Chapter 3 The British Empire in America.docx

Chapter 3,The British Empire in America, 1660-1750 As the pace of English settlement of North America increased, Britain instituted mercantilist policies that gradually resulted in the development of the first British Empire. Though never totally successful, and based on African slave trade, the empire enriched Britain and elevated it to a major European power. The Politics of Empire, 1660–1713 In the 1660s through the 1680s, Charles II, after restoring royal authority in England, began the process by which a scattered group of colonies across the North Atlantic, connected by British and European trade, became a trading system, or empire, based on mercantilist theory. The Restoration Colonies In an effort to pay off his debts, King Charles II distributed title to vast lands in the colonies of New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North and South Carolina to a few English aristocrats. The character of life in each colony was established by the nature of the population and the power of the proprietor to rule. While small farmers rebelled against proprietary rule in North Carolina, colonists in South Carolina established a poorly governed slave regime. In contrast, Pennsylvania and Delaware were established as Quaker colonies in which farmers held land in fee simple and the people ruled through representative assemblies. From Mercantilism to Dominion Recognizing the potential wealth of his colonies, Charles II expanded the concept of mercantilism to encompass the various routes of trade and areas of production that were developing across the English colonies. Through wars against the Dutch and a series of Navigation Acts, Charles banned the Dutch and other foreigners from English trade and required English colonies to trade the goods they produced through England. In doing so, he began the process of transforming a disparate group of colonial economies into an integrated trading system. To administrate this new system, he created a new Board of Trade and imposed customs and duties. When American colonists resisted these initiatives, James II followed up his predecessor’s economic policies by tightening the Crown’s political and administrative control over the colonies, establishing a vast, centralized colonial administration over the northern colonies called the Dominion of New England. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 James II’s similar imposition of arbitrary power on the English people at home created similar discontent there. When James’s Spanish wife, a Catholic, gave birth to a son, the prospect of a Catholic heir’s returning to the throne precipitated a bloodless coup known as the Glorious Revolution. In quick order, colonists in Maryland and the Dominion of New England rebelled against the governors appointed by James II. In Maryland and Massachusetts, new royal colonies were ;established, with appointed governors, colonial assemblies, and the formation of the Anglican Church, or, at least, the right of Anglicans to worship. In New York, Jacob Leisler, who replaced James II’s appointed governor, was himself ousted and then executed by members of a faction supported by the wealthy elite, plunging the colony into factional political disputes that continued into the 1710s. In general, the reorganization of royal colonies run by colonial assemblies representing the mercantile class allowed for the further development of a mercantile-based empire. Imperial Wars and Native Peoples England’s recommitment to Protestantism and to expanding its empire drew it into an on-again, off-again conflict with France and Spain that lasted for most of the eighteenth century. In North America, the British continually resisted or tried to thwart French or Spanish efforts to consolidate or expand their colonial empires. In King William’s War (1689–1697) and Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713), both the British and the French used Indian alliances to attempt to gain the upper hand. In the South, war raged along the Spanish border of Florida. In the North, forays between Canada and New England were hindered by an Indian alliance that maintained Indian neutrality. While England gained vast Newfoundland and northern Canada, the Spanish fortified their colonies from Florida to Texas. Though the British still sought to create a unified colonial administration, they gradually conceded that ruling haphazardly over a patchwork of rapidly growing and thriving colonies was sufficient. The Imperial Slave Economy The engine of wealth driving the development of the British Empire was the South Atlantic system. Using slaves transported from Africa to produce crops on land taken from native Americans, the British produced marketable products that transformed the economies, societies, and political systems of four continents. The African Background The diverse social, economic, political, and cultural systems of different African peoples were fundamentally changed by the development of the slave trade. Initially, European trade with Africa had a positive effect on African life, introducing new plants and animals to Africa that allowed African farmers to increase production, and stimulating the African economy. But as Europeans entered the slave trade and expanded it from a localized trade into a vast exportation of human beings from Africa to the Americas, millions of people were taken from the continent in exchange for goods of trade. As the slave trade drained Africa of capital, centralized slave-trading states preyed on smaller egalitarian tribes and nations, social hierarchies became more pronounced, and fundamental social relationships were transformed. The South Atlantic System In the West Indies, the use of slaves to produce sugar enriched and empowered a