Colonial America
Page 1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Documents
Preface to the Fourth Edition
Acknowledgments
Part I: Old and New Worlds Meet
Chapter 1: The Peoples of Eastern North America: Societies in Transition
1 America Before Columbus and the Problem of History
2 The Americas in Ancient Times
3 The Eastern Woodlands, 1000–1300
4 Eastern Woodlands Societies in Transition, 1300–1500
5 Earliest Contacts with Europeans
Chapter 2: The Age of European Exploration
1 Western Europe, 1300–1450
2 The Portuguese in Africa
3 Spain Encounters the New World
4 Sixteenth-Century European Competitors
5 England: The Elizabethan Prelude
Part II: The Seventeenth-Century Settlements
Chapter 3: The English Conquer Virginia, 1607–1660
1 Virginia Before the English
2 The Virginia Company: Early Settlement
3 The Charter of Liberties
4 The Massacre of 1622 and Fall of the Company
5 Growth and Consolidation, 1625–1660
Chapter 4: The Conquest Continues: New England, 1620–1660
1 New England Before the English
2 The Pilgrims
3 Massachusetts: A City on the Hill
4 Establishing and Defending Order
5 Challenges from England
6 Stable Societies
Chapter 5: Diverse Colonies: New France, New Netherland, Maryland, and the West Indies
