A Comprehensive Review of Unit 2: AP US History (1607-1754)

well hey there and welcome back to Highland history now in this video we're going to review every dang thing you

need to know about unit 2 of AP US History time period is607 to 1754 now the major themes of this unit have to do

with comparing the different motives and methods that Europeans use to colonize the Americas why don't you go ahead and

crack open them brain folds CU I'm about to dump some learning into them let's get to it now before we get started just

so you know this video is part of a larger ultimate review packet for apus history it's got everything you need to

get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May so if you're interested and something like that link in

description below okay so the last unit dealt largely with the societal structures that were in the Americas

before the Europeans showed up and then we saw how the Europeans namely the Spaniards showed up kind of accidentally

and got their Conquistador on and this unit is going to deal with the Black Friday sale of All European colonialism

in the Americas as the French and the Dutch and the British all begin clamoring to stake their claim in the

Americas but each of these European States implemented their colonial project just a little bit differently

based on their colonial goals and their Regional circumstances so let's look at each of them first let's remind

ourselves about how Spain colonized the Americas now we talked about this in unit one but just for the sake of

comparison let's remind ourselves the Spanish established colonies in the Americas in order to extract wealth both

in the form of valuable cash crops and the actual digging of gold and silver out of the ground and they subed the

native population to this end they tried with mixed success to convert them to Christianity and introduced a cast

system that reorganized Society based on racial ancestry okay now let's have a look at how the French colonized the

Americas French colonial policies differed from the Spanish colonial policies because the French were more

interested in trade than they were in Conquest especially the fish and fur trade compared to the Spanish and the

English of whom I will have more to say in just a moment there were relatively few French people who showed up on the

American Shore now despite the first permanent French settlement in Quebec mostly the French established trading

settlements around North America and in order to further Advance their economic goals some French Traders married

American Indian wives which kept kinship ties alive with some of their more significant native trading partners I

don't care who you are that's romantic hey honey I just want you to know that the last week has been the greatest week

of my life and there was nobody whom I would rather marry in order to firm up my trading relationship with your people

than you so will you marry me is that a yes anybody understand this language and yes while these marriages

may have been a little transactional for our taste that doesn't mean that there wasn't some mutual benefit that occurred

out of these alliances for example the French fostered some alliances with the ojibway Indians and there was some

mutual cultural exchange the Indians benefited the French because they could prepare Beaver skins for sale at market

and the French benefited the Indians by introducing iron cookware and manufactured claw all right now let's

look at the Dutch and their colonial goals in 16009 the Dutch established a fur trading center on the Hudson River

which is in present day New York and their goals for colonizing were mainly economic like the French now the Dutch

were altogether Protestant but unlike the Spanish they showed very little interest in converting the natives to

Christianity by 1624 they had established New Amsterdam which facilitated an Advanced their economic

goals and this became a hub of trade that attracted large populations of Traders and Merchants and fishermen and

Farmers okay now we need to turn our attention to the British and their colonial project and arguably it's the

British and their colonial goals that are the most relevant for United States history so first let's talk about the

motivations for British colonization and then we'll compare the different kinds of colonies that they set up on the

eastern coast of North America now economically during this period Britain was to put it mildly a hot mess the

Colombian Exchange was changing the economy Wars with France and the conquest of Ireland were costing them a

fortune and as a result of all that inflation began to take hold of the British economy if you don't know what

inflation is it just means that prices were rising and that means their money was worth less it just wouldn't buy as

much and this was particularly Grievous to the noble class who could see their wealth Vanishing Before Their Eyes

additionally the lower classes were enduring hardship as well the land which had always been available to them for

farming was rapidly disappearing due to the enclosure movement so take all of that put it in a pot baby you got a stew

going therefore the motivations pushing the British to colonized the Americas were new economic opportunities and

lands on which they could seek those opportunities there were others in Britain who wanted to venture across the

