[Music] greetings students and welcome to another edition of Mr Z's social studies podcast now today we have part one of a three part series on the 13 original English colonies in the new world and part one is focusing on the New England colonies so what I'm going to do is tell you just a very brief introduction to the stories of four of those original 13 colonies and your job is going to be to listen to those stories and for each one I want you to be able to tell me who is the founder of that colony and why was that Colony founded are you ready all right let's get started our first colony that we're going to talk about is the colony of Massachusetts and Massachusetts has a two-part story we've got the story of the pilgrims as well as the story of the Puritans now you're probably already familiar with the story of the pilgrims the pilgrims came to the new world for reasons that were very different from why Colonists came to either Jamestown or Rono instead of merely seeking Economic Opportunity the pilgrims were also looking for the opportunity to practice their religion without having to fear religious persecution now they came on a boat that was called the mayflower but the Mayflower was blown off course so instead of Landing in Virginia as they were supposed to do instead they landed off the coast of Massachusetts but they decided to stay in Massachusetts and before before disembarking they signed an important document in American history called the Mayflower Compact and the Mayflower Compact was a governing document that was signed by the pilgrims before they ever landed in Plymouth Harbor now life was very difficult when they first arrived but eventually they made contact with Native Americans who taught them how to utilize the Abundant natural resources that were available there and that ultimately will lead us to the story of the very first Thanksgiving now that's the pilgrim who founded Plymouth Colony but the pilgrims were soon followed in the New World by another group called the Puritans who will establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony and both of these groups came to the new world with something called a charter now a charter is a document and I want you to understand what a charter is because it's very important a charter is something that gives official permission so it's given by the government or by the king in other words then to found a new colony in the new world so each of these 13 colonies is going to have to have its own Charter that's something that would be true for both the pilgrims and the Puritans but there are other things that are true about both of these groups as well so one thing to understand is that with both the Puritans and the pilgrims we have groups that wanted to be able to freely practice their religion in the new world but there are also some differences in their beliefs as well for example the pilgrims were what were called separatists meaning that that they wanted to separate from the Anglican church and found a new religion the Puritans on the other hand considered themselves to be Anglican but they were reformers they wanted to get rid of some of these extraneous influences that they felt were detrimental to their religion and and essentially create a more pure form of the Anglican Church there were also some differences in their social status the pilgrims had a relatively low social status back in England whereas the Puritans enjoyed a little bit more social clout back home in England now I want you to write that down so why don't you go ahead and pause the video for a second and then when you're done unpause the video and we'll go on from there and we're back all right our Puritans were led by a man whose name was John winrep and John winthrip was a very active and energetic leader uh he was leading by example helping to build homes and clear Fields but there were some downsides to John winthrip's rule as well he was a very authoritarian ruler uh he controlled all of the power as governor of the colony he also was not very open to encouraging other voices to come into the government especially voices that did not belong to non or that belong to nonp Puritans he wanted to make sure that Puritans were running the government of Massachusetts now that's particular ly important because when we start to look at some of the other colonies of New England they will be heavily influenced by some of the beliefs of John winra and some of the other events that unfold in Massachusetts let me give you an example let's go ahead and turn our attention to Connecticut now Connecticut was founded to the south and west of Massachusetts and it was founded by a man whose name was Thomas Hooker and Thomas Hooker led a group of about 100 settlers West to the Connecticut River and he's going to write a document that's called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut and the reason that Thomas Hooker is going to write that document is because of some of the things that he saw when he was living back in Massachusetts under John winra so let's do a little comparison between these two men now both of these men were actually Puritan ministers but there are some differences between them as well John winthrip remember was the governor of Massachusetts and we said he was a strong authoritarian leader and we also said that he believed that only fellow Puritans should be able to have a voice in the government now Thomas Hooker on the other hand uh he was not particularly satisfied with the way that things were going in Massachusetts because he believed in a more inclusive form of government he believed that more people should be allowed to vote and have a voice in the government of Connecticut so what he did was write a document called the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut that created this new colon and there are a lot of similar arities between Connecticut and Massachusetts but the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut have two very important differences from what we'd see in Massachusetts number one all men who own land so even if they were not Puritans all men who own land were allowed to have a vote in the government and number two there was a limit on the power and authority of the governor so even though when we looked at John winr in Massachusetts he had unlimited Authority and power it seemed Thomas Hooker said well we shouldn't have that we should Place some very defined limits on the authority of the governor of this Colony now John winth still has a profound influence in Connecticut and he's going to have a profound influence in other colonies as well let's look at some of those other colonies let's turn our attention next to New Hampshire now in order to understand why New Hampshire was eventually given its own Charter you really need to understand a larger Trend which is taking place in the col at this time and that is that the colonial population is rising and it's rising significantly and that's for a couple reasons number one we have more and more settlers who are arriving and these settlers are seeking New Opportunities whether they're economic opportunities or religious opportunities we have more people who see the new world as a a viable