small, wealthy, absentee aristocracy of planters, many of whom spent their wealth in England. Likewise, the cost of furnishing and supplying the West Indies with goods, services, and food enriched manufacturers in Britain as well as merchants and farmers in the American colonies. In the North American colonies, social elites, enriched directly or indirectly by the slave trade, rose to power. In the seaports of the North, a merchant class, many of whom held slaves, rose to social and political power. Beneath them, a vibrant artisan and laboring class also developed. In the South, the planter elite further tightened their social and political control by modeling their behavior on that of the English aristocracy. All this economic development, and the social changes it set in motion, occurred at the expense of Africa. The exportation of millions of people diminished the wealth, uprooted economies, restructured societies, and undermined the cultures of Africa. Slavery and Society in the Chesapeake Though initially Africans who arrived as indentured servants in the Chesapeake colonies could gain freedom like any servant, in time Virginia planters, seeking to consolidate social order and responding to the availability of slaves from the developing South Atlantic system, turned to a labor system of African slavery. The Expansion of Slavery A combination of better conditions, a more widely dispersed population, and a smaller profit margin, allowed planters in North America to employ less force and violence in disciplining slaves than did planters in the West Indies. Hence slaves in the Chesapeake colonies lived longer than those in the West Indies, and, as a result, they began to form a distinctive slave society. African American Community and Resistance In contrast to the West Indies, African slaves in North America established families, developed kin relationships, maintained social and cultural traditions, and, through interaction with other Africans, created a new ethnic "African American" identity and culture. Their impoverished, enslaved status placed severe limits on their creative cultural expression, however. Most slaves resisted oppressive masters in subtle ways and negotiated the nature and conditions of work with their masters in ways unheard of in the West Indies. Only one major slave uprising took place in the eighteenth century, and it was brutally suppressed. For slaves, the cost of resistance was high. The Northern Maritime Economy Because sugar production brought such high returns, planters in the West Indies preferred to buy their produce, livestock, and supplies from others than to produce them at home. This provided a ready market for grain, livestock, and supplies produced by farmers or craftsmen in the middle colonies. The need to market these goods to the West Indies in exchange for bills of credit, which colonial merchants then exchanged for manufactured goods from England, triggered the development of several major port towns along the North American coast. At these towns, merchants exchanged goods and services within the empire; manufacturers turned raw materials into finished goods and artisans produced fine goods for local merchants; shipbuilders, suppliers of naval stores, and craftsmen maintained a growing fleet of ships to carry the trade of empire; and laborers and slaves manned the ships, hauled the cargo, and performed menial tasks. Likewise, interior market towns, from which produce from farther inland was shipped to the city, also developed. At all of these places, society was differentiated by wealth, class, and culture. A genteel elite established themselves at the top of seaport society. Beneath, the middle level of society was occupied by a variety of merchants and artisans who had moderate wealth. Poorer artisans, laborers, workers, and seamen formed a lower class, which, during economic downturns, fell into dependence, poverty, and hunger. The New Politics of Empire, 1714–1750 To facilitate the growth of trade, British officials decided that when it came to colonial administration, less was more. By allowing the colonists a significant degree of self-government and economic autonomy—in short, by neglecting the need to establish administrative control—they allowed the colonies to continue to grow and develop. This policy of "healthy" or "salutary" neglect, however, would only make it much harder for subsequent ministers to regain control of the system when it was deemed necessary. The Rise of the Assembly As the Whigs gained control in England and implemented their policy of "salutary neglect," colonial assemblies acquired more power and control over colonial affairs. Though the assemblies were controlled by members of elite families who sought to rule without referring to the people’s wishes, urban mobs, artisans, and yeomen farmers demanded assemblies that were responsive to their needs and independent of British administration. Salutary Neglect Sir Robert Walpole, the leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons from 1720 through 1742, created a strong Court party by using an elaborate patronage system. He filled numerous colonial posts with mediocre and corrupt officials and governors who were more interested in self-enrichment than in promoting colonial policy. As a result, American colonial assemblies, dominated by merchant elites who routinely evaded British maritime laws and resisted the rule of corrupt governors, grew accustomed to self-rule and viewed themselves as equals in the empire. Their belief in the assemblies that responded to popular needs, their lack of respect for colonial governors, and their fear of high taxes and standing armies, made Americans, in general, sympathetic to Radical, or Real, Whig criticisms of Walpole’s government. Consolidating the Mercantilist System Safeguarding