The Imperial Perspective

 

Framework of English Colonial Policy

 

A. The Overall Policy was not coherent or efficient—the constant struggle between Parliament and the crown kept England from perfecting any consistent colonial policy or any agencies to carry out that policy.

 

B. The inevitable “hands off” policy—from the motherland led the colonies to see themselves as relatively autonomous.

 

Making matters worse, the English government saw the colonials as citizens, but they were not afforded the rights of citizens. Additionally, they were expected to pay for their own maintenance, but were not allowed a role in shaping the policies that regulate their maintenance.

 

English Administration of the Colonies

 

1. Role of the King—all colonies were “dependencies of the crown” as he gave the land titles to the colonists. (Even after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when King George gave Georgia its title, still it was in accordance with the formerly established practice.

 

2. Role of the Privy Council—the king passed colonial supervision to his 30 or 40 advisers (appointed and responsible to him). William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury headed the Commission.

 

a. Laud wanted to take the charter away from Massachusetts (stealing Maine) and they put Fernando Gorges in charge of the colony. He was ready to take the colony by force just when England fell into a civil war (1642-1649) preventing it.

 

Oliver Cromwell threw his party and the colony was left alone, Cromwell ruling as the Puritan Commonwealth and Protectorate.

 

A. The Mercantile System— The British embrace a theory that justified their control of the colonies: mercantilism: A country’s economic wealth could be measured by the amount of gold or silver in its treasury. To amass gold and silver, a country had to export more than it imported.

 

Countries with colonies were at an advantage, because the colonies could supply the mother country with materials, wealth, supplies, etc… 

 

For America, that meant giving Britain all the ships, ships’ stores, sailors, and trade that they needed and wanted. Also, they had to grow tobacco and sugar for England that Brits would otherwise have to buy from other countries.

 

1. Parliament passed the Navigation Act of 1651 to get the Dutch out of colonial trade (English civil war let the Dutch in) and the act said that all goods imported into England or the colonies must arrive on English ships and have a majority English crew.

 

2. Colonial ships and crew were said to be English. Goods made in any other country could sail to England but only from where they set sail.

 

3. Charles II restored also subscribed to the mercantile theory—colonies were the source of raw materials and the market for finished goods.

 

a. The Navigation Act of 1660—“enumerated” list of goods shipped only to England or her colonies. Goods included tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, and furs to name a few. (Also the crews had to be ¾ English).

 

4. The Navigation Act of 1663—the Staple Act (making England the market or trade center)—everything shipped from Europe to America had to stop in England, and pay duty.

 

5. The Navigation act of 1673—made captains pay bond whether in England or in the colonies (if shipped colony to colony).

 

B. Enforcing the Navigation Acts—when Charles II was restored he left colonial affairs to the Privy Council. He then formed a Lords of Trade from the Privy Council who then supervised the mercantile system and the acts.

 

1. Edward Randolph—he arrived in Boston in 1676 and was to become the supervisor of all the colonial customs collectors (one in each colony).

 

2. First things first, however, he came to investigate the claim that Massachusetts tried to acquire Maine through chicanery. He also reported that the colony violated the Navigation Acts, and operated a mint against the king’s wishes.

 

3. Now he’s king’s collector of customs in Boston—the end result because of Massachusetts’ transgressions was that by 1684 the Lords of Trade had annulled the charter. Crown 1, Puritans 0

RI and Connecticut had been granted charters in 1663 and 1662 respectively so a big slap in the face of Massachusetts.

 

C. The Dominion of New England—no sooner had the charter been annulled, Charles died leaving James II in charge. He’s the first Catholic since Queen (Bloody) Mary, and not happy over the colonies ignoring of the Navigation Acts.

 

1. James II sent Sir Edmund Andros over to head the Dominion of New England. Its authority took all New England down through east and west New Jersey.

