Chapter 5: Colonial Society in the 1700s
TIMELINE
|
1730 |
The Great Awakening begins |
|
1734 |
Peter Zenger arrested for libel |
|
1754 |
Benjamin Franklin proposes the Albany Plan of Union • French and Indian War commences |
|
1763 |
Treaty of Paris signed, ending the French and Indian War • Pontiac attacks British fort near Detroit • Proclamation of 1763 issued |
IMPORTANT PEOPLE, PLACES, EVENTS, AND CONCEPTS
Albany Plan of Union
Great Awakening
power of the purse
Triangular Trade
Jonathan Edwards
Middle Passage
Proclamation of 1763
George Washington
Benjamin Franklin
New Lights
Seven Years’ War
George Whitefield
French and Indian War
Old Lights
Treaty of Paris (1763)
Peter Zenger
“The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinion. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.”
—Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur, c. 1770
INTRODUCTION
By 1750, the English colonists who settled in the New World were remarkably different from the colonists who had arrived in the 1600s. As they became “American,” life on the frontier removed the aristocratic barriers that existed in Europe, creating an environment that made men equal in their battle with the elements. The many non-British immigrants to the New World created diversity within the colonies and spawned a new population of mixed European ancestry. By 1750, the English accounted for less than half of all immigrants. Other European groups included Scots-Irish, Germans, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, and French. African slaves accounted for the highest number of immigrants, with the exception of the English.
The policy of salutary neglect, practiced after William and Mary ascended to the throne in 1688, left the colonists free to develop in their own style. When England attempted to reinstate its authority after the French and Indian War in 1763, the colonists resisted this perceived intrusion. During this century of development, the British provided the protection and governmental structure that allowed for the growth of the British Empire in North America, but the end of the war marked a turning point in the relationship between Britain and its American colonies. This change signaled the beginning of the end of British control of the American colonies.
COLONIAL SOCIETY BY 1750
The colonies had developed a very distinct class structure by 1750. Free from the class structure of England and Europe, they found themselves in a more socially mobile society. This afforded people the ability to improve their positions. Basically, a pyramid society developed with the large landholders, aristocrats, and clergy at the top of the pyramid, followed by professional men, yeoman farmers, lesser tradesmen, and hired help, in that order. Beneath these groups were the indentured servants and women, who experienced less social mobility. At the bottom of the pyramid were the slaves. The Native Americans were not assimilated into this class structure.
The Role of Clergy and Religion
As the colonies grew and pushed westward, the influence of religion appeared to diminish. In the 1730s and 1740s, a religious revival known as the Great Awakening began in Massachusetts. Jonathan Edwards, the foremost American theologian of the time, stirred congregations with his preaching; his most famous work, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, characterized the fire-and-brimstone sermons he delivered. In 1734, the English preacher George Whitefield began to arouse crowds of people with his emotional theatrics. He traveled throughout the colonies preaching a message of religious revival.
The Great Awakening was a significant movement in colonial history because it did the following:
• Diminished the role of the clergy, who split into two groups: The Old Lights were clergy who supported existing traditions, while the New Lights defended the Great Awakening.
• Led to the development of new religions, creating greater competition among the churches for worshippers.
• Led to the establishment of New Light universities, such as Princeton, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth.
• Brought American theology to Europe through the teachings of Jonathan Edwards.
• Involved all areas of the American colonies, the first such movement to do so.
Slavery
In 1619, slaves were first brought to the colonies, and slavery grew as tobacco and rice production increased. Unlike indentured servants, who negotiated contracts for length of service with the promise of freedom and, in some cases, land, African slaves were forced into service in the New World.
The journey of a slave began in Africa, where Africans were captured by slave hunters, sometimes with the help of African tribespeople. The captured Africans were placed in a holding pen and then boarded on slavers, ships bound for the Americas. This Middle Passage, as the journey across the Atlantic Ocean was called, was cruel and harsh. Upon their arrival in the Americas, the slaves were auctioned off to labor in the fields, houses, or other capacities. To keep slaves under control, many colonies prohibited people from teaching them to read or write. Many slaves were branded, whipped, threatened with separation from their families, or sold to other owners. Unlike the indentured servant, the slave had little hope for freedom or land ownership. In spite of these hardships, a distinctive slave culture emerged.
