THE AGE OF SALUTARY NEGLECT (1650 TO 1750)

Also known as “Benign Neglect”

Chp 3.1

British too busy with other problems to keep close rein on colonies

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Take the time to fill in your colonies map

England felt the colonies where there to serve the mother country

The main goal of mercantilism was to increase the money in a country’s treasury by creating a favorable balance of trade. A country had a favorable balance of trade if it had more exports than imports.

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Emergence of a world market and the policy of mercantilism

1. New World gold and silver to Spain in 16th and 17th centuries used to buy products from England, France and Holland

2. 18th century great increase in global trade and emergence of "world market"

3. English, French, and Dutch use profits for tea, spices, silks and cotton from East Asia and India to sell in Europe

4. British ships carry goods to Africa to trade for slaves and shipped to America to buy tobacco. The tobacco was sent back to England, processed and sold in Europe for cash.

5. Slaves were perhaps the most profitable trade.

6. Trade enabled England and France to overtake Spain, Portugal and Holland in the 18th century

7. England and France built profitable empires in the 18th

century.

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ENGLISH REGULATION OF COLONIAL

TRADE Mercantilism meant Britain

looked to the colonies as1. Market for British goods

2. Source of raw materials that were not native to Britain

3. As a producer of goods to be sold to other nations and the profit would go to England

Triangular trade routes

Slaves to sugar plantations, sugar to distillers in colonies, rum and such to Europe

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Navigation Acts required

1. the colonists to buy goods only from England.

2. prohibited the colonies from manufacturing a number of goods that England already produced

3. Export all valuable raw materials to England

To Keep Their Profits England Decides To Pass:

Navigation Acts meant:

1. Colonial shippers must use only British vessels.

2. Certain products could only be shipped through British ports.

3. Foreign ships trading with the colonies had to stop first at a British port to pay duties.

4. Colonial manufacturing was essentially permitted only for home consumption not export and certain goods were only to be purchased from Britain itself.

What was life like in the colonies? - Population in 1700 was 250,000; by 1750, that number was 1,250,000

- Over 90 percent-lived in rural areas

-Children and women were completely subordinate to men! (Great Idea!!)

-Children's education had to be fit in around their work schedules

-Married women were not allowed to vote, own property, draft a will, or testify in court.

-Slaves often developed extended-kinship ties and strong communal bonds to cope with the misery of servitude and the possibility that their nuclear families might be separated by sale

New England society centered on trade. Boston was the colonies' major port city

The middle colonies-New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey-had more fertile land and so focused primarily on farming

The lower South (the Carolinas) concentrated on such cash crops as tobacco and rice

Majority of Southerners were subsistence farmers who had no slaves

Colonies were hardly a unified whole as they approached the events that led them to rebel

So how did they react to the Navigation Acts of 1650?

First American Revolution?• The reign of James II threatened the colonies’ tradition of self-government.

James became king in 1685. He wanted to rule England and its colonies with total authority. One of his first orders changed the way the Northern colonies were governed.

• These colonies, especially Massachusetts, had been smuggling goods and ignoring the Navigation Acts.

• When challenged, the people of Massachusetts had claimed that England had no right to make laws for them. The previous king, Charles II, had then canceled their charter.

• King James combined Massachusetts and the other Northern colonies into one Dominion of New England, ruled by royal governor Edmund Andros. Andros angered the colonists by ending their representative assemblies and allowing town meetings to be held only once a year. With their assemblies outlawed, some colonists refused to pay taxes.

First American Revolution?

• They said that being taxed without having a voice in government violated their rights. Andros jailed the loudest complainers. At their trial, they were told, “You have no more privileges left you than not to be Sould for Slaves.”

• The colonists sent Increase Mather to England to plead with King. However, a revolution in England swept King James and Governor Andros from power.

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Glorious Revolution

– The English Parliament had decided to overthrow King James for not respecting its rights

– He had dismissed the last Parliament in 1685. The Protestant leaders of Parliament were outraged. They offered the throne to James’s Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange. William was the ruler of the Netherlands.

– Having little support from the people, James fled the country at the end of 1688. Parliament named William and Mary the new monarchs of England. This change in leadership was called England’s Glorious Revolution.

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Glorious Revolution

• Glorious Revolution didn’t mean much besides Andros leaving

• 1691 new royal charter again - new permanent royal gov’t– Loss ancient charter

– Now voting not just church members but all male property owners (those Puritans lost power now!)

Glorious Revolution

• Wm and Mary meant “salutory neglect”• But

– More English officials remain due to Charles II– They were often corrupt and loyal to England– Not locally elected

Period of Salutary Neglect Period of Salutary Neglect and Time to Practice and Time to Practice Running the CountryRunning the Country

Period of Salutary Neglect Period of Salutary Neglect and Time to Practice and Time to Practice Running the CountryRunning the Country

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The governor could strike down laws passed by the assembly, but the assembly was responsible for the governor’s salary. If he blocked the assembly, the assembly might refuse to pay him. During the first half of the 1700s, England interfered very little in colonial affairs. This hands-off policy was called salutary neglect. Parliament passed many laws regulating trade, the use of money, and even apprenticeships in the colonies. But governors rarely enforced these laws. The colonists got used to acting on their own.