17th Century Political and Religious Turmoil Essay Example

During the seventeenth century, England’s new colonies began to develop without any real governmental plan or control. The colonies were ventures with charters from the British government but there was no true supervision of support because of political turmoil in the colonies. When the chaos was over the monarchy was resolved and differences in religions became more prevalent. Britain had been transformed into a constitutional monarchy in which the crown and Parliament jointly ruled. The British state became stronger and more centralized. The economic theory of mercantilism guided the colonies’ economic development and was implemented I the Navigation Acts. The Navigation Acts of 1650, 1651, 1660 and 1663 set forth two essential rules for governing trade. First the specification was that colonial goods had to be transported in English ships with predominately English crews. The second was that the shipping of products could only be made only to England or other English colonies. By the end of the seventeenth century, colonial trade had regulations in place that subjected all shippers and merchants to royal supervision, protection from the English navy and access to market areas throughout the English empire. The trade regulations also gave a great economic value to the ownership of the American colonies by England. In the absence of British control new colonies such as Pennsylvania, New Netherland and South Carolina, were developed in the second half of the seventeenth century, each in a different manner than the others. The most successful offered opportunity and religious toleration to its colonies. By the end of the century, Virginians lived through rebellion designed to secure economic opportunity and a legislative government that would protect that opportunity and Virginia had developed into a slave society complete with laws regulating slave behavior and protecting an owner’s rights to his property. In Massachusetts the Puritans lost