by Joseph Eulo

The Civil War began as an argument over state rights and ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America (Reilly). It was fought in many places from New Mexico and Tennessee to Florida by Americans who had never wandered away more than twenty-miles from their back yards (PBS). They found themselves fighting heroic battles hundreds of miles from their homes (PBS). American homes became their headquarters and American churches and schoolhouses sheltered their wounded and dying (Reilly).

The Union and Confederate armies swept across America, destroying farms, burning towns, destroying cities, and leaving a wide path of destruction in their wake (Reilly). Between 1861 and 1865 over three million Americans fought in the Civil War, and over six hundred thousand men died in it (Reilly). Americans killed each other in their own fields and orchards along familiar roads with American names (PBS). In two days, on the banks of the Tennessee River, at the Battle of Pittsburgh Landing more American men fell than all previous American wars combined. At Cold Harbor, Virginia, one of the bloodiest military battles of the American Civil War, seven-thousand Union soldiers and fifteen-hundred Confederate soldiers, all Americans, died (PBS). The Civil War made some men rich while destroying others, and eternally changed the lives of all who lived through it.

From the beginning the North outnumbered the south in every category. In 1860, twenty-two million people lived in the twenty-two states that remained a part of the Union (American Civil War). Only nine million lived in the eleven Confederate states and of that number close to four million were slaves.

The north was industrialized and had the capability to manufacture war materials and supplies. With an abundance of ships and miles of railroads the north possessed the infrastructure to move these supplies, and other goods to war and to market (United States History). In contrast, the South was a region of farms that even thought produced products Europe desired, only had a handful of ships to carry their products to market (Reilly).

The south had several advantages. The first was their military leadership; one-third of the officers from the US Army resigned their commission and headed south to defend their state (Roark, Johnson and Cohen 375). Second, the south did not need to defeat the north, all they had to do was defend its territory and wait for the Union to become disheartened and eventually grant independence (Roark, Johnson and Cohen 374). Third, the south could operate with fewer men because they had shorter interior lines to defend.

Although the confederacy made extraordinary efforts to build new factories to produce the war supplies needed, many of the rebel soldiers didn’t have proper field equipment (American Civil War). Southern railroads were either damaged or destroyed and prevented delivery of the supplies to the men who needed them (Reilly). The only supply the south had abundance in was gunpowder, rifles, ammunition and cotton.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation gave hope for the 4 million slaves held in bondage, and the ex-slaves fighting for the freedom in the Union forces. In order for the south to win the war, all they had to do was to defend their territory and wait until the north became discourage and conceded (Roark, Johnson and Cohen 374). But they gave up this tactical advantage and pressed into battles in northern territories and lost their most valuable resources: their men.

This blunder was the major reasons for the South’s ultimate defeat. In the end it was North industrialized infrastructure and superiority in supplies, men, and determination that won the war. Slavery was abolished, and African Americans were freed from their masters, but took another century, unitl the civil rights movement, for them to have their freedom.

Works Cited
“American Civil War.” Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation.
Reilly, Dr. Gretchen Ann. “American History before 1870.” Itunes. Temple: Temple College, August 2006.
Roark, James L., et al. The American Promise: A Compact History, Third Edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
The Civil War. Dir. Ken Burns. PBS. 1990.
“United States History.” Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation.

By Joseph Eulo

At the conclusion of the ‘Seven years war’ in 1763 British contempt for the American colonists came to a fever pitch. They were, dissatisfied with the colonist performance in the conflict and dismissed their role in the effort to defeat the French and the Indians in North America. They thought of the colonist as ungrateful, and took full credit for the victory (Reilly). Their scornful attitudes toward the American colonists multiplied as a result of the illegal trade between the colonists and the French. American merchants traded animal pelts with the Indians and smuggled molasses with the French during the war. American merchants did so to avoid paying the six pence per gallon tax imposed by the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733. British leaders were angry with this and looked upon colonists and smuggling as treasonous. They utterly believed that it was the root cause of extension of the war and reason behind a £123 million war debt (Roark 139).

This huge debt compounded with the dramatic change in British attitudes toward the colonist provided a series of British Parliamentary leaders throughout the 1760s with justification to exert control over the colonial legislature and institute policy that coerced colonists to pay the growing debt (Reilly). The colonist thought differently, spoiled by Briton’s fifty year policy of ‘Salutary Neglect’ they became bold and defiant to British demands (”History of Colonial America“). Colonist believed that their rights and liberties as British subjects were being violated (Roark 139).

In 1760, George III became king; he was young and naive and did not know who he could trust. So he appointed the Earl of Bute, his Scottish tutor, as his Prime minister (Roark 138). Bute also inexperienced made mistakes and the one that is engraved in history is his decisions to keep British Troops in North America after the last battle in 1760. Bute’s decision started a chain reaction that eventually led to the American Revolution. Bute’s excuse for the presence of Troops in the colonies was to keep an eye on French leftovers in Quebec (Reilly) and to respond to the Indian threat (Roark 137).

Bute’s decision was vindicated in 1763 three months after the “Peace of Paris” was signed (Reilly). Pontiac the Indian chief of the Ottawa tribe of northern Ohio led an attack against a British fort near Detroit. This sparked off a series of attacks that involved other tribes from New York, the Ohio Valley, and the Great Lakes region on British forts and frontier settlements. When it was over some 2,000 British soldiers, traders, and settlers were dead (Roark 138). Although ‘Pontiacs Uprising’ was put down by the end of 1763 by colonial and British soldiers, the tension between American Indians and the ‘white man’ were still high (Reilly), and led King George III to issue the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (”American Revolution”).

The royal Edict prohibited colonists from settling on the west side of the Appalachian Mountains (Roark 138) and required all lands within the Indian Territory occupied by Englishmen to be abandoned. British leaders wanted to establish a policy toward Indians before settlers settled there, and decide what they were going to do with the Indians (”Royal Proclamation of 1763″). The Proclamation was meant to separate Indians and settlers and minimize the violence between the two groups (”Royal Proclamation of 1763″).

The Proclamation also outlined a list of illegal activities and provided for enforcement of new laws (Reilly). It restricted trade with the Indians only to licensed traders appointed by colonial governors, and outlawed the private sales of Indian land. It was also a means for the British to control the settlers and keep them on the east coast, so they would be easier to supervise. The Proclamation Irritated colonist some obeyed the Edict and moved back to the east side of the Appalachian Mountains and some stayed knowing full well that had no protection (Reilly). Land speculators did not want to give up their claims to these lands and wouldn’t lose the chance to make a profit from the sale of land to surging population looking to buy it up (Reilly).

British officials had to address the huge debt incurred by the war and fund the standing army in the American colonies. They knew they were going to have a hard time raising the money to reduce the deficit. At the time citizens in England were already heavily taxed. They knew it would be difficult to get them to pay more (Reilly), and needed to find another way to raise the capital if they wanted to pay down their debt. They also needed to deal with the smuggling problem they were having in North America. They felt smuggling cost them money because people smuggled to avoid paying taxes (”Stamp Act”). Especially for molasses, because it was cheaper to bribe officials and smuggle then to pay the six pence per gallon tax.

King George III turned to a series of prime minister to address a huge war debt, an ongoing expense of supporting a standing Army in the colonies, and an empire wide smuggling problem (Reilly). In 1763 George Grenville replaced the Earl of Bute and attempted to tackle England’s financial woes with ‘The Revenue Act of 1764′ also so know as the Sugar Act. Greenville’s Sugar Act modified the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733. It reduced the tax on molasses from six pence per gallon to three pence per gallon (Reilly) and improved enforcement by increasing the amount of paperwork needed to prove cargo was legal. ‘The Sugar Act’ also raised penalties for smuggling, if a merchant was caught with smuggled sugar they would lose their entire cargo, and would be tried at a Vice Admiralty court in Nova Scotia (Reilly). The idea was to make smuggling difficult, expensive and a nuisance so that merchants would stop smuggling and just pay the tax (Reilly).

