History 231 Reading Guide
The Empire and the Colonies in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Glorious Revolution in America
- Bernard Bailyn, “Politics and Social Structure in Virginia,” in J.M. Smith, ed., Seventeenth-Century America (1959, 1987): or in Katz, Colonial America, 4th ed. (1993). e-reserve
Further reading:
- John M. Murrin, “The Menacing Shadow of Louis XIV and the Rage of Jacob Leisler: The Constitutional Ordeal of Seventeenth-Century New York,” in Stephen L. Schechter and Richard B. Bernstein, eds., New York and the Union: Contributions to the American Constitutional Experience (1990), 29-71. e-reserve
Encyclopædia Britannica Online links:
- 1676: Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. Nathaniel Bacon
- 1677: Culpeper's Rebellion in North Carolina. Culpeper's Rebellion
- 1689: Leisler's Rebellion in New York City. Jacob Leisler
- 1689: The Protestant Association in Maryland. Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore
- 1689: The Rebellion against Andros in New England. Sir Edmund Andros
Questions:
According to Bailyn, outbursts and insurrections against constituted authority were both “symptomatic of a profound disorganization of European society in its American setting” and indicative of alterations in the “social foundations of political power” (90).
- How were traditionally held assumptions about social structure and political authority altered in the colonies during the early and mid-seventeenth century?
- What were the consequences of these changes for leadership?
- What upset the precarious balance of leadership by mid-century?
- How was a new equilibrium established in the 1670s? Who did it serve—and disserve?
- From where did the challenge to authority in Virginia emerge?
- What was the nature of the eventual “equilibrium”?
