The Thirteen Colonies

and the British Empire

1607-1750
Introduction

 Between the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and the founding of

Georgia in 1733, thirteen distinctly different English colonies
developed along the Atlantic Coast of North America.

 Every colony received its identity and its authority to operate by

means of a charter, a document granting special privileges, from
the English monarch.
Over time, three types of charters- and three types of
colonies- developed:

 Corporate colonies, such as Jamestown (before 1624), were

operated by joint-stock companies.

 Royal colonies, such as Virginia after 1624, were to be under the

direct authority and rule of the crown.

 Proprietary colonies, such as Maryland and Pennsylvania, were

under the authority of individuals granted charters of ownership
by the king.
Unlike those who settled the French and Spanish colonies in the
Americas, the English colonists brought with them a tradition of
independence and representative government.

 Accustomed to holding elections for representatives who would

speak for property owners and either approve or disapprove
important measures, such as taxes, proposed by the king’s
government

 While political and religious conflicts and civil war dominated

England, feelings for independence grew in the colonies
The Chesapeake Colonies
Virginia and Maryland

 In 1632, King Charles I subdivided the vast area that had

been the Virginia colony.

 He chartered a new colony located on either side of

Chesapeake Bay and granted control of it to Lord Calvert
(Lord Baltimore), as a reward for this Catholic nobleman’s
loyal service to the crown.

 The new colony of Maryland thus became the first of several

proprietary colonies.
Maryland
 Charles I decided to establish  The first Lord Baltimore died
proprietorships rather than before he could fulfill his twin
granting more colonies to ambitions of
joint-stock companies because - achieving great wealth in his
he believed that loyal colony
proprietors like Lord Baltimore - providing a safe haven for his
could be trusted to faithfully fellow Catholics
carry out the king’s policies
and wishes.
 Control of the Maryland
proprietorship passed in 1632
to his son Cecilius Calvert-
the second Lord Baltimore-
who set about implementing
his father’s plan in 1634.
Maryland (continued)

 To avoid the intolerance and  In 1649, Calvert sent from

persecution of their Puritan England the draft of an Act
enemies, a number of wealthy Concerning Religion (Act of
Catholics emigrated to Religious Toleration), which
Maryland and established large assured the freedom of
colonial plantations. worship, though only within
 Catholic settlers, however, the bounds of Trinitarian
were outnumbered from the Christianity.
start by Protestant farmers  One of the earliest laws of
(mostly Anglicans). religious liberty, it was limited
 The Calverts quickly realized to Christians
that they (Catholics) would
always be a minority in the
colony.
Maryland (continued)

 Despite the passage of the Act of Toleration, tensions between the

Catholic minority and Protestant majority fueled political strife as
“zealous Jesuits and crusading Puritans” vied for religious
dominance
 For a period during the late 17th century, the Protestant majority,
having triumphed, barred Catholics from voting and in 1692
succeeded in repealing the Toleration Act.
The Chesapeake Colonies

Due to several factors, the population of the Chesapeake colonies grew

slowly
 unhealthy climate

 high death rate due to disease and Indian attacks

 imbalance between the number of men and women

- most of the early settlers were young men from England and
Scotland brought as indentured servants to work the tobacco
fields
- for example, in 1619, for example, a boatload of Englishwomen
were transported to Jamestown to become wives of the
colonists. Women “were purchased for 120 pounds of
tobacco”
Tobacco
Large scale cultivation of tobacco required large tracts of land and an extensive
labor supply. To meet demand for labor, planters in the Chesapeake colonies
employed a system of indentured servitude.

