CHAPTER 4

Experience of Empire
Eighteenth-Century America
America Past and Present, Eighth Edition
Divine  Breen  Fredrickson  Williams  Gross  Brand

Copyright 2007, Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Longman

Growth and Diversity
 1700-1750—colonial population rose
from 250,000 to over two million
 Much growth through natural increase
 Large influx of non-English Europeans
 800 miles along Appalachian Range from
western Pennsylvania to western
Georgia
 Frontier complex, fluid, and violent
mixture of Europeans, Native Americans
and African Americans
Distribution of European and
African Immigrants in the
Thirteen Colonies
Scots-Irish Flee English
Oppression
 Largest non-English group
 The Scots fled England for Ireland, and
then the Scots-Irish to North America
 Concentrated on the Pennsylvania
frontier
 Quick to challenge authority
Germans Search for a
Better Life
 First waves similar to Quakers and sought
religious toleration
 Later waves sought to improve their
material condition
 Admired as peaceful, hard-working farmers
 Tried to preserve German language and
customs
 Aroused the prejudice of English neighbors
 Scots-Irish and Germans spread into
Shenandoah Valley
Convict Settlers
 Transportation Act of 1718 allowed judges
to send convicted felons to American
colonies
 50,000 convicts to America, 1718-1775
 Some felons were dangerous criminals
 Most had committed minor crimes against
property
 Life difficult for transported convicts
 British praised system; colonists deplored
it
Native Americans Stake Out a
Middle Ground
 Disease and European settled
agricultural practices made it difficult for
Europeans and Natives to coexist
 Many eastern Indians moved into trans-
Appalachian region
 A “middle ground” where no colonial power
was yet established
 Remnants of different Indian peoples re-
grouped, formed new nations
 Native Americans Stake Out a
Middle Ground
 Native Americans continued to trade with
Europeans for metal goods and weapons
 Goal of Native American confederacies was to
maintain strong, independent voice in
commercial exchanges
 Play English and French against each other
 Increased individual commercial interaction
eroded traditional Native American structures
of authority
 Over time, Native American population
declined in “middle ground”
Spanish Borderlands of the
Eighteenth Century