Grenville’s Sugar Act also increased the length of the Navigational Acts enumerated products list which included certain wines, coffee, pimiento, and fabrics, and even regulated the export of lumber and iron. Under the Navigational Acts products shipped within the British Empire had to be shipped to England first, and then shipped to other colonies (”United States History”). This was a way to restrict trade that benefitted English merchants and increased the amount of money the British received in taxes, a way for them to double dip (Reilly). This enforcement of taxes on molasses caused an instant drop in business for the rum industry in the colonies.

The overall effect of the new duties sharply reduced trade with the Canary Islands and the French West Indies, which were important destinations for American made products. Grenville’s Sugar Act disrupted the colonial economy by reducing colonial access to markets for their products and made British goods too expensive to buy (”Sugar and Molasses Acts”). The American colonist reaction to the Sugar act varied (Reilly). Southern colonists were not concerned as much as their Northern neighbors mainly because smuggling was not as widespread there as it was in New England (Reilly).

Smuggling was a lucrative part of the shipping business In New England and New Englanders responded with a non-importation movement (Reilly). New Englanders argued that once the British parliament realizes they can tax them and get away with it they will do it more and more; gradually shifting the tax burden from the voters in England, to whom they are accountable, to the colonist who can’t vote them out of office (Reilly). American merchants insisted it wasn’t the smuggling they were griping about, it was the way of taxing them, they were complaining about and it was not fair. Grenville’s Sugar Act and the Currency act that followed catalyzed and unified American attitudes towards defiance when the news of the Stamp Act reached the colonies seven months before it was enacted.

Greenville’s Sugar Act failed to make any significant impact on the England’s national debt, so in an attempt to generate other revenue the Stamp Act was passed In February 1765. The Stamp Act of 1765 required the American colonists to apply tax stamps to all official documents, including deeds, mortgages, newspapers, and pamphlets which angered publishers and affected the most powerful of colonial society (”Stamp Act”). News of The Stamp Act arrived to the colonies seven months prior to its effect (Roark 142). Many colonists were dissatisfied with parliaments attempt to imposed this tax especially when the tax would be imposed during an economic downturn in the colonies.

Colonist argued that the stamp act was worse than the Sugar Act. In response a secret patriotic society called the Sons of Liberty was established. Samuel Adams led the group to oppose the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty was made up of men mainly shopkeepers, craftsman, dockworkers, and laborers. They protested in the streets and incited mobs to attack official stamp agents and destroy their property (Roark 143).

A number of the colonial assemblies adopted resolutions that officially protested the act. The House of Burgess in Virginia was the first to pass a series of resolutions on the Stamp Act that came to be known as the Virginia Resolves (Roark 142). Newspapers from all over the American colonies published the resolutions and stoked the fire of American opposition to the Stamp Act. Other Colonial assemblies followed suit and began to question Parliament’s authority to tax them, they distinguished between internal and external legislation intended on creating taxes.

In October, one month before the Stamp Act was to go into effect, the Stamp Act Congress met in New York to discuss ways of protesting the tax. Colonial merchants agreed to stop importing British goods, Colonists would refused to use the stamps on business papers, and courts would not enforce their use on legal documents. No ‘taxation without representation’ was their battle cry (Reilly).

The loss of trade and fears that the colonies would not pay their debts stirred up opposition to the Stamp Act among the British merchants. They complained to British Parliament and in 1766, the Stamp Act was rescinded. However the British government passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliaments right to tax the colonies. The resistance to the Stamp Act unified American colonists and gave them the confidence to demand more political control over themselves.

After the Stamp Act was abolished in 1766 a group of men known as the Sons of Liberty pushed to shift united attitudes of protest against unjust taxation, towards independence. The Sons of Liberty had many local chapters, and formed Committees of Correspondence to encourage resistance to tyrannical British economic and political actions. They also helped enforce the policy of nonimportation, by which American merchants agreed to refuse to import goods carried in British ships. In 1774, this group of men took part in assembling together a meeting of representatives from all the American colonies to form the Continental Congress.

The Declaratory Act of 1766 reasserting parliamentary authority and claimed that parliament had the right to pass any legislation it chose for the colonies. Many colonists celebrated March 18th as a holiday the day the stamp act was appealed. They ignored the declaratory act and its significance and became bolder, more unrepentant, and undisciplined. Americans felt they had won and forced parliament to back down and could do it again if they wanted to. The relationship between the colonies and England would never be the same; both sides were steadily becoming more suspicious, hostile, and stubborn in their positions.

1763 marked a major turning point in the relationship between the American Colonies and the rest of British Empire. The huge debt created as the result of the ‘Seven years war’ was blamed on the colonist because of their smuggling. The contempt for the colonist evolved into justification to strengthen the Empire’s grip on them. Fifty years of ‘Salutatory Neglect’ gave the American colonists an opportunity to grow politically and economically. It permitted them to develop their own identity separate from England and give them justification to rebel against British attempts to manipulate, control, and tax them. The end of the conflict against the French in North American and the huge debt incurred combined with the Proclamation of 1763, the Sugar Act led to escalation of American rebellion against many British attempts to tax, punish, and control them. The Sons of Liberty unified the American colonies and focused their attention towards Independence.

Works Cited

“American Revolution “ Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

“History of Colonial America.”Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

Reilly, Gretchen Ann. “American History before 1870.” Podcast. Dr. Gretchen Ann Reilly. iTunes. August 2007. Temple College Temple, TX, 2006. <http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=212324647>

Roark, James L., et al. The American Promise: A Compact History, Third Edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.

“Royal Proclamation of 1763.” Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation (”Stamp Act”) Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation (”Sugar and Molasses Acts”) Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

“United States History.” Microsoft Encarta 2007. 16 ed. CD-ROM. Redmond: Microsoft Corporation

Introduction The chapter opens with Abigail Adams managing the family farm while her husband, John, served at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Abigail Adams eagerly awaited word that the Congress had “declared an independency” and admonished her husband to “Remember the Ladies.” While her husband humorously chastised her for her “saucy” suggestion, she seemed to understand very early in the conflict that the events occurring could let loose a dynamic of equality and liberty that would affect the country for generations to come.

The Second Continental Congress, pp. 212-220

In 1775, nearly a month after the fighting at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia. It was faced with the contradictory tasks of raising and supplying an army, while also trying to negotiate a reconciliation with England and its unreceptive king.

Assuming Political and Military Authority

The delegates at the Second Continental Congress were well-established political figures in their own colonies. They had to learn to work together despite being of different minds about many political topics. Most of the delegates who attended the Second Continental Congress were not yet prepared for a total break with England. Most eager for independence were the Massachusetts men, whose colony had been stripped of civil government by the Coercive Acts. Delegates from the middle and southern colonies were more inclined toward reconciliation, fearing that fighting for independence would disrupt trade, create civil unrest, and leave the colonies vulnerable to enemies like France and Spain. Despite hopes to contain the conflict, all agreed that a military buildup was necessary to counter the invading British army. Congress created the Continental army, named George Washington of Virginia the commander in chief, and authorized a currency issue of $2 million to pay military expenses. Despite taking on the traditional functions of government, the Second Continental Congress did not declare independence for another year and had no basis to compel compliance from Americans.

