British North America: Key Points from American Yop, Chapter 3

Introduction

• Settlers' backgrounds: Included servants, enslaved laborers, farmers, refugees, and planters.
• Impact on Native Americans: Colonies grew in size, monopolizing resources and land.
• Labor and racial systems: Evolved into race-based chattel slavery central to the British Empire's economy.
• Atlantic world connections: Tied Europe, Africa, and the Americas, influencing colonial societies.

Slavery and the Making of Race

• Reverend Francis Le Jau's perspective: Missionary disillusioned by the horrors of slavery.
• 1660s legal changes: Enslavement laws for Africans in Virginia and Barbados.
• Racial divisions: Skin color became a marker of division.
• Wars and slavery: Method to acquire enslaved Native Americans.
• Middle Passage: Horrific journey for enslaved Africans to the Americas.
• Cultural impact: African influences evident in American culture today.

Turmoil in Britain

• Religious and political conflict: Protestant vs. Catholic monarchy conflicts.
• English Civil War: Resulted in execution of Charles I, Cromwell's Commonwealth.
• Impact on American colonies: Shifted colonial loyalty and governance.
• Glorious Revolution: Established Protestantism, influenced colonial political autonomy.

New Colonies

• Maryland: Founded as a haven for Catholics, became a tobacco colony.
• Connecticut and Rhode Island: Developed from religious dissent, established religious freedoms.
• Mid-Atlantic colonies: Dutch and Swedes, then English settlements.
• Carolinas and Georgia: Promoted for settlement, adopted Barbados model of colonization.

Riot, Rebellion, and Revolt

• Colonial conflicts: Included Pequot War, King Philip's War, Bacon's Rebellion, Pueblo Revolt.
• Bacon's Rebellion: Highlighted tensions between settlers and Native Americans, as well as within the colonial society.
• Pueblo Revolt: Significant indigenous resistance against Spanish rule in New Mexico.
• Yamasee War: Almost destroyed Carolina; led to the decreased Native American slave trade.

Conclusion

• Colonial growth: Despite conflict, colonies grew and developed unique societies.
• Influence: These societies began to shape the broader Atlantic world.