Preview

What Are The Causes Of Tensions In Colonial Society

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2650 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Are The Causes Of Tensions In Colonial Society
Vishaal Gupta
Mr. Decarlo
AP US
July 23 2010
Creating Tensions in Colonial Society After the different European nations colonized the Americas, societies began to sprout in those colonies. They were very similar to those societies that had been going on for centuries in Europe. There were governments, workers, schools, and hospitals. Issues began to come about in these societies due to revolts and rebellions by the people. They were unhappy with the way they were treated and their life style that they were forced to live by their mother countries. This caused tensions within the societies. The greatest cause of these tensions was the Stono Rebellion, followed by the Bacon’s Rebellion and the witchcraft trials in Salem, and finally, the
…show more content…
This was the first act of serious opposition to authority in America, occurring in Jamestown, Virginia. The two sides in the battle were the governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley and Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon was a troublemaker and schemer and was sent to Virginia by his father to mature. He was the cousin of Berkeley so naturally Berkeley treated his cousin nicely and gave him land and a government position. Virginia was going through many issues during this time. The main issue was economically with the decline of tobacco prices, competition with other colonies, and increased prices of manufactured goods from England. The increased prices from England were due to the Anglo-Dutch war that was going on at the time. There was a competition between England and the Dutch for selling their goods and war broke out. The weather also made it difficult for the goods to arrive in America. These economics issues upset the people of Virginia and they needed somebody to blame. They put the blame on the local Indians. This created a great amount of tension between the two sides. The Indians even attacked a local Virginia store. The citizens reacted by attacking back, but accidently attacked the wrong tribe. This infuriated all of the Indians and large scales raids began. In an attempt to stop the fighting, Berkeley took away powder and ammunition from the Indians. He then called the Long Assembly and …show more content…
It took place during 1692 in the New England settlement. The Puritans lived in New England. They were a very religious group of pioneers. They had their own churches, and had their own government that was run by the Church. Because of the time period in which they lived in, Puritans believed that supernatural forces were the cause of problems in their town. Soon, the first generation of the Puritans began to pass away and the second and third generations were coming to be. The Church was now having an issue with the number of members that it had. Only “Visible Saints” had the right to full membership they were those who stated their faith to the religion, conversion, and had been voted in by a congressional panel. As the new generations moved in, fewer and fewer people wanted to be part of this group. Another concern was that in a male dominated society, more women than men were becoming part of the Church group, upsetting the Church. In order to fix the problem, some of the panel members met in 1662 and established the Half-Way Covenant. This stated that even children of those who were partial members could become full members with just evidence of conversion. This was a comprise and not every Church accepted it. This started a feud between the fundamentalists who wanted a pure Church, and the liberals who wanted to include more people. In 1689, Salem elected Samuel

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    During the 1676, Jamestown Virginia was under the diplomacy where taxes, budgets, land use, energy, infrastructures and common wealth turned into a public issues. Within this time the Native Indians were locals who shared certain lands in Virginia and made a compromise with the current governor, William Berkeley at the time, a treaty determining who owned which land possession. Failed to keep his words, Berkeley caused an overflow of the British Colony upon the Native Indians colony and in return they fought back for their land. A frontier named Nathaniel Bacon intervene through popularity and wealth and stir up a rebellion we know today as the Bacon’s Rebellion. Bacon’s Rebellion had an ill-fated effect on both the British colony and the Native…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    '...where we do well know that all our causes will be impartially heard and equally justice administered to all men,' as stated by, Nathaniel Bacon. 1 In 1676 an uprising known as Bacon's Rebellion occurred in Virginia. The immediate cause of this revolt was the dissension between the planters and the Indians. Because Sir William Berkeley, the Governor of Virginia had willingly denied support to the farmers, Bacon assumed leadership of an unauthorized expedition against the Indians. When Bacon learned that Governor Berkeley was rising a force against him, he turned away from the Indians to fight with Berkley. This had now become a serious problem for the governor. When news of this revolt had reached King Charles II, it alarmed him so that he dispatched eleven hundred troops to Virginia, recalled his governor, and appointed a commission to determine the causes of the dissatisfaction. Bacon's Rebellion is considered to be the most important event in the establishment of democracy in colonial America because the right to vote and social equality were denied to the farmers by the local government.…

