began to fortify it, and established the fur trade as a private enterprise. CHARLES I, KING OF ENGLAND (19 NOVEMBER 1600–30 JANUARY 1649). Son of King James I, Charles, who became king in 1625, was even more determined than his father to assert the rights of the crown and the Anglican Church as opposed to Parliament when faced with Puritan dissent. In 1629, he sanctioned the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Maryland, the former as he was glad to be rid of at least some Puritans, the latter because he was sympathetic toward Roman Catholics. The English Civil War, which broke out in 1640, caused some Puritans such as Sir Henry Vane to return to England to fight for Parliament against him. He was executed in 1649. See also CHARLES II; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. CHARLES II, KING OF ENGLAND (29 MAY 1630–6 FEBRUARY 1685). Son of King Charles I, he spent his youth in France following his father’s execution before he was brought back to England in 1660 by a consensus of the army, navy, and general population. He favored the French, received subsidies from King Louis XIV, and became a Roman Catholic on his deathbed. He was inclined to religious toleration as it favored England’s Catholic minority, an ideal that was written into the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina and established in Pennsylvania, two colonies founded during his reign. He was very interested in building up the empire and its navy, which his brother, the Duke of York and future King James II, headed. His forces conquered New Netherland from the Dutch during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, and later he followed the policies of William Blathwayt to govern the colonies more strictly. Massachusetts lost its original charter in 1685 under his rule, although he had confirmed that charter along with those of Connecticut and Rhode Island in the early 1660s. See also CROWN; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION.

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CHARLESTON. The capital of colonial South Carolina, Charleston was the fourth-largest city in colonial America with a population of about 12,000, about 7,000 of whom were slaves, on the eve of the American Revolution. It was founded in 1680 after a previous settlement a few miles north, begun in 1674, had failed. At the intersection of the Ashley and Cooper rivers on the Atlantic Ocean, it served as the hub of the slave, rice, and indigo trade of the colony. Many of the colony’s richest planters lived in the city in elegant mansions, some of which survive today, rather than on their plantations. Jews, Catholics, Huguenots, Anglicans, and Protestant Dissenters all established congregations in Charleston. Charleston is the site of the Dock Street Theater, the oldest in British North America, built in 1736 and still a functioning playhouse. CHAUNCY, CHARLES (1 JANUARY 1705–10 FEBRUARY 1787). Minister at the First Church of Boston, Massachusetts, from 1727 until his death, Chauncy is most famous as an opponent of Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening. His Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (1743) insisted that reason was a critical element in Christian belief, and that most people who claimed to have been “born again” were victims of deluded emotional experiences. Chauncy later wrote opposing an Anglican bishop for America, staunchly supported the American Revolution, and shortly before he died emerged as one of the first Unitarians and Universalists (believers in the salvation of all human beings) with his essay The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations (1784). CHEROKEE. An Indian people who lived in the Appalachian region of North and South Carolina, the Cherokee sided with the British against the Shawnee and Tuscarora between 1710 and 1715 during the Yamasee War; their victories led these tribes to move northward into Kentucky and Pennsylvania, respectively. They continued to fight the Creek (Muscogee) Indians until the French and Indian War. The Cherokee were estimated to have about 60 towns and 6,000 warriors before the smallpox epidemic of 1738 wiped out about half their number. The Cherokee at first sided with the British in the French and Indian War, but incursions from frontier settlers led to warfare between 1760 and 1762. The Cherokee were supposedly guaranteed their territory by the Proclamation of 1763, but incursions from the Carolinas and Georgia continued until the 1830s, culminating in the “Trail of Tears” and the expulsion of the Cherokees to what is now Oklahoma. CHILDREN. Regarded by colonial American Puritans and evangelicals as unredeemed sinners who needed to be severely, physically disciplined,

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children were supposed to obey parental authority unquestioningly. Quakers, however, began a new method of child rearing in which children were treated with affection, and discipline was accompanied by reason. By the mid-18th century, some families, especially those of the elite, began to treat children indulgently. In all cases, children were dressed as small adults once they ceased to wear baby gowns and were expected to assist in farming or shop chores. They were bound out as indentured servants if their parents wished them to follow a different occupation, and some parents did so in any case to avoid spoiling them with too much affection. See also EDUCATION. CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN. See MENNONITES. CHURCH OF ENGLAND. See ANGLICAN CHURCH. CLASSES. Colonials usually divided themselves into “better,” “middling,” and “lower” classes, with the terms “sort” or “order” being used as synonyms for class. There was no nobility in the colonies, except for occasional individuals such as Lord Fairfax in Virginia who had no special privileges. Prestige in a community, determined usually by a mixture of wealth and service in public or religious affairs, was the measure of a person’s status. The “poor” were usually defined as those who needed public assistance to support themselves, and except in rare instances—usually when colonies were first established—actual starvation or inability to acquire at least minimal food and clothing was rare. “Gentlemen” were those who did not earn a living with their hands, including merchants, plantation owners, government officials, and the more prestigious clergy, lawyers, and physicians. Thus, even a wealthy Benjamin Franklin could be excluded from the Philadelphia Dancing Assembly, as he worked as a printer. The proportions and distances between classes varied by place and time; in general, 50 to 75 percent of adult white males met the qualification for voting, that is owning property worth about 40 pounds sterling. Class divisions rarely led to class conflict; Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia and Leisler’s Rebellion in New York, for instance, are best understood as sectional and ethnic struggles, respectively. Class consciousness, however, was high; especially the “upper orders” feared that the lower orders might become a source of disorder. See also AGRICULTURE; ANGLICIZATION; ARTISANS; CLOTHING; POLITICS; POVERTY. CLASSIS. See REFORMED CHURCH. CLINTON, GEORGE (1686–10 JULY 1761). A naval officer who governed Newfoundland from 1731 to 1737, Clinton was appointed governor

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of New York in 1743 because of his important connections in England. He began by siding with the Delancey faction, but when they opposed New York’s entry into King George’s War, he turned to the Livingstons and Cadwallader Colden. He was instrumental in the appointment of Sir William Johnson as the Indian agent for the northern colonies, but his inability to persuade New York to support attacks on the French angered not only the British but the Iroquois as well. Clinton was replaced in 1753 after he failed to intervene in border disputes between New York and New Jersey. CLOTHING. In the colonial era, clothing was both functional and identified a person’s class. Gentlemen wore breeches, which came to about the knee, whereas working men wore trousers. Linen shirts were worn during the day and at night served as the only garment. Sometimes vests, jackets, and in cold weather greatcoats were worn over these. Gentlemen frequently wore ruffles, as it was considered vulgar to reveal parts of the body except the face and hands, including the neck. Sumptuary laws, forbidding people to dress above their station, were passed in the 17th century in many colonies but ceased to be enforced by the 18th. Stockings came up to the knee and were held up with garters. Beginning in the late 17th century, wigs, frequently powdered white by the mid-18th century to simulate old age and thus maturity and authority, were worn by the upper class. Upper-class men frequently shaved their heads to accommodate wigs. Women wore linen shifts as undergarments and as the sole garment at night. They frequently wore scarves or caps, and they wore stays (corsets) to support their busts. Gowns with one to four petticoats underneath were worn depending on the weather. Women wore capes rather than coats in cold weather. Shoes were uniform with no distinction of left or right. Blue dye and clothing were the most expensive and were a sign of wealth. Children dressed like their parents once out of baby clothes. Slave men usually wore simple linen trousers and a long shirt, while women sometimes wore a dress and shift. Slaves and servants would sometimes wear discarded clothes. CODDINGTON, WILLIAM (1686–10 JULY 1761). A Puritan who migrated to Massachusetts in 1630, Coddington supported Anne Hutchinson’s dissident religious movement. In 1639, he went to the territory that became Rhode Island and founded the town of Newport in 1639. He obtained a patent for an independent colony which he governed from 1651 to 1653, but he quarreled with Roger Williams, who wanted to unite Newport with Rhode Island. Following the royal charter of 1663 that incorporated the two colonies, Coddington acquiesced in the inevitable and served as governor of Rhode Island from 1674 to 1676 and again in 1678. He had become a

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Quaker, and thus a pacifist, by this time, but nevertheless he lent his colony’s support to the other New England colonies in King Philip’s War. COLDEN, CADWALLADER (7 FEBRUARY 1689–20 SEPTEMBER 1776). A Scotsman who graduated from the University of Edinburgh, Colden moved to Philadelphia in 1710 and New York in 1717. He was trained as a physician and was noted as an astronomer, natural scientist, mapmaker, and historian as well. His History of the Five Nations, the Iroquois was published in 1727. He became lieutenant-governor of New York in 1746 and served as acting governor from 1760 to 1761, 1763 to 1765, 1769 to 1770, and 1774 to 1775. Colden mistrusted both the Delancey and Livingston factions and the assembly’s efforts to obtain greater power at the expense of the royal prerogative. He became a staunch loyalist during the American Revolution. See also CLINTON, GEORGE. COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY. In 1693, the College of William and Mary was built in advance of Williamsburg, Virginia, the town soon established around it. The second-oldest college in the nation, its first permanent structure, the Christopher Wren Building, was designed by the famous British architect. It still retains the original walls despite three reconstructions of the interior and is the oldest college building in the nation. James Blair served as president from the beginning until his death in 1743. Thomas Jefferson and 16 signers of the Declaration of Independence attended the college. Originally, teachers had to be members of the Anglican Church, and the college curriculum included both undergraduate instruction and postgraduate preparation for ordination into the Anglican priesthood. See also EDUCATION. COLLEGES. Nine colleges opened in the colonies before the American Revolution: Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Congregational affiliation, was founded in 1636; William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, Anglican affiliation, in 1693; Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, Congregational affiliation, in 1701; the College of New Jersey, later Princeton, in New Jersey, Presbyterian affiliation, in 1746; the College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, later the University of Pennsylvania, nonsectarian but with a heavy Anglican influence, in 1749; King’s College, later Columbia University, in New York City, Anglican affiliation, in 1754; the College in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, later Brown University, in Providence, nonsectarian but with a heavy Baptist influence, in 1764; Queen’s College, later Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in New Brunswick, Dutch Reformed affiliation, in 1766; and Dartmouth College in Hanover, New

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Hampshire, Congregational affiliation, in 1769. Even at the end of the colonial era, under a thousand students, all men, were enrolled in colonial colleges at any given time. The primary purpose of most of the colleges was to prepare students for the ministry of their respective denominations, although by the mid-18th century most students were gentlemen who simply sought a general education or were those who hoped to become lawyers or physicians. The schools varied in their curricula, but all were based on the classic seven liberal arts: the trivium—grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (logic)—and the quadrivium— language, music, oratory, and logic. Most students entered between the ages of 14 and 16 and received a bachelor of arts degree after four years. Some colleges offered a master’s degree for an additional year or two of study and oral presentation of a thesis. Except for the college president, who usually taught the senior year, tutors, young men who subsequently went on to the ministry, handled the instruction. Class ranking was based on social standing rather than academic achievement. Discipline consisted of fines, decrease in class rank, or, in extreme cases, expulsion. Several academies (three of which were also called colleges) or grammar schools from the colonial era ultimately became full-fledged colleges: King William’s School in Annapolis, Maryland, nonsectarian, founded in 1696, became St. John’s College; the Free School in Newark, Delaware, nonsectarian, founded in 1743, became the University of Delaware; the Augusta Academy in Lexington, Virginia, nonsectarian, founded in 1749, became Washington College and then Washington and Lee University after the Civil War; the College of Charleston, in Charleston, South Carolina, Anglican affiliated, was founded in 1770; the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Academy, nonsectarian, begun in 1770, became the University of Pittsburgh; and Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, nonsectarian, was founded in 1773. Only the Moravians, a religious group that treated women as equal to men in nearly every respect, offered two educational institutions for women. The Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) Female Seminary, begun in 1742, became Moravian College, and the Little Girls’ School of Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina, founded in 1772, became Salem College. COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER (?–1506). The member a Genoese merchant family (this has been conclusively established), Columbus had traded with and visited England, Ireland, and Iceland, where he probably heard that there were western islands visited by fishermen. In the 1480s, he sought to obtain funding, first from Portugal, then from Castille (united with Aragon as Spain as of 1469), to find a route to Asia by sailing west. As Columbus greatly underestimated the size of the earth (which had been known since

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ancient times) and no educated person believed the world was flat, his early requests were rejected on the grounds that crews could not survive a voyage of the length he intended. But upon the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1492, Queen Isabella supported him. He made four voyages to the West Indies and the northern coast of South America in 1492, 1493–1494, 1498– 1500, and 1502–1504, always believing he had landed in Asia and that China and Japan were nearby. On his second voyage, he established the first permanent European settlement in the Western Hemisphere in Santo Domingo. Failure of the Indians to provide him with the extravagant quantity of gold he expected led him to treat them cruelly. He also quarreled with other Spanish officials sent to govern the new territories and was returned as a prisoner following this third voyage. COMANCHE. Originally inhabiting the northern Great Plains as part of the Shoshone Indians, the Comanche moved south to New Mexico and Texas in the 17th century when they acquired horses. In the 18th century, they were noted for their ferocity and frequently warred with the Spanish, Apache, and Pueblo in New Mexico, acquiring territory at their expense and remaining unconquered until the late 19th century. Their population was estimated at about 40,000. CONESTOGA WAGON. A large wagon first used by Mennonite settlers in Pennsylvania around 1750, Conestoga wagons were named for a valley near Lancaster. They were about 21 feet long, could carry up to 16,000 pounds, and were drawn by four to six horses. They were instrumental in enabling settlers from Pennsylvania to travel to the frontier and down the Great Wagon Road into the Shenandoah Valley to inhabit Virginia and the colonies to the south. CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. Congregational is the general name for Protestant churches in which the choice of the minister, deacons, and church governance rests with the male members of the congregation. In early America, the Congregational Church most frequently meant the Puritan churches of New England, which adopted the Cambridge Platform of 1648, confirming this self-government as their policy. However, disputes over who was sufficiently saintly to be admitted to the churches as full, voting members and other doctrinal issues led to efforts by Puritan ministers to set down guidelines and doctrines in synod. These, however, never received general acceptance. Today, most Congregational churches belong to the United Churches of Christ. See also CONNECTICUT; HALF-WAY COVENANT; MASSACHUSETTS; NEW HAVEN; RELIGION.

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CONNECTICUT. The first permanent English settlement in Connecticut was made at Saybrook in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut River, with John Winthrop, Jr., as governor. In 1644, it merged with three other settlements, Windsor (1633), Weathersfield (1634), and what became the capital, Hartford (1636). Hartford was founded by about a hundred Puritans from Massachusetts. Their leader, Thomas Hooker, the minister at Newtown, was dissatisfied that Massachusetts denied the right to vote to men who behaved well but were not full church members who had related their conversion experience. In 1639, the towns adopted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the first detailed document in America resembling a constitution—which is why Connecticut is known as the “Constitution State”—granting all free men the right to participate in the government. In 1662, Connecticut received a royal charter confirming these privileges, which granted it land extending to the Pacific Ocean and incorporating the colony of New Haven as part of it. Connecticut physically hid its charter in the “Charter Oak” tree in Hartford when Sir Edmund Andros arrived in 1687 to incorporate it into the Dominion of New England, and resisted again in 1693 when Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York arrived to establish royal control. The colony maintained its self-governance with an elected governor and council as well as an assembly until the end of the colonial period. Most people in Connecticut were subsistence farmers who sold their surplus to merchants in exchange for British goods. New London was the colony’s principal port, but Boston and New York handled much of its overseas commerce. Fishing was also an important occupation. Manufacturing of hats, processing of potash, shipbuilding, and distilling also occurred on a small scale. Connecticut’s population grew enormously, from about 26,000 in 1700 to 111,000 in 1750, to 183,000 in 1770, almost all from fertility, as there was little immigration. This meant that by the mid-18th century, land had become scarce. In 1664, New York’s territory was exempted from Connecticut’s grant of land to the Pacific. Connecticut continued to claim the land that is now northern Pennsylvania under its charter. In 1753, Connecticut organized the Susquehannah Company to settle that land, which led to the Yankee-Pennamite War with Pennsylvania beginning in 1769. In 1786, the U.S. Congress granted the land to Pennsylvania, but Connecticut settlers were allowed to keep their personal landholdings, the extent of which was also contested and led to further conflict. CONVERSION EXPERIENCE. To become members with full privileges of the early Puritan or Congregational churches in New England, people had to narrate a conversion experience. This related how they had come to experience Jesus Christ and obtain a sense of their salvation. Men had to

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speak before the congregation, whereas women were usually allowed to discuss their conversion in private with the minister. Until the Massachusetts royal charter of 1692 established a property qualification, only men who had related such an experience were eligible to vote and hold office in the town and colonial government. Access to land, although not limited to church members, was usually determined by them. Some Puritans believed that relating the conversion experience encouraged hypocrisy, as unlike in England—where being a Puritan could mean persecution—in New England it conveyed distinct advantages. Disagreement over the importance and nature of a public confession of a conversion experience was one reason the settlements at Hartford (led by Thomas Hooker), New Haven (John Davenport), and Rhode Island (Roger Williams) split off from Massachusetts. Many churches continued to require a conversion experience for full membership into the 18th century and beyond, however. See also HALF-WAY COVENANT; DECLENSION. CONVICTS. First sent to the American colonies under the Transportation Act passed in 1718 by Parliament, about 50,000 convicts arrived before the American Revolution, almost all of them to Maryland and Virginia. There they were sold as indentured servants, most of them for seven-year terms, although about a quarter had 14-year or life sentences. Nearly 90 percent were men. Most worked in the fields alongside black slaves, although others, especially those who knew skilled trades, did other work. Although Benjamin Franklin compared them to rattlesnakes, colonial planters found their labor useful and competitive with the more highly priced slaves in a labor-scarce economy. Georgia was founded in 1733 primarily as a settlement for British prisoners. After their terms were over, most convicts had to reindenture themselves or survive as tenant farmers or laborers, as they were not given freedom dues—payments of money, grants of land, or farm implements—upon the expiration of their terms. COODE’S REBELLION. When news of the Glorious Revolution in England reached North America, Maryland Protestants led by John Coode (c. 1648–1709) overthrew the proprietary government of the Calvert family, who were Roman Catholics, as was the ousted King James II. Coode had come to Maryland as an Anglican priest, but he renounced this calling and became a wealthy landowner and member of the Maryland assembly. He had already participated in a failed rebellion in 1681 and was briefly jailed. He headed 700 Marylanders who seized the capital, St. Mary’s; they were angry that the Calverts and the Catholic officials in Maryland did not recognize Protestant King William III, who replaced James II in 1688. Coode briefly

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ruled the colony until a royal governor arrived in 1691. Coode continued to oppose the new government, however; in 1699, he was convicted of blasphemy but pardoned. COOKE, ELISHA, JR. (20 DECEMBER 1678–24 AUGUST 1737). A Boston physician, Cooke led the opposition party in Massachusetts to the royal governor’s following the death of his father Elisha Cooke, Sr. (1637–1715). He founded the Boston “Caucus,” a political machine that ran candidates for town office and continued to organize local discontent until the American Revolution. He served as the province agent in Great Britain from 1724 to 1726, where he was unable to prevent issuance of an “Explanatory Charter” that affirmed the governor’s right to veto the speaker of the house of representatives and to decide when the assembly should be dismissed. He quarreled with governors Samuel Shute, William Burnet, and Jonathan Belcher, and struggled in his final years with Thomas Hutchinson for control of the Boston town meeting. COPLEY, JOHN SINGLETON (3 JULY 1738–9 SEPTEMBER 1815). The son of Boston tobacconists, Copley was the best portrait painter in early America. He was encouraged to paint by his stepfather Peter Pelham, who was an engraver. As a teenager, he painted mythological subjects, but he is most famous for his portraits of leading Bostonians, including Paul Revere and John Hancock. In 1774, Copley left for England, where he remained the rest of his life, painting historical, biblical, and mythological scenes in addition to portraits, many of those being of American loyalists who joined him in England. See also ART. CORNBURY, LORD (28 NOVEMBER 1661–31 MARCH 1723). Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, who later became the Earl of Clarendon and was a cousin of Queen Anne, served as governor of New York and New Jersey from 1701 to 1709. He was a firm foe of Dissenters and tried to stop Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed ministers from preaching. He was despised by the colonists for his extravagance and arbitrary ways, and some of them charged him with dressing as a woman, on the grounds that he more faithfully hoped thereby to “represent” the queen. Some modern historians dispute these charges, while others argue they might be true, as no other colonial governor, however obnoxious, was ever attacked in the same way. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION; POLITICS. CORONADO, FRANCISCO VASQUEZ DE (1510–22 SEPTEMBER 1554). A member of a wealthy Spanish family, Coronado came to Mexico in

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1535. In 1539, he led the expedition that conquered much of northwest Mexico. At this time, he heard stories of the Seven Cities of Cibola, golden cities located to the north. With an expedition of over 300 Spaniards and 1,300 Indians, he spent much of 1540 to 1542 searching what is now the southwestern United States for these cities, exploring much of New Mexico, Arizona, northern Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Only about 100 of his men returned, and he was bankrupted by having invested his fortune in the expedition. COSBY, WILLIAM (c. 1690–10 MARCH 1736). Thanks to his marriage to Grace Montague, sister of the Earl of Halifax and cousin of the Duke of Newcastle, Cosby governed the island of Minorca in the Mediterranean Sea from 1717 to 1727 and then became governor of New York in 1732. Cosby soon alienated New Yorkers by his boorish and greedy behavior, attempting to collect half the salary of lieutenant-governor Rip Van Dam, who had ruled before Cosby arrived. When Chief Justice Lewis Morris threw out Cosby’s case against Van Dam, Cosby dismissed Morris. The governor’s opponents, led by the Livingston family, began to sponsor John Peter Zenger’s New York Weekly Journal. Cosby died shortly after a jury acquitted Zenger of libeling him on the grounds that Zenger’s newspaper’s criticisms were not libelous but true. COTTON, JOHN (4 DECEMBER 1584–23 DECEMBER 1652). A leading Puritan in England who joined the initial migration to Massachusetts, Cotton was minister of the First Church of Boston, where he was favored by Anne Hutchinson and her followers. They believed that the other clerics in the colony only preached a gospel of “works” (that good behavior alone merited salvation) and lacked divine inspiration. Cotton turned against Hutchinson when she was put on trial, reconciled himself to the colony’s leadership, and opposed Roger Williams when he argued against limiting participation in government to members of a state-supported church. He is also noted for his religious works, especially Milk for Babes, the first children’s book published in British America, and for his sermon God’s Promise to His Plantation, which promised great rewards for Massachusetts if the settlers behaved righteously. COUNCIL. The council was the upper house of the colonial legislature in every colony except Pennsylvania, where it only fulfilled the council’s other principal function, to advise the governor. A council generally had between 12 and 30 members. In most colonies, it was officially appointed by the monarch, but in fact it was chosen by the privy council with the advice of the Board of Trade and other prominent colonials or officials, including

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the governor or (in the case of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania) proprietor. In early New England, the members of the council were called assistants. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, the council was elected by eligible male voters throughout the colony, as it was in Massachusetts until 1685; after 1691, it was chosen there each year by the outgoing council and incoming assembly, subject to the governor’s veto. Councilors tended to be wealthy inhabitants such as merchants or holders of large estates who commanded prestige among the general population. Prominent members of the assembly were frequently promoted to the council. Although designed to be an aristocratic counterweight to the more popular assemblies, much as the House of Lords was with respect to the House of Commons in Britain, in fact the council frequently took the assembly’s side against the governor in disputes. Its members did not represent a separate order—no aristocracy was recognized in the colonies—but was comprised of people similar to the representatives and frequently related to them. COVENANT CHAIN. In 1677, Sir Edmund Andros signed a peace treaty on behalf of Massachusetts and New York with the Iroquois; the following year, the Iroquois made peace with Maryland and Virginia on behalf of themselves and the Delaware Indians. The alliance between the Iroquois and the various English colonies was known as the Covenant Chain. Although it promised perpetual brotherhood and friendship, it was breached when the French made the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 with the Iroquois, who for the most part remained neutral in French and British conflicts for half a century. In 1753, the Iroquois declared the Covenant Chain broken, but the British were able to restore it during the French and Indian War, largely thanks to the efforts of Sir William Johnson. The Iroquois fought as allies of the British during that war and, for the most part, during the American Revolution. CRANSTON, SAMUEL (7 AUGUST 1659–26 APRIL 1727). A merchant and goldsmith, Cranston was enormously popular in Rhode Island, being elected governor annually by the entire eligible male population from 1698 until his death. He successfully concluded a boundary dispute with Connecticut and was able to raise troops and funds for Queen Anne’s War despite the colony’s largely Quaker population. He also preserved Rhode Island’s charter from British threats, granting it virtual self-government, by persuading the assembly to accept a royal customs office and vice-admiralty court. CRAVEN, CHARLES (1682–27 DECEMBER 1754). Governor of Carolina from 1712 to 1716, Craven successfully fought the Yamasee War in

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what became South Carolina. He did this by substituting a paid, professional force for the colonial militia. CRESAP’S WAR. John Cresap was a Maryland settler who established a ferry service across the Susquehanna River in 1730 in territory also claimed by Pennsylvania. For the next several years, Maryland militia and nonQuaker Pennsylvanians would evict each other from land disputed by the two colonies. The Pennsylvanians also allied with nearby Indians and claimed they had bought the land from them. When Cresap shot and killed a Pennsylvanian who came to arrest him in 1734, the governor of Maryland made him a captain in the Maryland militia rather than turning him over to Pennsylvania to be tried for murder. In 1738, the Penn and Calvert families signed a peace treaty declaring the boundary between the colonies 15 miles south of Philadelphia, which was surveyed beginning in 1763 as the MasonDixon Line. CRIME. Behavior that was considered criminal in early America varied greatly from colony to colony. In Puritan New England, violent crime was rare, but offenses such as pleasure walking on the Sabbath, gambling, gossiping, and showing physical affection to other people’s spouses were punished. In the 17th-century South, a male society with a large number of landless young men, violent crimes were common, and offenses that were considered serious in New England went unpunished. Indentured servants were frequently punished by adding one or more years to their terms of service. Pacifist Pennsylvania, with a weak structure of authority, had a higher crime rate than London, England, much of it committed by people who appeared on no other records and were vagrants or the poor. In nearly all cases and colonies, minor crimes such as drunkenness or disorderly conduct were handled without juries by justices of the peace. There were no colonial police forces; the justices were called to the scene of a crime by local residents, or miscreants were taken by members of the community before the justices. They in turn were empowered to call out people to handle a problem (the “hue and cry”). Fines (for the upper and middle class), whipping, and public humiliation (such as standing in a pillory or sitting in stocks) for the lower classes were the usual punishments. Serious crimes such as horse stealing, counterfeiting, highway robbery, piracy, smuggling, burglary, and actual or attempted murder were tried before either county courts or the colony’s superior (or supreme) court. Here a jury was present. Capital punishment could be inflicted for these crimes, as well as for sodomy and bestiality (which occurred rarely), except in Pennsylvania, where William Penn limited the death penalty to those convicted of murder and treason.

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The vast majority of court business, however, concerned suits for debt; debtors could be imprisoned until they, their friends, or their relatives paid a debt. The rationale was that only people with collateral could receive loans, and that debtors would sometimes withhold their resources unless compelled to produce them. Imprisonment was rare as a punishment, and jails were usually used to hold people awaiting trial. Lawyers only became common in the late colonial period after 1750. Colonials in general distrusted lawyers, thinking their use meant a case was weak, and referred to those who accepted cases without legal training contemptuously as “pettifoggers.” See also LEGAL SYSTEM. CROGHAN, GEORGE (?–31 AUGUST 1782). A fur trader and land speculator, Croghan came to Pennsylvania in about 1741 and achieved great success by living among the Indians, learning their languages, and appreciating their customs. He owned four warehouses in western Pennsylvania on the eve of the French and Indian War, during which he was ruined. Sir William Johnson appointed him deputy superintendent for Indian affairs for the Northern Department in 1756, an office he held until 1772. Croghan was involved in many treaty negotiations and the purchase of vast lands in the west for the English and colonists. He personally speculated in lands on a large scale, which, combined with losses in trade, led him to fall deeply in debt by the 1770s. In the last years of his life, he was supported by Barnard Gratz, a Jewish merchant, one of several with whom he had worked extensively. CROMWELL, OLIVER (25 APRIL 1599–3 SEPTEMBER 1658). Commander of the New Model Army that defeated King Charles I’s forces in the English Civil War, Cromwell became lord protector of England in 1653 with the army’s support after religious factionalism had paralyzed Parliament. Cromwell pursued an aggressive colonial policy, successfully concluding the First Anglo-Dutch War and capturing Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655. He believed in religious toleration and supported the Roman Catholic colony of Maryland against challenges from Puritans who lived there and wanted to take it over. He was succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell, a weak ruler who was unable to deal with increasing demand for the return of King Charles II, which occurred in 1660. CROWDS. See RIOTS. CROWN. The king or queen of England, referred to as the crown, was in theory the ruler of the American colonies, but except for Kings Charles II (ruled 1660–1685), James II (ruled 1685–1688), William III (ruled 1688–

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1702), and George III (ruled 1760–1820) paid little attention to the colonists. The monarch was advised by various officials: the Board of Trade, the privy council, the cabinet, and the prime minister after that position came into being in the 1720s. See also ANNE; CHARLES I; ELIZABETH I; GEORGE II; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. CULPEPER, THOMAS (1635–27 JANUARY 1689). Son of the first Lord Culpeper, who owned over five million acres of land in Virginia, in 1677 Culpeper was appointed governor of the colony to succeed William Berkeley. He had no desire to move to America, but in 1680 King Charles II required him to go. He at first was extremely popular, pardoning those involved in Bacon’s Rebellion, but he returned to England after only a few months. In his absence, riots broke out because tobacco prices were falling and disgruntled inhabitants were destroying the crops to cause them to rise again. In 1682, the king insisted that he again return to Virginia, where he hanged some of the rioters, unilaterally raised tobacco prices, and tried to rule without the assembly. He left the colony in 1683 and was put on trial in Britain for leaving his post a second time without permission. He had the charges dropped in return for giving the crown most of his property in Virginia, and he lived the rest of his life on the income from his large English estates. CULPEPER’S REBELLION. In 1677, colonists in the Albemarle Sound region of Carolina, later North Carolina, replaced Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Miller with John Culpeper, who ruled until 1679. Miller was imprisoned for collecting unpopular taxes on tobacco, the region’s main export. Miller escaped after two years, and Culpeper went to England to argue his case. He was acquitted of treason despite Miller’s charges. CURRENCY. In the colonies, currency consisted of specie (gold and silver) and paper notes. Colonies only rarely had the means to issue their own specie currency, and when available used whatever sort (Spanish dollars, British pounds sterling, etc.) of specie they could obtain. Most gold and silver in the colonies was shipped, primarily to Britain, to pay for imported goods. Local exchanges were conducted almost exclusively using the paper money issued by each colony. This money was backed in various ways, in Virginia, by tobacco, but in most cases, by being redeemable for taxes in a year noted on the bills. Taxpayers had to acquire these bills to pay what they owed. Sometimes, however, colonies postponed redemption or allowed people to pay taxes with goods; this depreciated the value of paper money. Currency lost value especially dur-

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ing wartime, when colonial expenses rose greatly and the taxpaying base (of able-bodied men) was decreased through military service. Merchants also issued their own notes that could be exchanged for goods in their warehouses; if their reputations were good, these passed as currency from one hand to another. No colony’s currency was equal in value to pounds sterling by the 1760s. Britain attempted to curtail colonial issuance of paper money with the Paper Bills of Credit Act (or Currency Act) of 1764, but they continued to circulate, and even British governors admitted they were necessary for trade to prosper. See also BANKS; ECONOMY. CUSTOMS SERVICE. The British customs service developed over time to enforce the Acts of Trade and Navigation. Colonial governors were empowered to look into violations and appointed deputies to assist them. As many governors preferred retaining popularity and obtaining bribes from local merchants to the fees obtained from enforcing the law, the imperial administration appointed a variety of officials to look for illegal goods. Specific ports or an entire colony generally had one or more customs collectors, who chose tidewaiters (to board ships before they could land their cargoes) and landwaiters (to do so on land). Before the reorganization of the customs service in 1764, with the creation of American vice-admiralty courts, violators were frequently tried in colonial courts. There juries of their countrymen rarely convicted them, as smuggling of goods to and from foreign ports benefited the local economy. See also LEGAL SYSTEM; TRADE; WRITS OF ASSISTANCE.

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D DAVENPORT, JOHN (APRIL 1597–15 MARCH 1670). A Puritan clergyman in London, England, Davenport came to Boston in 1637. The following year he founded the New Haven Colony. Davenport thought the Massachusetts Puritans were too morally lax, and New Haven became the most rigid of the Puritan colonies and the site of most of the pre-Salem witchcraft executions. Davenport was influential in advising Governor Theophilus Eaton to draw up the “Blue Laws,” which among other things made adultery punishable by death and forbade running, cooking, or housecleaning on the Sabbath. Davenport was a strong opponent of the Half-Way Covenant, which permitted the baptism of children whose parents had yet to achieve full church membership through a conversion experience. He was also a noted preacher of jeremiads, which proclaimed that the second generation of Puritans had lost their sense of mission and deteriorated from the high standards maintained by their fathers. In 1669, following the incorporation of New Haven into Connecticut, he moved to Boston, where he died the following year. See also DECLENSION. DECLENSION. When by the 1660s the Second Coming of Christ had not occurred, and increasing numbers of second-generation Puritans were failing to undergo conversion experiences and acquire church membership, Puritan leaders began criticizing their society for its declension, or decline from the principles and piety of the first generation. Cotton Mather, Increase Mather, and John Davenport were among the leading critics, preaching sermons known as jeremiads. They also blamed troubles that arose, from royal attempts to take away the colonial charters to King Philip’s War, on the growing lack of piety. But the reverse may have been true. Scrupulous young Puritans did not want to be hypocrites and risk their souls by pretending to have received an infusion of the Holy Spirit when it did not occur. It had been easy to prove conversion in England as it could mean undergoing persecution, but in New England the Puritans were in control, and church membership had the advantages of voting and land ownership. In any case, most New Englanders remained loyal to the Congregational Church well into the 18th century. See also HALF-WAY COVENANT.

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DEERFIELD. The northwesternmost town in Massachusetts in the late 17th century, Deerfield was first settled in 1673 and for the next three years fought the Pocumtuck Indians to possess fertile land on the Connecticut River. Isolated from Massachusetts’ other towns, Deerfield was the victim of a surprise attack by about 50 French Canadians and 200 Indians on 29 February 1704 during Queen Anne’s War. Although 56 colonists were killed and 109 more were marched to captivity in Quebec, the town survived and continued to grow. Today, historic Deerfield is one of the best-maintained museum villages illustrating life in colonial America. DEFERENCE. An important, although not uncontested, theory of how the elite governed colonial America is that ordinary folk “deferred” to the judgment of those with more wealth and education, trusted their judgment to handle political and religious affairs, and elected them to office. Historians dispute whether deference was based on respect or was merely “performative”—that is, people appeared to be deferential as it was advantageous to do so. The elite controlled access to land and patronage, could loan money, and were united, while the populace was dispersed. Members of the elite were also judges and militia officers. In any case, people of different classes from the same region usually had common economic interests that cemented ties between them. When an elite without local prestige tried to enforce its rule without popular consent, land riots or some other form of resistance (for example, Bacon’s Rebellion or Leisler’s Rebellion) occurred. See also ASSEMBLY; COUNCIL; GOVERNOR; VOTING. DELANCEY FAMILY. Stephen Delancey (1663–1741) was a wealthy French Huguenot merchant who fled with considerable wealth to New York in 1685, after King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had allowed French Protestants freedom of worship. He became a successful merchant and member of the New York assembly. His son James (1703–1760) served as chief justice and later lieutenant-governor of New York, while sons Peter (1705–1770) and Oliver (1708–1785) were also, beginning in the 1730s, among the leaders of one of the two leading political factions in New York, their rivals being the Livingston faction. They ultimately became loyalists during the American Revolution, although they are commemorated with the name of a major street in lower Manhattan, New York. DELAWARE. Originally part of New Sweden, in 1682 Delaware became part of William Penn’s proprietorship of Pennsylvania. Its three counties—New Castle, Kent, and Sussex—were known as the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania until they obtained a separate legislature in 1704. Located on

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the Atlantic Ocean, the inhabitants feared that pacifist Pennsylvania was not voting expenses for defense during Queen Anne’s War. Most of Delaware’s economy was agricultural, with the milling of grain the principal commercial activity. Quakers and Anglicans were the principal religious groups and New Castle and Wilmington the main port towns, which forwarded international commerce primarily to the port of Philadelphia. Slavery flourished in Delaware, with approximately 2,000 blacks by the 1770s. With about 35,000 people, Delaware had the second smallest population of the colonies (except Georgia) by the end of the colonial era. DELAWARE INDIANS. Originally known as the Lenni Lenape Indians, the Delaware were named after Lord De La Warr, an early governor of Virginia who also gave his name to the river valley in which most of them lived. They were the principal inhabitants of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey when Europeans arrived in the 17th century. Divided into the Wolf, Turtle, and Turkey clans, they lived in small, loosely organized settlements. The pacifist Quakers who encountered them purchased their lands, although the Delaware were largely unaware they were selling lands other than those physically occupied by the Europeans. Land sales, including the Walking Purchase of 1737, pushed the Delaware westward. The Iroquois compelled them to move against their wishes, calling the Delaware “women” who protected their southern border. By the time of the French and Indian War, they were living primarily in what is now western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Most of them joined the war against the British to recover their former territories, and they continued fighting in Pontiac’s War and into the era of the American Revolution; now most live in Oklahoma. See also TAMMAMEND; TEEDYUSCUNG. DE LA WARR, BARON (9 JULY 1577–7 JUNE 1618). Member of the privy council of both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, De La Warr was appointed governor of Virginia in 1610. He arrived with three ships and 150 men at the end of the “starving time,” just as the colony was about to be abandoned. He remained in Virginia for less than a year, suffering severely from the climate. He returned to England in 1611 and died while undertaking a second expedition when he stopped at the Azores Islands. The Delaware River, the colony of Delaware, and the Lenni Lenape Indians who lived in the Delaware Valley are named after him. See also DELAWARE INDIANS. DEMOGRAPHY. The study of population, the demographic history of early America begins with the catastrophic loss of the Indian population. Estimated at between 50 and 100 million for all the Americas, but usually at

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10 million for the region that became the United States, the original population declined by over 90 percent within a hundred years of the first encounter. Epidemic diseases, notably smallpox, were the primary cause, and most Indians died before any major European settlement appeared in the area, which meant fewer people were available to resist the conquest. Also, Indian religious belief systems were severely shaken as their prayers and medicines failed to prevent the deaths. The first Europeans did not fare well either: of 6,000 migrants to Virginia between 1607 and 1625, only 1,000 were still living at the latter date; half of the Pilgrims died during the first winter at Plymouth in 1620–1621. While about 150,000 people immigrated to the southern colonies in the 17th century, only about 100,000 were alive by 1700. In addition to disease, the fact that most of the immigrants were male also kept the population down. However, in New England, and later the middle colonies, the population grew at an exponential rate, doubling every two decades because of the healthy climate and the availability of food, as most people were subsistence farmers. The presence of nearly equal numbers of men and women produced large numbers of children. By 1700, a growth rate unprecedented in human history was under way in British North America (the South had also begun to experience it), in large part because families had on average four or more children who survived to adulthood. From about a quarter million people in 1700, the population of British North America had risen to a million by 1740 and two million by 1770. In the West Indies, disease decimated the population both black and white. A half million immigrants to the British West Indies prior to 1700 resulted in a population of only about 100,000. Most slaves in the islands were male and lived on average only seven years. On the mainland, however, the slave population grew at a rate comparable to the white, reaching about 400,000 by 1770. The islands required constant imports of slaves to keep up the production of sugar (the principal crop) and to ensure that the population did not decline. DE SOTO, HERNANDO (c. 1500–21 MAY 1542). The first man to explore extensively what is now the southeastern United States, de Soto arrived in Cuba from Spain in 1514 and was an important subordinate of Francisco Pizarro in his conquest of Peru in 1531. De Soto returned to Spain with a large fortune in 1534. Fascinated by the adventures of Cabeza de Vaca, in 1539 he set out with 620 men and landed on the west coast of Florida, hoping to conquer an empire of his own. However, for three years his expedition journeyed without success through the present states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee until he died of a fever

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in what is now Arkansas. About 300 of his men survived and returned to Mexico, having brought the first pigs as well as European diseases to the southeast. DINWIDDIE, ROBERT (3 OCTOBER 1692–27 JULY 1770). Son of a Glasgow merchant, Dinwiddie’s involvement in the colonial trade led to his appointment as surveyor-general of the royal customs of the colonies from Pennsylvania to the West Indies in 1738. In 1741, he settled in Virginia, and in 1751 he made arrangements with the Duke of Albemarle, the absentee governor, to become that colony’s lieutenant-governor. Dinwiddie soon came in for criticism from the assembly for imposing, without its consent, a fee of one pistole (about 16 shillings) for every land patent he signed. But he redeemed himself by supporting the planter elite’s efforts to expand westward, hired George Washington to lay claim to the Ohio Valley, and sent the first expedition to the frontier under Washington’s command in 1754, provoking the French and Indian War. He was an able leader in the war, appointing Washington to lead the colony’s forces on the western frontier and obtaining large commitments of men and money from Virginia. He resigned in 1758 and returned to England. DISEASE. See EPIDEMICS; MEDICINE. DISSENTERS. The term “Dissenters” was the general name used, following the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, to refer to Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church (Church of England) in either Britain or the colonies. Congregationalists and Presbyterians were the principal groups, although the latter never ceased reminding Anglicans that after the Act of Union (1707) joined Scotland and England, they too represented an established church, the Church of Scotland. Quakers, Reformed Protestants (both Dutch and Calvinists), and Baptists were also considered Dissenters. Dissenters joined together (they had some members of Parliament) as the dissenting interest to protect and extend religious toleration, and they were influential in preserving New England’s established dissenting churches and governments from too much interference. See also RELIGION. DOBBS, ARTHUR (2 APRIL 1689–28 MARCH 1765). A wealthy Anglican landowner and member of the Irish Parliament, Dobbs came to the attention of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole through his writings and plans to enrich the British Empire. He proposed granting more freedom and selfgovernment for Irish Catholics, and in his Scheme to Enlarge the Colonies and Increase Commerce and Trade, published in 1730, he proposed extending

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free trade to the colonies. He also suggested that the Indians be treated fairly and that they be integrated into colonial society by paying bounties for intermarriage with Europeans. He also speculated extensively in lands in North Carolina, which led to his appointment as governor in 1753. He successfully reconciled the feuding northern and southern regions of the colony at first, but beginning in 1760 he ran into opposition from the assembly for appointing too many of his Irish friends to office, for opposing the land claims of descendants of the colony’s original proprietors, and for marrying a 15-year-old girl, Justina Davis, at the age of 73. He died after he had resigned while he was preparing to return to England. DOMINION OF NEW ENGLAND. In 1686, King James II merged Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire into a single colony to be ruled by a governor without any legislative assembly. A Roman Catholic, James was upset by the Puritans’ religious intolerance and their refusal to permit any English authority over them. In 1688, New York and East and West Jersey were added to the Dominion. Sir Edmund Andros was appointed governor, and he became very unpopular for abolishing town meetings, increasing taxes, favoring the Anglican Church, and enforcing the Acts of Trade and Navigation. In 1688, he was overthrown at his capital, Boston, when the inhabitants learned that James II had been ousted in England. His lieutenant-governor in New York, Francis Nicholson, was also removed the following year by Leisler’s Rebellion. See also DUDLEY, JOSEPH. DONGAN, THOMAS (1634–14 DECEMBER 1715). A Roman Catholic Irishman and career soldier, Dongan served as governor of Tangiers in Africa before the Duke of York appointed him lieutenant-governor, in effect governor, of New York in 1683. He immediately summoned the colony’s first general assembly and approved the Charter of Liberties and Privileges that granted it the power to levy taxes and confirmed the right to trial by jury. He also cemented ties with the Iroquois, which drew them away from the French and increased New York’s fur trade. But the duke never approved the charter Dongan granted, and in 1688, having become King James II, he replaced Dongan with Sir Edmund Andros. Because of his connections with James and Catholicism, Dongan fled to Long Island and returned to England when Leisler’s Rebellion overthrew Andros and the Dominion of New England. DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS (c. 1542–JANUARY 1595). An English sea captain regarded as a hero in Britain and a pirate by Spain, Drake began raid-

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ing Spanish settlements in the Caribbean under the command of his cousin John Hawkins in 1568. He did so for nine years; in 1577, Queen Elizabeth sent him to attack the Spanish possessions on the Pacific Coast in Peru and Mexico, which he did before sailing northward. He probably became the first European to sight San Francisco Bay. He then sailed across the Pacific and around the world in his ship The Golden Hind. Elizabeth knighted him for being the first Englishman to accomplish this feat and for the large sum of treasure he seized. Drake was second-in-command of the British fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died while on yet another expedition to the West Indies following an unsuccessful attack on San Juan, Puerto Rico. DRINKER, ELIZABETH SANDWITH (27 FEBRUARY 1735–24 NOVEMBER 1807). Married in 1761 to fellow Philadelphia Quaker Henry Drinker, Elizabeth kept a diary from 1758 until her death, and it is one of the most useful sources for interpreting the history of this period. She was a conservative who opposed the American Revolution and came to oppose slavery as well. Women’s friendships, household management, and medical care are especially important topics in her diary. DUDLEY, JOSEPH (23 SEPTEMBER 1647–2 APRIL 1720). Son of Governor Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts, Joseph Dudley graduated from Harvard College in 1665, served in the Massachusetts assembly, and fought in King Philip’s War. He favored accommodation with England and was sent there by the colony in 1682 to negotiate for the preservation of its charter. He came to support a royal government and in 1686 was appointed interim head of the Dominion of New England until Sir Edmund Andros arrived. At that time, he became chief justice of the Dominion, which included New York. While there, he was seized in 1689 during Leisler’s Rebellion, sent first to Boston as a prisoner, and then in 1690 to England for trial for his support of Andros. But he was freed and in 1691 was appointed chief justice of New York by King William III; he resigned the following year during the trial of those who made Leisler’s Rebellion and returned to England. He there began to campaign to become governor of Massachusetts, a goal he achieved in 1702. Despite early opposition from an assembly that remembered his role in opposing the old charter, by 1707 he had won the support of the majority of the legislature as they united under his leadership to participate heavily, although unsuccessfully, in Queen Anne’s War. Dudley was removed in 1715 after his supporters in Britain lost their influence when King George I ascended the throne. See also ACADIA; DUMMER, JEREMIAH; DUMMER, WILLIAM; STOUGHTON, WILLIAM.

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DUDLEY, THOMAS (OCTOBER 1576–31 JULY 1653). A Puritan who was the steward (estate manager) of the Earl of Lincoln, Dudley came to Massachusetts in 1629, settling first in Charlestown and then Newtown. He led the more orthodox wing of the Puritans, was opposed to Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, and was elected governor for one-year terms in 1634, 1640, 1645, and 1650. He insisted that all the colonists had a right to know the contents of their charter, which paved the way for his election in 1634 and the formation of an assembly elected by all freemen. Anne Bradstreet was a daughter by his first marriage, Governor Joseph Dudley a son by his second. DUMMER, JEREMIAH (1681–19 MAY 1739). A brilliant student who graduated from Harvard College in 1699, Dummer went on to receive a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. After failing to obtain either a professorship at Harvard or a job as a minister in Massachusetts, he turned to commerce and moved to London, England. There he became agent for Massachusetts in 1710 and Connecticut in 1712, posts he held until 1728 and 1729 respectively. Supporting the colonies’ rights, he penned the powerful A Defence of New England Charters in 1721, which argued that England had achieved much of its greatness thanks to the profitable trade the colonies had developed outside the law with non-English nations and colonies, frequently in opposition to short-sighted attempts to curtail their political and commercial liberty. See also COOKE, ELISHA, JR.; DUMMER, WILLIAM; SHUTE, SAMUEL. DUMMER, WILLIAM (1677–10 OCTOBER 1761). The brother of agent Jeremiah Dummer and son-in-law of Governor Joseph Dudley, Dummer became lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts in 1716 and held that post until 1730. He was the interim governor from 1723 until 1728, during which time he successfully defeated the Abenaki Indians and secured Massachusetts’ settlements in Maine from their attacks. DUNKERS. A Pietist group organized in Germany in 1708, Dunkers were Mennonites (Church of the Brethren) who were distinguished, and mocked by others, for performing baptism only on adults by “dunking” them three times in a body of water. All of them moved to America by 1733 to escape persecution. Their principal settlements were in eastern Pennsylvania, although others lived in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina. They numbered about 1,500 by 1770. See also BAPTISTS.

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DUTCH. The Dutch were the primary ethnic group to settle New Netherland (New York) beginning in 1624. (They should not be confused with the “Pennsylvania Dutch,” who are Germans—the word “Dutch” in that case being a corruption of “Deutsch,” meaning German.) They remained a majority of New York’s population until at the least the 1730s. Dutch patroons, or proprietors, were granted large tracts of land (the Van Rensselaer, Van Cortlandt, Philipse, and Beekman families) and supported the English when they took over in 1664, remaining influential in economic and political life. Ordinary Dutch inhabitants, less happy paying higher taxes and being ruled by foreigners, participated in Leisler’s Rebellion. Ethnic divisions between Dutch and English remained the basis of New York politics until the mid18th century. Dutch influence remained visible in the large proportion of slaves in the New York City region and northern New Jersey—the largest concentration of blacks north of Maryland—and in the persistence of the Dutch language and the Dutch Reformed Church in many towns of the Hudson River Valley. See also DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH. The principal religion of New Netherland and later New York until at least the 1730s, the Dutch Reformed Church was Calvinist. Sermons, prayers, and hymns constituted the entire service. The church was governed on an international level by the classis of Amsterdam, which outlawed Arminianism (the belief that good works can lead to salvation) and mandated a stern moral code (including forbidding gambling, the theater, and ostentatious clothing). Under English rule, New York Reformed practitioners objected to supporting the Anglican Church financially, while British governor Lord Cornbury attempted unsuccessfully to destroy the Reformed Church by appointing only ministers who were loyal to the Anglican religion. In 1747, the classis permitted the formation of an independent North American classis, which declared its independence in 1754. The Dutch Reformed Church then cooperated with the Presbyterian Church in forming the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. Founded in 1621, the Dutch West India Company was a private corporation that founded New Netherland in 1624, but whose principal enterprise was Brazil (or New Holland), which it ruled from 1630 to 1654. It also colonized other territories in the West Indies, notably Surinam on the mainland and the islands of Curacao and St. Eustatius. The company mandated religious toleration in its territories, in part to attract investment and (in Brazil) settlement of wealthy Jewish merchants. It also owned slave trading posts in West Africa. After the English

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conquered New Netherland in 1664, the company continued to administer its West Indies territories until 1791. A director-general was in charge of each colony, but to rule successfully he had to consult with local councils consisting of important inhabitants. DYER, MARY (c. 1611–1 JUNE 1660). Originally a Puritan who came to Massachusetts in 1635, Dyer and her husband William supported Anne Hutchinson and were banished from the colony, moving to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and later Rhode Island. Mary Dyer lived in England from 1652 to 1657, where she became a Quaker after hearing George Fox, the religion’s founder, preach. Between 1658 and 1660, she was banished three times from Massachusetts for preaching her faith, which the colony had banned, on the condition she would not return. On her fourth attempt, she was hanged after refusing to promise, once more, that she would never come back. Today, her statue is prominently displayed on the grounds of the statehouse in Boston as a martyr for religious toleration.

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E EAST JERSEY. See NEW JERSEY. EATON, THEOPHILUS (1590–7 JANUARY 1658). The son of the bishop of Chester, Eaton was attracted to Puritanism and immigrated to Massachusetts in 1637. Dissatisfied with the lack of moral and religious rigor, he joined minister John Davenport in relocating. They founded the colony of New Haven in 1639. Eaton was annually elected governor for the rest of his life, and in 1655 he drew up the sternest moral code of all the New England colonies, the famous “Connecticut Blue Laws,” which among other things punished adultery by death and forbade running, cooking, and housecleaning on the Sabbath, and offering hospitality to any non-Protestant. ECONOMY. The economy of early America was overwhelmingly agricultural. The southern colonies produced, at first using indentured servants and later slaves, staple (export) crops, which were sold primarily to Britain for a profit. Tobacco was the main export of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. South Carolina grew rice and indigo, a dye that was used in making blue clothes, the most expensive color. Rice was also grown in the fledgling province of Georgia, founded in 1733. North Carolina also exported naval stores—tar, pitch, and turpentine—required for building ships, for which it received subsidies from Britain. Most southerners, especially those in the backcountry, did not own slaves and were subsistence farmers who also sometimes grew small amounts of tobacco or rice to exchange for imported goods. Plantation owners were the principal exporters and the wealthiest people in the South. In South Carolina, exports were handled by the port of Charleston, located at the conjunction of two rivers and the ocean. The city was easily accessible to most plantations. In Virginia and Maryland, numerous rivers and streams that flowed west-to-east meant British merchants would usually trade with individual plantations on their docks, which were also used by smaller farmers in the area. North Carolina used several ports protected by the numerous islands off its seacoast.