Indentured Servants Headright System

 In exchange for payment of their  In an effort to attract new settlers
passage to America, young people and workers, the headright
from the British Isles entered into system was established, first in
labor contracts with landowners Virginia and later in Maryland.
obligating them to work for a  In Virginia, the headright system
specified period of time (usually offered fifty acre grants of land
seven years) in exchange for room which new settlers could acquire in
and board a variety of ways.
 In effect, indentured servants were - each new settler who paid for his
under the absolute rule of their own passage received fifty
masters acres
 At the expiration of the specified - anyone (new settler or old) who
period, they gained their freedom paid for the passage of other
immigrants to Virginia would
receive an additional headright
for each new arrival.
“Turbulent Virginia” and Bacon’s Rebellion
 Economic problems
- beginning in the 1660s, low tobacco prices, due in part to
overproduction, brought hard times to the Chesapeake colonies
 Economic distress fueled political unrest
 Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia (1641-1652;
1660-1677), adopted policies that favored the large planters and
used autocratic powers to govern on their behalf.
- By 1670, the vote was restricted to landowners, and elections
were rare
- each county continued to have only two representatives, even
though some of the new counties of the interior contained
many more people than the older counties of the tidewater
- Thus, settlers of the “backcountry,” many of them former servants
and recent arrivals, were underrepresented in the colony’s
government in Jamestown
Bacon’s Rebellion

 In 1676, backcountry unrest and political rivalries combined to

create Bacon’s Rebellion

 Nathaniel Bacon, newly arrived from England and a member of the

“backcountry” gentry, seized upon the grievances of western
farmers to lead a rebellion against Berkeley’s government.

 Bacon and those who joined him resented the economic and
political control exercised by the Jamestown elite
Bacon’s Rebellion

 Howard Zinn describes Bacon’s Rebellion as “not easily

classifiable as either anti-aristocrat or anti-Indian because it was
both.”
 According to Zinn, Bacon’s “Declaration of the People” of July of
1676 “shows a mixture of populist resentment against the rich
and frontier hatred of the Indians.
 Bacon indicted the Berkeley administration for
1. unjust taxes
2. putting favorites in high positions
3. monopolizing the fur trade
4. for not protecting western farmers from the Indians
Bacon’s Rebellion
 Backcountry settlements constantly under the threat of attack from
Indians angry about European intrusions (encroachment) into their
lands
 Begins with a series of attacks by frontier settlers against Indians to
defend western districts from Indian raids
 As fighting intensified, Bacon and other backcountry farmers, angry
with Berkley’s cautious and indecisive response to their cries for
help in fighting the Indians, perpetrated a series of “unauthorized”
raids and massacres against Indian villages on the Virginia frontier.
 In response, Berkeley proclaimed Bacon and his men rebels and
what had started as an “unauthorized” assault on the Indians
became a “military challenge to the colonial government” and the
most powerful, violent, insurrection against established authority in
the history of the colonies until the Revolutionary Era.
Bacon’s Rebellion

 Bacon’s army (a motley force of “Englishmen and Negroes, a

mixture of freemen, servants, and slaves) succeeded in burning
Jamestown and forcing the governor into exile
 Bacon’s death of dysentery in the fall of 1676, however, coupled
with the arrival of British troops from England enabled the colonial
government under Berkeley to quickly bring the rebellion to an end.
- Servants and slaves were eventually captured and delivered up to
their masters. In the end, twenty-three rebel leaders were
hanged (Zinn, A People’s History, 34)
Significance of Bacon’s Rebellion
Bacon’s Rebellion exposed (revealed)
 the continuing struggle to define the boundary between Indian and
white lands in Virginia
 the “bitterness of the competition” between eastern and western
landowners
 the potential for instability in the colony’s large and growing
population of free, landless men
- “these men-most of them former indentured servants, propertyless,
unemployed, with no real prospects” made up the majority of Bacon’s
Army
- what had begun as a conflict against Indians became a violent
manifestation of class resentment directed at the tidewater gentry
-according to Zinn, what was “especially fearsome” for the wealthy
white planters was that white servants and black slaves joined forces

How might these potent forces of social unrest be kept in check?

