American Colonies 2

02/06/2021 American colonies -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
American colonies
New shapes of colonial development
In the 80 years between 1660 and 1740, three great new forces began to reshape the British
colonies in North America. They were the economic regulations embodied in the Acts of Trade
and Navigation, the partial systematization of imperial administration, and the contest with the
French for dominion over the continent. By the year 1700 the colonists probably numbered
about 250,000 and were increasing at a rate that has seldom been equaled in the history of
Western nations. Immigration, early marriages, the economic value of children in an
agricultural society, and the relatively high level of health sped this growth.
Under the concept of mercantilism generally accepted by western Europe, English economic
policy regarded the colonies as part of an imperial whole which should aim at self-sufficiency
and a favourable trade balance. Each part of the empire had something to give and something
to receive. This policy was first embodied in three Navigation Acts by Parliament in 1651,
1660, and 1663. The law of 1651 provided that all goods imported into England or the colonies
must be carried in ships of which the owner, captain, and crew were English (colonials, of
course, were considered Englishmen). The exception to this rule was that all goods imported
into England and the colonies from Europe might come in ships of the country which produced
the goods. The law of 1660, strengthening the first, required that ships used in carrying goods
in and out of England must be built as well as owned and manned in England or the colonies.
It also required that certain “enumerated articles,” of which sugar, tobacco, and indigo were
the chief, be sold only to England or to other colonies. To give the colonists full control of the
home market, no one could grow tobacco in England or import it from a foreign land. The law
of 1663 was more serious. It stipulated that European goods must be shipped to the colonies
through England and thus made it necessary for many colonial merchants to add an extra leg to
their voyages.
Many colonists attempted to evade these acts. They shipped enumerated articles to Europe
instead of to England, and they imported European goods directly from Europe without
stopping in English ports. New laws of 1673 and 1696 were then passed by Parliament to end
https://www.britannica.com/print/article/669036 1/13
the evasions. Moreover, the list of enumerated articles was lengthened, so that by the year
1721 rice, molasses, naval stores (tar, pitch, and turpentine), furs, and copper, all important to
the colonies, had been placed under control. In 1733 the British Parliament adopted a still
more serious measure, the Molasses Act, which placed heavy duties on all sugar, molasses,
rum, and other spirits imported into the colonies from the French, Dutch, and Spanish
possessions. The object was to restrict trade to the British West Indies. Had it been enforced,
this law would have been disastrous, for the colonies exchanged large quantities of fish,
lumber, meat, and foodstuffs with the foreign islands for these commodities. Fortunately, the
British government winked at the wholesale violations.
Other irksome restrictions on the colonies concerned manufactures, for the mother country
wished to preserve the colonial market for its own industries. The Wool Act of 1699 prohibited
the shipment of woolen fabrics across any colonial boundary. The Hat Act of 1732 similarly
forbade any colony to export its hats and limited the number of apprentices. Late in the
colonial period the Iron Act of 1750 stopped the erection in the colonies of rolling and slitting
mills, forges, and iron-making plants. Like all new communities, the colonies needed a more
abundant currency than they had and wished to print paper money, but the British authorities
feared an inflation which would hurt British creditors and raise the price of colonial exports. In
1751 they therefore forbade the issuance of paper money by New England and in 1764 applied
the ban to the other colonies.
But the mercantilist enactments had many features favourable to the colonies, and in total
effect they were far from harsh. The navigation laws fostered shipbuilding in the colonies. A
number of important American products were given a monopoly of the British market.
Colonial pig iron and bar iron were admitted to Great Britain without duty. British bounties
were paid on the production of naval stores. These facts, coupled with the salutary neglect of
the colonies introduced by Robert Walpole and the nonenforcement of the more onerous laws,
permitted a steady development of American economic life. The colonists meanwhile had the
protection of the British army and navy. Nevertheless, two facts respecting the acts of trade
had their bearing on later events. First, the colonies, like most frontier agricultural
communities, were plainly exploited by the older countries both as a source of low-priced raw
materials and as a market for manufactured wares—and, like other frontier lands, they resented
the fact. Second, widespread law evasion fostered in the colonists a spirit of disobedience and
insubordination.
Imperial organization
Step by step the list of royal provinces lengthened. On the accession of the duke of York to the
throne, the proprietary colony of New York entered the new status and there remained. New
Hampshire became a royal province in 1679. The restoration of the Stuarts put an abrupt stop
to the wide free autonomy of Massachusetts Bay. A royal commission inquired into charges
that the Puritans had violated their charter and disobeyed imperial enactments. Continued
contumacy led Charles II to abrogate the charter in 1684 and take special measures for
governing the colony. Massachusetts, with Maine, New Hampshire, and part of Rhode Island,
was first given a single governor. Then in 1686 Sir Edmund Andros arrived with instructions to
take all of New England, New York, and New Jersey under his jurisdiction as the Dominion of
New England. His arbitrary regime ended, however, with the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89
in England, and Massachusetts Bay by adroit effort obtained from William and Mary a new
charter which incorporated Plymouth in the colony.
By the time of George I, eight of the colonies were royal