The selling of slaves became part of a system called Triangular Trade. Molasses and sugar were imported from the West Indies to the northern colonies, where they were processed into rum. The rum was sold in West Africa to slave traders in return for slaves. The slaves were then transported to the West Indies, where they were sold in exchange for molasses and sugar for the colonies. Rhode Island became the largest trader of slaves in the colonies, although it had little need for slaves. By 1750, slaves constituted almost half the population of Virginia, while they outnumbered whites in South Carolina by two to one.
Development of Industry and Commerce
By 1750, 90 percent of American colonists were engaged in agriculture. There was also a steady growth of colonial cities such as Boston, New York, and Charlestown. Tobacco was the staple crop of Virginia and Maryland. Grain exports had grown, beaver hats and rum were popular, and iron forges had sprung up in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. There was spinning, weaving, lumbering, and naval stores (tar, pitch, rosin, and turpentine used in shipbuilding). When Britain began having difficulty absorbing the products of the colonies, the colonists looked to trade with other countries. As the British attempted to control this commerce, it became a source of contention between Britain and the colonies after the French and Indian War.
Political Development
Using English democracy as background, the colonists developed their own democratic style. All the colonies had colonial assemblies, many with two-house (bicameral) legislatures. One house was usually appointed by the king or proprietors, while the other was elected by the citizens. The colonies enjoyed the power of the purse; that is, the governors were paid by the colonists. In New England, the town meeting was a living example of direct democracy.
In 1734, Peter Zenger, the publisher of a newspaper that criticized the royal governor of New York, was arrested for seditious libel (making a false accusation). The colonial jury at his 1735 trial found him not guilty despite the royal judges’ opposing opinions. This was seen as a great victory for freedom of the press, which emboldened the colonists to speak out more freely against royal policy.
Education and Culture
Boys were the main recipients of the higher education available in the colonies. Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale had been founded in the 1600s to train ministers. Many well-to-do colonists traveled to England to study. New England boasted of good primary and secondary schools, while the South depended more upon private tutors.
Distinguished American painters emerged in the 1700s, most notably John Trumbull, Charles Peale, Benjamin West, and John S. Copley. In literature, Phillis Wheatley, an African American slave, wrote poetry, and Benjamin Franklin published his Poor Richard’s Almanac.
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR (1754–1763)
The problems in Europe and Britain continually impacted the lives of the American colonists. In 1756, when the Seven Years’ War erupted between France and England and their allies, some skirmishes had already taken place in the colonies. Known as the French and Indian War in the colonies, it resulted in France’s removal from Canada, further expanding British domination over North America.
In 1754, George Washington was sent by the Virginia governor to evaluate French strength in the Ohio Valley. Washington and his men shot the French leader and retreated to Fort Necessity, which they had hastily erected. The French returned and captured Washington and his men, who were later released. However, the English retaliated by uprooting the French Acadians and scattering them around the colonies.
In 1754, in another attempt to ward off the French threat, Benjamin Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union, designed as a defensive union for the colonies. The plan was to allow the colonists to raise money from taxes for their defense and to deal with the Indian problems and settlement of western lands. It was rejected by many colonies, which balked at giving up control, particularly of western lands. It was nonetheless a small step toward colonial unity.
The British government sent Major General Edward Braddock, who, along with George Washington, attempted to stop the French threat. Defeated at Fort Duquesne, the British won the war after William Pitt was appointed government minister by King George II in 1757. Pitt fully committed Britain to the war. This strategy was aimed at Canada. Victories at Louisbourg, Quebec, and Montreal removed the French from control of Canada.
In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the French and Indian War. According to the treaty, England received India and all of the land in North America east of the Mississippi River. The French threat to the English colonies in North America had been removed. In addition, Spain, an ally of France, was stripped of Florida (which went to Britain), but it was eventually given New Orleans and Louisiana, including the Mississippi River.
There were several significant results of this war:
• With the French threat gone, the colonists were eager to settle new lands across the Appalachian Mountains. However, this led to problems with Native Americans. In a last-ditch effort to prevent the spread of the settlers across the Appalachians, Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, led an attack against British posts in the Ohio Valley and along the frontier settlements. The Native Americans were eventually defeated by the British military and the settlers. To avoid further problems with the Native Americans, the British government issued the Proclamation of 1763. It prohibited the colonists from settling land beyond the Appalachian Mountains and required those settlers already there to leave. This infuriated the colonists, who defied the proclamation.
