US History timeline & concept chart: 16th-18th centuries (to 1754) British-American colonies
US History timeline & concept chart: American colonies 17th & mid-18th centuries
Objectives:
- to help students to
- associate timelines with events, persons, themes & concepts
- associate presidents with timelines, themes & concepts
- identify timelines with BIG IDEAS across periods of US history
- find connections and common themes across US history
- easily find relevant details for larger comprehension
- to help teachers to
- quickly review US History content for lesson planning
- provide students with easy and complete reference source for US history
Click EXPAND for a note for mobile phone users (already shows on mobile)
- these timeline & concept charts use tables in order to connect ideas, timelines, and major concepts
- tables are not mobile-friendly (they do not wrap to a single column)
- when these charts are complete, we will in the future convert the charts to mobile-friendly format as an alternative file
- we encourage you to use a tablet or larger monitor in order to see the charts here
Index
Page structure & format guide
U.S. History course pages:
Article objectives[edit | edit source]
- exploration & colonialism motives & purposes
- review of British internal politics, events, civil and religious conflicts
- impact of domestic Britain events, ideas & rule in American colonialism
- especially religious & political conflict, population & economic growth
- regional, economic, and demographic aspects of colonial expansion
- timeline up to the French-Indian War (1754)
Protestant Reformation, European political and religious conflicts & impacts on American colonies[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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Martin Luther & Protestant Reformation
Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 & European nationalism English Civil War, 1642–1651 & the Commonwealth Religious conflict & persecution as push factor on migration to colonial America
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BIG IDEAS
DETAILS Protestant Reformation[edit | edit source]
Church of England & Protestantism in England (English Reformation)[edit | edit source]
Thirty Years War, 1618-1648[edit | edit source]
click EXPAND for notes on Bohemian Revolt: [[File:Prague Castle defenestration site.jpg|thumb|The window (top floor) where the defenestration occurred in 1618, when Protestant locals threw two Catholic agents of the Holy Roman Emperor out the window; they both survived]] * Bohemia had a long history of quasi-independence from Catholic rule ** including the right to publish the Bible in Slavic (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius Saints Cyril and Methodius (wikipedia)] * Bohemian priest Jan Hus led a reform movement, especially in protest of papal selling of "indulgences" (forgiveness for sins for money) ** Hus was excommunicated and burned at the stake in 1415 ** Hus's followers led a successful peasant revolt in the "Hussite Wars" ** ultimately, the Hussites surrendered to the Catholic King of Bohemia ** Hus's reform movement came over 100 years before that of Church reformer Martin Luther (the 1517 "95 Theses"), who inherited Hus' ideas * the Bohemian Revolt (1618-1620) was precipitated when royal governors (agents of the Holy Roman Emperor) attempted retake Catholic properties and rule ** Protestant leaders threw two of the royal governors out the window of a castle *** both survived *** the Catholics claimed that Mother Mary descended from heaven and gently set them on the ground *** the Protestants claimed that they fell into donkey dung, thus saving them from the fall *** one of the royal governors was later rewarded by the Emperor and given the title, "Baron of Highfall"
English Civil War, 1642–1651[edit | edit source]
The Commonwealth (or Interregnum) & Charles Cromwell[edit | edit source]
English Civil War & the American colonies[edit | edit source]
Significance of English Civil War & Legacy on American Colonies[edit | edit source]
Glorious Revolution & English Bill or Rights & Tolerance Act[edit | edit source]
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British exploration and early settlements in North America[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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early British expeditions not successful because goals were to find gold & a route to Asia
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BIG IDEAS
DETAILS Early British explorations of North America[edit | edit source]
British governance of early colonies[edit | edit source]
Royal charters & mercantilism[edit | edit source]
Dominion of New England[edit | edit source]
mercantilism[edit | edit source]
Salutary neglect[edit | edit source]
click EXPAND for excerpt from Burke's speech to Parliament in 1775: “That I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me.” |
Timeline of migration in British-American colonies[edit | edit source]
Period | Pattern/ Type | Notes |
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1609-1620s | Initial settlement | Virginia & Plymouth colonies |
1630-1642 |
- 16,000 migrants arrive to Massachusetts Bay colony - inland migration as settlers expand across New England | |