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The middle colonies were devoted principally to subsistence agriculture, but also exported surplus wheat, primarily from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, mostly to feed the West Indies’ sugar islands. Farmers used the proceeds from these exports to purchase imported goods from Britain and to pay their taxes. Manufacturing of iron was also important, especially in Pennsylvania, which produced most of the raw iron in the British Empire. Pennsylvania and New York participated in the fur trade, as did the southern colonies to a lesser extent, almost exclusively deerskins and beaver pelts. Fish, the primary export of New England, was also sent to the West Indies. Shipbuilding in the northern cities—New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and smaller towns such as Salem, Massachusetts—provided the vessels for the colonial trade. Cities and towns exchanged goods and services with the farmers. Artisans produced barrels, shoes, rope, and farm implements. Goldsmiths and silversmiths were few; they crafted luxury items including tea services and utensils. Merchants were at the apex of the northern economic ladder, selling imported goods such as books, wigs, household furnishings, wine, and clothes. Shopkeepers, unlike merchants, usually sold only one or a limited variety of merchandise. In the North, too, sugar and molasses from the West Indies were converted into rum, an especially important product in Rhode Island. Rhode Island merchants were also the most prominent in the colonial slave trade. Most colonial Americans were able to feed and clothe themselves, and poverty was rare. A substantial class of white servants and tenant farmers existed in both the North and the South, although the expansion of the frontier enabled many to become independent farmers. See also BANKS; CURRENCY; MERCANTILISM. EDEN, CHARLES (1673–26 MARCH 1722). Appointed governor of North Carolina in 1714, a post he held until his death, Eden supported the Anglican Church and lent assistance to South Carolina during the Yamasee War. He is most famous, however, for having allowed Blackbeard the pirate to operate in the colony’s ports, claiming that he had no resources to fight him. The city of Edenton, North Carolina, is named after him. EDUCATION. Unlike in the present world, schools were only responsible for a minor part of colonial education. Education was primarily conducted either in the home or by binding young people out as indentured servants to learn a trade or work on a farm. Petty or dame schools, so called because they were usually run by women, although sometimes by young men or ministers, provided most school instruction, teaching basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. These schools were usually only open during the winter and summer, when the demand for farm labor was less intense. A Massachusetts

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law of 1647 required communities of 50 or more households to open a school; being able to read the Bible and understand sermons was an important way to achieve conversion and thwart “the Old Deluder Satan,” as the law is commonly known. Still, attendance was not required if reading was taught at home. Mostly boys attended school, usually only for two to four years. Pennsylvania’s first laws of 1683 also required all children reaching the age of 12 to be taught to read and write and that boys learn a useful trade. Nevertheless, nearly all white colonial men and a majority of women attained at least some literacy. At the age of 10 or 12, a small number of boys, mostly of the middle and upper class, went on to grammar schools that taught Greek, Latin, and some science and history based on the instructor’s knowledge. Only the Moravians had academies at this level for girls. Colleges collectively enrolled only a few hundred students a year, all male, at the end of the colonial era. Aside from offering general knowledge to middle- and upper-class boys (usually aged between 14 and 20), the only career for which they prepared students was the ministry. Men seeking to learn the law or become physicians studied with a practitioner after college: lawyers were admitted to practice by the courts in the respective colonies, whereas physicians simply set up practice. See also COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY; HARVARD COLLEGE; LEGAL SYSTEM; MEDICINE. EDWARDS, JONATHAN (5 OCTOBER 1703–22 MARCH 1758). The Congregational minister of Northampton, Massachusetts, and the most important early American theologian, Edwards succeeded to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard’s pulpit in 1727 after having graduated and worked as a tutor at Yale College. Beginning in the early 1730s, he had intense experiences of religious conversion and became, through his effective preaching and published sermons, a model for a general revival of religion, first in his congregation and then throughout the colonies, known as the Great Awakening. In his works he stressed the utter depravity of human beings and the need for an overwhelming emotional experience of the Holy Spirit to attain salvation. His most important work was the Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), but he is most remembered for the sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741), in which he termed people more vile in the sight of God than spiders, perpetually suspended over the pit of Hell into which they would fall except for divine mercy. Edwards’s strenuous insistence that his congregation experience conversion and lead blameless lives led them to dismiss him in 1750. He then served as a missionary to the Stockbridge Indians before becoming the president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in 1758. He died almost immediately upon assuming office when

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he had himself inoculated in the hope of demonstrating the effectiveness of this procedure to prevent smallpox. See also CHAUNCY, CHARLES. ELIOT, JOHN (c. 1604–21 MAY 1690). The principal Puritan minister to take an interest in converting the Indians, Eliot came to Massachusetts in 1631 and served as the minister of the First Church of Roxbury and founded the Roxbury Latin School. He was probably a coauthor of the Bay Psalm Book. In 1663, he translated the Bible into Algonquin and in 1666 published an Indian grammar. He founded 14 towns for praying Indians and lived at the one in Natick, one of the few to survive King Philip’s War. ELIZABETH I, QUEEN OF ENGLAND (7 SEPTEMBER 1533–24 MARCH 1603). Daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1558 at a time when there was bitter division in her realm between Protestants and Roman Catholics. She supported the Anglican Church primarily as a national church and compromise between the Catholics and Puritans, who wanted further reforms such as simplifying services, abolishing bishops, and having congregations elect their own clergy. In the 1570s, faced with increasing threats from Spain, she supported Sir Francis Drake’s attacks on the Spanish empire and the unsuccessful Roanoke colony planned by her favorite, Sir Walter Raleigh. In appreciation of the fact that she did not marry and thus subject England to a foreign ruler, she was known as the Virgin Queen, after whom the colony of Virginia was named. See also CROWN. ELLIS, HENRY (24 AUGUST 1721–21 JANUARY 1806). Noted for his scientific explorations of Hudson Bay, Ellis was appointed governor of Georgia in 1757. He brought the Creek Indians over to the British side in the French and Indian War and successfully governed a formerly turbulent province. He resigned due to ill health in 1761 but became an important adviser to the British government, suggesting the expedition that captured Havana from Spain in 1762 and its exchange for Florida at the war’s end. He also drafted the Proclamation of 1763. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. ENDECOTT, JOHN (1588–15 MARCH 1665). Endecott led the first Puritan group of immigrants to New England, who settled at Salem in 1628. He defended the town’s minister Roger Williams from the Massachusetts elite’s criticisms, and served a brief term in prison for his contempt. He is most famous for ordering the red cross cut from the flag of Salem’s militia, which he commanded, as a sign of idolatry or Roman Catholicism. This act

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was repudiated by the colony’s leaders as it might be construed as denying the authority of the British crown. He governed Massachusetts from 1659 until 1662 and oversaw the expulsion of the Quakers and the execution of those, including Mary Dyer, who refused to leave. ENLIGHTENMENT. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in Europe and then in 18th-century colonial America which stressed reason rather than faith as the ultimate test of truth and a guide for human behavior. It also believed that the present age had begun an era of progress that was leading to a marked improvement in the human condition. The ideas of the British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) were most important in shaping the American Enlightenment. His major work on politics, the Second Treatise of Government, argued that government exists to preserve the rights of the people and they can legitimately rebel if it does not. His pamphlet, the Letter Concerning Toleration, maintained that religious toleration is both God’s will—Jesus converted people peacefully—and beneficial to society—it prevents violence over which religion is correct. The Essay Concerning Human Understanding sought to prove that people only learn about the world through experience and are capable of shaping it through science and experimentation for human betterment. The most notable figure of the colonial American Enlightenment was Benjamin Franklin, others being Cadwallader Colden, John Bartram, and William Bartram. Organizations inspired by it included societies to improve agriculture in various colonies, the Freemasons, and the American Philosophical Society, founded in 1769. Most American Enlightenment thinkers (such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush) made their major contributions during the age of the American Revolution. ENVIRONMENT. The arrival of Europeans changed forever the environment of the Americas. Although the Indians had clearings for settlements and farms, the vast majority of North America consisted of large trees, nearly all of which were felled by 1900—what dominates the landscape now is second, third, or later growth. Indians considered themselves as but one element of the environment extending from parts of the landscape such as trees, rivers, and rocks to animals, and then to spirits that ruled the sky and earth. Europeans, on the contrary, believed they possessed mastery of a world that was theirs to use for their own purposes. Early European agriculture was wasteful as land was abundant: by the time of the American Revolution, nearly all of the good land up to the Appalachian Mountains was farmed. Tree stumps were frequently left in the middle of fields, and stones were removed to make stone walls that can still

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be found throughout the reforested woods. Fur-bearing animals were hunted to near extinction, requiring Indians and trappers to move westward to acquire the pelts. In the southern colonies, tobacco exhausted the soil within two or three generations, making it necessary for farmers to move west. Only in the late colonial period were some societies formed to encourage scientific farming (letting fields lie fallow, planting crops such as clover to replenish the soil, breeding meatier cows), but such knowledge was restricted to a small segment of the elite. EPHRATA CLOISTER. The religious community at Ephrata was founded in 1732 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, by Conrad Beissel (1691–1768) after he split from the Mennonite church. His community was centered at the cloisters where the brothers and sisters dwelled. They remained celibate, farmed communally, and lived austere lives. They wore long white robes, ate the minimal amount of food needed to remain alive, and slept on narrow wooden boards. Householders who married lived in the surrounding area. The inhabitants were pacifists and gave generously to the poor. Music was an important part of their service, and they produced beautiful works of fraktur, or illustrated manuscripts, some of which they printed at their own publishing house. Birds and flowers were prominent in these works. An Ephrata resident, Peter Miller, produced the 1,512 page Martyr’s Mirror, describing and illustrating the sufferings of Baptist martyrs in Germany. It was the largest and arguably the most beautiful book produced in colonial America. The community survived until 1934, although the last celibate member died in 1813. EPIDEMICS. Epidemics were frequent in early America. The worst epidemic conditions occurred among the Indians, who probably lost 90 percent of their preconquest population due to disease, principally smallpox. But smallpox, which covers the body with terrible sores, also killed about 10 percent of the white population and infected about 25 percent. Major epidemics occurred in New England (1628–1631, 1639, 1648–1649, 1677–1678, 1689–1690, 1702–1703, 1721, 1752, 1760–1761); Virginia (1679–1680, 1696); South Carolina (1696, 1711–1712, 1738, 1760–1761); and sporadically throughout the colonies from 1715 to 1730. Deaths decreased after 1721 in Boston and by the 1760s in South Carolina, as an inoculation technique was developed by Boston’s Dr. Zabdiel Boylston based on information he received on African practices from Cotton Mather’s slave Onesimus. Although inoculation reduced mortality, it still required giving patients a small dose of the disease, which could prove deadly, as it did to Jonathan Edwards when he agreed to be inoculated in 1756 to demonstrate the technique’s effectiveness. (Vaccina-

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tion, based on injecting the far less risky cowpox virus, was only discovered by Edward Jenner in 1796.) Second to smallpox was yellow fever, spread by mosquitoes (of which colonials were unaware), which turned the skin yellow and caused jaundice and liver damage in fatal cases. Epidemics occurred in New York (1693, 1702); Boston (1696); Charleston and Philadelphia (1699, 1762); Charleston (1706); Charleston and New York (1732); and Virginia (1734, 1741). Measles, deadly at the time, struck Boston in 1657–1658, 1687, 1713, 1729, 1739–1740, and in various places in 1747, 1759, and 1772. Throat distemper (sore throats) proved deadly in Boston in 1659, Philadelphia in 1763, and New York in 1769. An influenza epidemic struck the colonies in general in 1775–1776. Most of the victims of epidemics lived in the seaport cities, where sanitation was bad and contact with foreigners frequent. See also DEMOGRAPHY; MEDICINE. ERIC THE RED. See NORSEMEN. EVANGELICALS. See GREAT AWAKENING.

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F FAMILY. In early America, as in Europe at the time, the family did not typically consist of a husband, wife, and children alone (the “nuclear family”). The family could include servants, unmarried or elderly relatives, and in fact whoever lived under one roof, although the “extended family” (three generations under one roof) was rare. The family was considered a “little commonwealth” in which the father ruled and others obeyed. Families were the principal sites of education, and poor people, including the old, sick, and orphans, were frequently placed in families by local authorities. Sometimes these people were auctioned off to whoever offered to support them for the smallest payment of public money, which sometimes encouraged poor treatment, but in many cases families took in those they had known or with whom they sympathized. Clans, rather than families, were the basis of Indian society. Most lineages passed on through the mother, who lived with her children in the household of her eldest brother. Indians were more promiscuous than whites; unmarried folk could engage in sexual intercourse, and divorce, forbidden in nearly all the Christian world, simply required an agreement between the parties. The black family was not recognized, except among the small number of free blacks, in British North America. Some masters encouraged marriages, although not formally recognized, as a way of keeping slaves together and less likely to run away. Others engaged in promiscuous relations with slave women, sometimes freeing the children of these unions. In general, masters encouraged slave women to have children, as this added to their wealth and productivity. In Roman Catholic counties, however, slaves were baptized and their marriages recognized. FAUQUIER, FRANCIS (1703?–3 MARCH 1768). Son of a director of the Bank of England and an intellectual interested in science and philosophy, Fauquier became governor of Virginia in 1758. He was at first popular with the assembly and people, largely for the reason he was rebuked by the imperial administration, for allowing them to flout the crown’s authority. For example, he consented that the assembly pass the Two-Penny Act in 1758, which fixed the salaries of Anglican clergy and other government officials

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in cash—the price of tobacco was soaring in a time of shortage—instead of calculating their wages in pounds of tobacco. He also permitted Virginia to pass a paper currency act in 1764 despite royal instructions to the contrary. He was unable, however, to stem the tide of colonial resistance that began with the Stamp Act, and he died in office. FIRES. The mostly wooden cities of early America were prone to fire. A fire destroyed much of colonial Jamestown a year after it was founded in 1608. The most devastating fire in early America occurred in Boston in 1760, when 349 buildings, or about a fifth of those in the town, were burned. Cities passed laws to prevent fires: Boston’s ban on thatched roofs and wooden chimneys was the first. New Netherland appointed fire wardens in 1648. By 1750, all five colonies had fire companies or fire societies that assembled not only to fight fires but to save the belongings of victims from possible looters. Passing of buckets from wells or other water sources was the only means available to quench the flames. Benjamin Franklin established the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia in 1736, the city’s first volunteer association. FISHERIES. The quantity of fish off the coast of Newfoundland in the Grand Banks was great, and this area was used by English, Basque (Spanish), French, and Portuguese fishermen even before the first voyages of Christopher Columbus. They probably landed on the coast of North America, but the European nations did not use this as a basis for permanent settlement. Once New England was settled, towns from Connecticut to Maine made fishing, and selling the surplus to the West Indies, the principal basis of their economy. Vessels were usually small and were staffed by local networks consisting of family and community members, unlike larger oceangoing vessels, which relied on multinational crews of sailors. Struggle between Britain and France over the fisheries continued until the French and Indian War, when the Treaty of Paris in 1763 left France only the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon to continue its enterprises. FITCH, THOMAS (c. 1700–18 JULY 1774). After graduating from Yale College in 1721, Fitch served in the Connecticut assembly and council, then as lieutenant-governor, and finally as governor from 1754 until 1766. He supported the Saybrook Platform, which provided for associations of ministers to govern the Congregational Church in the colony, thus opposing the New Lights and the Great Awakening, which favored allowing each congregation to run its own affairs. He also opposed expanding the colony into what is now northern Pennsylvania. He lost his post, to which Connecticut voters elected him annually, when he believed his oath as a colonial governor required him to enforce the Stamp Act even though he disagreed with it.

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FLETCHER, BENJAMIN (14 MAY 1640–28 MAY 1703). A career soldier who served King William III and assisted in his accession to the throne, Fletcher was appointed governor of New York and the Jerseys in 1692 and was placed in charge of organizing the forces of all the colonies north of Maryland during King William’s War. He was only successful in imposing his authority in New York and the Jerseys, where he used his troops to fix elections and allowed members of the legislature to engage in piracy and a corrupt trade in provisions and furs to win their support. A Tory, he was ousted in 1698 when the Whigs came to power in England. FLORIDA. Although it was explored by the Spaniards Ponce de Leon, Cabeza de Vaca, and Hernando de Soto beginning in 1513, Florida’s first permanent settlement (the oldest in the United States), St. Augustine, was established in 1565. Under their leader Pedro Menendez de Avila, Spaniards destroyed the French Fort Caroline that had been built three years earlier and massacred its garrison. In the 18th century, Florida became a haven for slaves escaping from the British colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, many of whom joined the Seminole Indians. The British attempted to capture St. Augustine in 1740 during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and they finally obtained possession of Florida in 1763 at the end of the French and Indian War. The other important town in Florida was Pensacola. The colony’s European population numbered about 3,000 at the time. See also SPANISH EMPIRE. FLUSHING REMONSTRANCE. Signed in 1657 by a group of inhabitants in Flushing, a village now in the borough of Queens, New York, the remonstrance asked Pietr Stuyvesant, director-general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, to stop persecuting Quakers. Stuyvesant had been jailing and fining Quakers and Baptists who had moved to the colony from New England. None of the signers were Quakers themselves. In 1662, Stuyvesant banished John Bowne from Flushing and sent him to the Netherlands for allowing Quakers to meet at his house. Bowne petitioned the Dutch West India Company to overrule Stuyvesant, and they allowed Quakers to worship in the colony beginning in 1663, a provision which was continued when the English conquered New Netherland in 1664. FORT DUQUESNE. See PITTSBURGH. FORT NIAGARA. The first fort near Niagara Falls was built on the northwestern tip of what is now New York by the French in 1679. In 1726 they built a larger fort, which was used for the fur trade with the Iroquois Indians. It was captured by Sir William Johnson and joint British and colonial forces in 1759 during the French and Indian War. The fort remained in

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British hands until 1796, when the Jay Treaty compelled the British to withdraw 13 years after American independence had been won. FORT NECESSITY. See WASHINGTON, GEORGE. FORT OSWEGO. Built in 1727 by the British on the shore of Lake Ontario, Fort Oswego was conquered and destroyed by the Marquis de Montcalm and French/Canadian forces during the French and Indian War in 1756. FORT PITT. See PITTSBURGH. FORT TICONDEROGA. This massive structure was built in 1755 at the southern tip of Lake Champlain in New York by the French during the French and Indian War. They named it Fort Carillon. It commanded the water route between Canada and New York City. A British force of 16,000 men under General James Abercrombie failed to capture it in 1758; the following year, as there were few French defenders (most had withdrawn to defend Quebec), British General Jeffrey Amherst captured and renamed it. It remains standing as one of the best examples of an 18th-century fortification. FORT WILLIAM HENRY. This fort was constructed in New York at the southern end of Lake George in 1755 by British forces commanded by Sir William Johnson. It was built during the French and Indian War to defend the water route to New York against French invasions from Quebec. In 1757, its 2,200 defenders, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel George Munro, were forced to surrender to a combined force of about 8,000 French, Indians, and Canadians led by the Marquis de Montcalm. Although Montcalm had agreed to let the defenders leave with the honors of war, his Indian allies began to attack the prisoners and killed between 70 and 150 of them before Montcalm and the French troops could restore order. The French then burned the fort; a replica now stands. Much of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans concerns the capture of this fort. FORTS. Two types of forts were constructed during the colonial era. Small posts were usually erected to guard frontiers. During the French and Indian War, the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania erected over 40 forts. These wooden enclosures mainly served as centers where scattered farmers could retreat and defend themselves when Indians allied with the French invaded an undefended region. They were usually located in clearings or meadows; frequently, a single entrance was placed on an elevated floor, with a ladder that could be taken up providing the only way of obtaining access. Smaller

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Source: Library of Congress.

In 1756, following the capture of Fort William Henry, the Indian allies of the French began to massacre the captives who had been promised safe conduct. The French general, the Marquis de Montcalm, risked his own life to put an end to the slaughter.

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military forts, such as Fort Necessity commanded by George Washington, were also made of wood. Larger forts, such as Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), Fort William Henry, Louisbourg, and Fort Ticonderoga were modeled after designs of the French engineer the Marquis de Vauban (1633–1707). The structure was shaped like a five-point star. Raised mounds of earth surrounded a deep moat, which in turn protected the massive stone fort defended by cannons and infantry. They were almost impregnable and were usually destroyed by the defenders rather than being surrendered to an overwhelming enemy. FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN (6 JANUARY 1706–17 APRIL 1790). Franklin is one of the few individuals in world history to be prominent as a scientist, writer, and statesman. Born in Boston, he moved to Philadelphia at age 16 where he became an important printer: his most famous publication was Poor Richard’s Almanack. He also founded the Library Company, open by subscription to members, and the Junto, a discussion group where middleclass men could acquire the sort of education usually available only to the upper-class in colleges. These were examples of the voluntary associations he began for improving life in the city, which also included street-paving and fire companies. His scientific experiments led to the discovery of positive and negative electrical charges and the invention of the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, and bifocal eyeglasses. Franklin became involved in public affairs during the French and Indian War. He organized a voluntary defense force and advanced his own money to pay for military suppliers before the British funds arrived. In 1757, he became the province agent to represent Pennsylvania at the British court. He at first attempted to have Pennsylvania changed from a proprietary to a royal government, but he became discontented with British policies to tax the colonies and regulate colonial trade and became the primary spokesman in Britain for American rights. His Autobiography, telling of his rise from poverty to greatness, is the classic boy makes good through hard work and intelligence story that has come to define an important part of the American character. Returning to America from England in 1775, Franklin served on the congressional committee that wrote the Declaration of Independence, as the United States minister to France who negotiated an alliance against the British in 1778, as a delegate who signed the Peace of Paris in 1783 ending the War for Independence, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and as president of the American Anti-Slavery Society. See also ENLIGHTENMENT; FRANKLIN, WILLIAM; FREEMASONS; FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR; LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA; PENN FAMILY; POLITICS; POST OFFICE.

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An engraving of Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment, page 159 in Natural Philosophy for Common and High Schools (1881), by Le Roy C. Cooley.

FRANKLIN, WILLIAM (1731–16 NOVEMBER 1813). The illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, William Franklin served as his father’s assistant in his scientific experiments and printing business and accompanied him to Britain in 1757 when the elder Franklin became Pennsylvania’s colonial agent. In 1762, he was appointed governor of New Jersey through his father’s influence. He ruled effectively and humanely before the colonial crisis, proposing that roads and bridges be built, pardoning women imprisoned for

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adultery and people imprisoned for debt, and presiding over a trial in which New Jersey men who killed an Indian prisoner during Pontiac’s War were executed. However, he strictly upheld British authority beginning with the Stamp Act crisis in 1765 and went into exile following the American Revolution, during which he organized loyalist forces. FRANKS FAMILY. The leading Jewish merchant in colonial New York, Jacob Franks (1688–1769) married Abigail Levy (1696–1756), whose letters to her son Napthali—who was sent to England to work with family members— are an important source for understanding Jewish and upper-class life in the colonies. She refused to speak to her daughter Phila (1722–1811) ever again after she married the Christian Oliver Delancey. David Franks (1720–1793), their son, opened a branch of the family business in Philadelphia. He and his father served as agents for Moses Franks (1718–1789), another son, who became enormously wealthy and belonged to a consortium of four merchants in London that supplied the British army in North America from 1760 until the American Revolution. David Franks was falsely accused of treason during the American Revolution; he was acquitted by two juries but was forced to leave Philadelphia by mob pressure. He returned in 1785 and became cashier of the Bank of North America. The Franks were also involved in the fur trade through their agents in Pittsburgh and upstate New York. FREEMASONS. Also known simply as Masons, the Freemasons were a European-wide movement that preached international brotherhood and toleration. They strongly distrusted organized religion. Within the society, all men regardless of their social position were considered “brothers” and equals, although membership was exclusively male and usually consisted of the upper and middle class. The first London lodge was organized in 1717. Masonic groups emerged in all the colonial cities in the 1730s; the first lodge in Boston was founded in 1733. Benjamin Franklin became grand master of the Philadelphia lodge in 1734. George Washington was another prominent Freemason, and Jews joined in disproportionate numbers as they were accepted without prejudice. See also ENLIGHTENMENT. FRELINGHUYSEN, THEODORE (1691–c. 1747). Born Theodorus Frelinghuysen in Germany, he was educated at a Dutch Reformed university and was sent to minister to several parishes in New Jersey in 1720. He immediately began criticizing most of his parishioners for their lack of godliness, and he limited Holy Communion to those who convinced him of their piety. He was an influential force during the Great Awakening and worked closely with the Presbyterian Gilbert Tennent in spreading a more fervent, evangelical religion, much to the dislike of the more conservative members of his church. He suffered from temporary insanity and disappeared in 1747.

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FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR (1754–1763). This conflict, now also known as the “Great War for the Empire,” a term coined by historian Lawrence Henry Gipson, began in 1754 when French Canadian and Virginia forces clashed over control of the Ohio Valley. For the first time, the British government made a colonial skirmish—the defeat of Colonel George Washington at Fort Necessity—the cause of an international conflict, instead of (as in the past) the colonies being ordered to fight when a war was triggered in Europe. The war went badly at first for the British, with the defeat of Braddock’s expedition in 1755. Subsequent attacks by Indians on the Pennsylvania frontier pushed what had been significant settlement in the western and northern parts of the colony back across the Susquehanna River. The same year, a French force invading New York was repulsed by Sir William Johnson near Lake George. Next, the French built Fort Ticonderoga and the British built Fort William Henry in an attempt to control the water corridor between New York and Canada. In 1756, Prime Minister William Pitt assumed power in Britain; to urge the colonists to pursue a more aggressive war, he promised them assistance with their expenses. In the end, over a million pounds sterling was paid. In 1756 and 1757, the British again sent large armies to the colonies without success. In 1758, Sir Jeffrey Amherst became the British commander in chief and captured Louisbourg, which guarded the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. This made entry into Canada possible. Another British army under General James Forbes approached the French Fort Duquesne at the site of present-day Pittsburgh, forcing its outnumbered defenders to withdraw. In 1759, James Wolfe defeated the main French force in Canada at Quebec. Later in 1759, the British fleet decisively defeated the French navy at Quiberon Bay, preventing it from further reinforcing its troops in the Americas. The following year, Amherst took Montreal. The Spanish joined the war on France’s side in 1762, but with disastrous results: the British captured Havana, Cuba. Meanwhile in Europe, Britain was able to use its superior navy and massive payments to its only major ally, Frederick the Great of Prussia, to hold off a coalition of France, Russia, and Austria. The war ended when Russia’s new czar, Peter II, pulled out of the conflict. Britain gained Canada and Florida. The Indians, however, were not defeated, and Pontiac’s War began almost immediately after the Peace of Paris of 1763, as the British were unable to keep the colonists from infringing on territory guaranteed to the Indians by the Proclamation of 1763. During the war, both the British and the colonists became dissatisfied with each other despite the ultimate victory. The British were angered by the colonists’ failure to unite (as at the abortive Albany Congress of 1754), to fight effectively, and by their extensive trading with the enemy. Still, the colonists raised over 20,000 troops during the course of the war, defended their own frontiers, and objected to the arrogance of British officers who refused to

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recognize their officers as equals or to employ them in more than support tasks. While both sides celebrated the victory, it meant different things. The colonists thought they had fought for access to western lands (which the British tried to cut off with the Proclamation of 1763) and to preserve their liberties; the British had come to see themselves as a centralized empire and set out to reform what they saw as abuses of the colonial system: the failure of the colonies to pay for their own defense and violations of the Acts of Trade and Navigation, which kept enemy colonies from being starved out during the war. The subsequent imperial regulations and colonial resistance led to the American Revolution. See also ABERCROMBIE, JAMES; BATTLE OF KITTANNING; DINWIDDIE, ROBERT; HALIFAX, EARL OF; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION; LOUDON, EARL OF. FRENCH CANADIANS. The population of Quebec, or Canada, at the time of the French and Indian War consisted of about 80,000 people, 8,000 of whom lived in Quebec, the largest and capital city. Most were habitants, or inhabitants, who lived on farms that were adjacent to the St. Lawrence and other rivers in southern Canada, which enabled them to send and receive goods. They were officially tenants on seigneuries—or manors—governed by seigneurs, but paid low rents and taxes. Complaints about manorial justice— which was dispensed without juries—were few. The elite realized that the population could easily escape to the frontier and leave them without productive tenants. Land was plentiful and labor was scarce. The second most important occupation in Canada was the fur trade, in which men ventured west as far as the Rocky Mountains and south to Louisiana. Many of these married or lived with Indian women. That they were few in number and did not seek land explains why French relations with the Indians were generally far better than those of the British or Spanish. Fishing was important along the Atlantic Coast. In Canada, the clergy, both religious orders of nuns and brothers as well as parish priests, were important as moral and spiritual guides and sources of employment. Several thousand French soldiers, many of whom were longterm residents, were also stationed in Canada. See also FRENCH EMPIRE. FRENCH EMPIRE. French colonies in the Americas included Canada (or Quebec) and, at various times, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Bartholomew, St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent, and Tobago in the West Indies. (Most of these islands changed hands between the French, Spanish, British, and Dutch during various wars.) The most important French colony was Saint-Domingue (Haiti), the western third of the island of Hispaniola, which by the 1750s was the richest sugar-producing island in the world. The population of the West Indies colonies consisted

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mostly of slaves, although free people of color had most of the rights of white inhabitants and could follow trades and accumulate wealth. (They could not hold government posts, however.) France also ruled Louisiana from its founding until 1763, when it ceded it to Spain before obtaining it again shortly before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. French colonies were jointly administered by a governor, in charge of military defense and law and order, and an intendant, charged with fiscal administration. Although in theory their rule was absolute, as was that of the king of France, in practice they needed to conciliate local notables to rule successfully. The seigneurial system borrowed from France existed, where nobles ruled estates composed of habitants in Canada, or slaves and tenants elsewhere. Priests and the religious orders in monasteries and convents were also prominent. The French colonies were at war with Britain during King William’s, Queen Anne’s, King George’s, and the French and Indian War. See also FRENCH CANADIANS. FROBISHER, MARTIN (c. 1539–15 NOVEMBER 1594). Frobisher was an English explorer who made three expeditions, in 1576, 1577, and 1578, to find the Northwest Passage to Asia. His voyages took him to the northeastern islands and the mainland of Canada. He is famous for mistaking “fool’s gold” for the genuine article and bringing back over a thousand tons on his first voyage. He was later knighted for services in repulsing the Spanish Armada in 1588. FRONTENAC, COUNT; LOUIS DE BUADE (22 MAY 1622–28 NOVEMBER 1698). Frontenac governed New France, or Canada, from 1672 to 1682 and again from 1689 until his death. His stern but efficient rule is responsible for the effectiveness with which the French fought the English in King William’s War and for stabilizing a vast territory with a small, diffuse population. He was recalled in 1682 for quarreling with the powerful clergy, but the inability of his successor to handle attacks by the hostile Iroquois led to Frontenac’s return. The remark with which he greeted Sir William Phips’s demand that he surrender Quebec when Massachusetts attacked it in 1690—“I have no reply to make to your general other than from the mouths of my cannons and muskets”—perfectly illustrates his fearless, militant character. See also FRENCH EMPIRE. FRONTIER. The frontier is generally defined as an area in which the first European settlers were either exploring or beginning settlement. Sometimes “backcountry” is used to mean the same thing. The frontier was thus a region that shifted over time. Since Frederick Jackson Turner in 1890 published his essay on “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” historians have questioned whether his thesis about its cultural nature is correct.

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He argued that the frontier was the source of American individualistic and democratic values, a region of opportunity, and a “safety valve” where discontented individuals, who might otherwise be criminals or revolutionaries in overcrowded cities, could either make good or vent their hostility with little harm to the larger society. Other scholars argue that the newer regions of the United States were settled principally by communities rather than individuals, and that they immediately, or very quickly, created replicas of their former homes and sought to instill traditional forms of order through religion and education. The idea of an uncouth, violent frontier appears in much American literature, beginning with the colonial era in William Byrd’s History of the Dividing Line and Reverend Charles Woodmason’s 1766 journal of his trip to the backcountry of North Carolina and South Carolina. FUR TRADE. The fur trade was the principal enterprise during the earliest days of several American colonies. The first profitable exports of Canada, New Netherland and its successor New York, and South Carolina were deer and beaver skins. The Indians had long killed these animals for food and clothing, but the infusion of European cash and trading goods (such as guns and alcohol) caused the animals nearest the Europeans to be depleted. The Indians thus turned westward, fighting more intensively with former and new enemies to supply the demand. The fur trade also altered the Indians’ attitude toward nature: they had formerly usually killed animals they needed for their own use, but as skins became a commodity, they tended more to adopt the European attitude that the world and its creatures were simply created for human use. Wars also turned more deadly with the infusion of guns and the desire to permanently occupy lands rich in furs. See also BEAVER WARS; ENVIRONMENT; FRENCH CANADIANS.

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G GEORGE I, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN (28 MAY 1660–22 JUNE 1727). Chosen by Parliament to inherit the crown of Great Britain in 1714 on the death of Queen Anne in order to keep a Protestant on the throne, George was the elector of Hanover, a German principality. He took little interest in colonial affairs. The Whig Party dominated his administration as the Tories were linked to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 that attempted to place the Roman Catholic son of King James II on the throne. The campaign against pirates in the 1720s was the most notable feature of his reign with respect to the colonies, as the Whigs appointed politically well-connected people to rule them and did not push for tighter imperial regulation. The first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, dates from his reign, as George did not speak English well enough to communicate with his ministers. See also GEORGE II. GEORGE II, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN (10 NOVEMBER 1683–25 OCTOBER 1760). The son of King George I, George II was a hero in the American colonies given the massive assistance they received during the French and Indian War, the successful conclusion of which was assured by the time of his death. During most of his reign, imperial administration was handled by the Duke of Newcastle and, after 1748, in consultation with the Earl of Halifax and William Pitt. At the age of 60, he was the last British king to physically command an army on the battlefield, where he won a victory at Dettingen, which endeared him even more to his subjects. See also CROWN; GEORGE I; GEORGE III. GEORGE III, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN (24 MAY 1738–29 JANUARY 1820). Grandson of King George II, George III was the first British ruler born in England since Queen Anne in 1665. He was educated to be an active monarch by the Scots Earl of Bute, whom he appointed his first prime minister. Unlike his predecessors, he firmly championed imperial regulation of the colonies, including the Proclamation of 1763 restricting settlement to the area east of the Appalachians, the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and subsequent taxes and restrictions on trade which provoked the American

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Revolution. The irony is that although the colonists blamed British corruption for their woes, they were really caused by a concerned, dedicated king and officials whose vision of the empire differed significantly from theirs. His successor was his son George IV (1820–1830), who had served periodically as regent during his father’s reign beginning in the late 1780s, when George III began to suffer from a disease, porphyria, which produced symptoms similar to insanity. See also CROWN; GEORGE II. GEORGIA. The last of the British colonies that later became part of the United States, Georgia was founded as a penal colony in 1733 by philanthropic British trustees, one of whom, James Oglethorpe (1696–1785), became the first governor. The inhabitants were supposed to farm their own land, slavery and alcohol were prohibited, and inhabitants were assigned plots of land in communities of which Savannah became the principal city. Georgia was also intended to be a base to harass or possibly conquer the Spanish in Florida, and during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, each side mounted an unsuccessful expedition against the other. The trusteeship broke down, however, as unruly colonists ran away seeking slaves, more personal freedom, and larger parcels of land in South Carolina. In 1752, Georgia became a royal colony, and the restrictions on slave owning, landholding, and drinking were lifted. By 1770, about a third of Georgia’s 25,000 inhabitants were slaves. Rice was the principal cash crop. GERMANS. Also known as “Dutch” (a corruption of “Deutsch,” meaning German, not to be confused with the ethnic Dutch from Holland), by 1770 the Germans were the largest ethnic group in Pennsylvania—the only colony without an ethnically English majority—numbering about a third of the population. William Penn had journeyed to the Rhineland in the 1670s, acquainting himself with many of the pacifists there, and advertised for these Germans to settle Pennsylvania and receive land when he obtained title to that colony in 1682. Germantown, about 10 miles north of Philadelphia, was soon built, but most Germans lived further west on farms. The counties of Lancaster, York, Berks, and Northampton were heavily German by the eve of the American Revolution. Over 90 percent of the Germans belonged to the Lutheran or Reformed churches, although the pacifist groups such as the Amish, Mennonites, Moravians, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, Ephrata Cloister, and Society of the Woman in the Wilderness have attracted more attention because of their unusual customs. Until the Revolution, the Germans generally stayed out of politics and supported the Quaker party, which had encouraged their emigration. Prominent Germans included the Christopher Saurs I, II, and III,

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The young George III, painted in his coronation robes in 1760 by Allan Ramsay. National Portrait Gallery, London.

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who founded the first German-language press in the colonies at Germantown; Count Zinzendorf, leader of the Moravians; and Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania’s principal negotiator with the Indians. Other significant groups of Germans lived in Georgia, where Protestants from Salzburg, Austria, obtained religions freedom. Moravians moved to Salem, North Carolina, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, whereas about 3,000 Palatine Germans settled upstate New York in 1709. German settlers in the backcountries of North and South Carolina and Virginia moved southward from Pennsylvania following the French and Indian War. GERMANTOWN PROTEST. The first antislavery protest in British North America was drafted in Germantown, Pennsylvania, by Lutheran leader Francis Daniel Pastorius in 1688 and signed by himself and three Germantown Quakers. They were Germans from Krefeld who had converted to Quakerism and were angered that English Quakers owned slaves. They based their argument on the Golden Rule—“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”—and warned that slaves were morally justified in revolting, and had many times in the past. The petition was presented at the Abington Friends meeting and forwarded to the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania meetings with no effect, although Quakers such as Benjamin Lay, Anthony Benezet, and John Woolman would resume the Quaker protest against slavery in the next generation. GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY (1537–9 SEPTEMBER 1583). An English soldier known for his ruthlessness in English attempts to conquer Ireland, in 1578 the crown granted him the privilege for six years to establish colonies in the New World over which he would have full power. He returned from his first voyage to the West Indies in 1579, but he was shipwrecked and drowned on a subsequent voyage to Newfoundland. He claimed this island for England and himself despite objections from the numerous fishermen of different nations he encountered. Survivors from his second voyage added to information he had provided from the first, which became part of Richard Hakluyt’s narratives of the New World. See also ELIZABETH; RALEIGH, WALTER; FROBISHER, MARTIN. GLORIOUS REVOLUTION. So named because no one was killed in the process, the Glorious Revolution occurred in England in 1688, when Parliament declared that King James II had “abdicated” the throne (he actually fled an army arriving from the Netherlands). He had rendered himself obnoxious by attempting to rule without Parliament, favoring Roman Catholics, and persecuting his critics and the majority Anglican Church. When the

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colonists learned of James’s fate, they overthrew Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England, in his capital of Boston, and Francis Nicholson, the lieutenant-governor in New York, who had ruled without the colonial assemblies, although they (unlike James) favored the Anglican Church, tolerating the small number of Catholics who lived under the Dominion. King William III, James’s successor, upheld Andros’s ouster and rewarded the Massachusetts revolutionaries by replacing him with a native son, Sir William Phips. The New York revolution, Leisler’s Rebellion, however, occurred in a sharply divided colony, unlike the nearly unanimous Massachusetts. Leisler’s opponents were able to convince the king that he had usurped power against the crown, and Leisler and his son-in-law were executed. See also CONNECTICUT; RHODE ISLAND. GOOCH, SIR WILLIAM (21 OCTOBER 1681–17 DECEMBER 1751). Lieutenant-governor of Virginia from 1727 until 1749, Gooch endeared himself to the colonists by the respect he showed the assembly. (The governor was an absentee British noble with whom Gooch split his salary.) He obtained the reluctant consent of both the assembly and British customs officials for the inspection of tobacco by Virginia, which guaranteed its quality and caused prices to rise in the 1730s. He was wounded commanding colonial troops attacking Cartagena in the West Indies during the War of Jenkins’ Ear and was knighted for his services in 1746. GORGES, SIR FERDINANDO (c. 1565–1647). A tireless promoter of English colonization, in 1606 Gorges was a leader in establishing the Plymouth Company (in whose territory the Pilgrims ultimately settled). In 1614, he hired John Smith to explore lands north of the existing colony of Virginia. He outfitted three more expeditions, the last of which marked the first permanent settlement in Maine, to which he was given title in 1639. Gorges also wrote pamphlets publicizing his intended colonies. Gorges’s son Robert (1595–1624?), nephew William Gorges (1606–1659), and cousin Thomas Gorges (1618–1670) did go to New England, where they quarreled with the Pilgrims and Puritans who tried to maintain exclusive control over the region. See also MASSACHUSETTS. GOVERNOR. The executive of the British colonies was a governor. He represented the crown and was appointed by the monarch in the royal colonies. In Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts until 1684, he was elected by the freemen. In Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, and in the Carolinas (until 1719) and Jerseys (until 1702), he was appointed by the proprietor. The governor could introduce legislation and held veto power over the

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acts of the assembly and council. In practice, many governors were appointed not because of their merits but because of their connections to important people in Britain. They were therefore inclined to let the colonists rule themselves, especially as they depended on the assemblies for their salaries. Virginia, the most lucrative mainland colony, was generally ruled by a lieutenant-governor who split his salary with an absentee British nobleman. See also BOARD OF TRADE; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION; POLITICS. GREAT AWAKENING. The Great Awakening was a religious revival that began in the colonies in the late 1730s, although Jonathan Edwards had begun revivals as early as 1731 in Northampton, Massachusetts. It petered out by the mid-1740s but had long-term consequences. The journey of preacher George Whitefield to the colonies in 1739 to obtain funds for an orphanage in Georgia was the principal catalyst for spreading the Awakening. People throughout the colonies questioned the religiosity of their ministers and turned instead to evangelicals who did not confine their preaching to one congregation, or denomination, and attracted large crowds. The Awakened “New Lights,” as they were called, differed from the “Old Lights” in stressing individual and emotional experiences of the Holy Spirit rather than good behavior in a communal setting as the key to salvation. Large crowds gathered around charismatic ministers such as Whitefield (Anglican), Gilbert Tennent (Presbyterian), and Theodore Frelinghuysen (Dutch Reformed). Old Light opponents, led by Charles Chauncy, claimed that their opponents were arrogant, intolerant of those without a similar experience, and wallowing in their own delusions. The attraction of the Awakening especially for women and blacks both slave and free (whose conversions were encouraged) also disturbed members of the elite. Even leading New Lights condemned the emotional excesses of some of their followers, who denied the need for formal churches and whose religious experiences included extreme physical and vocal expressions. While the colonial-wide excitement over the Awakening disappeared with the onset of King George’s War in 1744, it had lasting effects. This conflict and the French and Indian War saw a revival of the sense of American destiny as a chosen land that the early Puritans had brought to New England. Furthermore, the idea that ordinary people could choose their religion and publicly express their thoughts on it can also be seen as anticipating and influencing the desire for similar political freedoms sought during the American Revolution. The right of individuals to decide on membership in a particular church, attend meetings by traveling preachers, and express their religious convictions openly all became more common because of the Awakening.

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H HAKLUYT, RICHARD (c. 1552–23 NOVEMBER 1616). An English geographer whose writings, more than anyone else’s, encouraged and influenced the exploration of America, Hakluyt’s main works were Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principall Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589), which expanded to a massive three-volume edition published between 1598 and 1600. Hakluyt wrote powerful and carefully researched books based on firsthand accounts by explorers. He urged settlement for patriotic reasons (to counter the Spanish), to attain profit through the fur trade, and to create opportunity for the poor and working class. See also ELIZABETH; RALEIGH, WALTER; SMITH, JOHN; WHITE, JOHN. HALF-KING. A Seneca Indian chief, whose real name was Tanaghrisson, Half-King negotiated with Virginia and Pennsylvania on behalf of the Iroquois before the French and Indian War. He presented the Iroquois’ demand that the French leave what is now western Pennsylvania and accompanied George Washington when in 1753 he presented the same demand on behalf of Virginia. Half-King and his warriors supported Washington when he defeated a French force commanded by Sieur de Jumonville the following year; Half-King hacked Jumonville’s skull open and scalped him after he was taken prisoner, an act for which Washington was forced to take responsibility when he surrendered Fort Necessity to the French. Half-King died later in 1754 on the present site of Harrisburg, being forced to withdraw from his headquarters at Logstown once the war began. HALF-WAY COVENANT. This agreement was adopted by many, although not all, New England churches beginning in 1662. Many of the secondgeneration Puritans were not experiencing conversion and thereby acquiring full church membership, which also carried with it the right to vote and hold office in the Congregational Church and civil society. While some ministers regarded this as “declension” or backsliding from the piety of the founders, it also reflected the piety of some young people in refusing to pretend that they

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had experienced saving grace. To keep church membership up, children and grandchildren of those who had experienced conversion could belong to the church (although they could not vote) and have their children baptized. The covenant came in for increasing criticism as people who were not descendants of church members believed the covenant had become a way of perpetuating an aristocracy of descendants of the founders. See also DECLENSION; JEREMIAD. HALIFAX, EARL OF (5 OCTOBER 1716–8 JUNE 1771). Halifax became president of the Board of Trade in 1748 and held that post except for a brief hiatus until 1761. He believed the northern colonies in North America were vital to Britain’s imperial success and in 1754 was instrumental in bringing about the French and Indian War to support Virginia’s land claims and expedition under George Washington to the Ohio Valley. He also persuaded Prime Minister Henry Pelham to permit the Board of Trade to appoint colonial governors in 1752. He served as first lord of the Admiralty from 1762 until 1765. See also PITT, WILLIAM. HAMILTON, ANDREW (?–26 APRIL 1703). An Edinburgh merchant who recruited settlers for East Jersey, Hamilton became a proprietor of that colony himself in 1683, came to the colony in 1686, and was appointed governor in 1687. Replaced by the Dominion of New England in 1688, he was restored to office in 1692. He persuaded the governors of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to begin the first postal service in British North America in 1697, which was successful and became the British Postal Service in 1707. He was briefly removed from office in 1698, but when restored in 1699 was imprisoned by rioters who rejected the proprietors’ authority to collect rents and determine land ownership. In 1702, he was replaced by Lord Cornbury when the crown established and took over the united province of New Jersey, but he then became lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania, a post to which William Penn appointed him after he left New Jersey in 1701. HAMILTON, ANDREW (c. 1676–4 AUGUST 1741). A lawyer who moved first to Virginia and then to Maryland, Hamilton met William Penn on a trip to England and began handling the Penn family’s legal business. He went to Philadelphia and beginning in 1717 served first as Pennsylvania’s attorney general, then as a councilor, and finally as speaker of the assembly from 1727 to 1739 (except in 1733). Independent of and yet popular with both the Quaker and proprietary factions, he bought the land on which the Pennsylvania statehouse would stand and then designed it; it later became

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Independence Hall. In 1735 he made the trip to New York to defend John Peter Zenger successfully in his trial for libeling Governor William Cosby. See also HAMILTON, JAMES. HAMILTON, JAMES (c. 1710–14 AUGUST 1783). Son of Andrew Hamilton, James was trained by him in the law and served as lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania, governing the province in effect from 1746 until 1754 and from 1759 to 1763. He was active in directing the French and Indian War and helped found the College of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) and the American Philosophical Society. HANCOCK, THOMAS (17 JULY 1703–1 AUGUST 1764). Son of the Congregational minister of Lexington, Massachusetts, Thomas Hancock began as a bookseller in Boston but by the 1730s carried on active international trade as a merchant. Thanks to privateering and military contracts during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, King George’s War, and the French and Indian War, he probably became the richest man in Massachusetts. He loyally supported Governor William Shirley and other officials who favored war and cooperation with Britain, becoming a member of the Massachusetts council from 1758 until his death. He had no children and left much of his estate to his nephew John Hancock, who used it to finance the protest movement that led to the American Revolution in Boston. HARRIOT, THOMAS (1560–2 JULY 1621). A learned geographer, mapmaker, and mathematician in the service of Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas Harriot published in 1587 A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, with illustrations by John White. It became the principal source of information about the New World in England, used by writers Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas and inspiring future expeditions. See also ELIZABETH. HARRISON, PETER (14 JUNE 1716–30 APRIL 1775). After marrying a wealthy heiress, Elizabeth Pelham, and converting from the Quaker to the Anglican faith, Harrison moved from England to Newport, Rhode Island, in about 1746. He studied architecture and designed the Redwood Library, Touro Synagogue, and Brick Market in his hometown, along with two Anglican churches in Massachusetts: King’s Chapel in Boston and Christ Church in Cambridge, along with the mansion for Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts in Roxbury, attractive Georgian structures, all of which survive. Although a selftrained amateur, he is generally considered the first British North American architect, and he designed many mansions for the colonial elite as well.

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HARVARD COLLEGE. The first college in British North America, Harvard was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636 as New College, primarily for the purpose of training ministers, although many young men, primarily of the upper class, attended to obtain a general education. In 1639, it was named after John Harvard, who provided its first bequest. Henry Dunster (1640–1654) and Increase Mather (1685–1701) were two early presidents. Mather’s traditional Puritanism was considered too liberal for some, who founded Yale College in New Haven in 1701, and too conservative for others; under President John Leverett (1708–1724), the college exhibited greater tolerance of and connection with both Anglicans and Baptists, leading to a large bequest from English Baptist Thomas Hollis. In 1738, John Winthrop (1714–1779) became the Hollisian Professor of Mathematics and of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. He achieved international renown for his scientific work, especially his studies of astronomy and earthquakes. U.S. president John Adams, Cotton Mather, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and Thomas Hutchinson were notable graduates during the colonial era. HAT ACT. New Englanders manufactured beaver hats for export to the other colonies, a measure the Hat Act, passed in 1732 by the British Parliament, attempted to curtail. Colonial hatmakers could employ no more than two apprentices, and no slaves, and could only make hats for use within a given colony. Although the law was not strictly enforced, British hatmakers who provided better and cheaper items soon took over most of the colonial market. See also BEAVER WARS; FUR TRADE; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. HAYNES, JOHN (1 MAY 1594–JANUARY 1654). A wealthy English country gentleman, Haynes was a Puritan who moved to Massachusetts in 1633, where he was chosen lieutenant-governor in 1634 and governor in 1635. He presided over the trial and banishment of Roger Williams. He then relocated to Connecticut where he was involved in Indian negotiations that led to and ended the Pequot War. He was elected first governor of that colony in 1639 and served in odd-numbered years until his death, being unable to succeed himself. HENDRICK, CHIEF OR KING (1692–8 SEPTEMBER 1755). A leader of the Mohawk nation of the Iroquois Indians, he was a close friend of Sir William Johnson. He was killed during the Battle of Lake George during the French and Indian War in which he led the Mohawk contingent that scouted for the British.

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HESSELIUS, GUSTAVUS (1682–23 MAY 1755). Coming to America in 1712 to join his brother Andreas, who was pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Delaware, Gustavus Hesselius was trained as an artist and is generally considered British North America’s first professional portrait painter. He settled in Philadelphia where he made a good living. Among his most famous works are portraits of Tishcohan and Lapowinsa, two Indian chiefs, and likenesses of himself, his wife, and his daughter. He also painted the interior of the Pennsylvania statehouse, which later became Independence Hall. HOPKINS, EDWARD (1600–MARCH 1657). A wealthy English Puritan merchant, Hopkins moved to the New World in 1637 and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. He was elected governor in the even years from 1640 to 1654 (a governor not being able to succeed himself), even when he returned to England in 1651 or 1652, where he assumed several offices in the navy under Oliver Cromwell. HOUSE OF BURGESSES. See ASSEMBLY; VIRGINIA. HOWARD, FRANCIS (1643–30 MARCH 1695). Appointed governor of Virginia in 1683 because of his strong loyalty to King Charles II and family connections, Howard set about establishing effective royal rule in Virginia. He dismissed officials who disagreed with his policies, which included imposing fees and raising taxes without the consent of the assembly, prosecuting his opponents in court, vetoing numerous laws, and dissolving the assembly when it disagreed with him. He returned to England in 1689, where efforts by Virginians to prosecute him for malfeasance following the Glorious Revolution failed. He was restored to the governorship but remained in England. HUDSON, HENRY (?–1611). Nothing is known of Henry Hudson before 1607, when the English Muscovy Company sent him to sail north of Russia in the hopes of reaching a passage to Asia. Forced to turn back by ice, he sailed again in 1608 with the same result. In 1609, the Dutch East India Company hired him for the same purpose; after failing for a third time to make progress in the Arctic Ocean, he turned west and explored the coast of North America. His most notable achievement was to sail up what is now the Hudson River, which flows into New York harbor, in the hopes of finding a Northwest Passage to the Orient. On his return, Hudson stopped in England where he was detained and his charts were seized. Hired by London merchants connected with the Virginia and East India companies to, once again, find the Northwest Passage, he began his fourth and final voyage in 1610. Stranded in the

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ice during the winter of 1610, he set out in the spring in the body of water now known as Hudson Bay. On 23 June 1611, his crew mutinied and cast him, his son, and seven sick men adrift in an open boat. They were never heard from again. Nine of the mutineers survived an attack by the Inuit (Eskimos) and returned to England in 1611. An expedition in 1612 found no trace of Hudson. The mutineers were cleared of murder charges in 1618 on the grounds that their action was necessary to survive. HUGUENOTS. French Protestants, known as Huguenots, tried to settle in Florida in 1562 and South Carolina in 1564. The attempts failed. After King Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes in 1598 granted them religious toleration, few came to America, although some Huguenots accompanied the Dutch to New Netherland. When Louis XIV revoked the edict in 1685 and began persecuting the Huguenots, over 300,000 Huguenots left France, of whom about 3,000 came to America. Most of them settled in New Rochelle, New York (named after their principal city in France); Boston, Massachusetts; and Charleston, South Carolina. Some of these were prosperous merchants, and many joined the Anglican Church. Notable Huguenot descendants were John Jay, the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and revolutionary leader Paul Revere. The Huguenots assimilated rapidly into North American society. HUNTER, ROBERT (1666–31 MARCH 1734). After a successful military career in Europe and Africa, Hunter was appointed governor of New York and New Jersey in 1710. He arranged for 3,300 German Protestant refugees from the Palatinate to settle in upstate New York as part of a policy he devised to resettle those escaping from Roman Catholic nations during the War of the Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s War). He spent over 20,000 sterling of his own money on this venture and was never compensated by either Britain or New York. As governor, Hunter clashed with the New York assembly over payment of his salary and dispersal of government funds. He achieved a more compliant assembly in 1716 after he published the very successful play Androboros, the first satire published in the American colonies. It attacked the Tories and supporters of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 that hoped to install the Catholic pretender to the British throne. Hunter returned to England in 1720, worked closely with the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, and was rewarded by being appointed governor of Jamaica. He served in that post until his death, where he became the only British colonial governor who ever persuaded a colonial assembly to vote the governor a permanent salary. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION.

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HUTCHINSON, ANNE (1591?–1643). Married to the English merchant William Hutchinson, Anne Hutchinson was converted to Puritanism by the minister John Cotton and came to Boston to be part of his congregation in 1634. A devout, charismatic woman, she began to hold prayer meetings that Massachusetts governor Sir Henry Vane, among others, attended. She preached that all of the colony’s ministers, except for Cotton, lacked divine inspiration and were thus illegitimate. Aside from the threat of independent meetings held by a woman and her critical remarks, most of Massachusetts’ leaders, including John Winthrop, suspected her of antinomianism, the belief that God communicated directly to individuals. This threatened their rule, for it meant that people did not have to obey the colony’s religious and political leaders if they believed their consciences dictated otherwise. In 1637, after Cotton renounced her to save his own position, Hutchinson in fact confessed to receiving divine revelations, following which she was banished from the colony. Joined by many of her followers, she went first to Portsmouth, in what became New Hampshire; then to Rhode Island, where Roger Williams gave her refuge; then to Long Island, New York; and finally to Pelham Bay (New York), where she was killed by Indians. See also CODDINGTON, WILLIAM. HUTCHINSON, THOMAS (9 SEPTEMBER 1711–3 JUNE 1780). The scion of a wealthy Boston, Massachusetts, merchant family, Hutchinson was elected to the Massachusetts assembly (1737–1749) and council (1749– 1766). He was chief justice of the province from 1760 to 1770, lieutenantgovernor from 1758 to 1770, and governor from 1770 to 1774. He played a key role in mobilizing support for the Louisbourg expedition of 1745 and the adoption of a silver currency with the money Britain used to reimburse Massachusetts for that expedition in 1749. Along with Benjamin Franklin, he was an important architect of the unsuccessful Plan of Union at the Albany Congress in 1754. As chief justice, his defense of writs of assistance in 1761–1762 made him unpopular with critics of British policy. His opponents blamed him for the Stamp Act in 1765, and his house was destroyed in the riots of that year. A strong defender of British authority, he subsequently became a scapegoat for the imperial administration. His History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay (1760, 1768, and a posthumous volume in 1828) and the documents he preserved are outstanding resources for studying the colony’s history. See also BERNARD, FRANCIS; COOKE, ELISHA, JR.