Atlantic in order to seek religious freedom and improved living conditions and as it turns out in America they

found what they were looking for okay now let's look at each of the British colonial settlements in North America

and just for poops and Giggles let's start with the Chesapeake region in 16007 the British established Jamestown

which was their first permanent Colonial settlement in North America the founding of the colony was financed by a newish

economic model called a joint stock company a joint stock company was a private business entity in which several

different investors put money into a pot and then collected profits when the entity was successful this is different

than say in Spain whose model for financing colonization was strictly through the states anyway that model of

financing gives you some sense of what Jamestown was all about as a colony Jamestown was purely a profit

seeking Venture colonists basically divided their time between searching for gold and silver and building military

forts to defend the gold and silver that they did F but the beginnings of that settlement to put it mildly were rough

in the first 2 years disease and famine killed nearly half the settlers it got so bad that some of them resorted to

cannibalism just to survive e and by 1610 seven out of eight of the settlers were dead so the cannibals were well fed

sorry too soon are we laughing about this yet but in 1612 they stumbled upon a miracle colonist John Ral began

experimenting with tobacco cultivation and that led to a complete reversal of their fortunes a huge influx of

investment game when tobacco was found to be marketable now I should say that most of the people doing the work on the

cultivation of these crops were indentured servants which was the major labor system in the colonies at that

time now indentured servants were just people who in general couldn't afford passage from Britain to the new world

and so they signed a labor contract that paid for that passage and they agreed to work for usually 7 years and then after

that they would go free so as the demand for tobacco began to increase there was a corresponding demand for the land on

which to grow that tobacco and when white folks needed more land they had a habit of taking it from the Native

populations and needless to to say that increased the tension between the two groups this increasing encroachment on

their land and the violence that came with it led Indians to retaliate and raid Colonial Farms these raids of

course infuriated the British settlers and they appealed to their Governor William Berkeley to send troops to keep

them safe and when Berkeley refused we get a little event called Bacon's Rebellion a settler named Nathaniel

Bacon LED angry poor Farmers including indentured servants in an attack against the Indians and then turn their militia

toward the plantations owned by Governor Berkeley they burned plantations did incredible amounts of damage But

ultimately the rebellion was squashed now the consequence of all this is that the planter Elites got a healthy dose of

fear with respect to disgruntled indentured servants and that made them want to stop leaning on the broken staff

of indentured servitude and lean more heavily on African slavery more on that later all right that's the Chesapeake

region now let's talk about the New England colonies which were a little bit north of the Chesapeake and they were

altogether different in 1620 it was settled by pilgrims who migrated in family units in order to establish a

society not a profit-seeking Enterprise their goals were bound up in their Christian religion and they created

Family economies as Farmers even though their goals were different they still had a rough time like their Brethren and

sistan to the South fevers and disease killed about half the original settlers but after a few years they had

established themselves a thriving Colonial economy that included Agriculture and commerce all right now

let's turn our attention to the colonies in the British West Indies and the southern Atlantic Coast colonies in the

1620s the British established permanent colonies in the Caribbean in places like St Christopher Barbados and nevas there

the warm climate afforded them year round growing Seasons they grew tobacco of course because it was a staple cash

crop but by the 1630s falling tobacco prices led to the introduction of a new crop sugar cane and sugar cane was

wildly popular in Europe and so the demand for it spiked however sugar cane is a very labor intensive crop and so

along with the increase in demand for sugar cane came the increase in demand for African slaves to grow that

sugarcane the demand for enslaved people grew so much that by 1660 in Barbados for example the population on that

island was more black than it was white and yet the result of all this was a stringent set of laws that were passed

in order to govern the black population on the island these laws defined enslaved people as property and governed

every little detail of their lives now the Carolina colonies were influenced by this system as they set up their own

economy and labor system Planters from the Caribbean migrated to South Carolina for example and sought to make a copy of

the Caribbean system in the Carolinas and that's exactly what they did all right now let's take a little jaunt up

to the middle colonies and see what's going on there in New York and New Jersey there was a diverse population it

was on the sea and it was shot through with many rivers so that these colonies thrived on an export economy mainly of

cereal crops and because of the success there was this growing inequality between the classes there was an

emerging Elite Class that was mostly wealthy Urban Merchants there was a lower working class that was made up of

laborers orphans widows the unemployed Etc and there was a significant population of enslaved Africans also in

the Middle Colonies we got Pennsylvania it was founded by the Quaker and pacifist William Penn and in this Colony

religious freedom for all was recognized in the land on which colonists farmed was obtained not by force from the