1 New France
2 New Netherland and Delaware: The Dutch and Swedish Beginnings
3 Maryland: A Catholic Proprietary
4 English Colonies in the West Indies
Chapter 6: The Restoration Era
1 The Return of Charles II
2 Mercantilism: The Navigation Laws
3 New York Becomes an English Colony
4 The Carolinas: Early Settlement
Chapter 7: The Later Years of Charles II
1 Virginia: Bacon's Rebellion and Its Aftermath
2 Massachusetts: The Struggle to Remain Self-Governing
3 New Jersey and Pennsylvania: The Beginnings
Chapter 8: James II and the Glorious Revolution
1 The Dominion of New England
2 Massachusetts Reclaims Control
3 New York: Leisler's Rebellion
4 Maryland
5 Aftermath
Chapter 9: The Eras of William and Mary, and Queen Anne
1 William and Mary's Colonial Policy
2 The Salem Witchcraft Trials
3 War on the Northern Frontier, 1689–1713
4 War and Political Change in the Carolinas
5 Proprietary Problems in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
Part III: The Eighteenth-Century Provinces in a Changing Continent
Chapter 10: The Economy and Labor System in British North America
1 The British Atlantic Economy
2 The Southern Plantation System
3 Northern Farming and Commerce
4 The Mercantilist System
5 Money and Taxation
6 The Standard of Living: Poverty and Prosperity
Chapter 11: Settler Families and Society
1 New World Families
2 Children
3 Patriarchal Authority
4 Social Structure: Rank and Class
Chapter 12: White Women and Gender
1 Gender and the Settler Experience in the Seventeenth Century
2 Regional Variations
3 Gender in a Commercializing Culture: The Eighteenth-Century Refined Lady
4 Gender in a Commercializing Culture: Middling and Working White Women
Chapter 13: British North American Religion, Education, and Culture, 1689–1760
1 Religion
2 Education
3 The Anglicization of Taste
4 Libraries, Literature, and the Press
5 Science and the Arts
6 Popular Culture
Chapter 14: Slavery and the African American Experience, 1689–1760
1 Slavery: An Evolving Institution
2 Slaves' Experiences
3 The African American Family
4 African American Culture
5 Free African Americans
6 Resistance to Slavery
Chapter 15: Expanding Spanish and French Empires in North America
1 Florida
2 New Mexico
3 The Growth of New France
4 The French Upper Country, or Pays d'en Haut
5 Louisiana
6 Texas
7 Significance for the British Colonies
Chapter 16: Native American Societies and Cultures, 1689–1760
1 Native American Societies in the Eighteenth Century
2 The Nations of the Northern Frontier
3 The Nations of the Southern Frontier
4 Adaptation or Decline?
Chapter 17: Immigration and Expansion in British North America, 1714–1750
1 The Germans and Scots-Irish
2 The Founding of Georgia
3 The Urban Frontier
Chapter 18: British North American Institutions of Government
1 The Royal Framework
2 Local Government: Town Meeting and County Court
3 The Provincial Assembly: Crown versus People
4 Parties and Factions in the Age of Walpole
5 Toward a Republican Ideology
Chapter 19: Britain, France, and Spain: The Imperial Contest, 1739–1763
1 The War of Jenkins' Ear
2 The Struggle for the Ohio
3 The Conquest of Canada
4 The War's Consequences
Selected Bibliography
Index
This fourth edition first published 2011
© 2011 Richard Middleton and Anne Lombard
Edition history: Blackwell Publishing (1e, 1992; 2e, 2001; 3e, 2002)
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell's publishing program has been merged with Wiley's global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Middleton, Richard, 1941–
Colonial America: a history to 1763 / Richard Middleton and Anne Lombard. – 4th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-9004-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. United States–History–Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. I. Lombard, Anne S. II. Title.
E188.M52 2012
973.2–dc22
2010047220
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs [ISBN 9781444396270]; ePub [ISBN 9781444396287]
Figures
1 Cahokia mounds, circa 1150
2 The Indian town of Secotan, by John White
3 Indian hunter, by John White
4 Indians fishing, by John White
5 Indian man and woman preparing a meal, by John White
6 The Algonquian Indian village of Pomeiock
7 Roanoke and its vicinity, 1585, by John White
8 English colonists landing on the Potomac River in Virginia, 1634
9 An artist's impression of Jamestown, Virginia, 1607
10 Pocahontas in London
11 Portrait of John Winthrop
12 “Underhill's Diagram of the Pequot Fight”
13 First Maryland State House, 1634–1694
14 The Stadthuys of New York in 1679
15 William Penn's Treaty with the Indians
16 Portrait of King James II
17 The Salem witch trial (artist's reconstruction)
18 West Indian slaves processing indigo
19 Typical eighteenth-century kitchen hearth
20 Thomas Hancock House, Boston
21 Portrait of Mrs James Smith (Elizabeth Murray), 1769, by J. S. Copley
22 “A Westerly View of the Colledges . . . ” (Harvard College)
23 College of New Jersey (later Princeton University)
24 Portrait of Benjamin Franklin at the age of 54
25 Plan of slave ship The Brookes
26 Advertisement for a sale of slaves, 1769
27 “View of Mulberry, House and Street, 1805”
28 Advertisement for the return of a runaway slave, 1765
29 Portrait of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés
30 Portrait of Sagayenkwaraton
31 A draught of the Creek nation, 1757
32 View of Savannah, March 29, 1734
33 A Northeast View of Boston
34 Southeast Prospect of the City of Philadelphia
35 Portrait of Major General Robert Hunter
36 French map of North America, 1756
37 A view of Québec
38 The Death of General Wolfe, by Benjamin West
Maps
1 Eastern Woodlands coastal peoples, circa 1530–1608
2 The age of exploration
3 The Powhatan Confederacy in 1607
4 Seventeenth-century New England and New York
5 Major Indian peoples and European settlements in eastern North America, circa 1640
6 The English West Indies, 1660
7 The early Carolinas
8 Mid-seventeenth-century Maryland and Virginia
9 The middle colonies in the later seventeenth century
10 Eastern North America, 1715–1760
11 The provincial economy, 1700–1760
12 Africa as known to Europeans in the mid eighteenth century
13 Major British North American slaveholding regions
14 Stono Rebellion, South Carolina
15 Missions in Spanish Florida, circa 1674–1675
