The Halfway Covenant

Colonies supplied raw materials unavailable in England, providing a healthy market for English manufactured goods. England adopted mercantilism and Parliament passed four types of regulations to increase national wealth, including enumerated products, the Navigation Act of 1651, and the Molasses Act in 1733. The colonial economy expanded twice as fast as England's and by the 1760s, £4 million worth of English manufactured goods were imported into the colonies annually. Colonial cities grew, and many colonists worked at trades directly related to overseas commerce. However, in the eighteenth century, the gap between the rich and the poor widened.

Prosperous colonists imported “courtesy books” to learn rules and polite behavior and educated colonists drew inspirations from the Age of Enlightenment. The Puritan faith was the established religion in the New England colonies except Rhode Island. The Halfway Covenant was adopted in 1662 to deal with declining church membership, leading to the Great Awakening starting in the 1730s. New Lights formed new churches and

Country ideology appeared in England during the late seventeenth century and the Grand Settlement of 1701 marked neutrality for the Iroquois. In 1744, the Treaty of Lancaster was established, and the Albany Plan of Union was put forward in 1754. France moved from a guerilla war strategy to a more European warfare, and the Battle of Quiberon Bay in France and the Iroquois’ decision to enter the war on the Anglo-American determined France’s loss. The Treaty of Paris signaled the end in 1763, and there was a sense of patriotism in the colonies. France regained the sugar islands despite losing its mainland colonies, but England claimed all of the lands east of the Mississippi and Spain controlled the Trans-Mississippi