Significance of Bacon’s Rebellion

According to Morgan, there was an obvious lesson in the rebellion,

although “Virginians did not immediately grasp it:”

“Resentment of an alien race might be more powerful than

resentment of an upper class.”
Significance of Bacon’s Rebellion

“If freemen with disappointed hopes should make common cause with
slaves of desperate hope, the results might be worse than anything
Bacon had done. The answer to the problem…was racism, to
separate dangerous free whites from dangerous slave blacks by a
screen of racial contempt (Morgan, American Slavery, American
Freedom, 328).”

 And so, the most significant effect of Bacon’s Rebellion is the shift
toward slavery, toward racism. Recognizing the need to prevent
social unrest from below, large plantation owners of the
Chesapeake increasingly turned to the African slave trade to fulfill
their need for labor.
Development of New England
A Theocratic Society in Massachusetts

 Ministers had no political power, but exerted great influence on

church members, who were the only people who could vote or hold
office
 Government, in turn, protected the ministers, taxed the (members
and non-members alike) to support the church, and enforced the
law requiring attendance at religious services
 Dissidents had no more freedom to worship than the Puritans had
had in England
- Puritan religious leaders were intolerant of anyone who questioned
the religious teachings and practices of the colony
- A common method for dealing with dissidents was to banish them
from the Bay Colony
 Colonial Massachusetts could be described as a theocracy, a society
in which the line separating church and state “was hard to see”
Development of New England
Rhode Island and Connecticut

 As the population of Massachusetts increased, many settlers- those

who did not accept all the religious tenets of the colony’s leaders or
those who lacked church membership (and hence, the right to vote)
left and began to spread settlement throughout present-day New
England.
 Dissidents formed the nucleus for the founding of several colonies in
New England, which would ultimately develop into Rhode Island and
Connecticut
Rhode Island
 Roger Williams went to Boston in
1631 as a respected Puritan
Minister
Providence
The new colony is unique in two
 He believed, however, that respects
individual conscience was beyond
the control of any civil or religious 1. It recognized the rights of
authority (Liberty of Native-Americans and paid them
Conscience). for the use of their land
 Denied the authority of civil
government to regulate religious 2. Williams’ government provided
behavior (in effect, an for complete religious toleration
endorsement of separation of by allowing Catholics, Quakers,
church and state) and Jews to worship freely
 In conflict with other Puritan - for example, no oaths
leaders, Williams is banished from regarding religious beliefs, no
the Bay colony. taxes to support a state church,
 Leaving Boston, he flees no compulsory attendance at
southward to Narragansett Bay worship
where he and several followers
found the settlement of
Providence in 1636
Anne Hutchinson
 Dissident who questioned the
doctrines of Puritan religious
leaders
 Openly challenged the right of
the Massachusetts clergy to
exercise authority over their  Branded an antinomian
congregations (someone who refuses to obey
 Also created alarm by the laws of god or man), she
“affronting prevailing was placed on trial and
assumptions” and norms banished from the Bay colony
regarding the proper role of  Founded the colony of
women in Puritan society by Portsmouth in 1638, not far
hosting religious gatherings in from Willliams’ Providence
her home  Eventually settled in New
Netherland and was killed in an
Indian uprising (Kieft’s War)
Rhode Island (continued)

 In 1644, Roger Williams was granted a charter from the

English Parliament joining Providence and Portsmouth
into a single colony, Rhode Island
 Because this colony offered religious freedom for all, it
served as a refuge for people of various faiths
Connecticut
To the west of Rhode Island, the fertile Connecticut River Valley
attracted settlers who did not agree with all the religious tenets of the
leaders of Massachusetts

Hartford New Haven

 The Rev. Thomas Hooker led a  South of Hartford, a second
large group of Boston Puritans settlement in the Connecticut
into the valley and founded the Valley was started by John
colony of Hartford in 1636. Davenport in 1637
 The Hartford colonists drew up  In 1665, New Haven joined with
the first written constitution in Hartford to form the colony of
American history, the Connecticut.
Fundamental Orders of  The royal charter for Connecticut
Connecticut (1639), which granted it a limited degree of self-
established a representative government, including election of
government consisting of a the governor.
legislature elected by popular vote
and a governor chosen by that
legislature.
New Hampshire