Pursuing Both War and Peace

In June 1775, the battle of Bunker Hill took place. It was one of the bloodiest engagements of the entire war, with heavy casualties, especially on the British side. The British won but failed to pursue the Americans back to their headquarters at Cambridge. A week later, George Washington arrived in Cambridge to take command of the Continental army, an undisciplined, ragtag outfit that he sought to transform quickly into a more cohesive fighting force. Meanwhile, the Congress continued to pursue reconciliation with England, with congressional moderates, led by John Dickinson, issuing the Olive Branch Petition to the king. George III rejected the petition, labeling the Americans rebels and traitors, which made it difficult to maintain the fiction that only the king’s ministers were to blame for the conflict.

Thomas Paine and the Case for Independence

It was an English writer newly arrived in America who broke the logjam of public sentiment regarding independence or reconciliation. In his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, Thomas Paine attacked the monarchy, not just the king’s ministers, and called on Americans to separate from England and establish a republic. Common Sense was read widely, and public opinion shifted rapidly after its publication. On July 2, the congress adopted the Virginia delegation’s resolution of independence. After wrangling over some of the specific grievances, particularly one condemning slavery, a final public draft of the Declaration of Independence was formally signed on July 4, 1776. Independence finally had been launched, but the outcome was far from certain.

The First Year of War, 1775-1776, pp. 220-225

Both sides approached war with caution. The Americans were keenly aware of England’s military might, and the British, after Bunker Hill, had more respect for the rebels’ fighting abilities. Compounding England’s problem of fighting in hostile territory were the logistics of long-distance supply and British desire to regain the allegiance of the colonists, not destroy and conquer them.

The American Military Forces

The American forces had the advantage of being highly motivated to fight and theoretically could mobilize considerable manpower. However, Americans traditionally had relied on militia, which were good for limited engagements but not for long wars requiring military campaigns far from home. To attract potential recruits, the colonies had to resort to cash and land bounties and the draft. Over the course of the war, some 231,000 men spent time in military service, amounting to roughly one-quarter of the white male population over age sixteen. Close to 20,000 women served in the Continental army as cooks, washerwomen, and nurses. Despite Washington’s initial prohibition against black recruits, about 5,000 eventually served in the war as well. Military service helped politicize Americans, making neutrality seem as dangerous as commitment to the cause.

The British Strategy

The American task was relatively simple: to defeat an invading army. Britain’s objective was not so straightforward: to restore loyalist regimes to power in the colonies while not destroying the enemy completely. Counting on substantial pockets of loyalist support in the Carolinas and the middle colonies, the British assumed this goal would not be too difficult to achieve. They initially focused their military campaigns on New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Strategically, the overall British plan was to divide and conquer—to separate the rebellious colonies from those believed to be still loyal.

Quebec, New York, and New Jersey

In late 1775, an American expedition into Canada succeeded in capturing Montreal but failed to take Quebec. The main action of the first year of the war, however, took place in the summer of 1776, when the British decided to seize heavily loyalist New York as their headquarters. Washington’s outnumbered and inexperienced troops met the British at the Battle of Long Island and were defeated badly. Washington evacuated his troops to Manhattan Island in the dead of a foggy night. Then after stripping Manhattan of ammunition and supplies, he left quickly, moving north to two critical forts on either side of the Hudson River. For two months, the armies engaged in limited skirmishing, but in November, Howe finally captured Fort Washington and Fort Lee, taking thousands of prisoners. Washington retreated quickly across New Jersey into Pennsylvania. Despite his heavy losses, on Christmas night 1776, Washington daringly again crossed the icy Delaware River with a force of 2,400 men and surprised and scattered the Hessians (German mercenaries) holding Trenton. That victory and a subsequent one at Princeton did much to lift patriot morale, but what had really enabled the Continental army to survive this first year was the continued reluctance of British troops to press their advantage when they had the opportunity. Safe in Morristown, in northern New Jersey, Washington settled his troops for the winter and administered mass smallpox inoculations.

The Home Front, pp. 225-232

Battlefield victories alone did not determine the war’s outcome; struggles behind the lines were equally vital. One of the most important issues on the home front was the contest between patriots and loyalists for the hearts and minds of the thousands of Americans who were neutral.

Patriotism at the Local Level

Committees of correspondence, safety, and inspection became the revolution’s most important political agencies at the local level, supporting the war effort in many ways—from the procurement of arms and men to the rounding up and prosecuting of suspected traitors. These committees could sometimes be oppressive in their treatment of loyalists. Also at the local level, increasing numbers of white women not only assumed many traditional male roles but also, in the process, became politicized.

The Loyalists

Between 20 and 30 percent of the American population remained loyal to the British monarchy in 1776. Their motivations varied. Some were royal officeholders; others were merchants whose businesses were linked to the imperial system; still others were cultural, ethnic (most notably Native Americans and African slaves), and religious groups that had no reason to believe they would fare better under an independent American government than they had under the British. Loyalist strongholds thus could be found everywhere, although the largest pockets were in the middle colonies and in the South.

Who Is a Traitor?

In June 1775, the First Continental Congress passed a resolution declaring loyalists to be traitors. Over the course of the war, hounded by patriots in their communities and harassed by legislative and judicial actions, many loyalists found their position intolerable. For women, the position was less clear because there was no consensus on whether women had the political will to decide to be loyalists or not, particularly if they were married. Thousands of loyalists eventually fled the country, seeking sanctuary in England or Canada. The British military strategy depended on using loyalists to hold occupied territory, but in many colonies that strategy was implemented poorly and ended in disaster when the British decided to withdraw and left loyalists in the hands of their enemies.

Financial Instability and Corruption

One of the nation’s biggest problems was finding ways to finance the war. The Continental Congress printed money, but its value fell rapidly. One way to pay for the war was through borrowing hard money from wealthy men, who were given certificates of debt in return. Congress also resorted to paying soldiers with promises of land. As the war progressed, prices rose to exorbitant levels, and a brisk black market in prohibited imports emerged. In vain, the congress tried to stem the inflationary spiral by instituting price controls.

The Campaigns of 1777-1779: The North and West, pp. 233-238

Although Washington skillfully had avoided outright defeat in the first year of the campaign, the Continental army would face a tough challenge as the British implemented their strategy to isolate New England by controlling the Hudson River. While the Americans sustained some important victories in this period, such as the victory of Saratoga, the involvement of Indians and the continuing strength of the British meant that the American government needed extra help, which finally came in a formal alliance with France.

Burgoyne’s Army and the Battle of Saratoga

The commander of the British army in Canada, General John Burgoyne, was directed to capture Albany. Proceeding down the upper Hudson with his enormous and slow-moving army, he stopped first to seize Fort Ticonderoga, which had been abandoned by American troops when they saw the size and firepower of his army. The British immediately gave chase but lost a crucial month cutting through the thick forest to the north of Albany. The British strategy called for General Howe to move up the Hudson from New York City and join forces with Burgoyne in Albany. But Howe changed his mind and instead attacked Philadelphia, which he took with relative ease. A third group of troops was supposed to move east from the Great Lakes down the Mohawk River, but they were held back in a bloody exchange with Americans at Fort Stanwix. This left Burgoyne to fight the Americans in the north alone. After two costly engagements at Saratoga, New York, food supplies dwindling, and his men demoralized, Burgoyne officially surrendered to General Horatio Gates on October 17, 1777, giving the Continental army its first decisive victory over a major British force. The British offered a negotiated settlement, but the Americans refused. During the winter after Saratoga (1777-78), spirits ran high, but finances and supplies ran perilously low. Washington’s army at Valley Forge witnessed some of the worst privations of the entire war due to corrupt suppliers and greedy farmers, who preferred to sell grain to the British—who could pay in hard currency—rather than to their own army.