place for them to improve their lives but we also have these indentured servants who are earning their freedom due so they've come to the new world to be part of the workforce they've worked for that specific ified period of time and then they're released to go build their own Farm start their own family and that's going to require more and more land so let me see if I can explain this uh a little in a little bit more detail when the colonists first arrived they'd build a settlement but that would be a relatively small settlement but over time as more colonists arrived or we had more indentured servants who were getting their freedom dues that meant that they were spreading further and further away from that initial settlement and that meant pushing both further and further into the interior as well as further north and further south along the coast so they're taking up more and more territory now this is certainly something that would be true uh to the south of Massachusetts uh Connecticut and then ultimately Rhode Island are going to be formed to the South so it shouldn't be any surprise that this trend is taking place in the northern part of the colony as well and eventually what happens is uh enough settlers have settled in this Northern Area and eventually they get their own Charter and this becomes the colony of New Hampshire all right one more Colony that I'd like to talk to you about in this podcast and that is the colony of Rhode Island now we know that in Massachusetts we have a strong leader and John winthrip and that's part of what influences Thomas Hooker to found the colony of Connecticut we're going to see a similar story in Rhode Island with a man named Roger Williams now Roger Williams was a young minister uh just like winthrip and and hooker and eventually though he's going to find himself in hot water because of his beliefs and ultimately he's going to have to flee the colony to avoid being sent back to England now what are these beliefs of Roger Williams that get him in such trouble well he starts preaching things like he said the Puritan church has too much power especially power over the government and he believed that the church and the government should be entirely separate entities so for example he believed that the government should he says create order and peace in society but he also believed that the government should not promote one particular religion now that's that's a pretty radical belief compared to some of these other beliefs espoused by men like John winthrip back in the colony of Massachusetts Bay additionally Roger Williams said there should be religious toleration he said in puritan massachus it's nonp Puritans are not allowed to worship freely and Roger Williams said well that's not a good way for us to run this Colony now I want to make sure that you understand this term Toleration and what we mean by that Toleration means the willingness to let others practice their own beliefs so remember Roger Williams uh shared many of the same religious beliefs as John Winthrop or uh Thomas Hooker or some of these other leaders but he believe that other people who didn't share those beliefs should be allowed to practice their religion freely as well now do some of these beliefs sound familiar to you because many of these beliefs two of these beliefs are going to be are going to form and form the basis of important American ideals that will go into documents like the Constitution I want you to think about this for a second pause the video see if you can figure out which important American ideals I'm referencing here and when you have some guesses unpause the video and we'll see if you're correct all right let's see what you came up with one of the things that comes out of Roger Williams ideas are is our important idea the the freedom of religion um so that one's relatively straightforward because we said Roger Williams believed in religious toleration that people even if they had different religious beliefs should be free to practice their own religion additionally Roger Williams though also gives uh some Credence to this idea of the separation of church and state in the United States we believe that the government should not tell you what to believe but additionally that religion should not influence the government should not tell the government government what to do either so that's what we call the separation of church and state both of those two very important ideas are two things that Roger Williams was preaching way back at the very beginning of the founding of one of these 13 colonies now because of these policies uh many Puritans and many non Puritans begin flocking to Rhode Island all right well those are our first four of our 13 colonies and remember what I had asked you to do is figure out for each of these colonies who was the founder and why was that colony found it so let me make sure that you understand what I'm asking you to do I want you to take each colony so for example if we take Massachusetts and Massachusetts is kind of a complicated example so let's do this one together in Massachusetts we really have two colonies that start it we've got the Plymouth colon and the Massachusetts Bay Colony let's start with the Plymouth Colony if we look at that Colony we have to take a founder and the founder I'll give to you was actually a man named William Bradford and the reason that that colony was founded was to provide religious freedom for the pilgrims specifically so let's see if you can do that with our other colonies let's go ahead and pause the video see how many of these answers you can come up with and when you're ready unpause the video and we'll check your work all right here we go so for Massachusetts Bay you should have identified John winth as the powerful leader of Massachusetts Bay and the reason that Massachusetts Bay was founded was to provide religious freedom for the Puritans now our next colony was Connecticut Connecticut was founded by Thomas Hooker and the reason it was founded was to provide religious and political freedoms remember he believed that John winthrip's rule was was too strong and that more people should have more religion religious and political freedom and that's why Connecticut is founded New Hampshire though is founded for different reasons who did you say was the founder of New Hampshire notice we didn't we didn't give a specific name so you probably said something like settlers from Massachusetts who were spreading up the coast North up the coast as more and more settlers arrived in the new world but the reason that that colony was founded was these were people who were searching for economic opportunities remember these were people like indentured servants who had served their period of indenture and now they were looking to build a new life for themselves so New Hampshire is actually founded by people who are seeking economic opportunities and then the last Colony that we talked about today was Rhode Island and Rhode Island was founded by Roger Williams and the reason that Rhode Island was founded was by people who were seeking religious and political Freedom all right well that's it for this podcast I hope you have enjoyed it and keep studying the social studies