provinces. Connecticut and Rhode Island under their old
charters were virtually little republics; Pennsylvania and
Maryland were still under proprietary regimes; and
Georgia struggled along under its trustees until 1752.
zoom_in
Andros, Sir Edmund Some British leaders wished to see all the colonies put
Sir Edmund Andros.
under uniform royal control, but successive ministries
A Memoir of Sir Edmund Andros by
William Henry Whitmore; T.R. MArvin and hung back, unwilling to arouse popular resentment or
Sons, Boston, 1868
increase the power of the crown. All the colonies had
representative assemblies which controlled appropriations and filled many offices and were
usually in sharp opposition to the royal governors or proprietors. Connecticut and Rhode
Island elected their own governors. The colonists had the best of it in these continuous
quarrels, for self-interest gave them more persistence and skill. But representative self-
government did not mean a true democracy. The franchise in all the colonies was on a property
basis, so that the poorest people were unrepresented in the assemblies. Moreover, the oldest
settled seaboard communities saw to it that apportionment of seats favoured them as against
the newer frontier settlements.
In all the royal and proprietary colonies, the assembly attempted to whittle away the powers of
the executive. Using their power of taxation as a lever, they steadily encroached on the
authority of the governor and widened that of the legislature. They seized control of fees on
which the executive depended, turned appointive positions into elective offices, and staged
frequent revolts against the governors’ councils and other “official cliques.” Popular
government thus broadened decade by decade. One province, Pennsylvania, after 1701 had no
legislative council, the assembly controlling all legislation.
Ultimate authority over English America rested in the crown, acting through the secretary of
state and Privy Council. But it was deputed to a succession of committees or boards: first, in
1660, to the Privy Council committee for foreign plantations, then in 1675 to the Privy Council
committee called lords of trade, and finally in 1696 to the commissioners of trade and
plantations, separate from the Privy Council. It was impossible, however, to keep control
highly centralized; it was distributed to various agencies. The treasury board audited whatever
revenues came from the colonies, oversaw expenditures for them, and scrutinized
appointments for the colonial service. The admiralty board dealt with the equipment of the
navy in American waters, the protection of commerce, and the punishment of smugglers. The
war office had control over military affairs within the colonies. The bishop of London
supervised the appointment of clergymen of the Anglican church and watched over their
conduct and the parish schools they helped keep. The Privy Council received letters and
petitions on colonial business, arranged hearings and inquiries, and issued letters, instructions,
and orders in council on a wide variety of subjects. It also acted as a colonial court of appeals.
The administration thus required a considerable bureaucracy. But in time a good deal of the
business was handled directly by the office of one of the secretaries of state in London, without
going before the Privy Council. That is, the cabinet took control; the secretary of state for the
southern department became especially important. Various colonies sent to London agents, like
Benjamin Franklin, or hired some able British subject, such as Edmund Burke, to make sure
their views were effectively presented. In general, imperial administration was loose rather
than strict. The very remoteness of the colonies helped ensure this; to send a letter from
England to New York and get an answer took at least three months. Distance, a tradition of
letting well enough alone, and a belief that the Americans could mind their own affairs capably
combined to make the crown authorities complacent. Until 1760 the colonists possessed
greater political freedom than perhaps any other people on earth. They enjoyed many
privileges and rights that were totally unknown in French and Spanish lands.
Rights in the colonies