 Last colony to be founded in New England, consisting of a few

settlements north of Boston

 Originally part of Massachusetts, it was separated from the Bay

colony by King Charles II in 1679 in an attempt to increase royal
control over the colonies

 Made a royal colony, it was subject to the authority of an appointed

governor
Development of New England (continued
The Halfway Covenant
 by the 1660s, a generation had passed since the founding of the
first Puritan colonies
 the New England-born settlers showed signs of being less
committed to religious faith and more interested in material pursuits
 especially alarming was the apparent decline in conversions –
testimonials by individuals that they had received God’s grace and
therefore deserved to be admitted to the church as members of the
elect.

How was the Puritan church to retain its power and influence if
younger people failed to become church members?
The Halfway Covenant

 In an effort to maintain the

church’s power and influence
in New England society, Effects
troubled ministers in 1662  over time, the halfway
announced a new formula for covenant helped to open
partial church membership, the Puritan church doors fully to all
halfway covenant comers, whether converted or
 the halfway covenant offered not
partial membership rights to  widening of church
people not yet converted by membership gradually erased
admitting to baptism- but not the distinction between the
“full communion”- the “elect” and other members of
unconverted children of society
existing members  from this time onward
women were a majority in
Puritan congregations
New England Confederation
 In the 1640s, the various New England colonies were under the
constant threat of attack from Native Americans, the Dutch, and the
French
 Because of civil war in England, the colonists could expect little aid
 In 1643, four New England colonies (Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay,
Connecticut, and New Haven formed a military alliance known as the
New England Confederation
- directed by a board comprised of two representatives from each
colony
- limited powers to act on boundary disputes, the return of runaway
servants, and dealings with Native-Americans
 the confederation lasted until 1684, when colonial rivalries and
renewed control by the English monarch brought this first experiment
in colonial cooperation to an end
 set an important precedent for colonies taking unified action toward a
common purpose
 King Philip’s War
Causes Effects
 continued encroachment of  52 Puritan towns were attacked
English settlers onto Native and 12 destroyed entirely
American lands sparked  Hundreds of colonists and
Indian resistance
Indians died in the bloodshed
 Metacom, Chief of the
Wampanogs, known to
 although King Philip’s War
colonists as King Philip, slowed the westward march of
forged a pan-Indian alliance English settlement, the war
in southern New England by inflicted a lasting defeat on New
uniting several tribes and England Native-Americans
mounted a series of bloody  Reduced in numbers, dispirited,
Indian raids against English disbanded, Native-Americans
settlements along the would never again seriously
frontier threaten New England colonists
Salem Witch Trials
 The Salem Witch Trials, one of
the most frightening religious Significance
episodes in colonial American  revealed deep religious and
history, was sparked by the social conflicts within the
accusations of adolescent girls rapidly evolving Massachusetts
who claimed to have been village in that most of the
bewitched by certain older accused were among Salem’s
women prosperous merchant ranks
 a hysterical witch hunt ensued, while their accusers came
resulting in the “legal lynching” largely from the ranks of poorer
of 20 individuals, 19 of whom families in Salem’s agricultural
were hanged and one of whom hinterland
was pressed to death  episode reflects the widening
 Two dogs were also hanged social stratification of New
England, as well as the conflict
between religious tradition and
Yankee commercialism
Restoration Colonies
New American colonies were founded in the late 17th century during a
period in English history known as the Restoration . The name refers
to the restoration to power of an English monarch, Charles II, in 1660
following a brief period of Puritan rule under Oliver Cromwell.
The Carolinas
 as a reward for helping him gain the throne, Charles II granted a

huge tract of land between Virginia and Spanish Florida to eight

nobles, who became the lord proprietors of the Carolinas
 In 1729, two royal colonies South Carolina and North Carolina, were

