The History of the United States Part 4

A.E. McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies (Pennsylvania University Studies).

M.C. Tyler, History of American Literature during the Colonial Times (2 vols.).

Questions

1. Why is leisure necessary for the production of art and literature? How may leisure be secured?

2. Explain the position of the church in colonial life.

3. Contrast the political roles of Puritanism and the Established Church.

4. How did diversity of opinion work for toleration?

5. Show the connection between religion and learning in colonial times.

6. Why is a "free press" such an important thing to American democracy?

7. Relate some of the troubles of early American publishers.

8. Give the undemocratic features of provincial government.

9. How did the colonial a.s.semblies help to create an independent American spirit, in spite of a restricted suffrage?

10. Explain the nature of the contests between the governors and the legislatures.

Research Topics

Religious and Intellectual Life.-Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies: (1) in New England, pp. 418-438, 465-475; (2) in Virginia, pp. 54-61, 87-89; (3) in Pennsylvania, pp. 232-237, 253-257; (4) in New York, pp. 316-321. Interesting source materials in Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, Vol. II, pp. 255-275, 276-290.

The Government of a Royal Province, Virginia.-Lodge, pp. 43-50. Special Reference: E.B. Greene, The Provincial Governor (Harvard Studies).

The Government of a Proprietary Colony, Pennsylvania.-Lodge, pp. 230-232.

Government in New England.-Lodge, pp. 412-417.

The Colonial Press.-Special Reference: G.H. Payne, History of Journalism in the United States (1920).

Colonial Life in General.-John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, pp. 174-269; Elson, History of the United States, pp. 197-210.

Colonial Government in General.-Elson, pp. 210-216.

CHAPTER IV

THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLONIAL NATIONALISM

It is one of the well-known facts of history that a people loosely united by domestic ties of a political and economic nature, even a people torn by domestic strife, may be welded into a solid and compact body by an attack from a foreign power. The imperative call to common defense, the habit of sharing common burdens, the fusing force of common service-these things, induced by the necessity of resisting outside interference, act as an amalgam drawing together all elements, except, perhaps, the most discordant. The presence of the enemy allays the most virulent of quarrels, temporarily at least. "Politics," runs an old saying, "stops at the water's edge."

This ancient political principle, so well understood in diplomatic circles, applied nearly as well to the original thirteen American colonies as to the countries of Europe. The necessity for common defense, if not equally great, was certainly always pressing. Though it has long been the practice to speak of the early settlements as founded in "a wilderness," this was not actually the case. From the earliest days of Jamestown on through the years, the American people were confronted by dangers from without. All about their tiny settlements were Indians, growing more and more hostile as the frontier advanced and as sharp conflicts over land aroused angry pa.s.sions. To the south and west was the power of Spain, humiliated, it is true, by the disaster to the Armada, but still presenting an imposing front to the British empire. To the north and west were the French, ambitious, energetic, imperial in temper, and prepared to contest on land and water the advance of British dominion in America.

Relations with the Indians and the French

Indian Affairs.-It is difficult to make general statements about the relations of the colonists to the Indians. The problem was presented in different shape in different sections of America. It was not handled according to any coherent or uniform plan by the British government, which alone could speak for all the provinces at the same time. Neither did the proprietors and the governors who succeeded one another, in an irregular train, have the consistent policy or the matured experience necessary for dealing wisely with Indian matters. As the difficulties arose mainly on the frontiers, where the restless and pus.h.i.+ng pioneers were making their way with gun and ax, nearly everything that happened was the result of chance rather than of calculation. A personal quarrel between traders and an Indian, a jug of whisky, a keg of gunpowder, the exchange of guns for furs, personal treachery, or a flash of bad temper often set in motion destructive forces of the most terrible character.

