May 19, 2012

Unit 19 - Spirit of Liberty

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Unit Nineteen – The Spirit of Liberty


THE colonies were settled at a time when the English people were trying to establish the principles of liberty in their own government.

Many of the colonists were driven to America by acts of tyranny from their home countries and so the settlers in America brought with them the English love of liberty. They were always ready to assert their right to "the liberties of Englishmen."


Free government was first established in America by the Virginia  Great Charter of 1618.  The king, in dissolving the Virginia Company, struck a low at the liberty of the colony, but the people strove hard to maintain their freedom.

When, in 1624, the clerk of the Virginia Council betrayed their secrets to the king's commissioners, the Virginia Assembly sent him to the pillory, and had part of his ears cut off, to the great disgust of King James.

When Sir John Harvey was governor of Virginia, he opposed the people, and the Council deposed him in 1635, and sent him to England. King Charles I was offended at their presumption in deposing a royal governor, and he sent him back again as governor. But the people succeeded in having him removed in 1639.

Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia, opposed the people, and in 1676 refused to allow them to make war on the Indians, who were ravaging the frontiers. He did this so that the large profits he was making out of the fur trade should not be reduced.

The people of the frontier put themselves under the lead of a brilliant young man named Nathaniel Bacon. He forced the government to give him a commission, and he got the Legislature to pass some good laws that were much needed. Then he marched against the Indians and drove them back. On his return, hearing that Berkeley had determined to arrest him, he marched straight on Jamestown, and though the number of men behind him were few, he captured and burned it to the ground.

Governor Berkeley fled to the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay and the people of Virginia, except the few on the eastern side of the bay, took an oath to support Bacon, hailing him as a deliverer.

But Bacon was worn out by the cares and exposures of the Indian war and the Jamestown siege, and he soon died.

Berkeley succeeded after a while in reducing Bacon's followers, and in confiscating for his own use much of their property. Twenty- three of Bacon’s men were put to death. The King did not approve and so recalled his governorship, much to the delight of the colonists.

Soon after Massachusetts had been settled, under the charter of the Massachusetts Company, an attempt was made to destroy that charter by the same kind of a lawsuit that had been used to destroy the charter of the Virginia Company. But the Massachusetts charter had been carried to America, and when the judges in England sent orders to have it brought back to be examined, the rulers of the colony made excuses until the troubles in England caused the matter to be laid aside.
 

 

In the reign of Charles II, proceedings were again taken against the Massachusetts charter until it was finally dissolved in 1686.

King James II, who had by this time come to the throne, soon after appointed Sir Edmund Andros governor of New York and New England.
 
Andros was a tyrant who tried in every way to overthrow the liberties of the colonies. The people of New England were exasperated to the highest pitch, and when they heard that the Prince of Orange had landed in England to overthrow James II, they rose against Andros and imprisoned him, establishing a government of their own. This was in 1689.

During the time that Andros was governor of all New England, he had tried to carry off the Connecticut Charter. But it is said that when the charter was brought in and laid on the table, the lights were suddenly blown out, and when they were lighted the charter was gone. It had been taken away and hidden in the hollow of an oak tree. This tree stood for nearly a hundred and seventy years after and was always respected as "the Charter Oak."

Andros was supreme governor of New York as well as of New England. In New York there was also great dissatisfaction with his government, and when the common people heard that Andros had been put in prison in Boston, they rose against his lieutenant and set up Captain Jacob Leisler for governor.

Leisler, who governed the colony for more than two years, was a plain merchant, with no knowledge of government. He was bitterly opposed by the rich men of the colony. Though a man of patriotism, he was imprudent and after the arrival of a royal governor, his enemies succeeded in having him executed for treason.

In 1719 the people of South Carolina overthrew the oppressive government of the lords proprietors and put themselves under the government of the king who bought out all the rights of the proprietors ten years later.

The spirit of liberty was in all the colonies. The governors appointed in England made continual efforts to encroach on the freedom of the people. The colonial Legislatures were in a perpetual quarrel with their governors.

English statesmen desired to have the governors paid a fixed salary, so that they would not be dependent on the colonies. But the colonies kept the purse strings in their own hands, as far as possible, in order to preserve their liberties.

These events preceded the American Revolution and gave all the colonists more will to push on for freedom and self government. 

 

 

Unit 19 - Spirit of Liberty

Download Text and Worksheets for Unit 19 here.

 

 

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