formed from the original proprietorship

The Carolinas (continued)
South Carolina
 In 1670, in the southern
Carolinas, a few colonists from
England and some planters from North Carolina
the island of Barbados founded  Primarily settled by farmers from
the town of Charles Town
Virginia and New England, many of
 Initially, the economy was based
on trading furs whom were “squatters” without legal
 prospered through the right to the soil
development of close  characterized by small, self-sufficient
economic ties to the English tobacco farms
West Indies by providing
foodstuffs to provision sugar
 fewer large plantations and
plantations on the islands therefore less reliance on slavery
 By the middle of the 18th century,  Inhabitants earned a reputation for
rice emerged as the principal being irreligious and anti-
export crop authoritarian
 Carolinians paid premium prices  Officially separated from South
for African slaves experienced in
rice cultivation Carolina in 1712 and subsequently
 By 1710, blacks constituted a each segment became a royal
majority of the population colony
Stono Rebellion
 Nearly 100 resentful South Carolina blacks along the Stono River
exploded in revolt in 1739
 Seized weapons, killed several whites and attempted to march
south to Spanish Florida
 Rebellion was ultimately put down forcefully by local militia
 Most participants were executed
New Amsterdam becomes New York
 New Amsterdam was a company
town run by and for the Dutch
West India company in the  In 1664, a British naval fleet
interests of stockholders seized control of the Dutch colony
 Dutch colony was aristocratic, from its governor Peter
Stuyvesant
characterized by vast feudal
estates fronting the Hudson River,  Colony was thereupon renamed
known as patroonships New York, in honor of the Duke of
 Extraordinarily diverse, the colony York (the future James II)
was home to a heterogeneous  The Dutch had governed their
population, including Dutch, sprawling colony (present-day
English, Scandinavian, German, New York, New Jersey, and
French, and African settlers Delaware) without the benefit of
(imported as slaves by the Dutch an assembly and so the duke “saw
West India Company) no reason to trouble his
 Charles II wished to consolidate government” with such a body.
the crown’s holdings along the  Ultimately, James was grudgingly
Atlantic Coast and close the gap forced to yield, and New York’s
between the New England and the first assembly met in 1683.
Chesapeake colonies
New Jersey
 Believing New York to be
too large territorially to  To attract settlers, both
administer effectively, proprietors made
James gave to two generous land offers and
friends, Lord John allowed religious
Berkelely and Sir George freedom and an assembly
Carteret, the lands
located between the
 Eventually sold they sold
Hudson River and proprietary interests to
Delaware Bay various groups of
Quakers
 In 1674, one proprietor
received West New
 the crown decided in
Jersey and the other East 1702 to combine the two
New Jersey Jerseys into a single royal
colony
 Pennsylvania and Delaware
 To the west of New
Jersey lay a broad
expanse of forested
land
 Originally settled by a
peace-loving Christian
sect, the Quakers
 Quakers or members of the Religious Society of Friends

Quakers believed in the In the 17th century, such views

following seemed to pose a radical
 Equality of all men and challenge to established
women authority
 Nonviolence  Quakers of England are

 Resistance to military widely persecuted and jailed

service for their beliefs
 Quakers furthered believed

that religious authority was

found within each person’s
private soul and not in the
Bible or any outside source
 William Penn

 Young convert to the Quaker faith

 Son of a victorious admiral in the
service of the King
 Elder Penn opposed William’s religious
beliefs but came to respect the
sincerity of his son’s faith and upon his
death left his son considerable wealth.
 In addition, the royal family owed the
father a large debt, which was paid to
William in 1681 in the form of a land
grant in the Americas for a colony
which he called Pennsylvania or Penn’s
woods.
“The Holy Experiment”- Penn wanted to test ideas he had
developed based on his Quaker beliefs