The War in the West: Indian Country

In 1778, although fighting between British and patriot armies had paused along the Atlantic coast, war in the western interior increased in intensity. In 1779, a year after bloody raids were carried out by American militiamen on one side and loyalists and their Indian allies on the other, George Washington sent 4,500 soldiers to destroy all of the Iroquoian villages in central New York. The soldiers destroyed forty Iroquois villages and slaughtered some of those unable to flee. By 1779, most Indians had concluded that they could not remain neutral. However, Indians who attempted to ally themselves with the Americans discovered that American commanders often could not distinguish between allied and enemy Indians. A group of Delaware and Shawnee Indians negotiated a treaty with Americans at Fort Pitt, promising support in exchange for supplies. However, the promised goods did not arrive, and American militiamen captured and killed friendly Indian leaders. In some places, pervasive anti-Indian campaigns emerged. In western North Carolina and Kentucky (today’s Tennessee and Illinois), patriot militias destroyed Cherokee villages, and Indians friendly to Britain tried to drive out new white settlements. Patriot raids on the frontier drove Indians from their homes and shocked British onlookers. By 1780, most Indians in the West had chosen the British side. Although a few allied with the Americans in the hopes of preventing attacks by white settlers, the American patriot conduct of the war in the West made it clear that Indians could expect little protection should Britain lose.

The French Alliance

As a result of the American victory at Saratoga, in February 1778 the Americans and the French drafted a formal alliance against England. The treaty offered the United States full diplomatic recognition and complete military, commercial, and financial support until independence was won. France, as a monarchy, was concerned about the alliance with the antimonarchical revolutionaries but wanted desperately to defeat England. The French navy arrived off the coast of Virginia in 1778. For the first few months the alliance did not bring any dramatic victories, although it would become vital by 1781.

The Southern Strategy and the End of the War, pp. 238-244

Despite the desire of many of his ministers and military commanders to abandon the war, George III was determined to crush the rebellion and pushed his generals into formulating a new strategy for victory.

Georgia and South Carolina

The British shifted their efforts to the south for a number of reasons. Loyalist sentiment was considered to be strongest in the southern colonies, and planters’ nervousness about the war’s impact on trade and their slave populations meant that they might be more amenable to coming over to the British side. Also important was the colonies’ economic value to the empire. During the first few years of the campaign, the southern strategy seemed to be working, as first Georgia in 1778 and then South Carolina in 1780 fell to the British. The new British strategy succeeded in 1780, partly as a result of information about American troop movements and supplies secretly furnished to General Henry Clinton by Benedict Arnold. Arnold had been one of the war’s early heroes, but now, feeling betrayed by his own government, he conspired with British agents to turn over the patriot stronghold at West Point on the Hudson River. The scheme was exposed and foiled. News of his behavior galvanized the American public, giving Americans a scapegoat on which to heap their own concerns.

The Other Southern War: Guerrillas

In the southern backcountry, the conflict assumed a new dimension of fighting: guerrilla warfare. In hit-and-run attacks, partisan bands from both sides attacked opponents and anybody claiming to be neutral. The war in the backcountry proved that there was not enough loyalist support in the South to allow the British to hold reconquered territory as the army moved north.

Surrender at Yorktown

In 1781, the British general Cornwallis moved into North Carolina, hoping to prevent the colony from providing patriot guerrillas in South Carolina with arms and men. Although he was not successful, he decided to move into Virginia, capturing Williamsburg and Charlottesville and ultimately making his way to Yorktown. The fortunes of war turned in the rebels’ favor with the arrival of the French navy. While French ships sealed off any retreat by sea, Washington surrounded Cornwallis on land. After a short siege, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781.

The Losers and the Winners

Although the surrender at Yorktown marked the official end of the war, it would be two more years before a peace treaty was signed. It took time for both sides to acknowledge that the end finally had arrived, and neither wanted to withdraw from the field until the other side had as well. The American diplomats Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, who negotiated the peace treaty, secured favorable terms: official recognition of American independence and of the United States and transfer of all territory east of the Mississippi River, between Canada and Florida, to the new nation. The Treaty of Paris did not recognize Indians as players in the war and turned over land to the United States as though it were uninhabited. Many tribes saw the outcome of the war as a disaster. With the treaty finally signed, the British began their evacuation of New York—in New York City, more than 27,000 soldiers and 30,000 loyalists sailed on hundreds of ships for England in late fall 1783.

Conclusion: Why the British Lost

Many factors contributed to the British defeat. It was hard for the British to supply their army, especially since they did not want to ravage the countryside. At the same time, the British failed to back the loyalists and use their energies effectively. The French alliance and military support throughout were crucial to the American victory. Finally, after abdicating civil power in the colonies in 1775 and 1776, the British were never able to regain it.

Introduction

The chapter begins with an account of loyalist governor Thomas Hutchinson. As governor of Massachusetts, Hutchinson presided over Boston’s most turbulent years, witnessing the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshend duties, and the Tea Act, all of which preceded and helped to precipitate the American Revolution. Unlike many Americans, though, he did not condemn the British government for abridging colonists’ traditional English liberties in the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War.

The Seven Years’ War, 1754-1763, pp. 174-182

From the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries, whenever England and France fought wars for European domination, their respective colonists in North America were affected. In the 1750s, tensions heightened in the Ohio Valley, land contested by Virginians, Pennsylvanians, the French in Canada, and native Indian tribes. The result was the Seven Years’ War, which spread in 1756 to encompass much of Europe, the Caribbean, and even India. The immense costs of war—in money, in deaths, in desires for revenge by losers and even winners—laid the groundwork for the crisis between British leaders and American colonists in the 1760s.

French-English Rivalry in the Ohio Country

In 1753, the French moved south with the objective of building a solid, fortified defense to protect their trading relationship with Indians from Pennsylvania traders. Virginia as well as France claimed the territory, and a group of powerful Virginia planters organized the Ohio Company, obtaining a royal grant to a large tract of land in the Ohio Valley. The Virginia governor sent the young and inexperienced George Washington to warn the French to leave the region. Washington was then given the difficult task of driving the French away without appearing to be the aggressor and without starting a larger war. Events were soon beyond Washington’s control. Washington’s colonial soldiers and allied Indians from the Mingo tribe engaged a small encampment of French troops in the Ohio Country. Against Washington’s wishes, the Mingos killed some wounded French soldiers. That act turned Washington into the aggressor and provoked French retaliation. Washington tried to defend a hastily built structure dubbed “Fort Necessity” with a force of several hundred Virginia militiamen, but Washington had been abandoned by the Mingos, who felt he was a dictatorial leader. French troops overwhelmed Fort Necessity and sent Washington back to Virginia to tell the British that France intended to defend its claims in the Ohio Valley.

The Albany Congress and Intercolonial Defense

The British knew that they would need both help from the colonists and Indian neutrality to win the war with the French. Twenty-four delegates from seven colonies met in Albany, New York, to discuss the feasibility of a united colonial effort to deal more effectively with the French threat. Also present were Iroquois of the Six Nations, a political confederacy of six large tribes inhabiting the central and western parts of what is now the state of New York. A prime impetus for the Albany Congress was to appease disgruntled Mohawk Indians and repair trade relations with them in order to enlist their help—or at least their neutrality—against the French threat. Led by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Hutchinson, the Albany Congress proposed the Albany Plan of Union, a document that proposed to provide for colonial defense by instituting a unified but limited government over all the colonies. The Albany Plan humbly reaffirmed Parliament’s authority; this was not a bid for enlarged autonomy of the colonies. However, neither the colonies nor Parliament liked the idea. Instead, the British authorities chose to centralize dealings with the Indians by appointing in 1755 two superintendents of Indian affairs, one for the northern and another for the southern colonies, each with exclusive powers to negotiate treaties, trade, and land sales. At this very early point in the Seven Years’ War, the Iroquois Nations from western New York concluded that the French military presence around the Great Lakes and in the frontier west would help discourage the westward push of Anglo-Americans, and therefore chose to side with the French.