1634 | Catholic migrants to Maryland | about 200 settlers, mostly Catholic settled in Maryland, led by Lord Baltimore who was granted the colony (along with lands in Newfoundland) by King Charles I; The colonists arrived in the ships "Ark" and "Dove" |
1635-38 | inland migration to Connecticut and Rhode Island | - Roger Williams creates Rhode Island (1636)
- Ann Hutchinson & associates move to Rhode Island (1638) |
1645-1665 | English Civil War Royalist migration | as the Parliamentarians (protestants) gained over the Royalists (Cavaliers), royalist supporters fled England for the ROyalist-loyal colonies of Maryland and Virginia
- 1649 Charles I was executed, accelerating Royalist emigration from England - 75% of them came as unskilled, indentured servants in Virginia, which became an influence leading up to Bacon's Rebellion (see The Cavalier flight to Virginia) |
1665 | colonial population estimates: | - total population estimated at 75,000 |
1680-1776 | Scottish-Irish, German migrants | - push cause: British wars/ occupation of Scotland & Ireland
- settlement to Piedmont region (Eastern slope of Appalachians) - Chesapeake and Atlantic coast settlement in "tidewaters" of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas |
1683 | arrival of the Concord to Pennsylvania | - considered the "German Mayflower"
- had 33 German Mennonites on board; landed near Philadelphia |
1681 | WIlliam Penn granted land by Charles II | - names it Pennsylvania
- Quaker refuge - settlers include Germans |
early 1700s | Mennonite settlements in Pennsylvania | mostly Swiss and German religious dissenters |
1700 | colonial population estimates: |
- 275,000 in all colonies - 7,000 in Boston - 5,000 in New York City |
1718 | French establish New Orleans | receives migration from Canada and France, most importantly from Catholic refugees who were forced out of British-controlled "Acadia" (northeastern Canada) during the French-Indian War |
1725 | black slave population: |
- starting w/ first importation of African slaves in 1619 (about 20) to Jamestown - by 1725 black slave population estimated at 75,000 |
1760 | colonial population estimate: | - total population est. at 1,600,000
- estimated 350,000 white migrants were indentured servants |
1790 | loyalist emigration from American colonies | the 1790 census showed emigration of
- 46,000 went to Canada - 10,000 who returned to England - 6,000 who went to the Caribbean (including Bahamas) |
Sources: |
Country of Origin | Immigrants before 1790 | Population 1790[1] |
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Africa[2] | 360,000 | 757,000 |
England* | 230,000 | 2,100,000 |
Ulster Scots-Irish* | 135,000 | 300,000 |
Germany[3] | 103,000 | 270,000 |
Scotland | 48,500 | 150,000 |
Ireland* | 8,000 | (Incl. in Scot-Irish) |
Netherlands | 6,000 | 100,000 |
Wales* | 4,000 | 10,000 |
France | 3,000 | 15,000 |
Jewish[4] | 1,000 | 2,000 |
Sweden | 1,000 | 6,000 |
Other[5] | 50,000 | 200,000 |
British total | 425,500 | 2,560,000 |
Total[6] | 950,000 | 3,900,000 |
Early British North American colonization[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events | ||||
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British colonial population growth
Migration Push / Pull factors
Joint Stock Company
Headright System
Indentured servants
Separatists (religious)
John Winthrop & "city upon a hill"
House of Burgesses
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BIG IDEAS
British colonial population growth & demographics[edit | edit source]
Early British settlements of North America[edit | edit source]
Joint-stock company[edit | edit source]
Jamestown, 1607[edit | edit source]
General Assembly, 1619-1642[edit | edit source]
Council of State[edit | edit source]
House of Burgesses, 1642-1776[edit | edit source]
Virginia "tobacco economy"[edit | edit source]
Headright System/Headrights[edit | edit source]
Maryland[edit | edit source]
Rhode Island[edit | edit source]
>> notes / todo Rhode Island & religious freedom * 1636 Rhode Island passed acts to prohibit religious persecution of "non-Trinitarians" ** "Trinitarian" refers to believers of the "Holy Trinity", which is a core Catholic belief ** Rhode Island is considered the first government to separate "Church and State" * 1649 Maryland passed the Maryland Toleration Act to enforce religious tolerance for Catholics ("Trinitarians") ** the Rhode Island and Maryland laws explicitly protected only Christians *** after the English Restoration, Rhode Island welcomed Quakers, Jews and others seeking religious liberty Pennsylvania[edit | edit source]Quakers = "Religious Society of Friends"
Connecticut[edit | edit source]
Religious groups, movements[edit | edit source]
“IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We… Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience …”
click EXPAAND for Bradford's account of the cicada outbreak of 1633: "It is to be observed that, the spring before this sickness, there was a numerous company of Flies which were like for bigness unto wasps or Bumble-Bees; they came out of little holes in the ground, and did eat up the green things, and made such a constant yelling noise as made the woods ring of them, and ready to deafen the hearers; they were not any seen or heard by the English in this country before this time; but the Indians told them that sickness would follow, and so it did, very hot, in the months of June, July, and August of that summer."