On one side of the ledger may be set innumerable generous records-of Squanto and Samoset teaching the Pilgrims the ways of the wilds; of Roger Williams buying his lands from the friendly natives; or of William Penn treating with them on his arrival in America. On the other side of the ledger must be recorded many a cruel and b.l.o.o.d.y conflict as the frontier rolled westward with deadly precision. The Pequots on the Connecticut border, sensing their doom, fell upon the tiny settlements with awful fury in 1637 only to meet with equally terrible punishment. A generation later, King Philip, son of Ma.s.sasoit, the friend of the Pilgrims, called his tribesmen to a war of extermination which brought the strength of all New England to the field and ended in his own destruction. In New York, the relations with the Indians, especially with the Algonquins and the Mohawks, were marked by periodic and desperate wars. Virginia and her Southern neighbors suffered as did New England. In 1622 Opecacano, a brother of Powhatan, the friend of the Jamestown settlers, launched a general ma.s.sacre; and in 1644 he attempted a war of extermination. In 1675 the whole frontier was ablaze. Nathaniel Bacon vainly attempted to stir the colonial governor to put up an adequate defense and, failing in that plea, himself headed a revolt and a successful expedition against the Indians. As the Virginia outposts advanced into the Kentucky country, the strife with the natives was transferred to that "dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground"; while to the southeast, a desperate struggle with the Tuscaroras called forth the combined forces of the two Carolinas and Virginia.

From an old print Virginians Defending Themselves against the Indians From such horrors New Jersey and Delaware were saved on account of their geographical location. Pennsylvania, consistently following a policy of conciliation, was likewise spared until her western vanguard came into full conflict with the allied French and Indians. Georgia, by clever negotiations and treaties of alliance, managed to keep on fair terms with her belligerent Cherokees and Creeks. But neither diplomacy nor generosity could stay the inevitable conflict as the frontier advanced, especially after the French soldiers enlisted the Indians in their imperial enterprises. It was then that desultory fighting became general warfare.

English, French, and Spanish Possessions in America, 1750 Early Relations with the French.-During the first decades of French exploration and settlement in the St. Lawrence country, the English colonies, engrossed with their own problems, gave little or no thought to their distant neighbors. Quebec, founded in 1608, and Montreal, in 1642, were too far away, too small in population, and too slight in strength to be much of a menace to Boston, Hartford, or New York. It was the statesmen in France and England, rather than the colonists in America, who first grasped the significance of the slowly converging empires in North America. It was the ambition of Louis XIV of France, rather than the labors of Jesuit missionaries and French rangers, that sounded the first note of colonial alarm.

Evidence of this lies in the fact that three conflicts between the English and the French occurred before their advancing frontiers met on the Pennsylvania border. King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1701-1713), and King George's War (1744-1748) owed their origins and their endings mainly to the intrigues and rivalries of European powers, although they all involved the American colonies in struggles with the French and their savage allies.

The Clash in the Ohio Valley.-The second of these wars had hardly closed, however, before the English colonists themselves began to be seriously alarmed about the rapidly expanding French dominion in the West. Marquette and Joliet, who opened the Lake region, and La Salle, who in 1682 had gone down the Mississippi to the Gulf, had been followed by the builders of forts. In 1718, the French founded New Orleans, thus taking possession of the gateway to the Mississippi as well as the St. Lawrence. A few years later they built Fort Niagara; in 1731 they occupied Crown Point; in 1749 they formally announced their dominion over all the territory drained by the Ohio River. Having a.s.serted this lofty claim, they set out to make it good by constructing in the years 1752-1754 Fort Le Buf near Lake Erie, Fort Venango on the upper waters of the Allegheny, and Fort Duquesne at the junction of the streams forming the Ohio. Though they were warned by George Was.h.i.+ngton, in the name of the governor of Virginia, to keep out of territory "so notoriously known to be property of the crown of Great Britain," the French showed no signs of relinquis.h.i.+ng their pretensions.

From an old print Braddock's Retreat The Final Phase-the French and Indian War.-Thus it happened that the shot which opened the Seven Years' War, known in America as the French and Indian War, was fired in the wilds of Pennsylvania. There began the conflict that spread to Europe and even Asia and finally involved England and Prussia, on the one side, and France, Austria, Spain, and minor powers on the other. On American soil, the defeat of Braddock in 1755 and Wolfe's exploit in capturing Quebec four years later were the dramatic features. On the continent of Europe, England subsidized Prussian arms to hold France at bay. In India, on the banks of the Ganges, as on the banks of the St. Lawrence, British arms were triumphant. Well could the historian write: "Conquests equaling in rapidity and far surpa.s.sing in magnitude those of Cortes and Pizarro had been achieved in the East." Well could the merchants of London declare that under the administration of William Pitt, the imperial genius of this world-wide conflict, commerce had been "united with and made to flourish by war."

