A1.

Compare early Spanish activity in the New World with early British activity and
early French activity. ("Early" means 1500-1700.) What territory did each state control
(and when)? How were their New World imperial policies different? Who had the more
"successful" policy and why? Be sure to explain imperial overreach.

I. Thesis: Although Spain and France became involved in the New World long
before England, it was the British policy of permanent colonization that, in the
end, proved superior to the extraction policy of Spain and the commercial policy
of France.
II. Spain
a. Context and location: Southern America, modern day Mexico, and South
America – Spanish influence began strong and early. Cortez subjugated a
major Indian civilization. In 1519, he set out with 600 men and conquered the
Aztecs over the next several years. In 1531, Francisco Pizarro subdued the
Incas in Peru.
b. Strategy: Exploit rather than colonize. Get rich quick – send in adventurers to
find gold and conquer land, make Indians dig up gold if necessary, make
converts even by force. The Spanish set up a system called the encomienda, in
which landowners known as encomenderos ruled villages and extracted taxes
in the form of goods and labor. The influx of bullion made Spain extremely
wealthy during the 1500s and bought a century of power
c. Underlying motive behind strategy: Gold, glory, and God.
d. Success: Initially paid huge dividends but proved shortsighted.
e. Reasons for failure: Indians revolted (Pueblo revolt of 1680) and adventurers
got tire of adventuring. Spain failed to establish self-sustaining colony. Did
not send families (excluding Mestizos), blacksmiths, or carpenters. Spain
overreached itself and lost its empire. Partly due to sinking of the armada,
thirty years war, and war with the Netherlands.
III. France
a. Context and location: First colonization attempt near Quebec in 1541. The
French settled in the east of modern day Canada and on the Mississippi River,
gaining control of strategic locations in America.
b. Strategy: Get along well with natives so you can do business with them
(French missionaries and trappers respected the Natives and sought to learn
their customs). Fur trapping and trading near the St. Lawrence River and the
great Lakes. Missionary efforts: Physical and spiritual health.
c. Underlying motive behind strategy: Economic and religious incentive.
d. Success: Great relations with natives. Their emphasis was on fur trading and
evangelism, and they never sent over large numbers of colonists (though more
families than in the Spanish New World). No lasting presence as trappers
wandered through the region but didn’t bring families and establish
settlements. No pool of potential settlers in France, as nobles kept a tight reign
on their workers. Would lose their power after the GWE.
IV. Britain
a. Context and location: Defeated Spanish armada in 1588 and opened the way
to settle in the Americas. Jamestown established in 1607. Pilgrims in
 Plymouth at 1620, merging with Massachusetts Bay Puritans who arrived in
1630, Maryland founded in 1634, and other colonies later – began later than
Spain and France, which would appear to be a disadvantage.
b. Strategy:
i. At first, in such settlements as Jamestown, strategy was to seek gold –
gentlemen adventurers sent out, little practical work done. Expectation
to return to England with riches.
ii. As time went on, strategy became colonization instead of extraction --
whole families moving and seeking to establish a sustainable way of
living. Britain began to see what Spain and France failed to see – that a
self-sustaining colony of permanent settlers would be better in the long
run.
iii. Salutary neglect in their policy.
c. Underlying motive behind strategy: Gold in Jamestown, ability to practice
religion and establish model community in Plymouth and Massachusetts,
moving for religious or economic reasons in other colonies.
d. Success: Colonies faltered until whole families were brought. Other colonies
did well – permanent settlements, impact that lasted.
e. Reasons:
i. England allowed private funding for colonization, which often took the
form of joint-stock companies where investors pooled their money
together. They responded to needs more quickly than governments.
ii. England allowed non-English and dissidents to settle in their territories
– more of these people came to stay than the government-employed
folks from other places.
V. Conclusion
a. Spanish strategy worked in the short term but failed in the long run as the
source of wealth was exhausted.
b. French strategy was to simply maintain a powerful religious and economic
presence in the reason. Their strategy avoided the Spanish mistake of
neglecting to send families, but it failed to fully capitalize upon the idea of
colonization.
c. British strategy was slow see results and was not immediate, but it was
practical, effective, and enduring.
d. Look to long-term strategy, and Britain would rise to prominence.
C. Describe and compare the Virginia colony, the Massachusetts colony, and the
Pennsylvania colony in the 1600s and early 1700s (Stop your answer at 1715, or before
the Great Awakening.) Note similarities and differences. Discuss such things as motives
for establishing the colony, why colonists populated the colony, relationships with local
Native American Indians, overall health of the colony, population growth, the labor
supply, government, extent of class stratification, role of religion, the economy, and any
revolts/rebellions that upset each area. (Hint that won’t be on the exam: Note that this
question extends to 1715. Don’t restrict your answer to the early 1600s. Don’t lump the
Pennsylvania colony with the Massachusetts colony and inaccurately speak of “Northern
colonies” (because Pennsylvania and Massachusetts were quite different).)

