What Are The Causes Of Tensions In Colonial Society

Vishaal Gupta
Mr. Decarlo
AP US
July 23 2010
Creating Tensions in Colonial Society After the different European nations colonized the Americas, societies began to sprout in those colonies. They were very similar to those societies that had been going on for centuries in Europe. There were governments, workers, schools, and hospitals. Issues began to come about in these societies due to revolts and rebellions by the people. They were unhappy with the way they were treated and their life style that they were forced to live by their mother countries. This caused tensions within the societies. The greatest cause of these tensions was the Stono Rebellion, followed by the Bacon’s Rebellion and the witchcraft trials in Salem, and finally, the
This was the first act of serious opposition to authority in America, occurring in Jamestown, Virginia. The two sides in the battle were the governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley and Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon was a troublemaker and schemer and was sent to Virginia by his father to mature. He was the cousin of Berkeley so naturally Berkeley treated his cousin nicely and gave him land and a government position. Virginia was going through many issues during this time. The main issue was economically with the decline of tobacco prices, competition with other colonies, and increased prices of manufactured goods from England. The increased prices from England were due to the Anglo-Dutch war that was going on at the time. There was a competition between England and the Dutch for selling their goods and war broke out. The weather also made it difficult for the goods to arrive in America. These economics issues upset the people of Virginia and they needed somebody to blame. They put the blame on the local Indians. This created a great amount of tension between the two sides. The Indians even attacked a local Virginia store. The citizens reacted by attacking back, but accidently attacked the wrong tribe. This infuriated all of the Indians and large scales raids began. In an attempt to stop the fighting, Berkeley took away powder and ammunition from the Indians. He then called the Long Assembly and
It took place during 1692 in the New England settlement. The Puritans lived in New England. They were a very religious group of pioneers. They had their own churches, and had their own government that was run by the Church. Because of the time period in which they lived in, Puritans believed that supernatural forces were the cause of problems in their town. Soon, the first generation of the Puritans began to pass away and the second and third generations were coming to be. The Church was now having an issue with the number of members that it had. Only “Visible Saints” had the right to full membership they were those who stated their faith to the religion, conversion, and had been voted in by a congressional panel. As the new generations moved in, fewer and fewer people wanted to be part of this group. Another concern was that in a male dominated society, more women than men were becoming part of the Church group, upsetting the Church. In order to fix the problem, some of the panel members met in 1662 and established the Half-Way Covenant. This stated that even children of those who were partial members could become full members with just evidence of conversion. This was a comprise and not every Church accepted it. This started a feud between the fundamentalists who wanted a pure Church, and the liberals who wanted to include more people. In 1689, Salem elected Samuel