British planters and merchants was the main focus of British mercantilist policy during Walpole’s ministry. To create a buffer between Spanish Florida and its Carolina colonies, Walpole supported the creation of Georgia and, from 1740 to 1748, fought a sporadic border war with the Spanish to secure it. To channel trade within the mercantile system, British officials also began to crack down on pervasive American violations of the Navigation Acts. In a series of new laws, they limited American manufacturers, prohibited the issuing of currency, and tried to limit the burgeoning trade between the colonies and the French West Indies. In their efforts to control Americans, some British officials began to think that a more rigorous colonial administrative system was needed. Chapter 3: The British Empire in North America, 1660-1750 Chapter Instructional Objectives After you have taught this chapter, your students should be able to answer the following questions: 1. How and why did Europeans bring Africans to American colonies as slaves? 2. How did African American communities in America respond to and resist their condition? 3. What was the structure of colonial government? How did it operate? Why did Englishmen and colonial citizens view the role of assemblies differently? 4. What was the role of the colonies within the British mercantilist system? How did economic considerations affect political decision making in both England and North America? British Empire in America, 1660-1750 I. The Politics of Empire, 1660–1713 A. The Restoration Colonies 1. Charles II gave the Carolinas to his aristocratic friends and gave his brother James, the Duke of York, the land between the Delaware and Connecticut Rivers. 2. James took possession of New Netherland and named it New York; the adjacent land was established as New Jersey. 3. The proprietors of the new colonies sought to create a traditional social order with a gentry class and an established Church of England. 4. The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina (1669) prescribed a manorial system with nobility and serfs. 5. Poor families in North Carolina refused to work on large manors and chose to live on modest farms. 6. South Carolinians imposed their own design of government and attacked Indian settlements to acquire slaves for trade. 7. South Carolina remained an ill-governed and violence-ridden frontier settlement until the1720s. 8. Pennsylvania, designed as a refuge for Quakers persecuted in England, developed a pacifistic policy toward the Native Americans and became prosperous. 9. Quakers believed that people were imbued by God with an inner light of grace and understanding at opened salvation to everyone. 10. Penn’s Frame of Government (1681) guaranteed religious freedom for all Christians and allowed all property-owning men to vote and hold office. 11. Ethnic diversity, pacifism, and freedom of conscience made Pennsylvania the most open and democratic of the Restoration colonies. B. From Mercantilism to Dominion 1. In the 1650s the English government imposed mercantilism, via the Navigation Acts, which regulated colonial commerce and manufacturing. 2. The Revenue Act of 1673 imposed a “plantation duty” on sugar and tobacco exports and created a staff of customs officials to collect it. 3. In commercial wars between 1652 and 1674, the English ended Dutch supremacy in the West African slave trade. The English also dominated Atlantic commerce. 4. Many Americans resisted the mercantilist laws as burdensome and intrusive. To enforce the laws, the Lords of Trade pursued a punitive legal strategy: in 1679, they denied the claim of Massachusetts to New Hampshire’s territory, instead creating New Hampshire as a separate colony. In 1684, they annulled Massachusetts’s charter. 5. When James II succeeded to the throne, his insistence on the “divine right” of kings prompted English officials to create a centralized imperial system in America. 6. In 1686 the Connecticut and Rhode Island colonies were merged with those of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth to form the Dominion of New England, a royal province. 7. Two years later, New York and New Jersey were added to the Dominion. 8. Sir Edmund Andros, governor of the Dominion, was empowered to abolish existing legislative assemblies and rule by decree. 9. Andros advocated worship in the Church of England, banned town meetings, and challenged land titles. 10. The Puritans protested to the king regarding Andros’s demands, but their protests went unheeded. C. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 1. In 1688, James’s Catholic wife gave birth to a son, raising the prospect of a Catholic heir to the throne. 2. Fearing political persecution, Protestant Parliamentary leaders carried out a bloodless coup known as the “Glorious Revolution.” 3. Mary, James’s Protestant daughter by his first wife, and her husband William of Orange were enthroned. 4. Queen Mary II and William III accepted a Bill of Rights that limited royal prerogatives and increased personal liberties and parliamentary powers. 5. Parliamentary leaders relied upon John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government (1690) to justify their coup. Locke rejected divine right theories of monarchical rule. 6. Locke’s celebration of individual rights and representative government had a lasting influence in America. 7. The Glorious Revolution sparked colonial rebellions against royal governments in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York. 8. In 1689, Andros was shipped back to England, and the new monarchs broke up the Dominion of New England. 