I. Thesis: Although similar in many ways, the English colonies of Virginia,

Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania proved to be exceptionally different in the areas
of purpose, health, economy, government, and unrest.

II. The Virginia Colony, founded in 1607:

 Motives for establishment: Original settlers were focused on finding treasure –
“dig, mine, and search for all manners of mines of gold, silver, and copper.”
* Overall health, population growth: Jamestown was a malarial swamp. At
first, it struggled with starvation and barely got along 14,000 sent in the early
years after 1607; only 1,100 remained. Concentrated on gold so much that
adequate shelters and supplies were neglected. In 1680 the white population of
Virginia finally began to increase by natural reproduction rather than through
immigration.
a. economy, and labor supply:
i. John Rolfe developed an exportable tobacco product around 1615 that
saved the colony’s economy. By 1617, 20,000 pounds a year to
England.
ii. Indentured servants, generally poor, came to make a new life or serve
sentence and provided labor, although there were some slaves (1619).
Slaves were used more after Bacon’s Rebellion.
b. Indian relations: The white fought the Indians over land and finally crushed
out the Powhatans in 1644.
c. Role of Religion: Not at first established for religious reasons. Gold, rather
than God, played the most important role.
d. Government and class stratification: House of Burgesses met in 1619.
Growing tobacco required a lot of land and labor, so a landed gentry sprang
up and wielded political and economic power over a very large class of
indentured and formerly indentured laborers.
e. Revolts: Bacon’s Rebellion (Virginia – 1676):
i. Indians attacked small farmers who had been forced to work in the
frontier by the centralized ownership of land near the coast. Farmers
 asked for protection but Governor Berkeley didn’t want the expense.
Nathaniel Bacon led frustrated frontiersmen first against the Indians
and then against the wealthier tidewater landowners. He seemed
unstoppable, but his movement collapsed quickly when he died of
what was likely dysentery.
ii. Bacon’s Rebellion prompted the Crown to attempt to establish more
authority in Virginia: England didn’t want self-interested landowners
getting in the way of the profitable tobacco industry by throwing the
colony into turmoil. The settlers resolved their differences when
threatened externally like this.
iii. Bacon’s Rebellion caused landowners to conclude that indentured
servants were dangerous. They turned to slaves instead.
III. The Massachusetts Colony
a. Motives for establishment: Religion was a primary motive.
i. The Separatist Pilgrims settled Plymouth in 1620, fleeing the
worldliness they saw in Holland after fleeing persecution in England.
ii. More main-line Puritans under Winthrop established the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, fleeing religious persecution.
They absorbed Plymouth.
iii. The aim was to create a “Christian Commonwealth.”
b. Overall health and population growth: Population boomed as mortality was
low and immigrants kept coming. Life expectancy 64 years rather than VA’s
44 years. Settlers came as complete families and focused on food and shelter.
Their religion prompted them to work diligently.
c. Economy and labor supply:
i. Economy featured shipbuilding, the triangular trade, raising crops,
fishing, and exporting natural resources, particularly timber.
ii. By the late 1600s there were some slaves, but families and their
indentured servants did most labor.
d. Relationships with Indians: At first, good relations. As the population grew,
King Philip’s War from 1675-1676 and the Pequot War. David Brainerd and
others sought to evangelize Indians.
e. Role of Religion: It began as the fundamental aspect of the new Society. Anne
Hutchison and Roger Williams shows their devotion. However, financial
success made people lose their focus on religion by the 1670s. Many people
stopped claiming to have had a personal salvation experience and therefore
could not be full church members. The halfway covenant was established
allowing partial membership rights to the children and grandchildren of those
who were saved.
f. Government and class stratification: Political decisions, at first, were made in
town meetings where adult male church members voted. In 1634 a
representative legislative body, divided into two houses, was created. In 1691
a new royal law made all landowners (almost everyone) voters. Church and
State separate but complementary.
g. Revolts: None.
IV. Pennsylvania, founded by William Penn in 1681
 a. Motives for establishment: Religious tolerance and religious and political
egalitarianism, which were inherent in Penn’s Quakerism “inner light”
allowed all who believed in God to enter.
b. Overall health and population growth: Colony was healthy, tolerant, and
offered cheap land, so it attracted many settlers and become ethnically and
religiously diverse (Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, etc.).
c. Economy, and labor supply: There was some slavery, and farming was more
productive in the more temperate climate than it was in Massachusetts.
Colony was rich in natural resources. Lumber and ship-building.
d. Relationships with Indians: Very good. Bought land from the Indians.
e. Role of Religion: Emphasized “the inner light” as the only religious authority.
Anyone who believed in “The Almighty and Eternal God” could come and
worship.
f. Government and class stratification: Assembly. Law protected men equally.
There was nearly universal male suffrage. The people as well as the governor
had to consent in order for laws to be passed and all the rights of Englishmen
were accorded to colonists.
g. Revolts: None. Paxton boys would come later.
V. Conclusion
a. Motives for establishment made a difference: Virginia was founded for gold;
Massachusetts to create a religious haven; and Pennsylvania for the Quakers,
who allowed religious tolerance. Virginia’s desire for quick wealth nearly
proved its undoing, Massachusetts’s desire to establish a Christian
commonwealth cost it in the area of religious liberty (Hutchinson and
Williams), Pennsylvania’s desire to create a haven for religious dissent made
it grow and flourish as an ethnically diverse colony.
b. Economy featured farming, indentured servants.
c. Religion was important to Massachusetts, lukewarm to the Pennsylvanians,
and not at all a factor to the Virginians.
d. Bacon’s Rebellion and the Paxton Boys’ revolts point to greater stratification
in Virginia and Pennsylvania than in Massachusetts. They both resulted in
increased settler solidarity.
e. Colonies shared some common experiences, but were quite distinct.
D. What was the Great Awakening? When was this? What does the GA say about the
colonial religious environment? Whom (and what means) did God use most prominently
in this revival? How/why did some prominent theologians criticize the Great Awakening
and how did others defend it? How did this event connect to the future political events?