zoom_in
Edmund Burke Until 1760 Parliament passed only about 100 statutes in
Edmund Burke, detail of an oil painting
from the studio of Sir Joshua
all relating to the colonies, and most of these dealt with
Reynolds, 1771; in the National military and economic matters. Some of the provinces
Portrait Gallery, London.
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, adopted great parts of the statute law of England, and all
London
of them attached high importance to the English
guarantees of fundamental rights. The English common
law automatically came into force throughout British America. While the crown after 1690
generally required the colonial assemblies to send their acts to England for approval or
disapproval by the king in council, this was not a great hardship. As the 18th century
advanced, the imperial government was concerned primarily with the acquisition of more
colonial territory, the fixing of boundaries, and the maintenance of commercial interests. It also
gave some attention to the Anglican (Episcopal) church and its revenues.
By the end of the colonial period the Puritan or Congregational Church enjoyed establishment
in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Farther south the Anglican church was
established in the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland and in four southern counties of
New York, but its hold in North Carolina and western Virginia was precarious. In the other
colonies, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, church and state were
separated. The discrimination involved in the Congregational and Episcopal establishments did
not mean that religious tolerance suffered. On the contrary, in the 18th century freedom of faith
was much more widely accepted in British America than in most other parts of the world. The
crusading Roger Williams and the liberal William Penn had founded model commonwealths
whose influence was widely felt. The crown, the various proprietors, and important colonial
interests, eager to attract settlers, had encouraged a variety of religious sects: Jews to New
York and Rhode Island; Huguenots to South Carolina and New York; Mennonites, Dunkards,
and other German sects to Pennsylvania; Scotch-Irish Presbyterians to lands all the way from
New Hampshire to North Carolina; and Roman Catholics to Maryland. This variety of
denominations helped keep the religious atmosphere free. In some colonies Jews were barred
from the franchise and from office, but Jews were few in number. In most colonies Roman
Catholics (partly because of fear of the French) lay under some disabilities, but they had far
more freedom than Protestants enjoyed in Roman Catholic lands.
The temper of colonial life was friendly to freedom of thought in every field. Both in New
England and the southern provinces the grip of the established churches was gradually
loosened as the 18th century wore on. Dissenting sects grew rapidly among the common
people and Deism among the intellectuals. Taxation for the establishment of churches naturally
aroused increasing resentment. The religious revival called the Great Awakening, which
reached full force in the 1730s, perhaps indicated that the older churches had failed to provide
the emotional and intellectual nutriment the people needed. It was led in Massachusetts by
Jonathan Edwards, an eloquent Yale graduate whose sermons dealt with faith, sin, and
punishment; in the middle colonies by William Tennent, who came from Scotland to preach
with fervour and to establish a “log college” in Pennsylvania for training other zealous
clergymen; and in Georgia by the indefatigable George Whitefield, who soon began touring
other colonies and cast his spell everywhere over immense audiences. The movement
continued with vigour throughout the 1740s, converted multitudes, and, by strengthening a
spirit of revolt against older forms of religion, gave new strength to the Baptists, to new light
Presbyterianism, and in time to the Methodists headed by John Wesley.
zoom_in
Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards.
© North Wind Picture Archives
zoom_in
Whitefield, George
George Whitefield, engraving by I.
Taylor after a painting by N. Hone.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
keyboard_arrow_left keyboard_arrow_right
The colonists had at least as much freedom of speech, of assembly, and of the press as the
British did at home. When John Peter Zenger allowed a political leader in New York to
criticize the royal governor in his New York Weekly Journal, he was arrested for libel. By a
spirited appeal to the jury the aged but intrepid Andrew Hamilton, an attorney of Philadelphia,
won Zenger’s release on the ground that a fundamental British liberty was at stake. As this
case suggests, America was soon a land of newspapers. By 1765 every colony but Delaware
and New Jersey had at least one, and the whole list numbered 25. Debate in the colonial
assemblies had even fewer inhibitions than in Westminster and was in general fully reported
and discussed. Pamphlet publications increased. Intermarriage among peoples of different
national stocks produced new generations with no firsthand knowledge of Europe who
considered themselves purely American. All the conditions of life in the new country, where
the abundant natural resources could be seized only by determined efforts, encouraged a spirit
of individual enterprise which chafed at restraints.
The contest with France

