The “Veneer” of Being English: 18th Century British North

America

The Thirteen Colonies:

British or American?

I. Economic Bonds

A. The Navigation Acts

• After Royal restoration in 1660, the Crown showed more interest in controlling the colonies

• Various motivations for the Navigation Acts

• The components of these Acts

A. The Navigations Acts (cont)

• Resisted or ignored by the colonists at first

• Mixed record on enforcement

• By 1700, the Acts were largely accepted

B. Trade within the Empire

• American per capita income figures remain relatively stable

• 50% of American exports went to England

• 25% of American shipping involved in “carrying trade”, esp. to West Indies

• West Indian trade influenced New England agricultural practices

B. Trade within the Empire (cont.)

• 25% of American shipping involved in intercoastal trade

• Balance of trade turned against the colonists between 1740-1770

• Colonists went deeper into debt, aggravated by two depressions during the 1760’s

• Colonies began issuing paper money as a solution to this crisis

II. Immigrational Bonds

• Population doubled every 25 years in the 18th century = 3% annual growth rate

• By 1790, only half of Americans can trace their heritage to England

• Largest group of immigrants = Scots-Irish

II. Immigrational Bonds (cont)

• Germans migrated from the Upper Rhine Valley

• Immigrants raise suspicions of older English settlers

• Increasing movement into the backcountry

III. Cultural Bonds

• The role of cities in 18th century colonial life

--Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Charles Town, and Newport, R.I.

--important centers of ideas as well as growing centers of poverty

III. Cultural Bonds (cont)

• Colonial American Architecture

-- “Georgian”

--Thomas Chippendale

-- “Saltbox”

III. Cultural Bonds (cont)

• Colonial American Art and Literature--John Singleton Copley

• Colonial American Food and Language-- “Norfolk whine”-- “hoosier”, “redneck”, “cracker”

IV. Political Bonds

• The English System of Government

-- “rotten” boroughs

--Critics = Whig pamphleteers

• American colonial government

• Theory does not match reality

IV. Political Bonds (cont)

• “Rise” of the Colonial Assembly

• Controlled money bills and governor’s salaries

• English law used to protect “English” liberties in colonial America

V. Military Bonds

• The Birth of Georgia

--James Oglethorpe

• Imperial Warfare in America

• King William’s War (1689-1697)

• Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713)

V. Military Bonds (cont)

• King George’s War (1743-1748)

--loss of Louisbourg• The Albany Congress

(1754)• French and Indian

War (1756-1763)

--William Pitt

VI. Intellectual Bonds

A. The American Enlightenment

• The European Enlightenment--Isaac Newton--Voltaire

• American version was more tame in the sense that it did not move as far away from Christianity

• The appeal in Enlightened thinking for Americans was also the emphasis on the practical

A. American Enlightenment (cont)

• Leading American philosophes = Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson--Monticello

• Enlightenment principles are embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution

B. The Great Awakening

• More impact on the common folk than the Enlightenment

• The phases of the Awakening throughout the colonies

• No single sect monopolized the movement while the Anglicans and the Quakers generally opposed it

B. The Great Awakening (cont)

• Begins in Northampton, Massachusetts in the parish of Jonathon Edwards

-- “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

--Sarah Edwards

B. The Great Awakening (cont.)

• Central figure = George Whitefield

--7 trips to America

--orphanage in Georgia

--friend of Franklin

--1st American celebrity

• Turmoil really begins with American itinerants following in Whitefield’s wake

B. The Great Awakening (cont)

• Gilbert Tenant’s sermon “The Dangers of an Unconverted Ministry” (1742)

• “New Lights” vs. “Old Lights”

• Results of the Great Awakening--New Colleges--Impact on the Revolution?