I. Intro
a. In 1730s and 40s, the first “national event” strongly shared by all the
colonies occurred. The Great Awakening.
b. The GA was a religious revival that prompted a great increase in religious
fervor and converted approximately 10% of the population.
c. Thesis: Although the colonial religious environment had become
lukewarm by the 1730s, the Great Awakening renewed religious fervor in
America and provided a common bond of experience that helped lead to
the union of the colonies and the War for Independence.

Backdrop: By the 1730s, church attendance had fallen off dramatically, 15%
percent church members in largest cities. The vast majority of colonists were
spiritually apathetic, and some elites were deists. Even the religiously-minded
Massachusetts Bay Colony had adopted the half-way covenant because many
did not claim to be saved. Commercialism trumped religion.

II. The movement

a. Jonathan Edwards’s church in western Massachusetts in the 1730s.
Edwards appealed to both his listeners’ minds and their emotions.
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Awakening spread through New
England, New York, and Pennsylvania. Edwards, Gilbert Tennent, and
George Whitefield.
b. In 1739 and 1740, the British preacher George Whitefield conducted a
series of evangelistic meetings in the Middle Colonies and New England
that spread the Great Awakening throughout North America. 8 new
members per year in CT to over 30. 10% saved.
c. Movement was strong in emphasizing sin and damnation.
“Sinners in the hands of an angry God” sermon shows.
 d. Movement also strongly emphasized salvation.
e. Movement was very emotionally charged compared to the traditional
church and to the lukewarm status quo.
III. Controversy
a. Many traditional clergymen (especially in New England) despised what
they regarded as excessive emotionalism in the revivals. They believed
religion to be mainly cerebral and unemotional. Emotion, to them, denoted
false faith.
b. Edwards skillfully articulated a balance that includes both “religious
enthusiasm” and intellectual understanding of truth. A Treatise on
Religious Affections expressed this opinion.
c. GA sermons taught a lot of solid doctrine, aiming for intellectual
knowledge, but in an impassioned way, aiming at the heart.
IV. Impact
1. They presented the Gospel message directly to individual sinner and called
upon men to care for their own souls.
a. The implicit message was not to rely upon an elite clergy or a state
sponsored church.
b. This encouraged individualism
c. Individualistic religious appeals assumed that common people had a right
to judge and act for themselves
2. Edwards publicly challenged the New England Religious establishment
when he defended the popular revival meetings.
d. Ordinary people were told it was ok to question their leaders. (even
necessary)
e. When the old lights criticized the GA and refused to ordain New light
ministers, discussions turned to liberty and freedom of conscience.
f. New colleges like Dartmouth and Princeton were formed to escape the
old light religious authorities.
g. This became a democratization of American Christianity, a shifting of
religious focus away from church leaders to church members.
h.
3. Revival meetings were non-denominational and de-emphasized formal
church structure.
i. The GA was a melting pot
j. Ethnic barriers were eliminated: converted colonists worshiped
together in the same multiethnic church blurring ethnic distinctions and
the common identity as Americans came to the forefront.
k. Presbyterian missionaries targeted the Slaves with revivals and held
bi-racial Lord’s Supper services with the newly baptized African
American Christians.
l. Many slaves became Christians and viewed themselves in an
environment akin to the pre-exodus Hebrew slaves in Egypt.
4. The Church of England was cool to the revivals.
m. They considered sending a bishop to America to win back colonists to the
Church of England.
 n. At least some colonists became distrustful of the British.
5. The colonists connected the GA with the later revolutionary war.
o. In 1175, a regiment of militiamen, after hearing the chaplain’s
message, stole the wrist cuffs and collar from Whitefield’s tomb and
took it with them on their invasion of Canada.
p. They viewed their invasion and search to extend political freedom to
Canada as an extension of Whitefield’s journey to extend religious
freedom to America.

