John Winthrop and the Old Colonial System The American colonies in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

The Colonial Arrangement in 1700

The Old Imperial System Colonial governments and their structures. The Governor/Council/Assembly structure. Representation and the Assembly: the de facto controls. Imperial policy. Mercantilism and the concept of colonies as assets. The Navigation Acts of 1650-51, 1660 and later. The Board of Trade and Plantations. Advisory bodies, colonial policy and William Blathwayt. Annulment of colonial laws and benign neglect. Early colonial wars. Wars against native Americans: King Philip’s War. King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, and King George’s War.

John Winthrop Puritanism and the religion of John Winthrop. Predestination, Calvinism, and Puritanism. The covenant and the structure of Puritan faith. Settling the Bay colony. Archbishop Laud and the Great Migration. Settlers and settlement patterns from 1630. Governing Winthrop’s Massachusetts. General Court and township, Puritan politics. Changing religious attitudes, dissenters, and the “half-way covenant.”

Revolutions and the first Colonial Realignment Commonwealth and Restoration. Civil war in England and Puritan government. The Stuart monarchy vs. Parliament: the “Glorious Revolution.” New England colonies in the early 18th century. The attack on the colonial charters and the new political compromise. The new colonial trading systems and the success of New England. Puritanism in a new context: the new ideology of liberty, New England style.