Indians but mainly by negotiation with them now the governance in the colonies was unusually Democratic during this

time due to Britain being across the sea and generally letting the colonies do their own thing the colonial leadership

established self-governing structures and let me give you some examples first is the Mayflower Compact pilgrims signed

this before they disembarked from their ship the Mayflower which organized their government on the model of a

self-governing church congregation the second is the House of Burgesses in Virginia it was a representative of

assembly which could Levy taxes and pass laws and there are other examples of Representative assemblies throughout the

colonies but what you really need to know about them is that where they did exist they were dominated by the elite

classes New York assemblies were dominated by wealthy landlords in the southern colonies these assemblies were

dominated by Elite Planters okay so that's our survey of the different regions that the British colonized but

now we need to think about them as a whole entity with respect to their role in trade in the Atlantic trade system in

the late 17th and the early 18th centuries trade truly became Global with the uptick of colonization in the

americaas a new Atlantic economy was developed as well and one of the more significant manifestations of this was

the triangular trade and if you just had to guess what shape do you think this trade route resembled uh triangle that's

correct me from that side of the screen Merchant ships would follow a three-part Journey on this trading route let's

started New England where Merchants would carry rum to West Africa where they would trade it for enslaved people

then the ship sailed the dreaded middle passage in which their holes were packed to a cruel and unhealthy measure with

enslaved cargo eventually they made the their landfall in the West Indies where they traded the slaves for sugar cane

then they took that sugar cane right back up to New England where they sold the sugar cane which was made to use rum

and the whole show started all over again okay that's one aspect of how the Atlantic economy worked but now let's

pop the hood and see what made that baby tick it was an economic system called mercantilism now those who saw the world

through this economic lens thought there was only a fixed amount of wealth in the world and since they measured wealth by

gold and silver technically they were correct and each State's goal was to gain as much of that wealth as possible

in the way that they did that was by maintaining what they called a favorable balance of trade which is to say more

exports than Imports and that makes sense because of a nation is exporting Goods that means that gold and silver is

coming in now this mercantilist system relied heavily on establishing colonies because that's where the raw materials

came from and to that end the British government tried to weave more tightly the center of the Empire with the

colonies of the Empire and one way they did this was through something called the Navigation Acts this set of laws

required Merchants to engage in trade with English colonies and English owned ships ALS oo certain valuable trade

items were required to pass exclusively through British ports where they could then be taxed now this is going to cause

some problems in the next period but for now we'll leave it there the point is this newly established Atlantic trade

system changed the colonies it generated massive wealth for the elites like merchants and investors and plantation

owners and it also turned America's sea ports into thriving Urban centers okay that was trade in the new system now we

need to turn our attention to slavery in the British colonies between 1700 and 1808 about 3 million enslaved Africans

were carried on British ships across the Middle Passage the majority of them were sold into the hands of Planters in the

British West Indies but it's important for you to know that every British colony participated in the slave trade

mainly because of the extraordinary wealth they gained by coerced labor in the export economies dedicated to

Tobacco sugar cane and indigo now comparatively New England Farmers held relatively few slaves the Chesapeake and

southern colonies on the other hand held lots of slaves in Virginia following the Carolinas and Barbados strict slave

codes were introduced and in these slaves were defined as chatt which is to say property additionally slavery was

turned into a Perpetual institution that was handed down from one generation to the next and they did this out of a

desire to keep a more controlled and growing labor force because indentured servants and enslaved Native Americans

simply could not supply the demand that they needed however it's going to be important for you to know that some

enslaved blacks didn't just accept this system they actually rebelled and resisted and the resistance basically

came in two different flavors there was covert and there was overt among the strategies of the covert resistors were

the insistence to secretly maintain cultural customs and beliefs systems from their Homeland others broke tools

ruined stored seeds with moisture or Faked illness and among the strategies of the overt I'll give you one

significant example the Stono Rebellion this occurred in South Carolina in 1739 a small group of slaves stole weapons

from a store and killed its owners and then they marched along the Stono River and their numbers grew as they marched

along the way they burned plantations and killed white folks the South Carolina militia finally confronted them

and squashed the Rebellion but not before losing many of their own number okay so the relation relationship

between the colonists and the black population was a little Bleak but I'm sure the colonists have figured out by

now how to make friends with the Indians yeah no now in the last unit I mentioned the Pueblo revolt against the Spanish

and this led to the Spanish making some concessions to American Indian culture and with the British relationship with

the Indians wasn't much better case in point metacom's war in 1675 which the British called King Philip's War so

metacom was the chief of the Indians and the British called him King Philip he began to see that the British

encroachment on their ancestral lands would destroy their way of life and therefore the British must be forced out

and so the Allied themselves with other Indian groups and attacked white settlements throughout New England they

burned Fields killed men and captured women and children the British Allied themselves with the Mohawk Indians who

eventually ambushed and killed metacom and the movement fizzled out but the point is all was not well between the