The War and Its Consequences

In 1755, the British hoped for a quick victory by throwing armies at the French in three strategic places. General Edward Braddock was sent from England to attack the French at Fort Duquesne and drive them from the Ohio Valley. The first two years of the conflict went badly for England, but the tide began to turn in 1757 as Prime Minister William Pitt committed a huge number of troops and much money to the war effort. The decisive English victory came in 1759, when the British defeated the French forces holding the city of Quebec. The loss of Quebec demoralized the French army, and although the war was over in North America within a year’s time, it continued in the Caribbean, Europe, and even India. As a result of England’s eventual victory, all of North America east of the Mississippi River now belonged to Great Britain. However, the Treaty of Paris allowed France to retain its islands in the Caribbean, and French territory west of the Mississippi River was transferred to Spain. Indians lost more than the colonists, since their lands were assigned to English rule, and they lost the ability to play the European opponents off against each other. Americans were unhappy that England credited its own soldiers for the victory, disparaging colonial contributions and condemning continued American trade with the French. The enormous expense of the war caused by Pitt’s no-holds-barred military strategy cast another huge shadow over the victory for both the British and the Americans.

British Leadership, Indians, and the Proclamation of 1763

King George III came to the throne at the age of twenty-two in the middle of the Seven Years’ War. He trusted only his tutor, the Earl of Bute, who was an outsider to London’s power circles. Bute was installed as head of George’s cabinet ministers, from which position he decided to keep an expensive standing army in America. This was due largely to fighting between Indians and colonists. Indians, who refused to accept defeat along with their French allies, began attacking British forts. In 1763, the Ottowa chief Pontiac attacked a British garrison; this was followed by many other such attacks, in which the Ottowa tribe was joined by other tribes from surrounding regions. British and colonial troops quelled Pontiac’s uprising, and, in an effort to maintain control of the situation, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763. This established a line drawn from Canada to Georgia, along the Appalachian Mountains, to the west of which colonists were forbidden to settle and beyond which all territory was reserved for the Indians. It also limited trade with Indians to traders licensed by colonial governors, and it forbade private sales of Indian land. Settlers and land speculators alike were incensed at this restriction on westward movement. Indian tribes, though they were dealt with cautiously, would continue to feel the pressure of westward Anglo migration.

The Sugar and Stamp Acts, 1763-1765, pp. 183-191

Over the course of the 1760s, the new king, George III, and his revolving door of ministers attempted to formulate policies that would address the problem of the huge British war debt. These interventions would be met with increasing consternation on the part of Americans.

Grenville’s Sugar Act

It fell to Bute’s successor as prime minister, George Grenville, to formulate policies to deal with the war debt. Grenville discovered that customs officers’ salaries were four times as great as the revenue they collected, a discrepancy due in large part to bribery and smuggling. Americans were particularly unwilling to pay a high duty on French molasses, which they used to make rum. Grenville devised the Revenue Act of 1764, or “Sugar Act,” which lowered the molasses duty but increased the penalties for smuggling, allowing British naval crews to board and examine ships and to send smugglers to a vice-admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia. While the British viewed these measures as appropriate and necessary for administering the colonies, the colonists found this increased British interference in their affairs disturbing and unwelcome.

The Stamp Act

Continued evasion prevented the Revenue Act of 1764 from becoming the moneymaker Grenville had envisioned. Thus, in 1765, he secured passage of the Stamp Act, which led to conflict over Parliament’s right to tax the colonies at all. The Stamp Act was simple: Americans were to pay a tax on all printed or official papers, with a special stamp being embossed on all such documents to show that the tax had been paid. Unlike the Sugar Act, which levied a tax as part of a trade regulation, the new tax was intended simply to raise money. Anticipating opposition, he stipulated that all stamp distributors be from the colonies to avoid the problem of hostility to British enforcers. He was warned by Thomas Hutchinson that because colonists had not paid taxes before, they could reasonably conclude that Parliament had conceded the right to tax to local legislatures. English tradition held that taxes were a gift of the people to their rulers, approved by their representatives. However, Grenville believed that colonists were virtually represented in Parliament, while Americans argued that they were represented only in their own legislative bodies.

Resistance Strategies and Crowd Politics

Colonial reaction to the Stamp Act assumed various forms. In Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry submitted a series of resolutions—the Virginia Resolves—two of which intimated strongly that neither king nor Parliament had the right to legislate for the colonies. Local communities also responded to the Stamp Act’s passage. In the summer of 1765, the Boston Sons of Liberty—a group formed under politician Samuel Adams—engaged in demonstrations, while mobs destroyed the future stamp office and inflicted other increasingly violent forms of intimidation on those suspected of supporting the tax. By November 1, 1765, the day the act took effect, no Bostonian was foolish enough to become a distributor and enforce the act. It seemed that the colonists, at least temporarily, had won the day. Hutchinson remained as lieutenant governor, however, and within five years he would agree to become the royal governor.

Liberty and Property

Soon groups calling themselves the Sons of Liberty were protesting the Stamp Act in almost every colony. In the fall of 1765, nine colonies sent representatives to a Stamp Act Congress in New York to discuss possible united colonial opposition to the act. They were extremely cautious in addressing the issue of parliamentary sovereignty but claimed that taxes were “free gifts of the people” that only the people’s representatives could give. They dismissed virtual representation. Up to 1765, the majority of colonists accepted Parliament’s status as a government that represented them for legislative purposes. However, they saw the right to own property as a special kind of liberty requiring security against greedy rulers who might try to strip them of their property. This fear led the colonists to conclude that only a governing body in which they directly were represented could tax them. They believed the Stamp Act violated this principle of liberty and property, and some began to speak and write of a conspiracy among British leaders to enslave them. English politicians and merchants were concerned about trade disruption and pressed for the repeal of the Stamp Act. By late 1765, Grenville was replaced by the Marquess of Rockingham, who pushed for repeal. The Stamp Act finally was rescinded in March 1766. However, George III and Parliament were determined to uphold parliamentary sovereignty and thus simultaneously issued the Declaratory Act. In asserting Parliament’s right to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever,” the act upheld Parliament’s power to tax.

The Townshend Acts and Economic Retaliation, 1767-1770, pp. 191-195

The Marquess of Rockingham was replaced by William Pitt in the summer of 1766. Pitt appointed Charles Townshend to be the empire’s chief financial minister, making it his job to deal with the war debt and the continuing cost of stationing the British army in America. Unfortunately, Townshend’s simple plan to raise revenue quickly in the colonies turned into a major political and economic blunder. In 1768 and 1769, the American colonies were agitated by boycotts of British goods and demonstrations against British policies; Boston led the uproar.

The Townshend Duties

Townshend proposed a tax in the form of a navigation act establishing new duties on tea, glass, lead, paper, and painters’ colors. Townshend assumed that duties levied on trade would be more acceptable than internal taxes, but, although the duties were not burdensome, the fact that they were intended solely to raise money grated on colonists. The duties also provided that some of the money generated would go to paying royal governors’ salaries in order to end their dependence on state legislatures. Then Townshend came down hard on the New York assembly when it refused to implement the 1765 Quartering Act, mandating that colonists furnish shelter and provisions for British soldiers. Americans began to worry that their representative legislative government was not secure. Protest was spearheaded by Massachusetts, which issued a circular letter for all the colonies to endorse protesting the Townshend duties. In Great Britain, Lord Hillsborough denounced Massachusetts’s circular letter and ordered the dissolution of the Massachusetts assembly.