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I IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. The English (after the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707, British) monarch was at the head of the imperial administration. He or she had the right to veto colonial laws, and did so with the advice of the privy (or personal) council and the secretary of state for the Southern Department, who was in charge of colonial matters in the cabinet. They all in turn relied for advice on the Board of Trade and other influential people concerned with the colonies, especially merchants and colonial agents. The Admiralty (navy) was also involved in regulating the Acts of Trade and Navigation and protecting colonial shipping in wartime. The Treasury sent customs officials to enforce the Acts of Trade. The army was not required to enforce order in the colonies, and only appeared in wartime (except briefly in Boston and New York to support the administration of Edmund Andros and to suppress Leisler’s Rebellion) before troops remained to enforce order on the frontier following the French and Indian War. In practice, no monarch between King William III (ruled 1688–1702) and George III, who ascended the throne in 1760, took much interest in the colonies. The privy council and secretary were subject to pressure from British economic and religious interests. Thus, manufacturers tried to prevent colonial competition as with the Iron Act (1750) and Hat Act (1732) forbidding the manufacture of these items. Merchants tried to restrict issuance of colonial currency as it depreciated payments to them. The West Indies plantation owners, many of whom served in Parliament, sought to restrict the other colonies’ trade to the British West Indies to ensure cheaper prices for fish, meat, and grain from the northern colonies and to obtain higher prices for their own sugar and molasses. The Anglican Church tried to obtain more converts and regular payment of salaries to its priests in the colonies through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Anglicans were opposed by the Dissenters, who sought more religious toleration. Agents for the colonies presented the colonists’ cases, along with other colonials who journeyed to Britain from time to time to argue a particular cause. For instance, Increase Mather spent several years in England, obtaining a Massachusetts native son, Sir William Phips, as the first governor following the Glorious

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Revolution in return for the province’s support of William III and launching an attack on Quebec. Benjamin Franklin served as agent for several colonies during the imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s. By the 1760s, about a quarter of the members of Parliament had some interest in the mainland colonies and usually supported them—about the percentage of representatives America would have had if the British had given it representation. From the 1670s until the Treaty of Utrecht ended Queen Anne’s War in 1713, England attempted to regulate more stringently colonies that had been relatively independent. Military men were chosen as governors of several colonies in an attempt to discipline them and obtain more effective support for wars against the French and Spanish. In the 18th century, the colonial assemblies frequently resisted raising troops and funds, however, although the New England colonies were notable exceptions. From 1713 until the appointment of the Earl of Halifax to the Board of Trade in 1748, “salutary neglect” characterized British policy. Governors who opposed the legislatures retained little support in Britain as colonials were allowed to violate the Acts of Trade with impunity. The colonies were principally regarded as places where friends of influential British politicians could obtain the jobs that kept their patrons loyal to the government. Following the conclusion of King George’s War in 1748, the British began to consider the North American colonies more essential to the welfare of the empire. Large armies and fleets and reimbursements for colonial war expenses were sent overseas to support them during the French and Indian War. At the conclusion of the war in 1763, however, British dissatisfaction with the colonies’ efforts to defend themselves, trading with the enemy, and colonial provocation of the Indians on the frontier led to increased regulation of colonial trade and attempts to tax the colonies. These measures in turn provoked the American Revolution. See also CROWN. IMPRESSMENT. The British navy was the most powerful in the world in the 18th century. It could not obtain sufficient recruits voluntarily, especially during frequent wars, as discipline was harsh, pay low, and danger great. Beginning in 1664, impressment, that is, seizing men, usually those on board merchant ships or from neighborhoods in which sailors congregated, manned much of the navy. The American colonies obtained exemption from the practice in 1707 as British merchants trading with America successfully argued in Parliament that colonial trade was essential to imperial welfare and could not be interrupted because of a shortage of sailors. The navy insisted that this act expired at the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713, whereas the Americans insisted it was permanent. The navy’s case was that in American waters, many sailors deserted, enticed by merchant ships (and in wartime, privateers) offering higher pay and easier conditions.

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In 1746, after renewed impressments in the War of Jenkins’ Ear and King George’s War, Parliament passed a new law exempting only the West Indies from naval impressments, implying they were valid elsewhere in American ports and waters. Numerous impressments occurred from that point on, including a press that provoked the impressment riot of 1747 in Boston, and during the French and Indian War. For example, 800 men were seized and 400 retained in a 1757 press in New York. Few happened after the war as the navy’s manpower needs declined, which is why impressment was not an important cause of the American Revolution. IMPRESSMENT RIOT OF 1747. The parliamentary act of 1746 banning naval impressments in the West Indies was especially upsetting in Massachusetts, whose soldiers and sailors had seized Louisbourg the previous year and served in large numbers in King George’s War. In November 1747, a British fleet under Commodore Charles Knowles arrived in Boston. On 17 November, Knowles impressed about 46 men to fill the vacancies of those who deserted. The town seized Knowles’s officers, who were on shore as hostages to compel the release of the impressed men, and held them for three days until Knowles threatened to bombard the town. He released the sailors who could prove they were from Massachusetts on 30 November and sailed away. This was the greatest riot in British North America before the Stamp Act. Whereas the town of Boston and Governor William Shirley attempted (falsely) to excuse the town inhabitants for the riot by blaming it on sailors, blacks, and foreigners in order to escape British wrath, a group of men including the young Samuel Adams began a newspaper, The Independent Advertiser, which praised the rioters as an assembly of people defending their natural rights to life and liberty when the government failed. This marked the first time the ideas of John Locke were used to justify resistance to British authority in North America. INDENTURED SERVITUDE. About three-quarters of all European immigrants to early America arrived as indentured servants, or unfree laborers who agreed to work (usually) between three and seven years to pay for their passage. (A subset of indentured servants, redemptioners, only established the duration of their service upon arriving in America.) The word “indenture” refers to the irregular tear between two halves of the contract, each of which was identical, and could therefore be pieced together to show the validity of the contract. This was undertaken in part to prevent “spiriting” or kidnapping of people to work in the colonies, a frequent practice in early 17th-century Virginia. Indentured servants were the principal source of labor in the southern colonies until large numbers of slaves from Africa were imported beginning in the 1680s.

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Masters could discipline indentured servants within wide limits, and they actually may have been treated worse than many slaves because there was no incentive to keep them alive past their terms of service. In fact, treatment sometimes became worse near the end of the term as the usual punishment for running away or insubordination was to add more years to the indenture. The legal system, headed by landowners, was usually sympathetic to the masters. When their service ended, many indentured servants, left without resources, had to sign leases as tenants to their former masters or others. However, by the 18th century, servants frequently obtained freedom dues, usually clothes, farm animals and equipment, a small amount of money, and sometimes even land, to encourage them to settle the frontier and add value to the holdings of speculators in the area. INDIANS. Although scholars now refer to Indians and Native Americans interchangeably, the term “Indians” is used in this volume to avoid confusion with an alternative meaning of native American, that is, any person born either in America or the United States. Columbus dubbed the inhabitants of the regions he found “Indians” as he believed he had reached the Indies, or Orient. Their precontact population is usually estimated at between 50 and 100 million for the entire New World, with about half of these living in central Mexico, another 10 to 12 million in Peru, and perhaps 10 million north of the Rio Grande in what is now the United States and Canada. European epidemics and diseases brought on by excessive labor and forcing people to live in close proximity to settlers reduced this number about 95 percent by 1700. Indian societies were basically of three sorts. Advanced, united empires— the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas in Peru—were the easiest to conquer. Military elites ruled over subject peoples in Mexico, practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism on an enormous scale, which led many Indians to assist the Spanish and welcome them as liberators. The Maya in southern Mexico and Central America were also advanced, but given nearly inaccessible terrain and diffuse political power in city-states, conquest took much longer. The Powhatans in Virginia were in the midst of creating an empire when the Europeans arrived. Strong united or confederate societies—the Iroquois, Pueblo, and Cherokee—were able to resist European expansion for long periods, as nearly all of their men were warriors and they were located in interior regions. Along much of the coast of North America, smaller groups of Indians had been decimated by disease brought by occasional contact before the first wave of settlers arrived. It was thus easy for Europeans to negotiate with or displace them to acquire their territory. Europeans misinterpreted Indian society in North America. They regarded the men as savage and lazy, as their principal occupation was hunting. In

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Europe, only the upper class was allowed to possess weapons and hunt, frequently for recreation as well as food. Indian hunting involved seasonal following of game and movement of villages every few years to avoid depleting resources. Women, who were considered drudges by the Europeans, in fact were honored guardians of the family and the primary agricultural workers. In most cases Indian lineages descended through the woman. Europeans regarded Indian torture as cruel (ignoring their own punishments) without considering it as a masculine ritual in which captives demonstrated their bravery. Indian children, unlike European ones, were treated indulgently and were shamed rather than beaten. Indians regarded themselves as integral parts of a natural order extending from the earth, the winds, the sun, and animals to ancestral and heavenly spirits, whereas Europeans believed they had been given the earth by the only God, to master and use as they saw fit. Indian warfare was limited in North America, although not in the Aztec and Inca empires, which conquered and enslaved subject peoples. Revenge for woman stealing or those killed over disputed hunting grounds led to attempts to restore honor through reciprocal violence or replacing lost members of a group with those of the enemy. Europeans did not regard Indians as “red” or as a separate race. Some, especially the Puritans of New England, considered them the 10 lost tribes of Israel, whereas others called them brown or tawny. Racial thinking only became important near the end of the colonial era, around the time of the French and Indian War, when for the first time colonists on the frontier began to regard all Indians as their enemy and possessed of a racially innate nature—treacherous, warlike, thieving, lazy, and so on. Previously they had thought of some Indians as allies and others as foes. This racial thinking by whites in turn led Indians such as Pontiac’s followers to consider the whites a separate race and regard them all as evil. By the late colonial era, many Indians in North America, such as the Iroquois and Cherokee, had adopted European-style agricultural practices and at times dressed in European clothes or took European names. However, the increasing assimilation of Indians did not prevent their destruction and removal, as whites who wanted their land simply ignored the real people they confronted and applied the usual stereotypes—savage, lazy, heathen, and failing to make use of the land—to justify their actions, as in the case of the Paxton Boys. Indian relations usually went through three stages in British North America. At first the settlers needed the Indians’ assistance to establish colonies that in many cases barely survived, such as Jamestown and Plymouth. Pocahontas with the Virginians and Squanto and Massasoit with the Pilgrims have respectively become symbols of the ideal Indian from the settlers’ perspective. Early treaties signify this connection as Indian rulers at this stage are

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frequently referred to as “kings” and their people as “nations.” After periods of varying length, the increasing number of settlers and the declining number of Indians led to violent conflicts over land, in which the treaties refer to the Indians as subjects of the colony in question or of the crown. Full-fledged warfare broke out seven years after Massachusetts was established with the Pequot War, and 15 years after the first settlement of Virginia when Opechancanough led the “massacre” of 1622. In both cases, it took one more war—King Philip’s War in 1675 and a final Powhatan uprising in 1644—to complete the process for the main area of settlement. In Pennsylvania, violence was delayed for over 70 years as the Iroquois were able to peaceably relocate the Delaware and Munsee Indians. Thereafter, the surviving few Indians were either assimilated into colonial society or else, as with the praying Indians of Massachusetts, isolated on what became the beginning of the reservation system still in use. Indians who lived in the interior, and were not immediately subject to the onset of epidemics and European settlement, frequently retained their sovereignty for a century or more. The Iroquois, Apache, Comanche, and Cherokee were the most notable of these. Unlike the great empires of the Aztecs and Incas, which fell quickly, they were warrior societies in which each man and family had a more or less equal stake in a society that distributed goods equally. A long-lived loyalty to the community was thus both desirable (as it was not for the subjects of the empires) and possible (as it was not for the smaller nations found on the seacoast). See also PONTIAC’S WAR; PUEBLO REVOLT; SCALPING; SUSQUEHANNOCK INDIANS. INDIGO. After it was cultivated on a large scale, the plant indigo became the principal source of blue dye, the most expensive color to make, in the early modern world. Indigo was grown in Africa, Jamaica, and South Carolina, but it only became a boom crop in the last of these thanks to Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722–1793). A precocious child, beginning at the age of 16 she ran her father George Lucas’s estate near Charleston when he became lieutenant-governor of Antigua. Around 1740, she developed a new procedure for making dye from the indigo plant that many South Carolinians adopted. The British government paid a bounty of six pence per pound of indigo beginning in 1748, and except for rice, indigo was the most valuable export of South Carolina until the American Revolution. IRON. The English were in great need of raw iron for their manufactures, especially weapons, tools, and household items. From the first days at Jamestown, the Virginia colonists made efforts to establish an ironworks, and did so at Falling Creek in 1619. It was destroyed in the Indian uprising

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of 1622. The first successful colonial iron manufacturing occurred at Saugus, Massachusetts, from 1647 to 1668. By the end of the colonial era, over 70 ironworks, typically known as forges or furnaces, were found in eastern Pennsylvania—the first was built in 1716—with a smaller concentration in the Hudson Valley in New York and scattered establishments elsewhere. Accessibility of ore, limestone, wood, and running water as a power source determined the site of most furnaces. Most of the ironworks were in fact plantations, which required a large workforce to hew wood, grow crops for food, and process the ore. Slaves as well as indentured servants, tenants, and hired free laborers worked on them. Although the British attempted with the Iron Act of 1750 to ban the production of processed iron—which was made into stoves and rifles and used for horseshoes, farm equipment, and household utensils—in fact the colonials ignored the act. Pennsylvania was the largest source of iron in the British Empire by the 1760s, and its forges were indispensable in producing the extremely accurate Pennsylvania rifles that were used in the French and Indian War by colonials. IRON ACT. In 1750, Parliament attempted to prevent colonial competition with British iron products. The Iron Act allowed importation into Britain of colonial pig and later bar iron duty free, but banned further construction of mills and furnaces to process the iron. The colonists ignored this law, as the furnaces were located in rural areas where there was no effective British presence. IROQUOIS. Calling themselves Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois were the fourthranking military power in eastern North America from the late 17th century until the American Revolution, after the Spanish, French, and British. Their center of power was upstate New York, and at their peak they could muster between 6,000 and 8,000 warriors. They consisted of five nations—the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca—who in 1722 were joined by the Tuscaroras who migrated from North Carolina to avoid devastating warfare. The Iroquois successfully defeated their principal rivals to the south, the Susquehannock Indians, by the early 17th century, driving them into Maryland. The Iroquois were noted for their skilled diplomacy, and both the British and French courted them with presents, especially guns. As such, they were victors in the Beaver Wars, which were motivated by the Europeans’ desire for beaver furs, as guns enabled them to invade their neighbors’ territories to obtain the furs. They usually supported the English in the 17th century, establishing the Covenant Chain that linked them peacefully with the colonies. After British reverses in King William’s War, the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 established their neutrality until the French and Indian War, when they

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once again joined the British. The British Indian agent, Sir William Johnson, lived among the Iroquois in upstate New York, married an Iroquois woman, and was largely responsible for this decision. The Half-King and Chief Hendrick were notable Iroquois who fought for the British. Meanwhile, the Huron, the Iroquois’ long-standing enemies, were allied with the French. The Iroquois had in some measure brought on the French and Indian War by forcing Indians to the south, such as the Delaware and Munsee, to move westward to accommodate Pennsylvania’s desire for more land—the Iroquois were very happy to have a pacifist colony on their southern border. The Treaty of Lancaster (1744), Treaty of Logstown (1752), and Albany Congress (1754) were notable giveaways of other people’s lands the Iroquois arranged. The displaced nations then attacked the Pennsylvania frontier following the defeat of Braddock’s expedition in 1755. The Iroquois for the most part remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution; a few remained in Pennsylvania and New York on reservations, but most moved to what became the province of Ontario in Canada. See also MOURNING WARS; PEQUOT WAR; SHICKELLAMY.

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J JAMES I, KING OF ENGLAND (19 JUNE 1566–27 MARCH 1625). Son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, James inherited the Kingdom of Scotland at the age of one when his mother was imprisoned in England. He assumed the throne of England as well in 1603 on the death of Queen Elizabeth. While a very learned man who sponsored the King James Bible, James believed in (and wrote tracts in favor of) the divine right of kings to serve as God’s unquestioned lieutenants on earth. He clashed with Parliament frequently over their respective powers and favored an Anglican Church that centered authority in the bishops and the crown. He was a foe of the Puritans and those who wanted more of a reformation. Under his rule, Jamestown, Virginia, and the colony of Plymouth were founded. His son, Charles I, carried on his policies, resulting in his execution following the English Civil War. James detested tobacco and wrote a treatise, “Counterblast to Tobacco,” in which he described it as “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” However, realizing that it was much in demand, he levied a tax on it—the most lucrative revenue Britain obtained from North America before the American Revolution. JAMES II, KING OF ENGLAND (14 OCTOBER 1633–16 SEPTEMBER 1701). Brother of King Charles II, his title was the Duke of York during his brother’s reign from 1660 to 1685. He was admiral of the British fleet, took a keen interest in imperial administration, and was the proprietor of New York until it became a royal colony when he ascended the throne in 1685. James was a Roman Catholic; he favored religious toleration to aid the Catholics, but this also benefited Jews, Quakers, and other minorities in the colonies. James also favored absolute royal authority, which he attempted to implement in England by ruling without Parliament and in the colonies with the Dominion of New England that abolished the colonial assemblies. He was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, as was his regime in America. He then lived in France from where,

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with the support of King Louis XIV, he made an effort to win back his kingdom, but he was defeated in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. See also PENN, WILLIAM; WILLIAM III. JAMESTOWN. The first permanent settlement by the English in the New World was Jamestown, named for English King James I. It was founded in 1607 by the Virginia Company. Its early days were difficult: a council of seven leaders could not agree on policy, and highly specialized tradesmen arrived to perform such tasks as planting vines, forging iron, or processing caviar, while soldiers and gentlemen searched for gold. All the settlers were male employees of the company except for a few wives who accompanied their husbands, until 1619. Then women and blacks (at first servants) were imported to prop up the failing enterprise. No provision was made for food except importing it from England or obtaining it from the Powhatan Indians, either forcibly or through trade. Captain John Smith emerged as the colony’s leader in 1608 and 1609 and prevented the settlement from being abandoned. Furthermore, the James River close to the ocean is an estuary whose water has a high salt content, thus adding to the disease that infested a colony located in a swampy area. The settlement itself was small and surrounded by a wooden stockade. Only 61 out of about 500 settlers survived Jamestown’s first three years, including the “starving time” of 1609–1610, when instances of cannibalism occurred and quarrels with the Indians periodically led to disruption of the food supply. Although it remained the capital of Virginia, Jamestown only consisted of a few government buildings, shops, and houses. It was burned in 1676 during Bacon’s Rebellion and again in 1698. Virginia then moved the capital to Williamsburg. Jamestown eventually was abandoned, but today it is a major archaeological site. See also PERCY, GEORGE; PURCHAS, SAMUEL; WINGFIELD, EDWARD. JEREMIADS. Usually sermons, jeremiads were productions of the New England Puritans, beginning around 1660, which lamented declension, or decline, from the religious spirit of the founding generation. Two prominent examples by Increase Mather were the Day of Trouble Is Near (1674) and A Renewal of Covenant the Great Duty Incumbent on Decaying and Distressed Churches (1677). Jeremiads warned of potential evils and—after King Philip’s War and efforts by imperial administration to exert control of the colonies—real calamities that the authors believed arose from the lack of piety. Modern historians attribute these disasters to the colonists’ taking over the Indians’ land and their refusal to submit to England, but Puritans at this time blamed their own spiritual failings. See also DAVENPORT, JOHN; HALF-WAY COVENANT.

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JEWS. The first Jew in British North America was the Bohemian Joachim Gans (or Gaunse), who accompanied the Roanoke expedition in 1585 as an expert in copper mining and manufacture. The earliest Jewish community was in New Netherland, where three merchants were joined in 1654 by 23 refugees from Brazil, who soon left. New York Jews were the only ones in the colonies with the right to vote and hold public office. The other Jewish communities that had the 10 men (minyan) required to conduct religious services were Newport, Rhode Island; Lancaster and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Charleston, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia. In Savannah, Jews were among the earliest and most prominent settlers. Most Jews were merchants or storekeepers, and single families of Jews traded in places such as Boston, Massachusetts, and Reading and Easton, Pennsylvania. Probably about 2,000 Jews lived in colonial America on the eve of the Revolution. Britain entrusted a four-man partnership, which included Moses Franks, a New York–born Jewish merchant, with supplying the British army in North America in 1760; Franks employed his relatives in New York and Philadelphia, who in turn hired Jews on the frontier, to establish themselves as leaders in the provision and fur trades. Newport’s Jewish community included Aaron Lopez, the wealthiest merchant in the colony and a pioneer in the whaling and candle-making industries. He engaged in the slave trade, as did other Jewish merchants, but the trade was overwhelmingly conducted by Christians. Only the Touro Synagogue, completed in 1762, in Newport, Rhode Island, survives of those built during the colonial era. See also FRANKS FAMILY. JOHNSON, ROBERT (1676?–3 MAY 1735). Proprietary governor of South Carolina from 1717 to 1719 and royal governor from 1729 until his death, Johnson promoted settlement of the frontier and successfully conciliated the assembly, leading to a long period of political harmony in the colony. JOHNSON, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1715–11 JULY 1774). The son of Irish Roman Catholic gentry, Johnson was the nephew of British admiral Sir Peter Warren, who employed him to acquire and then manage his property in upstate New York. Johnson became friendly with the Iroquois, learned their ways, and lived the later years of his life with two Mohawk women, the second being Molly Brant, the sister of Chief Joseph Brant. He acquired extensive lands of his own and built a large mansion, Johnson Hall, in western New York where he employed Irish tenants and over 60 slaves. He engaged on a large scale in agriculture and the fur trade. During the French and Indian War, Johnson was knighted for his defeat of the French invading force in 1755 at the Battle of Lake George. He directed the building of Fort William Henry and in 1759 commanded the troops that captured Fort Niagara. In 1756, he became superintendant of Indian affairs for the northern colonies.

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At his death, he was the second largest landowner in the colonies except for the Penn family. JOHNSTON, GABRIEL (c. 1698–17 JULY 1752). The second royal governor of North Carolina from 1734 until his death, Johnston was faced with a recalcitrant assembly that did not want to pay quitrents and settlers who had received numerous ambiguous land grants from proprietary agents who did not want to pay taxes. He successfully compromised on these issues and was also instrumental in bringing in more Scottish immigrants. JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES. In the early modern world, several governments entrusted much of their overseas expansion to chartered companies that were granted monopolies in certain areas in return for funding the “adventure,” as it was called. The first was the Company of Merchant Adventurers, founded in 1407, to handle the sale of British wool on the European continent. The English government also chartered the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, or Muscovy Company, in 1555 to trade with Russia; the Levant Company in 1581 to trade with the Middle East; and the East India Company in 1603 to trade with India. The East India Company was the most profitable private business adventure in world history, as British India was a colony not of the nation, but of the company, until 1857. For America, the Plymouth Company was founded in 1606, and although it did no effective colonizing, the Pilgrims used its charter to justify their settlement in 1620. Virginia was founded by the Virginia Company in 1607, and Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Bay Company, chartered in 1628. The last of these was the only one to take its charter to the New World (secretly) to be free of control from England; all the other companies were run as commercial enterprises with headquarters in the mother country. The Virginia Company transferred its colony to the royal government in 1624, as few settlers would work for the company rather than their own profit. The principal Dutch companies were the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, which monopolized the spice trade from the Orient to Europe in the 17th century. It controlled the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia) and engaged in extensive slave trading in Africa and the New World. Like the British East India Company, it had its own army and fleet. It went out of existence in 1798. The Dutch West India Company, founded in 1621, ran New Netherland from 1624 to 1664, but its most profitable ventures were Brazil, which it conquered from the Portuguese in 1630 and held until 1654; Surinam in South America; and some islands in the West Indies. All of these colonies produced sugar. The French (1664–1769) and Swedes (1731–1813) also chartered East India companies. The New Sweden Company (1637–1655) governed the Swedish American colony of that name.

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JOLLIET, LOUIS (21 SEPTEMBER 1645–20 MAY 1700). Born near Quebec, Frenchman Jolliet accompanied Father Jacques Marquette on his expedition that explored southward from Lake Superior to the conjunction of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers. He later became a large landowner in Canada.

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K KEAYNE, ROBERT (1595–23 MARCH 1656). Keayne was a wealthy merchant and tailor in London who became a Puritan, supported the Plymouth Colony financially, and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1635. In 1638 he founded the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, which consisted of leading inhabitants who were prepared to defend Boston in case of attack. He liberally gave of his wealth to support Harvard College and the grammar school that became the Boston Latin School. He is most noted, however, for his “Apologia,” a 53-page will in which he defended himself because he had been convicted of usury—in this case excessive profiteering by selling nails. Keayne argued that he sold at a reasonable price and as a good citizen was entitled to a reasonable profit. The Massachusetts court was unconvinced when he made that argument in 1639, and Keayne thus reinvested most of his money in livestock rather than trade. The case has been used to argue that early Puritans were not champions of capitalism, as scholar Max Weber maintained in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, but believed private gain needed to be subordinated to the public welfare. See also ECONOMY; TRADE. KEITH, GEORGE (c. 1638–27 MARCH 1716). A Scottish Quaker who was imprisoned in England three times for his preaching and publications, Keith accompanied William Penn on his voyage to Holland and Germany in 1677. He was appointed surveyor-general of East Jersey in 1684 and moved to Philadelphia in 1689 where he became headmaster of the Latin school. In 1692, he was expelled from the Philadelphia Quaker meeting for causing the “Keithian schism,” as he attracted a significant following agreeing with him that most Quakers had lapsed from the principles of their faith. He then left for England where he became an Anglican priest. He was sent in 1702 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to preach in Pennsylvania. He remained for several years in America before returning to England, where he died. KEITH, WILLIAM (1680–18 NOVEMBER 1749). Son of Scottish landowner Sir William Keith, the younger Keith became surveyor-general of customs for the southern colonies in 1714. In 1717 the Penn family appointed

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him lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania; as no member of the Penn family went to the colony at that time, he in effect served as governor until 1726. He championed the assembly’s interests, granting a paper currency, negotiating successfully with the Iroquois, and encouraging Germans to settle the province. His partiality to the assembly led the Penns to replace him, at the urging of James Logan, with Patrick Gordon. He was then elected to the assembly in 1727 and 1728 where he led the opposition to the proprietor. He next returned to England where he advised the Board of Trade on the importance of allowing the colonists considerable freedom as necessary for a prosperous, peaceful empire. He is notorious, however, for promising the young Benjamin Franklin recommendations when he went to England and then reneging. KIDD, WILLIAM (c. 1645–23 MAY 1701). Born in Scotland, Kidd moved to New York at an early age. He first attracted notice in 1689, when he led a mutiny on a pirate ship to which he belonged, renamed it The Blessed William to honor the recently installed King William III of England, and offered his services to the English governor of Nevis. He was a successful privateer for the English and in 1691 returned to New York where he was a founder of Trinity Church. In 1695, the governor, the Earl of Bellomont, commissioned him to search for and destroy privateers who were fighting for the French during King William’s War. He outfitted a ship in London, but his failure to salute an English ship on departing or to allow his men to be impressed by a warship raised suspicions that would later be used against him. He captured no French vessels, only the extremely valuable Quedagh Merchant, an Arab ship commanded by an English captain, trading with the East India Company. During the voyage, he killed an obstreperous seaman in anger, which added the charge of murder to that of piracy after the East India Company’s protests led to Kidd’s arrest in Boston on his return to America in 1699. He was taken to England for trial. He claimed his crew had forced him to turn pirate, but the English court was unconvinced, although scholars still debate his guilt. Kidd’s body was suspended in an iron cage over the River Thames to warn future malefactors of their fate. KIEFT, WILLEM (SEPTEMBER 1597–27 SEPTEMBER 1647). A member of an important Dutch merchant family, Kieft traded in France and Turkey before being appointed director-general of New Netherland in 1637. He ruled dictatorially and levied taxes on corn and furs produced by the local Indians. This led to a war, sometimes known as Kieft’s War, that lasted from 1640 to 1645 and resulted in the death of over 1,500 Indians and the decline of New Netherland’s population to about 250 people. His own authority at

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one time was limited to the fort at the Battery on Manhattan. Denounced by his own subjects, Kieft was replaced by Pietr Stuyvesant and was lost at sea on the voyage back to Holland. KING GEORGE’S WAR. Britain and France went to war in 1744 in what is known in Europe as the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain had already been fighting Spain since 1739 in the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Although the mother country did not expect much to happen in the North American theater besides skirmishes, Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts persuaded that colony’s legislature to endorse an expedition to capture Louisbourg, the French fort that guarded the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in Canada (Quebec). About 3,000 Massachusetts soldiers and sailors with aid from the British navy conquered the fort in 1745. Later that year, a French force invaded New York and forced the English to retreat from all their settlements north of Albany. After about 900 of the Massachusetts troops garrisoning Louisbourg died during the winter of 1745 when promised British replacements failed to arrive, there was no enthusiasm for further expeditions. Privateering did continue, and the desertion of British sailors to privateers and merchant vessels in Boston harbor led to the Impressment Riot of 1747. The war ended in 1748 with the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which added insult to the colonists’ injuries by returning Louisbourg to the French for the port of Madras in India. The first antiwar newspaper in the colonies, the Independent Advertiser, was launched in Boston by Samuel Adams and others; it lasted from 1748 to 1749. KING PHILIP’S WAR. Philip (Indian name Metacom) became sachem, or leader, of the Wampanoag Indians of New England in 1662, following the death of his father Massasoit in 1661 and his brother Wamsutta (known as Alexander to the whites) the following year. Unlike his father, he was hostile to the colonists who had increasingly encroached on Indian lands, sometimes without treaty sanction. The Puritans of Massachusetts had established villages for praying Indians who converted to Christianity. One of these Indians, John Sassamon, was murdered in 1675 shortly after he warned the Plymouth Colony that Philip had been trying to unite the various tribes of the region against the settlers. Three Wampanoags were arrested and convicted (the jury included Indians) of the murder on 8 June 1675. Some Pokanoket Indians retaliated by destroying the town of Swansea in Plymouth; on 28 June, Massachusetts joined Plymouth and, blaming the assault on Philip (who may have been trying to restrain more hotheaded Indians), destroyed the Wampanoag town of Mount Hope. The war continued with the Narragansetts also supporting Philip, and the

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The most glorious moment for colonial troops before the American Revolution was the capture of the French fortress at Louisbourg, guarding the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, in 1745. Colonists were furious, however, when the fortress was restored to French control in 1748 in return for the British trading post of Madras in India. Painting by Charles Delort. Source: Library of Congress.

Mohegans, led by Uncas, and the Mohawks siding with the English, who had formed the United Colonies of New England. Rhode Island, although excluded from the United Colonies, sided with them, as the attacks threatened its survival as well. The largest battle of the war occurred at the principal Narragansett settlement in Rhode Island on 16 December 1675. About 1,000 colonists and Indian allies, who suffered 70 deaths themselves, killed about 300 Indians and destroyed the fort and most of the tribe’s provisions. Indians in western Massachusetts were surprised by New Englanders and Indian allies on 18 May 1676 on the banks of the Connecticut River; over 100 were killed. Other major Indian defeats occurred in June near Hadley and Marlborough, Massachusetts. On the run after having lost most of his forces, Philip was tracked down and killed by an Indian on 12 August 1676. His headless body was displayed at Plymouth for two decades. Pockets of resistance remained until a treaty was signed in 1678. Over 600 colonists and 3,000 Indians died in the war, about 7 percent of the male European and nearly half of the Indian population of New England, the heaviest proportional casualties of any war in North American history,

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with the possible exception of the Yamasee War. Half of New England’s 90 towns were attacked, and 12 (including Providence, the capital of Rhode Island) were destroyed. Several hundred Indians were sold into slavery in Bermuda. Women in Marblehead, Massachusetts, hacked Indian captives to pieces. Praying Indians were suspected as secret enemies and were confined to an island in Boston harbor during the winter of 1675–1676, where many of them died. Fighting the war without British assistance, the New England colonies acquired a greater sense of independence and strength that was useful in resisting British attempts to abolish their charters and impose military government in the 1680s. See also TREAT, ROBERT. KING WILLIAM’S WAR. In 1688, William of Orange, stadtholder of the Netherlands, and his wife, Mary, the daughter of England’s King James II, invaded England at the invitation of the English ruling class, forcing James to flee. He took refuge in France where King Louis XIV began a war with England in an effort to restore him. The “Glorious” Revolution that overthrew James spread to America as the colonists overthrew the Dominion of New England; the war also extended to a conflict between the French and English colonies. The war was largely unsuccessful for the English. In 1690, Massachusetts on its own attempted to conquer Canada. It captured Port Royal in Acadia, but its ships had to withdraw from Quebec to prevent being caught in the winter ice; Port Royal was later recaptured by the French. Earlier in 1690, the French and Indians had attacked Schenectady, New York, in the night by surprise, killing 60, capturing 27, and destroying the town. Raids nearly wiped out all Massachusetts settlements on the coast of Maine. In 1692, the town of York was destroyed with over 100 deaths. The nightmares of refugees from Maine in which “black devils” appeared (the Indians frequently painted themselves black) were factors in the Salem witch trials. For most of the rest of the war, ineffective frontier skirmishes occurred, although the Hurons and other French allies inflicted considerable harm on the Iroquois. Because of the stalemate in Europe and the failure of either side to capture any principal settlements, the Peace of Ryswick in 1697 resulted in no territorial changes and settled nothing in America, paving the way for the outbreak of Queen Anne’s War five years later. See also FRONTENAC, COUNT. KITTANNING, BATTLE OF. After the Delaware and other Indians attacked the Pennsylvania frontier with little opposition following the defeat of Braddock’s expedition in 1755, about 300 frontier militia, headed by Lieutenant-Colonel John Armstrong, led a secretive expedition to the Indian stronghold at Kittanning, about 40 miles north of present-day Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River. On 8 September 1756, they surprised the village, killed

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the Indian leader Chief Jacobs, and freed a number of hostages. Although the battle failed to stop Indian attacks, it was a great morale boost to Pennsylvania and its colonists who had mostly experienced disaster until that point in the French and Indian War. KREFELDERS. In 1683, 33 Mennonite settlers from Krefeld in Germany established Germantown, about 10 miles north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first permanent German settlement in the British North American colonies. They were met in Pennsylvania by Francis Daniel Pastorius, a Lutheran minister who became their leader and wrote the Germantown Protest of 1688, the first antislavery petition in the New World.

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L LABADISTS. Followers of Frenchman Jean de Labade (1610–1674), this small group of pacifists held property in common and made great efforts to convert those around them. They formed communities at Amsterdam and Friesland in the Netherlands, where they were visited by William Penn. In the 1670s, about 200 of them settled instead in tolerant Maryland, where they practiced their faith until the community died out around 1730. LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA. The largest inland town in the American colonies with about 4,000 people by the American Revolution, Lancaster was planned in 1734. In 1729, it had been designated the seat of the first county created in Pennsylvania since 1683. About 70 miles west of Philadelphia, it was the point of departure for settling much of the western frontier, including the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. As a result, it became a center for manufacturing Pennsylvania rifles and Conestoga wagons and for the fur trade, as well as a site for Indian negotiations, such as the conference of 1744 that expanded the territory open to European settlement. The town was primarily Pennsylvania German. Lancaster’s leading merchant was the Jewish Joseph Simon (1712–1804) whose large family was at the center of the first Jewish minyan (10 men eligible to hold services) in Pennsylvania. See also TREATY OF LANCASTER. LANGUAGES. While English was the official language in which all government and most business documents were written in British North America, other languages were important too. Dutch was the principal language of New York until at least the 1730s, and about one-third of Pennsylvanians spoke German, as did the Salzburgers in Georgia, the Palatines in New York and elsewhere, and the Moravians in Salem, North Carolina. The Germans were the only people besides the English to have a press in their language that published newspapers, almanacs, and religious literature as well as government announcements and documents. It was run by Christopher Saur I, II, and III in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Heinrich Moller (Henry Miller) began a second German-language press in Philadelphia in 1762 that

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was critical in enlisting German support for the American Revolution, as Christopher Saur III was a loyalist. Unlike the Dutch and Germans, the Swedes in Delaware and the French Huguenots (primarily) in New York and South Carolina quickly learned English as they were surrounded by English-speaking majorities. Few English speakers learned foreign languages, although Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were taught at grammar schools and colleges so that the Bible and the classics could be read. Similarly, except for the deportation of the French Acadians from Nova Scotia, the English made few efforts to teach others English or English ways. The praying Indians educated by John Eliot in Massachusetts were an exception. Indian languages were only known to a few people who lived in close contact with them on the frontier. They included Conrad Weiser and Madame Montour in Pennsylvania, and Sir William Johnson in New York, as well as Indians such as Mary Musgrove in Georgia, Squanto in Plymouth, and Pocahontas in Virginia, who were so essential in treaty negotiations and keeping the peace. LA SALLE, ROBERT, SIEUR DE (21 NOVEMBER 1643–19 MARCH 1687). A Frenchman who arrived in Quebec, Canada, in 1667 where he received a land grant, La Salle was an explorer who searched for a passage to the Far East. His first voyage in 1669 took him to the Ohio Valley; in 1673 he built Fort Frontenac at the present site of Kingston, Ontario. In 1679, he set out from Quebec, explored the Great Lakes region, and followed the Mississippi River to its mouth before he returned to France in 1683. In 1684, he sailed again with 300 colonists, attempting to colonize what later became Louisiana, but the expedition foundered. When in 1687 he left his men on the Gulf of Mexico and announced his intention to return to Canada for help, he was murdered. See also FRENCH EMPIRE. LAW, JONATHAN (6 AUGUST 1674–6 NOVEMBER 1750). Law became governor of Connecticut in 1741, a position he held until his death, after holding a long series of posts in the colony. He was an Old Light who opposed those evangelists who criticized that colony’s religious establishment during the Great Awakening. He also successfully mobilized Connecticut troops to assist Massachusetts’ Louisbourg expedition during King George’s War. LAWYERS. Few lawyers lived in the American colonies before the 1740s. Most who did were educated in British universities or the Inns of Court in London. They then trained the first generation of American lawyers—men such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—beginning in the 1750s. Law

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was not taught in college (no law schools existed until the American Revolution) but by practicing lawyers who took on young men as assistants. Few cases before colonial courts used lawyers; there was a suspicion among the populace that only people without a case that would stand on its own merits would employ them. Men contemptuously called “pettifoggers” who were self-taught would appear in colonial courts on behalf of others as well. By the 1760s, however, colonial lawyers had acquired a sense of professional identity and believed that only they—rather than the wealthy gentlemen who usually served as judges—were qualified to understand and interpret the law. See also CRIME; LEGAL SYSTEM. LAY, BENJAMIN (1681?–3 FEBRUARY 1759). An English Quaker who moved to Barbados in 1718 where he worked as a merchant, Lay believed he should teach Christianity to the slaves, which brought about opposition from the island’s sugar planters. A hunchback who was only 4 feet 7 inches tall, Lay moved to Philadelphia in 1731 where he continued his preaching, disrupting Quaker meetings, once spreading red berry juice over the congregation to symbolize that the blood of slaves was on their hands, and smashing teacups at the Philadelphia market to make the point that colonists should not use sugar or other products produced with slave labor. He also furthered the education of the poor, including black children. See also ANTISLAVERY; PENNSYLVANIA. LEETE, WILLIAM (c. 1613–16 APRIL 1683). A prosperous English Puritan lawyer who moved to the New Haven Colony in 1639, Leete served in numerous offices before being chosen as that colony’s final governor in 1660. He supported the union of New Haven with Connecticut in 1665 and was instrumental in reconciling the two. He became governor of Connecticut in 1676, a position he held until his death. LEIF ERIKSON. See NORSEMEN. LEGAL SYSTEM. Justice in colonial America began with the local justices of the peace, who were appointed by the governor, except in Connecticut and Rhode Island where they were elected by the voters. They could try minor offenses such as assault and petty theft without a jury; whippings and fines were the usual punishments. Individuals could bring offenders before them, and sometimes they were called out to handle a disturbance, in which case they could request assistance from anyone nearby. Courts, at both the county and colony level, dealt overwhelmingly with civil suits, usually concerning matters of debt, estate division, and possession

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of property. Serious criminal cases that involved life and death, including counterfeiting and burglary, were tried at the colony level. Lawyers were few until late in the colonial era and obtained their education by studying with other practitioners before being admitted to the bar of a particular court. Cases involving Indians were sometimes, although not always, tried by juries that consisted of both Indians and Europeans. Except when other whites complained, slaves had no legal rights, and their testimony was rarely accepted in courts. See also CRIME. LEISLER’S REBELLION. In 1689, when news of James II’s overthrow in the Glorious Revolution reached New York, inhabitants led by Jacob Leisler, a merchant born in Germany, overthrew Francis Nicholson, lieutenant-governor of the Dominion of New England, who resided in New York City. Unlike in Massachusetts, where nearly the entire population united in opposing the Dominion, New York was bitterly divided between mostly Anglican elite merchants and a predominantly Dutch Reformed population. Leisler, supported mostly by the Dutch, established a government that was challenged in England by his opponents. He refused to yield power to Major Richard Ingoldsby when he arrived in January 1691. A stalemate ensued until 17 March, when Ingoldsby’s troops attacked the fort that Leisler held in New York and two men were killed. Governor Henry Sloughter arrived two days later. He had Leisler and his son-in-law Jacob Millborne arrested for treason and hanged on 16 May. In 1695, Leisler’s supporters, who detested the new regime, had his name cleared and his family’s property restored. Division between pro- and anti-Leislerians, mostly along ethnic lines, dominated New York politics until the 1730s. LENNI LENAPE. See DELAWARE INDIANS. LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA. The first library in British North America that was neither a personal collection nor owned by a college, the Library Company of Philadelphia was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731. It lent out books to shareholders, initially 50 in number, who paid an annual fee to purchase volumes. It was one of Franklin’s ideas, along with the Junto (a discussion club) where young men who were artisans could obtain the sort of education only available at colleges. See also LOGAN, JAMES. LITERACY. See EDUCATION. LITERATURE. Early American literature consisted of several genres, although few works were written for entertainment as opposed to practical,

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didactic purposes. Today, scholars read the works of Spanish explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca for insights into the nature of European ideas about the Americas and information about the Indians. Early works by Englishmen who went to the New World were designed both to make money for the authors by appealing to Europeans’ fascination with the New World and to raise funds and recruit immigrants for further settlement. John Smith is generally considered the first English/ American author for his descriptions of Virginia and New England. Thomas Morton, author of The New England Canaan, defended his loose-living trading post at Merry Mount near Boston, Massachusetts, and offered sympathetic descriptions of the Indians and harsh criticisms of the Plymouth colony Pilgrims and Puritans. Much of the literature produced in early America was religious and educational. The Puritan ministers John Cotton, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, and (later) Jonathan Edwards, as well as their critic Roger Williams, produced the most notable works. Poetry designed to teach religious truths was written by Puritans Anne Bradstreet, Michael Wigglesworth, and Edward Taylor. William Penn also published numerous works urging the colonization of Pennsylvania as well as plans for universal peace and moral instruction. While designed to show the perseverance of Christians under stress, captivity narratives also offered thrilling stories of death, torture, and survival along with descriptions of Indian customs. Although usually shorter, popular tales of shipwreck also offered warnings of the catastrophic consequences facing those who abandoned their faith in both God and authority as disaster threatened. Sermons preached at the executions of pirates and criminals were frequently published and also warned of the consequences of evil ways while sometimes depicting them in a titillating manner. The literature of the southern and middle colonies was more secular and critical or satirical of social customs, as the stern censorship exercised in New England was absent. Ebenezer Cook’s The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr (1708) was the first American satire. William Byrd and Charles Woodmason described the primitive state of frontier society. Benjamin Franklin’s mostly anonymous works began in Boston with the “Silence Dogood Letters,” but most of his works were written in Pennsylvania. Some that appeared in the newspaper the Pennsylvania Gazette, which he published, were only identified by scholar J. A. Leo LeMay in the late 20th century. Franklin’s almanacs, as well as those written by Nathaniel Ames and others, offered proverbs and both amusing and edifying stories. Works by colonials describing their own history hold a prominent place in early American literature. William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana, and Thomas Hutchinson’s

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History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay are among the most notable still considered valuable by historians for learning the history of early America. Newspapers and pamphlets dealing with political issues began to appear in the 18th century. In New York, John Peter Zenger’s New York Weekly Journal and William Livingston’s Independent Reflector offer considerable insight into the political ideology and intellectual heritage of the mid-18th century. For Massachusetts, James Franklin’s New England Courant, numerous pamphlets debating various forms of currency, and the Independent Advertiser founded by Samuel Adams among others to protest King George’s War are especially valuable. Most newspapers, however, printed news approved by the government, as they did not wish to jeopardize their printing contracts or suffer from censorship. Some private diaries and journals, notably those of John Winthrop and Samuel Sewall (Massachusetts), Landon Carter and William Byrd (Virginia), and Elizabeth Drinker and Hannah Callendar Sansom (Pennsylvania), also offer considerable insight into the colonial mind. The two most interesting autobiographies are those of Benjamin Franklin and William Moraley, the former a tale of how a deserving poor boy made good, the latter of how a well-to-do boy squandered his opportunities. An early Virginia play, The Candidates: Or the Humors of a Virginia Election, written in 1770 by Robert Munford, makes fun of candidates for the House of Burgesses and the voters they wooed with feasts and alcoholic libations. See also ENLIGHTENMENT; LOCKE, JOHN; MERRY MOUNT; THEATER. LIVINGSTON FAMILY. A powerful Presbyterian family that owned large estates in the Hudson Valley, the Livingstons headed one of the two leading political factions in New York from the 1730s until the American Revolution, which they supported. They were opposed by the Delancey family, who became loyalists. The founding patriarch was Robert Livingston the Elder (1654–1728) who emigrated from Scotland and was granted a large estate, Livingston Manor, in the Hudson Valley. He served as the province’s secretary of Indian affairs from 1695 until his death and also as speaker of the assembly. Philip Livingston (1686–1749) was the second Lord of Livingston Manor; his sons included Philip Livingston (1716–1778), who played a prominent role at the Albany Congress in 1754 and signed the Declaration of Independence. Robert Livingston the Younger (1663–1725), a cousin, served as acting governor of New York. Peter Van Brugh Livingston (1710–1792) was a principal founder of the College of New Jersey, a colony to which several members of the family moved and of which William Livingston (1723–1790), father-

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in-law of John Jay, became governor. The Livingstons intermarried with the Schuylers and Van Cortlandts, prominent Dutch families, which gave them great influence with New York’s large ethnic Dutch population. LOCKE, JOHN (29 AUGUST 1632–28 OCTOBER 1704). An English physician who was also active in the colonization of South Carolina, Locke is primarily known as one of the world’s leading philosophers whose ideas had a special impact on colonial America. A graduate of Oxford University, he first rose to prominence in 1666 by curing a liver infection of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, the leading Whig politician in late 17th-century England. As Shaftesbury’s secretary, Locke wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1671), which in contradiction to his most famous ideas established an impractical and quickly discarded feudal aristocracy, although it incorporated the principal of religious toleration that he made famous in his future Letters Concerning Toleration (c. 1690). Most colonials knew Locke as the author of The Second Treatise of Government (c. 1688) written to defend the Glorious Revolution. He argued that government only existed to protect the life, liberty, and property of those who voluntarily entered into a social compact to preserve them. Violation by the government was grounds for resistance and revolution. Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding maintained that people were born with no innate ideas, from which it could be deduced they possessed freedom to shape their destiny and improve their society. Locke is generally considered the most important English thinker of the Enlightenment. LOGAN, JAMES (20 OCTOBER 1674–31 OCTOBER 1751). Logan became William Penn’s secretary at the age of 25 and served as the principal representative of the proprietor and the Penn family for the next half century. Among the posts he held were councilor (from 1703 to his death), mayor of Philadelphia, chief justice of Pennsylvania, and acting governor from 1736 to 1738. His library of 3,000 books was one of the largest in the colonies and later became part of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Logan opposed the Quaker party and believed in creating a military defense for Pennsylvania. He was also a noted scientist and teacher of botanist John Bartram. LOUDOUN, EARL OF (5 MAY 1705–27 APRIL 1782). Appointed in 1756 to be the commander in chief of the British armed forces in North America during the French and Indian War, Loudoun placed little confidence in American troops. He argued with the colonial assemblies over quartering his troops in colonial cities during the winter, as the colonists considered large

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numbers of soldiers a threat to order. He planned in 1757 to take Louisbourg at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and then Quebec. As reinforcements that he considered necessary did not arrive, he called off the assault on Louisbourg and was replaced in 1758 for his insufficiently aggressive command. LOUISBOURG. Beginning in 1719, the French constructed this fortress to protect the entrance to the St. Lawrence River, and thus Canada (Quebec). It was hardly finished when it was captured by a Massachusetts army and fleet with the assistance of the British navy in 1745 during King George’s War. Returned to France at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 in return for Madras in India, the British attempted to capture it again during the French and Indian War, unsuccessfully in 1757, successfully under General Sir Jeffrey Amherst in 1758. They then destroyed the fortress; a reconstruction now is a Canadian national historic site. See also HUTCHINSON, THOMAS; IMPRESSMENT RIOT OF 1747; LAW, JONATHAN; SHIRLEY, WILLIAM. LOUISIANA. The French began exploring the Mississippi River in 1673 in an effort to link their territories in Canada with those in the West Indies. Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet; Robert, Sieur de la Salle; and Antoine Lamothe de Cadillac were the first explorers of the region, but the brothers Pierre and Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, respectively the Sieurs d’Iberville and Bienville, were responsible for the first settlements at Biloxi (1699) and Mobile (1702), while Cadillac founded Detroit in 1701. D’Iberville served as governor from 1699 to 1702, 1716 to 1724, and 1733 to 1743, while Bienville held that post from 1702 to 1713. Originally, Louisiana in theory consisted of what is now about half of the continental United States, the Louisiana Purchase territory plus the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama. However, French settlements were limited to a few small towns on the Mississippi, such as Natchez (founded in 1716) and New Orleans (1718), which became the capital in 1723. Fur traders, who ranged west as far as the Rocky Mountains, and a few farmers along the river in the Illinois country were the only French presence outside the Deep South. Louisiana was a royal colony (except for 1712 to 1721 when a proprietorship failed) theoretically under the jurisdiction of Quebec. In practice, however, the huge distance between the colonies ensured that Louisiana’s governor, in charge of military affairs and public order, and intendant, who oversaw financial matters, were independent. In 1717, the Duke of Orleans, regent during the childhood of King Louis XV, granted supervision of the colony to his finance minister, the Scottish economist John Law (1670– 1729). Law extravagantly promoted the struggling colony, and shares in his

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Mississippi Company rose to absurd heights before the “Mississippi Bubble” burst in 1720 and Law was forced to flee the country. Under Law’s regime, African slaves were introduced; French convicts had previously been a major source of labor, as were Indian slaves. Plantation agriculture became the mainstay of Louisiana’s economy: the principal crops were indigo and tobacco, exported to Europe, and food sent to the West Indies, although Louisiana never produced much compared with the contraband goods that French colonies imported from the British North American colonies. Sugar later became important, although nowhere near the level of Haiti’s production. Religious orders, especially Jesuits and Ursuline nuns, were also prominent in New Orleans. The French did not send many settlers, and only 6,000 whites lived in the colony when they ceded the western part (Gulf Coast Mississippi and Alabama) to Britain and the rest to Spain (in return for Spain’s futile assistance in the French and Indian War) with the Peace of Paris in 1763. Louisiana adopted a Slave Code and Black Code in 1724, which distinguished it from the British colonies. Slaves were to be baptized, their marriages recognized, and they could bear witness against whites for cruel treatment. Free blacks were not allowed to vote, hold public office, or marry whites, but they were otherwise entitled to equal treatment. Many of them operated their own farms or businesses and came to possess their own slaves. They developed their own social classes and could attend church, the theater, and other functions in company with whites. They also formed their own militia units. LUTHERANS. The first Lutherans to come to what is now the United States were the settlers of New Sweden, who arrived in 1638. Lutheranism was the state church of Sweden, and it continued to be tolerated by the Dutch and later the English after the former captured that colony in 1655. Most of the Lutherans in early America were Pennsylvania Germans, who began to settle that colony in 1682 thanks to the welcome and advertisements of William Penn. Lutheranism is a liturgical church (a full mass is said or sung), and at the time it was a national church with the power to discipline its members, although this discipline did not apply in early British America, as its colonies were not those of a Lutheran country. However, the arrival in Pennsylvania of the Reverend Heinrich (Henry) Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787) from Halle in 1742 led to the creation, six years later, of the first ministerium or synod of the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania, which then extended to all the colonies where Lutherans lived. The city of Halle and its university were at the center of a revival of Lutheran piety in the 18th century. Ministers from Halle came to America, alleviating the shortage of ministers that had caused some Lutherans to turn toward the

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Moravians and Reformed churches. They could effectively preach to the German-speaking Lutherans and brought with them a greater sense of church discipline and unity. The synod rebuked or fired morally errant clergy and imposed the Augsburg Confession of Faith and standard religious services. It also ordained ministers, sometimes over the objections of congregations who would have preferred other candidates. There were about 120,000 Lutherans and 300 congregations in British North America on the eve of the American Revolution. See also PIETISM. LYTTLETON, WILLIAM HENRY (24 DECEMBER 1724–14 SEPTEMBER 1808). The youngest son of an English baron, he was appointed governor of South Carolina in 1756 and oversaw the mobilization of that colony’s forces during the French and Indian and Cherokee wars. In 1760 he obtained the far more lucrative post of governor of Jamaica.

