Massachusetts Bay : Social Characteristics Of Political Systems

were onions, grains, and cattle, which caused the population to increase. Although there was a slight

Were promised that if they survived the contract, they would be given food, clothes, tools, 50 acres of land and tobacco seeds

First Representative Legislature in Britain's New World: The first settlers of Jamestown had little say on who ruled them. But, in 1618 elected governor George Yeardley was instructed to introduce “just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people.” A council would later on be elected to assist the governor. Virginia then became a royal colony.

In the 1630s to 1660s, the Puritans strong belief in god and its upholding shaped the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s development. The colony was fully based on the Puritan’s view which painted their religion and it effected the lifestyle. The Puritans were a highly religious group that believed god’s will was the absolute. As shown in document 3, it states how the church is always right and nothing should be done to offend it. This shows the grasp of the Puritans hold toward god because this was a statement of the church’s membership and so it should display their beliefs.

Though discovered at relatively the same time the Massachusetts bay colony and the New England colony had more noticeable differences than they shared similarities. Discovered by two different men searching for two different things in their colonies resulted in two drastically different settlements. Though they were geographically similar, their sociL, economic

One democratic feature in colonial America was elected officials accountability over their people. Officials elected by each colony would be accountable for their people and would speak the wishes fro these people,instead of their own opinions. An example of this is in the Engraving of Virginia’s House of Burgesses (Document 6). The engraving shows the first legislative

The Puritans impacted the New England region. They believed that the people should elect a reverend and the government’s power should lay in the hands of the people. The idea of a democracy was a huge step forward in improving the colonists lives and allowing the people to feel as though they had more control. As John Winthrop states “we [the people] must be knit together, in this work as one man.” (Document 1), the Puritans wanted to unite the people in the New England colonies to become one. The Puritans also incorporated their religion into their government, something that is not seen today. The Puritans valued religion over nearly everything and wanted to show its importance to the rest of the world. They voted on a reverend to be their leader and allowed the Lord to set boundaries in which the Puritans

For the New England colonies like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, they had the Mayflower Compact. Their political and government structure had a interrelation between politics and religion. It dictated the economic, political, and social lives of colonists. Each town had meetings, elected legislatures, debated, and issued laws. Voting was allowed to white men who went to church. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, or the Middle Colonies, elected representatives to assemblies. The assemblies would then elect government officials which passed laws and did the decision makings. The Middle Colonies had religious tolerance that was founded by William Penn and practiced by the Quakers and it played a minor role in politics and economy. For the Chesapeake colonies, the House of Burgesses was founded in Jamestown where

their farms going while they were away, but when they got back they were forced to paid money.

The colonial legislatures, the First Great Awakening, the term “Patriots”, and the Preamble to the U.S Constitution all relate to the historical theme of Ideas, Beliefs, and Culture. To begin with, the colonial legislatures were a legislative system that consisted of an assembly and a council that controlled the decision of taxes. The colonial legislatures were developed during the time that Great Britain was under the policy of salutary neglect, which meant that the colonial legislatures gave the colonists a sense of control over their business and affairs. This political movement helped shape the American society because it gave the American society a sense of independence over Great Britain when they gained control over their own business

payed a little bit of money, but they had to work on plantation. They were

Dowries are extremely important to consider when it comes to arranged marriages. A dowry is a gift that could be goods, money, or land that a bride’s family will give to the groom to marry the bride. Dowries could be used to bring two powerful families together by having their children marry, for example, royal arranged marriages. In the Biblical sense, a girl who is still a virgin is more of prize than one who is not. In a way dowries make the daughter or son feel as property as told by Sara Smolinsky, “to [my father] I was nothing but his last unmarried daughter to be bought and sold” (205). Mr. Smolinsky stated, “It’s not enough to take my Bessie without a dowry. You must pay me yet” (47). Mr. Smolinsky, being the stubborn man he is, decided when Berel Bernstein asked for Bessie’s hand in marriage without the need of a dowry, that Mr. Smolinsky should get a bride price as well. A bride price

     Building on English foundations of political liberty, the colonists extended the concepts of liberty and self-government far beyond those envisioned in the mother country. While Englishmen had some representation in their parliament, Americans took the system further. All colonies had some form of a two-house parliament system. Some, like New York, had governors appointed by the crown. Others, like Rhode Island, elected their own. Local government also varied between the colonies. The southern states had a strong County government, while the New England colonies relied on town-meeting government. In either case, voting was reserved to land-owning white men.

Natives managed to genetically engineer plants in drastic ways, managing to make plants such as maize usable almost everywhere. Strains where made that could survive in severe weather, such as extreme cold or short harvesting months. The more variety of foods that grew in crops and different climates gave more people the ability to live in one place in larger numbers.

During this time the social class depended on how much land you owned. Royalty in your Kings and Queens was part of the upper class; the noble lords and vassals followed the