Nonconsumption and the Daughters of Liberty

Boston retaliated against the British by organizing a consumer boycott of all British-made goods. All the colonies eventually established similar policies, called nonconsumption agreements, and then nonimportation agreements, which barred British imports entirely. These strategies were difficult to enforce because merchants were concerned about their financial impact. In late 1768, however, Boston merchants agreed to suspend trade, and other major cities followed suit. As keepers of their households, women played an important role in nonconsumption, and home manufacture like the spinning of cloth became symbolic of American patriotism. In 1768-1770, newspapers reported on spinning matches or bees in some sixty New England towns, in which women came together in public to make yarn. This surge of public spinning infused traditional women’s work with new political purpose. Yet, unlike the Sons of Liberty, who marched in streets, burned effigies, and threatened hated officials, Daughters of Liberty manifested their patriotism quietly, in ways marked by piety, industry, and charity. The difference was due in part to cultural ideals of gender, in part to class, and in part to views of how best to challenge authority. Nonconsumption of British goods proved an effective colonial weapon because, as predicted, it hurt British merchants and manufacturers.

Military Occupation and “Massacre” in Boston

In the midst of the uproar over the Townshend duties, the English government sent troops to Boston to help keep the peace. The presence of British troops exacerbated the already hostile relationship between British officials and city inhabitants. Until 1770, things were quiet, but the end of the nonimportation agreements began a new round of controversy in Boston. First, a low-level customs official fired on a crowd and accidentally killed a young boy. Tensions mounted over the weeks that followed, and on March 5, 1770, there was a violent confrontation between troops and Bostonians. When the smoke cleared, five Americans lay dead. This event quickly became known as the Boston Massacre. The Sons of Liberty made sure that the five victims had funerals befitting heroic martyrs. One victim, Crispus Attucks, a sailor and ropemaker in his forties, son of an African man and a Natick Indian woman, was the first African American to die in the American Revolution. Further violence was avoided, and Boston lawyers John Adams and Josiah Quincy defended the British troops, hoping to demonstrate to the empire that most colonists were not lawless but interested in preserving liberty and justice. Adams and Quincy won a full acquittal for the British commander and for all but two of the soldiers.

The Tea Party and the Coercive Acts, 1770-1774, pp. 195-202

Around the time of the Boston Massacre crisis, a new ministry in London, headed by Lord Frederick North, sought to ease tensions and end the boycott of British goods caused by the Townshend duties. In 1770, Lord North repealed all of the Townshend duties except the one on tea, which he hoped would serve as a reminder of parliamentary supremacy. There were two years of relative calm, convincing people that further trouble might be avoided, but renewed struggles over the tea tax in 1773 would eventually lead to war in 1775.

The Calm before the Storm

After the repeal of the Townshend duties, trade boomed and relations with the empire were relatively peaceful. However, the 1772 Gaspée incident and the royal commission of inquiry that followed fed colonial suspicions by suggesting that if suspects were arrested, they would be sent to England to be tried for treason. In the same year, a proposal for paying the salaries of superior court justices out of the tea duty created alarm. In response, the colonial assemblies and many Massachusetts towns established committees of correspondence, which The calm finally was shattered entirely by the Tea Act of 1773, which was designed to relieve the financially strapped East India Company by allowing the company to sell its tea through special government agents directly to the Americans, many of whom purchased and drank cheap smuggled Dutch tea.

Tea in Boston Harbor

Radicals argued that the Tea Act was an insidious trick to make Americans buy dutied tea. Colonists could not use nonimportation to combat the threat because the trade was lucrative, and it was impossible to distinguish dutied tea from smuggled tea once it was brewed. Once again, the Sons of Liberty turned to pressuring agents to resign. In Boston, several ships carrying tea sensed the tension upon their arrival in the harbor, and sought to return to England with the tea rather than attempt to unload it. Governor Hutchinson refused, after a long standoff, to let the ship leave the harbor without paying the tax. In December 1773, a group of the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Indians, boarded the British ships and dumped thousands of pounds of tea into Boston harbor.

The Coercive Acts

Outraged at the colonists’ vandalism and their contempt for British property rights, Lord North persuaded Parliament to issue the Coercive Acts. These acts closed the port of Boston, altered the colony’s charter to increase the powers of the royal governor, allowed royal officials accused of capital crimes to be tried in England, and instituted a new amendment to the Quartering Act that permitted the lodging of soldiers in private households. In effect, these acts placed Boston and the colony of Massachusetts under martial law. Massachusetts colonists were further outraged by the subsequent passage of the Quebec Act, which gave the French Catholic province of Quebec control of the Ohio Valley and the lucrative fur trade. The acts alarmed other colonists, who saw them as a sign of England’s ability to override local government. Via the committees of correspondence, the colonial leaders arranged to meet in Philadelphia in the fall of 1774 to respond to the crisis.

The First Continental Congress

In response to the Coercive Acts, the colonies called for the convening of the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia in the fall of 1774. Men of all political persuasions were there, from radicals to moderates. The congress met for seven weeks and eventually hammered out a declaration of rights asserting that each colonial government had the sole right to legislate for and tax its own people. Delegates also approved the formation of a Continental Association to implement a unified boycott of English trade. These bodies became functioning political bodies despite their lack of formal authority, in large part because they were composed of the same men who had been in the colonial legislatures.

Domestic Insurrections, 1774-1775, pp. 203-206

Before the Second Continental Congress could meet, war broke out in Massachusetts. General Thomas Gage, the military commander and new royal governor, initially thought that he was facing a domestic insurrection that would be quelled easily by a show of force. Americans, however, felt that they were defending themselves from an enslaving government. In the South, slaves took the patriot rhetoric of slavery to mount their own kind of insurrection in the name of liberty.

Lexington and Concord

Thomas Gage believed that the British position was bad; he requested 20,000 troops and also advised that the Coercive Acts be repealed. When English leaders refused to back down, he began organizing troops for a decisive strike against rebel “minutemen” who were gathering in the countryside. In April 1775, his attempt to organize a surprise attack on a suspected ammunition storage site at Concord was ruined when his forces were met by American militiamen at Lexington, five miles east of their destination. The British dispersed the men, went on to Concord, where they found no ammunition, and then exchanged shots with more militiamen at the Old North Bridge. As the British returned to Boston, they were fired on by militia units from both sides of the road in the bloodiest exchange of the day. The war had begun.

Rebelling against Slavery

Besides marking the military beginnings of the American rebellion, the battles at Lexington and Concord also aroused a more profound issue that the rhetoric and ideology of rebellion brought to the forefront: black slavery. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, threatened to arm slaves to fight the colonists, and in November of 1775 he issued an offer to able-bodied male slaves, promising freedom to those who would fight. He did not want to start a slave rebellion and, in fact, rejected slaves who did not meet his requirements. By December of 1775, around 2,000 slaves in Virginia had fled to Lord Dunmore, who armed them and called them his “Ethiopian Regiment.” But camp diseases quickly set in: dysentery, typhoid fever, and, worst of all, smallpox. In the northern colonies, too, slaves understood the implications of irate colonists’ rhetoric against Great Britain and seized the moment to press for their own liberation. The challenge was stronger in the South, where the numerical preponderance of slaves caused owners considerable misgivings. By the end of the war, as many as 30,000 slaves had accepted Dunmore’s offer, and as many as 80,000 slaves would escape bondage on their own over the course of the war. Slaves often were treated quite badly by the army, but several thousand persisted through the war and later, under the protection of the British army, left America to start new lives of freedom in Canada’s Nova Scotia or Africa’s Sierra Leone.

