Virginia (English Crown Colony)

Fur trading is one of the main economic activities in Northern America from the late sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century

At this time, demand for fur is surging in Europe as it is used to make cloth and fancy hats.

Data collected from England in the eighteenth century highlights that the years from 1746 to 1763 see an increase of twelve shillings per pelt.

It has been calculated that over twenty million beaver hats were exported from England alone from 1700 to 1770.

Both trading partners in North America, natives and Europeans, provide the other a comparative advantage in the fur trade industry.

The opportunity cost of hunting beavers in Europe is extremely high: by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Eurasian beaver is near extinction in England and France.

On the other hand, traders and trappers think the wildlife in the New World is essentially limitless.

Natives make use of the trade goods received, particularly knives, axes, and guns.

The fur trade will provides a stable source of income for many Native Americans until the mid-nineteenth century, when changing fashion trends in Europe and a decline in the beaver population in North America bring about a collapse in demand for fur.

As Native Americans are pressed into alliances by the Europeans for Queen Anne's War, the Seven Years' War, the Nine Years' War, and other standing competitions among the European powers: France, Great Britain and Spain, with whom they are dealing in North America, they feel drawn into the Europeans' endemic warfare.

A large-scale slave trade with English privateers has begun.

The life expectancy of slaves is much higher in North America than further south, because of less disease and better food and treatment, leading to a rapid increase in the numbers of slaves.

Colonial society is largely divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery and colonies pass acts for and against the practice, but by the turn of the eighteenth century, enslaved Africans are replacing indentured servants for cash crop labor, especially in southern regions.

The thirteen colonies that will become the United States of America have all been established by 1732 with the British colonization of Georgia.

All have local governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self-government stimulating support for republicanism.

With extremely high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grows rapidly as relatively small native populations are eclipsed.

British forces seize Canada from the French during the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in America), but the francophone population remains politically isolated from the southern colonies.

Excluding the natives, who are being conquered and displaced, the thirteen British colonies that will form the United States have a population of over two million one hundred thousand in 1770, about one-third that of Britain.

Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase is such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.

The colonies' distance from Britain has allowed the development of self-government, but their success motivates monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.

North America's natives have often been conquered and displaced with the progress of European colonization in the territories of the contemporary United States.

The native population had declined after Europeans arrived, and for various reasons, primarily diseases such as smallpox and measles.

Violence is not a significant factor in the overall decline among Native Americans, though conflict among themselves and with Europeans affects specific tribes and various colonial settlements.

In the early days of colonization, many European settlers were subject to food shortages, disease, and attacks from Native Americans.

Native Americans were also often at war with neighboring tribes and allied with Europeans in their colonial wars.

At the same time, however, many natives and settlers have come to depend on each other.

Settlers trade for food and animal pelts, natives for guns, ammunition and other European wares.

Natives have taught many settlers where, when and how to cultivate corn, beans and squash.

European missionaries and others feel it is important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urge them to adopt European agricultural techniques and lifestyles.

There has long been a large population of Quakers in North Carolina and there is growing friction between the Quakers and adherents of the Church of England who wish to see it established as the official church of the colony by law.

Quakers, due to their beliefs, had been unable to swear oaths required of all officials on the coronation of Queen Anne.

Thomas Cary is the stepson of the former Governor of Carolina and Quaker John Archdale.

When he was first appointed Deputy Governor of Carolina, with responsibility for North Carolina, he had, however, supported the Church party and has continued to keep Quakers out of the government by strictly enforcing the oath requirement.

The Quakers and some disaffected Anglicans had sent a representative to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina in England, who had removed Cary from the governorship.

After Cary returned to South Carolina, where he remained active in provincial politics, William Glover had taken over as Acting Deputy Governor, but continued the oath policy as before.

Cary had returned in 1707, this time supporting the Quaker dissenters against Glover and also espousing the regional interests of the town of Bath, on the Pamlico Sound against the Albemarle government, which centers on the region near present-day Edenton.

Cary and his supporters manage in 1708 to oust Glover in an election in the Assembly; Glover flees to Virginia and claims Cary had threatened his life.

Cary had removed the oath requirement and restored Quakers to the government, and so from 1708–1710, Cary and the Quakers dominate the government of the northern section of Carolina.

Cary has also lowered the quit-rents for Bath County, which are essentially a land tax charged in exchange for the royal land grants.

Cary's government is not endorsed by the Lords Proprietors and so has no official legal standing.

Edward Hyde, born in 1667 to a prominent family in England, is a cousin of Queen Anne and a son of Robert Hyde and his wife Phillis Snyed of Cheshire in England.

Together with his sisters, Anne and Penelope, Hyde had been raised by his grandmother, since his parents had died when he was only three.

He had entered Oxford University in 1683, but did not complete a degree.

He had in 1692 married Catherine Rigby, whose family are prominent in Cheshire.

Appointed by Queen Anne in 1702 as Jamaica’s provost marshal, Hyde had served in that position without ever traveling to the Caribbean, but found it not lucrative.

Although the territory between the Virginia border and the Cape Fear River had officially been recognized as North Carolina as early as 1689, that territory and all of what will become South Carolina is known as the Province of Carolina, with the Governor maintaining his residence at Charleston.

Hyde had in 1710 been appointed Deputy Governor for the Colony of Carolina by the Lords Proprietors of the Carolina colony; his charge is the northern part of the province.

He has brought with him letters from the Lords Proprietors and is supposed to receive his full, official commission from the Governor of Carolina when he arrives.

On arrival in Virginia, however, Hyde discovers that Governor Edward Tynte, who had been appointed Governor of the Carolina Colony in 1708, and from whom he is to receive his commission, has died.

Hyde in January, 1711, proceeds without his commission to North Carolina, where he finds dissension about to erupt in violence.

Hyde’s claim to the Deputy Governorship is not technically perfected, but Cary and the Quaker party had at first been willing to allow Hyde to take over, until Hyde began to clearly side with the Anglican party.

Then Cary refused to recognize Hyde until he produces his official commission, claiming that he is still the legal governor.

Hyde declares Cary to be in open rebellion and assembles an armed force of around one hundred and fifty men to go to Bath to arrest him.

Cary flees from his home to a nearby plantation (possibly that of former governor Robert Daniell) which had been fortified and armed with cannons and several dozen of Cary's supporters.

Hyde, after failing to reach an agreement with Cary, on May 29 decides not to attack this fortified position and he and his men retreat.

Cary gathers together a larger force and arms a small brigantine with several cannons and sets off to attack Hyde's fortified plantation.

Cary's attack on June 30 is repulsed after the mast of the brigantine is shot and his men flee.

He regroups, fortifying a small island in the Pamlico Sound, and begins to rearm his followers.

Quakers themselves are generally pacifists so it is unlikely that many Quakers took part in the violence themselves but rather that Cary's force was made up of Bath County men and non-Quaker dissenters.