 

2. He taxed the people without their consent. He suppressed town governments ruling as a dictator, enforced the trade laws, and subdued smuggling. He also took over a Puritan church in Boston to be used for Anglican worship.

 

3. Big problem in England—James son is born Catholic after two Protestant daughters and about to become king upon James’ death SO, Parliament asked Mary and her, William of Orange (Dutch) to assume the thrown and James ran away.

 

D. The Glorious Revolution in America—here was done the same as in England, Andros was arrested and deported and Massachusetts united with Plymouth under a new charter (1691).

 

1. In New York—German immigrant, Jacob Leisler took charge for a couple years (following the lead in England) but refused to turn over the reins to the newly appointed English governor resulting in his hanging. (Four years later, Parliament exonerated him).

 

2. The crown now sought more control over the colonies by appointing royal governors in all, albeit taking to 1752 (Georgia).

 

3. John Locke (1690) wrote his Two Treatises on Government after the overthrow of James. He held that such natural laws included the rights of life, liberty, and property; that to secure these rights people submit to governments; and that governments which abuse these rights may justly be overthrown.

            (Locke was probably more influential in America than England).

           

 E. An Emerging Colonial System

 

1. William and Mary and governing the colonies—they passed a Navigation Act in 1696 that required the colonial governors to enforce them and they allowed for “writs of assistance” (general search warrants w/o naming a place).

 

2. Violators were to be tried in “Admiralty Courts” where the judges appointed by the governors. Formerly juries refused to convict their peers.

 

3. William created the Board of Trade (replacing Lords) and they sought ways to limit colonial manufacturing and increase raw materials, as well as supervise trade altogether.

 

4. They also examined all colonial laws to determine if a law was prejudicial to trade or in conflict with imperial policy the laws of England. Of 8,563 acts, 469 were disallowed (more from PA than elsewhere).

 

F. Salutary Neglect—first William died then Mary died and the throne passed to the Hanoverian crowd, George I and George II (Protestants descending from James I).

 

They let the Board of Trade fall into a tool by which politicians handed out patronage and their salaries became primary concern. The colonies were left to care for themselves, by and large.

 

The Habit of Self-Government—in the 8 colonies that became royal colonies the king named the governor.

 

A. Powers of the Governors—they could call assemblies or adjourn them, and they appointed the councils.

 

B. Powers of the Assemblies—they were elected, at first one had to belong to a church to vote but later it was amended to owning property. Women, Indians and blacks were excluded, except in New Jersey where they forgot to exclude women and they were allowed to vote until the early 1800s.

 

1. Officeholders tended to come from the well-to-do as they continue to do today.

 

2. In England the king lost power to Parliament and they increasingly ran the show in the colonies, ort as much as they could. Parliament and the assemblies mirrored each other in that they both held the purse strings and that they both initiated legislation.

 

3. The self-government that was the result of salutary neglect went from being a habit to being a “right” that would eventually lead to problems.

Troubled Neighbors

 

            A. Spanish America in Decline—several reasons…

 

                        1. They sought only gold sand silver for themselves

 

                        2. They didn’t try to create an economy

 

3. The only thing they used settlements for was to safeguard their empire from the rest of Europe and to convert the Indians to Catholicism.

 

The end result was that by 1821 they had three settlements, Santa Fe, (6,000); San Antonio (1500); and, St. Augustine (1500). The same year Mexico declared their independence without firing a shot.

 

One of the people to create problems in Mexico for Spain were the mestizos (mixed Native American and Spanish) and were the result of the Spanish policy of not sending women to the New World.

 

            B. New France—they succeeded for so long for several reasons…

 

a. They settled along the St. Lawrence on unclaimed land and traded with the Indians

 

b. They mediated disputes between various tribes

 

c. They came in small numbers and intermarried with the Native Americans

 

d. They used religion by converting the natives and teaching them to hate the protestant English.