British colonists and the Indians okay now in the last section of this review we need to talk about colonial society

during that time and its structure and let's start with religion and if we're going to talk about religion we need to

start with the enlightenment the enlightenment was a movement in Europe especially among the elite that

emphasized rational thinking over tradition and religious Revelation in other words people wanted to rely on

their thinky thinky Parts at the expense of their believe beliy parts now this movement took root in the colonies

largely because of a robust transatlantic print culture that print culture spread the ideas of

Enlightenment thinkers like John Lock and Vol tan Emmanuel K now while this movement certainly undermines scriptural

and religious Authority and I'll talk about that more in a moment it did introduce to the Colony some ideas like

natural rights and the idea of natural rights is that people have inborn rights given to them by a Creator and not by a

government there was also the idea that the best form of government involved checking and balancing power and that

the best way to achieve that was to split the government into three branches the legislative the executive and the

judicial Additionally the colonist encountered ideas like the social contract which argued that people were

in a contract with their government since the power to govern is in the people's hands their job was to take

some of that power and deliver it to the government and in exchange the government's job was then to protect the

natural rights of the people and if the government broke that contract it was the people's right to overthrow that

government all right now let's talk about the enlightenment's attack on religious Authority a group of Christian

Colonial ministers who became known as New Light clergy lamented the laws of Faith engendered by the Enlightenment

and so they began to preach against such abandonment they also emphasized the Democratic principles of the Bible they

railed against the practice of Elites buying pews and churches which were exclusively reserved for them and as

their work caught on it led to a leveling out of society and the work of these new light preachers laid the

groundwork for one of the most sign ific religious and social upheavals of that time namely the Great Awakening the

Great Awakening was a massive religious revival that swept through all the colonies and generated intense Christian

enthusiasm and two notable leaders in this movement were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield Edwards was a New

England Minister who preached in Northampton with the Precision of a philosopher and the Heart of an

evangelist and under his preaching the Revival began to catch but it was only local at that point it took the English

itinerate evangelist George Whitfield to come make the fire spread this fiery preacher traveled through throughout all

the colonies preaching in churches and in open City squares and in fields and wherever he could gather people the

result of the Great Awakening was a large scale return to the Christian faith and an experience that bound the

colonists together and many people point to the Great Awakening as the first vestiges of a true American identity and

where the seeds were sown for the rejection of the British so all that to say the Great Awakening had a massive

impact on political and social realities in the colonies now also during this time the colonies were experiencing a

gradual anglicanization which is to say they were becoming more English life they were developing autonomous

political communities that looked very much like the political communities back in England even so the colonists began

experiencing a rising frustration with the British and they began to resist now all of that is going to be explored in

its fullness in the next unit but now I just need to give you an example of one of the practices that led to that

growing mistrust between the colonists and England and there's lots of examples that I could choose but I'll just choose

one the practice of impressment and impressment wasn't like yo man that's a nice hat where'd you get that hat no

impressment was the act of seizing Colonial men and then forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy now England

Justified this practice because they needed soldiers for all their Wars and they needed Colonial troops because hey

this Empire ain't going to rule itself needless to say Colonial men on the other hand weren't big fans of the

common experience of a royal Navy sailor there was plenty of malnutrition disease and death and in 1747 a general

impressment for King georg's war led to 3 days of rioting and resistance in the colony and the important point is this

the colonies were becoming increasingly aware of their natural rights and were refusing to allow their natural rights

to be violated by England and that's what you need to know about unit 2 of AP US History if you want to help get an A

in your class and a five in your exam you know what to do click that ultimate review packet and go get it if you want

to join the himler family and give me the signal that you want me to keep making these videos then go ahead and

hit that subscribe button and come along hler out