Conclusion: How Far Does Liberty Go? pp. 206-207

American resistance to imperial policies grew slowly, but as misunderstandings escalated, so did the level of tension and violence. By the 1770s, the colonists were convinced that Parliament meant to deprive them of their liberties and reduce them to “abject slavery.” To gain support for their cause, patriotic leaders had to infuse the masses with a keen sense of their own rights and liberties; black Americans also picked up on this rhetoric, hoping to free themselves from slavery and oppression. By 1775, with the outbreak of fighting and the specter of slave rebellions, American leaders turned to the king to resolve the question of who had actual authority over the colonies.

The American Promise

A Compact History 3rd Edition Vol 1: To 1877

Introduction

This chapter begins with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin’s early life in Boston and his arrival in Philadelphia. Franklin’s experience reveals much about the everyday lives of ordinary people in eighteenth-century North American colonies. His story also illustrates some of the major changes taking place in the eighteenth century, as social and economic forces continued to emphasize the differences among the colonies at the same time that cultural and political developments began to unify them. In contrast to the British colonies‘ vigorous economic growth and political maturation, the Spanish and French colonies in North America remained thinly populated outposts of European empires interested principally in maintaining a toehold in the vast North American territories they claimed.

A Growing Population and Expanding Economy in British North America, pp. 104—105

The most important fact about eighteenth-century colonial America is its remarkable population growth. The number of colonists rose throughout the century, from 250,000 in 1700 to more than 2 million by 1770. Simultaneously, the ethnic and religious profile of the thirteen colonies diversified substantially, owing to increasing immigration from places other than England. The availability of cheap, abundant land, the concomitant surplus of food, and ample work opportunities engendered a social and economic environment that allowed the majority of free colonists to prosper to a degree unusual in the eighteenth century.

New England: From Puritan Settlers to Yankee Traders, pp. 105-108

Although New England’s population increased sixfold during the eighteenth century, its growth lagged behind that of the other colonies. The main reasons were New England’s higher ratio of settlers to land and Puritan communities’ reputation for hostility to non-Puritan religions. But Puritan orthodoxy was on the wane, and the growth of a vibrant commercial network in New England meant that trade became a faith that often competed with Puritan traditions.

Natural Increase and Land Distribution

Natural increase was most responsible for the growth of New England’s population during the eighteenth century, much as it had been during the previous century, owing to high marriage rates and large family size. The growing population of New England sought new land by expanding their holdings west and north, increasingly pressing up against the lands of hostile Indian neighbors. The French (and Catholic) colony of Quebec also menaced the English (and Protestant) colonies of New England. By the eighteenth century, the effects of partible inheritance were being felt as well; inheritable plots of land had been so subdivided by generations of heirs that many sons moved away from their hometowns in search of more land or a more assured means of subsistence. Also, beginning in the eighteenth century, the colonial governments of Massachusetts and Connecticut, in need of revenue, stopped the practice of granting land to towns and instead began selling it directly to individuals. These new landowners tended to settle on individual farms rather than congregate in towns or villages as seventeenth-century settlers had done. As a result, the influence of churches and towns over individuals’ behavior began to decline.

Farms, Fish, and Trade

The scarcity of land in New England resulted in agricultural diversification. Farmers grew a variety of crops rather than one major crop for the market. Although New England was not a good place to become wealthy, farmers were at the base of a diversified commercial economy. Continuing as they had since the seventeenth century, New Englanders made their fortunes at sea. Their main commodity was codfish, most of which was exported to markets in southern Europe or the West Indies. The merchants were the link at the hub of trade between local folk and the international market. By the middle of the century, a wealthy merchant aristocracy emerged in New England, the richest and most successful of whom lived in Boston. At the same time, a small percentage of people in the region lived in abject poverty, but compared to the poverty in England, the colonists were better off. New England also remained the most English and most homogeneous of all the colonial areas.

The Middle Colonies: Immigrants, Wheat, and Work, pp. 108-111

No section of the North American colonies was more diverse ethnically, politically, or religiously than the middle colonies—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. This heterogeneity was largely the result of the influx of non-English immigrants—notably Germans and Scots-Irish—whose arrival had by 1770 increased the population of the middle colonies by a factor of ten.

German and Scots-Irish Immigrants

Germans made up the largest group of immigrants from the European continent to the middle colonies. Most German immigrants came from southwestern Germany. A large number were peasants who sought to escape a harsh political and economic environment. However, the majority of these Germans were “middling” folk—neither the poorest nor the better off. Similar motives impelled the Scots-Irish, who considerably outnumbered German immigrants in the New World. The label “Scots-Irish,” like “Pennsylvania Dutch,” was a misnomer because the Scots-Irish actually came from northern Ireland, Scotland, and northern England. Most were poor farm laborers or tenant farmers who were exploited by greedy landlords or compelled to flee to the colonies by droughts, crop failures, high food prices, and rising rents. The process of immigration was miserable and expensive. Many Germans and Scots-Irish, particularly young males who migrated alone, paid for their passage by becoming “redemptioners,” similar to indentured servants. The Germans worshipped in Lutheran or German Reformed churches, whereas the Scots-Irish were usually Presbyterians.

Pennsylvania: “The Best Poor [White] Man’s Country“

Immigrants came to the middle colonies for the perceived economic opportunities. Because of a scarcity of labor, hired workers could earn high wages. Most bound servants worked in cities and towns. Masters prized them because they were much cheaper than hired day laborers, and the strictures of bondage were enforced rigorously. African slavery existed in the middle colonies, albeit on a very small scale because only the more affluent white colonists could afford slaves, and there was little use for slave labor on family-operated farms. Slaves were treated far more harshly than white servants. Even when slaves obtained their freedom, white racism often made African Americans the victims of reprisals for white Europeans’ suspicions and anxieties.

Immigrants flocked to the middle colonies because of the availability of land and relatively peaceful frontier relations with Indians. Flour milling was the number one industry, and flour the number one export from the middle colonies, which allowed many middle colonists to enjoy a fairly secure and stable existence. At the center of trade stood Philadelphia, the largest colonial city in North America and second only to London in the British Empire. A wealthy merchant elite, most of them Quakers, ruled the city. Quaker beliefs in industry, thrift, honesty, and sobriety encouraged the accumulation of wealth. The widespread conviction that good things came from work led to the reputation of the middle colonies as “the best poor Man’s Country in the World.”

The Southern Colonies: Land of Slavery, pp. 112-117

For most of the eighteenth century, the southern colonies (Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) contained more colonists than either the middle colonies or New England. Many European immigrants funneled from the middle colonies into the backcountry or came as indentured servants, but African slaves made the most striking contributions to population growth and southern culture.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Growth of Slavery

Involuntary immigrants in the form of African slaves contributed to the burgeoning population in the southern colonies. The Chesapeake colonies of the upper South—Virginia and Maryland—specialized in tobacco cultivation, while the lower South of the south Atlantic coastal region specialized in the production of rice and indigo.

The southern colonies’ black population grew enormously because of a combination of natural increase and the flourishing African slave trade to British North America during the eighteenth century. The account of Olaudah Equiano describes his forced removal from his African village, his sale to western slave traders, and his transport to the New World in horrific detail. Like Equiano, slaves were primarily West Africans who had been kidnapped or captured in war and sold into bondage to other Africans, who in turn sold them to the European slavers who brought them over on slave ships. Perhaps even worse than being sold into lifelong bondage was the ordeal of crossing the Atlantic—the infamous Middle Passage—when on average about 15 percent of a ship’s human cargo died from dehydration, malnutrition, diseases, or other maladies incurred from the filth, pollution, and overcrowding below deck. The slaves were then sold to colonial slave merchants or to southern planters who put them to work on tobacco or rice plantations. Despite a fairly high mortality rate—especially in the first year of slave life in the colonies—the natural increase of slaves during the eighteenth century meant that more slaves were becoming acculturated and that by the 1740s the majority of slaves were native-born.

