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Thanksgiving have a special significance for Americans? 7. How did Plymouth determine the history of American democracy? 8. What are most important values associated with Protestant heritage? 9. Why is there no official religion in the USA? 10. Which is at the center of religious life in your country: the church or the individual? Explain. 11. Is there a government-supported church in your country? 12. What does your religion teach about self-improvement? 13. How did the “Protestant ethic” help the new American nation to grow? 14. What is humanitarianism? Is this philosophy part of your religion? Does it exist outside your religion in your country? 15. What responsibility do the wealthy have, in your opinion? 16 What is the national religion of the USA? 17. Is there a mixing of religion and patriotism in your country? 18. How is patriotism revealed and exercised in your culture? 19. Do you know the national anthem of the Russian Federation? You surely can sing it right away, can’t you?
THE QUEST OF LAND: THE ENGLISH COLONIES
By the end of the 17th century, France, eager to build its own empire in the New World, had extended from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Appalachians to the Rocky Mountains.
About 12,000 colonists lived there. The population of the neighboring English colonies was at least ten times greater, but the English colonies covered only a narrow strip of land bordering the Atlantic Ocean. England, France and Spain were the three European powers that planted the largest number of colonies in America. All the North American wars were the result of the worldwide maritime and colonial rivalry between Great Britain and France.
Most settlers who came to America in the 17th century were English, but there were also Dutch, Swedes and Germans in the middle regions, a few French in South Carolina and elsewhere, slaves from Africa, primarily in the South, and a scattering of Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese throughout the colonies. Thousands of refugees fled continental Europe to escape the pass of war and the poverty. In colonial America, land was plentiful and labor was scarce. Every free man had the opportunity to be economically independent. Reflecting the diverse geography of the American colonies, different economies and social systems developed.
Historically the United States was divided at the time of its founding by a broad division into three groups of states: New England, Middle Atlantic, and Southern. The majority of people in each area had common background.
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New England including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire were established by Puritans- deeply religious people anxious to escape the domination and corruption they found in England. In1630, nearly a thousand of settlers sailed into Massachusetts Bay. Unlike Pilgrims, these colonists were much better off. There were doctors, farmers, carpenters and soldiers among the Puritans. People used a trading system called barter- they exchanged all kinds of goods. The skills of the settlers brought the colony to prosperity. Very soon Massachusetts became the largest and the most influential among the new settlements in the New England.
Good stands of timber encouraged shipbuilding, excellent harbors promoted trade, and the sea became a source of great wealth. The Massachusetts Bay colony continued to expand its commerce and grew prosperous. Boston became one of America’s greatest ports. Fish, ship’s stores and wooden ware swelled the exports. Merchants and shippers would purchase slaves for the local rum producers. By 1660, Boston contained about 3,000 people.
The Puritans who had come to America for religious freedom, did not allow any religious freedom to anybody: they considered the ideas of the Puritan Church the only right ones and were intolerant to those settlers who disagreed. Such offenders were mercilessly driven from the colony. One of them, Roger Williams, founded a new settlement in Rhode Island and called it Providence. It became a place where all were free to worship as they pleased -Williams established complete freedom of religion, even for Catholics. Now one can see his bronze statue on the dome of the state house in Providence.
First explored by the Dutch, Connecticut became their furtrading area. The Dutch were followed by the English and in the 1630s, the Puritan colonists established there settlements. As the colonies grew, they began to trade with each other and with Great Britain. With the growth of trade, the ways of life were changing. Some people left their farms to work in the growing towns and cities. They became shoemakers, black-smiths, priests, lawyers, bankers and merchants. Education became highly valued. All these colonies and communities were to be an example to the world. New England was very different from the rest of the country: it was more religious, more thickly settled, and more jealous of its independence from British control than the other colonies.
The Middle Colonies
Society in the Middle Colonies was far more varied, cosmopolitan and tolerant than in New England. Pennsylvania and Delaware owed their initial success to William Penn, a Quaker preacher. Quakers were people who believed in God and thought men were equal, as they were all God’s children. They thought it was immoral for men to kill each other, so they refused military service. Penn asked King of England for a gift of land on
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the east coast of America (between Maryland and New York), where the Quakers could plant a colony. The king called it Pennsylvania, another way of saying “Penn’s woodland.” A bit later, Penn bought the land which is now known as the state of Delaware, where the Swedish had even had a colony in the 1630s. The heart of the colony became Philadelphia, meaning “brotherly love” in Greek. William Penn, who planned the city, believed that a well-ordered city was necessary to economic growth and moral health. He wanted to build a “green country town” which would not be sharply cut off from the surrounding forest and farmlands. Farming areas would be on the periphery but close enough to be accessible to the city dwellers. The city soon was to be known for its broad, tree-shaded streets, substantial houses, churches, markets, recreational areas, parks and busy docks. Penn’s ideas of city planning were widely copied in his day.
The inhabitants represented many languages, creeds and trades. Their talent for successful business enterprise made the city one of the thriving centers of colonial
America. Germans became the colony’s most skillful farmers. Other crafts became important, too. The ScotsIrish tended to settle in the back country, where they cleared land and lived by hunting and farming.