 

1. Samuel de Champlain—French explorer and he sailed up the St. Lawrence founding Quebec establishing a trading post from which the rest of the empire could spread.

 

1. His big mistake was in joining the Huron and the Algonquin against the Iroquois. The Iroquois sided with the Dutch then English as a result and kept the French away from tender English colonies and harassed them whenever they could.

 

2. Another French screw-up was that the New France trading company only allowed the fur trade to French Catholics, thereby excluding the Huguenots and all other foreigners. The end result was a small population primarily engaged in the fur trade.

 

C. French Louisiana—1673/1682 first Marquette (Jesuit priest to the Arkansas River) then Robert Cavalier, sieur de La Salle went to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois then Mississippi and named Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV.

 

1. Shortly after, (1699) colonization of the whole area began and by 1718 New Orleans was founded and became the capital.

 

2. Heat and mosquitoes meant that population grew very slowly; it remained a financial burden to the French forever and not the trading colony envisioned as complementing the Spanish.

 

3. In spite of this, the French had access to the whole country (America) and as a result we have Des Moines (some monks), Terre Haute (high land), but they too never really took off save for the priests and traders.

 

4. The French had advantages over the English such as they encroached very little on the Indians as opposed to the English who wanted all the land, so the French were seen as allies.

 

5. The French could mobilize for was quicker as they didn’t have 13 separate assemblies to convince.

 

The Colonial Wars between France and England—for the most part both empires developed in isolation from each other and there were no problems.

 

When the Glorious Revolution came in 1688, the new Dutch (Protestant) king, William, aligned himself with much of northern Europe and fought King Louis XIV in King William’s War (1689-1697).

 

Three more wars would be fought between the European giants; Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713); King George’s War (1744-1748); and, the French and Indian War. The first three wars were really European wars with minor American overtures. Minor as they were, however, the city of Boston would lose 900 men to the fighting in these three wars.

 

The last war, the French and Indian war, would have an impact on Americans like no other one preceding. The debt incurred by the British, especially since it was fought mainly in America, was to be borne by the colonists and that would change the entire relationship between mother country and colonies.

 

A. King William’s War—in the colonies the French gained posts in Hudson Bay, and in Newfoundland. In addition the French incited the Indians to attack the northern frontier.

 

The war then degenerated into a series of these bloody and terrifying frontier raids and was ended by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) returning the colonies to their prewar status.

 

B. Queen Anne’s War—fought against France and Spain; in the colonies South Carolina fought local Indians (incited by the Spanish), and in New England suffered raids and many settlers were captured or slaughtered.

 

Meanwhile, the English battled both of its foes in Europe where most of the fighting occurred. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) gave England new territory in America; forbid Spain to give her holdings to any third party, and gave the English the right to supply Spanish America with slaves.

 

Interestingly enough, it also gave the British sovereignty over the Iroquois, but no one asked the

Iroquois what they thought of this “sovereignty.”

 

C. King George’s War—the War of Jenkin’s Ear, he was smuggling slaves and a Spanish soldier cut his ear off and he took it to Parliament to arouse the politicians to war.

 

1. In the Americas, the British attacked a fort in panama with the help of thousands of colonists, and many would die in this disaster. (One survivor from Va., Lawrence Washington, would name his estate after the poor loser, Admiral Vernon.)

 

2. Georgia served its purpose as buffer by attacking St. Augustine.

 

3. France entered on Spain’s side in 1744 and the border raids resumed on New England. In 1745 an all New England army, led by Governor William Shirley and William Pepperrell, captured the powerful French fortress of Louisbourg at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.

 

4. To the Americans' disgust, the British in the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Louisbourg back to France in exchange for lands in India.

 

5. On the western front—the English slowly migrated into French territory in the Ohio Valley. Settlers developed friendly relations with local Indians, and speculators from VA secured the rights to 1/2 million acres in the Ohio Valley.

 

6. Soon this created tension with the French who already claimed the area. The French strengthened their forts at Toronto and Detroit and established new posts.