E. Describe the character of slavery in the pre-1760 American colonies. Why was it
introduced into the New World? Where was it practiced? How was North American
slavery different from Caribbean/South American slavery? [Hint that won’t be on the
exam: Be sure to discuss the significance of Bacon’s Rebellion. Note that an answer to
this question should say something about Latin American slavery, although the focus
should be on North America.]

I. Intro
a. Slavery has a long history in the world (slavery is a label that has a wide
variety of meanings)
b. Prior to the 1700s, slavery was accepted and sometimes even defended as
the best arrangement for all parties.
c. When slavery came to the Western hemisphere, however, it took on a
wildly different appearance than it had in the Ancient world.
d. Thesis: Although the slavery introduced into the New World was
intrinsically dehumanizing and cruel, the slavery present in the American
colonies, which viewed slaves as a long term investment, was far superior
to the absentee slaveowning of the Caribbean and Latin America.
II. Slavery in the New World
 a. Largely started to help the sugar and rice industries and to make a profit
for slave-traders.
b. Between the 1400s and 1800s, 10 to 11 million Africans were transported
to the Americas (the largest amounts going to the Caribbean islands (42%)
and Brazil (38%), with Central and northern South America receiving the
remainder (15%).), around 5% of which were sent to the American
colonies.
c. Africans helped whites enslave other Africans.
d. Often practiced in the New World was chattel slavery, a form of
slavery where slaves are viewed as un-human property: it is
intrinsically dehumanizing. It was based upon race, was hereditary,
was permanent, and was part of a vibrant, profit-producing,
international business.
e. Chattel slavery encouraged was brutal and encouraged racism and ideas of
ethnic superiority.
f. A full commitment to liberty (argued slave owners) required that the state
protect all property rights . . . including the right to own human property
viz., chattel slaves.
g. Latin America worked their slaves to death in order to gain in the short
term. No self-reproduction.
III. What introduced slavery to America
Bacon’s Rebellion.
a. Bacon’s rebellion took place in VA when freed indentured servants began
to desire their own land.
b. The wealthy planters owned the land on the coast so the former indentured
servants had to go inland into Indian territory
c. The Indians and the settlers began to have disputes and the “east coast”
planters refused to send much help
d. The settlers took matters into their own hands under the leadership of
Nathaniel Bacon and attacked the Indians, killing many, and then burning
Jamestown, VA’s capital. The governor fled and soon after Bacon died of
illness.
e. In the aftermath and later truce, the planters decided indentured servants
were too dangerous and began importing African Slaves.
f. Black slaves gave a mode of agreement between the wealthy planters
and the poorer farmers, they were both “better” than the slave who
now occupied the lowest rung in society.
g. In 1680, only about 4,000 Africans in America. After 1700, bacon’s
rebellion, there were 20,000 slaves. In 1720, 70% of S.C. population.