zoom_in
New York Weekly Journal Competing claims in North America
Page from John Peter Zenger's New
York Weekly Journal. It was inevitable that Great Britain and France should
wage a struggle for mastery in North America. Two
powers could not occupy the same land without a desperate battle for supremacy. In its
century-long course and its far-reaching consequences, this became one of the epic contests of
modern history. It was a protracted war between two peoples, two cultures, and two sets of
political and religious institutions. Fought out with the deep wilderness as the setting and
background and involving the Native American tribes as participants on both sides, its
marches, sieges, and battles have a picturesqueness seldom found in modern war. It produced
leaders of high character and ability: Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de Frontenac,
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Grozon, marquis de Montcalm
on the French side, and James Wolfe, Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, John Forbes, and
George Washington among the Anglo-Americans.
Led by Samuel de Champlain and by Jesuit, Recollect, and Franciscan churchmen, the French
strove with little success in the first half of the 17th century to develop Canada as a colony.
Seeking fish, furs, and converts in a chilly, difficult land, they failed to plant strong agricultural
settlements. The despotic if paternal government in Paris kept the colonists under tight rein
instead of encouraging self-government and individual initiative based on the English model; it
refused to allow any but Roman Catholics to immigrate instead of inviting persons of all faiths.
By 1660 only a few thousand French were settled in all of Canada. But when Louis XIV came
to the throne, he showed an intelligent interest in New France. His government sent out
shiploads of emigrants, gave generous subsidies, encouraged exploration, and helped fur
traders and missionaries carry French influence through the Great Lakes region. In 1659 the
first bishop, François de Montmorency Laval, an able, iron-willed man, arrived in Quebec,
determined to make the church dominant in a livelier, more energetic colony.
Then in the last quarter of the century the greatest of the French
zoom_in governors, the count de Frontenac, made New France a genuine
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain. threat to English America. During his regime, which with one
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
short interval lasted from 1672 to 1698, the great explorations of
Jacques Marquette, René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, and Louis Jolliet opened the way
into the West. They mapped much of the upper Mississippi and Ohio valleys; La Salle
descended the Mississippi to its mouth and penetrated Texas. Two other explorers, Pierre-
Esprit Radisson, and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers, entered the country beyond Lake
Superior. Frontenac, with characteristic ability and determination, asserted the authority of the
secular arm over the church. The hostile Iroquois had practically wiped out the friendly Huron
and Erie tribes among whom the Jesuits had made their best converts. Frontenac chastised the
Iroquois and temporarily broke their strength. As New France expanded, the English became
alarmed. In Europe the Stuarts, subservient to the French crown, made way in 1688 for
William and Mary; and William III, who had defended the Netherlands against the attacks of
Louis XIV, was ready to continue hostilities. The conflict at once spread to North America,
where it was called King William’s War (1689–97).
In this first round of the long conflict, neither side accomplished much. Enlisting Indian allies
in a ruthless campaign, the French raided the English colonies from Schenectady, New York,
to Haverhill, Massachusetts, and along the Maine coast. In return the English organized an
expedition which captured Port Royal in Acadia (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia), and
sent a fleet of 34 ships under Sir William Phips which disastrously failed to take Quebec. The
final Treaty of Rijswijk left matters just as they had previously stood. After a brief breathing
space, Queen Anne’s War (1702–13), contemporaneous with the War of Spanish Succession in
Europe (1701–14), followed. While John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, won his brilliant
victories in Europe, hostilities ran their former course in America. The French once more
conducted raids with the Indians on exposed settlements; the Anglo-American forces once
more retaliated with descents on Canada. While a new expedition against Quebec again failed,
this time by shipwreck, New England troops and British marines recaptured Port Royal. But
this time the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) gave the British Empire great gains: in Europe, Gibraltar
and Minorca; in America, Acadia, Newfoundland, and a great belt of territory surrounding
Hudson Bay.
The final test of strength lay not far ahead. In preparation