Penn wanted his colony to achieve three purposes

1. provide a religious refuge for Quakers and other
persecuted peoples
2. enact liberal ideas in government
3. generate income and profits for himself
 The “Holy Experiment”
 He provided the colony with a  Unlike other colonial
Frame of Government proprietors, who
(1682-1683 which guaranteed
a representative assembly governed from England,
elected by landowners and a Penn crossed the ocean
written constitution, the to supervise the founding
Charter of Liberties (1701), of a new town on the
which guaranteed freedom of Delaware River named
worship for all and unrestricted
immigration. Philadelphia, bringing
with him a grid pattern of
streets later imitated by
other American cities.
 Pennsylvania

 Penn believed, as had  Penn successfully

Roger Williams, that attracted settlers from
Native Americans should throughout Europe by
be reimbursed for their offering political and
land religious freedom as well
 no major conflicts with as generous land terms
Indians during his lifetime  Pennsylvania prospered
from the outset because
of the successful
recruitment of emigrants,
Penn’s thoughtful
planning, and the mild
climate and fertile soil
 Delaware
 In 1702, Penn granted the “lower
counties” of Pennsylvania their own
representative assembly.
 This act, in effect, created a separate
colony: Delaware, although until the
American Revolution, it had the same
governor as Pennsylvania.
 Georgia: The Last Colony

 chartered in 1732 Two principal reasons for

 last of the British colonies British interest in starting
and the only one to receive a new southern colony
direct financial support from 1. to create a defensive
the home government in buffer to protect the
London prosperous South Carolina
plantations from the threat
of invasion from Spanish
Florida
2. to provide a refuge for the
impoverished and debtors
to begin life anew
 Georgia: The Last Colony
 Given a royal charter for a  Because of the constant
proprietary colony, a group threat of Spanish attack, the
of philanthropists led by colony failed to thrive
James Oglethorpe founded  by the early 1750s, the strict
Georgia’s first settlement, rules had been loosened (for
Savannah, in 1733. example, the ban on slavery
 Oglethorpe acted as the was removed in 1750).
colony’s first governor and  In 1752, Oglethorpe and his
put into effect a plan for group of trustees returned
making the colony thrive. control of the colony to the
 Strict regulations included an King and Georgia became a
absolute ban on drinking royal colony.
rum, the prohibition of  The colony grew slowly by
slavery, and restrictions on developing a plantation
the size of property holdings system along lines similar to
were imposed. South Carolina
 Mercantilism and the Empire

 Most European kingdoms in the 17th century adopted an economic

policy of mercantilism, which looked upon trade, colonies, and the
accumulation of wealth as a basis for a country’s military and
political power
 According to mercantilist theory, a government should regulate
trade and production in order to become self-sufficient
 Under the system of mercantilism, a colonial power seeks to
establish a favorable balance of trade with her colonies. Colonies
provide raw materials to the parent country for the growth and
profit of that country’s industries. In addition, colonies provide the
parent country with a market for her manufactured goods.
 Colonies existed for one purpose: to enrich the parent country
 Mercantilism and the Empire

 Mercantilist policies had guided both the Spanish and the French
colonies from their inception. Mercantilism began to be applied to
the English colonies, however, only after the turmoil of England’s
civil war had subsided.
 Beginning in 1650, England’s government began to put in place a
mercantilist policy with the series of Navigation Acts
 Acts of Navigation and Trade

The Acts of Navigation and Trade (1650-1673) established three

rules for colonial trade
1. Trade to and from colonies could be carried only by English or
colonial-built ships, which could be operated only by English or
colonial crews
2. All goods imported into the colonies, except for some perishables,
could pass only through ports in England
3. Specified or enumerated goods from the colonies could be
exported to England only. Tobacco was the original enumerated
good, but over a period of years, the list grew to include most
colonial products
 Mercantilism: Impact on the colonies

