Question

Religious conflict and political turmoil battered England in the seventeenth century. How did political developments in England affect life in the colonies? In your answer, consider the establishment of the colonies and the crown's attempts to exercise authority over them.

Answer 1

Religious violence plagued sixteenth-century England. At the same time, Spain plundered the New World and built an empire. England struggled as Catholic and Protestants viewed for supermacy and attacked their opponents as heretics. By the 1640s, political conflicts between Parliament and the Crown merged with long-simmering religious tensions. The result was a bloody civil war. Colonists reacted in a variety of ways as England waged war on itself, but all were affected by these decades of turmoil.

The civil war forced settlers in America to reconsider their place within the empire. Older colonies like Virginia and other colonies like Maryland sympathetized with the crown. Newer colonies like Massachusetts Bay, populated by religious dissenters taking part in the Great Migration of the 1630s, tender to favor Parliament. During these times, the war and the colonies remained neutral, fearing that support for either side could involve them in war. Even Massachussetts Bay, which nurtured ties to radical Protestants in Parliament remained neutral.

English colonists in the era of his revolution experienced religious and political conflict that reflected transformations in Europe. The business of the colony was not merely to be self-supporting, but to develop the products of the country suitable for export (tobacco), in exchange mainly for manufactured goods. After the arrival of Pilgrims, colonies were divided between those who were rigid and those who favored independency and toleration. Ostensibly, Nepal and Bhutan are acknowledged as never having been colonized. As far as their history is concerned, the people of these two nations can be dated from prehistoric times. Turkey, Iran and Afganistan are considered to be countries that have never been colonized.