From the point of view of the British empire, the results of the war were momentous. By the peace of 1763, Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, pa.s.sed under the British flag. The remainder of the Louisiana territory was transferred to Spain and French imperial ambitions on the American continent were laid to rest. In exchange for Havana, which the British had seized during the war, Spain ceded to King George the colony of Florida. Not without warrant did Macaulay write in after years that Pitt "was the first Englishman of his time; and he had made England the first country in the world."

The Effects of Warfare on the Colonies

The various wars with the French and the Indians, trivial in detail as they seem to-day, had a profound influence on colonial life and on the destiny of America. Circ.u.mstances beyond the control of popular a.s.semblies, jealous of their individual powers, compelled cooperation among them, grudging and stingy no doubt, but still cooperation. The American people, more eager to be busy in their fields or at their trades, were simply forced to raise and support armies, to learn the arts of warfare, and to practice, if in a small theater, the science of statecraft. These forces, all c.u.mulative, drove the colonists, so tenaciously provincial in their habits, in the direction of nationalism.

The New England Confederation.-It was in their efforts to deal with the problems presented by the Indian and French menace that the Americans took the first steps toward union. Though there were many common ties among the settlers of New England, it required a deadly fear of the Indians to produce in 1643 the New England Confederation, composed of Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. The colonies so united were bound together in "a firm and perpetual league of friends.h.i.+p and amity for offense and defense, mutual service and succor, upon all just occasions." They made provision for distributing the burdens of wars among the members and provided for a congress of commissioners from each colony to determine upon common policies. For some twenty years the Confederation was active and it continued to hold meetings until after the extinction of the Indian peril on the immediate border.

Virginia, no less than Ma.s.sachusetts, was aware of the importance of intercolonial cooperation. In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Old Dominion began treaties of commerce and amity with New York and the colonies of New England. In 1684 delegates from Virginia met at Albany with the agents of New York and Ma.s.sachusetts to discuss problems of mutual defense. A few years later the Old Dominion cooperated loyally with the Carolinas in defending their borders against Indian forays.

The Albany Plan of Union.-An attempt at a general colonial union was made in 1754. On the suggestion of the Lords of Trade in England, a conference was held at Albany to consider Indian relations, to devise measures of defense against the French, and to enter into "articles of union and confederation for the general defense of his Majesty's subjects and interests in North America as well in time of peace as of war." New Hamps.h.i.+re, Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were represented. After a long discussion, a plan of union, drafted mainly, it seems, by Benjamin Franklin, was adopted and sent to the colonies and the crown for approval. The colonies, jealous of their individual rights, refused to accept the scheme and the king disapproved it for the reason, Franklin said, that it had "too much weight in the democratic part of the const.i.tution." Though the Albany union failed, the doc.u.ment is still worthy of study because it forecast many of the perplexing problems that were not solved until thirty-three years afterward, when another convention of which also Franklin was a member drafted the Const.i.tution of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin The Military Education of the Colonists.-The same wars that showed the provincials the meaning of union likewise instructed them in the art of defending their inst.i.tutions. Particularly was this true of the last French and Indian conflict, which stretched all the way from Maine to the Carolinas and made heavy calls upon them all for troops. The answer, it is admitted, was far from satisfactory to the British government and the conduct of the militiamen was far from professional; but thousands of Americans got a taste, a strong taste, of actual fighting in the field. Men like George Was.h.i.+ngton and Daniel Morgan learned lessons that were not forgotten in after years. They saw what American militiamen could do under favorable circ.u.mstances and they watched British regulars operating on American soil. "This whole transaction," shrewdly remarked Franklin of Braddock's campaign, "gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded." It was no mere accident that the Virginia colonel who drew his sword under the elm at Cambridge and took command of the army of the Revolution was the brave officer who had "spurned the whistle of bullets" at the memorable battle in western Pennsylvania.

