History 1700 Test 1

• The transatlantic flow of goods and people is sometimes called the Columbian
• Exchange. 

Products introduced to Europe from the Americas included corn, tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco.

• The Old World brought wheat, rice, sugarcane, horses, cattle,
• pigs, and sheep to the New World.

• But Europeans also carried germs previously unknown in the Americas.  Overall, the death of perhaps 80 million people—close to one-fifth of humankind—in the first century
• and a half after contact with Europeans.

Person of mixed color. As early as 1514, the Spanish government formally approved of such marriages, partly as a way of bringing Christianity to the native population.

• By 1600, mestizos (persons of mixed origin) made up a large part of the urban population
• of Spanish America.

• Over time, Spanish America evolved into a hybrid culture, part Spanish, part Indian, and in some areas part African, but with a single
• official faith, language, and governmental system.

A horrible slavery of the Hispanic Indians who were treated even worse than animals. 

They died from over working.  90% of the population died in 8 years.

People from Europe who voluntarily surrendered their freedom for a specific time (usually 5-7 years) in exchange for passage to America. 

Like slaves, they could be bought and sold, could not marry without permission and were subject to physical punishment.

After their term of servitude, they would receive payment (Freedom Dues) and become free members of society.

Many did not live to the end of their contract.

• Awarding fifty acres of land to any
• colonist who paid for his own or another’s passage. Thus, anyone who brought in
• a sizable number of servants would immediately acquire a large estate.

The Virginia Company slowly realized that for the colony to survive it would have to bandon the search for gold, grow its own food, and find a marketable commodity.

It would also have to attract more settlers. With this end in view, it announced new policies in 1618. Instead of retaining all the land for itself, the company introduced the headright system.

• In the colonies as in England, a married woman possessed certain rights before the law, including a claim to “dower rights” of
• one-third of her husband’s property in the event that he died before she did.

When the widow died, however, the property passed to the husband’s male heirs.

• The area stretching from central
• Pennsylvania southward through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and into
• upland North and South Carolina.

• The backcountry was the most rapidly
• growing region in North America. By the eve of the American Revolution, the
• region contained one- quarter of Virginia’s population and half of South
• Carolina’s. Most were farm families raising grain and livestock.

• Commerce increasingly dominated by
• British merchants and ships. Although concentrated in the Chesapeake and areas
• farther south, slavery existed in every colony of British North America.

• Of the estimated 7.7 million Africans
• transported to the New World between 1492 and 1820, more than half arrived
• between 1700 and 1800.

• Later condemned by statesmen and general
• opinion as a crime against humanity.

• But in the eighteenth century, it was a
• regularized business in which European merchants, African traders, and American
• planters engaged in complex bargaining over human lives, all with the expectation of securing a profit.

• The slave trade was a vital part of world
• commerce.

• Small landowners (the majority of
• white families in the Old South) who farmed their own land and usually did not
• own slaves.

The slaves that were there were continuously exposed to white culture.

They soon learned English, and many were swept up in the religious revivals known as the Great Awakening.

• The ‘‘reconquest’’ of Spain from the Moors
• completed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.

• Columbus sought financial support
• throughout Europe for the planned voyage. Eventually, King Ferdinand and Queen
• Isabella of Spain agreed to become sponsors.

Their marriage in 1469 had united the warring kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. In 1492, they completed the reconquista—the “reconquest” of Spain from the Moors, African Muslims who had occupied part of the Iberian Peninsula for centuries.

With Spain’s territory united, Ferdinand and Isabella—like the rulers of the Italian city-states—were anxious to circumvent the Muslim stranglehold on eastern trade. It is not surprising, then, that Columbus set sail with royal letters of introduction to Asian rulers, authorizing him to negotiate trade agreements.

Political theory in eighteenth-century England and America that celebrated active participation in public life by economically independent citizens as central to freedom.

Celebrated active participation in public life by economically independent citizens as the essence of liberty.

Republicans assumed that only property-owning citizen’s possessed “virtue”—defined in the eighteenth century not simply as a personal moral quality but as the willingness to subordinate self-interest to the pursuit of the public good.

Penn was largely responsible for the frame of government announced in 1677, the West Jersey Concessions, which created an elected assembly with a broad suffrage and established religious liberty.

Originally, political philosophy that emphasized the protection of liberty by limiting the power of government to interfere with the natural rights of citizens. 

Liberalism was essentially individual and private. The leading philosopher of liberalism was John Locke.