9. The monarchs did not restore Puritan dominated government; instead they created a new royal colony of Massachusetts whose new charter granted religious freedom to members of the Church of England and gave the vote to all male property owners instead of Puritans only. 10. The uprising in Maryland had both political and religious causes; Protestants resented rising taxes and high fees imposed by wealthy Catholic proprietary officials. 11. In New York the rebellion against the Dominion of New England began a decade of violence and political conflict. 12. The uprisings in Boston and New York toppled the authoritarian Dominion of New England and won the restoration of internal self-government. 13. In England the new constitutional monarchs promoted an empire based on commerce; “salutary neglect” gave free reign to merchants and financiers who developed American colonies as a source of trade. 14. Colonies that were of minor economic or political importance (Connecticut and Rhode Island) retained their corporate governments or proprietary institutions (Pennsylvania, Maryland, the Carolinas), while royal governors ruled the lucrative staple-producing settlementsin the West Indies and Virginia. D. Imperial Wars and Native Peoples 1. Between 1689 and 1815, Britain and France fought wars for dominance of Western Europe. 2. These wars involved a number of Native American warriors armed with European weapons. 3. The War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713) pitted Britain against France and Spain. 4. So that they might help to protect their English settlement, whites in the Carolinas armed the Creek peoples to fend off French and Spanish attacks. 5. The Creeks took this opportunity to become the dominant tribe in the region. 6. Native Americans also played a central role in the fighting in the Northeast; aided by the French, the Abnakis and Mohawks took revenge on the Puritans attacking settlements in Maine and Massachusetts. New Englanders responded by joining British forces in attacks on French strongholds in Nova Scotia and Quebec. 7. The New York frontier remained quiet due to the fur trade and the Iroquois’ policy of “aggressive neutrality”: trading with the British and the French but refusing to fight for either side. 8. Britain used victories in Europe to win territorial and commercial concessions in the Americas in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), solidifying Britain’s supremacy and bringing peace to North America. II. The Imperial Slave Economy A. The South Atlantic System (Triangular Trade) 1. The South Atlantic system was composed of land seized from the Indians, slave labor from Africa, and investment capital from Europe. 2. To provide labor for the sugar plantations, the British and French developed African-run slave-catching systems that extended far into the interior of Africa. They transported about 10,000 Africans per year to the Americas. 1700-1810…7 million African slaves to Americas, most to West Indies 3. The Portuguese and Dutch developed sugar plantations in Brazil, and the English and French carried the industry into the subtropical islands of the West Indies; sugar was the most profitable crop in Europe and America. 4. Due to the Navigation Acts, by 1750 re-exports of American sugar and tobacco accounted for half of all British exports. 5. The South Atlantic system brought wealth to the European economy, but it brought economic decline, political change, and human tragedy to West Africa and parts of East Africa. 6. The slave trade changed West African society by promoting centralized states and military conquest by kingdoms such as Barsally, Dahomey, and Asante. 7. Some African people of noble birth enslaved and sold those of lesser status; however, slaving remained an act of choice for Africans, not a necessity. Benin, for example, opposed the trade in male slaves for over a century. 8. Due to slave taking, the resulting imbalance of the sexes allowed some African men to take several wives, changing the nature of marriage. 9. The Atlantic trade prompted harsher forms of slavery in Africa, eroding the dignity of human life. 10. African slaves who were forced to endure the “Middle Passage” suffered the bleakest fate; many were literally worked to death on the sugar plantations, since it was cheaper to replace a dead slave than to keep him alive. B. Slavery in the Chesapeake and South Carolina 1. After 1700, planters in Virginia and Maryland imported thousands of slaves and created a “slave society.” 2. Slavery was increasingly defined in racial terms; in Virginia virtually all resident Africans were declared slaves. 3. Living and working conditions in Maryland and Virginia allowed slaves to live relatively long lives. 4. Some tobacco planters tried to increase their workforce through reproduction, purchasing a high proportion of females and encouraging large families. 5. By the middle of the 1700s, American-born slaves formed a majority among Chesapeake blacks. 6. The slave population in South Carolina suffered many deaths and had few births; therefore, the importation of new slaves “re-Africanized” the black population. 7. South Carolina slaves were much more oppressed. Growing rice required work amidst pools of putrid water, and mosquito-borne epidemic diseases took thousands of African lives. C. African American Community and Resistance 1. Slaves initially did not regard one another as “Africans” or “blacks” but as members of a specific family, clan, or people. 2. The acquisition of a common language and a more equal gender ratio were prerequisites for the creation of an African American community. 3. As enslaved blacks forged a new identity in America, their lives continued to be shaped by their African past, influencing decorative motifs, housing design, and religious patterns. 4. African creativity was limited because slaves were denied education and had few material goods. 5. Slaves who resisted their rigorous work routine were punished with beatings, whippings, and mutilation, including amputation. 