Financial Burdens and Commercial Disorder.-While the provincials were learning lessons in warfare they were also paying the bills. All the conflicts were costly in treasure as in blood. King Philip's war left New England weak and almost bankrupt. The French and Indian struggle was especially expensive. The twenty-five thousand men put in the field by the colonies were sustained only by huge outlays of money. Paper currency streamed from the press and debts were acc.u.mulated. Commerce was driven from its usual channels and prices were enhanced. When the end came, both England and America were staggering under heavy liabilities, and to make matters worse there was a fall of prices accompanied by a commercial depression which extended over a period of ten years. It was in the midst of this crisis that measures of taxation had to be devised to pay the cost of the war, precipitating the quarrel which led to American independence.

The Expulsion of French Power from North America.-The effects of the defeat administered to France, as time proved, were difficult to estimate. Some British statesmen regarded it as a happy circ.u.mstance that the colonists, already restive under their administration, had no foreign power at hand to aid them in case they struck for independence. American leaders, on the other hand, now that the soldiers of King Louis were driven from the continent, thought that they had no other country to fear if they cast off British sovereignty. At all events, France, though defeated, was not out of the sphere of American influence; for, as events proved, it was the fortunate French alliance negotiated by Franklin that a.s.sured the triumph of American arms in the War of the Revolution.

Colonial Relations with the British Government

It was neither the Indian wars nor the French wars that finally brought forth American nationality. That was the product of the long strife with the mother country which culminated in union for the war of independence. The forces that created this nation did not operate in the colonies alone. The character of the English sovereigns, the course of events in English domestic politics, and English measures of control over the colonies-executive, legislative, and judicial-must all be taken into account.

The Last of the Stuarts.-The struggles between Charles I (1625-49) and the parliamentary party and the turmoil of the Puritan regime (1649-60) so engrossed the attention of Englishmen at home that they had little time to think of colonial policies or to interfere with colonial affairs. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660, accompanied by internal peace and the increasing power of the mercantile cla.s.ses in the House of Commons, changed all that. In the reign of Charles II (1660-85), himself an easy-going person, the policy of regulating trade by act of Parliament was developed into a closely knit system and powerful agencies to supervise the colonies were created. At the same time a system of stricter control over the dominions was ushered in by the annulment of the old charter of Ma.s.sachusetts which conferred so much self-government on the Puritans.

Charles' successor, James II, a man of sterner stuff and jealous of his authority in the colonies as well as at home, continued the policy thus inaugurated and enlarged upon it. If he could have kept his throne, he would have bent the Americans under a harsh rule or brought on in his dominions a revolution like that which he precipitated at home in 1688. He determined to unite the Northern colonies and introduce a more efficient administration based on the pattern of the royal provinces. He made a martinet, Sir Edmund Andros, governor of all New England, New York, and New Jersey. The charter of Ma.s.sachusetts, annulled in the last days of his brother's reign, he continued to ignore, and that of Connecticut would have been seized if it had not been spirited away and hidden, according to tradition, in a hollow oak.

For several months, Andros gave the Northern colonies a taste of ill-tempered despotism. He wrung quit rents from land owners not accustomed to feudal dues; he abrogated t.i.tles to land where, in his opinion, they were unlawful; he forced the Episcopal service upon the Old South Church in Boston; and he denied the writ of habeas corpus to a preacher who denounced taxation without representation. In the middle of his arbitrary course, however, his hand was stayed. The news came that King James had been dethroned by his angry subjects, and the people of Boston, kindling a fire on Beacon Hill, summoned the countryside to dispose of Andros. The response was prompt and hearty. The hated governor was arrested, imprisoned, and sent back across the sea under guard.

The overthrow of James, followed by the accession of William and Mary and by a.s.sured parliamentary supremacy, had an immediate effect in the colonies. The new order was greeted with thanksgiving. Ma.s.sachusetts was given another charter which, though not so liberal as the first, restored the spirit if not the entire letter of self-government. In the other colonies where Andros had been operating, the old course of affairs was resumed.