• The colonists found that they shared many common interests and goals. On the battlefields and in the taverns where they met, they exchanged information and ideas.
• Britain’s significant struggle to defeat the French proved that it was possible to beat the British.
• The British treasury was depleted, and England looked to the colonies to share some of the burden for the protection it had provided. Many colonists felt no such obligation.
• Valuable military experience was gained by the colonists.
SUMMARY
Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, the colonists adapted to life in the New World. Separated from the watchful eye of the British government by over 3,000 miles of ocean, the colonies emerged as self-reliant, independent-minded entities whose people enjoyed the freedoms that distance provided. The French and Indian War marked a change in the relationship between England and its American colonies. Although proud of their British heritage at the successful completion of the war, the colonists became discontented with British policies they perceived as stunting their growth. The increased involvement of the British in colonial affairs led to the events that culminated in the American Revolution in 1776.
THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Democracy: A system of government in which the power to rule comes from the people
• Direct democracy: A type of democracy in which the people vote on the actions of the government, rather than electing representatives
• Social mobility: A term used to describe the ability of people to move within the social framework of a society; if the social system provides opportunities for a person born into a lower social class to move to an upper one, or vice versa, a characteristic of the society is social mobility
• Universal manhood suffrage: The condition when all male adults in a democracy are granted the right to vote
• Universal suffrage: The condition when all adults in a democracy are granted the right to vote
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. The social structure that emerged in the colonies by 1750 differed from the social structure in Europe in that the colonial social structure
(A) lacked an aristocratic class.
(B) allowed for greater social mobility than in Europe.
(C) included the Native Americans.
(D) placed the clergy in the middle class.
(E) did not include indentured servants.
2. One of the significant effects of the Great Awakening was that it
(A) was a religious revival carried to the colonies from Europe.
(B) led to less competition among churches for worshippers.
(C) led to the founding of Harvard and Princeton.
(D) lessened the influence of the clergy in the colonies.
(E) was led by the American theologian, George Whitefield.
3. The Middle Passage referred to the
(A) crossing of the Atlantic by the Pilgrims.
(B) conversion of people to the “elect” of the Puritan faith.
(C) journey of African slaves from West Africa to the New World.
(D) journey to heaven after death.
(E) transporting of rum across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa as part of Triangular Trade.
4. The trade in slaves, rum, and molasses that took place during the 1700s among the colonies, Africa, and England was called
(A) the Commercial Revolution.
(B) mercantilism.
(C) rum running.
(D) barter.
(E) Triangular Trade.
ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS
1. B
There was greater social mobility in the colonies than in Europe and England, as the environment seemed to serve as an equalizer for people. The greater availability of land in the colonies allowed for more people to acquire property. There was a definite aristocratic class, consisting of the large landowners. The clergy occupied the top of the colonial social pyramid, along with the aristocrats and large landowners; indentured servants were in the lower class in colonial society but were higher than slaves. Native Americans remained outside the colonial social structure.
2. D
The Great Awakening was the religious revival that took place in the colonies during the 1730s and 1740s. It resulted in a split in the clergy between the Old Lights, who were more traditional, and the New Lights, who embraced the religious revivalism of this time. As a result, the congregation began to scrutinize the clergy. The Great Awakening began in the colonies and influenced European theology. More churches were formed as a result of splits among the Congregationalists and Presbyterians. Princeton was founded as a result of the Great Awakening, but Harvard had been founded in 1636, the first American college in the New World. Jonathan Edwards was the American theologian associated with leading the Great Awakening, and George Whitefield was an English clergyman who was responsible for the revivalist type of preaching that occurred during the movement.
3. C
The Middle Passage was the harsh and difficult journey made by Africans who were being shipped to the New World as slaves. Choices (A), (B), and (D) are not related to this question at all. Triangular Trade included the Middle Passage as only part of the process.
4. E
The Triangular Trade involved the exchange of rum from the colonies for slaves in West Africa. Slaves were transported to the West Indies where they were sold for molasses and sugar, which were in turn transported to the colonies to be processed for rum, which was sold in West Africa. The Commercial Revolution took place in Europe, beginning in the 1400s. Mercantilism refers to an economic system in which the colony exists for the good of the mother country; the colony becomes the chief market for goods made by the mother country, while it supplies resources necessary to the mother country. Rum running refers to the sale of rum, usually illegally, and barter is a form of exchange or trade.