Cycles in U.S. History

The Colonial Cycle (1589-1692)

Home
Links
Search

TimeLog
Bookstore
Email

The 13 Original
American Colonies

[Lessons]








| History |

| As It Happens |

Site Navigation Home --- TimeLog (Content Blog) --- TimePage Blog (Site Blog) --- Contact --- Links --- Bookstore (Amazon) --- Search ----------------------- Generations --- Colonial Cycle ...... Elizabethan Renaissance Era ...... Puritan Awakening Era ...... Era of Religious Intolerance ...... Glorious Revolution Era --- Revolutionary Cycle ...... Age of Enlightenment ...... Great Awakening Era ...... French and Indian War Era ...... American Revolution Era --- Civil War Cycle ...... Era of Good Feeling ...... Transcendental Awakening Era ...... Era of Slavery Expansion ...... Civil War Era --- World War Cycle ...... Gilded Age ...... Missionary Awakening Era ...... World War I / Prohibition Era ...... Depression / World War II Era --- Present Cycle ...... Era of Superpower America ...... Boom Awakening Era ...... Information Revolution Era ...... Powerdown Era (Coming Crisis?) --- Theory --- Eras --- Types --- Future Cycles ----------------------- Extras --- 13 Originals --- George Washington --- Lewis & Clark --- Nathan Hale --- Presidents --- War --- Baseball

The Puritan Generation were the idealist generation of the Colonial Cycle. They were, for the most part, children and grandchildren of the Protestant Reformation in Europe.They were raised in the aftermath of the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England and in a time of great promise for mankind. A list of international contemporaries of the founders of the British New World would include William Shakespeare, Galileo, Elizabeth I, Johannes Kepler, Cervantes, William Harvey, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, John Calvin, Francis Bacon, Henry VIII, Ignatius of Loyola, Akbar, Hernan Cortes among others. They left England determined to build a perfect moral society in America and in their young adulthood accomplished much of what Americans remember of the colonial experience. This spiritual event S&H refer to as the Puritan Awakening. Two generations later a determined civic generation called the Glorious Generation reacted to unrest and uncertainty in the colonies by beating back all foes from the French to the Native Americans to other colonists. They even fought off the devil itself in the Salem witch trials of 1692. S&H referred to this secular event as the Glorious Revolution.

The beginning of this cycle roughly coincides with the English colonization of the Atlantic Coast of North America. Prior to this time there were already Spanish settlements in Florida; the French had colonized in South Carolina and Champlain was contemplating his colony on the St. Lawrence river; De Soto had discovered the Mississippi River and Sir Francis Drake as well as the Spanish had explored the Pacific Coast; and, of course, the Spanish had a large presence in the Caribbean, South America and Southern North America. The products of the new world were already being sampled in Europe as tobacco was introduced by slave traders in England as early as 1565; sugar cane and its by-product, Demon Rum, were being produced in the Caribbean; and fish and furs were being harvested from the Northern continent. By the end of the cycle, a dozen hardy colonies were functioning as a valuable component of the British colonial empire.

A Map of the Colonies Prior to the Revolution
Map collection of the Colonial Period

Elizabethan Renaissance Era - 1st Turning, High (1589-1620)

Cohorts: Puritan Generation - Prophet, Idealist Type (1584-1614)
Myles Standish, John Winthrop, Roger Williams, William Bradford, Anne Hutchinson, Peter Stuyvesant, Edward Winslow, Thomas Hooker, Lord Baltimore, Pocahontas, Virginia Dare (the last two are native born).

American Timeline events

Foreign Contemporaries: Rene Descartes, Oliver Cromwell, Charles I, John Locke, John Milton, Gustav Adolph, Diego Velazquez, Rembrandt, Cardinal de Richelieu, Thomas Hobbes.

Foreign Timeline events: Mary "Queen of Scots" beheaded (1587), defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), Bubonic Plague ravages London (1593), Shakespeare completes "Romeo and Juliet" (1594), Boris Godunov made Czar of Russia (1598), Dutch East India company founded (1602), James VI of Scotland becomes James I, King of England, on the death of Queen Elizabeth (1603), Galileo demonstrates Law of Gravity (1604), Cervantes publishes Don Quixote (1605), Galileo's telescope (1609), Gustavus II becomes King of Sweden (1611), King James version of the Bible published (1611), Japan expels all foreign Missionaries (1614), Europeans vie for the Spice trade (1615), Tarters invade China (1616), Thirty Years War begins (1618).

Puritan Awakening Era - 2nd Turning, Awakening (1621-1640)

Cohorts: Cavalier Generation - Nomad, Reactive Type (1615-1647)
Nathaniel Bacon, Increase Mather, John Pinchon, Elisha Cooke, Metacomet ("King Philip"), William Kidd

American Timeline events

Foreign Contemporaries: Charles II, John Locke, Louis XIV, William Penn, Louis Jolliet, René Robert de La Salle, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, Samuel Pepys, James II, John Murray (Earl of Atholl), John Dryden, Mary of Orange, William II, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz, Prince Rupert, Jan Vermeer, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Robert Boyle

Foreign Timeline events:Charles I succeeds James I to the English crown (1625), Rembrandt paints the "Money Changer" (1627), work is begun on the Taj Mahal (1628), King Charles dissolves parliament (1629), Cardinal Richelieu struggles with Marie de' Medici for power in France (1630), Rene Descartes publishes "Discourse on Method" (1637), Portugal obtains independence from Spain (1640).

Era of Religious Intolerance - 3rd Turning, Unraveling (1641-1674)

Cohorts: Glorious Generation - Hero, Civic Type (1648-1673)
Cotton Mather, William Fitzhugh, Robert Beverly, Jonathon Swift, Samuel Sewall, Joseph Talcott

American Timeline events

Foreign Contemporaries: Queen Anne, Peter the Great, King William III, [Author's ancestor Robert Murray (born in Scotland)]

Foreign Timeline events: Income and property taxes introduced in England (1642), Presbyterian Church established in England (1643), the Chinese Ming Dynasty falls to the Manchus (1644), Cromwell defeats Charles I at Naseby (1645), Pascal invents the hypodermic syringe (1646), first newspaper advertisement in England (1647), Charles I is executed and the Commonwealth is established (1649), war between English and Dutch (1652), Charles II restored (1660), the English Crown expands its Navigation Act (1660), Sir Isaac Newton discovers the Law of Gravity (1665), the Great Plague of London (1665), English-Dutch hostilities resume (1673),

Glorious Revolution Era - 4th Turning, Crisis (1675-1692)

Cohorts: Enlightenment Generation - Artist, Adaptive Type (1674-1700)
William Shirley, Samuel Johnson, Daniel Dulany, Ebenezer Gay, Elisha Cooke, Jr.

American Timeline events

Foreign Contemporaries: Voltaire, Robert Walpole, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel, James Edward Oglethorpe, Charles-Louis Montesquieu, [Author's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather William Murray (born in Scotland, 1690)]

Foreign Timeline events: The Duke of York becomes King James II of England (1685), deposition of James II and reversal of his harsh policies as he is replaced by William and Mary of Orange (1689)

For each historical era I show a list of notable Americans born to that generation and a pointer to the timeline of importantant events in American History that occured during that time. It is important to keep in mind that these are the events that shaped the early life of this generation. A few important foreign cohorts and global events are also listed to provide a contextual backdrop for each era

On to the Revolutionary War Cycle