 

7. In 1752 the French attacked English trading posts throughout the Ohio valley. The government of Virginia dispatched 21-year-old George Washington to protest these attacks and to determine French intentions.

 

D. The French and Indian War—In response to English/colonial expansion, the French built Fort Duquesne where the colonials were trying to build before the attack.

 

1. Washington then attacked Duquesne and took his prisoners to a hastily constructed Fort Necessity where he was then siege by the French who then let him surrender with his reputation/survivors in tact.

 

2. Meanwhile, up in Albany, Ben Franklin and the boys had themselves a little meeting about the state of affairs with regarded to the French threat.

 

a. All colonies from Massachusetts to Maryland were represented. They agreed to a chief executive (picked by the crown).

 

b. They also agreed to a supreme assembly (chosen by colonial assemblies) to be in charge of defense and Indian relations, but neither the crown nor the colonial assemblies wanted to give the other that kind of power.

 

c. They did agree to a supreme commander for British forces in America and a New Yorker friendly with the Iroquois was made superintendent of the northern Indians.

 

3. General Edward Braddock was the new commander of British forces and with Washington made his way to Fort Duquesne with an array of artillery and supplies.

 

4. Near the fort, British forces were surrounded by 900 French and Indian forces, defeated, and Braddock was mortally wounded. They left their artillery and supplies and Washington led the remnant of English forces back to Philadelphia.

 

5. The British then decided to uproot 5,000-7,000 Acadians in 1755 (July-Oct), when they captured Nova Scotia (Acadia) and kicked out all the French speaking peoples. (These people went to Louisiana and became “Cajuns” butchered from Acadians.

 

E. Fighting Transferred to Europe—French and Indian War began in the colonies, undeclared for two years, erupted on the continent, Seven Years War (England + Prussia vs. France + Spain + Austria + Russia). Initially, the British suffered serious setbacks in Europe and in America.

 

1. By 1757, Prime Minister William Pitt (1708-78), the “Great Commoner,” committed the government to unlimited warfare, reinforcements in America, and subsidies to colonial allies (which required higher taxes and loans).

2. “I know that I can save England and no one else can.”—he was very popular at home and in the colonies. The British navy stopped all supplies from reaching the French in America, and the Indians, sensing a turning of the tide, stopped attacking the English.

3. 1759 was the “miraculous year” when the British forces took it to France in a three prong attack. First, fort Niagara was captured with the help of the Iroquois.

 

4. Secondly, General Jeffery Amherst captured Fort George and Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain.

 

5. Thirdly, the British under General James Wolfe (4,500 troops) launched a successful assault above Quebec on the Plains of Abraham (Aug 1759), a plateau above the city, engaged the French forces under General Louis Montcalm (3,000 troops) and forced Quebec's surrender by Sept (both military leaders killed).

 

6. Although the war lasted until 1763, the rest was just mopping up. The Cherokee were defeated in the south, and after the peace treaty was signed, Chief Pontiac tried to unite the Indians but was suppressed.

 

7. George II died giving way to his grandson, George III who wanted peace quickly so deposed Pitt. Before doing so, however, Pitt declared War on Spain in 1761 and defeated them as well.

 

F. The Peace of Paris—France was no longer a factor in the New World as the British took every thing once theirs save for New Orleans. They also took Spanish Florida. The French gave Louisiana to Spain to compensate for the loss of Florida.

 

a. The British invited the Spanish to stay in Florida, but most left. The French would stay in Louisiana when offered the same deal from the Spanish. Together they sought to create a bulwark to stop any more English expansion.

 

b. France had no territory remaining in North America, although they always would outnumber the Spanish in Louisiana.

 

C. The British victory would ring hollow soon enough too as France quickly sought revenge and weren’t afraid to fan the fires of controversy. In 1763 Franklin was in London and 15 years later he would go to Paris for an alliance.