zoom_in the French set up a belt of forts around British America.
Battle of Blenheim
John Churchill, 1st duke of They had founded Mobile, Alabama, in 1702, and
Marlborough, leading a cavalry charge
(centre) against the French, with the
established New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1718. They
support of Prince Eugene of Savoy connected these Gulf ports with Quebec by nine
(right foreground, with sword), in the
Battle of Blenheim, August 13, 1704, important posts. Fort Chartres on the Mississippi
during the War of the Spanish
opposite St. Louis, Missouri; Vincennes and French Fort
Succession; from an engraving by Jan
van Huchtenburg. on the Wabash River; Fort Miami on the Maumee River;
Photos.com/Getty Images
Fort St. Joseph near the lower tip of Lake Michigan;
Michilimackinac and Sainte Marie on the upper lakes; Detroit, guarding Lake Huron; and
Niagara, guarding Lake Erie. Thus New France possessed itself of the heart of the continent,
confining British America to the seaboard. When a new conflict broke out, King George’s War
(1744–48), the American phase of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), the French
maintained their vital positions. They had built a strong fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton
Island to guard the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and it sheltered privateers who harried
New England commerce. Gathering all their energies, the New Englanders under William
Pepperrell astonished everyone by capturing it. This was a brilliant feat. When peace was
made, however, Great Britain returned Louisbourg to France.
Once more the French took steps to strengthen their position.

zoom_in Laying claim to the whole Ohio Valley, they built a new chain
New France
New France, 16th–18th century. of forts from what is now Erie, Pennsylvania (Presque-Isle), to
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
the Allegheny River. This was an area in which Anglo-
American fur traders and land companies had a strong interest. When the French warned
British traders away from the country, Gov. Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia sent George
Washington to tell the French in turn to keep off and to build a fort on the site of present-day
Pittsburgh. The sequel was the capture of the site by the French, their erection of Fort
Duquesne, and a clash between French troops and Virginia militia under Washington. Thus
opened the final conflict of the two empires in North America.
The French and Indian War
The French had certain advantages in this hard-fought struggle, which became known as the
French and Indian War (1754–63) in America and the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) in Europe.
France was more populous than Great Britain, with larger military forces, and theoretically
could send over greater armies. The highly centralized government of New France could wage
hostilities more efficiently than the loosely associated colonies under 13 different
governments. The strategically placed French forts were an important asset. But in the end the
British colonies were certain of victory. They had a population by 1754 of about 1,500,000,
which was 15 times as great as that of New France. They held a superior strategic position;
operating from inside lines, they could strike at almost any point in the long, thinly peopled
French crescent extending from Louisbourg to New Orleans. The British navy, superior to the
French, could better reinforce and supply the armies and could lay siege to the ports of New
France. Finally, both Britain and British America excelled in leadership. William Pitt the
Elder, as prime minister of Great Britain, proved himself a greater statesman than anyone in
France; James Wolfe, Jeffery Amherst, and William Howe were a trio of generals the French
could not equal; and such colonial officers as George Washington and Phineas Lyman showed
real ability.
At first the war went badly for the Anglo-American