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M MAINE. The province of Maine was part of Massachusetts until 1820. Europeans had landed in Maine while fishing, probably before Christopher Columbus’s voyage. Jamestown, Virginia, began to establish year-round fishing stations in Maine almost from its foundation in 1607. Sir Ferdinando Gorges received the English rights to the territory, and he first named it Maine. However, the first permanent settlements were townships set up by Massachusetts: Saco, Kittery, Scarborough, Falmouth, North Yarmouth, Wells, and York beginning in 1630. There the inhabitants fished, provided lumber, engaged in the fur trade, and grew crops to feed themselves. The Abenaki were the principal Indian inhabitants, but some were taken slaves by the English and shipped away. Warfare began at the time of King Philip’s War, and with French support, the Indians nearly ended the English presence in the early 1690s. Sporadic fighting continued throughout King William’s War and Queen Anne’s War. Massachusetts lieutenant-governor William Dummer made the destruction of the Abenaki and the French Jesuits, led by Father Sebastien Rale who influenced them, the main goal of his administration. Several skirmishes occurred between 1721 and 1725, known as Dummer’s War, which ended the threat with the death of Rale. Maine continued to grow for the rest of the colonial era and had about 30,000 inhabitants by the late 1760s. MARQUETTE, JACQUES (1 JUNE 1637–18 MAY 1675). A French Jesuit priest who was sent to Quebec (Canada) in 1666, he learned several Indian languages and worked at three missions on the shores of Lake Superior before joining Louis Jolliet in 1673 on an expedition to explore the Mississippi River. When Jolliet returned to Quebec, Marquette remained on the frontier and was attempting to found a mission in the Illinois country when he died. MARRIAGE. Early Americans almost invariably married except where there was a shortage of women, as during the first part of the 17th century in the southern colonies when male indentured servants, the majority of

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the population, far outnumbered females. The Puritan colonies compelled single men to marry upon pain of a fine, and even elderly people would marry for companionship, financial support, or household services if they were widowed. The Puritans, and other Dissenters such as the Presbyterians, did not consider marriage a sacrament, but a civil contract; as such, divorce was possible, although not frequent, in the New England colonies on grounds such as cruelty, adultery, desertion, or failure to consummate a marriage. (The Anglican Church did not allow divorce; although the church began with what most would consider the “divorce” of Henry VIII from his first wife, he technically ended his marriage by declaring he was never legally married because his wife had previously married and had intercourse with his deceased brother.) The average age of marriage was usually in the early twenties, although teen marriages sometimes occurred. Although love was sometimes a factor in marriage decisions, colonials were encouraged to look for a suitable spouse from someone of a similar social class or economic background and, usually, the same religion. Love was expected to develop from intimate contact but was not considered essential. Premarital sex occurred frequently and was not too severely condemned, whereas sex out of wedlock and adultery were. Premarital pregnancy usually resulted in a woman being required to marry the man in question, to judge by comparing the dates of marriage with those of the births of first children. In many of those cases, a couple was already courting when intercourse first occurred. The husband was considered the head of the family and governed his wife and children, along with servants, slaves, and other dependents, as a little commonwealth. He was, however, expected to treat his family with respect and to care for them properly in return for their obedience. MARYLAND. In 1632, King Charles I of England granted his friend Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, lands in the northern part of Virginia. Calvert was a Roman Catholic, as was Charles’s wife Queen Mary, after whom the new colony was named. Calvert’s son Leonard led the expedition that established the first permanent settlement of St. Mary’s in 1634. The economy and social structure were similar to Virginia’s: tobacco was grown for export and food for subsistence; wealthy men were granted most of the land, which was worked by indentured servants and tenant farmers, of whom about three-quarters were men. The main difference was that the ruling group in Maryland were almost all Catholics and the lower class Protestant. Maryland was the first English colony to allow diverse faiths to practice their religion. With the overthrow and beheading of King Charles in 1649, the Calverts hoped to encourage settlement, lessen unrest in the colony, and prevent challenges to their rule at home by sponsoring an Act of Toleration. Never-

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theless, between 1644 and 1660, Maryland was plagued by rebellions from Protestant settlers and invaded three times by anti-Catholic Virginians. Following the Glorious Revolution, which repudiated Catholic King James II, the Protestant-dominated assembly moved the capital from St. Mary’s to Annapolis, a part of the colony where there were few Catholics. In 1702, the assembly established the Anglican Church, thereby disfranchising members of the faith whose religious freedom was the reason for Maryland’s existence. The Calverts converted to Anglicanism and retained their proprietorship, but those Marylanders who adhered to Catholicism could not vote or hold office until the American Revolution. Maryland became both politically stable and economically prosperous thanks to slavery, which as in Virginia began to supplement indentured servitude and tenantry as a source of labor in the late 17th century. A population of about 30,000 numbered fewer than 5,000 slaves in 1700; by 1770, over 60,000 slaves lived alongside about 150,000 whites. Tobacco was the key to Maryland’s prosperity, and a rich planter class evolved. Baltimore, founded in 1729, became the colony’s leading city, not because of tobacco (ships exporting tobacco could come right up to plantations on the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay) but as the port from which grain from western Maryland and the Susquehanna River Valley of Pennsylvania could be shipped to the West Indies. See also MASON-DIXON LINE. MASON-DIXON LINE. The boundary of Maryland and Pennsylvania began to be disputed when westward settlers from both colonies were granted the same plots of land. Following skirmishes in what is known as Cresap’s War in 1730, the Calvert family, proprietors of Maryland, and the Penn family, proprietors of Pennsylvania, agreed to set a line extending 15 miles south of Philadelphia’s southern border as the boundary. It was not until the end of the French and Indian War, however, that they hired English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon to determine where this boundary was. Between April 1765 and October 1767, the two men and their assistants surveyed the line that now bears their name for 244 miles west from the Delaware River until hostile Indians forced them to stop. In 1784, David Rittenhouse and Andrew Ellicott extended the line at the same latitude to the present-day western border of Pennsylvania. Many of the milestones (marked P on the north and M on the south side) and crown stones placed every five miles (with the coats of arms of each colony) still survive. MASSACHUSETTS. Founded in 1629 by Puritans, Massachusetts displaced the Algonquin Indians and Thomas Morton’s loose-living community at Merry Mount. It soon became the dominant colony in New England.

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Settlement began along the coast in towns such as Salem, Marblehead, and Beverly, where fishing became the chief industry, and Boston, the capital, which specialized in shipbuilding and handled most of the trade with Britain. Also quick to develop was the Connecticut River Valley, which at first shipped furs to Europe via New Haven before turning to grain. The interior of the province was settled both westward and eastward from those regions. Within a few years of settlement, Massachusetts developed an international commerce, known as the Triangle Trade, which fed the West Indies, exporting sugar and molasses from them, sailing to Africa to supply them with slaves, and then spending the profits in England to acquire manufactured goods to sell in America. Massachusetts’ trade with other nations and their Caribbean islands were a prime reason for Britain’s Acts of Trade and Navigation, but these were mostly ignored. Massachusetts farmers also produced a surplus which they traded to merchants for imported goods. Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Haven, and New Hampshire were all founded by ministers and congregations from Massachusetts; in 1691, Plymouth was incorporated into Massachusetts. The Puritans lived on friendly terms with some of the Indians in the region and allied with them to fight against others in the Pequot War and King Philip’s War. Praying Indians who remained within the colony were converted to Puritanism, largely by John Eliot, and lived in what were known as praying towns. Taking their charter with them surreptitiously to the New World, the Massachusetts Bay Company established a government that was autonomous, although nominally loyal to England. The leading figure during the early days was John Winthrop, governor most of the time from 1630 until his death in 1649. Massachusetts was the first colony in British North America to have a college (Harvard) and printing press, both established in 1636, and an education law mandating that children be taught reading and writing (1647). It was the intellectual center of American Puritanism, with John Cotton, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, and Jonathan Edwards, Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, and Michael Wigglesworth as the leading figures. Scholars have debated whether Massachusetts was democratic or theocratic, but in effect it was both. All political and religious officers were elected by male church members, from scavengers (trash collectors) and hogreeves (who kept hogs out of the field) to the governor, council, and members of the assembly. Town meeting democracy, however, was limited to those who could convince church members that they had undergone a conversion experience. Dissenters such as Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and Quakers were expelled from the colony, whereas Anglicans were not allowed to worship publicly. The Salem witch trials were also a by-product of Massachusetts’ religious fervor. Because of the colony’s intolerance, few

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immigrants arrived after 1640, and nearly all of its population were descendants of approximately 10,000 settlers who came during the Great Migration of 1630–1640. The population grew exponentially thanks to the high fertility rate and infant survival because of a healthy climate, and the nearly equal ratio of males to females. By 1700, Massachusetts (excluding Maine) had 90,000 inhabitants; by the American Revolution, it had 235,000, of whom fewer than 5,000 were slaves. In 1685, King Charles II revoked the Massachusetts charter and established the Dominion of New England. The colony overthrew Governor Sir Edmund Andros in 1689. It then undertook an unsuccessful expedition to conquer Quebec to prove its loyalty to the crown. The commander, Sir William Phips, became the first royal governor of Massachusetts in 1692. Although the colony did not retain its original charter as did Rhode Island and Connecticut, native sons served as governor over half the time before the American Revolution. Massachusetts was also the only royal colony whose house of representatives, in conjunction with the outgoing council, elected the new council each year, subject to the governor’s veto. In the 18th century, Massachusetts went from being the most recalcitrant colony in North America to the most cooperative with British policy. This occurred because the colony wished to conquer Canada and sought British assistance. It launched major expeditions, mostly on its own initiative, during King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, and King George’s War. It did so because French and Indian raids, such as the Deerfield attack of 1704, fell most heavily on Massachusetts. Massachusetts’ Puritanism also was fiercely anti-Catholic. Furthermore, the rapidly growing population sought new lands, and there was a large expansion in the number of towns following each war. During the French and Indian War, about a third of the 20,000 troops raised in the British colonies came from Massachusetts, and the colony received in turn about a third of over a million pounds sterling the British government reimbursed the colonies for their extraordinary wartime expenses. During times of peace, there were quarrels between the governor and assembly over whether the executive should receive an annually determined salary or a permanently fixed payment to ensure his independence, and over his right to veto the assembly’s speaker. What sort and how much paper currency should be issued was also a problem until in 1749 Parliament reimbursed Massachusetts 183,000 pounds sterling for its Louisbourg expedition of 1745. Thenceforth Massachusetts was the only colony with a currency based on silver. Massachusetts’ extraordinary war exertions brought hardships rather than rewards. Not only did Massachusetts soldiers die in expeditions near home, but many enlisted for campaigns in the West Indies, where they almost all

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perished from disease. The heavily taxed town of Boston was one of the few places in North America whose population did not rise after 1730. In King George’s War, Boston suffered from naval impressment, which led to the impressment riot of 1747; Louisbourg, captured by Massachusetts, was returned to the French in 1748. During the French and Indian War, Massachusetts troops mutinied 11 times over where they were to be posted and because of the failure of British officers to recognize the ranks of their colonial counterparts. Massachusetts suffered the most from imperial administration after the war because it had developed a native-born elite committed to cooperation with the British. The customs officers who in 1761 obtained writs of assistance to search indiscriminately for illegal goods, and the superior court, headed by Thomas Hutchinson, that allowed the writs, were all Massachusetts men. When the long-suffering province resisted, the British sent customs commissioners to enforce the Acts of Trade and soldiers to protect them, thereby leading to the American Revolution. MASSASOIT (BEFORE 1600?–1661). Leader of the Wampanoag Indians of southern New England, Massasoit met the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony in 1621 and helped them survive during their first difficult years. He remained friendly to the settlers, being especially grateful after he recovered from a serious illness thanks to their care in 1623. He spent the rest of his life trying to keep peace between the English and Indians of New England, a peace that was undone under his son Metacom, better known as King Philip. MATHER, COTTON (12 FEBRUARY 1663–13 FEBRUARY 1728). The son of Increase Mather and grandson of his namesake, John Cotton, he graduated from Harvard College at age 15 and became his father’s colleague at the Second Church of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1683. Mather was one of the leading Puritans who decided to overthrow Sir Edmund Andros and the Dominion of New England in 1689, and for the rest of his life he took an active role in provincial politics, usually on the side of the governor and opposed to the popular party in the assembly. Mather is most noted as an apologist for Puritanism and author of over 450 works. Most important were Magnalia Christi Americana, published in 1702, a huge two-volume history of God’s providence in the history of New England, mostly consisting of biographies of pious Puritans, and the unfinished Biblia Americana, his commentaries on the Bible that occupied him for over 35 years. The Christian Philosopher (1721) demonstrated his keen interest in science and attempted to harmonize Christianity and Newtonian philosophy. In 1722, he conveyed knowledge obtained from his African-born slave Onesimus to Dr. Zabdiel Boylston and thus helped to introduce smallpox inoculation to America.

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Despite these accomplishments, Mather is notorious for having encouraged and supported the Salem witch trials both through his presence at the trials and his books Remarkable Providences (1688) and Wonders of the Invisible World (1692). And both his contemporaries and later historians considered his endless soul-searching, manifested in his diary and other writings, as astoundingly self-centered and his constant involvement in political and ecclesiastical controversies as obnoxious meddling. Still, with the exception of Jonathan Edwards, he was the greatest colonial Puritan intellectual. See also EPIDEMICS; MEDICINE. MATHER, INCREASE (21 JUNE 1639–23 AUGUST 1723). Mather’s father Richard was the Puritan minister of Dorchester, Massachusetts. Increase attended Harvard College and then Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, before returning to Massachusetts. He became pastor of the Second Church of Boston in 1664 and held that post until his death. He took a major role in opposing the Dominion of New England and Sir Edmund Andros, fleeing to England in 1687 to avoid possible prosecution for treason. He remained in England for five years and played a major role in obtaining a favorable charter for Massachusetts and a native son, Sir William Phips—a sea captain he converted at least nominally to Puritanism—as its first royal governor. He urged caution during the Salem witch trials but still defended them and never apologized for the trials. He served as president of Harvard College from 1692 to 1702 but became increasingly unpopular for his absenteeism and refusal to abandon his strict Puritan ideals for the more tolerant philosophy favored by tutor John Leverett, who succeeded him. He continued to be involved in politics, usually supporting unpopular royal governors, until his death. He was the father of Cotton Mather. MAYFLOWER COMPACT. On 11 November 1620, 41 adult men who were journeying to found Plymouth Colony on board the Mayflower signed this compact, in which “[we] Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation . . . and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.” This document is considered the fundamental basis of a new government underlying the formation of a new society. As such it can be considered a primitive constitution and the first assertion of self-government in English America. The signers, nevertheless, still acknowledged their allegiance to King James I of England. The compact was written in response to the complaints of

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the majority of those on board who were not Pilgrims, but soldiers and employees of the Plymouth Company, who denied that the Pilgrims had any authority over them. It also resembled covenants frequently entered into by passengers and crews on ships, and thus only acquired historical importance retrospectively as the Plymouth Colony flourished. MAYHEW, JONATHAN (8 OCTOBER 1720–9 JULY 1766). A Harvard College graduate and minister of the West Street Congregational Church in Boston, Massachusetts, Mayhew joined Charles Chauncy as the city’s principal champion of reasonable Christianity and opponent of the Great Awakening. He also preached in favor of colonial rights, most famously in his Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission (1750), where he argued that the English were justified in executing King Charles I for violating their rights, and The Snare Broken (1765), where he opposed the Stamp Act. MEDICINE. Colonial medicine was of two sorts: folk remedies and professional care. Folk medicine was largely practiced by women and consisted of using roots, herbs, and potions based on both European tradition and knowledge acquired from the Indians. Midwives and local women delivered almost all children. Physicians lived mostly in the cities, and they obtained their training through apprenticeship with a practitioner. A few physicians had degrees from European universities, but there was no school in British America to teach medicine before the College of Physicians and Surgeons was founded in Philadelphia in 1787. Medical theory in colonial times was still basically that of the Greek doctor Hippocrates from the fifth century b.c.e. The body consisted of four humors, each correlated with one of the four elements; when one was out of proportion, it explained a person’s unpleasant temperament and unhealthy physical state. Black bile was the sign of earth in the system and in excess produced melancholy; blood meant air and if excessive made a person sanguine, or overly cheerful, boisterous, hopeful, and frivolous; yellow bile stood for fire and led to a choleric, or angry, disposition; phlegm signified water and in excess made someone phlegmatic, or lethargic. The way to cure an imbalance in the humors was by ridding the body of the excess. Sometimes tobacco was recommended to eliminate phlegm, but in general “heroic” measures such as purges, enemas, and most especially bleeding were the standard practice. Leeches, a simple knife cut, or metal comblike devices were the most frequent means of relieving the body of a certain amount of blood, usually measured either in pints or pounds. There was no anesthesia except a drink of alcohol, and sterilization was unknown. See also EPIDEMICS.

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MENNONITES. Various groups of Anabaptists, or Baptists, appeared on the European continent in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. They all believed that only consenting adults rather than infants should be baptized. The Mennonites were followers of the Dutch minister Menno Simons (1496– 1561) and were also pacifists. They differed from the similar Amish, however, in that they did not maintain such a strict church discipline and shun or expel deviant members except in extreme cases. Amish and Mennonites did not get on well in America. The first American Mennonites were invited to Pennsylvania by William Penn; one of them, William Rittenhouse, founded the first paper mill in the colonies at Germantown in 1683. The main Mennonite immigration of about 2,500 people came from the Palatinate in the Rhineland of Germany in the three decades after 1710. Most of them lived in Lancaster County, and many still reside in Pennsylvania. See also PASTORIUS, FRANCIS DANIEL. MERCANTILISM. The predominant economic theory of the European nations from about 1500 to 1800, mercantilism taught that colonies existed primarily for the economic benefit of the nation that owned them. The best way they could fulfill this purpose was by providing gold and silver, or if not that, then some commodity that the European country could sell to others in exchange for gold and silver. Furs were the first big moneymaking commodity in the New World, followed by tobacco and then sugar, the most profitable of all. Early expeditions to Virginia had hoped to grow mulberry trees for silk, provide caviar from sturgeons, and produce wine, thereby obviating the need for England to spend money importing these products. These endeavors failed. An important policy if mercantilism were to work was that most colonial imports and exports had to be traded only to the mother country. Otherwise the colony could profit at the European nation’s expense by selling its products elsewhere, where in turn they could be resold to profit a competitor nation. Similarly, for colonies to spend money on other nations’ manufactured goods would not only send gold and silver to commercial rivals but would enhance other nations’ manufactures at the expense of the mother country’s own. Two important points of mercantilism were that colonial trade should only be conducted in ships belonging to the mother country or its colonies and that colonies should not be allowed to manufacture goods to compete with the home nation. The Acts of Trade and Navigation, the Hat Act, and the Iron Act were examples of how Britain attempted to implement mercantilism. The Spanish went further and required all colonial ships trading with Spain to travel in fleets from Vera Cruz or Havana escorted by the navy to prevent trading

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with other nations. But as colonies could make much more money selling competitively to whatever nation offered the best price, the British North American colonies would ship their fish and grain to the foreign West Indies, even in wartime, while customs officials colluded with the merchants in return for bribes. The southern colonies were less likely to cheat the system, as they did not have their own merchant marine, and British vessels carried away most of the tobacco and sugar. But all the colonies benefited from the convoys of the British navy in wartime, and North Carolina and South Carolina benefited especially from bounties on naval stores and indigo, respectively. Mercantilism had a justification beyond the mere selfish desire to exploit colonies. Nations in the early modern world had to acquire gold and silver to pay for armies and navies: many nations recruited mercenaries (the Hessians used by the British in the American Revolution being the most famous), and in any case the financial stability of a country, its ability to borrow from financiers, and the willingness of its soldiers and sailors to fight depended on the availability of hard money. Even Adam Smith, whose system of free trade among nations—published in The Wealth of Nations in 1776—displaced mercantilism as the reigning economic theory of the leading countries, argued that defense was preferable to opulence and that trade restrictions needed for defense were justified. MERCHANTS. At the apex of social and economic life in the northern colonies were the merchants. They obtained grain, fish, lumber, livestock, or furs from local inhabitants and sold them to either the West Indies or Britain in return for manufactured goods such as household items, books, clothing, and things not produced in the colonies such as tea or wine. There were few merchants in the South, and British and northern colonial merchants shipped away the tobacco, rice, indigo, and sugar these colonies produced. The northern colonies, on the other hand, had their own merchants who frequently formed partnerships with merchants in Britain. Merchants maintained stores or warehouses with a variety of goods they hoped would satisfy their customers; they also issued bills of credit which passed for currency if the population believed the merchants had the wealth to back them up. Merchants were very active in colonial politics, as they would receive military contracts in wartime and had an interest in seeing that the Acts of Trade and Navigation were not enforced. The wealthier merchants owned ships, the less wealthy shares of ships. Merchants were distinguished from shopkeepers, who usually either sold only one or a few commodities or were general storekeepers in the backcountry who depended on merchants for their inventory. See also ECONOMY; TRADE.

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MERRY MOUNT. Today part of Quincy, Massachusetts, Merry Mount was founded by the English merchant Thomas Morton (c. 1578–1647) in 1625. He got on well with the Indians, and his group of about 30 young men, mostly servants, had social and sexual intercourse with them, inviting them to revels including May Day. An Anglican, Morton was transplanting the traditional folk culture on which he was raised in the West Country of England. In 1629, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony captured him, and the cooperating Puritans of Massachusetts burned Merry Mount and sent him back to England. Morton had been trained as a lawyer and prosecuted the Massachusetts Bay Company for violating its charter by taking it overseas. He in fact did get it revoked, but Massachusetts refused to surrender it and the issue was not pursued. In 1637, Morton published his three-volume work, New England Canaan, where he criticized the Puritans for their self-righteousness, bigotry, and hostility toward the Indians. Morton is the first known English/American poet, and his work is an effective, satirical defense of the culture the Puritans hoped to eradicate. MEXICO. See SPANISH EMPIRE. MIDDLETON FAMILY. The Middletons were among the most important plantation owners in South Carolina. Arthur Middleton (1681–1737) led the revolt against the proprietary government in 1719 that led to the formation of the two Carolinas as royal colonies. As president of the council, he served as acting governor after Sir Francis Nicholson returned to England, from 1725 to 1730. This was a period of fierce conflict between planters and merchants over the desirability of a paper currency, which he opposed. His son Henry Middleton (1717–1784) founded the garden at Middleton Place in 1741 that survives as the oldest botanical garden in the United States. Henry later served as second president of the Continental Congress where he tried to oppose independence, but he later supported the Revolution. MIDWIVES. See MEDICINE. MILITIA. From the beginning, the colonies adopted the form of home defense that British counties had used. The British distrusted standing armies as likely to become a tool of the monarch to suppress local liberty. All men between the ages of 16 and 60, except for the disabled, clergymen, and government officials, were supposed to turn out for military drill (usually once a month) and be prepared to fight. Professional soldiers were few or nonexistent. During wartime, colonies would rarely rely on the militia, except to defend an area that was immediately attacked, and instead recruited men who

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were enticed with appeals to patriotism or monetary payments for extended expeditions. Troops elected their own officers in most cases; where governors appointed them, they took into consideration that soldiers were only likely to obey respected local figures. As colonial areas became more pacified, the militia trained less frequently, and training days became excuses for socializing and local politics. However, the militia tradition remained strong, for the minutemen of 1775 were the militia in the region around Boston, and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution links the right to bear arms to service in a well-ordered militia. MINUIT, PETER (1589?–1638). Born in the German Duchy of Cleves, Minuit became director-general of New Netherland in 1626, a colony of the Dutch West India Company that he had helped to found in 1624. Although he successfully established the colony and its principal enterprise, the fur trade, along with good relations with Plymouth Colony in New England, he was recalled in 1631 after he angered New Amsterdam’s Dutch Reformed minister and company employees by urging more private enterprise. He was then hired by the Swedes to establish New Sweden in 1637, which he did the following year. After a brief stay in the colony, he sailed off to capture Spanish ships in the West Indies on his way back to Europe and was lost in a hurricane. MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. See LOUISIANA. MOLASSES ACT. In 1733, aware that the North American colonials imported more molasses illegally from the French, Spanish, and Dutch islands of the West Indies than they did from the British, Parliament passed the Molasses Act. It proposed a levy of six pence per gallon on foreign molasses and was intended by its authors to be a prohibitive duty. The West Indies planters, many of whom sat in Parliament and were some of the richest men in the empire, used their influence to pass the bill in the hopes it would greatly enrich them by raising the price of their own sugar and molasses. The main effect of the act, however, was to increase contempt for the British customs service and large-scale smuggling, as well as opportunities for bribery in both the West Indies ports (where certificates noted the origins of the molasses) and the northern colonies (where the goods had to be registered). Parliament admitted that the act was unenforceable in 1764 when it repealed the Molasses Act and replaced it with the Sugar Act. This levied a tax of three pence per gallon on all molasses imported into the colonies. This was the first tax Britain imposed on the colonies to raise revenue, as opposed to the prohibitive tariff of the Molasses Act. See also TRADE.

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MONTCALM, LOUIS-JOSEPH, MARQUIS DE (28 FEBRUARY 1712–14 SEPTEMBER 1759). Montcalm was an experienced career French soldier who came to Quebec in 1756 to replace Baron Dieskau, who had been captured in 1755 at the Battle of Lake George. He had great success during his first three years, capturing Fort Oswego in 1756 and Fort William Henry in 1757, and repulsing a British army four times his size led by James Abercrombie at Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) in 1758. His victory at Fort William Henry was marred by his Indian allies, who began to massacre the British prisoners he had allowed to surrender with the honors of war. Montcalm and his officers risked their own lives trying to pacify the Indians. Montcalm quarreled with the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the intendant of Quebec, who believed that Montcalm could not win a standard European-style war against the British and urged guerrilla, Indian-style fighting. Vaudreuil was proven right on 13 September 1759, when a British force commanded by General James Wolfe that was besieging Quebec appeared suddenly on the Plains of Abraham before the city wall after a futile cannonade of the fortified city on a high cliff. Fearful that his Indian allies and French Canadian troops would desert or run out of food, Montcalm marched them outside the city walls where they were no match in an open field for the highly trained British regulars. Both Montcalm and Wolfe were killed in the battle; today, the only memorial in the world with statues of both winning and losing generals stands in Quebec and is the scene of an annual reunion of the descendants of both generals. Montcalm was unaware that a large force was about to arrive from Montreal to reinforce him, which might have turned the tide of battle and prevented the loss of Canada. MONTOUR, ISABELLE DE (MADAME) (?–c. 1753). Very few people in Pennsylvania were either familiar with Indians or could speak their language as the colony continued to purchase their land. Madame Montour, like Conrad Weiser, was one of the few cultural brokers or mediators who were at home in both worlds and could facilitate communication between them. We know little about her origins: she may have been Isabelle Couc, a metis or mixed-blood French Canadian and Indian woman, or Isabelle’s niece, and was probably born either in the late 1660s or sometime in the 1680s. Early in life she lived near Lake Superior with either her father or brother, Louis Montour, who was killed while engaged in the fur trade. She was then captured by the Iroquois, but around 1711 she became a friend of New York’s governor, Robert Hunter, because she could aid in diplomacy by speaking French, English, and various Indian languages. She first attracted notice in 1711 as an interpreter for New York, but in the late 1720s she moved to Pennsylvania, to the site of a community now named

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Montoursville. She traveled widely from Pennsylvania to Quebec (Canada) on various diplomatic missions, attending the conference that produced the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744. She was sometimes assisted by her son Andrew Montour (c. 1720–1772), who accompanied George Washington on General Edward Braddock’s expedition in the French and Indian War, during which he served on numerous missions for the British and colonials. MOORE, JAMES (c. 1650–1706). Interim governor of South Carolina from 1700 to 1703, Moore encouraged the capturing of Indians as slaves and led colonial forces against the Spanish in Florida during Queen Anne’s War. He burned the town although he failed to capture the fort of St. Augustine in 1702, but the assembly balked at voting funds for a further attack. He remained in the council after he was replaced as governor and in 1704 had three major accomplishments. He led the forces that decimated the Apalachee Indians; guided the legislature in passing the Exclusion Act, requiring members of the assembly to be Anglicans; and engineered passage of the Establishment Act, establishing the Anglican religion as the colony’s official church. MORALEY, WILLIAM (1698?–1762). Born to moderate wealth in England, Moraley was shiftless and not particularly honest. In 1729 he came to Pennsylvania as an indentured servant, and to make money in 1741 he published The Infourtunate: Or the Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley, Written by Himself, in which he openly and humorously admits to his prodigal ways, meanwhile presenting an insightful and well-written account of colonial life. MORAVIANS. The Moravians, officially the United Brethren or Unitas Fratum, were the followers of the Bohemian religious leader Jan Hus. He was burned alive following his condemnation at the Council of Constance in 1415 for attempting to introduce reforms into the Roman Catholic Church similar to those of Martin Luther a century later. Hus’s followers quietly and for the most part secretly lived in central Europe until 1722, when some of them converted Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who allowed them to live on his estates in Saxony. Bishop August Spangenberg led the first Moravian settlement to Pennsylvania in 1735. They established their headquarters at Bethlehem, with other settlements at Nazareth, Lititz, Emmaus, and also the town of Salem in North Carolina (now Winston-Salem). Unlike the Amish and Mennonites, the Moravians had a hierarchical church with bishops approved and consecrated by other bishops. But within the church, men and women were equal as in none other at the time: they

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lived separately in choirs, but unlike the Ephrata Cloister they were encouraged to marry and have children. The Moravians were the only people in the colonial era to found educational institutions for women. The Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) Female Seminary, begun in 1742, became Moravian College, and the Little Girls’ School of Salem (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina, founded in 1772, became Salem College. The Moravians were not ascetics but produced lovely music in the style of contemporary European classicism and many beautiful works of art. Their houses and labor were communal, and their buildings in Bethlehem are still standing and are among the most impressive built anywhere in British North America. The Moravians became quite prosperous because, while they shared among themselves, they traded commercially with the rest of the world, selling grain and other products. The Moravians were pacifists, as were other Pietist sects in Pennsylvania. Unlike members of any other religion at the time, however, they were all supposed to be active missionaries. Moravians had established missions from Lapland to Greenland to East Asia to South Africa, and preached to slaves and peoples of all races. In North America, Moravian women took the lead in contacting and befriending Indian women. Moravians studied the Indians’ customs and language and did not insist that they abandon these to become Christians. While they were very successful, the Indians they converted came under attack as possible enemy sympathizers in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, leading to the Paxton Boys Massacre in 1763 near present-day Harrisburg and the Gnadenhutten Massacre in eastern Ohio in 1782 of peaceful converted Moravian Indian men, women, and children by white frontiersmen. Moravians still live in Pennsylvania and Winston-Salem, where their colonial buildings are preserved as landmarks and museums. MORGAN, SIR HENRY (c. 1635–25 AUGUST 1688). The most successful English privateer after Sir Francis Drake, Henry Morgan was the nephew of Edward Morgan, who became lieutenant-governor of Jamaica in 1660. Henry soon joined various privateers, ships that preyed on England’s Spanish enemies, and was elected “admiral” by these men. He commanded three spectacular expeditions against Porto Bello, Maracaibo, and Panama on the mainland of South America between 1667 and 1671. The last occurred after a peace treaty of which he was unaware had been signed between England and Spain, which technically made him a pirate. Sent back to England as a prisoner, he proved his innocence, was knighted, and became lieutenant-governor of Jamaica in 1674. Morgan’s boisterous ways led to his dismissal in 1681. He became most famous because of the accounts of his exploits in Alexander Exquemelin’s History of the Buccaneers (1685). Angered by the tales of his

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cruel ways and accusations of piracy, he successfully sued Exquemelin’s English publisher for libeling him. MORRIS, ROBERT HUNTER (c. 1713–27 JANUARY 1764). Son of Lewis Morris, a wealthy New York landowner, Morris served as chief justice of New Jersey from 1739, when he was appointed by his father, governor at the time, until his death, except for the years 1757 to 1760. He also served as deputy governor of Pennsylvania, in effect governing for the Penn family from 1754 to 1756. He compromised with the assembly on the Penns’ insistence that tax bills exclude the proprietor’s lands, both sides giving in to the pressure of funding the French and Indian War. The assembly, however, refused to vote him a salary, so he returned to New Jersey. MORTON, THOMAS. See MERRY MOUNT. MOURNING WARS. Before Europeans came to North America, the mourning war was the principal form of conflict among the Iroquois and the Indians of eastern North America with whom they fought. Wars would break out over disputed hunting lands, trade goods, or stolen women (who may have been in love with the member of a rival tribe). It then became a point of honor to take a captive for any warrior killed in battle, and either use him to replace the lost member of the tribe or else ritually sacrifice him under torture to prove his manhood. Because each tribe wanted the last word, or captive in this case, mourning wars tended to become perpetual although limited feuds. These conflicts escalated greatly, however, when the Europeans came and introduced new ways of fighting, such as the use of guns. Disputes over hunting grounds were exacerbated by the demand for furs, which in turn was fueled by the Indians’ desire for weapons and alcohol. The Beaver Wars and Indian involvement in the wars between the French and British were the result. European-style warfare also tried to kill the maximum number of enemies rather than limiting casualties to the number required by the previous cycle in the mourning war. Thus, Indians attempting to continue the style of the mourning wars into the period of contact would find themselves decimated by war as well as epidemics. MUHLENBERG, HENRY (HEINRICH) MELCHIOR (6 SEPTEMBER 1711–7 OCTOBER 1787). After graduating from the Lutheran University of Göttingen, Muhlenberg was serving as a pastor in Germany when he was sent in 1742 to minister to the congregations at Philadelphia, New Hanover, and Providence (later Trappe) in Pennsylvania. As the only ordained Lutheran minister in the province, in 1748 he organized a general conference of

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informally preaching Lutherans that assumed the power to ordain and remove ministers, determine the standards of orthodoxy and behavior, and counter the threat of the Moravian leader Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, whose doctrines appealed to some Lutherans. Muhlenberg remained head of the conference until his death, keeping a low profile during the American Revolution because of his loyalist sympathies. His diary and writings are perhaps the most important sources for understanding the Lutheran Church and German life in mid-18th-century Pennsylvania. MUNSEE INDIANS. Also known as the Minisink, the Munsee were a branch of the Delaware Indians who lived in the area where Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey merged. They were dispossessed by the Walking Purchase of 1737 and moved to the Susquehanna River Valley. They were soon forced to leave again for the Allegheny River in western Pennsylvania. They fought against the British in the French and Indian War. In 1868, their few remaining members were living in Kansas and were incorporated into the Cherokee. MUSGROVE, MARY (c. 1700–c. 1766). A Creek Indian woman named Coosaponakeesa who married first John Musgrove, then Jacob Matthews, and then Thomas Bosomworth, Mary Musgrove befriended and acted as an interpreter and diplomat for the first settlers of Georgia. She established a trading post about 150 miles from Savannah on the Altamaha River, and she kept the Creeks loyal to the British during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, during which her trading post and a plantation she owned were destroyed. In 1737 she received three sea islands from the Creek chief Tomochichi, but Georgia did not recognize the claim. In 1760, after a long struggle that culminated in an appeal to the British privy council, she was finally granted St. Catherine’s, one of the islands, and 2,100 pounds sterling to compensate her for her services. MUSIC. Early American religious music consisted of church hymns, psalms, and anthems; secular music included folk tunes, dance tunes, theater and imported British music, and military music. Church hymns and anthems were sung without notes by Puritans and many Dissenters, as they did not wish to exalt beauty of singing above sincerity of belief. A leader would sing the tune, and then the congregation would repeat it. In 1640, the collection popularly known as the Bay Psalm Book was the third work published in the American colonies. Frequently reprinted for use in churches, it first included musical notes in 1698. The first collection of German hymns was published by Benjamin Franklin in 1730, and the Ephrata Cloister printed its first collection of hymns, along with beautiful fraktur, or decorative illustrations, in 1747.

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Beginning in the 1700s, singing with notes and choirs came into vogue as society became more Anglicized, even in Congregational and Presbyterian churches, although not without some protest. Anglican churches that could afford it also used organs—the first was built in America in 1737—to enhance the beauty of the music. English, German, and Scots-Irish folk tunes from Europe were popular among all classes, for whom the violin was the cheapest and most available instrument. In the theater and the homes of gentry, spinets, flutes, guitars, and harpsichords could also be found. Music by popular contemporary British composers such as George Frederick Handel, Thomas Arne, and William Shield came into vogue by the mid-18th century. Dance music such as gigues (jigs) and minuets were also imported from the British Isles, as were military marches, which were performed with wind, brass, and percussion instruments. Much of the finest original music that survives from early America was written by the Moravians. It reflected the classical music played in the mid-18th century in Austria and Germany. The first prominent American composer was Francis Hopkinson (1737–1791), who published the first American song in 1759. Hopkinson directed music at Christ and St. Peter’s Anglican churches in Philadelphia. He wrote ballads and dances in the contemporary English style in addition to setting the first liturgical music composed in America for his church. William Billings (1746–1800) of Boston, who wrote hymns and tunes supporting the American Revolution in the style of hymns, published the first original collection of songs in the colonies in 1770. The first music society, St. Cecilia’s, was founded in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1762. The same year, Benjamin Franklin invented the glass harmonica and displayed it in London; consisting of a number of glasses played with the hands and feet, it creates an eerie sound somewhat resembling a flute.

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N NATIVE AMERICANS. The term “Indian” is used in this volume rather than “Native American” to avoid confusion for two reasons. First, it is not considered pejorative by contemporary American Indians. Second, Native American has two other meanings: people who were born in the United States, and a political party that arose in the 1850s to express hostility to immigration. NAVAL STORES. The items used in shipbuilding that seal and maintain timber, such as tar, pitch (resin), and turpentine, are termed naval stores. During the 18th century, Britain relied heavily on the American colonies for these items and offered a bounty for their production. They were especially important in North Carolina, which acquired its later nickname, “the Tarheel State,” from the presence of tar. NEW AMSTERDAM. See NEW YORK CITY. NEW ENGLAND. See CONNECTICUT; DOMINION OF NEW ENGLAND; MASSACHUSETTS; NEW HAMPSHIRE; NEW HAVEN; PLYMOUTH; PURITANISM; RHODE ISLAND. NEW ENGLAND PRIMER. The first basic reader for children published in English America, the New England Primer was printed by John Harris in Boston, Massachusetts, between 1687 and 1690. It tried to instill Puritan values and included excerpts from the Bible, catechism, stories, poems, and a way of learning the alphabet through poetry: “In Adam’s fall / We sinned all” (for A and so forth). About two million copies were printed by 1800, and it was used in some places into the 20th century. See also EDUCATION. NEW HAMPSHIRE. The first Englishmen to visit New Hampshire were fishermen in the vicinity of what later became Portsmouth, the colony’s capital and leading city. John Smith explored the harbor, and the earliest permanent settlements date from the 1620s. The land was claimed both by

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the partners John Mason and Ferdinando Gorges on the one hand, and the colony of Massachusetts on the other. In 1641, the towns agreed to submit to Massachusetts but were unhappy with paying taxes and adhering to Puritanism. Fish and timber were the most important exports, although there were also farms with livestock and that grew food. In 1679, New Hampshire became a royal colony with its own legislature; it was part of the Dominion of New England from 1685 to 1689. In 1691 the assembly was restored, but until 1741 Massachusetts’ governor was also New Hampshire’s executive, with the latter in charge of a lieutenant-governor. Boundary disputes between the two colonies led to conflict and the appointment of a separate governor for New Hampshire in 1741. Until 1766, the governor was the popular Benning Wentworth (succeeded by his son Sir John Wentworth until the Revolution). New Hampshire had only grown from 5,000 to 25,000 inhabitants between 1700 and 1750, but doubled again to 50,000 by the Revolution. In response, the elder Wentworth claimed land to the west of the Connecticut River for the province and began granting it to the inhabitants. Disputed with New York and known as the New Hampshire Grants, it ultimately became the state of Vermont. NEW HAVEN. Founded in 1638 by minister John Davenport and magistrate Theophilus Eaton, New Haven Colony in what is now southeastern Connecticut was the most rigid of the Puritan colonies. It rejected trial by jury in favor of decisions by seven leading men and was the site of the most witchcraft cases in New England before its demise in 1664. The “Connecticut Blue Laws” of 1655 were actually passed in New Haven. Among other things, criticism of the government, the presence of nonorthodox Puritans, and running, cooking, cleaning, or even kissing children on the Sabbath were forbidden. The other side of this rigidity was, in accordance with biblical precepts, that it was more willing to grant women divorces than any other colony. The colony functioned as a self-governing entity without reference to England. New Haven sheltered three regicides who had signed the death warrant in 1649 for King Charles I, and thus it was not granted a royal charter (as was Connecticut) by his son Charles II in 1662. That year, John Winthrop, Jr., obtained a charter for Connecticut that incorporated New Haven under its jurisdiction. New Haven remained a small port town and refuge for strict Puritans, hence the location of Yale College there in 1701 as a more orthodox alternative to what was perceived as too-liberal Harvard. NEW JERSEY. The first European settlements in New Jersey were made in the 1620s by the Dutch West India Company as part of New Netherland. Settlements were small, and conflicts with the Indians were frequent. The

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Dutch only remained in northern New Jersey near New Amsterdam, while Swedes moved into the southern part beginning in 1638. The Dutch took over New Sweden in 1655, and the English in turn supplanted the Dutch in 1664. The Duke of York, proprietor of New York, the future King James II, granted the lands that became New Jersey to his supporters Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. In 1675, Berkeley sold his half of the colony to the Quakers. Hence two colonies emerged: East Jersey in the north and east, near New York, with primarily Dutch inhabitants and its capital first at Elizabethtown (now Elizabeth) and later at Perth Amboy, and West Jersey in the west and south, with primarily English Quaker inhabitants and its capital at Burlington. Even after New Jersey was united as one province in 1702 as a royal colony, the capital alternated between these towns. New Jersey was technically governed by New York’s governor until 1738, before which its assembly was convened and laws approved by a lieutenant-governor. New Jersey was a land of mostly small farmers who fed themselves and grew some grain to trade for imports. Religious toleration had been granted by the Duke of York and led to a diverse ethnic and religious mix in the colony. By 1730, Scots Presbyterians formed the majority of East Jersey with Dutch Reformed as a significant minority, while ethnically English Quakers and Anglicans dominated West Jersey. There were few slaves in West Jersey, but as with the ethnically Dutch New York City region, at least 1 in 10 inhabitants of the Dutch region of East Jersey were blacks, nearly all slaves. The trade of eastern New Jersey gravitated to New York, while that of the west was centered on Philadelphia. There was no strong sense of community between the regions, and political factionalism between them was endemic before the Revolution. The College of New Jersey, later Princeton University, founded in 1746, was affiliated with the Scots-based Presbyterian Church. Northern New Jersey was also the scene of intermittent violence. Its inhabitants engaged in boundary disputes with New York, and between 1745 and 1755 a series of land riots occurred. Descendants of rich Englishmen who had been granted proprietary titles before 1702 suddenly appeared to collect rents from the small farmers who had purchased the land from the Indians. The riots and efforts to collect the taxes were brought to an end with the French and Indian War, to which New Jersey contributed significantly. NEW MEXICO. Reports by a Father Marcos of great wealth at the Seven Cities of Cibola led to the expedition of Spaniard Francisco de Coronado to New Mexico in 1540. These cities, however, turned out to be a small settlement of the Zuni Indians that merely glistened in the sun. After Coronado roamed what is now the southwestern United States until 1542, there was no

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further effort to colonize the territory until Juan de Onate, a wealthy Mexican, founded the first permanent settlement in 1598. Beginning in 1608, after he failed to find wealth and fought unsuccessfully with the Indians, governors were sent out from Mexico. They established Santa Fe as the capital in 1610. Soldiers accompanied civil officials and Franciscan missionaries, who used military force to eradicate the Pueblo Indians’ religion. This led to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which drove the Spanish out of New Mexico for 12 years; after they returned, they needed four more years to reestablish control by 1696. Without the aggressive Franciscans, the Spanish civil officials tolerated Indian religious practices, which retained much of their old forms of worship. Ranches that grew food and raised livestock were the principal forms of economic life. By the late 1700s, both the Indians and Spanish lived in fear of attacks by the Comanche and Apache Indians. In 1836, Texas became independent and separated from New Mexico. About 20,000 people of Spanish ancestry lived in New Mexico by 1800, many of them having mixed blood. NEW NETHERLAND. Beginning in 1609, Henry Hudson, on behalf of Dutch investors in the commercially booming Netherlands, explored the region around the river that today bears his name. In 1621, the Dutch West India Company was formed and in 1624 launched its first settlement to acquire furs from the Indians. In 1626, Peter Minuit became the first director-general of the company and decided that the main settlement should be on the North (Hudson) rather than South (Delaware) River. He purchased Manhattan Island, which was first intended as a company trading post. Fort Orange, later Beverwyck (Albany under the English), was the upriver post for obtaining furs. By the end of the 1620s, merchants trading on their own account, which the company permitted, would only remain loyal if they were granted their own land. Kiliaen Van Rensselaer obtained a large tract of land north of Albany on the Hudson River, which remained in his family for over 200 years. Most of the Hudson Valley was later divided up into similar patroonships for a few families—the Beekmans, Philipses, and Van Cortlandts, who allied with the English following their conquest in 1664. They rented their lands out to tenants: unlike in most colonies, freehold farms were the exception rather than the rule. Both because the colony failed to obtain sufficient food from the Indians and in the hopes of supplying Brazil, which the Dutch conquered from Portugal in 1630, the Dutch West India Company began to turn away from the fur trade and to encourage families to settle and grow food. Governor Willem Kieft (1638–1647) obtained land for them by attacking nearby Indians, eventuating in “Kieft’s War,” which so threatened the colony’s existence that

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the inhabitants of New Amsterdam rebelled against Kieft and forced him to make peace. Kieft was replaced by Pietr Stuyvesant (1647–1664) who also ruled dictatorially although the colony prospered under his rule. He conquered New Sweden in 1655, although he was forced to surrender all claims to Connecticut and New Haven, which had too many English settlers, at the Treaty of Hartford in 1650. Eastern Long Island, too, was occupied by English Puritans beyond his control. Although the Dutch West India Company stipulated that the Dutch Reformed Church would be the official religion, Jews used their clout in the company to obtain freedom of worship in 1655. Quakers also obtained the right to worship in 1657 in response to the Flushing Remonstrance. New Netherland was a cosmopolitan colony with Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, German, French Huguenot, Jewish, English, and Swedish settlers, along with African slaves. Although it had reached a population of about 10,000 by 1664, the Dutch could put little effort into defending New Netherland when England sent a fleet to conquer the colony during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, during which these two nations struggled over world maritime supremacy. The loss of Brazil to Portugal 10 years earlier had also removed the colony most likely to benefit from any agricultural surplus New Netherland could develop. Stuyvesant’s unpopularity and the superiority of the English fleet led to surrender without a struggle. The Dutch briefly recaptured the colony in 1673 but returned it in 1674. Nevertheless, New York remained predominantly ethnically Dutch until well into the 18th century. See also NICHOLLS, RICHARD. NEW ORLEANS. Built in 1718 on the first ground on the Mississippi River north of the Gulf of Mexico that was neither a swamp nor regularly flooded, New Orleans became the capital of French Louisiana in 1722. It consisted of what is now known as the French Quarter, although nearly all the buildings that survive from the colonial period were built by the Spanish after two great fires in 1788 and 1794 destroyed most of the town. The oldest surviving building is the Ursuline Convent, built in 1745 by Ursuline nuns who had arrived in 1727. They established a free school for girls and admitted blacks whether slave or free, Indians, and Europeans to receive this education. New Orleans was a disorderly mixture of convict settlers, soldiers, fur trappers, and slaves in the early days; after plantation owners began to make large sums of money from sugar in the late 18th century, the town grew to some 10,000 people when the United States bought Louisiana from France in 1803. NEW SPAIN. See CALIFORNIA; FLORIDA; NEW MEXICO; SPANISH EMPIRE.

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NEW SWEDEN. Sweden was, with England, the leading Protestant power in Europe during the era of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and believed it ought to join other important nations in acquiring colonies. In 1637, it hired Peter Minuit, former director-general of New Netherland, and the following year he established New Sweden’s first settlement and capital at Fort Christina, named for the queen of Sweden, at the site of present-day Wilmington, Delaware. The colony extended up the Delaware River along both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania sides about as far as the present-day city of Philadelphia. About 600 settlers arrived the first year, many of them Finns under Swedish rule, bringing the log cabin design that became famous on the American frontier. Minuit was lost at sea on his return trip in 1638, and New Sweden had terrible luck as ships heading toward it were lost at sea or afflicted with disease. After 1644, ships only arrived in 1648 and 1654. Some stability was achieved during the governorship of 400-pound, six-foot-eightinch-tall Governor Johan Printz (1643–1653), but at the price of executing the ringleader of settlers who challenged his authority. The Swedes hoped to grow tobacco, silk, and grapes for wine and trade for furs. But the colony had trouble feeding itself, and many settlers left for Maryland or moved further northward into what is now New Jersey. New Netherland never recognized New Sweden’s right to exist. There were only about 370 people in the colony when in 1655 Pietr Stuyvesant arrived with seven ships and about 300 soldiers who compelled the poorly defended colony to surrender. Both New Netherland and the English who conquered it in 1664 allowed the Swedes to keep their Lutheran religion, militia, and legal system. In 1681, the English divided New Sweden along the Delaware River into the colonies of New Jersey to the east and Pennsylvania to the west. The Swedes and their religion were accepted in both colonies, and Swedish and Finnish immigrants continued to arrive in small numbers. They built the Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia in 1699 that still survives. New Sweden is notable, besides the log cabin, for foreshadowing William Penn’s peaceful relations with the Indians—although more on account of military weakness than any desire for peace. It also marked the first Lutheran settlement in the New World. NEW YORK. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland. It became New York, named for its proprietor the Duke of York, brother of King Charles II, and architect of the British navy that defeated the Dutch in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. A Roman Catholic, the duke insisted on religious toleration, which did not sit well with the Dutch Reformed majority although they were allowed to keep their property and religion. In 1673, the Dutch reconquered New York but traded it to the English for Surinam (Dutch

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Guiana) in South America the following year. In 1683, New York’s English minority obtained a representative assembly with the Charter of Liberties for the first time. Two years later, when the duke became King James II, New York became a royal province. The king then abolished the assembly and established the Dominion of New England, which was overthrown in New York in 1689 by Leisler’s Rebellion. It was supported mostly by Dutch inhabitants who disliked the former king’s Catholicism and the dominance of the English in his government. Leading rebel Jacob Leisler was executed by the new governor, Henry Sloughter, in 1691 when he resisted the authority of Sloughter’s subordinate, Major Richard Ingoldsby. Colonial New Yorkers were described as a “factious people” by historian Patricia Bonomi. From the 1690s to the late 1720s, New York politics were sharply divided between the (mostly) ethnically Dutch Leislerians and the ethnically English anti-Leislerians. New York was a haven for pirates in the 1690s; the New York council impeached the governor, the Earl of Bellomont, in 1698, when he tried to stamp them out. Governor Lord Cornbury attempted to replace Dutch Reformed ministers with Anglicans who did not speak Dutch and also tried to prevent Presbyterians from preaching. Blacks intermingled with poor white New Yorkers in a city notorious for crime. New York began to import large numbers of slaves in the late 18th century, selling them to the South and West Indies but keeping many to work in the New York City area on farms and as menial laborers in the city. By the French and Indian War, there were over 13,000 slaves in New York; they comprised 25 percent of the population of New York City, Westchester, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens. Slaves joined by friendly whites rebelled in what are known as the New York Conspiracies of 1712 and 1741, slave resistance that was only equaled by the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina before the American Revolution. In the 1730s, New York divided into two political factions. One was headed by the Anglican merchant Delancey family of New York City, the other by the upstate Presbyterian Livingston family who owned a large estate in the Hudson Valley. Each sometimes favored or opposed the royal government and its measures; the Delanceys led the opposition to the British before the Revolution, only to become loyalists at the last minute, reversing the Livingstons’ stand in the 1760s. Leading families and other inhabitants took sides in organized election campaigns with slates of candidates, rallies, and newspaper propaganda that anticipated the party system that only developed in most states after the American Revolution. John Peter Zenger’s freedom of the press trial of 1735, resulting after the Livingstons mercilessly attacked corrupt governor William Cosby, was one by-product of this struggle. Another was New York’s acrimonious struggle over who was to control the

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province’s college; King’s College, later Columbia University, emerged in 1754 as an Anglican institution after much bitterness. Strife in New York was not limited to the city and political rivalries. Most of the Hudson Valley was owned by a handful of families—the Beekmans, Van Cortlandts, Philipses, Livingstons, and Van Rensselaers—who controlled the milling and exporting of grain from their estates. They usually got on well with their tenants until the 1750s, realizing that they would go elsewhere if not given reasonable leases, but then emigrants from rapidly expanding Massachusetts and Connecticut began to encroach on their lands. They refused to pay rents and roughed up their landlords’ agents with whippings and tarring and feathering. In 1766, the riots required the Livingstons to call out the British troops stationed in New York City to put down the disturbances. New York exported furs, but like Pennsylvania, its primary export by the late 17th century was grain to the West Indies. It did not grow as fast as Pennsylvania, due to shorter growing seasons and barriers that made settlement more difficult: mountains except in the Hudson River Valley, along with the presence of the Iroquois and, until after the French and Indian War, the French threat in the north. New York participated little in the early colonial wars, preferring the profits of neutrality and trade with Indians and the enemy. During the French and Indian War, New York troops helped repel the French invasion of 1755 at the Battle of Lake George and participated in the conquests of Forts Oswego and Ticonderoga. Still, its population grew from 19,000 in 1700 to over 60,000 in 1740 and to about 200,000 on the eve of the American Revolution. See also NEW YORK CITY. NEW YORK CITY. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam as a fur trading post in 1613; in 1626 it became a settlement and the capital of New Netherland. Director-General Peter Minuit purchased it from the Delaware Indians who lived there for European trade goods that had, in American national mythology, an estimated worth of $24. Only a little over a thousand inhabitants lived in New Amsterdam when it was captured by the English in 1664, but then the population grew to about 6,000 by 1700 and 20,000 in the 1770s, making it the second largest city in English America after Philadelphia. New York City was tiny by present-day standards: Wall Street was the (walled) limit of the Dutch city, Greenwich Village was a separate village, and even by the Revolution the inhabitants clustered in the area below the present City Hall and Brooklyn Bridge. It was a diverse and turbulent city, the center of mainland piracy and the site of the two New York slave conspiracies as well as lively political infighting. Almost no pre–Revolutionary War buildings survive, as the city was burned, probably by the retreating Americans

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in a futile effort to prevent the British from possessing it, in 1776. See also NEW YORK. NEW YORK CONSPIRACY, 1712. New York City slaves belonged to several gangs in the early 18th century that frequently fought among themselves. By 1712, about 24 of them acquired weapons, started a fire, and killed five and wounded six of the whites who tried to extinguish it. They then fled to northern Manhattan, where the hastily summoned militia from the city and surrounding areas captured them. As slaves hoping for freedom began to accuse others of participating in the plot, a total of 70 slaves were arrested, 27 tried, and 21 sentenced to death. All were burned alive except for one who had his bones broken and was exposed on a wheel. In the aftermath of the rebellion, blacks were forbidden to carry guns, gamble, or meet in groups of more than three. To discourage owners from freeing their slaves, owners would have to pay 200 pounds for each slave they freed, the equivalent of several years’ wages for a working man, to guarantee their good behavior. NEW YORK CONSPIRACY, 1741. By 1741, there were about 2,000 slaves in New York City, nearly 20 percent of the population. There were frequent rumors of slave conspiracies in the city. During March 1741, at the end of a bitter cold winter and in the midst of an economic depression, 13 suspicious fires broke out, including at the governor’s house and the Battery, the fort protecting the city. That the British colonies were at war with Spain in the War of Jenkins’ Ear and that slaves in South Carolina had rebelled only two years before (the Stono Rebellion) led New Yorkers to suspect a brewing slave revolt encouraged by the Spanish. A black man was spotted running away from a fire on 6 April; he was captured and questioned. Before long, 152 slaves and 20 whites were accused of plotting to burn down the city and revolt. Several of them were clients of John Hughson, who ran a tavern near the Hudson River where lower-class people of different races congregated and bought or traded stolen property. Some of the fires coincided with the trial and conviction of Hughson and two of his slaves for stealing. Judge Daniel Horsmanden, who recorded the investigation, pressured Hughson’s servant Mary Burton to confess that her employers were behind the fires. She did so upon pain of being thrown in jail; other slaves and servants also confessed to avoid punishment and receive generous rewards, leading to a “witch hunt” atmosphere in which people accused others they knew or did not like to save themselves. When the trials ended in August, 17 blacks were hanged, 13 burned, and 70 deported. Four whites, including John and Mary Hughson and a newly arrived dissenting minister, John Ury, whose clothing and knowledge of Latin made New

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Yorkers suspect that he was a Roman Catholic priest and spy, were also executed. Seven were deported. Five blacks captured from the Spanish were among those executed. Only when suspects began to accuse members of the elite, as in the Salem witch trials, did the hysteria come to an end and the remaining prisoners were released. One anonymous letter in fact compared the proceedings to the Salem trials, while another one claimed that the slaves belonged to a Spanish conspiracy to burn English colonial towns. It seems possible that the fires were indeed started by disgruntled slaves and members of the Hughson’s circle, but their ultimate plans were never known, and it is clear that in any case numerous innocent people were accused and executed. NEWCASTLE, DUKE OF (21 JULY 1693–17 NOVEMBER 1768). Secretary of state for the Southern Department, and thus the colonies, in effect foreign minister of Britain from 1724 until 1754, Newcastle became prime minister from 1754 to 1762 except for a brief hiatus. Newcastle shaped imperial administration more than any other man of his time. Before the French and Indian War, he primarily used colonial offices to provide jobs for the relatives of influential politicians in order to maintain majorities in Parliament for two prime ministers: Sir Robert Walpole (1721–1742) and then his own brother, Henry Pelham (1743–1754). He then abandoned this policy of “salutary neglect” in favor of supporting a vigorous war effort. At this time he shared the reins of power with William Pitt, realizing that he was not the man to inspire the nation. He also spent most of his enormous fortune in a successful effort to ensure the perpetuation of the dominant Whig government. NEWFOUNDLAND. The first known European settlement in the New World, L’Anse aux Meadows, is the site of Leif Ericson’s Norse settlement of about 1000 c.e. Basque, French, Portuguese, and British fishermen were probably wintering on the island before Christopher Columbus’s voyage and certainly by the early 1500s. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert established Newfoundland as England’s first colony in North America. It was a royal colony until 1610, then a proprietary one until 1728, and then a royal colony again. The fisheries made Newfoundland prosperous when most colonies on the mainland were struggling. Merchant families in towns such as the capital, St. John’s, made large sums selling alcohol, tobacco, and provisions to the fishermen who lived in solid houses on paved streets. Several hundred free planters and several thousand indentured servants provided meat and vegetables as a supplement to fish in the diets. Some fishermen lived on the island; others boarded there. The French tried unsuccessfully to seize Newfoundland in the 1690s during King William’s War and again, at the Battle of Signal Hill in 1762, near

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the end of the French and Indian War. The Peace of Paris, signed the following year, granted the French but not the Spanish the right to use the island as a fishing base. Newfoundland was a separate colony ruled by either a royal or proprietary governor without an assembly (it paid no taxes to the crown and hence an assembly was not considered necessary) until 1832. NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND. On the eve of the American Revolution, Newport was the fifth largest city in the American colonies, with about 10,000 inhabitants, after Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, and Charleston, South Carolina. It had been settled primarily by Baptists in the early 17th century, followed by Quakers. Piracy was rampant until the 1720s. In addition to shipping grain and fish to the West Indies and importing sugar and molasses, Newport became the center of the North American slave trade by the 1760s. It was responsible for nearly half the slave ships sent out from the colonies. Between 1750 and the American Revolution, Newport prospered greatly, building the Redwood Library, several fine churches and mansions, and the most elegant Jewish house of worship in early America, the Touro Synagogue, the only colonial synagogue to survive. Jews who migrated from Portugal, where they had secretly lived as Jews pretending to be Roman Catholic before the Inquisition renewed its efforts in the 1730s, were a sizable minority of the merchant community, including its richest member, Aaron Lopez. Newport was usually pitted against rural Providence in Rhode Island politics. Severely divided between patriots and loyalists in the American Revolution and occupied by the British for three years, most of Newport’s population fled, and the city never regained its commercial importance. NEWSPAPERS. In the 17th century, early Americans received information on events in the greater world from ministers’ pronouncements in the pulpit, official government proclamations, British publications, private correspondence, and word of mouth. Except for the Public Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestic, which lasted only one issue in Boston in 1690, the first two newspapers in early America were the Boston News-Letter, founded in 1704, followed by the Boston Gazette (1719). James Franklin’s New England Courant appeared next, also in Boston, in 1721, but he was soon forbidden from publishing as he criticized the government and clergy. He thus published under his brother Benjamin Franklin’s name until 1726 even though the younger Franklin had left for Philadelphia. The Courant was more of what would be considered a magazine than a newspaper today: it published mostly essays, verses, and letters. The New England Journal, begun in 1727, continued this practice. The first paper outside Boston was the American Weekly Mercury, begun by Andrew Bradford in Philadelphia in 1719, who was only warned—a warning he

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heeded—for criticizing the assembly. The New York Journal followed in 1725, and the Maryland Gazette in Annapolis in 1727. The Pennsylvania Gazette was begun by Samuel Keimer in 1728 and sold to Benjamin Franklin and his partner Hugh Meredith in 1729. The first South Carolina newspaper appeared in 1731, and the Virginia Gazette in 1736. By the American Revolution, Boston had four papers, New York three, Philadelphia two in English and one in German, and Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and South Carolina had two each. Delaware relied on Pennsylvania papers, and New Jersey on those of Pennsylvania or New York. Most colonial newspapers were two to eight pages in length—two or four sheets could be printed on opposite sides of one piece of paper—and usually appeared once a week. They consisted mostly of foreign news, advertisements by merchants (all of which were simply plain statements with occasional generic illustrations of slaves or items for sale), and government announcements. Local news critical of authorities could easily land publishers in trouble, as it did several early newspaper publishers. By the 1740s, however, papers in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia represented different political positions, some favorable and others opposed to imperial policy or different political factions. Censorship proved futile following John Peter Zenger’s acquittal at his trial in 1735. Newspapers were important in expanding what scholar Jürgen Habermas has called the public sphere, people who had a general knowledge of political and world events and the freedom to discuss and write about them. NICHOLLS, RICHARD (1624–28 MAY 1672). A royalist soldier during the English Civil War, Nicholls led the expedition that captured New Netherland in 1664. He ruled as governor for the Duke of York, the future King James II, until 1668. A tactful man, he conciliated the Dutch inhabitants and in 1665 promulgated “the Duke’s Laws,” which preserved freedom of worship and Dutch inheritance laws and property while instituting trial by jury. See also PIETR STUYVESANT. NICHOLSON, FRANCIS (12 NOVEMBER 1655–5 MARCH 1728). Having proved his abilities organizing an English military garrison at Tangiers in North Africa, in 1686 King James II appointed Nicholson captain of the regiment accompanying Sir Edmund Andros and enforcing his rule over the Dominion of New England. In 1688, he became lieutenant-governor and took control of affairs in New York, where he was ousted during Leisler’s Rebellion. Nicholson was next appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia in 1692, where he helped bring the College of William and Mary into existence, but he was angered when Andros replaced him in 1694.