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Southern colonial economies & demographics[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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cash crops[edit | edit source]plantation economy[edit | edit source]coastal elites[edit | edit source]
backcountry farmers[edit | edit source]
Bacon's Rebellion[edit | edit source]slavery[edit | edit source]>> to do
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BIG IDEAS
DETAILS
click EXPAND to read an analysis of Virginia social makeup under Berkeley's leadership: The society that bloomed in the Virginia tidewater during Berkeley’s decades in office reflected the social order, regional characteristics, and ecclesiastical convictions of the people who came. In fact, it reflected Sir William’s own view of the world and of the people who inhabited it. Though the Puritans hardly believed in a free society as we recognize it today, they were from the middling sort of society—craftsmen, tradesmen, and gentry—from a part of England with a tradition of local participatory government. The md women who immigrated to Virginia during the 1640s-60s came from opposite ends of the economic and social spectrum. From its first flourishing under Berkeley’s dynamic leadership to the end of its colonial existence in 1776, Virginia society was a culture of a sharp division between the haves and have-nots. After all, the very nature of a wealthy elite implies a mass of folk who are not. The vast majority of those who came to Virginia had Royalist and Anglican sympathies certainly (they were not welcome otherwise), but they were rural laborers of humble origins, generally illiterate and accustomed to a humble lot in life. While they dreamed of betterment in the New World, more than 75 percent of them arrived in Virginia as indentured servants. Two-thirds of those folk were unskilled agrarian workers. All the plantations springing up beside the rivers in the rich fertile delta of the Virginia tidewater required a labor force. As the Algonquian tribes being supplanted from eastern Virginia were unavailable for employment, that labor force had to be imported. The two decades from 1645 to 1665 saw the greatest influx of Royalist colonists, elite and lowly alike. They did not come to sample the pure air of egalitarian freedom promised by America’s founding documents a century and a quarter later. They expected to find, and accepted, the hierarchical English society that they left behind.
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Colonial slavery[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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subtitle[edit | edit source] |
BIG IDEAS DETAILS
slavery & slave culture
slave population & distribution
for Colonial populations, including slaves and free blacks see: https://web.viu.ca/davies/H320/population.colonies.htm ESTIMATED POPULATION OF AMERICAN COLONIES (viu.ca) |
New England colonial expansion[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events | |
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subtitle[edit | edit source] |
BIG IDEAS
DETAILS
>> see Taylor on 1/4th of Boston freeman had ownership of a ship |
central colonies[edit | edit source]
PERIOD / TIMELINE | Major Events, Concepts & Themes | Notes & connections: details of issues, concepts, themes & events |
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subtitle[edit | edit source] |
BIG IDEAS DETAILS
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Colonial wars[edit | edit source]
Colonial name | European name | Consequence | |
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1675-1763 "French & Indian Wars" (all) | |||
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BIG IDEAS
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1675–1678 | |||
King Philip's War | n/a - independent of European conflicts or involvement |
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1688–1697 | |||
King William's War |
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1702–1713 | |||
Queen Anne's War | War of the Spanish Succession |
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1722–1725 | |||
Dumner's War |
n/a - colonial war
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1739 | |||
War of Jenkin's Ear |
n/a - colonial conflict
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1744–1748 | |||
King George's War | War of the Austrian Succession |
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1754–1763 | |||
French-Indian War | Seven Years' War | to be discussed in subsequent timeline & concepts chart |
- ↑ Data From Ann Arbor, Michigan: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPS).
- ↑ Several West African regions were the home to most African immigrants. Population from U.S. 1790 Census.
- ↑ Germany in this time period consisted of a large number of separate countries, the largest of which was Prussia.
- ↑ Jewish settlers from several European countries.
- ↑ The Other category probably contains mostly English ancestry settlers; but the loss of several states' census records make better estimates difficult. The summaries of the 1790 and 1800 census from all states survived.
- ↑ Total represents total immigration over the approximately 130 year span of existence of the U.S. colonies as found in the 1790 census. At the time of the American Revolution, the foreign-born population was estimated to be from 300,000 to 400,000.