6. The extent of violence toward slaves depended on the size and the density of the slave population; a smaller slave population usually meant less violence, while predominantly African-populated colonies suffered more violence. 7. The Stono Rebellion (1739) in South Carolina was the largest slave uprising of the eighteenth century. 8. White militiamen killed many of the Stono rebels and dispersed the rest, preventing a general uprising. D. The Southern Gentry 1. As the southern colonies became slave societies, life changed for whites as well as blacks. 2. As men lived longer, patriarchy within the family reappeared. 3. The planter elite exercised authority over yeomen and black slaves—the American equivalent of oppressed peasants and serfs. 4. To prevent rebellion, the southern gentry paid attention to the concerns of middling and poor whites. 5. By 1770 the majority of English Chesapeake families owned a slave, giving them a stake in the exploitative labor system. 6. Taxes were gradually reduced for poorer whites, and poor yeomen and some tenants were allowed to vote. 7. In return, the planter elite expected the yeomen and tenants to elect them to office and defer to their power. 8. By the 1720s the gentry took on the trappings of wealth, modeling themselves after the English aristocracy. 9. The profits of the South Atlantic system helped to form an increasingly well-educated, refined, and stable ruling class. E. The Northern Maritime Economy 1. The South Atlantic system tied the whole British empire together economically. 2. West Indian trade created the first American merchant fortunes and the first urban industries—in particular, shipbuilding and the distilling of rum from West Indies sugar. 3. In the eighteenth century the expansion of Atlantic commerce in lumber and shipbuilding fueled rapid growth in the North American interior as well as in seaport cities and coastal towns. 4. A small group of wealthy landowners and merchants formed the top rank of the seaport society. 5. Artisan and shopkeeper families formed the middle ranks of seaport society, and laboring men, women, and children formed the lowest ranks. 6. Between 1660 and 1750, involvement in the South Atlantic system brought economic uncertainty as well as jobs to northern workers and farmers. III. The New Politics of Empire, 1713–1750 A. The Rise of Colonial Assemblies 1. The triumph of the South Atlantic system changed the politics of empire; the British were content to rule the colonies with a gentle hand, and the colonists were in a position to challenge the rules of the mercantilist system. 2. In England, a Declaration of Rights in 1689 strengthened the powers of the Commons at the expense of the crown. 3. American representative assemblies also wished to limit the powers of the crown and maintain their authority over taxes. 4. The colonial legislatures gradually won partial control of the budget and the appointment of local officials. 5. The rising power of the colonial assemblies created an elitist rather than a democratic political system. 6. Neither elitist assemblies nor wealthy property owners could impose unpopular edicts on the people. 7. Crowd actions were a regular part of political life in America and were used to enforce community values. 8. By the 1750s, most colonies had representative political institutions that were responsive to popular pressure and increasingly immune to British control. B. Salutary Neglect 1. “Salutary neglect,”more relaxed royal supervision of internal colonial affairs, was a byproduct of the political system developed by Sir Robert Walpole, a British Whig. 2. Radical Whigs argued that Walpole used patronage and bribery to create a strong Crown Party. 3. Landed gentlemen argued that Walpole’s high taxes and bloated, incompetent royal bureaucracy threatened the liberties of the British people. 4. Colonists, maintaining that royal governors likewise abused their patronage powers, tried to enhance the powers of provincial representative assemblies. C. Protecting the Mercantile System of Trade 1. Walpole’s main concern was to protect British commercial interests in America from the Spanish and the French. 2. Walpole arranged for Parliament to subsidize Georgia in order to protect the valuable rice colony of South Carolina. 3. Resisting British expansion into Georgia and growing trade with Mesoamerica, Spanish naval forces sparked the War of Jenkins’ Ear in 1739. 4. Walpole used this provocation to launch a predatory war against Spain’s American Empire. 5. The War of Jenkins’ Ear became a part of the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1749), bringing a new threat from France. 6. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) returned the French naval fortress of Louisbourg to France after its capture by New England militiamen, but the treaty also reaffirmed British military superiority over Spain, effectively giving Georgia to the British. 7. Colonial merchants took advantage of a loophole in the Navigation Acts that allowed Americans to own ships and transport goods. The lloophole allowed colonists to cut dramatically into commerce in the Atlantic. 8. The Molasses Act of 1733 placed a high tariff on imports of cheap French molasses to make British molasses competitive, but sugar prices rose in the late 1730s, so the act was not enforced. 9. The Currency Act (1751) prevented colonies from establishing new land banks and prohibited the use of public currency to pay private debts. This was in response to abuse of the land bank system by some colonial assemblies who issued too much paper currency and then required merchants to accept the worthless paper as legal tender. 10. In the 1740s, British officials vowed to replace salutary neglect with rigorous imperial control.