Hey guys, today we're going to review some of the documents as well as early governments that helped influence representative government in the colonies. So the first document we looked at was the Magna Carta. It was written in 1215 and it was written by the nobility in England. Basically, the king had become too powerful, so the nobles decided it was time for him to get rid of having so much power.
And they want to have him sign this Magna Carta to decrease the king's powers. And then it will ultimately give rights to the people. Now, it doesn't give rights to the regular people at first.
It's only going to give it to the rich, fancy people. But eventually those rights will trickle down to the common people. Next up, we have the Virginia House of Burgesses. This happened in 1619. And it happened in Jamestown, Virginia.
Now the reason that the Virginia House of Burgesses was created was because thousands of people had moved to Virginia hoping to strike it rich with cash crops. So they couldn't have a self-government, and instead they create the Virginia House of Burgesses, which is the first representative government. Free white men who owned land selected representatives to be their voice in government. And it was necessary to establish a representative government, again, because of the size of the colony.
One year after the Virginia House of Burgesses, we have the Mayflower Compact. Remember, the Pilgrims were escaping from England due to religious persecution. And so they come over to America, but since they don't end up in Virginia, they accidentally end up in Massachusetts. They're going to have to create their own government. They create the first self-government, and they have a much smaller community compared to Virginia.
Now, this is a hot date. You have to know 1620, Mayflower Compact, and the Pilgrims because they create this government to provide order and protect the colonists, but ultimately it is most important for creating the first self-government in the colonies. Next up, we're going over to Connecticut.
And the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut are important, sorry I'm trying to get that focused, because it is the first constitution in the new world. Okay, it's the first written constitution. Thomas Hooker writes this constitution in 1639. And the reason that it's so important is because it's going to create a representative government, but it's also going to extend voting rights to more men.
You didn't have to be a part of the church in order to vote. Okay, our next government document is the English Bill of Rights. And my kids and I are calling it Magna Carta 2.0.
It is going to be written by the British Parliament, the British government. And again, it is going to limit the king's powers and give rights to the people. Now, on your paper, we added a cause and an effect. So...
what is the major cause of the colonists even creating their own governments? The first one is the distance from the king. Remember, they're about 3,000 miles away.
So it's going to take him about two months to respond back to any questions that we have about our government. Let's see if we can get that to clear up. And so... If it takes two months to send over my question and then two more months for my answer to come back, that's going to be four months.
That's too long for us to have somebody else managing us from 3,000 miles away. The other issue is salutary neglect. Most of the time, the king is not even paying attention to us.
All he really cares about is making money off of us, so he's going to ignore us. Now, the effect then of these causes is going to be... Colonists create self and representative governments.
They're going to need to take care of business. They're going to need to protect themselves. They're going to need to have order in their colonies. Now, we also talked about two eras, two time periods that influenced American government. And the first time period we looked at was the Enlightenment.
And we said that if you are enlightened, you are educated and informed. The major person you have to know with the Enlightenment thinkers is John Locke. John Locke believed in natural rights.
He believed that all people are born with the right to life, liberty, property, and sometimes they say the freedom to happiness. This is going to influence one of our founding fathers, Thomas. Miss Jefferson when he writes the Declaration of Independence. John Locke has basically said that if you didn't have a government, everything would be chaotic.
So, we have a social contract with our government. We're going to give up some freedom, like Miss Lee can't drive 95 miles an hour down 290, but in return, I'm going to get something out of it. My government is going to protect me and my rights.
The other era that you needed to know about was the Great Awakening. And we talked about this. religious movement where preachers go from sitting at the front of the church and being just kind of boring and now they're getting all emotional and excited and trying to get people really attached and awakened to their religion sorry about the blurriness okay what is important to remember about how the great awakening is going to impact the american government is that preachers are going to encourage religious freedom they're going to say that all people are equal you And then they are going to encourage people to use their voices in government.
So basically, if you were a preacher during this time period, you would probably support a representative or self-government. Now let's move into our five guys who inspired representative government and democracy. Five guys without the burgers and fries. And the first one is William Blackstone.
William Blackstone, really all you need to know about him is he's a lawyer who believed that men are born with God-given rights. Our man Thomas Hooker from Connecticut. supports equality for all mankind. He writes the fundamental orders of Connecticut. And what's most important for him is that he believes in the vote for all men, regardless of land ownership or church membership.
I write our guy from the Enlightenment, John Locke. He believes in the protection of individual rights, life, liberty, and property. He thought that people have the right to revolt if their government does not protect their rights. And he's going to go on to inspire Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
Over here we have our Frenchman, Charles de Montesquieu. Remember, he has three names, so his big idea is he believes in three branches. He believes the government should be broken into three branches. One person should not have all the power.
Finally, we have William Penn. He's the Quaker who established his Pennsylvania. He believes in equality, diversity, and he supports a representative government.
No matter what document is attached to William Penn, I want you to remember he believes in power going to the people. Now the last two things I want to remind you of. Mercantilism and Triangle Trade are going to show up on this test because they got left off of the last test. Mercantilism is the system in which the mother country gets rich basically by taking advantage of the colonies.
So the colonists are going to have to import everything from the mother country. They're going to have to export everything from the mother country. Also with Triangle Trade, we talked about... The Americans sending over rum and weapons to Africa and Africa exporting slaves over to America to work in the plantations in the southern colonies.
So the major cause of the triangle trade is going to be cash crops and cash crop agriculture. Farmers are going to want to get rich, but they're going to want to get rich quicker, so they are going to import slaves from Africa to help achieve that. All right, I want you to study up, study your Quizlet.
Review any other videos. I made you a video for the southern colonies, the middle colonies, and the New England colonies. So you can go back and check in with those if you have any other questions. Have a great night.