Slave Labor and African American Culture

Planters extracted as much work as possible from their slaves. Eighteenth-century masters preferred slaves over indentured servants not only because slaves served for life but also because colonial laws did not hinder masters from using force to keep their slaves working and tractable. Although the likelihood of brutal retaliation made most slaves cautious about resisting, rebellion did occur once in the eighteenth century with the 1739 Stono uprising in South Carolina. Its outcome illustrated that slaves, no matter how determined, had no chance of overturning slavery and that open rebellion amounted to suicide because all the power resided with slave owners.

Despite these limitations, slaves did what they could to retain their humanity, protect themselves from abuse, and gain a measure of autonomy. On larger plantations in South Carolina, a task system of labor developed that allowed individual slaves who finished their work before the end of the day to use the remainder of the day as they pleased—fishing, hunting, sewing, cooking, or gardening. The concept of kinship, which structured slaves’ relations with each other, created a network of extended family relationships, giving slaves a sense of belonging and their lives meaning and purpose. Slaves also expressed other features of their West African origins by giving their children African names, growing crops familiar to them from Africa, and building houses found typically in Africa.

Tobacco, Rice, and Prosperity

African slave labor increased the prosperity of planters, British merchants, and the monarchy. Rice and indigo—the main staples of Carolina planters—made up three-fourths of the lower South’s exports, with the majority of the crops going to England and the rest to the West Indies. Together with Chesapeake tobacco, these products made the southern colonies the richest in North America. The per capita wealth of free southern whites was three times greater than that of the middle colonists and four times more than that of New Englanders. The wealthiest were the rice grandees of the lower South and the tobacco gentry of the Chesapeake, who owned large estates that were maintained and supported by slaves. The gap in wealth among white southerners caused envy and sometimes tension, but a shared sense of white supremacy mitigated the potential for rebellion or resentment. In both the Chesapeake and the lower South, landholding determined voting rights, and the requirement was set high enough to deny about 40 percent of white men in Virginia the right to vote.

Unifying Experiences, pp. 117-120

While the three colonial groups became increasingly different from each other during the eighteenth century, colonists throughout British North America shared certain unifying economic, religious, and political experiences. Economically, all three regions were agrarian and sold their staples in similar external and internal markets that offered essentially the same array of goods to consumers throughout the colonies. Religiously, the colonists became more secular during the eighteenth century, and politically they became aware that, despite having thirteen different local governments, they all owed allegiance to the same king and Parliament and shared a distinctive identity as British colonists.

Commerce and Consumption

Colonial products stimulated the development of mass markets throughout the Atlantic world and helped to establish an important feature of the eighteenth-century commercial revolution: Ordinary people, not just the wealthy elite, bought not only essentials for basic survival but also things they desired. The Atlantic commerce that took colonial goods to English markets brought the desired consumer goods back to the colonies. Most English exports went to the vast European market, where potential customers outnumbered those in the colonies by more than one hundred to one; however, English exports to North America became increasingly important, multiplying by a factor of eight between 1700 and 1770. The consumption of English exports created a material uniformity among all colonial classes and made the colonists look and feel more British, even though they lived three thousand miles away. It also accustomed them to defining their own wishes and acting on them.

Religion, Enlightenment, and Revival

It was possible to find virtually every form of Protestant Christianity in the colonies and even Catholicism in Maryland. But churches argued over fine points of doctrine, convincing many colonists that toleration of religious differences was desirable. Other colonists became deists. Influenced by the Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement, a new climate developed, characterized by an optimistic view of human nature and a belief that the universe was an orderly and functional mechanism. Enlightenment ideas encouraged people to think for themselves and to study the world around them to find ways to improve society. The formation of the American Philosophical Society in 1769 fostered communication among leading colonial thinkers; Benjamin Franklin was its first president. At the same time, Christian ministers were growing increasingly concerned about widespread religious indifference. The Great Awakening, a wave of religious revivals that swept the colonies, fulfilled many people’s need for a strong, emotional religion. Its greatest proponent, Anglican minister George Whitefield, was a riveting speaker who preached sermons to thousands of people in nearly every colony. The Great Awakening did not tend to make permanent converts, but it did convince people that every soul mattered and that men and women could decide whether or not to be saved.

Bonds of the British Empire, pp. 120-126

Compared to the eighteenth-century colonies of Spain and France, the settlements in British North America were culturally diverse, well populated, and economically successful. Colonists in British North America had fewer cultural bonds with each other than did the smaller, more homogenous settlements of Spain and France because Britain’s open immigration policies encouraged peoples of various nations and faiths to settle in America. British colonists, however, did share some important experiences that created a common framework of political and economic expectations. The Navigation Acts established rules for trade that linked the colonies to the markets of the British empire and limited their contact with merchants representing Britain’s rivals. The British military protected colonists from foreign enemies who, when acting with Indian allies, threatened the colonists’ survival.

Defending the Borderlands of Empire: Indians and French and Spanish Outposts

In the eighteenth century, Native Americans and European settlers had a complicated relationship. By the 1700s, trade between colonists and Indians had become essential to the economies of both peoples. Native Americans desired European manufactured goods like spun cloth and guns, while Europeans wanted the animal furs that Indians were adept at procuring. Traders representing rival empires competed for furs. This competition enabled Native Americans to play one empire off against another in order to preserve their autonomy. In return, colonial merchants weakened Indian solidarity by encouraging tribes to compete against each other for the best trade deals. This world of shifting alliances along an insecure border made violence an ever-present possibility. For example, in 1715, the French assisted the Yamasee and Creek Indians in their attack on colonial settlements in South Carolina. The Cherokees decided to befriend the English to harm their traditional rivals, the Creeks, and to strengthen their relationship with British traders. British colonists looked to the imperial army for protection against such attacks and for help in securing the fur trade.

In the mid-eighteenth century, Spain increased its presence in California to block incursions by the Russian Empire. Between 1769 and 1774, Spanish soldiers and missionaries built several missions and forts along the California coast that extended as far north as Monterey. These missions brought terrible consequences for the Indians. Disease and mistreatment killed many, while survivors suffered enslavement and rape at the hands of their conquerors.

Colonial Politics in the British Empire

The colonists generally accepted British authority when it came to trade on the high seas and international issues, but they objected to British interference in the internal affairs of their respective colonies. Britain tried to administer the colonies through royal governors, men appointed by the crown to head the government of each colony. These governors, most of whom came from England, had little connection with the colonists, and they had few resources, like patronage jobs, to win friends while in office. Governors ruled in cooperation with assemblies of delegates elected by the colonists. Assemblies increased their power over time. By 1720, most assemblies initiated local laws and spent money. Assembly delegates usually held their offices for longer periods than did royal governors, and they understood how to use their power to advance colonial interests when those interests came into conflict with the interests of the crown. The limits placed on governors combined with the skills of colonial assemblies and their distance from England enabled assemblies to gain the upper hand in disputes with royally appointed governors. Eighteenth-century politics instilled in colonists a common set of ideas about government. They applied British ideas of representative government to promote their own interests and understood that the British government had limited say over what happened inside the colonies.

Conclusion: The Dual Identity of British North American Colonists, p. 127

The eighteenth-century colonists were a diverse group of people. Large numbers of slaves and indentured servants worked and lived under the dominion of their free neighbors. Europeans who settled in the British colonies came from several nations and practiced a variety of faiths. These colonists had a distinctive dual identity as American colonists and as British subjects that would soon create conflict and controversy for them. By 1776, the thirteen colonies would be forced to decide whether they were American or British. Europeans living in French and Spanish colonies were fewer in number and had not experienced the social and political changes that occurred in the British settlements. Colonists of the other major empires did not face the same test of loyalty between colony and home country that confronted British Americans.