 Spain occupied a large part of America

north of Mexico since sixteenth century
 Range from Florida Peninsula to
California
 Multicultural, interdependent society
created of Spaniards and Native
Americans
Conquering the Northern
Frontier
 Spanish presence established in late
1500s
 El Popé led Pueblo Revolt in 1680
 Spanish re-established control in 1692
 St. Augustine, a Spanish military outpost,
unattractive to settlers
 1769—belated Spanish mission
settlements in California to prevent
Russian claims
Peoples of the Spanish
Borderlands
 Slow growth of Spanish population in
borderlands
 Mainly males: priests, soldiers, and
administrators
 Spanish influence over Native Americans
 Spanish exploited native labor
 Natives resisted conversion to Catholicism
 Spanish influenced region’s architecture
and language
The Spanish Borderlands,
ca. 1770
The Impact of European Ideas
on American Culture
 Rapid change in eighteenth-century
colonies
 Growth of urban cosmopolitan culture
 Aggressive participation in consumption
Provincial Cities
 Only about 5% of population
 Five largest cities: Boston, Newport, New
York, Philadelphia, and Charles Town
 Economies were geared to commerce,
not manufacturing
 Inhabitants emulated English culture,
fashion, and architecture
 Cities were becoming more elegant
American Enlightenment
 Intellectual movement that swept Europe with
new, radical ideas
 Age of Reason
 The Enlightenment’s basic assumptions
 Optimistic view of human nature
 God set up the universe and human society to
operate by mechanistic, natural laws
 Those laws can be found through reason
 Mixed reception in America
 Americans defended church, embraced search for
practical ways of improving life
Benjamin Franklin
 Franklin (1706-1790) regarded as
Enlightenment thinker by Europeans
 Started as printer, then satirist in Boston
 Emulated British styles
 Moved to Philadelphia
 Achieved wealth through printing business
 Made important scientific discoveries and
inventions
 Symbol of material progress through human
ingenuity
Economic Transformation
 Long-term period of economic and
population growth
 England added to existing base of
mercantilist rules from 1710s-1750s
 Colonial manufacture or trade of timber,
sugar, hats, and iron restricted
 Regulations not enforced
 Trade was mainly with England and
West Indies; little with Africa
Birth of a Consumer Society
 English mass-production of consumer
goods stimulated rise in colonial imports
 Americans built up large debts to English
merchants to finance increased imports
 Trade between colonies increased
 Inter-coastal trade
 Great Wagon Road in the backcountry
 Eroded regional and local identities
 Allowed Americans a chance to learn
about one another
The Great Wagon Road
Religious Revivals in
Provincial Societies
 The Great Awakening
 Spontaneous, evangelical revivals
 People began to re-think basic assumptions
about church and state, institutions and
society
The Great Awakening
 Movement occurred among many
denominations in different places at
different times
 New England in the 1730s, Virginia in the
1750s and 1760s
 Jonathan Edwards sparked it
 Reminded people of omnipotent God and
predestination
 Reaction to ministers going “soft” on
population
The Voice of Evangelical
Religion
 George Whitefield a dynamic personality and
speaker who sustained the revivals
 Preached outdoor sermons to thousands of people in
nearly every colony
 Skilled entrepreneur and promoter
 Itinerant ministers followed Whitefield’s example
 Split established churches into “new lights” and “old
lights”
 Despite outbursts of anti-intellectualism, “new
lights” formed colleges
 Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, and Rutgers
The Voice of Evangelical
Religion
 Gave voice to those traditionally silenced
 Richard Allen and the African Methodist
Episcopal Church
 The Awakening promoted a democratic,
evangelical union of national scope
 Revivalists held optimistic attitudes
toward America’s religious role in world
history
 Fostered sense of American unity
Clash of Political Cultures
 Colonists attempted to emulate British
political institutions
 Effort led to discovery of how different
they were from English people
The English Constitution
 The British Constitution universally
admired
 Not a written document, but a system of
government based on statute, court
decision, and common law
 Believed to balance monarchy (king),
aristocracy (House of Lords), and the
people (House of Commons)
 Balance believed to guarantee liberties
The Reality of British Politics
 Less than 20% of English males could
vote
 “Rotten boroughs”
 Corrupt members of Parliament
 “Commonwealthmen” spoke against
corruption, urged return to truly balanced
constitution
Governing the Colonies:
The American Experience
 Colonists attempted to model England’s
balanced constitution
 Royal governors: mid-level, ambitious
bureaucrats
 More powers than king in England
 Veto legislation
 Dismiss judges
 Command provincial military
 Governors’ councils steadily lost
influence
Governing the Colonies:
The American Experience
 “Middle-class democracies”
 Higher percentage of the population had
suffrage than in Britain, but little exercise
 Women and non-whites excluded
 Potential to expel officials always there
and checked abuse of power
Colonial Assemblies
 Felt obligation to preserve colonial liberties
 Assemblies controlled colony’s finances
 No incentive for assembly to cooperate with
governors
 Governors relied on local elites
 Exercised extreme vigilance against the spread
of privileged power
 Similar system of assemblies facing similar
problems laid foundation for a larger cultural
identity
Century of Imperial War
 Britain’s conflicts with continental rivals
like France spilled over to colonies
 Security threats from these conflicts
forced colonists into more military and
political cooperation
 British colonies overwhelmingly militarily
superior to New France but ineffective
North America, 1750
King William’s
and Queen Anne’s Wars
 King William’s War (1689-1697)
 French frontier raids on New York and New England
 Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713)
 Bloody fighting across entire frontier
 European diplomats more concerned with
balance of power in Europe than military
situation in North America
King William’s and Queen
Anne’s Wars
 Wars fought for control of the Mississippi
River Valley
 France extended its presence from
Canada into Louisiana
 British saw French expansion as
encirclement
 Native Americans tried to hold middle
ground
 Iroquois favored British
 Algonquian favored French
King George’s War and Its
Aftermath
 Fought 1743-1748
 1745—New England troops captured Fort
Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island
 1748—Louisbourg returned to France by
Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle
 French built Fort Duquesne to keep British from
seizing Ohio River Valley
 Virginians under George Washington failed to
expel French
 Showed one colony alone could not defeat French
Albany Congress and Braddock’s
Defeat: Albany Plan
 Albany Congress, 1754
 Benjamin Franklin’s idea of central colonial
government
 Elected representatives decide on matters of defense,
western expansion, and relations with Native Americans
 Could levy taxes to support its operations
 Albany Plan failed, disliked by English and
Americans
 Colonial assemblies protective of their right of taxation
 Parliament saw plan as undermining its power over
colonies
Albany Congress and Braddock’s
Defeat: Braddock’s Defeat
 1755—General Edward Braddock led
force to drive French from Ohio Valley
 Braddock’s army ambushed, destroyed
 French still in control of Ohio River Valley
Seven Years’ War
 1756—England declared war on France
 Prime Minister William Pitt shifted strategy to
focus on North America
 By 1758 French cut off from re-supply
 Fort Duquesne abandoned, Quebec captured,
last French forces surrendered, 1760
 Peace of Paris 1763: France lost
 British got all North America east of Mississippi
 Spanish added Louisiana to their empire
Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763
A Century of Conflict: Major
Wars, 1689–1763
Perceptions of War
 Expanded horizons of colonists
 Created trained officer corps that knew
British vulnerabilities
 British felt colonists ungrateful and not
willing to bear their fair share of burden
 Colonists saw themselves as “junior
partners” to British
North America after 1763
Rule Britannia?
 Most Americans bound to England in 1763
 Ties included
 British culture
 British consumer goods
 British evangelists
 British military victories
 Americans thought of themselves as
partners in an Empire
 To British, “American” equaled “not quite
English”