The colonists’ relations with the Native Americans were full of conflict from the beginning. This was because the two communities did not share the same social and economic values. Many settlers thought the Indians were savages and that their way of life had little value. They felt they had every right to farm the Indian lands. On the island which the Indians called “Man-a-hat-ta” (Manhattan), that is the Heavenly Land Another translation is “island of hills), wild animals were plentiful. The Shinnecock
Indians used the island – 13 miles long and 2 miles wide - for fishing and hunting. But they didn’t live there. In 1626, the Dutch “bought” the small rocky island in exchange for some colored beads, trinkets and rolls of cloth worth about 24 dollars. The Indians did not understand that once the land was sold, the Dutch had the right to keep them off, as they had no concept of private property. When the colonists found they could not turn the Indians into trading partners, they perceived them only as an obstacle to a more rapid exploitation of the land by Europeans. The lands were seized through war, threats, deception, or, treaties. During the mid-17th century, further colonization of Manhattan Island took place, and other settlements were begun in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The Dutch villages that sprang upon Manhattan Island became a city called New Amsterdam. The official language was Dutch, but it was reported that 18 different languages were spoken there. The Dutch Company exported furs, timber and wheat. Captured by the British in 1664, New Amsterdam was renamed New York. Because of its
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favorable geography (the city is situated on the Hudson and East rivers and New York Bay), it soon became an important trading port. Large landed estates had been established in this region before the Revolution and a capitalist or business class had come to be highly developed. The Dutch continued to exercise an important social and economic influence of the New York region. Their sharp-stepped, gable roofs became a permanent part of the city’s architecture, and their merchants gave Manhattan much of its original bustling, commercial atmosphere. By 1775, its population was about 25,000.
The Southern Colonies Georgia was the last of the thirteen English colonies to be planted in America. It was founded in 1733 and was named in honor of King George II of England. The colony was launched and governed by a great British philanthropist, General James
Oglethorpe, as a settlement “Savannah” for prisoners to get a start in life. No slaves were allowed in Georgia. Each of the colonists possessed a small farm and was to work in the field from dawn to dusk. The land along the Atlantic coast of Georgia was swampy and suitable for rice rising. The Georgians and the Indians lived peacefully side by side. The colony developed very slowly and was the least populous of the British colonies. But all the same it was very important for Britain, as it protected prosperous Carolinas from Spaniards living in Florida. In the 1750s, a new governor was appointed by the king; slaves were brought in.
Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were the predominantly rural settlements with very little urban development. Economic and social structure rested on the great planters and yeomen (free men). The planters (local aristocracy), sup-ported by labor force of slaves imported from Africa or the West Indies, held most of the political power and the best land. Charleston, South Carolina, became the leading port and prosperous trading center of the South. However, most whites in the South did not own estates. Since they had come from the British Isles as indentured servants, without their families, they obtained small farms and only gradually came to emphasize community and church.
SOCIETY. CULTURE. EDUCATION
Among the major European powers that attempted to settle North America, Britain was the most successful. Its first colonies laid the foundation for the experiences of ethnic groups in the following centuries. The English language, as well as English law, and social, economic and religious customs, were successfully transplanted to the New World. All of the groups which followed these earliest colonists were measured by their adherence to English standards. This meant that later immigrants had to undergo a period of adjustment during which they were treated by “the older stock” as outsiders. During the colonial period Germans, Scotch-Irish, French Protestants and others had to
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undergo these trials. Often non-British people pushed inland, escaping English influence. Although their hardships were enormous, restless settlers kept coming and some of them were pouring into Virginia. Living on the edge of the Indian country, frontier families built cabins, cleared tracks in the wilderness and cultivated maize and wheat. They had their own entertainments and amusements - great barbecues, dances, housewarmings for newly married couples, early versions of golf and tennis, skittles (a form of bowling, with nine pins), shooting matches and various contests for making quilted blankets. Quilts re-main an American tradition today. There was some horse racing, cockfighting and gambling (but that was only after the Puritan legacy of hard work and plain living had faded somewhat in the late 17th century).
Thus the ethnic diversity of the United States was apparent even at its birth. By the late 1700s, English made up 48%, Black’s percentage was 19%, Scotch-Irish composed 9% of the colonists, German were 7%; Welsh, Dutch, French and Swedish made up a scanty population (2-3%).
Culturally, the colonies were outposts of Britain. The difference between city and country life was striking. American city was an initiator of social changes. The forms of municipal government varied greatly from place to place: in New England, the town meeting –a gathering of citizens to discuss common concernsprevailed. Councilmen were elected to govern. This form of community government continues today in small towns in the Northeast. Charleston in South Carolina, was governed by the State Assembly. The city had no local representatives.
Freedom to learn, to speak, and to publish are among the basic elements of democratic way of life. In the 17th century, these freedoms were restricted throughout most of Europe. Many of the colonial leaders brought negative thoughts about these freedoms along with them to the New World. From the earliest days, they had misgivings about the growing spirit of independence among the settlers. These leaders believed that it was dangerous to educate men and women or even to allow them to read freely. They were against establishing free schools or printing presses in their colonies. On the other hand, many colonists held an opposing view. They believed that people should be free to learn, to think and to express their opinions. They also believed that printers should be free to print and distribute their own thoughts and the thoughts of others.
One of these colonists was John Peter Zenger. Zenger’s New York Weekly Journal, begun in 1733, printed criticism of the governor. Under British law, this made him guilty of criminal libel, and Zenger was jailed. His arrest excited intense interest throughout the colonies. Andrew Hamilton, one of the ablest lawyers in America, agreed to defend him. Hamilton, with force and passion, argued that charges printed by