Positive Effects Negative Effects

1. New England shipbuilding 1. Colonial manufacturing
prospered
was severely restricted
2. Chesapeake tobacco had a
monopoly in England 2. Chesapeake farmers
3. English military and naval received low prices for
forces protected the colonies their crops
from potential attacks by the
3. Colonists had to pay
French and the Spanish
high prices for
manufactured goods
from England
 Enforcement of the Acts

 Resentment slowly developed in the colonies against regulatory

laws imposed by the distant government in London. Especially in
New England, colonists would routinely defy the Navigation Acts by
smuggling in French, Dutch, and other prohibited goods.
 The British government was often lax in enforcing the acts, and its
agents in the colonies were known for their corruption
 From time to time, the crown would attempt to overcome colonial
resistance to its trade laws. For example, in 1684, the crown
revoked the charter of Massachusetts Bay because that colony had
been the center of smuggling activity
 The Dominion of New England

 A new king, James II succeeded  The new governor made

to the throne in 1685
himself instantly unpopular by
 He was determined to increase
levying taxes, limiting town
royal control over the colonies by
combining them into larger meetings, and revoking land
administrative units and doing titles
away with representative
assemblies
 In 1686, he combined New York,
New Jersey, and the various New
England colonies into a single
administrative body called the
Dominion of New England. Sir
Edmund Andros was sent from
England to serve as governor of
the dominion
 The Dominion of New England (continued)

 James II did not remain in Permanent restrictions

power very long  Despite the Glorious
 As a result of his heavy- Revolution, mercantilist
handed style of asserting his policies remained in force
royal powers, he was deposed  In the 18th century, there were
in the Glorious Revolution in more English officials in the
1688 and replaced with two Colonies than in any earlier era
new sovereigns, William and  Restrictions on colonial trade,
Mary though poorly enforced, were
 With James’ fall, the Dominion widely resented and resisted
of New England came to an
end and Massachusetts Bay,
New York and the other
colonies again operated under
separate charters
 Institution of Slavery

Slavery became rooted in American society in the closing

decades of the 17th century
 The number of slaves grew rapidly from only a few

thousand in 1670 to tens of thousands in the early

eighteenth century
 The institution of slavery existed in ALL thirteen of the

original colonies
 By 1750, half of Virginia’s population and two-thirds of

South Carolina’s population were slaves

Increased demand for slaves
The following factors explain why slavery became increasingly
important, especially in the southern colonies

1. Reduced migration: an increase in wages in England reduced the

supply of immigrants to the colonies
2. Dependable work force: Large-plantation owners were disturbed
by the political demands of small farmers and indentured servants
and by the threat to the social order posed by Bacon’s Rebellion.
Planters believed that slavery would provide a stable labor supply
that could be better controlled
3. Cheap labor: As tobacco prices fell, rice and indigo became the
most profitable crops. To grow such crops required large tracts
of land and a large supply of unskilled labor
 Slave Laws:
Drawing of the Color Line
As the number of slaves increased, colonial assemblies adopted laws to
ensure that African Americans would be held in perpetual bondage
and that their slave status would be inherited by their children
 In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony to recognize the

slavery of “lawful” captives

 Virginia in 1661 enacted legislation stating that children of slaves

inherited their mother’s slave status for life

 By 1664, Maryland passed a law stating that baptism did not affect

a slave’s status and barred miscegenation and the intermarriage of

whites and blacks
 A “color line” was drawn as both racism and slavery became more

deeply entrenched in American colonial society

Triangular Trade

 For most of the 17th century, the English trade in African slaves had
been monopolized by a single company, the Royal African Company
 By the late 17th century, the company’s monopoly expired and New
England merchants entered the lucrative slave trade and
began to compete with British slavers
 Merchant ships would regularly follow a triangular, or three part,
trade route
 AP Free Response
1. How did economic, geographic, and social
factors encourage the growth of slavery as an
important part of the economy of the southern
colonies between 1607 and 1775?
2. Analyze the impact of the Atlantic trade routes
established in the mid 1600’s on economic
development in the British North American
colonies. Consider the period 1650-1750.