| Copyright | ||
|
Home Foreign Policy, 1649-1688, and the Beginnings of Greater Britain, 1603-1688 1603-1688; Part 7 |
1603-1688; Part 7The reign of Charles II proved an extremely important one in the history of our American colonies. For one thing, North and South Carolina were founded. But, above all, the territories of the English in America became continuous. The Dutch had colonized the territory which lay between the northern and southern settlements of the English. In the Dutch war of 1665, however, an expedition was sent, and these colonies were captured; and in the subsequent peace the Dutch formally relinquished them. New Amsterdam became New York, and the colonies of New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania were established.Of the relations between England and her American colonies we shall have something to say later on; it is sufficient to say here that to most of them an English governor was sent out, and that the degree of independence enjoyed by each colony varied. But, like all mother countries at that time, England regarded her colonies as a source of wealth, and the colonial trade was carefully regulated for the benefit of English merchants. As to the character of the colonies themselves, there were striking differences between them. The "New England" colonists (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island) were Puritans by religion, inclined to be democratic in government, and they were hard-working, keen, if somewhat austere men. The southern colonies (i.e. Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, which was founded in 1752) were more aristocratic, and in them the Church of England was established by law. Here the climate was hot, and the chief products were tobacco and rice, the cultivation of which was worked by slaves. The colonists were owners of plantations, many of them being very large plantations. The central colonies (i.e. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware) were composed of somewhat heterogeneous elements, and every variety of race and religion might be found in one or other of them. With such differences between these various groups, it was not likely that the colonies would find combination an easy matter, and indeed there were continual disputes, chiefly about boundaries,-between them. Unity was not to come till the oppression of the mother country—or what was considered by the colonists to be oppression—roused the colonies to common action in 1775; and less than a century after this the underlying differences between the North and the South were to produce the American Civil War of 1861. Of the other parts of our Empire developed or acquired in the seventeenth century we must say little. In the West Indies the small island of Barbados was successfully colonized in 1626 (Barbados was stoutly Royalist, and held out against the Commonwealth until 1652). The resources of Jamaica, captured by Cromwell in 1655, were Quickly developed, and this island was also the home of the Buccaneers (The most famous of these is perhaps Captain Dampier) who preyed upon Spanish commerce in the Caribbean Sea. Meantime, settlements were made in Newfoundland and the Bahamas, whilst various points on the West African coast were secured, and in 1651 St. Helena was occupied by the East India Company. |
Chronology |
| Savi-Seo website seo optimization | copyright by www.uuo-ununoctium.info |