16 Spanish, French, and Indian settlements in the Gulf of Mexico in the mid eighteenth century
17 French claims in North America, circa 1700
18 The lower Mississippi Valley in the 1730s
19 Locations of major Indian peoples in eastern North America, circa 1750
20 Major Native American powers of the northern frontier, circa 1725
21 Major Native American powers of the southern frontier, circa 1725
22 Immigration and expansion, 1700–1760
23 The manors of New York
24 French-claimed, British-claimed, and disputed territory, 1755
25 The British offensive to secure the backcountry, 1755
26 The struggle for Canada, 1756–1760
Documents
1 The upbringing of children, Father Gabriel Sagard, 1632
2 The Indian method of warfare, Thomas Harriot, 1588
3 A first meeting with Europeans
4 License granted by Henry VII to John Cabot
5 John Rolfe's request for permission from Governor Sir Thomas Dale to marry Pocahontas, 1614
6 Formal constitution for a council and assembly in Virginia, July 24, 1621
7 The Mayflower Compact, November 1620
8 The examination of Mrs Hutchinson, November 1637
9 A call for Indian unity by Chief Miantonomo, 1642
10 An Act Concerning Religion
11 The Duke's Laws, April 2, 1664
12 Declaration of Nathaniel Bacon in the name of the people of Virginia, July 30, 1676
13 The Bill of Rights, 1689
14 Recantation of the women of Andover and Confession of Sarah Carrier, aged seven, 1692
15 Benjamin Franklin on the Protestant ethic: the advice of Poor Richard
16 Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c.” (1751, published 1755)
17 An Act to Enable Femes Coverts to Convey Their Estates, Georgia, 1760
18 Benjamin Franklin on George Whitefield
19 On training to be a lawyer: the early career of John Adams, 1758
20 A slave market, circa 1755
21 “Afro-Floridians to the Spanish King, 1738”
22 A suspected African rising prevented, 1680
23 The Iroquois reject English missionaries, circa 1710
24 The Micmacs ridicule the French, 1677
25 An attempt to cheat Indians of their lands, New Jersey, 1716
26 Gottlieb Mittelberger on the perils of crossing the Atlantic, 1750
27 Lord Cornbury instructed to obtain a permanent salary, 1703
28 The Albany plan of union, 1754
Preface to the Fourth Edition
This book tells the story of the British North American colonies, from the initial encounters between Europeans and the Native Americans who lived here in the sixteenth century to the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, when Great Britain won political control over most of the territory in North America east of the Mississippi and north of the Gulf of Mexico.
Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1992, historical scholarship about this story has been substantially revised. History is always a work in progress, and the need to understand America's origins has been a compelling one for each generation of scholars. Not long ago the main objective of historians studying the colonial period was to understand the political and economic institutions created by British North Americans and their place in the development of democratic capitalist societies. Historians' focus, therefore, was mostly upon the Englishmen who settled in North America between 1607 and 1776 and the societies that they created.
Over time the scope of historians' questions about early British American history broadened.
Scholars began to look not only at the roots of political democracy and social mobility but also at the origins of institutions such as slavery and indentured servitude. Assumptions about the impact of individuals on the historical process began to be questioned as historians realized that historical change is often shaped more by the unintentional consequences of interactions between many actors than by the intentional actions of a few. Rather than implicitly assuming that the only European colonists to influence North American history were men, researchers began to focus upon the impacts of European women on colonial development. Scholars became increasingly interested in the millions of Africans who were transported to the Americas during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, asking how their presence and their actions shaped the societies of which they became a part. Perhaps the most fruitful new questions concerned the millions of indigenous Americans who were killed, displaced, or assimilated into European-American societies as the colonies developed.
But these have not been the only changes. Since the ending of the Cold War in the early 1990s, scholarship on British colonial North America has experienced something of a paradigm shift as historians began to consider their findings in the light of globalization. Rather than focusing on the internal dynamics of particular societies, scholars have increasingly begun to consider the ways in which cross-border interactions have shaped the historical process. New questions have been raised about the contest between the English colonizers and indigenous American peoples for control of the land. More attention has also been paid to the efforts of competing European powers to gain ascendancy in North America. How did British competition with the Spanish, French, and Dutch for control of the population, territory, trade, commodity production, and naval dominance shape the growth of the English-speaking colonies? Another result of this paradigm shift has been the greater scrutiny of the transoceanic flow of commodities, pathogens, crops, livestock, and migrants. What were their impact on the economies, societies, and political institutions of communities on both sides of the Atlantic?
These changing trends in historical scholarship have inevitably been reflected in the evolution of this book. The first edition explained the political and institutional development of the early American colonies while also describing the lives of European-American women and families, African-Americans, and indigenous North American peoples during the colonial period. The second edition, in 1996, added newer scholarship about the history of indigenous peoples before the colonies began. The third edition, in 2002, provided more background on the transnational competition of England, France, and Spain for control over North America in the eighteenth century.