-The fate of New Netherland
-Leisler's Rebellion
-William Penn and the Quaker Experiment
-Colonies of the Lower South

[SLIDE 1]

England and the Dutch fought a series of wars over control of New World territories. In the end, James, the Duke of York, who would become James II, was able to take New York from Peter Stuyvesant without a shot being fired. Elsewhere in New Netherland, the situation was not so peaceable, and a number of Dutch settlers were sold into slavery in Virginia. Although the religious tolerance that had mainly characterized New Netherland continued in New York, it was not upheld everywhere. One Mennonite community was wiped out. The English divided New Netherland into the colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Over the next years, new settlers came to New York: French Protestants, English Quakers, and Scottish Presbyterians.

[SLIDE 2]

In Boston, the royal governor Edmund Andros was sent packing when word of the Glorious Revolution arrived. In New York, a similar rebellion was led by German merchant Jacob Leisler. He and his son-in-law were found guilty of treason and given the associated penalty of the time, a particularly horrible death. The affair made clear that monarchs don't like rebellions by the common people, sometimes even rebellions supposedly supporting them. Leisler's supporters continued to sew dissent for some time to come. To quell discontent, the new governor allowed the formation of a representative assembly.

[SLIDE 3]

William Penn was the sole proprietor of a vast land grant. He used his land grant to establish the colony of Pennsylvania. The southern part of his land eventually became Delaware. Penn intended his colony to be a haven for Quakers, who were persecuted in England and Scotland, and often in the colonies as well. Penn wanted his colony to run on Quaker principles. Central to Quaker belief was the idea of the divine light within every human being. This meant that all individuals were equal and needed to be treated with respect. As a result of the colony's religious tolerance, people of diverse religions and countries came to settle, creating a multicultural society. The English-speakers referred to the German-speakers who came, such as the Mennonites and Amish, as Pennsylvania Dutch, from Deutsch, meaning German. Gradually, though, the commercial bent of the colony and the arrival of newcomers who didn't hold Penn's principles, meant that some were willing to seize land from the Indians and then demand the government protect them, just as had happened elsewhere.

[SLIDE 4]

While the Puritans controlled England, no new colonies were created. With the Restoration of the monarchy, eight proprietors received land grants from Charles II. It was called Carolina after Charles' father Charles I, who had been executed. Their plan called for a hierarchical agricultural society with laborers at the bottom. They found most Englishmen weren't eager to become serfs, so they put the head-right system into practice. You'll recall this system granted 50 acres of land to anyone able to pay his own way, and 50 for each additional person whose passage he paid. Some of those who came were sugar planters from Barbados, where the plantation system was operative. They settled on the fertile land near Charles Town, which boasted a natural port and which became the southern colonies' most important city. 

[SLIDE 5]

Early settlers traded with the Indians for captives from their tribal wars. Others sold materials from the pine forests to the navy. Some also learned cattle raising from the African slaves coming from Barbados. The enterprise that would end up fueling the economy, however, was rice farming. The wealthiest rice farmers seized control of the southeastern part of the colony and named it South Carolina, which would become the wealthiest of all the colonies. Because of its natural barriers, North Carolina was less attractive to settlers and was also less wealthy. When the colonists broke with the original proprietors, both North and South Carolina became royal colonies.

[SLIDE 6]

James Oglethorpe and his friends wanted a place where men and women who had been imprisoned for debt could seek a fresh start to try to lead moral lives. King George wanted a buffer on the border with Spain's Florida. He required all male settlers to serve in the military. This meant that poor Georgia men were protecting rich South Carolina rice farmers.

[SLIDE 7]

A common view of the time was that poverty stemmed from weak character and vice. For this reason, the settlers weren't trusted enough to be granted a representative assembly, and life in Georgia was rife with restrictions designed to guide the weak-willed into a moral life.

[SLIDE 8]

Oglethorpe found that few of the imprisoned debtors actually met his standards for the deserving poor, so the settlers who actually came were middle-class English and people from South Carolina looking for more land. These people fought the restrictive rules in the charter. They won the right to accumulate large tracts of land, and they used slave labor.

[SLIDE 9]

Here is an outline of the 13 colonies as they appeared in the early 18th century. Regional characters and local history had already developed by now.