IV. Slavery characteristics in America

h. Slavery was located all across the colonies (excepting Massachusetts).
Mostly used south of Pennsylvania. In the North, used in the commercial
industry. In the South, agriculture.
i. Large slave plantations and gangs of hundreds of slaves were rare.
 j. Masters usually worked alongside slaves.
k. Majority of white colonists even in the southern colonies did not own
slaves.
l. Skilled crafts were reserved to whites in the south but not in the north.
m. Most North American slave-owners were resident (and not absentee)
owners; this often meant they cared for the slaves more personally.
n. Slavery in Brazil and the Caribbean was particularly brutal and
resulted in high mortality; Slavery in North America was
comparatively better and allowed the slave population to become self-
reproducing. The slave culture was therefore more integrated in
North America.
V. Conclusion
a. The New World practiced slavery in a way that dehumanized.
b. South American and Caribbean slavery was much harsher than that in
North America because it was seen from a less long-term perspective in
North America, and that allowed for American slaves to fare better. Still,
however, they were treated as cattle.

F. Discuss the Great War for Empire. What are the other names for this war? Why did it
start? How did it end? Why is this such a critical event in American history? [Hint that
won’t be on exam: Be sure to explain thoroughly the salutary neglect policy, how this
war changed the salutary neglect policy, and what this change meant.]
I. Intro
a. The Great War for Empire, also known as the French and Indian War and
the Seven Years’ War, raged from 1756 to 1763.
b. Although it began as a small, backwoods confrontation. Britain escalated
it into a multi-continental war for territorial gain.
c. Thesis: Although Britain calculated that it could expand its territory
through the success of the Great War for Empire, the conflict served to
unexpectedly alter Britain’s salutary neglect policy toward its colonies in a
manner that ultimately provoked the War for Independence.
II. The War’s Beginning: The American Colonists’ Growing Conflict With the
French and Indians

 By 1750, the population of the colonies was rapidly expanding. Colonial fur
traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia were pushing westward into the Ohio
River valley. 1753: the British, who practiced salutary neglect, grant VA
planters a grant for 200,000 acres of Ohio river Valley land. If 200 families
could settle the Ohio River valley by 1754, the British promise 300,000 more
acres of land.
a. ^
b. Britain and France had, for over fifty years, been at enmity with each
other. They were rivals in the quest for world dominance (Spain was
decreasing).
c. To stop British expansion, the French built a chain of forts in the 1750s
that ran southward from Lake Erie.
d. British ministry ordered colonial governors to challenge the French
advance, using force if necessary. Washington led an attack in 1754 but
was repulsed. Virginia was at war with France.
e. The Albany Conference was called at the Crown’s suggestion, in an
attempt to come to an agreement with the Iroquois Confederacy. Iroquois
leave in a huff.
f. General Braddock arrived in 1755, headed off into the woods with 3000
soldiers in search of the French and Indians, found them near Fort
Duquesne, and was soundly trounced.
III. Britain Escalates a Limited War in the American Wilderness Into a Global War to
Gain an Empire
a. Pitt’s strategy was for Prussia to bear the brunt of the European war with
France.
b. England would devote the bulk of its military resources to North America.
c. Other British forces would attack French and Spanish outposts in India,
the Caribbean Sea, Africa, Cuba, and the Philippines.
d. The Paris Peace Treaty fulfilled Pitt’s dreams by giving Britain an empire
that stretched around the globe: France gave Britain all its holdings in
America and India.
IV. The Unexpected Consequences of the Great War for Empire
 a. Britain had practiced salutary neglect before the war – an informal policy
of letting the colonies practically govern themselves. Salutary neglect
ended after the war as the British sought to increase control in order to
raise revenue and help its treasury recover.
b. Britain instituted the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and Currency Act to raise
revenue.
c. To help minimize the need for soldiers in conflicts with the Indians,
Britain established the Proclamation Line of 1763. Colonists were
forbidden to travel or settle west of a line that ran down the crest of the
Appalachian Mountains. This was only designed as a temporary measure.
d. Britain demanded stricter compliance with the Navigation Acts and
extended the power of the all-British vice-admiralty courts.
e. About 10,000 British troops were left in the colonies to help occupy the
land, to enforce the Proclamation Line, and to intimidate colonists into
compliance with the law.
f. With the French and Spanish threat removed from North America, the
colonies were far less dependent upon Britain.
g. Britain emerged from the war with the perception that the colonists were
ungrateful, somewhat disloyal, and at times uncooperative subjects
because they provided less funding and soldiers.
V. Conclusion
a. Recalling a 1760s speech that James Otis had given in opposition to the
wartime writs of assistance (search warrants to stop smuggling), John
Adams wrote, “Then and there the child Independence was born.”
b. Ultimately, the unintended consequences of the war undid the success of
the intended consequences.
c. Although Britain won the GWE, it lost the hearts of its colonists.
G. Describe the colonial political arrangement. To what extent did the colonists enjoy
self-government? To what extent did they submit to royal authority? How did
mercantilism affect the colonies? What was the status of the colonies’ relationship with
England in 1760? [Hint that won’t be on the exam: Be sure to explain the concept of
salutary neglect and trace its history during the colonial era. Note the Dominion of New
England interruption.]

