Presentation Transcript

1. Colonial North America 1690-1754

2. Introduction During the 1600s, English colonization in North America produced a scattered collection of culturally and economically disparate populations. While many of the differences between the colonies would persist throughout US history, the 1700s witnessed the emergence of a uniquely “American” culture that would serve to unify the populations of the colonies, and ultimately, lead to an entirely new nation through armed revolution. In first half of the 1700s, several critical events put American cultural and socio-political cohesion into motion. Among these are: a tremendous population growth, both by native-born populations and from immigration a burgeoning trans-Atlantic trade that helped to unify the economies of North American colonies and create urban centers of commerce on the coast the common experience of a rapidly evolving western frontier, the “backcountry,” where diverse peoples intermingled and forged a distinctly American identity the growth and entrenchment of plantation economies in the southern colonies, and the formation of a distinct African-American culture A revolution of ideas from Europe’s intellectual “Enlightenment,” and a home-grown religious revival , the “Great Awakening” that would unite colonists like never before in a mass social movement An increasing conformity of institutions of government, along with a growing expectation of democratic self-rule
3. Population growth and immigration Though several of the English North American colonies had difficult starts and languid population growth through the 1600s, the first half of the 1700s witnessed robust population growth in most colonies. Part of this was due to natural increases of the founding generations- mostly English- but also due to large numbers of non-English immigrants attracted to the colonies for economic opportunities and/or religious freedom that could not be attained in Europe. The cultural melting pot that had already been brewing in North America became even richer as the 1600s turned into the 1700s. Tens of thousands of Germans, for example, immigrated to Pennsylvania through the first several decades of its existence. Other non-English groups made their mark on colonial development as well. Scottish and Scots-Irish immigrants poured into the backcountry of Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas. Among the first “frontiersmen,” the Scots-Irish in particular left an indelible stamp on the development of the colonial backcountry. Often simply squatting on western lands, and uprooting at will, they imbued the backcountrywith a quasi-lawlessness and restless energy that would come to characterize the frontier experience for its duration. In addition to these sizable minorities, other groups came in smaller number: French protestants (Huguenots), Welsh, Dutch, Irish, Swiss, and Jewish immigrants, among others.
4. Transatlantic trade and the growth of seaports The 1700s witnessed a dramatic increase in trade in the North American colonies, both domestically, and with partners across the Atlantic. Forest products and fish were important exports regionally, but agricultural commodities dominated the colonial economy as a whole- wheat and corn in the Middle Colonies, tobacco in the Chesapeake, and rice in the deep South. Enterprising merchants, mostly in the northern cities, sponsored trans-Atlantic ventures that historians have dubbed “triangle” trade. Ships would leave (Boston, for example) laden with rum to be traded in Africa for slaves, which would be taken to the Caribbean, slaves traded for molasses, which were taken back to New England distilleries to make rum and start the process all over again. Naturally, there was also a brisk commerce with mother England as well, where forest products, tobacco and grain were traded for manufactured and “finished” goods that were highly demanded in the rapidly growing colonies. The substantial growth of commerce in the early 1700s also led to bustling development in the seaports up and down the coast of the colonies. What had been relatively modest towns in the 1600s began to take on a truly urban air through the early decades of the 1700s. As the 1700s progressed, however, a trade imbalance emerged between England and its colonies, as North American production began to outstrip markets in England. Expecting to maintain vigorous economic expansion, colonists more frequently began trading with the French and Dutch, among others, in the Caribbean and elsewhere. This reality was not lost on the English, who, looking to preserve their mercantilist programs, attempted to crack down on trade unbeneficial to their interests. Trade restrictions, like the Molasses Act of 1733, served to embitter American colonists, who flagrantly violated the ordinance, foreshadowing a much broader anger that would erupt 40 years later.
5. The eighteenth-century back country As the colonies spread westward, a constantly evolving frontier of settlements provided an outlet for the growing populations of coastal towns and cities, and attracted entirely new immigrant populations with the lure of land. Remote from the centers of authority in the colonies, the frontier life was marked by relative scarcity, desolation, and danger. By 1750, the Indians along the coast had been virtually wiped out. Remnants of some surviving groups had migrated westward to join the natives of the interior, but widespread unity and cooperation among Indians was never reached. Periodic organized strikes against encroaching settlers made the edge of the frontier dangerous enough to slow down in spots, but retaliation from White settlers was generally quite swift, and ultimately nothing could stem the tide of settlers daily pouring into Indian lands. In the farthest reaches of the frontier, another threat was looming for the English North American colonies, in the advance of French outposts and increased trade among the Indians of the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys. These competing land claims would eventually lead to war shortly after mid-century.