    • 751 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salem 1692 Book Review

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What truly happened amid Salem 1692? Numerous inquiries still frequent numerous Americans at the outset of the twenty-first century. Amid 1692 the general population of Massachusetts were living in trepidation about sinister burdens, similar to the same way other people feels about terrorism around the globe today. Everything about witchcraft flare-up amid that year was weird. Numerous reactions to the data were never replied amid the late seventeenth-century when the witchcraft emergency happened. Amid this time there were horrifyingly Indian assaults that principally frightened northern boondocks of pilgrims, displaced people, furthermore the principle informers of witches these gatherings all fled to groups like Salem. Be that as it may, on the other side settlement's pioneers were extremely guarded about inability to secure the outskirts they chiefly thought how God's kin could be terrified of all the otherworldly alarms. Mary Beth Norton the writer of this book is a Professor of American History at Cornell University she's composed a few books that needs to do with history like Founding Mothers and Fathers, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women and different books.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    When people think about The Salem Witch Trial, the first thing that comes to mind is “oh it 's just a bunch of wannabe witches being killed.” But in reality they were innocent people being accused by a bunch of little girls trying to get got of trouble. People were very suspicious and paranoid about everything back then-if a few people in the village suddenly became ill, it was because of a "witch". Remember, they had no science to explain anything, so they had to make up stuff that seems ridiculous to us today. They feared what they didn 't know and understand, therefore seeking any kind of solution . . . in this case their fear led to The Salem witch…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In a time when peace treaties were given out, because of wars that ended like, the French and Native American war. Acts were placed and also repealed as in the Sugar and Stamp Act, because of this it caused the colonists to become outraged and create an uprising of rebellion. The House of Burgesses reacts strongly against British policies as the Boston Massacre happens when a british solider fires into a mob of colonists and the Committee of Correspondence is created by Samuel Adams, which begins the American Revolution. The American Revolution ends with the battle of Yorktown, which is know as the major battle in the Revolutionary war and resulted in America becoming independent. Settlers in the eighteenth-century America formed rebellion groups like, the Paxton Boys, Shay’s Rebellion, and the Whiskey Rebellion.…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The layout of his settlements, establishment of voting eligibility, and governmental buildings were tied to the Government. By clustering settlers in tightly, he ensured that they would have no excuse for not attending church, and that the settlers would be able to monitor all other settlers’ piousness. Voting rights were granted only to saints, who were men who lived scandal free lives, shared their conversion experience, and repented for their sins. The main governmental building, the town hall, also served as the church. The lines between church and state were almost non-existent. The rise of dissenters in the form of Williams and Hutchinson, which greatly threatened the Puritan church, also therefore threatened the government. By calling into question the divinity and correctness of the clergy, these dissenters cast doubt on the effectiveness of the government. By the mid 1600s, influences from other, less religious colonies, began to have a large effect on the Puritans. The steadfast devotion that had held them together was weakened as the successes of other, far less rigid, colonies became apparent. This tension came to a head in the 1690s with the Salem witch hunts. After the unchecked cycle of accusing, and mock trials finally came to an end, it was realized how wrong the church and government had been, the government lost most of its remaining credibility. This debacle, combined with the failure of their economic equality goals led to the failure of the “New England Way” style of…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The year 1692 marked a major event in history in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. During the year 1692, Salem, a colony filled with Puritans who believe in religion very strongly, but as their beliefs grow, the more the people were starting to die. The problem or question is what caused the Salem witch crisis hysteria of 1692? There were many causes for the Salem witch trial hysteria but the possible three main reasons were the conflicts between young and older women, the “afflicted” girls were acting throughout the trial, and the town’s differences in wealth and power.…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Salem Witch Trial Theories