I. Intro
Thesis: Although the Dominion of New England provides a notable
exception, the British rule of its colonies was largely marked by
Mercantilism and salutary neglect, a policy that satisfied all parties and
accustomed the colonies to large measures of self-government.
II. Practical self-government
a. Between the founding of Virginia and Massachusetts and about 1670,
Britain was distracted by civil war, international issues, and the much-
more-profitable Caribbean sugar islands. As a result, it exercised little
authority over the American colonies. This represented a long lasting
Laissez Faire policy called salutary neglect.
b. The Crown reserved the right to veto assemblies’ actions, but it rarely
exercised that right.
c. Each American colony had a governor, who represented Britain. Because
the governors’ salaries were determined by the colonial legislatures, they
willingly deferred to the legislatures.
d. In theory, legislatures had very limited power, but they actually were
influential. White males who met minimum requirements of
landownership could vote to elect legislators.
e. Colonial courts featured juries comprised of colonists.
III. The role of mercantilism
 a. Mercantilism taught that the colonies were important chiefly for economic
reasons. According to mercantile theory, it was good to accumulate gold
by exporting and not importing. Colonies strengthened their mother
country by providing a source of natural resources that is in the country’s
economic system, a market for manufactured goods, and a source of exotic
goods that other countries might want.
b. Around 1650, England began instituting mercantilist policies known as
Navigation Acts to restrict direct trade between the colonies and foreign
countries.
i. The Navigation Acts promoted smuggling (which became well-
looked upon) and bribing of officials.
ii. The Navigation Acts gave Britain an interest in using its powerful
navy to protect colonial shipping.
iii. The Navigation Acts were accepted on both sides of the Atlantic as
a normal part of mercantilist economic planning. Some Americans
grumbled, but it wasn’t considered tyrannical or unjust.
IV. A New Attempt to Assert Imperial Control: The Dominion of New England
(1680-1700)
a. In the last third of the 1600s, Britain tried to tighten control in order to
keep the settlers and the Indians from fighting, and they were tired of
seeing foreign ships in the colonies’ harbors.
b. By 1686, the colonies of New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island had
been added to Massachusetts, and the four colonies (along with much of
what is now New Jersey) were consolidated into one super-colony called
the Dominion of New England.
c. Edmund Andros, the new royal governor, set out to end town meetings,
disband colonial assemblies, re-assert the Crown’s control over the
colonists, enforce the Navigation Acts, and put an end to profit-consuming
Indian wars.
i. Andros caused a depression.
ii. Andros threatened the validity of property-deeds.
iii. Andros offended the religious with a Sabbath fireworks show.
iv. Quit rents. “Liberty Taxes”
d. The 1688 Glorious Revolution distracted Britain from efforts to increase
influence in American government. When news of the Revolution came
the next year, Americans began to overthrow the Dominion of New
England, a task they completed by 1690.
V. Post-1700 Imperial Policy: The No-Policy Policy We Now Call Salutary Neglect
e. Prime Minister Walpole (in office 1720-1742) determined that
decentralized administration and a re-instatement of the laissez faire
approach would best secure England’s economic goals.
f. A Board of Trade was established with the job of reviewing all laws
passed by the colonial assemblies. The colonists viewed it as a political
institution that they could lobby and do business with, and it approved
95% of legislation.
 g. Unfavorable balance of trade with Britain would have kept the colonies
from paying for British goods, except that they practiced a lot of
smuggling with Caribbean colonies. The flow of money to Britain and the
bribes paid to officials made everyone happy with the arrangement, so the
Navigation Acts weren’t really enforced.
VI. Conclusion
a. The colonies and the Crown enjoyed amiable relations until the 1750s.
b. The colonies were happy with their status under the Crown and the Crown
was happy to let the colonies be largely self-governing.
c. Mercantile theory and the Navigation Acts were opposed to the policy of
salutary neglect, but this was not much of an issue because the Navigation
Acts were not strictly enforced.
d. In 1763, in the aftermath of the Great War for Empire, the British would
abruptly end the informal colonial policy of salutary neglect.
When royal authority became more of a practical matter, it became more of
a problem in the minds of the colonists.