zoom_in effort. Expeditions in 1755 against the French forts at
During the French and Indian War,
Edward Braddock's British and Niagara and at Crown Point on Lake Champlain broke
colonial troops are massacred along
the Monongahela River in 1755. down. An army marching under Gen. Edward Braddock
MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images to seize Fort Duquesne fell into an ambush and was
almost destroyed, with the death of its commander. The
next year a brilliant French soldier, the marquis de Montcalm, arrived and gave his forces new
energy and organization. He at once captured the British post at Oswego on Lake Ontario,
while in 1757 he took Fort William Henry at the southern tip of Lake George. Later he
defeated a British attempt to invade New France by way of Ticonderoga and Lake Champlain.
But after Pitt flung himself into the tasks of war with
zoom_in enthusiasm and vision, the current changed its course. He
Braddock, Edward
The mortally wounded Gen. Edward mobilized the army and navy on a scale never before
Braddock retreating with his army after
being attacked by French and Indian
seen in America. He obtained from the colonial
forces near Fort Duquesne on July 9, governments, impressed at last with the gravity of the
1755.
SOTK2011/Alamy contest, a new degree of cooperation. In 1758 a three-
pronged plan of campaign was pushed with adequate
resources, able generals, and indomitable determination. Gen. John Forbes cut a road across
Pennsylvania and seized Fort Duquesne, evacuated by the French; Amherst took the fortress of
Louisbourg for the second and last time; and other troops took possession of outposts on the
Ohio River. In the summer of 1759 came the decisive stroke of the war in America. General
Wolfe, after two months of unsuccessful siege at Quebec, found a path up the cliffs, led 4,500
troops up under cover of night, and at dawn on September 13 confronted Montcalm on the
Plains of Abraham commanding the city. Wolfe died in battle, but not before he heard that the
French were in flight. Montcalm was borne back mortally wounded during the rout. The
capture of Quebec decided the campaign, the war, and the fate of New France. The next year
Montreal fell to Amherst.
zoom_in
French and Indian War
In 1759, during the French and Indian
War, British troops landed upstream
from Quebec and defeated the French
troops on the Plains of Abraham.
zoom_in
Abraham, Plains of
Cannon displayed at Battlefields Park
on the Plains of Abraham, Quebec
city, Can.
© Marcos Carvalho/Shutterstock.com
zoom_in
death of the marquis de
Montcalm
French military leader the marquis de
Montcalm dying during the Battle of
Quebec, in the French and Indian War,
1759.
The New York Public Library Digital
Collection (b13504202)
keyboard_arrow_left keyboard_arrow_right
The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave Great Britain all the French possessions in America east of the
Mississippi save two small fishing islands and the island of New Orleans. Spain, which had
entered the war, ceded Florida to Great Britain. The whole eastern half of the continent—
except for New Orleans, which France turned over to Spain—became part of the British
Empire. It was a matter of great and almost immediate concern to Americans that Louisiana
and all French claims west of the Mississippi were ceded to Spain. The British during the war
had captured Cuba and the Philippines from the Spaniards; the fact that they were quietly
returned to Spain would in time also concern American policy. But the greatest fact of all was
that for the moment the colonies seemed free from all threat of aggression.
Citation Information
Article Title:
American colonies
Website Name:
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher:
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published:
02 March 2020
URL:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-colonies
Access Date:
June 02, 2021

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02/06/2021 American colonies -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

By the time of George I, eight of the colonies were royal

Rights in the colonies

The contest with France

The final test of strength lay not far ahead. In preparation

Once more the French took steps to strengthen their position.

The French and Indian War

At first the war went badly for the Anglo-American

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