6. Growth of plantation economies and slave societies As the frontier pushed westward and ever larger tracts of fertile lands opened in the interior, the plantation model established in the southern colonies was extended with it. Already at the apex of the southern economic and political hierarchy, the planter class further entrenched itself by grabbing up the choicest lands and replicating their slave labor model on even larger scales. As discussed, important differences developed between the “Upper” South- Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina- and the “Lower” South- South Carolina and Georgia. Tobacco continued to rule the Chesapeake economy, and spread deep into the interior. Rice agriculture also increased dramatically through the 1700s in South Carolina and Georgia (after 1750s). But as its cultivation depended on tidal flooding, it was confined to the coast. There were also important differences between Upper and Lower South in how the slave societies there developed. Despite increasing obstacles, in the Chesapeake there were still a few routes to manumission and a small but stable population of Free Blacks, conditions that simply were not present in South Carolina and Georgia. Moreover, rice cultivation was extremely labor intensive, requiring far more labor per acre than tobacco. While the slave population in Virginia reached 40% in 1750, in many areas of South Carolina slaves made up more than 90%.
7. Growth of plantation economies and slave societies In both of the major plantation areas, African slaves slowly began to develop a distinct society and culture. Planters purposefully purchased slaves imported from different areas of Africa to prevent the prospect of collusion and rebellion, but natural increase and the stabilization of slave populations in the earlier settled areas made cultural assimilation and societal development inevitable. Common experience at the bottom of the social hierarchy along with the beginnings of Christianization among slave societies brought increased cultural unity. Slave societies in North America created a uniquely syncretic culture- melding elements of their African ancestry to the (largely) English culture of their colonial masters. In the process they created something entirely new and purely American. In the slave majorities along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, African traditions were even more pronounced, producing truly blended cultures, as in the Gullah and Geechee peoples. The development of a more unified slave society was not lost on the planter class, who initiated increasingly harsh slave codes through the 1700s. In the Lower South, the fact that slaves significantly outnumbered whites created grave concern for revolt, and the short-lived Stono Rebellion in 1739 drove the point home.
8. The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening In the century from ca. 1650-1750, European thinkers began to embrace a new mode of inquiry, based upon the recently elaborated Scientific Method, which sought to apply the light of “reason” to understand humanity and its institutions. Of special significance to American history was the writing of political philosophers like John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Montesquieu. These thinkers laid the philosophical foundation that Americans would later adopt to justify their separation from Britain. Ideas like the “natural rights” of man, and a Social Contract theory of government were central to the philosophies underpinning the independence movement of the 1770s.
9. Great Awakening As the enlightenment was in full swing in Europe, parts of the British colonies in North America underwent a religious revival known as the “Great Awakening.” In Puritan New England, enthusiasm for religion had waned relative to the fervor of the 1600s. New theological doctrines challenging the exclusivity of Calvinism combined with a longing for a more emotional and personal religious experience ignited the religious passions of churches in New England, and eventually spread among other colonies well. Jonathan Edwards, a minister in Northhampton, Massachusetts, is often credited with kicking off this initial “awakening,” with sermons like “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards’ stark appeals and vivid descriptions of the hell-fires that awaited the unconverted shocked the complacent into religious action. Some years later, in 1738-9, another minister tapped into the latent emotionalism of American Christianity, spreading the ideas of the Great Awakening through most of the colonies. George Whitefield was an English minister with profound oratorical skill who toured the colonies, preaching a message of personal salvation and submission to an omnipotent God. His highly emotional style resonated with the energies of the American colonists, and soon spawned imitators throughout the colonies. This Great Awakening of religious devotion amounted to the first colonies-wide social movement, uniting the people of the colonies as no single event had yet been able.
10. Colonial governments and imperial policy in British North America Just as religion tended to be a unifying force among colonists, so was the general view of politics, government, and the civil rights of the colonists coalescing through the early 1700s. Three basic executive structures were present in the colonial governments- Most were Royal colonies- meaning that the British Crown appointed the Governors and had a direct influence on their governance. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were “proprietary” colonies- meaning they were owned by individuals who had been granted lands by the Crown. In these colonies the proprietors themselves chose the governors and other executive officials for colonial administration. The other type of colonial government, the “Charter” was based on an independent authorization from the Crown, but was essentially self-ruled, with colonists themselves electing executive leaders. Only Connecticut and Rhode Island were able to maintain their colonial charters for self-government through the 18th century. One common feature of all the colonial governments was the legislatures- in most cases a bi-cameral law-making body with an appointed upper house and a lower house that was popularly elected. It was these popularly elected assemblies where American representative democracy began to take shape- Americans began to expect that elective, representative government was their right as English subjects and as Americans.
11. Imperial policy For the most part, the colonies were left to their own devices through their early development. This “salutary neglect” allowed political institutions in America to develop much more liberally- including the near direct democracy of the New England Town Meeting. When the crown did periodically attempt to tighten its control- as with the Navigation Acts of the 1650s- 1670s and the Dominion of New England episode in the 1680s, it engendered no small amount of ill will among the colonists. Other examples serve to illustrate the American frame of mind- the flagrant violations of the Molasses Act in 1733, and even more prescient, the Zenger Case. John Peter Zenger was a New York printer who was charged and tried for the crime of libel. The American jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the premise that speech that was not false (Zenger’s criticisms of the colonial government were true) and thus could not be libelous. There was no precedent for such a ruling, and though it did not immediately reverse the legal interpretation of libelous speech, it did indicate the growing sense of the “liberty” that Americans were beginning to expect.