Study guide: Colonial America Before Independence

📋 Course Outline

1. The Thirteen Colonial Regions
2. Colonial Rule and Religious Communities
3. Colonial Political Institutions
4. Mercantilism and Controlled Trade
5. Slavery and the Atlantic System

📅 Key Dates

1. August 18, 1518King Charles I of Spain authorized the capture and transportation of Africans to the Americas
2. August 1619the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia
3. 1651the Navigation Acts required only British ships to transport goods from the colonies to Great Britain
4. 1663the Navigation Acts required the colonies to trade mainly through Britain, increasing Great Britain's control and wealth

📖 1. The Thirteen Colonial Regions

★ Must-know

• By the eighteenth century, the thirteen British colonies were divided into three regions: the Northern Colonies, the Middle Colonies and the Southern Colonies.

Further detail

• The Northern Colonies were:

  • Massachusetts
  • Rhode Island
  • Connecticut
  • New Hampshire

• The Middle Colonies were:

  • Pennsylvania
  • New York
  • New Jersey
  • Delaware

• The Southern Colonies were:

  • Virginia
  • North Carolina
  • South Carolina
  • Maryland
  • Georgia

💡 Memory Hook

N-M-S: Northern, Middle, Southern colonies

📖 2. Colonial Rule and Religious Communities

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Crown colonies: colonies taken over by the British Crown after many joint-stock companies that had financed English colonization went bankrupt
• Proprietary colonies: founded and governed by powerful individuals who received a charter from the monarch, and their religious or political ideals influenced colonial society and culture

📝 Essential Points

• Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore as a haven for Catholics, and the Toleration Act of 1649 allowed Christians of different denominations to practice their religion there.

• Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn as a haven for persecuted Quakers, tolerated people of different religions, and had Philadelphia as its capital.

💡 Memory Hook

Crown colonies were controlled by the monarch, whereas proprietary colonies were governed by chartered individuals.

📖 3. Colonial Political Institutions

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Colonial political system: Most colonies had a British governor appointed by the king or proprietor, an assembly elected by landowning men, and a strong tradition of political participation and debate among the white male elite.

💡 Memory Hook

Governor → elected assembly → political debate

📖 4. Mercantilism and Controlled Trade

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Mercantilism: an economic system based on becoming wealthy and powerful through international trade

📝 Essential Points

📌 Mercantilism required countries to minimize imports, maximize exports and establish trade monopolies with their colonies to enrich the mother country.

• Under mercantilism, colonies mainly provided raw materials and bought manufactured goods from the mother country.

💡 Memory Hook

Colonial raw materials and purchases of British goods → British wealth and control

📖 5. Slavery and the Atlantic System

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Triangular trade: also called the Atlantic system, connected Europe, Africa and the Americas through the exchange of manufactured goods, enslaved Africans and colonial raw materials

★ Must-know

• At least 10.7 million Africans were transported to the Americas in the transatlantic slave trade, and around 1.8 million people died during the Middle Passage because of extremely harsh and inhumane conditions.

📌 Enslaved people were treated as commodities and controlled by slave codes, and slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies at different points during the colonial period.

• The Southern plantation economy depended heavily on enslaved labor to produce cash crops such as sugar and tobacco.

Further detail

• Approximately 5% of enslaved Africans ended up in what is now the United States.

💡 Memory Hook

A triangle linking Europe, Africa and the Americas through goods, enslaved people and raw materials

📊 Synthesis Tables

Colonial Government Types