Chapter 1: Colonial Times
The beginning of this cycle roughly coincides with the English colonization of the Atlantic Coast of North America. Christopher Columbus had discovered the New World for his European sponsors a hundred years earlier (Lief Erickson, about five hundred years before that). Consequently, there were many Europeans already in the Americas prior to this time. There were already Spanish settlements in Florida. The French had colonized in South Carolina and Champlain was contemplating his colony on the St. Lawrence river in Canada. De Soto had discovered the Mississippi River and Sir Francis Drake as well as the Spanish had explored the Pacific Coast and, of course, the Spanish had a large presence in the Caribbean, South America and, thanks to Coronado’s search for the fabled “Seven Cities of Gold,” Southern North America. The products of the new world were already being sampled in Europe as tobacco was introduced by slave traders in England as early as 1565; sugar cane and its by-product, Demon Rum, were being produced in the Caribbean; and fish and furs were being harvested from the Northern continent. By the end of the cycle, a dozen hardy colonies were functioning as a valuable component of the British colonial empire.
High – Merrie England (1594-1621)
TBD
People: The Puritan Generation were the first generation of the Colonial Cycle. They were, for the most part, children and grandchildren of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. They were raised in the aftermath of the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England and in a time of great promise for mankind. They left England determined to build a perfect moral (or profitable) society in America and in their young adulthood accomplished much of what Americans today remember of the colonial experience. A list of international contemporaries of the founders of the British New World would include such people as William Shakespeare, Galileo, Elizabeth I, Johannes Kepler, Cervantes, William Harvey, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, John Calvin, Francis Bacon, Henry VIII, Martin Luther, Akbar, Hernan Cortes, among others.
Events: Roanoke is lost (1590), Jamestown founded (1607), Slaves traded in Jamestown (1619), Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock (1620),
Family:
2nd Stage – Puritan Awakening (1621-1649)
TBD
People:
Events: First Thanksgiving (1621), Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan (1626), Pilgrims settle Massachusetts Bay (1630), Roger Williams banished from Boston (1635)
Family:
3rd Stage – Reaction/Restoration (1649-1675)
TBD
People:
Events: King Phillip’s War (1675-76)
Family:
4th Stage – Glorious Revolution (1675-1704)
A determined generation called the Glorious Generation reacted to unrest and uncertainty in the colonies by beating back all foes from the French to the Native Americans to other colonists. They even fought off the devil itself in the Salem witch trials of 1692. S&H referred to this secular event as the Glorious Revolution.
People:
Events: Bacon’s Rebellion (1676), King Charles II grants Pennsylvania to William Penn (1681), Six convicted Witches executed in Salem Massachusetts (1692)
Family:
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