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Placated somewhat by being made governor of Maryland, Nicholson favored the Anglican Church and moved the capital to Annapolis, a Protestant region of a colony founded by Roman Catholics. He quarreled with Andros (still in Virginia) over the latter’s protection of Catholic refugees from Maryland, and in 1698 succeeded in replacing him. Nicholson ruled until 1705 when complaints about his arbitrary behavior led to his removal. He next served as commander of an expedition to conquer Quebec in 1709 that failed to leave Boston, but succeeded in conquering Acadia in 1710. He served as its governor from 1712 to 1714. While in England he was active in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In 1720 he became governor of South Carolina, where he promoted education, good relations with the Indians, and paper currency, which pleased the planters but angered the merchants. He retired to England in 1725. Nicholson was closer than anyone to what might be called a career civil servant in the British imperial administration. NORSEMEN. The Icelandic sagas of Erik the Red (the first European settler of Greenland) and other Greenlanders describe several expeditions to America shortly after Icelanders moved to Greenland around 980 c.e. Bjarni Herjolfsson saw the coast in 985 when his fleet of emigrants left Iceland for Greenland and was blown off course, but he did not even land. In 1000 or 1001, Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, learned of Bjarni’s discovery and set sail to the west with a crew of 35 men on one ship. He located and named three territories, each south of the previous one: Helluland (land of stones), Markland (land of forests), and Vinland (translated as either land of wine or land of meadows). He settled for the winter, probably of 1001–1002, at Vinland, which has been identified as the archaeological site L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Leif was followed by his brother Thorvald in 1004; he was killed in a skirmish with the local inhabitants whom the Norse named “skraelings” or strangers. A third brother, Thorstein, returned in an effort to find Thorvald’s body. In 1009, a settlement of 160 men and women was undertaken by Thorfinn Karselfni; in a skirmish with the Indians that the Norse were losing, Erik the Red’s daughter Freydis bared her breasts and beat them with a sword, frightening the Indians away to permit the Norse to escape. It is unclear how long the Vikings continued to visit Newfoundland and how far they ranged in North America; the last mention of the new land in Icelandic literature mentions a trip to Markland for wood (Iceland had no trees by this time) in the early 14th century. Scholars debate the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone dated 1362 and found in Minnesota. In any case, the Norse voyages had no permanent effect either in Europe or America, unless they carried diseases whose consequences cannot be known.

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NORTH CAROLINA. The first efforts to establish permanent English settlements in what later became the United States occurred in North Carolina. Sir Walter Raleigh sponsored two expeditions in 1585 and 1587, both of which failed; the second of these, at Roanoke Island on the Outer Banks, disappeared by 1590 when reinforcements arrived. Inhabitants from Virginia began to settle in what became the northern part of the colony in the 1650s. In 1663, King Charles II granted the Carolinas, originally one colony, to eight proprietors. In 1669, John Locke wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina on behalf of his patron the proprietor Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury, guaranteeing religious toleration and setting up an unworkably elaborate feudal hierarchy and complicated legislature that never could be put into effect. Carolina was governed by the proprietors until 1729, when it became two royal colonies: in 1713 it had been divided into North Carolina and South Carolina. Previously, a lieutenant-governor had represented the proprietors in North Carolina, as the principal settlements were centered around Charleston in South Carolina. North Carolina never acquired the wealth and entrenched elite of its neighbors, although, as in Virginia, tobacco was the major export by the time of the Revolution. North Carolina grew slowly, with only 10,000 people in 1700 and 50,000 by 1750. Naval stores were also important exports, as the pine trees found throughout the colony produced tar, pitch, and turpentine. In its early days, North Carolina was plagued by warfare with the Tuscarora Indians (1711–1713) and conflicts with pirates, including Blackbeard. Most of its inhabitants were subsistence farmers. The population grew exponentially beginning in the 1750s; the lowlands were settled mostly by Scots who left following the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, whereas the Scots-Irish and Germans traveling down the Shenandoah Valley from Pennsylvania inhabited the frontier. The backcountry was underrepresented in the colonial assembly, and corrupt tax collectors and judges from the eastern part of the state provoked the Regulator movement of westerners between 1766 and 1771. The Regulators prevented the collection of taxes and the punishment of those who participated in riots and court closings. The protestors were defeated at the Battle of Alamance in 1771, and their leaders were executed. About a third of the population of 200,000 on the eve of the Revolution were black slaves, almost all of whom lived in the low country and worked producing tobacco and naval stores.

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O OGLE, SAMUEL (c. 1694–3 MAY 1752). Governor of Maryland on behalf of the Calvert family from 1731 to 1732, 1737 to 1742, and 1747 to 1752, Ogle quarreled with the assembly during his first two terms. Taxes the proprietor demanded and support for the War of Jenkins’ Ear were the principal issues. By his third term, Ogle lived amiably among the gentry, encouraging horse breeding and racing. He succeeded in passing a Tobacco Inspection Act in 1737 similar to Virginia’s, which improved the quality and price of the colony’s principal export. OGLETHORPE, JAMES (22 DECEMBER 1696–30 JUNE 1785). The son of a wealthy baronet, Oglethorpe left Oxford University in 1715 to fight with Britain’s allies, the Austrians, against the Turks. He was elected to Parliament in 1722 and began a campaign to settle debtors in a colony located south of South Carolina and north of Spanish Florida that would both rehabilitate those imprisoned for debt and harass the Spanish in case of warfare. Oglethorpe interested the Earl of Egremont to invest and involve himself; Egremont headed the colony’s Board of Trustees. Oglethorpe arrived in Georgia in 1733 and directed the colony until 1743, leading an unsuccessful assault on Spanish St. Augustine during the War of Jenkins’ Ear. He remained in Parliament and was friendly to the cause of America until the end of his life. See also JEWS; WESLEY, JOHN; SALZBURGERS. OHIO VALLEY. The Ohio Valley begins in the east at the site of presentday Pittsburgh where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet and extends to where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers converge in the west. The eastern part of the valley was reached almost simultaneously in the early 1750s by armed expeditions from Virginia and Quebec (Canada); their dispute led to the French and Indian War. Beginning in the 1750s, fur traders such as George Croghan represented Philadelphia merchants in the region beyond the settlers. Their sale of guns and alcohol to the Indians were a thorn in the side of the British—who were trying to keep the peace. Following the war, English colonists from both Virginia and Pennsylvania

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claimed the region; both colonies set up counties, and only in 1781 did Pennsylvania acquire title to the lands east of the present state of Ohio. Settlement was never secure after the French and Indian War, as Pontiac’s War followed immediately when settlers refused to respect the British Proclamation of 1763 and refrain from invading Indian lands. Speculators operated numerous land companies in the region beginning in the 1760s—such as the Ohio, Illinois, and Vandalia companies—and laid claim to millions of acres that they tried to get the British imperial administration and colonial governments to endorse. OPECHANCANOUGH (?–1646). Leader of the Virginia Pamunkey Indians from 1618 until his death in 1646, Opechancanough was Powhatan’s second-in-command in the empire he had built. In 1609, John Smith seized Opechancanough’s corn crop and roughed up him and his son, which made him an implacable enemy of the English. In November 1609, as the English and Indians fought, Opechancanough’s warriors proved the fiercest and most effective of Powhatan’s men. After he replaced Powhatan when he abdicated in 1617, Opechancanough decided to retaliate against the growing settlement that was displacing his people. On 22 May 1622, he launched the “massacre” that killed 330 people, or a quarter of Virginia’s population, in a single day. Intermittent warfare continued until 1632 when a truce was reached. Opechancanough struck again in 1644, killing about 500 whites, but was forced to go into hiding. In late 1645 or early 1646, he was captured and then shot in the back by a soldier. With him died the independence of the Indians in eastern Virginia. OTIS FAMILY. James Otis, Sr. (1702–1778) was the first member of this family to achieve prominence in Massachusetts. A lawyer from Barnstable, he became attorney general of the province in 1748 and served on the council. In 1760, he became angry when newly appointed Governor Francis Bernard chose Thomas Hutchinson as chief justice rather than himself. This led his son, James Otis, Jr. (1725–1781) to become leader of the opposition to Bernard and imperial administration in Massachusetts. Otis was the attorney for the aggrieved merchants in the Writs of Assistance Case in 1761 and was first elected to the assembly from Boston in that year, the office he held as he wrote and spoke in favor of resistance. His sister Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814) was also a notable patriot, writing a history of the Revolution and satires criticizing the Massachusetts loyalist elite.

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P PALATINES. About 13,000 Germans from the Palatinate region in the Rhine River Valley left for Holland and England during 1709 because of famine and warfare. About 3,000 came to America beginning in June 1710, mostly New York thanks to the efforts of Governor Robert Hunter, although some went to the Carolinas and Jamaica. They were obliged to work as indentured servants to pay their passage. Most settled in upstate New York either on Livingston Manor or in the Mohawk River Valley. Some eventually moved to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, while about 350 went to New York City. PAMUNKEY INDIANS. See OPECHANCANOUGH; POCAHONTAS; POWHATAN. PARLIAMENT. The supreme legislative body of Great Britain, Parliament technically consists of the monarch, or crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, although it usually refers to the House of Commons alone. Except for the monarch, before the end of the French and Indian War, Parliament intervened only on occasion in colonial affairs except to vote money, supplies, and troops for war expenditures. Before the 1760s, nearly all nonmilitary laws it passed for the colonies concerned trade, such as the Acts of Trade and Navigation to keep trade within the empire, a 1707 act forbidding naval impressment in the colonies, the White Pine Act of 1722 reserving large masts for the navy, the Molasses Act of 1733 placing a prohibitive tariff on the importation of foreign molasses, and the Hat Act of 1732 and Iron Act of 1750 restricting colonial manufacturing of the these products. Parliament also passed laws providing bounties on naval stores and indigo, which respectively enriched North Carolina and South Carolina. Beginning in the 1760s, with the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, Parliament began to tax the colonies and restrict their trade in earnest, which provoked the American Revolution. PARSON’S CASE OR CAUSE. See TWO-PENNY ACT.

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PASTORIUS, FRANCIS DANIEL (26 SEPTEMBER 1651–1719/1720). A German Lutheran lawyer, Pastorius sympathized with the Mennonites and became the agent for those who came to Pennsylvania in 1683. He helped them found Germantown, about 10 miles north of Philadelphia, the first German settlement in the Americas, and was the community’s leader and de facto minister. He joined three Quakers in signing the Germantown Protest of 1688, the first antislavery petition in the colonies. PATROONS. In an effort to encourage settlement in New Netherland, in 1629 the directors of the Dutch West India Company granted large estates called patroonships to those who recruited and paid for settlers to immigrate. The only successful Dutch patroonship was that of Kiliaen van Rensselaer north of present-day Albany on the Hudson River, but the English rewarded leading loyal Dutch inhabitants with similar huge estates that also lasted. The Beekmans, Van Cortlandts, and Philipses owned most of the land along the Hudson to about 60 miles north of New York City. The Livingston family was the only English family with a comparable estate. Patroons made their money by renting their lands to farmers, usually for reasonable, long-term leases to prevent them from leaving to obtain freeholds, and by processing grain at their mills and shipping off their surplus production to be traded for imports. Major opposition to the patroons occurred beginning in the 1750s, when New Englanders arriving in the Hudson Valley refused to pay rents and rioted against the patroons’ agents. The patroons were also known as proprietors once the English assumed power. PAXTON BOYS. On 14 December 1763, about 50 men known as the “Paxton Boys,” from the area of Pennsylvania near present-day Harrisburg, attacked a small Conestoga Indian village near Lancaster and killed six people. The surviving 14 Indians were taken to the Lancaster County jail for safety, but on 27 December, the Paxton Boys broke in and murdered them as well. The Paxton Boys made no distinction between men, women, and children. Most of the Indians they killed were Christians who had been converted by the Moravians, were pacifists, and went to their deaths singing hymns. The Paxton Boys then marched on Philadelphia, where they intended to attack the government, which they blamed for failing to protect them from Indians during the French and Indian War and then during Pontiac’s War, which broke out immediately thereafter. The Paxton Boys were met in Germantown by a volunteer force hastily mobilized under the command of Benjamin Franklin. His arguments that their grievances would be considered, in addition to the fact they now faced an armed contingent with cannons instead of helpless Indians, persuaded

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them to return home. Many of them moved to what is now northeastern Pennsylvania but which at the time was being settled by the Susquehannah Company on behalf of Connecticut. Following these incidents, an unprecedented 58 pamphlets were published in Philadelphia, many of a sardonic nature. The authors attacked or defended the Paxton Boys and the Presbyterians (who supported them) and either blamed the Quakers or the proprietor for the chaos on the frontier. Some pamphlets accused Benjamin Franklin of manipulating the crisis in his effort to turn Pennsylvania into a royal colony with himself as governor. The first four political cartoons in early America appeared in response to the Paxton Boys as well. Angered by the failure of either of the Philadelphia-based colonial parties to defend them, western Pennsylvanians were almost unanimously prorevolutionary and supported the radical state constitution of 1776. See also PEMBERTON, ISRAEL. PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. See KING GEORGE’S WAR; WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR. PEACE OF PARIS. See FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. PEACE OF RYSWICK. See KING WILLIAM’S WAR. PEACE OF UTRECHT. See QUEEN ANNE’S WAR. PEMBERTON, ISRAEL (19 MAY 1715–22 APRIL 1779). A leading Quaker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pemberton supported the antislavery efforts of John Woolman and Anthony Benezet and raised money for the relief of both Indians and frontier settlers during the French and Indian War. He was also involved deeply in provincial politics, despite his religious convictions opposing the Quaker party and its efforts to have a royal government installed in Pennsylvania. His efforts to reconcile the Indians during the French and Indian War led him to be hated on the frontier. He was mockingly called “the King of the Quakers,” depicted in a cartoon embracing an Indian woman who picked his pocket, and threatened with death by the Paxton Boys. He tried to remain neutral in the American Revolution but was seized by the revolutionaries and sent to Winchester, Virginia, in 1778, where he was seriously weakened. He died shortly after his return to Philadelphia. PENN FAMILY. After William Penn was paralyzed by a stroke in 1712, his second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn (1671–1727), who was 27 years his junior, became the proprietor of Pennsylvania until her death. Although

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she never came to America, she managed the province intelligently with the advice of James Logan, and it stopped losing money for the family. When she died, the Penns’ three sons each had a shared interest in the colony, with the eldest having the majority. (William Penn, Jr., a child of William Penn’s first marriage, was disinherited when he unsuccessfully contested the will.) The subsequent proprietors were John (born 1699, chief proprietor from 1718 to 1746) and Thomas (born 1702, chief proprietor from 1746 to 1771). John (1729–1795), son of Richard Penn, a third brother, went to America and served as governor from 1763 to 1771. While Hannah remained a Quaker, the Penns’ sons became Anglicans. Their principal interest in the colony was collecting quitrents on all the occupied land in the province, which while individually small collectively constituted a large fortune. During the French and Indian War, the proprietor and assembly stalemated over funding military defense for the frontier: the assembly refused to approve a bill that did not tax the proprietor’s lands, and he refused to approve one that did. By the time a compromise was reached in which the proprietor agreed to voluntary contributions, the frontier communities were alienated from a government that had not taken any effective measures to defend them. Nevertheless, the Penn family managed to remain neutral in the American Revolution and even received compensation from the United States government for their confiscated estates. PENN, WILLIAM (14 OCTOBER 1644–30 JULY 1718). William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, was the son of Admiral William Penn (1621–1670) who was instrumental in gaining the navy’s support for the restoration of King Charles II in 1660. He also loaned the king a great deal of money and established English naval supremacy during the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665 by demolishing the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Lowestoft. The admiral was rarely home, however, which may explain why the younger Penn first joined the army instead of the navy and then was attracted to the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a radical sect that appealed mostly to the poor and preached living a simple lifestyle, with equality of men and women within the meeting (as it was called, rather than church). Penn was jailed three times for preaching the Quaker faith; his second trial led to a landmark in the history of free speech, Bushel’s Case (1670), in which a jury that refused to convict him was exonerated for failing to accept a directed verdict of guilty from the judge. Penn was reconciled to his father on the latter’s deathbed and inherited his large fortune. He traveled extensively in Germany and Holland in the 1670s and was among the Quakers who became proprietors of West Jersey in 1677. In 1681, to discharge his debt to the family, the king granted him a

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colony that Penn wanted to name Sylvania (or woods), but the monarch insisted it be named Pennsylvania in honor of Admiral Penn. Penn thus became the largest private landowner in the world. He journeyed to Pennsylvania in 1682 and remained until 1684, in the meantime establishing religious toleration and a pacifist regime that he considered a “Holy Experiment.” He also invited people from the European continent, mostly Germans, to settle there. Penn returned to England to settle the boundary of the province with Maryland. A friend of King James II—who also believed in toleration to help the Roman Catholics, to which he belonged—Penn was suspected of treason by his successor King William III. He was allowed to keep his lands but nearly went bankrupt because his estate manager John Ford stole a great deal of money. Penn returned to America from 1699 to 1701 but then went back to England where he was imprisoned for debt. His friends bailed him out, but he suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1712 and his wife Hannah Callowhill became the acting proprietor. In 1984, William and Hannah Callowhill Penn became two of only six people (as of 2010) to become honorary citizens of the United States. (The others are the Marquis de Lafayette, Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg, and Mother Theresa.) See also LOGAN, JAMES; KEITH, GEORGE; PENN FAMILY. PENNSYLVANIA. The earliest settlements in what in 1681 became Pennsylvania were established by the Swedes in 1638, with New Netherland (1655), New York (1664), and West Jersey (1676) taking them over before Pennsylvania was established. Pennsylvania was granted by King Charles II to the Quaker William Penn, who determined to establish a Holy Experiment based on the principles of his religion. Pennsylvania was to have no armed forces, tolerate all religions, and invite people of different nationalities to settle. Penn arrived and founded Philadelphia in 1682, left in 1684, returned in 1699, and left again in 1701. It required four frames of government until Pennsylvanians accepted the Charter of Liberties that Penn agreed to in 1701. In keeping with Quaker principles, gambling and theaters were prohibited. The charter established a single-house assembly, the only one in the colonies. In 1682 and 1683, Penn made at least a dozen treaties with the small groups of Delaware Indians who inhabited the region around Philadelphia, which he selected to be his capital. (American mythology and the famous 1771 painting by Benjamin West, however, record only one treaty with the Indians.) The Indians understood that they were giving away only land physically occupied by Europeans, while Penn and his followers assumed they were acquiring absolute possession of uninhabited territory. Still, Penn set a pattern of peaceably acquiring land that lasted until the outbreak of the French and

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Indian War. Indians who committed crimes against Pennsylvanians were either tried by juries of both peoples or else whites negotiated punishments satisfactory to Indian leaders. Germans, mostly Lutheran and Reformed but also pacifist groups such as the Amish, Mennonites, Krefelders, Schwenkfelders, and Moravians, migrated in large numbers to Pennsylvania. They tended to settle in close-knit communities, such as Germantown, the first town formed outside Philadelphia. Welsh, English, Scots, and later Scots-Irish made Pennsylvania the only colony with an ethnically English minority by the Revolution. About a third of the colony was German, about 20 to 30 percent each English and Scots-Irish, with other nationalities comprising the rest. Because of its rich soil, longer growing season than New York and New England, and widespread distribution of land to farmers who owned it, Pennsylvania became the breadbasket of North America, selling most of its grain to the West Indies. Mills abounded. Over 70 iron furnaces and forges were in operation by the Revolution. Their raw iron was exported to England, but Pennsylvanians also made rifles, stoves, and household items. Philadelphia, thanks to its large and fertile hinterland, became colonial North America’s largest and most prosperous city, with about 30,000 inhabitants on the eve of the American Revolution. Pennsylvania as a whole grew from 20,000 inhabitants in 1700 to 120,000 in 1750 and 240,000 in 1770. Under 2 percent of the population were slaves. The huge growth in population after 1750 was largely due to the arrival of Scots-Irish, or Scots from Northern Ireland, most of whom moved out to the frontier, as the best lands in the east were settled. Pennsylvania had made it a policy to buy lands from the Indians, but beginning with the Walking Purchase of 1737, these were achieved through fraud. The Iroquois insisted that the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) and Munsee Indians to their south sell their homelands to Pennsylvania, as they wanted a peaceful, nonthreatening English colony to the south. At the Lancaster Treaty of 1744, again in 1748, and finally at the Albany Congress of 1754, the Iroquois insisted that these peoples move west to accommodate Pennsylvania. For its part, Pennsylvania’s government burned out squatters in the Juniata Valley, in a region since known as Burnt Cabins, to prevent newly arrived Europeans from provoking the Indians by moving onto Indian lands. The peace came apart in 1755 following the defeat of General Braddock’s expedition. Displaced Indians attacked and pushed the Pennsylvania frontier back east of the Susquehanna River, turning towns such as Bethlehem, Reading, and York into refugee communities. This frontier warfare ceased only intermittently until General Anthony Wayne defeated the Ohio Valley Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. Eight Quaker members of

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Pennsylvania’s assembly resigned after the French and Indian War broke out, allowing people with similar political opinions but not opposed to war to take their place. But proprietor Thomas Penn and the assembly quarreled over whether Penn should pay for some of the war’s expenses, and until he agreed to a voluntary contribution, nothing was done to help the frontier. In 1756, the settlers won a small victory at the Battle of Kittanning without help from the British, rescuing some prisoners from the Delaware Indians and boosting morale. In 1758, General James Forbes finally compelled the French to leave Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt, and the town of Pittsburgh arose in its place. But Pontiac’s War broke out in western Pennsylvania in 1763 immediately after the French and Indian War ended. The Paxton Boys, frontiersmen who were angered that the province had failed to help them, massacred some peaceful Conestoga Indians and marched on Philadelphia as far as Germantown before they were dispersed. Pennsylvania’s boundaries were unsettled during the colonial era. Connecticut claimed the northern third of what became Pennsylvania using its sea-to-sea charter (except for New York) as justification. The first settlers in the area of Wilkes-Barre after the French and Indian War represented that colony’s Susquehannah Company. After quarrels known as the YankeePennamite War, which began before and continued after the Revolution, the land was finally given by Congress to Pennsylvania in 1786. The southwestern part of the colony was claimed by Virginia and again there was conflict, with Pennsylvania’s claim being accepted in 1781. The Calvert family, proprietors of Maryland, and the Penn family worked out their differences in 1763, when they agreed to run the Mason-Dixon Line 15 miles south of Philadelphia as the boundary between the provinces. By the 1760s, dissatisfaction with Pennsylvania’s established government, both the proprietor and his party and the Quaker party that dominated the assembly, was endemic outside the three “old counties” of Bucks, Chester, and Philadelphia along the Delaware River, which were greatly overrepresented. The other counties were heavily German and Scots-Irish, Lutheran, Reformed, and Presbyterian, yet they were ruled by English Quakers and Anglicans who were inattentive to their defense and interests. Workers and intellectuals in Philadelphia were also angered that neither party stood up to the British when they began to tax and regulate the colonies. As other colonies protested, the Quaker assembly, with Benjamin Franklin as its agent, was trying to have the proprietorship replaced with a royal government, and the Penns were attempting to show how loyal they were to the crown. Pennsylvania thus had the most radical revolution of any of the thirteen colonies, as its elite had become insensitive to the needs of the population while it quarreled among itself. Except for Franklin and a few other holdovers, it

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also proved almost irrelevant to the revolutionary movement that developed. See also KEITH, GEORGE; KEITH, WILLIAM; LANCASTER; LOGAN, JAMES; PEMBERTON, ISRAEL. PENNSYLVANIA RIFLE. Developed by German immigrant gunsmiths near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, beginning in the 1740s the Pennsylvania rifle was the most efficient firearm hitherto invented anywhere in the world. It soon replaced the musket on the frontier, a weapon that was inaccurate and useless at more than 50 yards, as the rifle could be fired accurately by a skilled marksman at distances over 300 yards. The rifle made possible the use of sharpshooters during the French and Indian War and future wars who could pick off officers, an action the European powers considered shameful. Thanks to this experience, six companies of Pennsylvania riflemen, along with two companies each from Maryland and Virginia, were the first men summoned by the Continental Congress to aid the New Englanders besieging the British in Boston in 1775. PEQUOT WAR. When the Puritans arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s, the Pequot Indians and their allies, the Western Niantic, were in conflict with the Wampanoag (who had welcomed the Pilgrims at Plymouth), the Narragansetts, the Mohegans led by Uncas, and other Algonquin groups. The Pequots were the only tribe that was friendly to the Dutch, who were making an unsuccessful effort to colonize southern Connecticut, whereas the others traded with the English. In 1636, the Pequots attacked Puritan John Oldham who was trading on Block Island with the Narragansett Indians. The Puritans, however, sent a force led by John Endecott to Block Island and killed 14 Niantic Indians, whom they blamed for the attack, forcing the rest to flee as they burned the Niantic village. Endecott then burned a Pequot village when the Pequots refused to respond to his demand for reparations for both Oldham and a smuggler named John Stone who had been murdered two years earlier, even though Stone had been banished from Boston. The Pequots responded by attacking some Puritans who had settled in Connecticut. Some 30 were killed during raids in the winter of 1636–1637. In May, John Mason, commander of the Connecticut forces and their Indian allies, bypassed the main Pequot fort and attacked Mystic, which was inhabited by about 600 or 700 Indians, mostly women and children. Mason had the palisade set on fire and shot anyone who was trying to escape. Only seven Indians survived. The Indians who had accompanied the Puritans were horrified at a more brutal warfare than they had ever witnessed. Most of the remaining Pequots fled south, including their leader Sassacus. In June, Mason came upon his force in the Great Swamp, near present-day Fairfield, Connecticut, and killed about

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two-thirds of his 260 men. Sassacus and the survivors hoped to find asylum with the Mohawks, the easternmost Iroquois, but the Mohawks killed them instead and sent Sassacus’s scalp to the English. In 1638, the Narragansetts and Mohegans met at Hartford and reached an agreement with the Connecticut government on how to divide the Pequots’ lands. The remaining Pequots, about 200 people, became slaves in either Massachusetts or Connecticut or were sold to the West Indies. Puritan writings praised the conflict as a just war and thanked God for the extermination of these enemies. Historians agree that while the Pequots were the aggressors against other Indians in New England, neither they nor their enemies had any desire to exterminate each other, but merely to decide who owned what land. The Puritans then used the Pequot attacks on friendly Indians as an excuse to obtain their land. Some historians have accused the Puritans of genocide, but at this time in Europe, during the Thirty Years’ War, warfare was brutal on the Continent, where Roman Catholics and Protestants treated each other with equal fury. Racism, in short, was not responsible for the Pequot War; it was standard operating procedure of the day. Some Pequots did manage to survive, and today their descendants constitute a recognized tribe near New London, Connecticut. See also HAYNES, JOHN. PERCY, GEORGE (4 SEPTEMBER 1580–1632). Son of the Earl of Northumberland, Percy was the highest-ranking Englishman on the expedition to Virginia in 1607, where he remained until 1612. He was the ineffective governor during the “starving time” of 1609–1610. He quarreled frequently with John Smith and presented his side of the story in a journal that Samuel Purchas included in Purchas His Pilgrims, published in 1624. See also JAMESTOWN; POWHATAN. PETERS, RICHARD (1704?–10 JULY 1776). Ordained an Anglican priest in England in 1731, Peters moved to Pennsylvania to escape the scandal after he married a second time, erroneously believing his first, estranged wife to be dead. He was appointed assistant rector of Christ Church in Philadelphia but quarreled with Rector Archibald Cummings. He also defended the Dancing Assembly, which only admitted the elite, from attacks by Benjamin Franklin that it represented a pretended aristocracy unworthy of the name. He became the province secretary in 1743. In that position he speculated in lands, assisted in Indian negotiations, and led the forces that burned the houses of squatters who had moved to land belonging to the Indians in the Juniata Valley, now known as “Burnt Cabins,” in 1751. In 1762, following Cummings’s death, Peters became rector of Christ Church, a position he held until the year before his death. He was active in Philadelphia cultural activities such as the

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founding of the college, the American Philosophical Society, and the Library Company. See also PENN FAMILY. PHILADELPHIA. Founded in 1682, Philadelphia became the largest city in British North America by the Revolution with about 30,000 inhabitants. It outdistanced New York City and Boston, both founded over a half century earlier, primarily because Pennsylvania had a wealthier and larger hinterland that produced more food for export to the West Indies. Philadelphia was also a planned city: William Penn had lived through the Great Fire of London in 1666 and laid out the city on a grid with wide streets and brick houses. The devastating fires that occurred in colonial Boston and New York were absent in Philadelphia. Under the leadership of Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphians began to form voluntary associations that improved their city. The Library Company and Junto offered reading and discussion so that young working men could acquire the sort of education usually only available at a college, which Philadelphia did not have until 1749. Fire companies, street paving, and even defense were also undertaken by voluntary associations. Philadelphia boasted several attractive brick churches and Quaker meeting houses; at 196 feet, Anglican Christ Church was the tallest building in the colonies. Yet most Philadelphians were poor and lower-middle-class working people. Crime rates were higher than in London, with offenses mostly committed by transients and poor folk who could be found on no other records. The people of Philadelphia were nearly 20 percent each Anglican and Quaker by the Revolution, with Lutherans, Reformed, and Presbyterians all comprising about 15 percent. PHIPS, SIR WILLIAM (2 FEBRUARY 1651–18 FEBRUARY 1695). A prosperous carpenter and later shipbuilder in Boston, Massachusetts, Phips invested in a vessel that discovered a large sunken treasure that netted King James II 30,000 pounds sterling. Phips was rewarded by being knighted and appointed to head New England’s defenses. He returned to Boston in 1688, but neither Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England, nor his opponents considered this rough seaman a worthy colleague. Phips journeyed back to England where he was converted to Puritanism by Increase Mather. When James II was overthrown, Phips returned to New England and was placed in command of a military expedition that conquered Port Royal in Acadia, but a second and larger force he commanded failed to take Quebec in 1690. Returning to England, Mather persuaded King William to appoint Phips as governor of Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Phips managed to alienate nearly

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everyone he had to deal with. He physically attacked the royal customs collector, Jahleel Brenton, and defended illegal traders. His lieutenant-governor in New Hampshire, John Usher, and Henry Sloughter in New York criticized him for failing to properly coordinate his military defense. The Massachusetts assembly quarreled with him, and he refused to seat members elected for towns where they did not reside. His one popular deed was to end the Salem witch trials. Phips’s various enemies charged him with corruption and abuse of power. He died shortly after he was recalled to England to answer these charges. PIETISM. Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, begun in Germany by Jakob Philipp Spener (1636–1705). It preached greater emotional devotion and personal experience of salvation than traditional Lutheranism. Its headquarters was the orphanage and then the university at Halle. The word “Pietist” is also used to apply to German sects such as the Moravians and Mennonites in the New World. PILGRIMS. See PLYMOUTH. PIRATES. Pirates were also known as buccaneers or freebooters. Piracy in the Americas originated with privateers, privately owned ships that were given letters of marque during wartime, permitting them to attack the shipping of hostile powers. When wars came to an end, many of the privateers preferred to continue preying not only on their enemies, but indiscriminately on all vessels. They were joined mostly by discharged sailors who preferred crime to unemployment or menial work. Each nation, however, considered and treated enemy privateers as pirates, beginning with the Spanish demands that the English restrain and punish Sir Francis Drake and other freebooters in the 1570s. The main era of piracy was from the 1670s until the 1720s, following which a campaign by the British navy, and sanctioned by the other leading powers following the Peace of Utrecht (1713) at the end of Queen Anne’s War, resulted in capturing and executing nearly all those pirates who did not accept a pardon. Pirates who were seized were hanged en masse in colonial ports, and sermons were preached and published warning of the consequences of a life of crime. The principal site of pirate activity was the Caribbean, where lucrative ships trading with the sugar islands of the West Indies and Spain’s goldand-silver-rich territories in South America offered the best prizes. The Indian Ocean was another tempting area with its cargoes of luxury items and treasure from the East Indies. Madagascar, Jamaica, and other West Indies islands were the most popular haunts for pirates, although Newport,

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Rhode Island; Philadelphia; and New York City on the mainland were also ports that outfitted a number of ships. Notable pirates in the Americas were Henry Morgan, Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard (Edward Teach), and possibly William Kidd. Pirate vessels were more egalitarian than legal ships: captains and officers usually received only about double an ordinary seaman’s share of prizes, and an insurance system compensated pirates who were wounded in proportion to the injury. Officers governed with the consent of the crew and were replaced if they failed to meet expectations. Pirates frequently offered captured crews the option of joining them, and they spared popular officers. Historians dispute whether they were working-class heroes who stood up to the oppressive maritime powers of the era, or thugs similar to street gangs in modern cities. Much of the information about the pirates having a coherent, antiauthoritarian ideology comes from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, published in 1724 and probably written by Captain Charles Johnson, although formerly attributed to Daniel Defoe. The author probably invented the high-minded speeches supposedly given by pirate leaders. PITT, WILLIAM (15 NOVEMBER 1708–11 MAY 1778). In 1757, Pitt became secretary of state for the Southern Department, including the colonies, during the French and Indian War. He united with the Duke of Newcastle in 1757 to form a ministry that inspired the people, armed forces, and colonies. He promised to pay the Americans their extraordinary war expenses, which ultimately amounted to over a million pounds sterling, and vigorously prosecuted the war throughout the world—in Europe, the Americas, and India. He resigned in 1761 when Newcastle and the rest of the cabinet refused to attack Spain, which was planning to ally with France preemptively. Pitt was a staunch defender of American liberties and an opponent of British policy throughout the 1760s and 1770s. The city of Pittsburgh and Fort Pitt, which preceded it, are named for him. PITTSBURGH. The French built Fort Duquesne at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers in 1754 to stake their claim to the Ohio Valley. During the French and Indian War, Braddock’s expedition of 1755 failed to capture it, but in 1758 General James Forbes, avoiding Braddock’s mistakes, compelled the small French garrison to abandon and destroy the forts. Forbes constructed forts to which he could fall back in case of attack and scouted the woods far more carefully for a possible ambush. Fort Pitt was built on the same site between 1759 and 1761, and the town of Pittsburgh grew up around it. Its primary economic activity was the fur

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trade. In 1763, Fort Pitt was besieged during Pontiac’s War from 22 June to 20 August. The siege was abandoned and the Indians defeated when they left their lines to confront Colonel Henry Bouquet at the Battle of Bushy Run. Following the French and Indian War, the British sold Fort Pitt to local Pennsylvania settlers. PLAY AND AMUSEMENTS. Gendered forms of play in early America prepared the participants for the more serious tasks of life: warfare and hunting for the boys, and raising children for girls. Early American children enjoyed various forms of play even in strict Puritan societies. Racing, hunting, target shooting, setting up forts and “armies,” and wrestling were popular with boys. Girls also owned dolls, ranging from fancy porcelain dolls with realistic clothes for the wealthy to corncob or wooden items for the poor. Hoops, hopscotch, tag, marbles, tossing horseshoes, hide-and-seek, and kite flying were also common with both sexes. For adults, the Puritans frowned on gambling, which usually meant playing cards, cockfighting, and bearbaiting, but these were popular adult entertainments elsewhere. Bowling was especially popular with the Dutch. Gentlemen took fencing lessons. Dancing assemblies in the larger towns such as New York City and Philadelphia and fishing clubs were opportunities for the elite to meet and their children to find appropriate acquaintances and marriage partners. Southerners were especially fond of horse racing; the standard distance was a quarter mile, from which the term “quarter horse” comes. Betting was an important part of boxing, wrestling, horse racing, and cockfighting; champion fighters, cocks, and horses would sometimes be imported from other colonies. Music was important for both religious celebrations and recreation, the theater for amusement and moral edification. Taverns were the principal site in which people socialized besides the home and church. Lacrosse—still played today—was the most popular Indian sport, in which two sides fought a symbolic battle in which agility, strength, and marksmanship were prized. Indian boys also wrestled, raced, and hunted in preparation for the tasks of adult life. Girls, like their white counterparts, had dolls. Cat’s cradle (making patterns out of string or yarn), dart games, pick-up sticks, and winter games (snowball fights, sledding) were popular. Unlike most Europeans, Indians could swim and play in the water. See also TUESDAY CLUB. PLYMOUTH. Also known as Plymouth Plantation, this colony on what is now the south shore of Massachusetts was settled by the Pilgrims, a small group of English Dissenters who separated from the Anglican Church, unlike the Puritans who claimed to be the true English church. About 125 of them, mostly small farmers, left their congregation at Scrooby, England, in

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Source: Library of Congress.

Peter Frederick Rothermel (1812–1895), one of the foremost historical painters of 19th-century America, captured the fear as well as the hope of the Pilgrims when they landed in 1620—although probably somewhere rather on Cape Cod (Plymouth is not on Cape Cod.) than the rocky shore of Plymouth.

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1608 and moved to the Netherlands. Although they could worship freely, they were unhappy at the lack of economic opportunity and were afraid their children would be seduced by the more liberal, urban environment. In 1620, they negotiated a deal with some London merchants who had obtained a patent to establish a plantation within the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company. On 16 September 1620, 101 people, 35 Pilgrims and 66 “strangers” the merchants had hired as laborers and soldiers, notably Captain Myles Standish, departed England on the Mayflower. On the voyage over they signed the Mayflower Compact, the first frame of government generated by settlers to the New World, largely to conciliate the strangers who did not want to obey the Pilgrims. They landed on 26 December somewhere on or near Cape Cod (it is doubtful they landed at what is now honored as Plymouth Rock as there is much safer, sandy shoreline in the area). Half of Plymouth’s settlers died during the first winter, but the colony soon recovered with the aid of the local inhabitants. The Wampanoag Indians had been severely decimated during a plague shortly before. About 2,000 survived under the leadership of Massasoit. The Pilgrims were aided in communicating with them by Squanto, an Indian who had earlier been kidnapped and taken to England and who knew both languages. He also taught them how to grow corn and fish. In the fall of 1621, about 90 Wampanoags joined the colony in its first harvest festival, the origins of the first Thanksgiving, although it was not called by that name. Plymouth divided its land fairly equally into subsistence farms. A profitable fur trade monopolized by the colony, however, enabled it to buy out the London merchants who had invested in it. All of the adult men met at first to govern the colony, but as several towns were soon formed, in 1638 a representative assembly was instituted. William Bradford, who governed Plymouth for 30 of the years between 1621 and his death in 1657, chronicled the colony’s history in his journal, which was later published and is usually called Of Plymouth Plantation. The population grew, but only to 7,000 by 1691, when the small colony became part of Massachusetts. Friendly relations with the Indians deteriorated, and Plymouth fought alongside the other New England colonies in the Pequot War and King Philip’s War. POCAHONTAS (c. 1596–c. 21 MARCH 1617). Daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of the Indians of eastern Virginia who first encountered the Jamestown colony in 1607, Pocahontas spent a good deal of time with the English. Although a mere child, she learned English and became an important negotiator between the two cultures. In December 1607, Captain John Smith, whom the Indians had captured, reported that she had saved him as he was about to have his head bashed in, but this was probably an adoption ceremony in which Powhatan recognized him as a subordinate chief. She

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stopped visiting Jamestown in about 1610 but was taken hostage in 1613 to prevent the hostilities then developing. Powhatan refused to exchange her, and during her year in captivity she converted to Christianity, took the name Rebecca, and married John Rolfe. In 1616, the settlers sent Rolfe, Pocahontas, and their infant son Thomas to England to gain good publicity and more funding for their enterprise. Pocahontas was greeted by King James I and his court and was very popular. She died as she was preparing to return home and is buried in England. Pocahontas remains a symbol of what Americans wanted their Indians to be—friendly, adopting of white ways, and glamorous (as subsequent, fanciful portraits have depicted her), yet quickly out of the way so that their tragedy could be mourned and their territory taken away. POLITICS. Politics at the colonial level concerned the debates between the governor, council (except in Pennsylvania), and assembly over their respective powers and issues of concern to the colonies, usually matters of defense, taxation, economic regulation, currency, and religion. Different factions, defined by regions, classes, ethnic or religious groups, and families also formed within different colonies. For much of the colonial era, the assemblies struggled, and at different times in different colonies succeeded, to become the most important branch of the colonial legislature. They controlled the power of the purse, and the governor could neither obtain a salary nor live sociably with many of his constituents in what was usually not his home country, unless he conciliated the assembly. In some colonies—notably Virginia and South Carolina for most of the 18th century—the planter aristocracy secured the loyalty of the voting population by marketing their tobacco crops, loaning them money, and expanding the frontier to give them land. The governor (who was sometimes a lieutenant-governor who collected part of the salary of an absentee British nobleman) was usually content to go along. In colonies such as Maryland, religious divisions were important: Protestants and Roman Catholics struggled for control. Pennsylvania was divided between the supporters of the proprietary Penn family (Presbyterians and Anglicans, for the most part) against the Quakers, supported by the Pennsylvania Germans, who dominated the assembly. In New York, the division between Leislerians and anti-Leislerians approximated that between Dutch Reformed, allied with Presbyterians, and English Anglicans. After the 1730s, the Delancey and Livingston families headed up two factions, the former appealing mostly to Anglicans and downstate merchants, the latter to Presbyterians and upstate landowners. In Rhode Island, Newport merchants led by the Ward family faced off against Providence and rural farmers led by the Hopkins clan. In Massachusetts, supporters and opponents of imperial

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war policies determined the division in wartime, whereas in peacetime the legislature was fairly united in pressing its privileges against the governors. In the 1760s, the imperial faction was led by the Hutchinson family, the opposition by the Otis family. Connecticut and New Jersey were divided between their western and eastern districts. Governors Benning Wentworth and John Wentworth ingratiated themselves with the population of New Hampshire. In Georgia and North Carolina, governors struggled for supremacy with the legislature. Factional divisions became more complicated beginning around 1740. The Great Awakening split the population in many colonies into Old and New Lights, the former being linked more generally to the elite and established churches. New Lights abounded in the backcountry, which in most colonies began to develop separate interests from the seacoast as migration increased tremendously around midcentury. Regulators in western North Carolina and South Carolina and frontier groups in Pennsylvania such as the Paxton Boys turned to violence to protest eastern neglect of their needs and their failure to be represented in the assembly—the local version of the taxation without representation that the colonies were objecting to with respect to England. In Virginia and Massachusetts, Baptists objected to supporting an established church as well as their own. In New York and New Jersey, the province supported proprietors against small farmers who refused to pay taxes to absentee landlords. Boundary disputes also occurred in many places: New York and New Hampshire argued over what became Vermont; Pennsylvania had violent disputes with Virginia, Maryland, and Connecticut over its territory; and Massachusetts disagreed with both Rhode Island and New Hampshire over its legitimate boundary. Scholars thus find periods of both harmony and discordance in colonial politics, both with respect to imperial relations and within the different colonies. Factionalism could be chaotic, stable (two competing groups), harmonious, or repressive (a dominant faction suppressing opposition). Historians also dispute whether deference to elites or more democratic politics was the rule. In general, however, all agree that most adult white men were literate, could vote if they chose to so long as their region of a colony enjoyed representation, and only allowed elites to represent them if those elites were responsive to popular interests. Because local elites and their constituents agreed in most cases, however, there was little politicking and (except in New York, Pennsylvania, and the area around Boston, Massachusetts) no organized, competitive slates of candidates who actively sought votes and stood for different principles. In most cases where there were disputes, representatives of different sections or religious or ethnic groups fought it out at the colony level. See also CATO’S LETTERS.

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PONCE DE LEON, JUAN (?–1521). Ponce de Leon was a Spanish conquistador who sailed on Christopher Columbus’s second voyage in 1493 and led the expedition that conquered Puerto Rico in 1507. He sailed from Puerto Rico in 1512 to conquer Florida, where he sought the mythical “Fountain of Youth” that would keep people young all their lives. On his third expedition to Florida in 1521 he was mortally wounded fighting the Calusa Indians. PONTIAC’S WAR. Sometimes termed Pontiac’s Rebellion or the Conspiracy of Pontiac, the term “war” is preferable as it does not degrade the conflict into a revolt against legitimate authority or an underhanded, secretive plot. Pontiac was an Ottawa Indian leader who supported the French against the British and their colonies in both King George’s War and the French and Indian War. In 1761, near the end of the French and Indian War, he became the leader of numerous northwest Indians who were angered that the new British commander in chief, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, refused to provide them with the weapons they needed for defense and survival, treated them with contempt, and did little to stop whites from occupying land guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Easton in 1758. As early as 1762, a Delaware Indian sachem, or religious leader, named Neolin began traveling among various Indians who lived in the Ohio Valley, preaching that all whites were creatures of a demonic sea serpent and that Indians needed to return to their native ways (although guns were still allowed), renounce alcohol and Christianity, and unite together against the whites to achieve both victory and eternal salvation. These ideas were the mirror image of the British whites’ new racist views of Indians as an undifferentiated mass of savages; similarly, the serpent and concept of salvation owed itself to Christian influences. Pontiac’s was the first confederation to unite numerous Indians using a powerful antiwhite ideology: Tecumseh and his brother, the prophet Tenskwatawa, would do so again at the time of the War of 1812. Egged on by the French who were still in the Mississippi Valley, Pontiac assumed leadership of a war council that met near Detroit in 1762. Meanwhile, he circulated a map that Neolin had prepared showing the world of the Indians and the whites and spreading his message to Indians in the Great Lakes region on both the Canadian and English colonial sides. In April 1763, he attempted to capture Detroit, besieging it from May until October. When that failed, he successfully captured six other forts ranging from St. Joseph in Michigan to Presque Isle in Pennsylvania, which inspired a general uprising among the Indians from the eastern terminus of the Ohio River to the Mississippi and northward into Canada.

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But the French surrendered in 1763, and in October 1764, Colonel Henry Bouquet, as commander of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), led an expedition into the Ohio Valley, successfully freeing about 200 white captives (some of whom did not want to return) by threatening to destroy Indian villages if they did not. He forced them to cease their attacks, which made it impossible for Pontiac to approach any significant areas of white settlement. A smallpox epidemic caused by blankets Bouquet spread also aided in the cessation of hostilities. Pontiac signed a peace at Oswego with Sir William Johnson in July 1766. Pontiac’s War, however, persuaded the British to adopt the Proclamation Line of 1763 and make an effort to prevent white colonials from infringing on Indian lands. Pontiac himself lost influence once he made peace and in 1769 was murdered at Cahokia, in Illinois Country, by a Peoria Indian angered that he had come to terms with the British. See also BLACK BOYS; PAXTON BOYS. POPERY. See ANTI-CATHOLICISM; POPE’S DAY; ROMAN CATHOLICISM. POPE’S DAY. The Pope’s Day celebration on 5 November in New England towns, beginning in the mid-1730s, marked the exposure of the Gunpowder Plot on 5 November 1605. The holiday was also called Guy Fawkes Day after the leader of the plot, who had attempted to dig a tunnel under the Houses of Parliament and blow them up before he was betrayed. The holiday gave the towns over to the young and the poor as they went about begging “a penny for the guy” (perhaps the origin of the word “guy” meaning man or boy) and throwing rocks at the windows of people who refused to contribute or shine candles. Bonfires were built into which effigies of the pope and the Roman Catholic pretender to the English throne were tossed; boys dressed as “imps of Satan” carrying pitchforks accompanied the processions. In Boston, the North End mob fought the South End mob for possession of each other’s cart in which the pope and pretender were carried, leading to riots on the common where injuries were frequent. In 1765, in the wake of the Stamp Act, however, the two mobs united under the South End leader, shoemaker Ebenezer Mackintosh; important citizens joined the crowd, and it was led by the commander of the province militia, General William Brattle, along with Mackintosh. Thus the Pope’s Day celebration became the prototype for crowd actions during the revolutionary era in which effigies were burned and processions denouncing British officials replaced those attacking Britain’s traditional Catholic enemies. POPULATION. See DEMOGRAPHY.

