Changes

== Colonial History (continued) ==

== Colonial History (continued) ==

Let's continue now with the Colonies around the turn of the century (from 1600 to 1700).  Keep the periods separate in your mind:  1600s and 1700s.  In the 1600s most of colonies were just getting started (except ).  In the 1700s, the colonies were established and were just growing stronger.  I should be able to mention an event and you should be able to tell me if it happened in the 1600s or 1700s.

Let's continue now with the Colonies around the turn of the century (from 1600 to 1700).  Keep the periods separate in your mind:  1600s and 1700s.  In the 1600s most of colonies were just getting started (except for [[Georgia]], which was the only colony founded in the 1700s rather than the 1600s).  In the 1700s, the colonies were established and were just growing stronger.   

In 1688, there was upheaval in England.  The people there overthrew [[King James II]], who was Catholic. His daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange took the throne and reinstated Protestantism, and adopted the [[English Bill of Rights]]. A century later this would inspire the American Bill of Rights.

I should be able to mention an event and you should be able to tell me if it happened in the 1600s or 1700s.  Learn to quiz yourself:  Jamestown settlement, 1600s or 1700s?  [[Bacon's Rebellion]], 1600s or 1700s? Founding of [[Pennsylvania]], 1600s or 1700s? If you don't know the answers in all three cases, then please go back and read the first lecture.

In 1692, the [[Salem Witch Trials]] began.  There was a panic that some teenage girls were practicing witchcraft.  Girls were prosecuted for this.  Some were convicted and then executed.  The authorities thought that these criminal prosecutions would help expose the ways of the devil for the benefit of everyone.  Then someone observed that killing all these people may itself the work of the devil.  Finally one of the accused said that the wife of the governor was also a witch.  Then they put a stop to the prosecutions and freed everyone who was still alive.  The whole episode did not make the Puritans look very good.

 

In 1692, the [[Salem Witch Trials]] began.  There was a panic that some teenage girls were practicing witchcraft.  Girls were prosecuted for this.  Some were convicted and then executed.  The authorities thought that these criminal prosecutions would help expose the ways of the devil for the benefit of everyone.  Then someone observed that killing all these people may itself the work of the devil.  Finally one of the accused said that the wife of the governor was also a witch.  Then the authorities put a stop to the prosecutions and freed everyone who was still alive.  The whole episode was an embarrassment to the [[Puritan]]s in charge, and has been cited ever since as an excess of religious authority in civil life.  But this episode did not directly weaken [[Puritan]] authority.  Instead, it was success and prosperity, and books like The Scarlet Letter (published in 1850 to criticize morality in Puritan Boston in the 1600s), that caused people to turn away from the strict Puritan life.  Today Boston and Massachusetts are the most liberal areas in the nation, directly opposite to what it was in the 1600s.

1700-1750:  [[salutary neglect]].  Colonies during this time were very different from each other.  The same is true today with respect to homeschooling.  If we were holding this class just 50 miles west in Pennsylvania, each of us would have to register each year with our school district, take tests, and follow a state curriculum.  But we do not have to do any of that in New Jersey.

1700-1750:  [[salutary neglect]].  Colonies during this time were very different from each other.  The same is true today with respect to homeschooling.  If we were holding this class just 50 miles west in Pennsylvania, each of us would have to register each year with our school district, take tests, and follow a state curriculum.  But we do not have to do any of that in New Jersey.