Republicans assumed that only property-owning citizens possessed “virtue”-- defined in the eighteenth century not simply as a personal moral quality but as the willingness to subordinate self-interest to the pursuit of the public good.

A transatlantic movement.  

Revivals that swept through the colonies beginning in the 1730s. Known collectively as the Great Awakening. 

The revivals were less a coordinated movement than a series of local events united by a commitment to a “religion of the heart,” a more emotional and personal Christianity than that offered by existing churches.

the House of Commons represented all residents of the British empire, whether or not they could vote for members.  Nearly all Britons, moreover, believed that Parliament represented the entire empire and had a right to legislate for it.

Millions of Britons, including the residents of major cities like Manchester and Birmingham, had no representatives in Parliament.

But according to the widely accepted theory of “virtual representation”—which held that each member rep­ resented the entire empire, not just his own district—the interests of all who lived under the British crown were supposedly taken into account.

When Americans began to insist that because they were unrepresented in Parliament, the British government could not tax the colonies, they won little support in the mother country.

Which allowed women a kind of public role as mothers of future citizens, subtly evolved in the mid-nineteenth-century.


The ideology that emerged as a result of American independence where women played an indispensable role by training future citizens.

Decline of the Indian Population was caused by Europeans who came to the Americas post 1492 and is the greatest loss of life in human history.  This was caused by 3 major factors. First, disease. Europeans brought small pox, measles, and the flu when they came to the Americas.  The Indians had never been exposed and therefore had no antibodies built up and this resulted in massive numbers of Indians to die. Second, Europeans had more advanced technology such as gunpowder and guns which gave the Europeans an advantage over the spears, bows and arrows, and knifes which the Indians had.  Third, military prowess. The military advances of the Europeans was more advanced. Europeans had military army tactics which the Indians had not used. Overall the death of about 80 million Indians (almost 1/5th of humankind died in the first century after Europeans came to the Americas. 

 

1. Death of perhaps 80 million people—close to one-fifth of humankind—in the first century; the greatest loss of life in human history.

2. NA were given small pox, flu, measles

3. Superior military technology such as iron weapons and gunpowder

4. Advanced military knowledge

In North America (New Mexico) during 1680 the Pueblos, sick of the ill treatment received from the Europeans who came to their area revolted.  The Indians were beaten, had their stuff taken away, and were forced to work without pay.  The Pueblos were able to (temporarily) completely remove the settlers from Europe.  This was the only time they were successful in this.  Europeans learned they needed to have a more tolerant attitude towards the traditional religious practices and made fewer demands on Indian labor, which helped when they took New Mexico back.

During the 1700’s Europeans began “importing” slaves from Africa into the Americas (mostly Brazil and the West Indies).  These African slaves were usually purchased from other Black Africans and were captured while warring with other African tribes.  In order to increase profits the hulls of the ships were packed with men, women, and children of which only 1 in 5 survived.  Captains commanded sick slaves to be thrown overboard into the ocean to prevent epidemics.  The ships traveled from Africa to South America and then up to North America.  This is important because it lead to the massive influx of slavery in the Americas.

In 1765 parliament attempted to raise money from direct taxes in the colonies rather than through the regulation of trade. In an attempt to fund the British armies in America, parliament passed The Stamp Act which put a tax on all printed material.  This included wills, newspapers, playing cards, dice, marriage certificates, etc… This played an important role in America because it affected all Americans not just merchants.  However, the colonists would not stand for this and they protested. The protesting was actually to give them representation in Parliament because while they were under British rule, they did not have any representation. By protesting the Stamp Act, the colonists were able to have it repealed in 1773.

On July 2, 1776, the Congress formally declared the United States an independent nation. Two days later, it approved the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and revised by the Congress before approval. The Declaration also changed forever the meaning of American freedom. It was no longer about a specific people who received the rights and privileges, it was about everyone getting the same rights. This was the beginning of the America we know today.

During the 17th century (1692) in Salem, Massachusetts colonists became crippled under the fear of the unknown and they began to accuse mostly women as witches.  People believed these witches made a pact with the Devil himself and punishment for participating in witchcraft was execution.  Accusations in Salem began when Tituba (a Caribbean slave) was accused of witchcraft after several young girls suffered from nightmares. The only way to avoid punishment was to confess and name others.  The Governor of Massachusetts finally put an end to the Salem court and released remaining prisoners but only after the death of fourteen women and five men.