American Development: Imperial PoliticsThe growth of regional folk cultures in British America was also fostered by a unique political environment which was very different from other European colonies. New France and New Spain were more closely controlled by imperial authorities than were England’s American provinces, which had more freedom to manage their own affairs.
This condition did not develop by design. English statesmen looked upon the empires of France and Spain with admiration, and even with envy. The authorities in London often tried to impose similar controls upon their own colonies. But for many years these efforts failed and regional cultures of British America were left to go their own way. The first important English attempt to control the American colonies was made by Charles I, who created a Commission for Foreign Plantations in 1634. Its head was Archbishop William Laud, the great Anglican enemy of Puritanism, whose assignment was to curb New England’s independence. For that purpose, a “great ship” was ordered in England, while the people of Massachusetts made ready to defend themselves. But before the great ship sailed, Parliament rose against Charles I and one of its first acts was to execute Archbishop Laud. New England continued to govern itself for many years.
During the Civil War, King and Parliament both claimed the right to regulate the colonies, but neither was able to do so. A Parliamentary Commission for Plantations was appointed in 1643, but before it began to act effectively, Parliament itself was overthrown by Oliver Cromwell. The colonies continued to go their own way.
After 1653 the Protectorate also tried to organize the colonies into a coherent imperial system. To that end, Oliver Cromwell and his Protector’s Council created two new bodies—a Committee for Foreign Plantations (1655), and a Committee for America (1656). An expedition was sent against the Royalist regime in Virginia, but after Cromwell’s early death in 1658, these bodies also disbanded. The colonies continued to control their own affairs.
The restoration of Charles II in 1660 was followed by a more sustained effort to create an imperial system—this time through the Privy Council’s Committee for Trade and Plantations, called the Lords of Trade (1660). Various other councils and committees also functioned in a fitful way from 1660 to 1685, but none gained effective control over the colonies. The fragility of England’s restored monarchy, the poverty of the new regime, and the caution of the King himself all prevented strong measures, except in Virginia after Bacon’s Rebellion. The colonies retained much of their independence.1
After the year 1685, England’s King James II tried to impose a consolidated government called the Dominion of New England upon all the colonies from Maine to Delaware. He appointed a viceregal figure named Sir Edmund Andros to govern it. The result was an American Revolution of 1688 which began before the accession of William and Mary, and ended with Sir Edmund Andros a prisoner in Boston. The colonies narrowly survived yet another imperial challenge.2
After the Glorious Revolution, the new Protestant regime of William and Mary also tried to bring the colonies to heel, and at last succeeded in doing so. It created a new body called the Board of Trade, and a complex machinery of imperial government. But the delicate relationship between King and Parliament prevented either from asserting itself as forcefully as did imperial authorities in France and Spain. After 1714, Britain was ruled by German kings who cared little about America, and English ministers who knew less. One of them believed that Massachusetts was an island. There was in London a profound ignorance of American conditions.
Throughout the empire, colonial assemblies continued to claim parliamentary status, even though officials in London regarded them as comparable to municipal councils. This constitutional question was not resolved before 1775. While it continued, England’s American provinces remained more nearly autonomous than other European colonies, and regional cultures developed with less interference from above.