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POST OFFICE. Early American colonies set up post offices in major towns to receive and send mail to England: Boston was the first in 1639, and in 1673 a postal service between New York City and Boston was established using the Boston Post Road (now U.S. Route 1). Thomas Neale was granted a patent from the crown to establish an intercolonial postal service in 1691, which he delegated to Andrew Hamilton, governor of West Jersey. Hamilton supervised a growing network of roads, built by colonials hired by each colony from Virginia to New Hampshire, that allowed assemblies and local elites to decide where service was most useful. The crown took over the postal service in 1707, with various postmasters in charge: Benjamin Franklin served jointly with several others from 1753 to 1775, having been postmaster of Philadelphia since 1737, and was appointed postmaster by the Continental Congress in 1775. Franklin had roads and routes surveyed, milestones erected, and managed to turn a profit. It was customary for the recipient of letters to pay for them and pick them up in any one of 30 post offices that existed between Williamsburg, Virginia, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with private letter carriers or individuals taking mail to other locations. POVERTY. In colonial America, the poor were technically defined as those who could not support themselves. During the 17th century, especially at the beginning of many colonies, malnutrition and starvation occurred which led to extremely high death rates (Virginia had 6,000 migrants between 1607 and 1624, but only 1,000 inhabitants in 1624; half the Pilgrims at Plymouth died the first winter). Once the colonies had stabilized, however, almost no one was in danger of starvation. The poor were divided into those who belonged to a community and were supported by it, and those who were termed strangers or the strolling poor. In general, a community’s poor were either given direct relief or placed in families who were to feed, clothe, and house them, sometimes in return for their labor if they were able-bodied. Pauper auctions frequently sold such people to whoever offered to support them for the least amount of money, which the town or community then paid. This encouraged economy in their treatment, although communities were vigilant to ensure that minimal standards of decent treatment prevailed. Paupers or others could complain and win suits in court if they were abused. Churches also felt responsible for their own impoverished members, and ethnic charitable societies (Scots, Irish, German, and St. George for the English) in cities, along with charities for seamen, also took care of their respective groups. People from outside a community, however, were either sent back to where they came from, or, as in Massachusetts, were warned out, which meant that the town would not support them if they became poor, and that they

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could be sent away if they could not support themselves. Workhouses for the able-bodied and poorhouses or almshouses for those who were not were established in the mid-18th century in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and a few rural areas. Residents were supposed to refrain from sexual immorality and drunkenness, and to obey orders. As war widows and orphans became numerous during the French and Indian War, and returning veterans lacked jobs following the war during economic hard times, Philadelphia and Boston established spinning manufactories where women would spin wool for their livelihood. POWHATAN (fl. 1607–1618). A paramount chief, or chief who ruled over numerous Indian tribes, in his case about 30, Powhatan dominated the coastal region of Virginia when the English arrived in 1607. His kingdom consisted of about 20,000 Algonquins who grew corn and vegetables in wooden-walled villages as well as hunted for food. These tribes were sometimes called Pamunkeys or Powhatan Indians. Powhatan was the only chief to achieve such concentrated power in the regions where the thirteen colonies would be settled. He was ruthless in his methods, appointing his relatives to rule other groups, relocating tribes or parts of tribes that he thought would give him trouble, and conducting impressive ceremonies with religious attributes to awe his people. Powhatan could easily have defeated the English at Jamestown, Virginia, during the first few years of settlement or simply allowed them to starve to death, but when he discovered their weapons, he hoped to use them to augment his power. The ritual in which he had a captured John Smith readied for execution only to be saved by his daughter Pocahontas at the last minute was a typical one through which Powhatan incorporated a subordinate people into his realm. Although Powhatan’s donation of food twice saved Virginia from annihilation, the colonists continued to harass his people, which led to a five-year war between 1609 and 1614. The colony endured the “starving time” at first and was about to be abandoned when Lord De la Warr arrived with reinforcements. More than 20 battles were fought at this time and Jamestown was temporarily abandoned, but Powhatan suffered heavy losses too and agreed to a peace cemented by the marriage of his daughter Pocahontas (whom the English had held hostage for a year) and John Rolfe. In his sixties or seventies, Powhatan abdicated in favor of Opechancanough in 1617, the year before his death. See also PERCY, GEORGE. POWNALL (OR POWNAL) THOMAS (4 SEPTEMBER 1722–25 FEBRUARY 1805). Thomas Pownall had the opportunity to travel to America and attend the Albany Conference of 1754 thanks to his brother, John Pownall,

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secretary of the Board of Trade. In 1757, he was appointed governor of Massachusetts, where took the colonists’ side in a dispute with Lord Loudoun over quartering soldiers in Boston over the winter, enabling a compromise to be reached. Pownall was successful in raising large sums of men and money for the French and Indian War and took the side of the popular party against Thomas Hutchinson and his supporters. He was appointed governor of South Carolina in 1760 but never served, becoming instead commissary for the British forces in Europe. His book The Administration of the Colonies went through five editions after it was published in 1764, but neither the colonists nor the British accepted the idea of a colonial parliament that could vote taxes and legislate for the colonies. Pownall served in Parliament from 1767 to 1780 and continued to defend American rights, corresponding with and encouraging his former allies in Massachusetts. PRAYING INDIANS. After 12 years of settlement, the Puritans of Massachusetts began to convert friendly Indians to Christianity. They were known as praying Indians and lived in praying towns. The first Puritan minister to preach to the Indians was Thomas Mayhew, Jr., who began his work on Martha’s Vineyard in 1642, but the most famous missionary was John Eliot, who started in 1646. Funds were provided both by Massachusetts and, in 1649, the English Parliament once the monarchy had been overthrown. Eliot preached to the Indians in their own language and also translated the Bible into Algonquin. Ultimately there were 14 praying towns and about 4,800 praying Indians. Praying Indians were required to adopt the Puritan moral code, style of farming, and manner of dress in addition to Congregational Christianity. Although friendly Indians informed the colonists of King Philip’s activities during the war that began in 1675, some of them were still confined to Deer Island in Boston Harbor where they suffered horribly and many died during the winter. Of the original praying towns, only Natick remained by 1700, the others becoming inhabited by whites. In the 1730s, Solomon Stoddard of Northampton once again began to preach to Indians in western Massachusetts. His grandson, Jonathan Edwards, later served as the minister of the praying Indians in Stockbridge, which was founded in 1734 for the Mahican Indians. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. Also officially known as the Church of Scotland in the British Isles, the Presbyterian Church adopted the theology of John Calvin of Geneva—people were incorrigible sinners only saved by God’s grace. By the eve of the American Revolution, it was one of the two most numerous churches in the North American British colonies, the other

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being Anglicanism. It was identical in form with the Dutch and German Reformed churches, which were prominent in New Netherland (later New York) and Pennsylvania, respectively. It was also similar to the Congregational Church in that simplicity was the rule in church design and decoration, and hymns, sermons, and prayers substituted for the mass. Consortiums of ministers and elders, “or presbyteries,” governed a number of churches, which was the principal difference with Congregationalism. The Puritan churches in New England, although Congregational, also chose boards similar to presbyteries, which with limited success tried to impose uniformity. Most Presbyterians in the colonies were Scots or Scotch-Irish. New Jersey Presbyterians made unsuccessful attempts to be recognized as the established church—and thus entitled to public support—of that colony, as after 1707 England and Scotland were united and Scottish Presbyterianism was an officially established church in the British Isles. During the Great Awakening, Presbyterians split into Old Side (Old Lights) and New Side (New Lights), the latter rejecting the authority of ministers whom they considered uninspired. See also BLACK BOYS; COLLEGES; DISSENTERS; LIVINGSTON FAMILY; PAXTON BOYS; RELIGION; TENNENT, GILBERT. PRINTZ, JOHAN (20 JULY 1592–3 MAY 1663). An experienced soldier, Printz was appointed governor of New Sweden in 1642. He made peace with the Indians, developed the fur trade, built forts, and unsuccessfully encouraged the growth of tobacco. The colony foundered, however, and in 1652, 22 of the 70 men who remained signed a petition complaining of his brutality and greed. He responded by executing their leader and returning to Sweden the following year without permission from the New Sweden Company, having asked to be relieved as early as 1646. Printz weighed about 400 pounds and stood six feet eight inches tall, but even his imposing presence was unable to do more than establish order in a colony where few settlers arrived and many left. By 1655, Printz’s efforts to defend the colony against the Dutch had proven a failure as Pietr Stuyvesant conquered the colony. PROCLAMATION OF 1763. As the French and Indian War was winding down from 1759 to 1763, people in colonial North America began moving in great numbers to the frontier where they came into conflict with Indians, resulting in the Cherokee War in the south and Pontiac’s War in the north. In an effort to keep peace, King George III with the advice of his ministers issued the Proclamation of 1763, which forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. At the same time, Britain opened up Florida and Nova Scotia (formerly Acadia) to settlement, hoping to lure British subjects

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into areas inhabited by the Spanish and French, respectively. Few colonials, however, wished to go to these remote territories. The proclamation was a dead letter almost from the day it was issued, and efforts by British soldiers in the garrisons built after the war to prevent infiltration proved fruitless. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 once again opened some of the Indian lands to settlement, and colonials and British officials invested in numerous land companies in the hopes of acquiring title to vast tracts they could then sell. The Proclamation of 1763 ultimately had disastrous consequences: it convinced the colonists that the main reason many of them had fought the French and Indian War, to obtain western land, was being thwarted. Its failure also convinced the British government that only by entrusting these lands to Canada, with the Quebec Act of 1774, was there a chance to stop the colonials from provoking the Indians. See also BOUQUET, HENRY; ELLIS, HENRY; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. PROPRIETORS. Three colonies were governed by proprietors on the eve of the American Revolution—Pennsylvania and Delaware (by the Penn family), and Maryland (by the Calvert family). In effect, this meant that laws were subject to the proprietor’s approval, rather than the crown’s (although the privy council and king could nullify these laws too). The proprietor appointed the governor (if he did not choose to rule in person) and other officials such as councilors and justices of the peace. The Jerseys and Carolina were originally also proprietary colonies, governed by groups of seven and eight lords proprietors, as they were known, respectively. Other attempts to found proprietary colonies were made by Sir Ferdinando Gorges in Maine and Gorges in partnership with John Mason in New Hampshire in the 17th century, but these were thwarted by the influx of settlers and opposition from Massachusetts. For the most part, colonists disliked their proprietors for their attempts to collect quitrents, or small amounts individually but quite large for an entire colony, to guarantee their possession of their lands. Only rarely did proprietors actually live in the colony, and after the first generation of Calverts and Penns, they seemed only interested in turning a profit rather than in the religious mission or welfare of the colonists. In New Jersey in the 1740s, some of the original proprietors’ descendants attempted to revive their claims after an extended hiatus, leading to riots that nullified their efforts. The word “proprietor” was also used by the English to refer to the large landlords in New York who had been known as “patroons” under the Dutch in New Netherland. PUBLIC SPHERE. A term coined by scholar Jürgen Habermas, the public sphere refers to the increasing discussion and participation in politics of

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inhabitants in the 18th-century world. As applied to British North America, increasing publications such as almanacs, newspapers, and political pamphlets and their circulation and meetings at coffeehouses, taverns, and in clubs or associations manifested this development and made it possible. Critics of Habermas note the exclusion of women and blacks, and the predominantly middle- and upper-class composition of the public sphere, while his supporters argue that it still represented a considerable increase in the number of people involved (including working men) in political life and a greater flow of information than in the 17th century. Formerly, clergymen had a near monopoly of the public discourse from the pulpit, and the government controlled printed information from the few presses in existence. PUEBLO REVOLT. After the Spanish conquered New Mexico in the early 1600s, the Pueblo Indians secretly practiced their old religion despite nominal conversion by Franciscan missionaries. This practice became more pronounced in the 1670s when the practice of Christianity failed to do what the Pueblo expected a religion was supposed to do—that is, protect them from famine brought on by drought and increasing attacks by the Apache and Comanche. The Franciscans and Spaniards then tried to disrupt the traditional ceremonies and seized artifacts connected to them. The catalyst of the revolt was the arrest of 47 Pueblo shamans or religious leaders by the Spanish governor in 1675: three were executed, one committed suicide, and the others were whipped and imprisoned. One of the captured Indians, Pope (pronounced “Po-pay”), sent messages to the various settlements to proclaim the revolt, which occurred on 10 August 1680. Over half the Franciscans in the territory and over 300 Spaniards were killed, with the rest of the Spanish population abandoning the colony. But the Pueblo quarreled among themselves, and in 1692 a small Spanish force returned to Santa Fe and promised amnesty for those who surrendered. Many did, but in 1693 and 1696, there were further uprisings that were brutally suppressed. Still, the small number of Spaniards in the region were only able to rule by allowing the Pueblo to practice their religion in secret, farm their own lands, and receive fair trials with the benefit of a public defender in Spanish courts. See also ZUNI. PURCHAS, SAMUEL (1577?–1626). A graduate of Oxford University and rector of St. Martin’s Church in London, Samuel Purchas is noted for conveying information about European explorations, including those in America, to his contemporaries. His important works are Purchas His Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages (1613); Purchas His Pilgrims (1619); and Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas

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His Pilgrims, Containing a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Land Travel by Englishmen and Others (1625). The last of these works completes the unfinished work of Richard Hakluyt. Some of the places described are India, China, Japan, Africa, Russia, the West Indies, Florida, and Virginia. See also HARRIOT, THOMAS; PERCY, GEORGE; SMITH, JOHN. PURITANS. Originally, “Puritan” was a negative term used by enemies to attack those who wanted to purify the Anglican Church. Puritanism began almost as soon as Henry VIII separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1533; many in England thought he had simply removed the pope as head of the church and replaced him with the king, keeping intact bishops, ceremony, and the attendant corruption, which Puritans defined as paying clergymen high salaries. Followers of John Calvin wanted a more thorough Reformation; many English congregations adopted the simplified Calvinist liturgy of hymns, sermons, Bible readings, and psalm singing, and began to oppose gambling, fancy clothing, and items they considered residues of Catholicism and deviations from the primitive Christianity. Many members of Parliament were Puritans; the ideas appealed especially to the middle class and people in London and East Anglia. An uneasy coexistence of Puritans in the church prevailed under Queen Elizabeth that was undone during the reign of James I (1603–1625), whose opposition to both Puritanism and parliamentary authority linked the two causes. Matters grew even worse under his son Charles I (1625–1649), who supported the efforts of Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud to increase both ceremony and central authority in the Anglican Church. While the majority of Puritans remained in England, John Cotton, Thomas Dudley, and John Endecott were among the principal founders of Massachusetts; Thomas Shepard and John Winthrop, Jr., of Connecticut; and James Davenport and Theophilus Eaton of New Haven. The Pilgrims at Plymouth lived the same way although they claimed to be separating from the Church of England, whereas Puritans claimed to be the best representatives of that church. Puritanism was both a form of piety and a form of polity (that is, church government). Puritans intensely studied religion: literacy and attendance at church services, which often were three a week in New England, was a requirement. They believed the Bible was a “means of grace” that conveyed salvation, and hence it was important for everyone to read it. They also searched their souls deeply for signs of either sin or salvation. The diary of Cotton Mather and the poetry of Edward Taylor and Michael Wigglesworth are perhaps the foremost examples of this mentality. The Salem witch trials were a result of the Puritan belief that as God’s chosen people they were also singled out by the devil for special attention and trials.

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Puritans hoped to rid the Anglican Church of its superfluous and irreligious elements. Church space was desanctified—a meeting house was both where the town meeting decided civic matters and where religious services were held—and made simple. Aside from a simple cross, communion table, pews, and a pulpit, there were no decorations. Morality was strictly enforced— people could be punished for gambling, flirting with other people’s spouses, and even walking for pleasure on a Sunday. Holidays such as Christmas and Easter were regarded as pagan and were no longer celebrated. All male members of the church who convinced each other of their sanctity, which they proved by describing their conversion experience, were considered visible saints and could vote for all religious officers (deacons and ministers) and civil positions (from colonial governors to scavengers, or garbage collectors). Although governance was supposed to be by each individual congregation, the rulers and ministers of Massachusetts would criticize and ultimately unite to banish deviants who failed to fit the Puritan mold, such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Puritan society was dominated by the concept of the covenant. Every social, religious, and societal relationship consisted of a covenant, or agreement, in which both parties had rights and obligations. Rulers were supposed to govern wisely and for the benefit of the ruled; the ruled in turn owed obedience. The family was a little commonwealth in which the father ruled and wife, children, and other family members including servants obeyed. Many Puritans believed, as John Winthrop declared in a famous speech, that Massachusetts was a “city upon a hill” that would serve as an example to the world of how a godly society would conduct itself. They also believed that God had entered into a covenant with them: if they behaved in a godly fashion, they would not only prosper and multiply, but Jesus would come to earth and use their society as the basis of the New Jerusalem, which many thought was coming soon. The failure of Jesus to arrive, and the inability of many second-generation Puritans to own the covenant—that is, experience salvation—led Puritan ministers to complain of declension, or the decrease in religiosity, which they denounced in sermons known as jeremiads. But in fact, unlike the heroic first generation that proved its faith by undergoing persecution in England, the second had only advantages to reap from faith—participation in church and civil government, and obtaining land from the towns. The failure of many to relate their conversion experience may actually have been a form of piety—the unwillingness to be hypocrites and recount an experience that had not occurred. In response, many (although not all) Puritan churches admitted these people into a “half-way covenant” that allowed their children to be baptized.

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Puritans settled the land in a manner to unite communities. People had to live in towns. Instead of distributing individual plots, household lots surrounded a common, where animals were kept, and then different families were allotted fields. The open field system, where everyone received some good land with poorer land reserved for later distribution if necessary, ensured that people worked and lived under the eyes of others. Solitary existence was frowned upon and frequently not permitted; similarly, men who failed to marry had to pay a fine. The Puritans believed that single men were a major cause of social disorder, and could point to the experiences of Virginia and Maryland to prove it. Following the Dominion of New England in 1685, which eliminated all self-government, England insisted that property rather than religious piety become the formal criterion for participation in the government of the New England colonies. Yet Puritan morals and behavior retained its stamp in New England. The Congregational Church was publicly supported in New Hampshire until 1818 and in Massachusetts until 1834. Puritan piety and a sense that Britain was corrupt and had violated its covenant with the colonists who had previously been self-governing was a powerful factor in the American Revolution, as was a renewed sense of mission that America was God’s chosen country. To this day, many New England towns still hold both religious services and town meetings much as their Puritan ancestors did. See also ANDROS, EDMUND; BRADSTREET, ANNE; DUDLEY, JOSEPH; ELIOT, JOHN; HARVARD COLLEGE; KING PHILIP’S WAR; MATHER, INCREASE; MERRY MOUNT; PEQUOT WAR; RANDOLPH, EDWARD; RELIGION; STOUGHTON, WILLIAM; WINTHROP, FITZ-JOHN.

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Q QUAKERS. Officially known as the Society of Friends, the Quakers were the only one of many religious sects that appeared during the time of the English Civil War (1640–1649) to survive. The term “Quaker” was first applied in 1650 by a judge to George Fox as a term to mock the physical sensation that accompanied the reception of the Holy Spirit, but it stuck, and even Friends themselves came to use it. Fox was the most prominent early Quaker. He insisted that formal church services and clergymen were obstacles, rather than aids, in experiencing what he called the “Inner Light” or Holy Spirit, which believers received directly from God. Those who did receive this light, however, would act in a certain way; they would recognize the religious equality of men and women and the religious (although not economic or political) equality of all human beings—there was no clergy. Clothing was supposed to be a plain gray, painting portraits was forbidden, as was naming streets or towns after individuals. Silhouettes were allowed, but only sketches made secretly survive of early Quakers; streets were named after trees or simply numbered in Quaker towns. Even the king was addressed as “Friend” and with “thou” rather than the formal “you.” The Quakers were pacifists. Their meeting, as it was called, rather than a formal church service, consisted of people waiting to experience the Holy Spirit and then recounting what they heard. If no one was inspired, the meeting adjourned. As Quakers became numerous, monthly and yearly meetings of Quakers in a particular area disciplined Quakers, through admonition or as a last resort expulsion, if they failed to behave properly. Quakers attracted large numbers of poor people, but also a number of the wealthy and middle class, especially women who either controlled their own estates or could influence their husbands to join. The higher status enjoyed by Quaker women was undoubtedly the reason. Quakers were persecuted under the Restoration, beginning in the 1660s, but almost never executed and usually jailed for a limited period. King Charles II was inclined toward toleration and only reluctantly enforced the laws that Parliament passed against Dissenters and Roman Catholics so long as they did not challenge the legitimacy of his rule. William Penn, whose father was the leading admiral in England, joined

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the Quakers and obtained the colony of Pennsylvania for them. He had earlier joined with other Quakers in founding West Jersey. In Pennsylvania, the Quaker ethos and Quaker officeholders dominated the colony until the French and Indian War. There was no armed force, and religious toleration was practiced. Nevertheless, second- and third-generation Quakers, many of whom had prospered in trade or agriculture, were reluctant to practice simplicity and humility. Many, including the Penn family, converted to Anglicanism, and by the 1750s, more Anglicans lived in Philadelphia and the surrounding area than Quakers. Quakers also constituted much of the population of West Jersey and Rhode Island; other Quakers, notably Mary Dyer, attempting to preach in Massachusetts were expelled or executed. Quakers living in Flushing (now in the borough of Queens), a village in New Netherland, led by John Bowne, obtained toleration from the Dutch West India Company following the Flushing Remonstrance. Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, were the first people in British North America to condemn slavery. Quakers Benjamin Lay, John Woolman, and Anthony Benezet were the first to campaign actively against it. The Philadelphia Quaker meeting, the largest and most important, responded by condemning slavery in 1758 and expelling Quakers who continued to own slaves in 1776. See also GERMANTOWN PROTEST; KEITH, GEORGE; KEITH, WILLIAM; LOGAN, JAMES; PEMBERTON, ISRAEL. QUEBEC. The official name of French Canada, the word “Quebec” is more frequently used today to describe only the capital city of that colony and the French-speaking province in which it is located. Located where the Gulf of St. Lawrence narrows to the St. Lawrence River, the city of Quebec was situated on a high cliff that made it virtually impregnable to attack. In the colonial era it was the most important city of Canada, with Montreal a distant second. British attempts to conquer it during King William’s War and Queen Anne’s War failed because it was impossible to storm or demolish the fortifications; only in 1759, during the French and Indian War, when James Wolfe’s troops were able to circumvent the city and climb the cliffs, was it taken. About 8,000 people were living in the city at the time; clergy consisting of priests, nuns, and monastic orders were a prominent part of the population. After the conquest, the British conciliated the inhabitants by not taxing them and allowing them to keep their Catholic religion, property, and system of local government. QUEEN ANNE’S WAR. The War of the Spanish Succession began in Europe in 1701, when King Louis XIV of France attempted to place his grandson on the throne of Spain. France and Spain confronted England and

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Austria. The fighting began in the Americas in 1702 when the Spanish from Florida attacked Charleston, the capital of Carolina, and Carolinians in turn attacked St. Augustine, the capital of Florida. Neither succeeded. A second attempt to conquer Charleston in 1706 by a combined French and Spanish force also failed. Carolina, however, was able to destroy nearly all the Spanish missions in the southeast when they conquered the Apalachee Indians in 1704. A thousand Creek Indians led by 50 Englishmen burned 13 of the 14 Spanish missions in Florida, took nearly all the Apalachees captive, and made them slaves. Serious fighting also occurred in New England. The Massachusetts settlements in Maine and the northern town of Haverhill in Massachusetts were attacked by the French and Abenaki in 1703, resulting in 160 people dead or captured. In 1704, the town of Deerfield was destroyed, with 150 inhabitants killed or imprisoned. The English retaliated by attempting to capture Port Royal in Acadia. They failed twice in 1704 and 1707, but were successful in 1710. This ended French rule in what became Nova Scotia. English efforts to take Quebec, however, were unsuccessful. A British fleet and army failed to arrive in Boston in 1709 after Massachusetts had undertaken extensive preparations; when six ships came in 1710, their crews were decimated by smallpox and unable to sail, and again Massachusetts’ efforts went for naught. Meanwhile, the Iroquois had signed a peace treaty with the French in 1701, and New York was reluctant to provoke them. Playing both sides, some Iroquois participated in the 1711 expedition that converged on Quebec from both New York and the St. Lawrence River, while others warned the French it was coming. At this time, over 12,000 colonials, British sailors, and British soldiers, in 15 warships and 46 transports, mobilized in Boston under Sir Hovenden Walker. They sailed up the St. Lawrence River only to lose nine ships and 800 men in the treacherous currents below Quebec. Walker aborted the expedition. The war resulted in gains for the British with the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, although these came from victories in Europe in exchange for the placement of Louis XIV of France’s grandson on the throne of Spain. France renounced its claims to Acadia, Newfoundland, the huge fur trading region of Hudson Bay, and St. Kitts in the West Indies. The British also were recognized as the sovereigns of the Iroquois. QUITRENTS. These taxes were originally imposed by landowners in England instead of requiring feudal obligations (services and crops) from their tenants. They were also required by proprietors of colonies in addition to the sale prices of land. Quitrents were usually small, but colonists objected to paying what they considered vestiges of an obsolete feudal system and a

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sign of subordination, since they were freeholders who had already paid for their land. The proprietors of Maryland and Pennsylvania collected these unpopular fees, and even after they became royal colonies, the descendants of proprietors in New Jersey and North Carolina also tried to collect. The latter efforts failed after colonials protested and refused to pay. See also CALVERT FAMILY; PENN FAMILY; RIOTS.

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R RALE, SEBASTIEN (c. 1657–23 AUGUST 1724). A Jesuit priest who taught Greek and rhetoric at the University of Nimes in France, Rale volunteered to be a missionary to the Indians of Canada (Quebec) in 1689. He first went to the Illinois country and then in 1694 to the Abenaki in Maine, compiling a dictionary of their language. He converted them to Roman Catholicism and encouraged them to attack Massachusetts settlements, even after the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713. The Abenaki struggle with Massachusetts (1724–1728) is either called Dummer’s War or Rale’s War. Rale was killed when a Massachusetts force surprised the main Abenaki stronghold; his body was mutilated and his scalp taken to Boston. See also DUMMER, WILLIAM. RALEIGH, SIR WALTER (c. 1552–29 OCTOBER 1618). An early promoter and explorer of North America, Raleigh first took part in the ruthless repression of the Irish in the early 1580s. As a favorite of England’s Queen Elizabeth, he was given vast estates in Ireland. In 1585 she knighted him, and he became the main promoter of the failed Roanoke colony. In 1594 he sailed to South America to find the famous city of El Dorado, promoting interest in it by publishing the Voyage to Guyana (1596), which included his interpretation of the tales the natives told him of its fabulous wealth. He was imprisoned in 1603 in the Tower of London for allegedly taking part in a plot to overthrow King James I and remained there until 1616. While in jail he wrote his History of the World. When freed, he set out again for El Dorado; his men disobeyed him and attacked a Spanish post. James, trying to keep peace with the Spanish and detesting Raleigh, arranged a trial that led to his execution. See also HAKLUYT, RICHARD; WHITE, JOHN. RANDOLPH, EDWARD (JULY 1632–APRIL 1703). Randolph was the first British official dispatched to New England in an attempt to bring to an end the de facto independence of Massachusetts and Connecticut. He arrived in 1676 and presented the king’s demand that Massachusetts explain why it had deprived the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason

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of their holdings in Maine and New Hampshire. Massachusetts refused to cooperate, and Randolph sent back numerous reports that the Puritans were persecuting the Anglican Church, ignoring the Acts of Trade and Navigation, and in general exhibiting contempt for royal authority. Randolph was appointed collector of customs in Boston in 1679, but colonial juries refused to convict those engaged in illegal activities. In 1684, he became secretary to Joseph Dudley, interim governor of the Dominion of New England, and remained a councilor of the Dominion under Sir Edmund Andros until 1689. That year, he was imprisoned and sent back to England along with Andros. In 1691 he became surveyor-general of customs for North America. See also CUSTOMS SERVICE; IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION. REDEMPTIONERS. A type of indentured servant, redemptioners were distinguished because the amount of time they had to serve to pay for their passage was only determined after they arrived in the colonies, rather than agreeing to a term of service before departing from Europe. This practice was forbidden in England, where departing servants had to have their contracts approved by a magistrate to prevent the kidnapping of unwilling immigrants. Most redemptioners were Germans who came to Pennsylvania in the years between 1720 and the American Revolution. They typically sailed out of Rotterdam in the Netherlands after fleeing or being recruited from Germany, and were usually sold for five to seven years’ service. Sometimes earlier German arrivals or family members paid for their voyage and purchased their freedom, but this was the exception. Families could be separated if no buyer for an entire family was found. Between half and three-quarters of all Pennsylvania Germans who arrived came as redemptioners. REFORMED CHURCH. What was known in the British Isles as the Presbyterian Church was known as the Dutch Reformed Church in Holland (with the governing presbytery called a classis) and Reformed Church in Germany, where many of the Protestants were Calvinists rather than Lutherans. The Reformed Church was the most numerous group in New Netherland and then New York until at least the middle of the 17th century as the Dutch remained the ethnic majority. Many other Reformed were found in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey and the southern backcountry, where sometimes they quarreled, and sometimes united with Lutherans in Union or United Churches because of a shortage of buildings and ministers. RELIGION. Colonial Americans belonged to a variety of religions—notably Anglican, Presbyterian, Reformed (Dutch and German), Congregational, Lutheran, Baptist, and Quaker—to name the most important in probable

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descending order of their numbers. Roman Catholics, Huguenots, Jews, and pacifist sects such as the Amish, Dunkers, Ephrata Cloister, Krefelders, Labadists, Mennonites, Moravians, Rogerenes, Schwenkfelders, and the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness had small numbers of adherents. In the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies, Roman Catholicism was the official religion and no other was tolerated. Dutch Reformed was the official religion in Dutch colonies, although others were tolerated, and Lutheranism was the official church of New Sweden. The importance of religion in motivating people to come to British colonial America as opposed to economic interests has long been debated. Certain groups, such as the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, Puritans, Roman Catholics, and Quakers, were definitely motivated by religious rather than economic considerations. The Pilgrims were doing well economically in Holland and feared their children would lose their faith; many Puritans were middle- or upper-class people who were risking all by journeying to a new land. Quakers were persecuted in England, and no one would have chosen that faith unless they sincerely believed in it. The Calvert family and their Catholic supporters were treated well by King Charles I and moved to America because they feared reprisals if the Puritans came to power. Furthermore, as of 1629, when all these groups except the Quakers made their first settlements, the earlier settlers of the previous colonies had all experienced high death rates, suggesting that economically well-off people would only risk their lives and fortunes because of religious conviction. On the other hand, religious motivation in colonies such as New Amsterdam and later New York, the colonies south of Maryland, and the West Indies is hard to find among most of the immigrants. Churches were few, and the requirement that Anglican priests be ordained in England meant that very few would be available for congregations in the New World. By the 18th century, while there was a surplus of clergymen in New England due to graduates of Harvard and Yale colleges, elsewhere there was a shortage. Many churches could only be served by a clergyman once every several weeks. On the other hand, nearly all colonists in settled regions attended church, some out of piety, others because they were required or because churchgoing was one of the few interesting activities available. The number of communicant church members, however—that is, people who voluntarily joined and supported a church besides the taxes they were required to pay to the established church—has been estimated as low as a quarter of the population outside of New England. Despite the execution of Quakers such as Mary Dyer, the exile of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams in Massachusetts, and the attack on the Baptists in the late colonial era, in general the British American colonies

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were distinguished by the relative absence of religious persecution. That these events were so exceptional proves the rule. The variety of colonies meant that Dissenters, eccentric sects, Jews, and even (if they remained loyal) Catholics could find friendly havens somewhere. Prejudice and hostility among different groups, while not absent, did not degenerate into massacres or the removal of large numbers of people except in the case of the Catholic Acadians from British Nova Scotia, a military measure during the French and Indian War. Established churches outside New England were not strong, especially as Anglican priests were few, given the requirement that they had to be ordained in England. Dissenters were the majority in the backcountry South, where authority was weak, and in New York and New Jersey, Dutch Reformed in the former case and Presbyterians and Quakers in the latter were the majority of the colony despite an official Anglican establishment. By the end of the 17th century, competition between Dissenters and Anglicans (especially with the accusation that the latter’s practices were close to Popery) was occurring in most colonies. Forty years later, during the Great Awakening, the struggle between evangelicals and believers in traditional, fixed denominations and congregations made religion a matter of choice as it was in few other places in the world. Only Roman Catholicism, identified with the foreign powers with which Britain was usually at war, was forbidden in most places, as indeed were Protestantism and Judaism in the New World’s Catholic empires. On the mainland of British North America, black slaves at first adhered to their African religions, but the fact that a wide variety of regions and religions were represented meant that the ability to practice any particular African faith was almost impossible. In general, only in low-country South Carolina, where whites were few, an almost purely indigenous Gullah culture with significant African elements was preserved. This was the norm rather than the exception in the case of the West Indies, Brazil, and Louisiana, where black and mixed-race majorities and the large number of recently arrived slaves (unlike in North America by 1770) meant that African religious practices were constantly refreshed. In British North America, the white majority was usually able to drive non-Christian practices underground. Nevertheless, artifacts found on plantations and in graves demonstrate that blacks tried to retain their customs even when their masters were apparently Christianizing them. Syncretism, or a mixture of Christianity with African elements, appeared in many places. With the Great Awakening, evangelical preachers began to attempt to convert blacks extensively; some masters approved, but others forced their slaves to practice Christianity in secret as they feared that the Old Testament, which especially attracted the slaves, stressed the rebellion of the Jews who lived in Egypt and their militant heritage of self-defense.

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Indian religions, too, were diverse. In general, however, despite different names, everything from the sky to the earth and all living creatures and forces of nature were animated by spirits with which humans had to live in harmony. Indians believed as well in evil spirits that produced disease and other disasters. Some of their struggles, such as the Powhatan wars in Virginia, the Pueblo Revolt, and Neolin’s demonization of the whites during Pontiac’s War, were sometimes fueled by their religious identification of the Europeans with these spirits. On the other hand, when Indian populations began to decline drastically after contact with the whites, many Indians believed their guardian spirits had deserted them and turned to Christianity for relief. Indian religion was founded on results rather than doctrine or intellectual beliefs: gods or spirits who protected them and brought prosperity and health were worthy of worship; if they failed, they had become impotent and were being supplanted by others. In Roman Catholic countries, whose missionaries took more concern in converting Indians than nearly all Protestants (the Moravians were a notable exception), former Indian gods became Catholic saints with little difficulty, and Indian rituals became incorporated into Catholic masses and holidays. On the other hand, the Puritans, like the Catholic missionaries of California, insisted that Christian conversion involved culture as well as religion; residing in closely settled towns and working at agriculture, rather than hunting and gathering, along with the adoption of European dress and morality, were necessary. These adaptations, however, did little to help the Indians; they died quickly because of diseases spread by close proximity, and were sometimes persecuted simply because their conversions were not accepted as genuine. For instance, Massachusetts isolated the praying Indians on islands in Boston harbor during King Philip’s War, and the Paxton Boys in Pennsylvania massacred the Conestoga Indians as secret allies of the hostile tribes during Pontiac’s War. RHODE ISLAND. In the 1630s, Rhode Island became a refuge for people who failed to conform to the Puritanism of the other New England colonies. Roger Williams founded Providence in 1636 and established the practice of buying lands fairly from the Indians. This was one of his chief complaints about Massachusetts, whose Puritan government believed that God had given them their land. Anne Hutchinson and her followers arrived in 1638, although they soon left. One of her followers, William Coddington, founded Newport in 1638. It became Rhode Island’s principal commercial hub. Warwick was begun in 1636 by Samuel Gorton, another disgruntled Puritan. Roger Williams secured a patent for the colony from Parliament in 1644; it was confirmed by King Charles II in 1663. The Restoration government approved of the colony’s policy of religious toleration and the fact that they shared a mutual

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dislike of the Puritans. The charter guaranteed religious toleration and complete self-government subject to review of laws by the crown and privy council. Taking advantage of the policy of toleration, Baptists (1639), Quakers (1657), Jews (1658), and Huguenots (1686) came to Rhode Island. Rhode Island prospered in the 18th century. Lumber, livestock—especially a horse, the Narragansett pacer—and fish, especially whale products, were important exports. The colony’s principal wealth, however, came from the slave trade. Rhode Islanders distilled molasses into rum and resold most of it to the West Indies, investing the profit in the slave trade. By the Revolution, about half the slaves sold by the mainland colonists to the West Indies came from Rhode Island. Two towns, Providence and Newport, grew rich on this trade. The population grew from about 6,000 in 1690 to 60,000 by 1770. The two leading political factions that represented those towns were led by the Ward family of Newport and the Hopkins family of Providence. RICE. The most important crop of South Carolina before the American Revolution was rice, and it made the South Carolina planter class into the wealthiest elite of the mainland British colonies. Methods of cultivating rice were probably brought from Africa by slaves. Unlike in Virginia, where slaves worked in closely supervised gangs tilling tobacco, rice cultivation lent itself to allowing slaves to do a certain amount of work per day. The fact that there were few whites to supervise them, unlike in Virginia, also encouraged what was known as the task system. Rice production went from about 3 million pounds annually in the 1710s to over 77 million pounds by 1770. It was the fourth-largest export from the colonies after tobacco, wheat, and fish. Three-quarters of all rice was exported from Charleston, South Carolina. About two-thirds went to the British Isles, which exported most of it to Germany and Holland. After 1731, it was legal to export rice directly from America to the Mediterranean, which received about 17 percent of the product by 1770, with 18 percent going to the West Indies. See also AGRICULTURE. RIOTS. As English historian E. P. Thompson has maintained with respect to the British Isles, most colonial riots enforced the “moral economy of the crowd.” This meant that they represented a community-sanctioned response to a violation of community morality to which the formal authorities could not, or would not, respond. In short, they were legitimate if not legal. Riots rarely got out of hand, and crowds targeted specific individuals and property without engaging in wholesale destruction. Politics was one reason for riots. They frequently were the result of boundary disputes between two colonies; the boundaries contested for much of the colonial era were those between New York and New Jersey, Massachusetts

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and Rhode Island, Rhode Island and Connecticut, New York and the New England colonies, and Pennsylvania with Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia. Riots against customs officials attempting to collect revenue occurred in Boston (1690), New York City (1705), Newport (1719), and Hartford (1724) as precursors to the attacks on the customs commissioners in Boston before the American Revolution. Inhabitants in New Hampshire in 1734 and 1754 protested enforcement of the White Pine Acts that reserved tall trees for masts in the king’s navy. Political riots between factions competing for power occurred in Rhode Island in 1654–1655; North Carolina in 1699; Charleston, South Carolina in 1703; Philadelphia in 1742; and the town of York, Pennsylvania, in 1750. Riots against proprietors trying to collect rents occurred in New Jersey in the 1740s and 1750 and New York in the 1750s and 1760s. Sailors fought impressment into the British navy in Massachusetts in 1690, 1745, and 1747, and in New Hampshire in 1759. Economic causes spurred other riots. Food riots occurred in Boston in 1711 and 1718 to protest shipping away grain during times of shortage. Dutch Reformed practitioners mobbed Anglican priests to counter Governor Lord Cornbury’s efforts to replace their ministers with Anglicans in New York (1704 and 1711). Tobacco cutting riots occurred in Virginia in 1682 as the price fell and planters could obtain little for their crops. Inhabitants rioted against a centralized market in Boston in 1737 that would have prevented them from buying goods near their homes, and Pennsylvania objected to the damming of the Schuylkill River in 1738, which would have reduced the available water downstream. Despite charges from officials and the upper class that the lower orders were mindlessly and easily prone to violence, early America was able to keep the peace without armies or police forces, as town watchmen and justices of the peace maintained order. In fact, most disturbances came about when individuals or authorities from outside the community were trying to control people in untraditional and what were perceived as unfair ways. See also ROUGH MUSIC. ROANOKE. Located on the eastern shore of North Carolina, Roanoke, or the Lost Colony, was an ill-fated English attempt at colonization. Sir Walter Raleigh was granted a patent by Queen Elizabeth I to found a colony in North America. After an exploratory voyage in 1584, a second expedition designed for settlement landed at Roanoke on the eastern shore of North Carolina in 1585. About 75 men were left behind when most of the voyagers returned to England for reinforcements. The 75, however, left before relief arrived; the relief expedition, arriving in 1586, in turn left a contingent of 15 men and returned for more supplies and colonists in 1586. In 1587, 117 colonists both

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men and women led by John White returned but could not find the previous colonists. The first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare, belonged to this group. The English, meanwhile, had quarreled with the Indians, and White again left to obtain reinforcements. White was unable to return until 1590; he found that the colonists had left, with the word croatoan inscribed on a tree, indicating that they either had been captured or had relocated to a nearby island whose Indians bore that name. ROGERENES. Named for John Rogers (1648–1721), this small Connecticut group broke off in 1674 from the Puritans. They refused to worship on Sunday, for which Rogers was imprisoned, at first worshiping on Saturday and then on any day, considering all days equally holy. They were also influenced by the Quakers and refused to pay taxes for King Philip’s War and subsequent conflicts, which led to their imprisonment. Some migrated to New Jersey, but a core handful remained in Connecticut until the 20th century. ROMAN CATHOLICS. English Roman Catholics were not allowed to worship or proclaim their faith publicly after Henry VIII formed the Anglican Church in 1533, except during the reign of Catholic Queen Mary, 1553–1558. Nevertheless, they included prominent nobles and were favored by Kings James I (1603–1625) and Charles I (1625–1649). George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, was permitted to form the colony of Maryland as a refuge for Catholics. Catholics were tolerated in New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina as well, although their numbers were tiny. In most of colonial America they were regarded as minions of the pope (who was sometimes considered the Antichrist) and of the French and Spanish, with whom the English were frequently at war. Anti-Catholicism was a principal rallying point of British nationalism on both sides of the Atlantic. Some Scots Catholics were sent as convicts and servants or even slaves (mostly to the West Indies) following the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745 on behalf of the Catholic pretenders to the British throne. Even in Maryland, Catholics were soon outnumbered and lost the right to vote and hold political office from 1702 until the American Revolution. ROUGH MUSIC. Also known in England as skimmington, rough music was a form of crowd action or riot undertaken by members of a community against private individuals who violated communal norms. The name derives from the raucous accompaniment of drums, pots and pans, and whatever instruments might be available that frequently occurred during these acts. In colonial America, instances of rough music have been found directed against prostitutes, older men who married young women (thereby decreasing the

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marriage pool for younger men), men who mistreated their wives or committed adultery (usually these crowds were led by women), and people who spread infectious diseases. Many of these occurred in rural areas where the presence of the legal system was negligible; thus, opportunity to report and learn of these incidents was limited, and many doubtless occurred, of which the handful that survive may be considered typical. Techniques of rough music against individuals—public humiliation, whipping, stripping, tarring and feathering, and riding out of town on a rail—later served as techniques in land riots in New York and New Jersey. They were also used against loyalists during the era of the American Revolution. Thus, nonpolitical techniques to discipline moral deviants became means of political protest to discipline violators of the community’s welfare. RYSWICK, PEACE OF. See KING WILLIAM’S WAR.

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S SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. First settled as Naumkeag in 1626 by fishermen led by Roger Conant, Salem was incorporated in 1629 by John Endecott, the temporary governor representing the Massachusetts Bay Company. In 1634, Roger Williams became pastor of Salem’s Puritan church and led his congregation in protesting Massachusetts’ failure to purchase lands honestly from the Indians and what he considered the religious intolerance of the Massachusetts government. Salem had a troubled history for the next 60 years, with its prosperous fishing, commercial community siding against the more Puritanical, impoverished country folk in Salem Village, which after over a century of conflict in 1757 became the town of Danvers. The friction between these two parts of the town was an important element in the witchcraft controversy of 1692. See also SALEM WITCH TRIALS. SALEM WITCH TRIALS. In 1692, Betty Parris, age 9; her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11; and other young women in Salem Village (the inland part of the town of Salem, Massachusetts, as opposed to the more prosperous port) began having fits that included protracted screaming and contortions in physically painful positions. They claimed to have been pricked with pins, and that three women had bewitched them: Tituba, a slave from Spanish America in the Parris household; Sarah Good, a beggar; and Sarah Osborne, who rarely came to church and was having an affair with her servant. Further accusations followed, especially because the way a suspect could clear herself or himself was by stating that someone else had bewitched them. People mostly accused their personal enemies or those whose behavior was religiously suspect. Both the number of afflicted girls and the number of the accused mushroomed: ultimately over 150 people were arrested and 26 convicted before a special court of oyer and terminer appointed in May 1692 by Governor Sir William Phips. Five of the accused died in prison; 14 women and 5 men were hanged, and one man (Giles Corey) was pressed to death by having heavy weights placed on his body because he refused to plead and thus preserved his property for his family. (No one was burned.)

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After prominent citizens began to be accused, including his own wife, Governor Phips dismissed the court in October. The Massachusetts Superior Court again investigated 31 cases of witchcraft in 1693, but only three people were convicted, none of whom were executed. In 1696, Judge Samuel Sewall and the jurors who had participated in the trial admitted their errors, and in 1711 the Massachusetts legislature voted compensation to the families of the victims. Various reasons for the Salem witch outbreak have been advanced. One is that Tituba had practiced some forms of magic and taught the girls about witchcraft. Another is that young women, chafing under the close supervision of their mothers, accused women old enough to be their parents or grandparents of having bewitched them. Some have blamed hallucination-producing drugs that infected the town’s supply of grain, but the problem is that this would not have been localized in Salem. Division within the town of Salem was another cause. The town minister Samuel Parris was a controversial figure, and there were disputes between the poorer, more agricultural, and Puritanical Salem Village and the richer, maritime Salem port, which was also a factor. Although the original accusations were made against poor, marginal women who would be scapegoats for the town’s ills, many of the later ones were directed against more respectable people. Most of the accusers came from the village and those who were accused from the town. George Burroughs, a former minister of Salem and a man of great physical strength was among those executed, as his power was considered to be supernatural. These reasons may explain the hysteria at Salem, but what also needs explaining is why the leaders of Massachusetts, especially Lieutenant-Governor William Stoughton, who headed the court and was the most zealous for the convictions, went along with the town. Massachusetts had lost its charter in 1685, and in 1692 it was in the midst of King William’s War, during which most of its settlements in Maine had been abandoned or destroyed. Refugees had flocked to Salem and adjoining towns, and fears of Indians (black or red “devils”) filled people’s dreams and imaginations. The colony also believed that the devil had taken special interest in corrupting it, as the Puritans viewed themselves as God’s chosen people. It was thus easy for them to believe that witches were responsible for Massachusetts’ distresses. Legally, the convictions occurred because the court decided to accept spectral evidence. Two witnesses were required for a conviction for capital crimes; the court accepted the word of the accuser as one witness, but extravagant behavior by the victims was judged to be caused by a specter, or spirit, which was considered the other “witness” present in the court and thus providing testimony. The trials were the subject of great controversy: Cotton and Increase Mather wrote pamphlets defending them, while Thomas Brattle, Robert Calef, and (in 1695) Thomas Maule all pointed out problems

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Courtesy Library of Congress.

Joseph E. Baker sketched this version of a “witch” being visited by Satan, symbolized by light entering her, in 1892.

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with the trials and convictions. The Salem witches were the last people executed for witchcraft in the colonies that became the United States, and they have become a symbol of other “witch hunts,” where large numbers of people are accused of a crime by others who have previously been accused but can avoid blame by claiming another person persuaded them to commit it. See also NEW YORK CONSPIRACY, 1741. SALTONSTALL, GURDON (27 MARCH 1666–20 SEPTEMBER 1724). A Harvard College graduate, Saltonstall became the minister of New London, Connecticut, beginning in 1691 and was annually elected governor of Connecticut from 1707 until his death. Saltonstall was important in founding Yale College in 1701, in the adoption of the Saybrook Platform of 1708 that strengthened the collective rule of established Congregational ministers in the colony over dissident congregations, and was a strong force behind Connecticut’s participation in Queen Anne’s War. He quarreled with an assembly that sometimes refused to defer to him and other members of the elite, but his popularity with the people never waned. SALUTARY NEGLECT. From the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713 until the French and Indian War began in 1754, British imperial administration is generally characterized by the term “salutary [or healthy] neglect.” British officials did not enforce the Acts of Trade and Navigation and rarely pushed the colonial assemblies to surrender powers to the royal governor. Colonial offices were used to provide patronage for the relatives or friends of important British politicians upon whose votes the prime minister relied in Parliament. British officials, as well as colonials, regarded this policy as mutually beneficial, as it increased trade, prosperity, and goodwill on both sides of the ocean. SALZBURGERS. In 1731, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Salzburg, now in Austria, then an independent state within the Holy Roman Empire, expelled about 20,000 of his Protestant subjects. About 300 of them, mostly Lutherans, came to Georgia in 1734 under the leadership of the Reverend Johan Boltzius. They settled at the town of Ebenezer, which proved swampy and unhealthy, and moved in 1737 to New Ebenezer on the Savannah River. They built the first gristmill (for rice), Sunday school, and orphanage in Georgia. The New Jerusalem Church they constructed in 1769 remains standing as the oldest church in Georgia. By the American Revolution they numbered about 1,200. They were the only significant group in Georgia who opposed slavery.

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SAYBROOK PLATFORM. In 1708, the Congregational ministers of Connecticut gathered at the town of Saybrook and passed a 15-point document. It affirmed the rule of associations of ministers and elders in disciplining those members and churches who deviated from Puritan doctrines. See also SALTONSTALL, GURDON. SCALPING. Originally a practice used by North American Indians to indicate their prowess in warfare by scalping their enemies, with the arrival of Europeans, scalping became more frequent, and scalps became a commodity. It became customary for colonial governments to place a scalp bounty on captured Indians, with the price graded according to men, women, and children’s scalps. This encouraged private groups of colonists to attack Indians in wartime and also made conflicts worse as it was difficult if not impossible to distinguish between friendly and unfriendly Indian scalps. Scalp bounties existed from the earliest New England wars until the French and Indian War. SCHWENKFELDERS. A small group of south German Pietists who followed the teachings of Caspar Schwenkfeld (1489–1561), the Schwenkfelders had few doctrines and preached a direct connection between the individual and the Holy Spirit. They practiced simplicity of worship and life. Beginning in the 1720s, Roman Catholic rulers began to persecute them. They first took refuge on the estate of Moravian Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf before moving to Pennsylvania between 1731 and 1737. No more than 500 arrived, but as of 2000, they still had five churches and about 2,500 members in the Philadelphia area. See also RELIGION. SCIENCE. Educated early Americans followed the science of their European counterparts. They believed in four elements—earth, water, air, and fire— distributed in various amounts in different aspects of nature. This was the basis of their medicine. And while they accepted the relatively modern Copernican system that the earth revolved around the sun, they also believed that sudden events such as the appearance of comets were portents of disaster. For instance, the great earthquake of 1727 that hit the northern colonies produced numerous sermons of God’s displeasure and led to a great many conversions to the churches. In 1755, a worldwide spasm of earthquakes—of which the destruction of Lisbon, Portugal, is the most famous example—again was used by most ministers as a sign of divine wrath. But the physics of Sir Isaac Newton were beginning to be accepted, and more enlightened colonists accepted his idea that God ruled the universe through reasonable, scientific laws. John

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Winthrop, who taught science at Harvard, disputed with his colleagues that there was any cosmic or moral significance to the quakes. The most important contribution to science made in colonial America was Benjamin Franklin’s lightning experiment, which showed that lightning was the result of electricity rather than a divine portent. Franklin also discovered the positive and negative poles of electric charges and installed the first lightning rods. Most Americans, however, believed in astrology as well as astronomy, and almanacs were filled with predictions based on astrological signs. By the mid-18th century, however, some almanacs, such as Franklin’s, made fun of these predictions as superstitious, but included them anyway (much like astrological columns in modern newspapers) as readers expected them. John and William Bartram also led the colonies in discovering new species of animals and plants and exploring the botanical landscape of North America. SCOTS. As inhabitants of what was a poor, backward nation for most of the colonial period, Scots were ready immigrants to America and investors in colonial schemes. They attempted to settle Acadia, which the English would call Nova Scotia, as early as 1629 but were stymied by the French until the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713. East Jersey was primarily a Scots settlement, as was much of North Carolina, where Scots escaping after the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 settled in the low country while others came down from Pennsylvania through the Valley of Virginia and settled the backcountry. Ethnically, and with most of them also following the Presbyterian religion, the Scots were similar to the Scots-Irish, a larger group with which they easily assimilated. SCOTS-IRISH. Protestant, ethnically Scots inhabitants of Northern Ireland who were settled there by the English during the 1640s and 1650s to deter the Irish Roman Catholic majority from revolting, the Scots-Irish primarily moved to the British American colonies between 1720 and 1770. About a quarter million came to avoid economic hardship that had resulted in famine. About three-quarters of the immigrants to the colonies from Ireland were Presbyterians who lived in Ulster. Most moved to the frontier, as the good land along the coast was already settled. Western Pennsylvania was the immediate destination of most, but they then moved down the Great Wagon Road on Conestoga wagons through the Valley of Virginia to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. They frequently clashed with Indians who already lived on the land, which led to Indian counterattacks in the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s War, and the Cherokee War.

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SERRA, JUNIPERO (24 NOVEMBER 1713–28 AUGUST 1784). A Franciscan brother who came to Mexico in 1749 after he had previously taught philosophy in Spain, Serra engaged in missionary work with Mexican Indians before being placed in charge of the new missionary drive to Alta California (the present state in the United States) in 1768. There he founded 21 missions. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II (a step usually preceding sainthood) over the objections of scholars and Indians who pointed to the harsh policies he implemented that forced Indians to work in missions that resulted in many of them dying of disease during epidemics and overwork. SEWALL, SAMUEL (28 MARCH 1652–1 JANUARY 1730). Son of a wealthy English Puritan merchant, Sewall moved with his family to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1659. He graduated from Harvard College in 1671 and went into both business and government service. He served as a councilor beginning in 1684, went to England to lobby with Increase Mather for the restoration of Massachusetts’ original charter following the Glorious Revolution, and belonged to the council from 1691 until 1725, when he retired. He was a member of the special court that held the Salem witch trials; in 1695, he rose in his seat at church while his public apology was read for supporting the trials. He was the only judge to so acknowledge his mistake. He also wrote The Selling of Joseph (1701), the first antislavery tract in English America, and donated considerable sums for the Christianization and education of Indians. He was a judge on the Massachusetts superior court beginning in 1692 and chief justice beginning in 1718. Sewall’s diary, which covers the years from 1674 until his death (with a gap from 1677 to 1684), is the most important source for understanding the politics, economy, religion, and everyday life in Massachusetts at this time. SHARPE, HORATIO (1718–9 NOVEMBER 1790). A Scots military officer, Sharpe was appointed governor of Maryland in 1753. He successfully mobilized the province’s forces during the French and Indian War and frequently went to the frontier to direct matters personally. He tried to accommodate the assembly, bred racehorses, hosted lavish parties, and was very popular. Replaced in 1769 by John Eden, brother-in-law of proprietor Frederick Calvert, Lord Baltimore, Sharpe remained in Maryland until 1773. In 1783, his personal popularity and quiet behavior during the Revolution led the assembly specifically to exempt his estates from an act confiscating the property of loyalists. SHEPARD, THOMAS (5 NOVEMBER 1605–25 AUGUST 1649). A Puritan minister, Shepard received his degree from Cambridge University

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and moved to Massachusetts in 1635 after having spent three years in hiding from Anglican authorities. In 1636 he was elected minister of the First Church of Cambridge, where he served until his death. His sermons, collected in three volumes, The Sincere Convert (1641), The Sound Believer (1645), and The Parable of the 10 Virgins Opened and Applied (published posthumously in 1660) are among the most important for understanding the intellectual nature and religious fervor of New England Puritanism. SHICKELLAMY. Also known as Swatana, Shickellamy may have been a Frenchman captured by the Oneida Indians in the early 18th century. He was the Iroquois leader who tried to ensure the good behavior of the Shawnee Indians in the northern Susquehanna River Valley, as well as their removal westward in the 1730s. He lived near Shamokin. He had extensive dealings with Conrad Weiser and was well liked by Pennsylvanians. He died in an epidemic in 1747. SHIRLEY, WILLIAM (2 DECEMBER 1694–28 MARCH 1771). An English attorney, Shirley obtained the position as judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court of New England in 1733 thanks to his family’s friendship with the Duke of Newcastle. He used his position to intrigue against Massachusetts governor Jonathan Belcher and replaced him in 1741, promising the imperial administration that he would support the War of Jenkins’ Ear and bring an end to the two private banks proposed in Massachusetts. He secured a contingent of 1,000 New Englanders for an expedition to the West Indies, abolished the banks, and in 1744 obtained the consent of the Massachusetts legislature for the expedition of 3,000 men that successfully captured Louisbourg from the French. Efforts to follow up this conquest, however, failed due to lack of British and colonial support, and Shirley was criticized for a costly war and blamed for the naval impressments it required, to which he consented. In 1755, Shirley’s continued enthusiasm for British conquests led General Edward Braddock to appoint him second-in-command of the British forces in North America during the French and Indian War. After Braddock’s death and the defeat of his expedition, Shirley was unable to obtain colonial support for a new campaign and lost Fort Oswego to the French. Replaced in 1756 by Lord Loudoun, he returned to England, was cleared of wrongdoing, governed the Bahamas from 1759 to 1767, and returned to his house (now a museum) in Roxbury, Massachusetts, for the last years of his life. See also BRADDOCK’S EXPEDITION; IMPRESSMENT RIOT OF 1747. SHUTE, SAMUEL (12 JANUARY 1662–15 APRIL 1742). An English military officer who was the cousin of Lord Barrington, the leader of the dis-

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senting interest in Parliament, Shute was appointed governor of Massachusetts in 1716 with the support of the dissenters and at the request of influential people in Massachusetts. However, he spent almost his entire tenure arguing with the assembly over his salary, Massachusetts’ depreciating paper currency, the right to veto the assembly’s speaker—Elisha Cooke, Jr., who led the opposition to him—and enforcing the protection of the white pine trees that were reserved for the king’s navy. Someone shot at him in January 1723; he secretly boarded a ship and returned to England. Although technically he remained governor until 1727, he never returned, and lieutenant-governor William Dummer handled his duties. SLAVE TRADE. Although the trade in human beings as slaves goes back to the ancient world, the notion that all black Africans were eligible to be taken and sold as slaves in the New World first took form shortly after Christopher Columbus began colonization. Few Europeans physically captured slaves in Africa, as disease made it nearly impossible for them to survive until the late 19th century. They instead set up trading posts on the shores of western and central Africa, trading European goods, especially guns, to the people close to the coast and encouraging them to enslave their traditional enemies. These European traders set off numerous wars in Africa, which along with the deaths and captivity resulting from slavery led to a massive movement of people into the interior and south of the continent. Because of the slave trade, the estimated population of Africa declined from about 100 million in 1500 to 90 million in 1850. Historians reckon the number of slaves who arrived in the New World at between 8 and 12 million people, but if the total number of deaths from the slave trade is to be calculated, it would have to include people killed resisting capture, those who died on marches to the coast, and the deaths of slaves waiting to be transported or on the Middle Passage to the Americas, where they were crammed in beneath decks amid sick and dying captives. The total number of deaths would thus be between 15 and 25 million. Between 1500 and 1850, after which the slave trade for the most part ended, good estimates are that about 3.5 million slaves were imported into Portuguese Brazil, between 1 and 1.5 million to each of the Spanish, British, and French West Indies, and about a half million each to the Dutch West Indies and mainland North America. Most of those imported were male, and their average life expectancy was about seven years. Only in the mainland colonies of British North America did the slave population reproduce and slaves live longer, for several reasons. The colonies were the furthest away from Africa, and thus it was more expensive to ship slaves there. Furthermore, tobacco and rice were far less lucrative than planting sugar, the main use to which most slaves were put.

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It was not economical to import many slaves from Africa to the mainland colonies until the late 1600s. Only in North America did it make economic sense for planters to have slaves reproduce. On the eve of the American Revolution, about half a million people, a quarter of the colonial population, was black, nearly all of them slaves, over 95 percent living in the colonies south of Pennsylvania. Although all the northern colonies participated in the slave trade, it was a major factor only in the overall trade of Rhode Island. About half of all slaves imported by the northern colonies came in ships from that colony, many of them sent to the West Indies and colonies of other powers as well. The slave trade was a principal basis of Rhode Island’s rapidly expanding economy from 1750 to 1775, especially for the city of Newport. See also SLAVERY. SLAVERY. Although Indian captives in the 17th century, mostly in New England and South Carolina, and some white convicts were subjected to slavery—that is, an entire life of unfree labor—most slaves in the New World were Africans. Various justifications for slavery were offered. Since Europeans did not capture slaves themselves, they could consider those they bought from other Africans in the slave trade as prisoners of war. In wars Europeans had fought since the Middle Ages, captives had frequently been made slaves, especially if they were not Christians. Europeans compared Africans with apes, speculated that they might be a separate or inferior species, and using Aristotle’s argument from ancient Greece maintained that uncivilized people were slaves by nature. Another important justification was that slaves left in Africa would die as unredeemed, uncivilized heathens, but slavery would save their souls and civilize them. This last justification rang especially hollow in the Protestant and English colonies of North America, where, unlike in Roman Catholic Latin America, masters usually forbade the Christianization of their slaves on the grounds that they might learn biblical, especially Old Testament, ideas of freedom. Slavery differed in Protestant British and Catholic Latin America. Whereas the law required slaves to be Christianized and recognized their marriages in Latin America, neither was the case in the British colonies. Numerous slaves were freed in Latin America, as Europeans were only a small percentage of the population; many white men married or lived with black or Indian women. Their children were frequently freed, and separate castes of mestizo (white/Indian) and mulatto (white/black) people were recognized and had specific rights depending on the percentage of white blood. In the British colonies, few slaves were freed until the American Revolution led to the beginnings of an abolition movement. Except for the Germantown Protest

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by Pennsylvania Quakers in 1688; a pamphlet by Massachusetts judge Samuel Sewall, The Selling of Joseph (1701); and the careers of Quakers Anthony Benezet, Benjamin Lay, and John Woolman, there was almost no antislavery activity in the colonies before the 1770s. Slaves in the English colonies had few legal rights: they could not testify against whites, and if they were abused—there were laws against excessive, undeserved punishment or murdering slaves without reason—other whites had to bring their masters into court. While some planters maintained the fiction that their slaves were their families and they themselves were similar to biblical patriarchs, nothing except personal benevolence or flight gave slaves any possibility of bettering their condition. Flight and rebellion were more difficult in North America than in much of Latin America. There were far more white people, which made blending into a friendly black or mixed-race population difficult. Nearby relatively unsettled territory was usually inhabited by Indians who had made treaties with the whites or else would be paid for returning runaways. Possible revolts, such as the New York Conspiracies of 1712 and 1741, were detected because slaves who betrayed them were offered freedom and monetary rewards. The Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, the largest in the mainland colonies, pales beside independent slave states that endured for decades in the backcountry of Brazil and Jamaica and which signed treaties with the colonial powers. Most slaves engaged in agricultural work, producing tobacco in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina; rice in South Carolina and Georgia; and indigo in South Carolina. Others were trained in crafts; in the North and among small white farmers in the South, they also grew crops for food. In Pennsylvania, slaves worked producing iron; in the north they were mostly either house slaves or agricultural workers. About 60 percent of South Carolina’s population, 40 percent of Virginia’s, and a third of Maryland’s and North Carolina’s were slaves by the American Revolution. In the North, fewer than 2 percent of the population were slaves except in New York (about 10 percent) and New Jersey (8 percent). This distribution was not even: most slaves lived in the tidewater, or coastal region, of the South where the cash crops were produced; fewer were found in the backcountry where most farms were subsistence holdings. Many northern slaves lived in the area around New York City, where they numbered 15 to 20 percent of the population in northern New Jersey and southern New York. Nowhere on the mainland did most colonial whites own slaves. About 20 percent of whites in the South owned slaves, mostly between one and five per household. Large plantations, of 20 or more slaves, while owned by only about 1 percent of the population, still counted about half of all slaves. The

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largest planters, such as the Carter and Byrd families in Virginia, owned about 500 slaves. See also FAMILY; RELIGION. SMITH, JOHN (1580–21 JUNE 1631). According to The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith (1630), one of the earliest English-language autobiographies which he published shortly before he died, Smith had a yearning for adventure and travel as a youth. At age 16 he began fighting against the French, and then in 1600 he enlisted with the Austrians against the Turks. He was captured, and after many adventures in the Middle East and North Africa, he returned to England in 1604 or 1605. Smith then enlisted with the Virginia Company in 1606 and was the only member of the governing council selected because of his experience rather than his birth. Smith was the principal explorer of early Virginia, and in December 1607 he was captured by Powhatan, the paramount chief of the Pamunkey (or Powhatan) Indians. He believed he was rescued by Pocahontas, although he was in fact an unwitting participant in a ceremony that the Indians considered his symbolic adoption as a vassal representing an inferior, subject people. The colonists indeed appeared weak to the Indians, as they were starving and restive. In 1608, they chose Smith as president of the council. He insisted that everyone work at farming and move away from the swampy land bordering the James River; death rates went down. Smith left Virginia in 1609; on his return to England he published his criticism of inept leadership and colonists hunting for gold while they were starving in The Proceedings of the English Colony in Virginia (1612). Most of the information used to write Jamestown’s early history is derived from Smith; he was also one of the earliest writers in the English-speaking world, and the first in America, to praise the skills of hardworking commoners and to denigrate the upper class as lazy and incompetent. In 1614 he explored New England and subsequently wrote A Description of New England (1616); New England’s Trials (1620; 2nd ed., 1622); and A General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Smith again stressed that ordinary, hardworking people engaged in agriculture, fishing, and lumbering who permanently settled America rather than those who sought to get rich quickly looking for gold or farming tobacco would create a new and wealthier sort of empire for the English. His writings rank among the major promotional tracts that led to the settlement of New England and served as a blueprint for the successful economy developed there. See also DE LA WARR, LORD; PERCY, CHARLES; WINGFIELD, EDWARD. SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL. Founded in 1701 by a royal charter with support from the Anglican Church, the Society

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Source: Library of Congress.

Published in 1870, this print of Pocahontas and John Smith represents the traditional view of the subject: that the Indian princess saved Smith’s life in 1608. Historians today, however, believe Smith was really taking part in an adoption ceremony that Powhatan (also depicted stopping the “execution”) used to initiate subordinate chiefs who came under his rule. The Indians would not have been impressed at the time by the small, struggling colony of Jamestown.

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(known frequently as the SPG) was designed to further religiosity in general and the Anglican Church in particular in the English (after 1707, British) colonies. It grew out of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, who was the commissary for the church in Maryland. The SPG sent commissaries to many colonies, including some to the West Indies and later India, forwarded religious literature, and established missions headed by Anglican priests. It also took an interest in preaching to slaves and free blacks, who were frequently welcomed in Anglican churches, especially in the North. In 1760, establishment of a mission in the form of a beautiful church designed by Peter Harrison at Cambridge, Massachusetts, convinced many colonists that the Anglican Church was anxious to install a bishop in America, which they feared would mean church courts and the persecution of other religions. Pennsylvania’s charter of 1682 stipulated that if 20 people petitioned for an Anglican church, a missionary would be sent to them; there were seven such priests in the colony on the eve of the American Revolution. SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. See QUAKERS. SOCIETY OF THE WOMAN IN THE WILDERNESS. In 1694, the German mystic Johannes Kelpius (1673–1708) moved with his followers to an area along Wissahickon Creek, then several miles north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (now within the city) to await the end of the world, which he believed was imminent. When his predictions proved wrong, they remained there until his death, when the group disbanded. They practiced celibacy and a simple, austere lifestyle. SOTHEL, SETH (?–c. 1694). Appointed lieutenant-governor of the Albermarle settlement in Carolina by the proprietors in 1678, Sothel was captured by Algerian pirates on his way to America and put to work as a slave until he was ransomed in 1681. Finally arriving in Carolina, he accused his opponents of piracy, imprisoned them, and confiscated their estates. He was overthrown in 1689 and banished by the colony’s assembly. He nevertheless returned to the southern part of Carolina in 1690 and led a coup d’état that made him governor. Ousted by the proprietors in 1691, he lived on his estate in the Albemarle region for the last few years of his life. See also NORTH CAROLINA; SOUTH CAROLINA. SOUTH CAROLINA. The French and Spanish briefly attempted to settle the region that is now South Carolina, but the first permanent settlement was undertaken by eight lords proprietors to whom in 1663 King

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Charles II granted the land between Virginia and Spanish Florida. The first settlement, founded in 1670, Charles Town, was several miles upriver from the present city on the Ashley River and is now a museum village. Most of the original settlers were slave owners from Barbados and other colonies in the West Indies, settling mostly in the low country near the present city of Charleston. The proprietors offered the colonists religious toleration, attracting French, Scots, Irish, German, Welsh, Dutch, and Swiss settlers who included Jews and Roman Catholics as well as various Protestant denominations. The colony first prospered by exporting deerskins obtained from the Indians to Britain and selling Indian slaves acquired in war to the West Indies. The settlers quarreled with the proprietors, objected to their taxes and absentee rule, and blamed them for their failure to wage war aggressively against the Indians to secure more lands. In the aftermath of the bloody Yamasee War (1715–1717), the colonists were able to persuade the crown to abolish the proprietorship in 1719 and split Carolina into two royal colonies. South Carolina was more like a West Indian colony than any other on the mainland. The major plantation owners, who usually lived in Charleston rather than on their plantations, were the wealthiest men in the 13 colonies thanks to the productive rice and indigo crops that emerged as the colony’s chief exports by the 1720s and 1740s, respectively. Rice could be traded freely to the Mediterranean, and indigo was subsidized rather than taxed; thus, unlike the Virginia tobacco planters, the South Carolina planter class had little to complain of until the backcountry settlers wanted a share in the government in the 1760s. The colony’s population was over three-quarters slave until mostly Scots-Irish immigrants began to settle the backcountry after 1750. Even by the Revolution, over 60 percent of the colony’s 125,000 people were slaves. Charleston, with about 12,000 inhabitants by 1776, was the fourth-largest city in the colonies and had the most elegant homes and churches, many of which survive. SPANISH EMPIRE. Between 1519 and 1521, Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire, which ruled over what is today central Mexico, with the aid of various peoples the Aztecs had conquered and brutally ruled. Francisco Pizarro did the same with the Inca Empire in Peru in 1532–1533. Christopher Columbus had taken control of Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) as early as 1493. Using these three principal colonies as bases, military expeditions conquered much of the outlying regions over the next two centuries, although the clergy—the Jesuits in Paraguay, the Franciscans in California led by Junipero Serra—also converted and assimilated many Indians, usually with the aid of soldiers.

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The Spanish were principally interested in obtaining gold and silver from Mexico and Peru, with other areas having secondary importance, and developed a system of governance and labor for that purpose. Indians continued to live in their villages, while Europeans inhabited cities and towns. Indian society remained in control of local leaders, called caciques, who were responsible for supplying a quota of laborers, the mita, for work in the mines. At the same time, the Indian population was divided into encomiendas, similar to Spanish feudalism, where a Spaniard was responsible for maintaining law and order and collecting tribute from a number of Indians who lived in a certain region. With the cooperation of the Indian hierarchy, Spain maintained order in its empire with few soldiers. Rebellions were usually put down mildly, with cruel officials who provoked the revolt being removed and only ringleaders punished. As few Spanish women came to the New World, Spanish men intermarried (sometimes) and frequently mated with Indian women, giving rise to a caste of mestizo or mixed-race people who provided much of the labor in the towns. Many of them filled jobs such as artisans, equivalent to the middle class in British colonial society. As time went on, ranches or haciendas that raised cattle or grew crops such as sugar or grain also became common, with Indians working as laborers. In the Spanish West Indies and eastern Mexico, black slaves did much of the labor. The Spanish government was in theory a strictly controlled hierarchy, but vast distances, few personnel, and inefficiency made it in practice very flexible. The king was represented by a viceroy in both New Spain and Peru. Just as the king was advised by the council of the Indies, viceroys were advised by audiencias or councils of important people appointed by the crown. Provinces were headed by governors who had their own councils, and towns were led by alcaldes (mayors) who were advised by cabildos (town councils). Every few years, viceroys returned to Spain and had to present their accounts; in practice, they were usually engaged in a great deal of corruption and used some of the funds as bribes to clear their names. This corruption percolated down the hierarchy, leading to a lack of respect for the law. In theory, the king had to approve items as small as local improvements in towns; in practice, those seeking favors would pay off their superiors to accomplish what they wanted. The clergy were also an important presence in the Spanish Empire. Much of the territory was not conquered by soldiers but submitted to clerical orders such as the Franciscans or Dominicans. These orders frequently existed side by side with the labor requirement or encomiendas in areas where gold and silver were found. Monasteries were supported by soldiers and government authorities nearby. Where the clerical orders were not present, regular Spanish clergy (priests, bishops, archbishops), who in general were more financially exploitative, administered religious policy. In 1551, Bartolome

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de las Casas was able to convince King Charles V of Spain to abolish Indian slavery. This meant Indians would be treated more or less as Spanish peasants. Black Africans could still be enslaved. For many Indians, Christianity was merged with beliefs in their old religion (syncretism). Ancient deities were transformed into saints, and ancient dances and ceremonies into Roman Catholic ones. The Virgin of Guadalupe, a brown-skinned Virgin Mary who appeared to an Indian in 1521, became the patron saint of Mexico. Mexico was the center of the viceroyalty of New Spain, with Mexico City as the capital. This encompassed all of Spanish America from California to Central America and included the Caribbean. The viceroyalty of Peru encompassed the rest of South America, with Lima as the capital. Peru was divided into three viceroyalties, New Granada (Colombia and Venezuela); La Plata (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia); and Peru (Chile, Peru, Ecuador) in 1778. In an effort to control trade and ensure that the colonies sent all their gold, silver, and other valuable products to Spain, huge fleets sailed once a year for Spain from Vera Cruz in Mexico and Portobello in Panama, while the Pacific Galleon connected Acapulco with the Spanish Philippines by sailing to Manila. This centralization meant that efforts to avoid it were frequent; trading with other powers to obtain slaves and foodstuffs in return for treasure was common, especially because the Spanish relied on the Dutch and then the British for slaves. The Spanish system of rigid authority and regulation in both the economic and political spheres made legal behavior difficult and thus encouraged widespread corruption and contempt for law, which has remained part of the Spanish colonial heritage. So has the fact that much of South America’s economy is based on producing raw materials and food for more advanced nations. SPOTSWOOD, ALEXANDER (1676–7 JUNE 1740). A Scottish soldier who while in service was befriended by the Earl of Orkney, the absentee governor of Virginia, Spotswood was appointed by him to be lieutenantgovernor in 1710, which meant that he was in effect the governor. Spotswood supported the Carolinas during Indian wars, built up the capital of Williamsburg, accumulated an enormous estate through surveying expeditions he personally led to the frontier, and suppressed piracy. In 1718, he sent the vessel to North Carolina that killed Blackbeard. He was removed as governor in 1722 because the leading planters lobbied against him in England: they objected to his tobacco regulation plan and his scheme to Christianize the Indians. He returned to Virginia in 1730 and set up the largest ironworks in the British Empire at his plantation, Tubal, near Fredericksburg. SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS. First settled in 1636 by William Pynchon, Springfield was the leading town in Massachusetts in the Connecticut

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River Valley. Originally named Agawam, it was the center of the colony’s fur trade in beaver pelts for the rest of the century, although most of the inhabitants engaged in agriculture. The most western settlement in Massachusetts until 1725, over half the town was destroyed by the Pocumtuck Indians in King Philip’s War, but it was soon rebuilt and continued to grow. SQUANTO (?–1622). A Patuxet Indian whose real name was Tisquantum, he was called Squanto by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony whom he befriended when they landed in 1620. Squanto had been taken to England in 1605 by Captain George Waymouth, who worked for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, where he remained for nine years, learning English. He accompanied John Smith on his 1614 expedition to New England but on the way home was sold into slavery to a Spanish vessel by Smith’s second-in-command, Thomas Hunt. He somehow escaped and, with his linguistic skills in demand, sailed on two subsequent expeditions, the first to Newfoundland, the second to New England. He learned on his return home that his whole tribe had been killed by an epidemic in 1619, and he remained in America, it is uncertain whether as a prisoner of or voluntarily joining the Wampanoag tribe. Introduced to the Pilgrims on their arrival, he taught them how to grow corn (maize), told them where to fish, and guided their explorations. He was mistrusted by many Indians because of his close relationship with the English; they may have murdered him. STANDISH, MYLES (1584?–3 OCTOBER 1656). An English soldier serving in the Netherlands, where he became acquainted with the Pilgrims, Standish was hired by them to direct their military defenses when they came to America. He did this ably, ousting Europeans such as John Oldham and Thomas Morton of Merry Mount from disputed territory, building fortifications, and directing Plymouth’s forces during the Pequot War. He also was among those who negotiated the Pilgrims’ buying out the English merchants who had invested in the colony, and he was a key developer of the towns of Bridgewater and Duxbury. Although not a Pilgrim or religious Separatist himself, he was elected to the colony’s council almost every year and owned one of the largest libraries in the colonies. See also BRADFORD, WILLIAM; MAYFLOWER COMPACT. STEPHENS, WILLIAM (28 JANUARY 1671–AUGUST 1753). A member of Parliament who served from 1695 until 1727, Stephens fell deeply in debt and went to work as a surveyor in South Carolina. He met James Oglethorpe while visiting Georgia and in 1737 was appointed by him as secretary, in effect governor, of the province until old age incapacitated him

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in 1751. The settlers objected to his implementation of the trustees’ policies against slavery and alcohol and his efforts to maintain order. He was partial to the Jews who were both prosperous and well behaved, and opposed to evangelicals John Wesley and George Whitefield, who he believed promoted discontent. He successfully defended his rule before the trustees against the malcontents, including his son Thomas, whom he disinherited as a result, but popular opposition led to the transformation of Georgia into a royal colony immediately after he resigned his post. STONO REBELLION. On 9 September 1739, 20 slaves headed by Jemmy, who was also known as Cato, began the largest slave rebellion on the mainland colonies of British North America. The rebellion occurred in South Carolina and followed a yellow fever epidemic and the beginning of the War of Jenkins’ Ear. The slaves, most of whom were Roman Catholics who had been recently captured in the Congo, then a Portuguese colony, were encouraged to rebel by a Spanish proclamation promising them freedom in Florida. They marched south bearing a flag marked “Liberty” from the Stono River. In one day, their numbers swelled to about 80, and they killed between 22 and 25 whites and burned seven plantations in an effort to reach Spanish territory. They were met on 10 September by the South Carolina militia, which killed 44 of them at a loss of 20 whites. The colony then hired Indians to capture the slaves who had fled; most of these were executed although some were sold to the West Indies. In response, the colony passed the Negro Act, which forbade slave importations for 10 years and required the legislature’s approval for masters to free slaves. Smaller rebellions occurred over the next two years in South Carolina and Georgia and were also suppressed. STOUGHTON, WILLIAM (30 SEPTEMBER 1631–7 JULY 1701). A prosperous Dorchester, Massachusetts, farmer, Stoughton was elected to the council in 1671. In 1677, the colony chose him to go to England with Joseph Dudley and try to preserve the colony’s self-governing charter, but like Dudley, he realized it was impossible and tried to obtain the best deal he could for himself in the new royal government. He served as president of Dudley’s appointed council beginning in 1686. He at first worked amicably with Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England, but was among those who overthrew him in 1689 when word of the Glorious Revolution in England arrived. Stoughton became lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts in 1692 and soon quarreled with Governor Sir William Phips, partly because Phips ended the Salem witch trials over which Stoughton presided and pursued with great vigor. When Phips was recalled to answer charges drawn up in part by

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Stoughton, he in effect served as governor from 1694 until his death, except for a period in 1699 and 1700 when the Earl of Bellomont left New York to assume personal control in Massachusetts. Stoughton was not an effective leader of Massachusetts’ limited efforts during King William’s War when much of the Maine frontier and the town of Deerfield were destroyed. STUYVESANT, PIETR, PIETER, OR PETRUS (c. 1612–AUGUST 1672). Generally known as Peter Stuyvesant in the English-speaking world, Stuyvesant served as director-general of the Dutch West India Company’s settlement of New Netherland from 1647 until he was forced to surrender it to the English in 1664. Stuyvesant had served as governor of the Dutch colony of Curacao in the West Indies from 1642 to 1644, where he lost a leg in combat with the Spanish. His rule in New Netherland was dictatorial but effective. In New Amsterdam he built a wall at the present-day Wall Street in New York City for defense against the Indians, and in 1655 he conquered New Sweden. He suppressed Quaker religious worship, which led to the Flushing Remonstrance in 1657. This persecution, along with his efforts to keep out Jews and prevent them from worshipping, was overruled by the Dutch West India Company. On 9 September 1664, he surrendered to four English warships as the Dutch colonists refused to fight the overwhelming force. The English agreed to preserve free worship and civil rights for the Dutch. After a brief return to the Netherlands, Stuyvesant lived out his life on his estate, the Bouwerie (the Dutch word for farm), north of what were then the limits of New Amsterdam. SUSQUEHANNAH COMPANY. Founded in 1753, the Susquehannah Company was formed in Connecticut and approved by that colony to settle in the Wyoming Valley, the region around what is the present-day city of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Connecticut claimed the land based on its 1663 charter that extended its borders (excepting New York, which was established in 1664) to the Pacific Ocean. Although the company purchased the land from some Indians in 1754, the purchase was never recognized by either the British government or the colony of Pennsylvania. Efforts to settle in the late 1760s were met by resistance from Indians and Pennsylvanians, leading to the Yankee-Pennamite War. The area was finally granted by the United States Congress to Pennsylvania in 1786, although private grants to Connecticut settlers were recognized as valid. SUSQUEHANNOCK INDIANS. Known as the Andaste by the French Canadians, the Minquas by the Swedes and Dutch, and the Conestogas in Pennsylvania, the Susquehannocks probably numbered about 5,000 to 7,000

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people in 1600. John Smith in his explorations of the Virginia and Maryland colonies encountered them in the early 1600s in the region of Chesapeake Bay and the southern Susquehanna River Valley. In the late 1500s, they had been defeated by the Iroquois, their traditional enemies, in the northern Susquehanna Valley and forced to move. By 1660, they were once again dispossessed after fighting with Maryland and Virginia and moved back north where warfare was renewed with the Iroquois. The few remaining Susquehannocks settled in what became Pennsylvania. Decimated by war and epidemics, the 20 last Susquehannocks were massacred by the Paxton Boys near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1763. See also BEAVER WARS.

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T TALCOTT, JOSPEH (16 NOVEMBER 1669–11 OCTOBER 1741). Governor of Connecticut from 1724 until his death, Talcott was universally respected in New England and was among the commissioners chosen to sort out the boundary dispute between Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1730. He also maintained Connecticut’s charter as the supreme authority in appeals to the British over whether its inheritance laws could be modified in particular cases by British courts, and over the colony’s right to dispose of Indian lands. TAMMAMEND (?–1698?). Also known as Tammany or Tammamint, Tammamend was the first Delaware Indian leader who personally met William Penn and signed a treaty deeding him a tract of land on the Delaware River north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Historical myth has transformed Penn’s purchase of land into this one treaty, rather than a dozen, that Penn signed. Tammamend was a friend to the colonists, although he complained that he only thought he was selling the land the colonists physically occupied rather than a large tract to be used later. He is reputed to have said that the Indians and colonists would “live in peace as long as the waters run in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon endure.” The Sons of King Tammany, a secret society formed in Philadelphia in 1722, and numerous other fraternal groups in the colonies were named after him, notably the Society of St. Tammany, a New York political club that in the 1790s became the nation’s first political machine. TANAGHRISSON. See HALF-KING. TAVERNS. In both rural and urban areas, taverns were both meeting places for residents and establishments in which travelers stayed overnight. There was usually one bedroom for men and one for women, each with a large bed that could hold several travelers if necessary. Stables accommodated the horses and coaches that provided regular service between cities and the larger towns. Licensed to sell alcohol, taverns were sometimes condemned by the

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clergy as dens of immorality, but in general, drinking was mandated by the rules of hospitality. People had to reciprocate when drinks were purchased or toasts were offered. Tavern owners were frequently leading citizens, especially in rural areas. They purchased newspapers, which were read aloud and debated, and political meetings were frequently held there. TAXATION. All the colonies taxed their inhabitants to cover expenses such as the salaries of public officials, printing government documents, building roads, constructing public buildings, supporting the established church (except in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, where no church was officially patronized), and defense. The usual taxes were poll taxes (levied on all male individuals over the age of 21) and property taxes. Since no records were required to be kept of people’s wealth and income, the colonies could only tax what they could see. Assessors gauged the value of houses, land, animals, and merchants’ inventories where these existed. Local authorities, such as towns, counties, and (in the South) parishes, also levied taxes for poor relief, local roads, and public expenses such as erecting fences. Provincial taxes were generally low in time of peace, but rose greatly in wartime when all the colonies resorted to emissions of paper currency to pay soldiers and military contractors. This money frequently inflated in value. See also QUITRENTS. TAYLOR, EDWARD (1642?–24 JUNE 1729). An English schoolteacher who refused to conform to the Anglican Church, Taylor moved to New England in 1668 and graduated from Harvard College in 1671. He became the minister of the church in Westfield, Connecticut, which he served until 1725. He is known for his 217 poems, the “Preparatory Meditations,” which were discovered in 1937 by scholar Thomas Johnson and then published. Considered the outstanding poet of colonial America, his works reflect the deep soul-searching of the Puritans and their efforts to obtain a personal experience of religious transcendence. See also LITERATURE. TEEDYUSCUNG (c. 1705–16 APRIL 1763). A Delaware Indian leader, he was baptized by the Moravians in 1750. Along with members of his tribe, he was compelled to leave his home to settle in the Wyoming Valley of northern Pennsylvania by the Iroquois following the land sale at the Albany Congress in 1754. At first he fought against the British in the French and Indian War, but soon he was persuaded by the Iroquois to negotiate a peace, the Treaty of Easton in 1758, which gave even more Delaware land to Pennsylvania. Teedyuscung was killed when his cabin burned down; although it may have been an accident, his son Captain Bull blamed Connecticut settlers from the Susquehannah Company and attacked them during Pontiac’s

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War. Most of Teedyuscung’s people relocated to the area near what is now Jersey Shore in central Pennsylvania, only to be forced out again after the American Revolution. TENNENT, GILBERT (5 FEBRUARY 1703–23 JULY 1764). Born in Northern Ireland, Tennent was the son of William Tennent (1671–1746) who in 1727 founded the “Log College” at Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, the first Presbyterian educational institution in the middle colonies. Tennent graduated from his father’s school in 1735 and became a minister in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He was a leading preacher during the Great Awakening, the most important of the “New Side” Presbyterians. He spoke charismatically to large crowds as he traveled New Jersey and Pennsylvania, inspiring fear of damnation and hope of salvation through emotional, personal experiences of Christ, and was called a “son of thunder” by his friend George Whitefield. When in 1738 the “Old Side” Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia refused to recognize ministers trained at his father’s college, Tennent in turn denounced ministers who failed to respond to the new emotional Christianity as Pharisees in On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry (1739). The synods of New York and Pennsylvania split into Old and New Sides from 1741 until 1758, but Tennent was important in bringing them back together after publishing the pamphlet Love in Christ, which persuaded them to tolerate each other’s ministers. THANKSGIVING. What is usually considered the first Thanksgiving, celebrated by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, was in fact a harvest festival that occurred for three days sometime between September and November 1621, and featured games, dancing, and singing. It did not become an annual celebration. The most probable story is that hearing shots and shouts, the Indians apparently showed up thinking something was wrong and were then invited to join. Colonial Days of Thanksgiving were proclaimed by governments as solemn religious holidays to thank God on special occasions such as the end of a drought or a victory over their enemies. Their opposites were Days of Fasting and Humiliation, during which colonists prayed for deliverance from their enemies or the end of an epidemic. Thanksgiving Day was institutionalized as the final Thursday in November by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. THEATER. The earliest recorded theatrical performance in the colonies was an amateur performance in Virginia in 1665; Harvard College students performed the drama Gustavus Vasa by minister Benjamin Colman in 1690. Its subject was a Swedish king who fought heroically for the Protestant cause against Roman Catholicism. Theatrical performances were recorded in New York City in

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1702 and in Boston and Philadelphia in 1714, although the earliest theaters in the colonies were built in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1716; New York (Nassau Street Theater, 1732); and Charleston, South Carolina (Dock Street Theater, 1736). The last of these is still open and is the oldest continuously functioning theater in the United States. Traveling performers such as Anthony Aston, who visited various colonies in 1701, and the Hallams, who came to Virginia in 1753, also appeared. Plays by William Shakespeare were popular (usually with altered endings if they were not happy to begin with) and contemporary English farces were played at the few cities that had theaters. The most frequently performed piece in the colonies was The Beggar’s Opera, a tale of immorality and virtue in the slums of London composed by John Gay in 1728. Theaters were forbidden in Massachusetts (1750), Pennsylvania (1759), Rhode Island (1761), and New Hampshire (1762) by acts of the colonial legislatures. Religious individuals believed that plays, especially the comedies popular in Britain, encouraged immorality. See also LITERATURE; PLAY AND AMUSEMENTS. TIMBER. Early America was comprised mostly of forests, chiefly pine. Timber was used for houses, wagons, furniture, fences, tools, and shipbuilding. The timber industry was especially important in northern New England. England had few forests by the late 17th century and needed to import lumber for its ships. Colonists came into conflict with the surveyor-general of the King’s Woods, who was entrusted with marking and enforcing the White Pine Act, thus preserving large trees for use as masts in the royal navy, although it was difficult for one man and his deputies to patrol the large region. See also ACTS OF TRADE AND NAVIGATION; ECONOMY. TOBACCO. The Spanish first discovered the Indians smoking tobacco in the West Indies. They considered it both a cure for disease and a means of reaching a blissful state of consciousness. By the 1550s, it was in use throughout Europe both for medicinal purposes and pleasure. The first region to cultivate it on a large scale outside America was the Ottoman Empire. The English, however, were the first to export large quantities of tobacco as a major commercial crop. John Rolfe learned how to grow it in Virginia in 1609, and by 1615 it was the major export crop. King James I of England was among those who condemned it in print as a filthy and poisonous weed, but he realized that it could be immensely profitable. The tax on tobacco was the principal source of revenue from the mainland colonies until the American Revolution. Tobacco was the main export of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina and a form of currency, especially in Virginia. It could be grown on small farms, where white planters, sometimes aided by a few slaves, produced a

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small amount to buy imported goods in addition to growing their own food, although most was grown on large plantations of 20 slaves or more. Tobacco planters were the ruling class of these three colonies. Tobacco is very exhaustive of the soil, and the need for additional plantations was a major impulse in encouraging westward settlement. See also AGRICULTURE; ECONOMY; TWO-PENNY ACT. TOLERATION. Although advocated by Renaissance humanists such as Holland’s Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), most Europeans only accepted toleration of other religions grudgingly following the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), in which Roman Catholic and Protestant powers warring over the religious affiliation of the German states killed perhaps a third of the population of that region. The Peace of Westphalia that ended the war allowed rulers to determine the religion of their states but did not insist they tolerate dissent within their borders. Even in Holland, which had a reputation as the most tolerant nation in Europe, different religions coexisted uneasily, and different states within the country had diverse policies. Roman Catholic Maryland was the first colony to establish religious toleration, more or less by default, as it could hardly forbid practice of the Protestant religion that prevailed in England. Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1636, established religious toleration there largely because he believed it was impossible to identify true Christians because of rampant hypocrisy. Philosopher John Locke, who wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, advanced a philosophical case for toleration as following the example of Christ and the apostles and being a sensible way to avoid social conflict. New York, whose proprietor the Duke of York (the future King James II) was a Roman Catholic anxious to obtain toleration for his faith, also adopted religious toleration, as did Pennsylvania thanks to the Quaker principles of William Penn. New England was the most intolerant region, banning and executing Quakers who refused to leave. Only the establishment of the Dominion of New England in 1685 forced Connecticut and Massachusetts to permit Anglicans, the official church of England, to worship publicly. By the 18th century, most colonies permitted religious dissent from the established church to some degree, but all except Rhode Island and Pennsylvania levied taxes to support the official church—Congregational in New England, Anglican in the middle and southern colonies. In this they followed the practice of the mother country. Yet, as late as the 1770s, Baptist meetings were officially broken up in Virginia and Massachusetts as threats to both church and state. The American Revolution established toleration as the norm as people of all sorts were encouraged to support the patriot cause.

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TOMOCHICHI (c. 1640?–5 OCTOBER 1739). Chief of the Yamacraws, a mixture of Yamasee and Creek Indians who lived in the vicinity of Savannah, Georgia, Tomochichi befriended the first settlers who arrived there in 1733. He established a successful fur trade with the colony, and Georgia’s founder James Oglethorpe took him to England in 1734 where he was received with great honors. He assisted the colony during the War of Jenkins’ Ear by providing scouts and intelligence with respect to Spanish Florida. Although there is no real evidence, he was believed to be nearly 100 years old when he died, and is buried in Wright Square in Savannah. See also MUSGROVE, MARY. TOWN MEETING. The model of local government in New England, the town meeting was held at the meetinghouse, which was both the church and the town hall. Town meetings were democratic to the extent that all officially recognized inhabitants—church members at first and later property owners—could have an equal say and vote in all proceedings. All officials were elected, from the selectmen who governed the town between meetings down to scavengers (garbage collectors) and hogreeves (who kept the hogs out of the crops). People were required to hold offices to which they were elected or pay a fine. Nearly every town member held some office, thereby ensuring communal cohesion. Unpopular wealthy people were sometimes elected to menial offices to compel them to pay fines. TRADE. Trade was critical to the survival and prosperity of the American colonies. It began with early exchanges with the Indians; in general, Indians did not believe in private property and would give freely of their possessions. It confused Europeans when the Indians would in turn take items from the Europeans without asking. But soon the Europeans were regularly trading guns, alcohol, household items, clothing, and trinkets (in roughly descending order) for food, beaver furs, and deerskins. Most trade with the Indians was barter that did not involve currency. Given that currency, especially gold and silver, was always scarce in the colonies as it went to pay for manufactured goods from England, barter was also an important means of exchange among the colonials. Merchants, for instance, would trade a pot or a pan for a certain amount of a farmer’s crop. Preachers and teachers were paid to varying degrees in wood and food. Tobacco was the general currency in Virginia; those who received it as a salary then sold or traded it. The volume of internal trade among colonials was huge, to judge by the number of suits for debt that constituted the vast majority of cases handled by the legal system. Farmers would get advances on their crops, or merchants credit from their suppliers, either overseas or at home. That 5 percent of all

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ships were wrecked meant trade, even when war was not occurring (as it was much of the time) was precarious. In many instances, it was impossible to estimate someone’s worth, as there were so many debtors and creditors. Within colonies, agricultural products, timber, iron, and other products went either directly to the relevant international port or were exchanged with shopkeepers in secondary urban centers. Thus Boston was the main port of Massachusetts, with cities such as Salem, Worcester, Springfield, and Plymouth being more local market towns. In turn, people received manufactured goods, or credit, from the merchants. Paper currency also circulated to be kept on hand to pay taxes or buy goods in the future. International commerce, especially the triangle trade and West Indies trade, was the principal source of colonial prosperity. Fish and grain fed the sugar islands; the colonists also took away the Indies’ sugar and molasses, turning it into rum or selling it in England. Colonial tobacco, rice, and indigo were next in line, but still very lucrative crops. Trade in British manufactures and African slaves completed the colonies’ Atlantic world. Although the prevalent economic theory of mercantilism dictated that colonial trade, with few exceptions, had to be directed to British ports in British ships manned by British seamen, in practice loose enforcement meant that the colonies could pick and choose among the various empires in a fair approximation of free trade. The Acts of Trade and Navigation notwithstanding, only in the 1760s did the British begin to enforce these laws rigorously, leading to the American Revolution. Finally, colonial shipbuilding was itself a major element of colonial trade. Boston, Salem, Newburyport, and Beverly in Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; New York City; Philadelphia; and New London, Connecticut, were among the principal shipbuilding sites. Sale of timber to Britain for the navy and commercial ships was also important. So were “invisible earnings,” the money that colonial shipowners made transporting goods not their own from one place to another. See also ECONOMY. TREAT, ROBERT (23 FEBRUARY 1622–12 JULY 1710). Governor of Connecticut from 1683 to 1698, except under the Dominion of New England, Treat lived at first in the New Haven Colony and left for East Jersey in 1666 because he objected to the merging of New Haven and Connecticut. He returned in 1672, however, and headed the colony’s forces in King Philip’s War. TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. See KING GEORGE’S WAR; WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR. TREATY OF EASTON. Signed in October 1758, between Pennsylvania and the Iroquois, Delaware, and Shawnee Indians, the treaty promised that

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settlers would not venture beyond the Allegheny Mountains in return for the Indians’ refusal to fight any more for the French during the French and Indian War. While the treaty relieved the frontier during the war itself, immediately afterward settlers and Indians clashed in the prohibited lands during Pontiac’s War. TREATY OF LANCASTER. In July 1744, the Treaty of Lancaster stipulated that the Iroquois agreed to relinquish any claims to land in the Shenandoah Valley to Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania following skirmishes with Virginia settlers the previous years. TREATY OF LOGSTOWN. In 1752, with the Treaty of Logstown—an Iroquois town in what is now western Pennsylvania—the Iroquois agreed to relinquish claims to all lands south of the Ohio River to the colonists at this treaty. The other Indians in the area such as the Delaware did not recognize this treaty and fought for this land during the French and Indian War. See also OHIO VALLEY. TREATY OF PARIS. See FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. TREATY OF RYSWICK. See KING WILLIAM’S WAR. TREATY OF UTRECHT. See QUEEN ANNE’S WAR. TRIANGLE TRADE. Pioneered by New Englanders in the 1630s, the triangle trade was the principal source of overseas commerce and wealth acquisition for the northern British colonies. In fact, the name is a misnomer, as any given voyage usually involved only two points in what could be one of two possible triangles. The first triangle consisted of the northern colonies, the West Indies, and England. It involved voyages that sold fish or grain to the West Indies, where they would be exchanged for sugar, molasses, or cash. Then ships would go to England to exchange the cash, sugar, molasses, or rum (manufactured in New England from the molasses) for manufactured goods that they brought back to the colonies. Alternatively, the third point of the triangle would be West Africa. West India products would be sold for cash or manufactured goods in England; these, or New England rum, would then be used to purchase slaves in Africa, which were sold in the southern colonies or West Indies. The West India portion of the trade was supposed to be confined to the British West Indies, but in practice the Acts of Trade and Navigation mandating this restriction were widely evaded, and trade with the French, Spanish, and Dutch islands as well ensured the colonists a better price. See also ECONOMY.

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TUESDAY CLUB OF ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND. This was one of the many societies formed in colonial towns in the 18th century where middleand upper-class men socialized, sang songs, drank, played cards, and followed rules and rituals to provide a veneer of mystery and secrecy. The Tuesday Club was founded in 1756 by Dr. Alexander Hamilton. He served as its secretary for the 11 years it survived, and his minutes and notes on the meetings remain a valuable resource for studying 18th-century American culture. See also PLAY AND AMUSEMENTS; TAVERNS. TWO-PENNY ACT. Passed by the Virginia legislature in 1758, the act fixed the price of tobacco at two pennies a pound for the purpose of paying the salaries of Anglican priests, who were paid in tobacco. The price of tobacco had risen to double or triple that amount because of bad harvests. Reverend James Camm, when his efforts in Virginia to have the act reversed failed, went to England where the privy council disallowed the act. The Reverend James Maury then sued for back wages based on the higher market price of tobacco, but in 1763 he was awarded only one penny in damages by a Virginia court. This became known as the “Parson’s Case” and was argued by Patrick Henry. Henry maintained that when the king approved acts harmful to his subjects, he degenerated into a tyrant and forfeited their obedience. The behavior of these priests and the privy council was one reason that the Anglican clergy became unpopular in Virginia. The whole affair was a contributing factor to the resentment that led to the American Revolution.

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U UNCAS (c. 1588–c. 1683). Leader of the Mohegan Indians who lived in the region that became southern Connecticut, Uncas was a staunch friend of the English during the Pequot War and King Philip’s War. By taking the right side, he successfully preserved his people as a distinct tribe, which they remain today. UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND. In 1643, Connecticut, New Haven, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire joined to form the United Colonies of New England. It was a confederation for military purposes designed against the Dutch of New Netherland and hostile Indians. The forces of the four colonies united successfully during King Philip’s War in 1675–1676. They also minted coins marked “NE” beginning in 1652, a currency that King Charles II and his administration considered a gesture toward independence. But they remained in circulation until the United Colonies was superseded by the Dominion of New England in 1686.

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V VAN TWILLER, WOUTER (c. 1606–AUGUST 1654). Nephew of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the leading patroon or landowner in New Netherland, Van Twiller was appointed director-general of the colony in 1632, a post he held until 1637. He encouraged farming and helped it become self-sufficient, keeping peace with the Indians and expanding the fur trade. The Dutch West India Company, however, dissatisfied with his inability to turn a large profit, replaced him with Willem Kieft, who started a disastrous war by reversing Van Twiller’s Indian policy. Van Twiller remained in the colony, where his management of the Van Rensselaer estate in the Hudson Valley led to his recall to Holland on charges of graft, which were probably untrue. VANE, SIR HENRY (1613–14 JUNE 1662). Son of a wealthy knight, Vane dropped out of Oxford University and attended the University of Leiden in Holland because he had converted to Puritanism. He moved to Massachusetts in 1635 and within a year was elected governor of the colony. He then sided with Anne Hutchinson and her followers, was not reelected governor, and returned to England in 1637. There he participated in the Puritan Revolution, served in Parliament, was one of the signers of King Charles I’s death warrant, and was executed for treason when King Charles II returned to the throne. VICE-ADMIRALTY COURTS. Eleven of these courts, where a judge without a jury decided maritime issues such as responsibility for shipwrecks and disputes over seamen’s wages and treatment, existed in the British American colonies. During the French and Indian War, they began to handle smuggling cases and questions of illegal cargoes, which could be forfeited to the crown and informer. These had previously been handled by local courts that were usually sympathetic to the smugglers. In 1764, a vice-admiralty court was established in Nova Scotia that would handle such cases, with judges who were not (as previously) inhabitants of the colony in question, who would be unlikely to return a guilty verdict. The establishment of these courts and tighter enforcement of customs regulations was a significant cause of the American Revolution. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION; TRADE; WRITS OF ASSISTANCE. 245

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VIKINGS. See NORSEMEN. VIRGINIA. Named for Queen Elizabeth I, Virginia was the first permanent English colony in the New World. Jamestown, the first settlement, was made in 1607 by the Virginia Company. It was not intended as a colony to be settled, but more as a military/commercial expedition where men (a handful were accompanied by wives) would either find gold or produce some other commodity such as wine or silk that England needed. The early colony nearly failed and was taken over by the crown as the first royal colony in 1624. At the time, the population was about 1,000, even though about 6,000 people had gone to the colony. In 1619, the first 20 blacks arrived as indentured servants, as did 20 single women, and the propertied inhabitants formed the House of Burgesses, or the assembly, the first English representative body in America. By then Virginia had discovered tobacco as a cash crop. Seventeenth-century Virginia was an unstable society. A heavily young, male, unfree, white population worked on land owned by an elite. They were the participants in Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, which was put down by Governor Sir William Berkeley. Thereafter, more African slaves were imported until by the American Revolution, these numbered about 187,000 of nearly 450,000 inhabitants. The presence of Africans and the opening of the frontier meant that most whites could acquire small pieces of land, thereby making the principal division in the colony a racial one between black slaves and white free people rather than a class division between poor and rich whites. Virginia thus set a pattern for the United States as distinct from European history in which racial divisions are far more important than class conflict. As a result of racism and fear of blacks shared by whites of different classes, Virginia became a stable society in the 1700s. Virginia had no real cities or towns; Jamestown and (after 1698) Williamsburg were simply small places where the legislature met and the governor lived. The east-west flowing rivers that dominate Virginia’s landscape meant that oceangoing ships sailed up to the docks of wealthy tobacco planters. These docks were used by smaller planters as well. Richer planters loaned money and provided services such as doctors to the lesser ones, and in return received their votes when they sought election to the assembly and their support as leaders of the local community. By the mid-18th century, wealthy Virginians developed a cultivated society where large plantation houses such as the Carter family’s Nomini Hall and the Byrd family’s Westover were centers of hospitality. Lieutenant-governors such as Alexander Spotswood, Robert Gooch, and Robert Dinwiddie were popular, maintained political harmony, and led the colonials in the westward expansion they desired.

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Virginia was the largest and most populous colony by the Revolution. Its land claims stretched theoretically to the Pacific Ocean, but practically they included the Ohio Valley and the land that is now West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. Virginia’s effort to claim this land led to George Washington’s expedition that clashed with the French in 1754 and precipitated the French and Indian War. See also NICHOLSON, FRANCIS; TWO-PENNY ACT; WYATT, FRANCIS; YEARDLEY, GEORGE. VISIBLE SAINTS. In England, it was not difficult to establish who was a sincere Puritan, as they were subject to persecution. But in New England, it was advantageous to belong to a Puritan church in order to be able to vote, hold office, and obtain land. To determine those who appeared sincere in their religious convictions, known as visible saints, people who wished to be fullfledged church members had to present an account of their conversion experience, followed by proper Christian behavior. Men had to do this in front of the whole congregation to its satisfaction, while women were allowed to speak only to the minister. This practice led Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson to claim that many hypocrites feigned salvation to obtain worldly advantages and that it was impossible to judge people’s true consciences. This became their argument for religious toleration. The Puritans responded that hypocrisy was useful for social order and that such people would be punished in the afterlife. By the 1660s, with fewer people experiencing conversion and becoming visible saints, many Puritan churches implemented the half-way covenant, which permitted the children of visible saints to have their own children baptized. See also DAVENPORT, JOHN; DECLENSION; JEREMIAD. VOTING. In general, the colonies adopted the British qualification for voting: freeholders, adult men possessed of 40 pounds sterling of property or an estate that would rent for 40 shillings a year, were eligible to vote. The exception was in the Puritan colonies of New England, where only church members were allowed to vote before the Dominion of New England ended this practice in 1685. In England, the property requirements restricted eligible voters to a small minority, but as more colonists acquired land or shops in the cities, without any desire to democratize politics, a greater number of men became eligible to vote. The best estimates are that in most jurisdictions, between 50 and 75 percent of white men could vote by the mid-18th century, although in practice respectable inhabitants’ exact qualifications were not always scrutinized carefully. Most offices were not contested, and leading local gentlemen were elected routinely to the assembly. Without issues dividing the community, voting turnout tended to be low. (In Rhode Island, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

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New York, and Boston, and occasionally elsewhere, politics was hotly contested between two competing groups.) Voting was viva voce, or out loud, without a secret ballot; voters would assemble at county seats or town meeting halls and cast their ballots. This led to pressure to vote for local notables who would sometimes loan money and were frequently justices of the peace or militia officers. At the same time, local leaders were expected to provide food and alcohol for their supporters at election day feasts.

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W WALKING PURCHASE. In 1737, the agents of Thomas Penn, the proprietor of Pennsylvania, produced a document of dubious authenticity dated 1686. It claimed that the Delaware Indians had promised to sell the colonists land in northeastern Pennsylvania that a man could walk in a day and a half. The 1737 Delaware accepted the document. Penn’s agents recruited men who had trained hard, and paths and refreshments were provided for them so that they covered a large tract that extended from present-day Easton beyond Allentown. The Delaware protested but were silenced by the Iroquois, who were allied with Pennsylvania and were only too happy to have a pacifist province on their southern border. The Delaware were forced to move westward. The first fraudulent land purchase in Pennsylvania history, it set the pattern for future sales that pushed the Delaware and other Indians into western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley, paving the way for their furious assault on Pennsylvania backcountry settlements during the French and Indian War. WANTON FAMILY. Anglican Rhode Island merchants who made a fortune privateering during King William’s War and Queen Anne’s War, the Wantons were active in colonial politics. William (1670–1733) served as governor during the last two years of his life. John (c. 1672–1740) succeeded his brother as governor and converted to Quakerism following his own military exploits, serving from 1733 to 1740. William, Jr. (1705–1780), William’s son, was governor from 1769 to 1775, when he was replaced for not supporting resistance to Britain. WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR. In 1739, British supporters of a war with Spain produced a bottle in Parliament supposedly containing the ear of a Captain Jenkins that they claimed had been cut off by the Spanish. The ear’s authenticity was questionable, as no one insisted that Jenkins remove his bandage and the supposed outrage had occurred when he was caught trading illegally eight years earlier. Although he was personally committed to peace, Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole caved in to the pressure, thereby starting what is

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known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear with Spain. The war began well, with the capture of Porto Bello in Panama, but thereafter further expeditions against Cartagena in Colombia, Cuba, and other West Indies islands failed. The main British success was capturing the Manila galleon that carried treasure from South America to the Philippines in 1743. On the North American mainland, the main action consisted of unsuccessful efforts by Georgia and Florida against each other’s capitals, Savannah and St. Augustine. In 1742, Spain and England joined opposite sides in the War of the Austrian Succession in Europe, and in 1744, France entered the war on the side of Spain. The conflict thereafter became known as King George’s War in North America as there was little further action against Spain. See also OGLE, SAMUEL; OGLETHORPE, JAMES; SHIRLEY, WILLIAM; TOMOCHICHI. WASHINGTON, GEORGE (22 FEBRUARY 1732–14 DECEMBER 1799). Son of a Virginia tobacco planter, Washington was hired as a surveyor at age 17 by Lord Fairfax, a British nobleman who owned over five million acres of land in Northern Virginia. He was then appointed a major in the Virginia militia in 1753 and that year volunteered for a dangerous mission. He was to convey Governor Robert Dinwiddie’s message to the French in the Ohio Valley that they had to leave because they were trespassing on Virginia’s territory. When they refused, Washington was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and in 1754 was sent to force the French out. He defeated a small scouting party led by Sieur de Jumonville; his Indian allies led by Half-King massacred the French prisoners. Washington then set up Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to surrender and confess to having murdered Jumonville. The following year, as head of the Virginia militia, Washington accompanied General Edward Braddock’s expedition to conquer Fort Duquesne. When it was ambushed and Braddock was killed, Washington was the highest-ranking officer to survive unscathed, and he led the remnant of the defeated army back to Virginia. For the rest of the French and Indian War, he commanded Virginia’s forces with the rank of colonel and personally supervised the construction of its forts in the west that protected the frontier. He married Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759, thereby greatly increasing his estate. He was actively involved in land speculation, acquiring large tracts in the west in compensation for his military service. Washington realized that tobacco was becoming less profitable and instead had his slaves grow wheat, raise horses, and produce cloth at his Mount Vernon estate. He became one of Virginia’s wealthiest planters and was serving in the assembly on the eve of the American Revolution. Elected to the Continental Congress, he became commander in chief of the armed forces in the American Revolution, presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and served as first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797.

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WEAPONS. While colonial Americans were armed with swords, knives, pistols, and (early on) pikes, the musket and then the Pennsylvania rifle were the principal weapons they used. Muskets were most frequently used by militia troops; they were inaccurate and only effective if fired in volleys in the open field at distances of up to 50 yards. By the 18th century, forges, especially in Pennsylvania, but also elsewhere, were producing rifles that could be aimed precisely at targets at several hundred yards. Charges with swords or bayonets were also used against enemies. Cannons were used to defend harbors and forts. Trade in weapons with the Indians was substantial. By the French and Indian War, they were mostly armed with rifles in addition to the tomahawks and bows and arrows they had used before contact with the Europeans. Combined with their knowledge of the terrain, ability to travel quickly and lightly, and hit-and-run tactics, they were generally formidable adversaries. The Europeans in turn adopted ranger companies and militia units that practiced Indian forms of warfare. But unlike the defeat of the French in the French and Indian War and the British in the American Revolution, most of their Indian allies on the western frontier remained unconquered until after the American Revolution. WEISER, CONRAD (1696–13 JULY 1760). Born in the Palatine region of Germany, Weiser served as Pennsylvania’s Indian agent for about 30 years. He migrated to the New York frontier in about 1710 and lived with the Mohawk Indians. He moved near the town of Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania, in 1729 with other families from the Palatinate and became a justice of the peace, community leader, and interpreter with the government. He briefly joined the Ephrata Cloister from 1735 to 1737. He worked especially with the Iroquois leader Shickellamy to keep peace and convinced the Iroquois to sell much of western Pennsylvania to the colony at the Albany Congress in 1754. This displeased the Delaware Indians who physically occupied that land, and they attacked the frontier following the defeat of Braddock’s expedition the following year. Weiser became a lieutenant-colonel in the Pennsylvania militia during the final years of his life and protected the frontier from some of the Indians with whom he had formerly negotiated. WENTWORTH FAMILY. William Wentworth, the first family member, came to Exeter in what later became New Hampshire in 1638. The Wentworths were prominent merchants, and Benning Wentworth (1696–1770) served in the New Hampshire assembly where he led the opposition to Jonathan Belcher, who was also governor of Massachusetts and spent little time dealing with New Hampshire. Wentworth was rewarded for his efforts in settling the boundary dispute between the two provinces by the British

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government and named governor of New Hampshire. He held the post from 1741 to 1767, the longest tenure of any colonial governor. Wentworth was popular with the colonists, as he and his 13 siblings intermarried with other members of the provincial elite. They were also happy that he did not enforce the White Pine Acts requiring large pine trees to be reserved for masts in the royal navy, which his position as surveyor-general of the King’s Woods mandated. In addition, Wentworth approved numerous land grants in territory disputed with New York that later became the state of Vermont. However, the easy relation Wentworth had with the province soured in the 1760s. The British government invalidated most of his grants, and he became unpopular when he tried to enforce the Stamp Act in 1765. He married his housekeeper rather than a highly ranked woman following the death of his first wife, which angered his social equals and relatives; he responded by disinheriting them all in favor of his new wife, Martha Hilton. Benning Wentworth resigned in 1767 and was replaced by his nephew John Wentworth (1737–1820) who governed until the American Revolution, during which he was a loyalist. WESLEY, JOHN (28 JUNE 1703–2 MARCH 1791). Although later in life he founded the Methodist branch of Protestant Christianity, John Wesley, accompanied by his brother Charles, began his career as an Anglican priest and missionary to Georgia in 1735. He was greatly moved by the piety of the Moravians in the colony but was forced to leave in 1738 after Susannah Hopkey, a woman with whom he was romantically involved, sued him for breach of promise when he failed to marry her. WEST, BENJAMIN (10 OCTOBER 1738–11 MARCH 1820). Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Benjamin West began painting as a teenager and caught the attention of William Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia. In 1760 he went to Italy to study and subsequently moved to England where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1771 he painted The Death of General Wolfe, which depicted the death of James Wolfe during the battle for Quebec, the decisive victory in the French and Indian War. This work made him famous, and the following year he was appointed history painter to King George III. See also ART. WEST, JOSEPH (LATE 1600s). A merchant of London and former naval officer, West led the first expedition to settle Carolina on behalf of its proprietors in 1670. He served as governor from 1670 to 1672, 1674 to 1682, and 1684 to 1685. He was responsible for locating the principal settlement at Charleston in what became South Carolina. His insistence that the colony

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grow food and maintain trade with the Indians was responsible for the absence of hunger during this initial period. However, his rule was difficult because the proprietors wanted a profit from staple crops, and the settlers wanted to trade with pirates, not pay taxes, and obtain lands without permission. WEST INDIES. Consisting of over 7,000 islands in the Caribbean Sea, the West Indies were among the most profitable economic regions on the globe from the 16th through the 18th centuries because their lands (along with some of the eastern coast of South America) had the only soil where sugar could be grown. Divided into the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico and smaller islands governed from them) and the Lesser Antilles (the other islands), the West Indies were a principal cause and site of war and the exchange of islands by the British, French, Spanish, and Dutch. For most of the colonial period, the British West Indies consisted of Jamaica (conquered from the Spanish in 1655), Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica (after 1763), Grenada, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent. The French West Indies included Dominica (before 1763), Guadeloupe, Martinique, Montserrat, St. Croix, and St. Domingue or Haiti, the western third of the island of Hispaniola. After 1750, Haiti was the most productive of all the sugar colonies and responsible for over two-thirds of France’s overseas colonial trade. The principal Spanish islands were Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, and Trinidad. The main Dutch islands were Curacao, St. Eustatius, and Tobago. British, French, and Dutch Guyana (the latter known as Surinam) were also generally considered part of the West Indies, although they were on the mainland of South America. Trade with the West Indies was the main source of economic prosperity for the British colonies north of Maryland. British West Indies planters were some of the wealthiest people in the world; they purchased and controlled about 10 percent of the seats in Parliament by 1750, usually lived in England, and wielded enormous influence in politics. See also PIRATES; WEST INDIES TRADE. WEST INDIES TRADE. Part of the triangle trade, commerce between the northern colonies and the West Indies was the principal source of prosperity for the British colonies north of Maryland. Beginning in the 1630s, fish and grain were sent to the islands, which used nearly all their scarce land to grow sugar. It was much more profitable for them to import food from the mainland. In return, the northern colonies would take the sugar either back north or to England, or (if it had been processed into molasses) further process it into rum. They also supplied the West Indies with slaves and manufactured goods. Before the 1760s, the Acts of Trade and Navigation that required

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trade to be conducted only among British colonies were poorly enforced, thanks to bribery in the customs service. But widespread trading with the enemy during the French and Indian War, which may have kept some of the French West Indies from being starved into surrendering, angered British officials who began more rigorous enforcement following the war. The Sugar Act of 1764, which taxed all sugar imported into the northern colonies, and the establishment of colonial vice-admiralty courts to hear cases involving illegal trade were among the causes of the American Revolution. WEST JERSEY. See NEW JERSEY. WHITE PINE ACTS. Passed by Parliament in 1711, 1722, and 1729, the White Pine Acts reserved for the royal navy pine trees larger than twelve inches in diameter. The rationale for the law was the almost total deforestation of large trees in Britain and the need for a reliable source of masts for the world’s largest navy, which guaranteed British prosperity and security. A surveyor-general of the King’s Woods was appointed to serve in New Hampshire and Maine, where most of these trees were found. He could also hire deputies. The first surveyor, Jahleel Brenton, frequently clashed with settlers and the colonial legislatures and was unable to prosecute his cases successfully in colonial courts. By the 1740s, the acts had become a dead letter, as the new surveyor, New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth, himself a colonial who profited from the mast trade, did not enforce them. His nephew and successor, John Wentworth, was less tolerant. Efforts by Deputy Surveyor John Sherburn to enforce the act in the town of Weare in 1772 led to a riot, but the New Hampshire Superior Court let the rioters off with a light fine, again demonstrating the futility of the legislation except for aggravating tensions with Britain during the years preceding the Revolution. WHITE, JOHN (LATE 1500s). White’s activities are uncertain before 1585, although he may have belonged to the Painter-Stainer’s Company of London and executed the paintings of Inuits (Eskimos) on Martin Frobisher’s 1577 voyage to Canada. White was part of the Roanoke expedition to present-day North Carolina in 1585 and sketched the first English portraits of Indians on the North American continent, along with drawing maps and sketching the local terrain. His paintings were incorporated into Thomas Harriot’s A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, published in 1588. As used in the Flemish Theodore DeBry’s influential translation of Harriot’s book into Latin, French, English, and German editions, they became the most frequently used images of Indians in Europe at the time.

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In 1587, White was appointed governor of the colony, known as Virginia, to which he returned that year. His daughter Ellinor White Dare gave birth to Virginia Dare, the first child born in English North America that year. White left the colony in August 1587 to obtain supplies; when he returned in 1590, he found that all the colonists had left and only the word croatoan, the name of a nearby island and group of Indians, carved on a tree. White’s later life is not known; his accounts and paintings were incorporated into Richard Hakluyt’s writings about North America. WHITEFIELD, GEORGE (16 DECEMBER 1714–30 SEPTEMBER 1770). Son of an innkeeper, Whitefield studied at Oxford University where he became a fervent Christian thanks to the influence of Charles and John Wesley. He became a minister and then a missionary to Georgia, where he arrived in 1738. He determined to raise money for an orphanage in Savannah and returned to England, where his charismatic preaching attracted both 1,000 pounds sterling in funds and large crowds whom he converted into true believers. In November 1739, he went to Philadelphia, where once again he drew crowds estimated at up to 20,000 people. He was a powerful catalyst in the Great Awakening, preaching to both whites and blacks and encouraging masters to evangelize their slaves. He impressed Benjamin Franklin and formed a lifetime friendship with him. Whitefield traveled throughout the colonies between 1739 and 1741, becoming the first person to achieve intercolonial fame from New England to Georgia. Although he was and always remained an Anglican, his emphasis on the need for sinful believers to repent offended some members of that church, as did his nondenominational services outside institutionalized churches. Alexander Garden, representative of the bishop of London in South Carolina, ordered him to stop preaching, but both Whitefield and his numerous followers ignored this. Whitefield’s orphanage was established in Bethesda, Georgia. His popularity encouraged him to make five more trips to America in 1744, 1751, 1754, 1763, and 1769. He supported America’s cause when Britain levied the Stamp Act and other new regulations in the 1760s. He died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was buried at the First Presbyterian Church there as a sign of his desire to break down denominational boundaries. WIGGLESWORTH, MICHAEL (18 OCTOBER 1631–10 JUNE 1705). Harvard College graduate and Puritan minister of Malden, Massachusetts, Wigglesworth penned three notable poetic works: The Day of Doom (1662), his most popular, which depicted the woes of the Last Judgment for the sinful; God’s Controversy with New England, not published until 1875,

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a jeremiad that complained of declension in Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies; and Meat Out of the Eater; or, Meditations Concerning the Necessity, End, and Usefulness of Afflictions unto God’s Children (1670), which urged self-examination and repentance. He is considered, with Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor, one of the three most important early New England poets. See also LITERATURE. WILLIAM III, KING OF ENGLAND (14 NOVEMBER 1650–8 MARCH 1702). Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic beginning in 1672, William married Mary, daughter of the future King James II of England, in 1677. In 1688, he was invited by Parliament to replace James during the Glorious Revolution and invaded England with an army from which James fled. While repudiating James’s efforts to govern the colonies without colonial assemblies, as in the Dominion of New England, William reappointed governors such as Francis Nicholson and Edmund Andros, who had supported James’s vision of a militarily strong, centralized empire. His appointees suppressed Leisler’s Rebellion in New York. Only in New England, which had proven its loyalty by attempting to conquer Quebec (Canada), did he allow local leaders to continue in power. WILLIAMS, ROGER (1603?–1683). A clergyman, founder of Rhode Island, and supporter of religious toleration and political freedom, Williams was the son of a London merchant. He decided as a teenager to pursue a more genuine spirituality than the standard Anglican practice. He attended Cambridge University thanks to the patronage of Sir Edward Coke, the leading jurist of the day. Williams became acquainted with leading Puritans while serving as chaplain to Sir William Masham and immigrated to Massachusetts in 1631. He declined the post as teacher in Boston and became pastor of the church at Salem. Williams soon openly criticized the leading Puritans as lacking in real godliness and condemned them for taking land from the Indians without proper compensation as well. He also believed that the government was insufficiently holy to impose religious discipline on others. In 1635 he was banished from Massachusetts; in 1636 he left for what became Providence, Rhode Island, with several followers. There, Williams was welcomed by the Narragansett Indians. He treated the Narragansetts with true brotherhood and published A Key into the Language of America (1643), which included a dictionary of the Narragansett language and a sympathetic description of their customs. Rhode Island became a refuge for other dissidents from Massachusetts, who were attracted by Williams’s insistence that since true salvation could not be determined by anyone on earth, it was hypocrisy for the state to control religious

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worship in any form. His most famous works were The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644) and The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody (1652), which explained why persecution was counterproductive and refuted Puritan preacher John Cotton’s defense of a state religion on the grounds that it was necessary for social order. Williams believed that all property owners who acknowledged Christianity should be allowed to participate in the government. Eventually, Williams himself renounced all organized religion and prayed only with his wife. In 1651, Williams spent three years in England trying to obtain a royal charter confirming the independence of the four settlements that became the colony of Rhode Island. It was finally granted in 1663 by King Charles II, who approved of its anti-Puritanism and religious liberty. In his final years, Williams lent his support to New England’s defense against the Indians in King Philip’s War. Although he criticized the Quakers’ beliefs as tending to immorality, he never persecuted them. See also CODDINGTON, WILLIAM; HAYNES, JOHN. WILLIAMSBURG. Laid out as the Middle Plantation of Virginia in 1634, the site of the future town of Williamsburg became significant when the colony decided to place its College of William and Mary there in 1693. In 1699, after the capital of Jamestown burned for the second time, the colonial legislature also decided to relocate the capital to Williamsburg and named the town in honor of King William III. As Virginia’s export economy consisted almost solely of selling tobacco off the docks of plantations that were largely self-sufficient, there was no real need for a town or city except as a site for the legislature to meet and leading inhabitants to socialize. Aside from the governor’s palace, the legislative building, and the college, much of the town consisted of taverns where the elite would meet to pass laws and enjoy entertainments such as horse racing, cockfighting, and the theater. See also PLAY AND AMUSEMENTS. WINGFIELD, EDWARD (BEFORE 1570–AFTER 1612). A gentleman who fought for England in Ireland and elsewhere beginning in the 1580s, Wingfield invested in the Virginia Company and was the only member of its council to go to Jamestown on the initial voyage in 1607. After four months as head of the local council, he was deposed and imprisoned by its other members following a time of hunger, unrest, and quarrels with the Indians. He was sent back to England by his successor Christopher Newport in 1608. His Discourse on Virginia, which remained unpublished until 1860, is the best account of the colony’s first days and takes issue with John Smith’s narrative that disputes Wingfield’s competence.

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WINTHROP, FITZ-JOHN (14 MARCH 1638–27 NOVEMBER 1707). Son of John Winthrop, Jr., Fitz-John Winthrop lived in New London, Connecticut. By the 1680s, he was a moderate who realized that Puritan rule was coming to an end and served with his brother, Wait Still Winthrop, on the council of the Dominion of New England. In 1690, he commanded an ill-fated expedition against Montreal that was supposed to coordinate with Sir William Phips’s unsuccessful campaign to conquer Quebec (Canada). In 1693, he went to England where he successfully preserved Connecticut’s charter. For this achievement, he was elected governor of Connecticut in 1698 and served for the rest of his life. WINTHROP, JOHN (12 JANUARY 1588–26 MARCH 1649). John Winthrop was born in Suffolk, England, the son of a manor lord. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and became a prominent attorney. He was a convert to Puritanism and decided to immigrate to Massachusetts in 1629. The Massachusetts Bay Company elected him governor, and he arrived in the New World on 12 June 1630. Shortly thereafter, he delivered the famous sermon “A Model of Christian Charity,” in which he described the new colony as a “city upon a hill.” It would either demonstrate the faithfulness of God’s chosen people to all the world or else be a terrible example of a sinful community that broke its covenant with God to behave righteously. He predicted the future greatness of his society if it fulfilled the covenant. Winthrop was elected governor of Massachusetts from 1629 to 1634, 1637 to 1640, 1642 to 1644, and 1646 to 1649, and was either deputy governor or a member of the court of assistants (council) during all other years. The Puritans accepted Winthrop’s belief that a small, well-educated class of rulers ought to be obeyed if they kept the popular welfare paramount. Winthrop led the colony in expelling dissidents such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson and their followers, but in general he kept the peace among Puritans who disagreed among themselves as to what standard of godly conduct ought to be required for church membership and the right to participate in the government. His manuscript History of New England, based on his journal, first published in 1825, is the principal source for much of early Massachusetts history. WINTHROP, JOHN, JR. (12 FEBRUARY 1606–5 APRIL 1676). Son of Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, Jr., came to America in 1631. Beginning in 1635 he began to settle the town of Saybrook in what became Connecticut, although he was also involved in developing the saltworks at Beverly and the ironworks at Saugus in Massachusetts. He was chosen governor of Connecticut in 1657 and annually until his death.

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In 1662, he was responsible for persuading King Charles II to grant Connecticut the self-governing charter it retained throughout the colonial era. He was a charter member of the Royal Society, Great Britain’s leading scientific and learned organization founded in 1663, and its principal correspondent in North America. Among his scientific interests was astronomy; he donated a telescope to Harvard College in 1671. His library of about 1,000 books was one of the largest, if not the largest, in the colonies at the time of his death. WISE, JOHN (AUGUST 1652–8 APRIL 1725). Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, to a farming family, Wise periodically stood at the forefront of the leading political and religious controversies in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1673 and served as minister of the second parish of the town of Ipswich from 1682 until his death. In 1687, he was jailed for three weeks and fined 50 pounds for promoting disobedience when he protested the levying of taxes without a legislature by Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion of New England. Wise maintained that “the laws of England,” including the right to select representatives to impose taxes, “follow us to the ends of the earth.” Later, he wrote The Churches Quarrel Espoused (1710) and A Vindication of the Government of New-England Churches (1717), which insisted that each congregation should be free to decide its own religious matters. He opposed the uniformity that Puritan ministers like Cotton Mather and Increase Mather were trying to maintain as “cooked in the Pope’s kitchen,” but he also challenged the tolerant liberalism of John Leverett and other members of the Harvard faculty. Finally, in 1721, Wise published A Word of Comfort to a Melancholy Country and A Letter to an Eminent Clergyman in Massachusetts Bay in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the Massachusetts legislature to adopt a new system of currency based on a land bank. WITCHCRAFT. During the Middle Ages, there were few accusations of witchcraft in Europe. Christianity had not attempted to eradicate traditional folk practices, such as the preparation of potions or the making of small figures for the purpose of curing diseases or causing harm to someone who was disliked. The publication of Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer for Witches, by two German inquisitors in 1487 signified a change in the Roman Catholic Church’s attitude that many practices formerly tolerated would be regarded as witchcraft. Malleus Maleficarum pointed out how witches could be identified through such items as spots on the body that did not feel pain or an inability to recite the Lord’s Prayer. The new Protestant churches also believed in witches. Accusations rose along with the struggle between the two religions; members of the opposite religion were frequently accused of

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consorting with Satan. So were people in border areas that the emerging centralized states were trying to control; Scotland and the mountains of southern Germany were especially noted for prosecutions. Most accused witches were women, and the persecutions also had the gendered effect of eliminating assertive women and those who had hitherto achieved high status on the grounds that they were practitioners of magic. In colonial America, all of 234 accusations and 36 executions for witchcraft occurred in the Puritan colonies of Massachusetts, New Haven, and Connecticut. Of these, 154 accusations and 20 executions occurred during the Salem witch trials of 1692. This marked the last time anyone was executed for witchcraft in colonial British America. The Puritans were far more apt to find evil forces at work than other colonists because of their strict morality, as well as because of their belief that as a special people chosen by God they were also given special attention by the devil, who was trying to undermine their society. New Haven, as the strictest Puritan colony, had the most witchcraft executions before Salem. WOLFE, JAMES (2 JANUARY 1727–13 SEPTEMBER 1759). Son of a colonel in the British army, Wolfe entered the military at the age of 13 and served in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) in Europe and in putting down the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland in 1745. Sent to America during the French and Indian War, he was second-in-command to Sir Jeffrey Amherst in 1758 when the British captured Louisbourg, and he was chosen to command the assault on Quebec the following year when Amherst was promoted to commander in chief in North America. Wolfe’s protracted bombardment of the highly fortified city failed, but he was able to land his troops west of the city, scale the cliffs in front of its walls, and emerge on the Plains of Abraham. The French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, left his defenses to meet Wolfe in the open, where his predominantly Indian and Canadian troops had little chance against the British regulars. Wolfe, like Montcalm, was killed in the decisive battle, which determined that the British would rule North America. WOMEN. Except for the early-17th-century southern colonies, numbers of male and female immigrants were approximately equal in British colonial America, making it possible for nearly all people to marry and have families. Women in colonial America performed household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, making and mending clothes, and caring for children. They usually provided medical care either informally or as midwives. Except for upperclass and some middle-class women, they were also available to work in the fields or shops alongside their husbands.

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Nearly all colonial women married, usually in their late teens or early twenties, and families typically had four or more children who usually survived infancy. Women had certain legal rights: their husbands were allowed to chastise them physically but could not do so excessively. In law, the principle of femme covert applied, which meant that married women’s property was controlled by their husbands. However, if they were widows or single women who had inherited property, they were allowed to manage it without a guardian. Inheritance laws guaranteed women a third of their husband’s estate if there were children and he died without a will. Widows who chose not to remarry operated many of the taverns in America and took over businesses such as newspapers. Divorce was permitted in the New England colonies on grounds of infidelity, brutality, and the failure of a spouse to consummate the marriage. Divorce was not permitted where the Anglican Church was established, but husbands were criminally and civilly liable for their abusive actions. Unlike in the 19th century, when women were regarded as paragons of moral virtue, the nature of women in the colonial period was considered to be fickle, emotional, and liable to tempt men into sexual indiscretions. However, women were supposed to control these impulses and be good models for their children and helpmates to their husbands. Opportunities for most women, unless they were widows managing their husbands’ businesses, were generally limited to literature or serving as interpreters if they had the linguistic skills and political connections. Some became writers, such as the poet Anne Bradstreet or the diarist Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker. But even here their achievements were private rather than public; Bradstreet’s poems were published by her brother, and Drinker’s diary remained in manuscript until 1889. Other women, such as Madame Montour and Mary Musgrove, were able to parlay women’s superior status in Indian society into the ability to be negotiators between Indian and white cultures. (Among the Indians, lineage was usually handed down through women, who were respected as guardians of hearth and home and whose advice the men were obliged to take on important decisions.) That so few people spoke other languages greatly enhanced opportunities for those who could. Women who tried to exercise political or religious agency (in mainstream religions), such as Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchinson, were (respectively) executed or exiled. Only among the Moravians and Quakers, which attracted a large number of women converts for this very reason, did women acquire authority as members of religious communities. The convents in the Spanish and French empires similarly offered women a chance to govern themselves and educate others.

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WOODMASON, CHARLES (1720?–1776?). A South Carolina planter who became an itinerant lay preacher for the Anglican Church, Woodmason spent most of his preaching time on the North Carolina frontier. There he tried with little success to persuade the mostly New Light Presbyterians who were supporters of the Great Awakening to conform to his church. He is most noted for his journal, which describes in a very negative, yet lively and frequently hilarious, way the sexual and social mores of the backcountry settlers. WOOLMAN, JOHN (19 OCTOBER 1720–7 OCTOBER 1772). A Quaker born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, Woolman became convinced at a young age of the evil of slavery. In 1746 he began traveling throughout the colonies, staying with Quakers and preaching his antislavery beliefs. He published Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes in 1754 with a second part in 1762. His efforts led in 1758 to the Philadelphia Yearly Quaker Meeting urging members to free their slaves and visiting slaveholders who did not to ensure decent treatment. Woolman also visited the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, where he tried to stop the exploitation of Indians through alcohol sales and shady land transactions. He wrote A Plea for the Poor (1763), in which he argued that purchase and use of luxuries can only come about through the exploitation of the poor. His journal is also an important account of his efforts and of social life in the colonies. He died of smallpox almost immediately after arriving in England on his first trip overseas. See also BENEZET, ANTHONY; LAY, BENJAMIN; POVERTY. WRIGHT, JAMES (8 MAY 1716–20 NOVEMBER 1785). Son of an English lawyer, James Wright trained in that profession. He came to South Carolina when his father was appointed chief justice, and he served as that province’s attorney general (1747–1757) and agent (1757–1760), after which he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Georgia. He became governor of South Carolina in 1761 and served until the American Revolution forced him out in 1776, although he returned in 1779 as head of a loyalist government supported by British forces that endured in Savannah until 1782. Wright was a large Georgia landowner and popular with the people, even ensuring that Georgia was the only colony that accepted the stamps stipulated by the Stamp Act in 1765. But he was soon undone by colonial opposition to further British measures. WRITS OF ASSISTANCE. Search warrants that courts granted to customs officials allowing them to search for illegal goods brought into America contrary to the Acts of Trade and Navigation were called writs of assistance.

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As that name suggested, these officers could require assistance from other inhabitants for this task. The writs were general warrants, which meant the customs officers could search wherever they wanted. In 1761, Massachusetts merchants, angry that the local officials had been very zealous in searching for contraband, hired attorney James Otis, Jr., to challenge the writs in court. His argument that they were unconstitutional according to British law did not persuade the Massachusetts Superior Court, whose chief justice Thomas Hutchinson simply sent word to England, found out the writs were in use there, and assumed his court had a similar power to grant them. Yet, even some British lawyers disputed the writs’ legality, and in 1767 Parliament passed a statute affirming that they were in fact valid. However, their unpopularity in the colonies, and the harassment of customs officials who obtained them, meant they were seldom used. Dislike of the writs was a major reason the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution requires warrants to have probable cause and to specify the person or places to be searched and seized. See also IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION; LEGAL SYSTEM. WYATT, SIR FRANCIS (1588–AUGUST 1644). The most successful governor of early Virginia, Wyatt served from 1621 to 1626, supporting the recently formed colonial assembly and organizing a successful defense during the 1622 war against Opechancanough and the Powhatan Indians. At the colony’s request, he remained in power even after Virginia became a royal colony in 1624 with the dissolution of the Virginia Company. He returned to Virginia as governor in 1639, where he again ruled in harmony with the colonists until 1643.

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Y YALE COLLEGE. Founded in 1701 in Connecticut by Puritan ministers who thought Harvard College was too lax in upholding their religious ideals, Yale was originally called the Collegiate School. In 1718, it moved to its fourth and final location in New Haven and was named Yale College after the British merchant Elihu Yale, who donated both money and over 400 books to the institution. Under Thomas Clap, who served as rector or president from 1740 to 1767, the college remained a bastion of orthodoxy and resisted the Great Awakening. Ironically, Jonathan Edwards, a leader in the Awakening, was its most prominent graduate in the colonial era. YAMASEE WAR. Although named after this group of Indians, the Yamasee War occurred when a coalition of tribes including the Creeks, Cherokees, and Catawbas attacked South Carolina. The colony had been encroaching on their lands, selling Indians as slaves, and trading dishonestly so that many Indians were in debt to European traders. The Indians attacked widely from 1715 to 1717, killing about 7 percent of the slave and free population. The war petered out after 1716, when South Carolina formed a professional army including both slaves and free men and made an alliance with the Creeks and Catawbas, whom they used against the other Indians. Sporadic attacks along the frontier continued into the 1720s. See also CRAVEN, CHARLES. YEARDLEY, SIR GEORGE (JULY 1587–12 NOVEMBER 1627). Arriving in Virginia as a poor employee of the Virginia Company in 1610, Yeardley prospered and was appointed governor in 1618. He took office in 1619, the year when the first women and blacks (who were almost certainly indentured servants rather than slaves) came to the colony, and the assembly or House of Burgesses was instituted. He remained in the colony when his term expired in 1621 and became one of Virginia’s wealthiest tobacco planters. YORK, DUKE OF. See JAMES II, KING OF ENGLAND.

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Z ZENGER, JOHN PETER (1697–28 JULY 1746). Born in the Palatinate in Germany, Zenger came with his family to New York in 1710. He was apprenticed that year to Andrew Bradford, the only printer in New York. In 1719, he tried to open up a printing business in Chestertown, Maryland, but it failed; he then set up in New York in 1726 to compete with Bradford. Whereas Bradford was the government printer, Zenger printed materials for the opposition headed by former chief justice Lewis Morris, whom Governor William Cosby had dismissed from his post. In 1733, Zenger started a newspaper, the New-York Weekly Journal, as a rival to Bradford’s New York Gazette. The provincial council had four issues of Zenger’s paper burned that criticized Cosby for partisanship and corruption, and he spent eight months in prison for seditious libel before his case was heard in 1735. As the court disbarred New York lawyers who wanted to take his case, Zenger’s supporters brought in Andrew Hamilton from Philadelphia, who convinced the jury that they had the power to determine the law of the case (whether the writings were indeed seditious) as well as the facts (merely whether Zenger had printed them, with the judge’s ruling that they were seditious being unchallengeable). Hamilton and Zenger became symbols of free speech in both America and England after a narrative of the case was published. With a new governor, Zenger became the official printer for New York in 1737 and New Jersey in 1738. His widow operated his printing press and shop after he died until his son was old enough to take over. ZINZENDORF, NIKOLAUS LUDWIG, COUNT VON (26 MAY 1700–9 MAY 1760). Son of a Saxon nobleman, Zinzendorf inherited substantial estates but was raised by his grandmother as a Lutheran Pietist, attending their school at Halle and then the University of Wittenberg. In 1722 he began receiving Protestant refugees from Roman Catholic persecution in Moravia who followed the teachings of the pre-Lutheran reformer Jan Hus. They were known as the Unitas Fratum (United Brethren) or Moravians. Zinzendorf became their leader, funding their missions, which they believed their religion required them to undertake, to the West Indies, India, and, in 1741,

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ZUNI

Pennsylvania. In 1736, Zinzendorf was exiled from Saxony for his patronage of the Moravians. He founded the town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 1742, and while he only remained a little over a year, he made a treaty with the Iroquois ensuring its peaceful survival. He thus firmly established the Moravian community that would go on to found numerous missions to the Indians throughout what became the United States. ZUNI. The Zuni were a group of Pueblo Indians whom the Spanish first encountered in 1539 in present-day New Mexico. Reports that they lived in the Seven Cities of Gold (Cibola) were the basis of Francisco Coronado’s expedition in 1540. They later submitted to the Spaniards, rebelled during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and lived after its conclusion in possession of most of their traditional customs while practicing a nominal Christianity until the United States conquest in the 19th century.

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Appendix 1 Estimated Colonial Population

Note: Total population is by colony and date; estimated black population is in parentheses. Connecticut (including New Haven in 1650) 1650 1700 1750 1770

4,000 (25) 26,000 (450) 111,000 (3,000) 183,000 (6,000)

Delaware (New Sweden in 1650) 1650 1700 1750 1770

300 (15) 2,500 (500) 29,000 (1,500) 35,000 (1,800)

Georgia 1650 1700 1750 1770

— — 5,200 (1,000) 24,000 (11,000)

Maryland 1650 1700 1750 1770

4,500 (300) 30,000 (3,000) 141,000 (24,000) 203,000 (64,000)

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Massachusetts (including Maine and Plymouth) 1650 1700 1750 1770

17,000 (300) 56,000 (800) 188,000 (2,800) 266,000 (5,200)

New Hampshire 1650 1700 1750 1770

1,300 (40) 5,000 (130) 28,000 (550) 62,000 (650)

New Jersey 1650 1700 1750 1770

— 14,000 (800) 71,000 (5,300) 117,000 (8,200)

New York (New Netherland for 1650) 1650 1700 1750 1770

4,000 (500) 19,000 (2,200) 76,000 (11,000) 163,000 (19,000)

North Carolina 1650 1700 1750 1770

— 5,700 (400) 72,000 (20,000) 197,000 (70,000)

Pennsylvania (New Sweden for 1650) 1650 1700 1750 1770

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300 (0) 18,000 (400) 120,000 (3,000) 240,000 (5,800)

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Rhode Island 1650 1700 1750 1770

800 (25) 6,000 (300) 33,000 (3,300) 58.000 (3,800)

South Carolina 1650 1700 1750 1770

— 5,700 (2,400) 64,000 (39,000) 125,000 (75,000)

Virginia 1650 1700 1750 1770

18,000 (400) 59,000 (16,000) 231,000 (101,000) 448,000 (187,000)

Note on population: All population estimates are very approximate before the first federal census of 1790. These are taken from Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970), with the updated version (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006) taken into account.

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Appendix 2 Colonial Governors

Note: Colonial governors present in the colony are listed; otherwise lieutenantgovernors or acting governors are indicated by * when they took their places.

Connecticut John Haynes 1639–1640 Edward Hopkins 1640–1641 John Haynes 1641–1642 George Wyllys 1642–1643 John Haynes 1643–1644 Edward Hopkins 1644–1645 John Haynes 1645–1646 Edward Hopkins 1646–1647 John Haynes 1647–1648 Edward Hopkins 1648–1649 John Haynes 1649–1650 Edward Hopkins 1650–1651 John Haynes 1651–1652 Edward Hopkins 1652–1653 John Haynes 1653–1654 Edward Hopkins 1654–1655 Thomas Welles 1655–1656 John Webster 1656–1657 John Winthrop, Jr. 1657–1658 Thomas Welles 1658–1659 John Winthrop, Jr. 1659–1676 William Leete 1676–1683 Robert Treat 1683–1687 Sir Edmund Andros 1687–1689 Robert Treat 1689–1698 Fitz-John Winthrop 1698–1707 Gurdon Saltonstall 1708–1724 Joseph Talcott 1724–1741 273

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APPENDIX 2

Jonathan Law 1741–1750 Roger Wolcott 1750–1754 Thomas Fitch 1754–1766 William Pitkin 1766–1769 Jonathan Trumbull 1769–1784 New Haven Theophilus Eaton 1638–1658 William Leete 1658–1665 (then part of Connecticut) Delaware (same governors as Pennsylvania) Georgia President of Trustees

James Oglethorpe 1732–1751 William Stephens 1751 Henry Parker 1751–1752 Patrick Graham 1752–1754 Governors

John Reynolds 1754–1760 Henry Ellis 1757–1760 James Wright 1760–1776 Maryland Leonard Calvert 1634–1647 Thomas Greene 1647–1649 William Stone 1649–1656 Josias Fendall 1657–1660 Philip Calvert 1660 Charles Calvert, Third Lord Baltimore 1661–1676 Thomas Notley 1676–1679 Charles Calvert, Third Lord Baltimore 1679–1684

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COLONIAL GOVERNORS

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Governor’s Council 1684–1688 William Joseph 1688–1689 John Coode 1689–1690 Nehemiah Blakiston 1690–1692 Sir Lionel Copley 1692–1693 Sir Thomas Lawrence 1693–1694 Sir Francis Nicholson 1694–1699 Nathaniel Blakiston 1699–1702 Thomas Tench 1702–1704 John Seymour 1704–1709 Edward Lloyd 1709–1714 John Hart 1714–1720 Charles Calvert 1720–1727 Benedict Leonard Calvert 1727–1731 Samuel Ogle 1731–1732 Charles Calvert, Fifth Lord Baltimore 1732–1733 Samuel Ogle 1733–1742 Thomas Bladen 1742–1746 Samuel Ogle 1746–1752 Benjamin Tasker 1752–1753 Horatio Sharpe 1753–1769 Sir Robert Eden 1769–1776 Massachusetts Matthew Craddock 1629 John Endecott 1629–1630 John Winthrop 1630–1634 Joseph Dudley 1634–1635 John Haynes 1635–1636 Henry Vane 1636–1637 John Winthrop 1637–1639 Thomas Dudley 1640–1641 Richard Bellingham 1641–1642 John Winthrop 1642–1644 John Endecott 1644–1645 Thomas Dudley 1645–1646 John Winthrop 1646–1648 John Endecott 1649–1650 Thomas Dudley 1650–1651

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APPENDIX 2

John Endecott 1651–1654 Richard Bellingham 1654–1655 John Endecott 1655–1665 Richard Bellingham 1665–1673 John Leverett 1673–1679 Simon Bradstreet 1679–1686 Joseph Dudley 1686 Sir Edmund Andros 1686–1689 Simon Bradstreet 1689–1692 Sir William Phips 1692–1694 William Stoughton* 1694–1699 Earl of Bellomont 1699–1700 William Stoughton* 1700–1701 Joseph Dudley 1702–1715 William Tailer* 1715–1716 Samuel Shute 1716–1723 William Dummer* 1723–1728 William Burnet 1729–1730 Jonathan Belcher 1730–1741 William Shirley 1741–1749 Spencer Phips* 1749–1753 William Shirley 1753–1756 Spencer Phips* 1756–1757 Thomas Pownall 1757–1760 Francis Bernard 1760–1769 Thomas Hutchinson 1769–1774 Thomas Gage 1774–1775 Plymouth John Carver 1620–1621 William Bradford 1621–1632 Edward Winslow 1633 Thomas Prence 1634 William Bradford 1635 Edward Winslow 1636 William Bradford 1637 Thomas Prence 1638 William Bradford 1639–1643 Edward Winslow 1644 William Bradford 1645–1656

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COLONIAL GOVERNORS

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Thomas Prence 1657–1672 Josiah Winslow 1673–1679 Thomas Hinckley 1679–1692 (see Massachusetts) (Except for Dominion of New England, 1686–1689, see Massachusetts.) New Hampshire Lieutenant-Governors (Governor was Governor of Massachusetts)

John Cutt 1680–1681 Richard Waldron 1681–1682 Edward Cranfield 1682–1685 Walter Barefoote 1685–1686 Governors

Joseph Dudley 1686–1687 Sir Edmund Andros 1687–1689 Simon Bradstreet 1689–1692 Lieutenant-Governors (Governor was Governor of Massachusetts)

John Usher 1692–1697 William Patridge 1697–1698 Samuel Allen 1698–1699 William Patridge 1699–1702 John Usher 1702–1715 George Vaughan 1715–1717 John Wentworth 1717–1730 Daniel Dunbar 1731–1741 Governors of New Hampshire

Benning Wentworth 1741–1766 John Wentworth 1766–1775 New Jersey Under the Proprietors

Philip Carteret 1665–1672 John Berry 1672–1673 Anthony Colve 1673–1674

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APPENDIX 2

Governors of East Jersey

Philip Carteret 1674–1682 Robert Barclay 1682–1688 Sir Edmund Andros 1688–1689 Andrew Hamilton 1692–1697 Jeremiah Basse 1698–1699 Andrew Hamilton 1699–1702 Governors of West Jersey

Edward Byllynge 1680–1687 Daniel Coxe 1687–1688 Sir Edmund Andros 1688–1689 Andrew Hamilton 1692–1697 Jeremiah Basse 1697–1699 Andrew Hamilton 1699–1702 Governors of New Jersey same as New York, 1702–1738 Governors of New Jersey

Lewis Morris 1738–1746 Jonathan Belcher 1747–1757 Francis Bernard 1758–1760 Thomas Boone 1760–1761 Josiah Hardy 1761–1763 William Franklin 1763–1776 New Netherland Director General

Cornelis Jacobszoon 1624–1625 Willem Verhulst 1625–1626 Peter Minuit 1626–1632 Sebastiaen Krol 1632–1633 Wouter van Twiller 1633–1639 Willem Kieft 1639–1647 Pietr Stuyvesant 1647–1664 (New Netherland then became New York.)

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New York Richard Nicolls 1664–1668 Francis Lovelace 1668–1672 Sir Edmund Andros 1674–1681 Thomas Dongan 1683–1688 Francis Nicholson* 1689–1691 Jacob Leisler 1689–1691 Henry Sloughter 1691 Richard Ingoldsby* 1691–1692 Benjamin Fletcher 1692–1697 Earl of Bellomont 1698–1701 Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury 1702–1709 Robert Hunter 1710–1718 William Burnet 1720–1728 John Montgomerie 1728–1731 William Cosby 1732–1737 George Clarke* 1736–1743 George Clinton 1743–1753 James DeLancey* 1753–1755 Sir Charles Hardy 1755–1758 James DeLancey* 1758–1760 Cadwallader Colden* 1760–1762 Robert Monckton 1762–1763 Cadwallader Colden* 1763–1765 Henry Moore 1765–1769 Cadwallader Colden* 1769–1770 John Murray 1770–1771 William Tryon 1771–1776

North Carolina Lieutenant-Governors of Albemarle Sound, Region of Carolina

William Drummond 1664–1667 Samuel Stephens 1667–1669 Peter Carteret 1670–1672 John Jenkins 1672–1675 Thomas Eastchurch 1675–1676 John Jenkins 1676–1677

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APPENDIX 2

Thomas Miller 1677 Interregnum 1677–1679 John Harvey 1679 Interregnum 1679–1680 John Jenkins 1680–1681 Seth Sothel 1682–1689 John Gibbs 1689–1690 Thomas Jarvis 1690–1694 Thomas Harvey 1694–1699 Henderson Walker 1699–1703 Robert Daniell 1703–1705 Thomas Cary 1701–1711 William Glover 1706–1710 (Cary and Glover disputed the post.) Governors of North Carolina

Edward Hyde 1711–1712 Thomas Pollock* 1712–1714 Charles Eden 1714–1722 Thomas Pollock* 1722–1724 William Reed* 1722–1724 George Burrington 1724–1731 Richard Everard 1725–1731 George Burrington 1731–1734 Gabriel Johnston 1734–1752 Arthur Dobbs 1753–1765 William Tryon 1765–1771 Josiah Martin 1771–1775 Pennsylvania William Markham* 1681–1682 William Penn 1682–1684 Thomas Lloyd* 1684–1688 John Blackwell* 1688–1690 Thomas Lloyd* 1690–1691 William Markham* 1691–1694 Samuel Carpenter* 1694–1699 William Penn 1699–1701 Andrew Hamilton* 1701–1704 John Evans* 1704–1709

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COLONIAL GOVERNORS

• 281

Charles Gookin* 1709–1717 William Keith* 1717–1726 Patrick Gordon* 1726–1736 James Logan* 1736–1738 George Thomas* 1738–1747 James Hamilton* 1748–1754 Robert Hunter Morris* 1754–1756 William Denny* 1756–1759 James Hamilton* 1759–1763 John Penn* 1763–1771 Richard Penn* 1771–1776 John Penn* 1776 New Sweden Peter Minuit 1637–1638 Mans Nilsson Kling 1638–1643 Johan Printz 1653–1654 John Papagoja* 1653–1654 John Rinsigh 1654–1655 (New Sweden was conquered by New Netherland.) Rhode Island Presidents under the Patent of 1643

Roger Williams 1644–1647 John Coggeshall 1647–1648 Jeremy Clarke 1648–1649 John Smith 1649–1650 Nicholast Easton 1650–1651 Samuel Gorton 1651–1652 John Smith 1652–1653 Gregory Dexter 1653–1654 Nicholas Easton 1654 Roger Williams 1654–1657 Benedict Arnold 1657–1660 William Brenton 1660–1662 Governors under Royal Charter

Benedict Arnold 1662–1666 William Brenton 1666–1669

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APPENDIX 2

Benedict Arnold 1669–1672 Nicholas Easton 1672–1674 William Coddington 1674–1676 Walter Clarke 1676–1677 Benedict Arnold 1677–1678 William Coddington 1678 John Cranston 1678–1680 Peleg Sanford 1680–1683 William Coddington, Jr. 1683–1685 Henry Bull 1685–1686 Walter Clarke 1686 Sir Edmund Andros 1686–1689 Henry Bull 1690 John Easton 1690–1695 Caleb Carr 1695 Walter Clarke 1696–1698 Samuel Cranston 1698–1727 Joseph Jenckes 1727–1732 William Wanton 1732–1733 John Wanton 1734–1740 Richard Ward 1740–1743 William Greene 1743–1745 Gideon Wanton 1745–1746 William Greene 1746–1747 Gideon Wanton 1747–1748 Arthur Fenner 1748–1755 Stephen Hopkins 1755–1757 William Greene 1757–1758 Stephen Hopkins 1758–1762 Samuel Ward 1762–1763 Stephen Hopkins 1763–1765 Samuel Ward 1765–1767 Stephen Hopkins 1767–1768 Josias Lyndon 1768–1769 Joseph Wanton 1769–1775 South Carolina William Sayle 1670–1671 Joseph West 1671–1672 Sir John Yeamans 1672–1674 Joseph West 1674–1682

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COLONIAL GOVERNORS

• 283

Joseph Morton 1682–1684 Joseph West 1684–1685 Joseph Morton 1685–1686 James Collegeon 1686–1690 Seth Sothell 1690–1692 Philip Ludwell 1692–1693 Thomas Smith 1693–1694 Joseph Blake 1694–1695 John Archdale 1695–1696 Joseph Blake 1696–1700 James Moore 1700–1703 Nathaniel Johnson 1703–1709 Edward Thynte 1709–1710 Robert Gigges 1710–1712 Charles Craven 1712–1716 Robert Daniell 1716–1717 Robert Johnson 1717–1719 James Moore II 1719–1721 Francis Nicholson 1721–1725 Arthur Middleton* 1726–1730 Robert Johnson 1730–1735 Thomas Broughton* 1735–1737 William Bull* 1737–1743 James Glen 1743–1756 William Henry Lyttleton 1756–1760 William Bull II* 1760–1761 Thomas Boone 1761–1764 William Bull II* 1764–1766 Charles Greville Montagu 1766–1769 William Bull II* 1769–1771 Charles Greville Montagu 1771–1773 William Campbell 1775 Virginia Virginia Company

Edward Maria Wingfield 1607 John Ratcliffe 1608 Matthew Scrivener 1608 John Smith 1608–1609 George Percy 1609–1610

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APPENDIX 2

Sir Thomas Gates 1610 Baron De La Warr 1610–1611 George Percy 1611 Sir Thomas Dale 1611 Sir Thomas Gates 1611–1614 Sir Thomas Dale 1614–1616 Sir George Yeardley 1616–1617 Sir Samuel Argall 1617–1619 Sir George Yeardley 1619–1621 Royal Charter as of 1624

Sir Francis Wyatt 1621–1626 Sir George Yeardley 1626–1627 Francis West 1627–1629 John Potts 1629–1630 Sir John Harvey 1630–1635 John West 1635–1637 Sir John Harvey 1637–1639 Sir Francis Wyatt 1639–1642 Sir William Berkeley 1642–1652 Richard Bennett 1652–1655 Edward Digges 1655–1656 Samuel Mathews 1656–1660 Sir William Berkeley 1660–1677 Thomas Culpeper 1677–1683 Nicholas Spencer 1683 Baron Francis Howard 1684–1692 Sir Edmund Andros 1692–1698 Francis Nicholson 1698–1705 Edmund Jennings 1706–1708 Robert Hunter 1708–1709 Alexander Spotswood* 1710–1722 Hugh Drysdale* 1722–1726 Sir William Gooch* 1727–1749 Thomas Lee* 1749–1751 Robert Dinwiddie* 1751–1758 Francis Fauquier* 1758–1768 Baron de Botetourt 1768–1770 William Nelson 1770–1771 Earl of Dunmore 1771–1775

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Appendix 3 Monarchs of England (after 1707, of Great Britain)

Henry VII 1491–1509 Henry VIII 1509–1546 Edward VI 1546–1553 Mary I 1553–1558 Elizabeth I 1558–1603 James I 1603–1625 Charles I 1625–1649 Interregnum 1649–1653 Oliver Cromwell 1653–1658 Richard Cromwell 1658–1659 Charles II 1660–1685 James II 1685–1688 William III 1688–1702 Mary II 1688–1694 Anne 1702–1714 George I 1714–1727 George II 1727–1760 George III 1760–1820

285

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Appendix 4 British Prime Ministers

Sir Robert Walpole 1721–1742 Spencer Compton 1742–1743 Henry Pelham 1743–1754 Duke of Newcastle 1754–1756 Duke of Devonshire 1756–1757 Duke of Newcastle (House of Lords) 1757–1762 William Pitt (House of Commons) 1757–1762 Earl of Bute 1762–1763 George Grenville 1763–1765 Marquis of Rockingham 1765–1766 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 1766–1768 Duke of Grafton 1768–1770 Lord North 1770–1782

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Bibliography

CONTENTS Introduction Bibliographies Primary Sources Published Colonial and Public Records General Collections Connecticut (Including New Haven) Delaware (Including New Sweden) Georgia Maryland Massachusetts (Including Maine) New Hampshire New Jersey New York (Including New Netherland) North Carolina Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina (Including Carolina) Virginia Papers of Private Individuals General Georgia Maryland Massachusetts New Hampshire New York (Including New Netherland) North Carolina Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina (Including Carolina) Virginia Digital and CD-ROM Editions of Primary Sources

295 311 312 312 312 313 313 314 314 315 315 316 316 317 317 318 318 319 319 319 319 319 320 320 320 321 321 321 321 322 322

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Works General Works Overseas Expansion Atlantic World Spanish Empire General Christopher Columbus and Exploration Bartolome de las Casas French Empire General Canada Louisiana Dutch Empire Jews Huguenots British Atlantic World General British Canada (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, etc.) Scots and Irish West Indies Indians General Spanish Indian Relations and Empire North of the Rio Grande Southwest Florida (and Its General History) Southeastern Indians Northeastern Indians Mississippi Watershed Indians Blacks General Works The Slave Trade General Works, Specific Topics Race Immigration Geography/Cartography Environment Medicine Science Women and Gender Family, Childhood, and Education Law

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323 323 324 325 327 327 327 328 328 328 329 329 330 331 331 332 332 335 336 336 337 337 339 339 341 341 342 343 344 344 345 346 346 347 348 349 350 351 351 353 354

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Politics Economics Piracy and Maritime Fur Trade Religion Culture General Reading, Writing, and Literature Art, Music, and Leisure Material Culture Demography Intercolonial War and Diplomacy General Works and before the French and Indian War The French and Indian War and After Weapons Colonial Regions South Chesapeake Middle Colonies New England General Beginnings Blacks Economics Indians Religion Sexuality Society and Miscellaneous Women and Family Individual Colonies Connecticut General Blacks Economics Indians Law New Haven Colony Politics Religion Society Women and Family

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355 356 358 359 360 361 361 362 363 363 364 364 364 365 366 366 366 366 368 369 369 369 369 369 371 372 375 375 376 377 377 377 377 377 377 378 378 378 379 379 379

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Delaware General Blacks Economics Law New Albion New Sweden; Swedes and Finns in America Religion Society Georgia General Blacks Culture and Education Economics Indians Law Military James Oglethorpe Politics Religion Society Women Maryland General Blacks Culture Economics Indians Law Military Politics Religion Society Women and Family Massachusetts General Antinomian Controversy, Anne Hutchinson Blacks Economics Education Jonathan Edwards

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380 380 380 380 381 381 381 382 382 382 382 382 383 383 384 384 384 384 385 385 386 386 387 387 387 387 388 389 390 390 391 391 392 393 394 394 394 395 395 396 397

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Indians Law Military, General Military, King Philip’s War Plymouth Colony/Pilgrims Politics Religion Society Town Studies Winthrop Family Witchcraft Women and Family New Hampshire General Blacks Economics Indians Law Military Politics Religion Society Women and Family New Jersey General Blacks Culture Economics Indians Law Military Politics Religion Society Women and Family New York General Blacks Culture Economics Indians

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397 398 399 399 400 400 402 403 403 404 405 406 406 406 407 407 407 407 408 408 408 408 409 409 409 409 409 410 410 410 410 410 411 411 411 412 412 412 413 414 414

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Law Military New Netherland Politics Religion Society Women and Family North Carolina General Blacks Economics Indians Law Military Politics Regulators Religion Roanoke Society Women and Family Pennsylvania General Blacks Culture Economics Benjamin Franklin Immigration Indians Law Military before 1754 Military, French and Indian War Military, Pontiac’s War and After Paxton Boys Penn Family Politics Religion Society Women and Family Rhode Island General Blacks

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415 416 417 418 419 420 421 421 421 421 422 422 422 423 423 423 424 424 424 425 425 425 426 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 432 434 434 435 436 437 439 440 441 441 441

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Economics Indians Law Politics Religion Society Roger Williams Women and Family South Carolina General Blacks Economics Indians Law Politics Religion Society Women and Family Virginia General Archaeology and Architecture Bacon’s Rebellion Blacks Culture Economics Indians (Including Pocahontas) Jamestown (Including John Smith) Law Military Politics Religion Society Women and Family Secondary Sources on the Web

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442 442 442 442 443 443 444 444 445 445 445 445 446 447 447 448 448 448 448 448 449 450 450 451 451 453 453 454 455 455 456 457 458 459

INTRODUCTION Writing early American history began as soon as Europeans encountered the New World. The Greenland Saga and the Saga of Erik the Red are the main sources for the Norse explorers. Columbus’s letters; Bartolome de las Casas’s

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

accounts of the conquest of the Indies and the mistreatment of its inhabitants; Cabeza de Vaca’s journal of his wanderings in the American Southwest; and John Smith’s, William Bradford’s, and John Winthrop’s histories of early Virginia and New England are not only principal sources of good information, but exciting reading. English authors Richard Hakluyt and Thomas Harriot carefully read the accounts of explorers of different nations and synthesized them in their late 16th-, early 17th-century works, which remain classics today. Histories such as Cotton Mather’s Magnalia Christi America for New England and William Byrd’s History of the Dividing Line Betwixt North Carolina and Virginia are of great literary importance, but Mather’s unstinting praise of New England’s founders and Byrd’s fun at the expense of the crude frontier folk make for less than accurate history. In the 1950s and 1960s, Barnes and Noble reprinted the Original Narratives of Early America series, first published in the early 20th century and edited by J. Franklin Jameson, a collection of most of the useful accounts of the early settlements. Perhaps the finest history written on British North America before the Revolution was Thomas Hutchinson’s three-volume History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay. Despite his loyalty to the British crown, Hutchinson’s ability to incorporate vast amounts of data, primary documents, and previous sources, and to look without prejudice at various interpretations, is remarkable. During the Revolution and for about a century thereafter, however, few histories discussed the colonial period in depth except as a prelude to the Revolution or long-range trends that came after. Thus, George Bancroft’s History of the United States of America showed how democracy began in the colonial era until it triumphed during the age of Andrew Jackson. Richard Hildreth’s work of the same title favored the Whigs and their predecessors, who believed in a strong government that helped commercial development and fostered elite control of the unruly masses. The academic study