    • 2287 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Cited: Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Harvard, 1974. Print…

    • 2287 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the early settlements of the New World known as America today, the Puritan Community settled in what they used to call New England. Frustrated by the Church of England, they fled to the New World because they were being prosecuted and they wanted to establish a new sect in which God’s law was held supreme. They believed that the Bible and it’s message was the law of the land and no man could oppose it. Following what the Bible said, they believed it was their salvation into having a place in heaven. Their community consisted of religious faith and strict discipline. Another belief they had was that people were either born sinful and bound to live in Hell, and that only living in purity and praying to God would save them. They believed that natural disasters would be the work of the devil and its followers. This strict lifestyle cause them to become paranoid and suspicious of each other. Their hysteria led to the Salem Witch trials in 1692, where each person would blame each other for witchcraft and be executed for working with the devil.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Salem Witch Trials

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials has been a debatable topic for many historians enamored by its deviation from the normal as seen in Europe or other European Colonies in North America. As presented in Bryan Le Beau’s book The Story of the Salem Witch Trials, the story of Salem is unique in that it is centered primarily around the communities incapability to harmonize with one another. In the first two chapters, the book introduces its readers to a brief history of witchcraft trials, including how they began in Europe and followed colonists to the New World. In chapter three, the book describes Salem as it was before the trials and its ultimate path to the devastation it eventually created. It describes the division of the community and how that led to “…the point of institutional, demographic, and economic polarization” (p.50). Le Beau’s thesis is that “New England communities…suffered from the economic, social, political, and religious dislocations of the modernization process of the Early Modern Period, but to a greater extent than others,” he believed, “Salem village fell victim to warring factions, misguided leadership, and geographical limitations that precluded its dealing effectively with those problems” (p.43). The chapters following Le Beau’s thesis chronologically present the Salem Witch Craft trials and what was left in the wake the realization that followed.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salem Witch Trials Dbq

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In 1692, Salem, Massachusetts broke out into hysteria all because of an accusation about a witch. When a few teenage girls began accusing the older woman of Salem of witchcraft, suspicions started flying around. Soon neighbors were accusing each other, calling the Puritan church to get involved. After the church got involved many innocents lost their lives. Most of the teenage girls that accused the women of witchcraft, wanted their husbands for land and money. Not that the women did anything to the girls, they were just segregated on opposite sides of town. This made the wives an easy target for the girl’s allegations. Salem Village had self-segregated based on wealth and power and contributed to one of the many reasons the Witch Trials of 1692 came to be.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the 1600’s the Puritans came to America for religious freedom. When they arrived they found that a few people wouldn’t follow the strict new rules that they had set in place. They soon started calling them out as witches, and so the Salem witch trials began. But to know about the Salem Witch trials first you have to know who started them. Once you know who started them then you need to know what happened.…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As the British government placed tax after tax on the colonies, tensions began to develop. The colonies were only founded to make their mother countries rich. Also, Great Britain had to pay for the French and Indian war and for keeping 10,000 British troops in North America to protect the colonies. So, they began the Parliament began to tax the colonists. This upset many colonists and tensions between the colonies and Great Britain began to build.…

    • 76 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Salem Witch Trials

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages

    [ 1 ]. Benjamin Ray, " Satan 's War against the Covenant in Salem Village, 1692": The New England Quarterly, 80:1 (Mar., 2007): 69-71.…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Extended Essay

    • 2374 Words
    • 10 Pages

    In 1692, the town of Salem was chiefly governed by the Church, which if not in total control, had most of the control of the town. Every church was supposed to be independent, but they all abided by the same precise rules of conduct and faith. Salem was ruled by theocracy. This is an area where religion is law. Salem was different from other Puritan colonies, as the law system and religion are two different things in those colonies. Thus, in Salem, the verdicts were made through how god would look at the crime, instead of doing it according to the situation and the apt proof. Salem was ruled by and was united…

    • 2374 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays