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The Colonial Period

The early 1600s saw the beginning of a great tide of emigration from Europe to North America. spanning more than three centuries, this movement grew from a trickle of a few hundred English colonists to a floodtide of newcomers numbered in the millions. Impelled by powerful and diverse motivations, they built a new civilization on a once savage continent.

The first English immigrants to what is now the United States crossed the Atlantic long after thriving Spanish colonies had been established in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America. Like all early travelers to the New World, they came in small, overcrowded ships. during their six- to twelve-week voyages they lived on meager rations. Many of them died of disease; ships were often battered by storms, and some were lost at sea.

To the weary voyager the sight of the American shore brought immense relief. Said one chronicler: “The air at 12 leagues’ distance smelt as sweet as a new-blown garden.” The colonists’ first glimpse of the new land was a vista of dense woods. True, the woods were inhabited by Indians, many of whom were hostile, and the threat of Indian attack would add to the hardships of daily life. But the vast, virgin forests, extending nearly 2,100 kilometers along the eastern seaboard from north to south, would prove to be a treasure-house, providing abundant food, fuel, and a rich source of raw materials for houses, furniture, ships, and profitable cargoes for export.

The first permanent English settlement in America was a trading post founded in 1607 at Jamestown, in the Old Dominion of Virginia. This region was soon to develop a flourishing economy from its tobacco crop, which found a ready market in England. By 1620, when women were recruited in England to come to Virginia, marry, and make their homes, great plantations had already risen along the James River, and the population had increased to a thousand settlers.

The Land is settled

Though the new continent was remarkably endowed by nature, trade with Europe was vital for the import of articles the settlers could not yet produce. The coastline served the immigrants well. The whole length of shore provided innumerable inlets and harbors. Only two areas―North Carolina and southern New Jersey―lacked harbors for ocean-going vessels.

Majestic rivers―the Kennebec, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, and numerous others―linked the coastal plain and the ports with Europe. Only one river, however―the St. Lawrence, dominated by the French in Canada―offered a water passage into the heart of the continent. Dense forests and the formidable barrier of the Appalachian Mountains discouraged settlement beyond the coastal plain. Only trappers and traders plunged into the wilderness. For a hundred years the colonists built their settlements compactly along the coast.

The colonies were self-sufficient communities with their own outlets to the sea. Each colony became a separate entity, marked by a strong individuality. But despite this individualism, problems of commerce, navigation, manufacturing, and currency cut across colonial boundaries and necessitated common regulations which, after independence from England was won, led to federation.

The coming of colonists in the 17th century entailed careful planning and management, as well as considerable expense and risk. Settlers had to be transported nearly 5,000 kilometers across the sea. They needed utensils, clothing, seed, tools, building materials, livestock, arms, and ammunition. In contrast to the colonization policies of other countries and other periods, the emigration from England was not sponsored by the government but by private groups of individuals whose chief motive was profit.

Two colonies, Virginia and Massachusetts, were founded by chartered companies whose funds, provided by investors, were used to equip, transport, and maintain the colonists.

In the case of the New Haven colony (later a part of the colony of Connecticut), well-to-do emigrants themselves financed the transport and equipment of their families and servants. Other settlements―New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, the Carolinas, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania―originally belonged to proprietors, members of the English gentry or nobility who, as land lords, advanced funds for settling tenants and servants upon lands granted to them by the King.

Charles I, for instance, granted to Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore) and his heirs approximately 2,800,000 hectares that were later to become the state of Maryland. Charles II dispensed grants that were to become the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. Technically, the proprietors and chartered companies were the King's tenants, but they made only token payments for their lands. Thus, Lord Baltimore gave the King two Indian arrowheads each year, and William Penn gave him two beaver skins.

The thirteen colonies that eventually became the United States were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The individual colonies reflected their varying origins. Several were simply off-shoots of other settlements: Rhode Island and Connecticut were founded by people form Massachusetts, the mother-colony of all New England. Georgia was established for benevolent and practical reasons by James Edward Oglethorpe and a few colleagues whose plan was to release imprisoned debtors from English jails and send them to America to establish a colony that would serve as a bulwark against the Spaniards to the south. The colony of New Netherland, founded in 1621 by the Dutch, came under English rule in 1664 and was renamed New York.

Most European emigrants left their homelands for greater economic opportunity―an urge frequently reinforced by the yearning for religious freedom, or a determination to flee from political oppression. Between 1620 and 1635 economic difficulties swept England. Many people could not find work. Even skilled artisans could earn little more than a bare living. Bad crops added to the distress. In addition, England's expanding woolen industry demanded an ever-increasing supply of wool to keep the looms running, and sheep-raiser began to encroach on soil hitherto given over to farming.

The search for religious and political freedom

During the religious upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries, a body of men and women called Puritans sought to reform the Established Church of England from within. Essentially, they demanded more complete protestantization of the national church and advocated simpler forms of faith and worship. Their reformist ideas, by destroying the unity of the state church, threatened to divide the people and to undermine royal authority.

During the reign of James I, a small group of Separatists―a radical sect, mostly humble country folk who did not believe the Established Church could ever be reformed to their liking―departed for Leyden, Holland, where they were allowed to practice their religion as they wished. Later, some members of this Leyden congregation, who became known as the "Pilgrims," decided to emigrate to the New World, where, in 1620, they founded the colony of Plymouth.

Soon after Charles I ascended the throne in 1625, Puritan leaders in England were subjected to what they viewed as increasing persecution. Several ministers who were no longer allowed to preach joined the Pilgrims in America, accompanied by their followers. Unlike their earlier emigrants, this second group, which established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, included many persons of substantial wealth and position. By the end of the next decade, a Puritan stamp had been placed upon a half-dozen English colonies.

But the Puritans were not the only colonists driven by religious motives. Dissatisfaction with their lot in England led William Penn and his fellow Quakers to undertake the founding of Pennsylvania. Similar concern for English Catholics was a factor in Cecil Calvert's founding of Maryland. And in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, many colonists―dissidents from Germany and Ireland―sought greater religious freedom as well as economic opportunity.

Political considerations also influenced many people to move to America. in the 1630s, arbitrary rule by England's Charles I gave impetus to the migration to the New World. And the subsequent revolt and triumph of Charles' opponents under Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s led many cavaliers―"King's men"―to cast their lot in Virginia. In Germany, the oppressive policies of various petty princes, particularly with regard to religion, and the devastation caused by a long series of wars helped swell the movement to America in the late 17th and the18th centuries.

In some instances, men and women with little active interest in a new life in America were induced to make the move by the skillful persuasion of promoters. William Penn publicized the opportunities awaiting newcomers to the Pennsylvania colony. Ships' captains, who received large rewards from the sale of service contracts of poor migrants, used every method from extravagant promises to actual kidnapping to embark as many passengers as their vessels could hold. Judges and prison authorities were encouraged to offer convicts a chance to migrate to America instead of serving prison sentences.

Few Were Able to Pay their Way

Relatively few colonists could finance the cost of passage for themselves and their families and of making a start in the new land. For those who could not, the expenses of transportation and maintenance were paid by colonizing agencies like the Virginia Company and the Massachusetts Bay Company. In return, the settlers agreed to work for the agencies as contract laborers. Many who came to the New World under this arrangement soon discovered that, since they were expected to remain servants or tenants, they were no better off than if they had stayed at home.

In time, the system proved a handicap to successful colonization, and a new way was found to attract settlers to America. Companies, proprietors, and individual families entered into negotiable contracts with prospective settlers who, in exchange for passage and maintenance, bound themselves to labor for the contract-holder for a limited time―usually form four to seven years. Free at the end of this term, such settlers would be given "freedom dues," sometimes including a small tract of land.

It has been estimated that half the settlers living in the colonies south of New England came to America under this system, as "indentured servants." Although most of them fulfilled their obligations faithfully, some ran away from their employers. Nevertheless, many of these too were able to secure land and set up homesteads, either in the colonies in which they had originally settled or in neighboring ones.

No social stigma was attached to a family that had its beginning in America under this semi-bondage. Every colony had its share of leaders who were former indentured servants.

Most of the settlers who came to America in the 17th century were English, but there was a sprinkling of Dutch, Swedes, and Germans in the middle region, a few French Huguenots in South Carolina and elsewhere, and a scattering of Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese. Still, non-English settlers represented barely 10 per cent of the total.

Many Cultures Blend

After 1680, large numbers of immigrants came from Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, and France; and England ceased to be the chief source of immigration. Again, the new settlers came for various reasons. Thousands fled from Germany to escape the path of war. Many left Ireland to avoid the poverty induced by government oppression and absenctee-landlordism, and from Scotland and Switzerland, too, people came fleeing the specter of poverty. By 1690, the American population had risen to a quarter of a million. From then on, it doubled every 25 years until, in 1775, it numbered more than two and a half million.

For the most part, non-English colonists adapted themselves t the culture of the original settlers. But this did not mean that all settlers transformed themselves into Englishmen. True, they adopted the English language and law and many English customs, but only as these had been modified by conditions in America. the result was a unique culture−a blend of English and continental European conditioned by the environment of the New World.

Although a man and his family could move from Massachusetts to Virginia, or from South Carolina to Pennsylvania, without making many basic readustments, distinctions between individual colonies were marked. They were even more marked between regional groups of colonies.

The settlements fell into fairly well-defined sections determined by geography. In the south, with its warm climate and fertile soil, a predominately agrarian society developed. New England in the northeast, a glaciated area strewn with boulders, was inferior farm country, with generally thin, stony soil, relatively little level land, short summers, and long winters. Turning to other pursuits, the New Englanders harnessed water power and established gristmills and sawmills. Good stands of timber encouraged shipbuilding. Excellent harbors promoted trade, and the sea became a source of great wealth. In Massachusetts, the cod industry alone quickly furnished a basis for prosperity.

Settling in villages and towns around the harbors, New Englanders quickly adopted an urban existence, many of them carrying on some trade or business. Common pastueland and common wood-lots served the needs of townspeople, who worked small farms nearby. Compactness made possible the village school, the village church, and the village or town hall, where citizens met to discuss matters of common interest. Sharing hardships, cultivating the same rocky soil, pursuing simple trades and crafts, New Englanders rapidly acquired characteristics that marked them as a self-reliant, independent people.

These qualities ahd manifested themselves in the 102 sea-weary Pilgrims who first landed on the peninsula of Cape Cod, projecting into the Atlantic from southeastern Massachusetts. They had sailed to America under the auspices of the London (Virginia) Company and were thus intended for settlement in Virninia, but their ship, the Mayflower, made its landfall far to the north. After some weeks of exploring, the colonists decided not to make the trip to Virginia but to remain where they were. They chose the area near Plymouth harbor as a site for their colony, and though the rigors of the first winter were severe, the settlement survived.

Strict Religion Rules New England

Even while Plymouth struggled for existence, other settlements were founded nearby. The one that occupied the Massachusetts Bay region (Boston) after 1630 played a significant part in the development of all New England. Established by 25 men who had obtained a royal charter and led by Governor John Winthrop, the Massachusetts Bay settlers were determined to succeed and promptly turned to the stern business of making a living.

Within the first 10 years 65 preachers arrived, and the development of a theocracy in Massachusetts took place as a consequence of its leaders' deep convictions. In theory, church and state were separate, but actually they were one, all institutions being subordinated to religion. Soon a system of government that was theocratic and authoritarian evolved. At town meetings, however, there was opportunity for discussion of public problems, and settlers received a certain amount of experience in self-government. Although the towns developed around the church organization, the whole population, by the very exigencies of frontier life, shared in vicil obligations. Still, for years, the clergy and conservative laymen attempted to maintain conformity.

They did not succeed in binding the minds of all their citizens. Roger Williams, a rebellious clergyman, questioned both the right of taking the Indians' land and the wisdom of keeping church and state united. For spreading his "new and dangerous opinion against the authority of the magistrates," he was banished from the colony by the general court. He found refuge among friendly Indians in neighboring Rhode Island and soon established a colony there based on the concepts that men might worship as they wished and that church and state would be forever separate.

But heretics were not the only ones who left Massachusetts. Orthodox Puritans too, seeking better lands and opportunities, made their way from the colony. News of the fertility of the Connecticut River Vallery, for instance, attracted the interest of farmers having a difficult time with poor land; many were ready to brave the danger of Indian attack to obtain level ground and deep rich soil. Significantly, such groups, in setting up a government, extended the franchise by eliminating church membership as a prerequisite for voting. Other Massachusetts settlers filtered into the region to the north, and soon New Hampshire and Maine were colonized by men and women seeking liberty and land.

While the Massachusetts Bay Coony was indirectly extending its influence, it was growing apace at home and expanding its commerce. From the middle of the century onward, it grew prosperous, and Boston became one of America's greatest ports. Oak timber for ships' hulls, tall pines for spars and masts, and pitch for the seams of ships came from the northeastern forests. Building their own vessels and sailing them to ports all over the world, the shipmasters of Massachusetts Bay laid the foundation for a trade that was to grow steadily in importance. By the end of the colonial period, one-third of all vessels under the British flag were American-built. Surplus food products, ship's stores, and wooden ware swelled the exports. New England shippers soon discovered, too, that rum and slaves were profitable commodities.

Society in the middle colonies, the second great division, was far more varied, cosmopolitan, and tolerant than in New England. Pennsylvania and its appendage, Delaware, owed their initial success to William Penn, a Quaker whose aim was to attract settlers of numerous faiths and nationalities. Determined that the colony should set an example of fair and honest dealing with the Indians, Penn negotiated an agreement which, scrupulously observed, maintained peace in the wilderness.

The colony functioned smoothly and grew rapidly. Within a year after Penn's arrival 3,000 new citizens came to Pennsylvania. The heart of the colony was Philadelphia, a city soon to be known for its broad, tree-shaded streets, substantial brick and stone houses, and busy docks. By the end of the colonial period, 30,000 people, representing many languages, creeds, and traders, lived there. The Quakers, with their talent for successful business enterprise, had made the city one of the thriving centers of colonial America.

Though the Quakers dominated in Philadelphia, elsewhere in Pennsylvania other strains were well represented. Germans became the colony's most skillful farmers. Important, too, was their knowledge of cottage industries―weaving, shoemaking, cabinetmaking, and other crafts. Pennsylvania was also able the principal gateway into the New World for immigrating Scotch-Irish. These were vigorous frontiersmen, taking land where they wanted it and defending their rights with rifles. Believing in representative government, religion, and education, they were the spearhead of a new civilization as they pushed ever farther into the hinterland.

Mixed as were the people in Pennsylvania, it was in New York that the polyglot nature of America was best illustrated. By 1646, the population along the Hudson River included Dutch, Flemings, Walloons, French, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, English, Scots, Irish, Germans Poles, Bohemians, Portuguese, and Italians―the forerunners of millions to come.

Dutch Influences Remain

The Dutch possessed New Netherland, later to be called New York, for 40 years. But they were not a migrating people. Colonizing offered them neither political nor religious advantages that they did not already enjoy in Holland. In addition, the Dutch West India Company found it difficult to retain competent officials to administer the colony. In 1664, with a revival of British interest in colonial activity, the Dutch settlement was taken by conquest. Long after this, however, the Dutch continued to exercise an important social and economic influence. Their sharp-stepped, gable roofs became a permanent part of the scene, and their merchants gave the city its bustling commercial atmosphere.

The Dutch also gave New York a style of life quite different from that in Puritan Boston. In New York, holidays were marked by feasting and merrymaking. And many Dutch traditions―such as calling on one's neighbors on New Year's Day and celebrating the visit of Saint Nicholas at Christmastime―survived for many years.

With the transfer from Dutch authority, an English administrator, Richard Nicolls, set about remodeling the legal structure of New York. He did this to gradually and with such wisdom that he won the respect of Dutch as well as English. Town governments had the autonomous characteristics of New England towns, and in a few years there was a workable fusion between residual Dutchlaw and customs and English practices.

By 1696 nearly 30,000 people lived in the province of New York. In the rich valleys of the Hudson, Mohawk, and other rivers, great estates flourished. Tenant farmers and small independent farmers contributed to the agricultural development of the region. Rolling grasslands supplied feed for cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs; tobacco and flax were planted; and fruits, especially apples, grew in abundance. The fur trade also contributed to the growth of the colony. From Albany, 232 kilometers north of New York City, the Hudson River was a convenient waterway for shipping furs to the busy port.

Agriculture Rules the South

In contrast to New England and the middle colonies were the predominantly rural southern settlements, Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Jamestown, in Virginia, was the first English colony to survive in the New World. Late in December 1606, a group of about a hundred men, sponsored by a Lond colonizing company, had set out in search of great adventure. They dreamed of finding gold; homes in the wilderness were not their goal. Among them, Captain John Smith emerged as the dominant figure, and despite quarrels, starvation, and Indian attacks, his will held the little colony together through the first years.

In the earliest days, the promoting company, eager for quick returns, required the colonists to concentrate on producing lumber and other products for sale in the London market, instead of permitting them to plant crops for their own subsistence. After a few disastrous years the company eased its requirements and distributed land to the colonists.

In 1612, a development occurred that revolutionized the economy of Virginia. This was the discovery of a method of curing Virginia tobacco to make it palatable to the European taste. The first shipment of this tobacco reached London in 1614, and within a decade it had become Virginia's chief source of revenue.

The cultivation of tobacco exhausted the soil after several crops. Breaking new ground, planters scattered up and down the numerous waterways. No towns dotted the region, and even Jamestown, the capital, had only a few houses.

Though most settlers had come to Virginia to improve their economic position, in Maryland, the neighboring colony, religious as well as economic motives led to settlement. While seeking to establish a refuge for Catholics there, the Calvert family was also interested in creating estates that would bring profits. To that end, and to avoid trouble with the British government, the Calverts encouraged Protestant as well as Catholic immigration.

In social structure and in government the Calverts tried to make Maryland an aristocratic land in the ancient tradition, which they aspired to rule with all the prerogatives of kings. But the spirit of independence ran strong in this frontier society. In Maryland, as in the other colonies, the authorities could not circumvent the settlers' stubborn insistence on the guarantees of personal liberty established by English common law and the natural rights of subjects to participate in government through representative assemblies.

Maryland developed an economy very similar to that of Virginia. Devoted to agriculture with a dominant tidewater class of great planters, both colonies had a back country into which yeomen farmers steadily filtered. Both suffered the handicaps of a one-crop system. And before the midpoint of the 18th century, both were profoundly affected by black slavery.

In these two colonies the wealthy planters took their social responsibilities seriously, serving as justices of the peace, colonels of the militia, and members of the legislative assemblies. But yeomen farmers also sat in popular assemblies and found their way into political office. Their outspoken independence was a constant warning to the oligarchy of planters not to encroach too far upon the rights of free men.

By the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the social structure in Maryland and Virginia had taken on the qualities it would retain until the Civil War. Supported by slave labor, the planters held most of the political power and the best land, built great houses, adopted an aristocratic way of life, and kept in touch with the world of culture overseas. Next in the socioeconomic scale were the farmers, placing their hope for prosperity in the fresh soil of the back country. Least prosperous were the small farmers, struggling for existence in competition with slave-owning planters. In neither Virginia nor Maryland did a large trading class develop, for the planters themselves traded directly with London.

It was reserved for the Carolinas, with Charleston as the leading port, to develop into the trading center of the south. There the settlers quickly learned to combine agriculture and commerce, and the marketplace became a major source of prosperity. Dense forests also brought revenue; lumber, tar, and resin from the long-leaf pine provided some of the best shipbuilding materials in the world. Not bound to a single crop as was Virginia, the Carolinas also produced and exported rice and indigo. By 1750, more than 100,000 people lived in the two colonies of North and South Carolina.

In the south, as everywhere else in the colonies, the growth of the back country had special significance. Men seeking greater freedom than could be found in the original tidewater settlements pushed inland. Those who could not secure fertile land along the coast, or who had exhausted the lands they held, found the hills farther west a bountiful refuge. Soon the interior was dotted with thriving farms. Humble farmers were not the only ones who found the hinterland attractive. Peter Jefferson, for example, an enterprising surveyor―father of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States―settled in the hill country by acquiring 160 hectares of land for a bowl of punch.

Living on the edge of the Indian country, making their cabins their fortresses, and relying on their own sharp eyes and trusty muskets, frontiersmen became, of necessity, a sturdy, self-reliant people. They cleared tracts in the wilderness, burned the brush, and cultivated maize and wheat among the stumps. The men wore buckskin, the women garments of cloth they had spun at home. Their food was venison, wild turkey, and fish. They had their own amusements―great barbecues, housewarmings for newly married couples, shooting matches, and contests where quilted blankets were made.

Schooling and culture flourish

Already lines of cleavage were discernible between the settled regions of the Atlantic seaboard and the inland regions. Men from the back country made their voices heard in political debate, combatting the inertia of custom and convention. A powerful force deterring authorities in the older communities from obstructing progress and change was the fact that anyone in an established colony could easily find a new home on the frontier. Thus, time after time, dominant tidewater figures were obliged, by the threat of a mass exodus to the frontier, to liberalize political policies, land-grant requirements, and religious practices. Complacency could have small place in the vigorous society generated by an expanding country. The movement into the foothills was of tremendous import for the future of America.

Of equal significance for the future were the foundations of American education and culture established in the colonial period. Harvard College was founded in 1636 in Massachusetts. Near the end of the century, the College of William and Mary was established in Virginia. A few years later, the Collegiate School of Connecticut (later to become Yale College) was chartered. But even more noteworthy was the growth of a school system maintained by governmental authority. In 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony, followed shortly by all the other New England colonies except Rhode Island, provided for compulsory elementary education.

In the south, the farms and plantations were so widely separated that community schools like those in the more compact northern settlements were impossible. Some planters joined with their nearest neighbors and hired tutors for their children; other children were sent to England for schooling.

In the middle colonies, the situation varied. Too busy with material progress to pay much attention to educational matters, New York lagged far behind. Schools were poor, and only sporadic efforts were made by the royal government to provide public facilities. The College of New Jersey at Princeton, King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City, and Queen's College (now Rutgers) in New Brunswick, New Jersey, were not established until the middle of the 18th century.

One of the most enterprising of the colonies educationally was Pennsylvania. The first school there, begun in 1683, taught reading, writing, and keeping of accounts. Thereafter, in some fashion, every Quaker community provided for the elementary teaching of its children. More advanced training―in classical languages, history, literature―was offered at the Friends Public School, which still operates in Philadelphia as the William Penn Charter School. The school was free to the poor, but parents who could were req2uired to pay tuition.

In Philadelphia, numerous private schools with no religious affiliation taught languages, mathematics, and natural science, and there were night schools for adults. Women were not entirely overlooked, for private teachers instructed the daughters of prosperous Philadelphians in French, music, dancing, painting, singing, grammar, and sometimes even bookkeeping.

The intellectual and cultural development of Pennsylvania reflected, in large measure, the vigorous personalities of two men: James Logan and Benjamin Franklin. Logan was secretary of the colony, and it was in his fine library that young Franklin found the latest scientific works. In 1745, Logan erected a building for his collection and bequeathed both building and books to the city. Franklin contributed even more to the intellectual activity of Philadelphia. He formed a club known as the Junto, which was the embryo of the American Philosophical Society. His endeavors led, too, to the founding of a public academy that later developed into the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a prime mover in the establishment of a subscription library―which he called “the mother of all North American subscription libraries.”

In the south, volumes of history, Greek and Latin classics, science, and law were widely exchanged from plantation to plantation. Charleston, South Carolina, already a center for music, painting, and the theater, set up a provincial library before 1700. In New England, the first immigrants had brought their own little libraries and continued to import books from London. And as early as the 1680s, Boston booksellers were doing a thriving business in works of classical literature, history, politics, philosophy, science, theology, and belles-lettres.

The desire for learning did not stop at the borders of established communities. On the frontier, the hardy Scotch-Irish, though living in primitive cabins, were firm devotees of scholarship, and they made great efforts to attract learned ministers to their settlements.

Literary production in the colonies was largely confined to New England. Here attention was concentrated on religious subjects. Sermons were the most common products of the press. A famous “hell and brimstone” minister, the Reverend Cotton Mather, authored some 400 works, and his masterpiece, Magnalia Christi Americana, was so prodigious that it had to be printed in London. In this folio, the pageant of New England’s history is displayed by the region’s most prolific writer. But the most popular single work was the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth’s long poem, The Day of Doom, which described the Last Judgment in terrifying terms.

The Press asserts its freedom

Cambridge, Massachusetts, boasted a printing press, and in 1704, Boston’s first successful newspaper was launched. Several others soon entered the field, not only in New England but also in other regions. In New York, freedom of the press had its first important test in the case of Peter Zenger, whose New York Weekly Journal, begun in 1733, was spokesman for opposition to the government. After two years of publication, the colonial governor could no longer tolerate Zenger’s satirical barbs and had him thrown into prison on a charge of libel. Zenger continued to edit his paper from jail during his nine-month trial, which excited intense interest throughout the colonies. Andrew Hamilton, a prominent lawyer defending him, argued that the charges printed by Zenger were true and hence not libelous. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and Zenger went free. This landmark decision helped establish in America the principle of freedom of the press.

In all phases of colonial development, a striking feature was the lack of controlling influence by the English government. During their formative period, the colonies were, to a large degree, free to develop as circumstances dictated. The English government had taken no direct part in founding any of the colonies except Georgia, and only gradually did it assume any part in their political direction.

The fact that the King had transferred his immediate sovereignty over the New World settlements to stock companies and proprietors did not of course, mean that the colonists in America would necessarily be free of outside control. Under the terms of the Virginia Company and Massachusetts Bay charters, complete governmental authority was vested in the companies involved, and it was expected that these companies would be resident in England. Inhabitants of America, the, would have no more voice in their government than if the King himself had retained absolute rule.

Foreign Rule Breaks Down

In one way or another, however, exclusive rule from the outside was broken down. The first step was a decision by the London Company to grant Virginia colonists representation in the government. In 1618 the Company issued instructions to its appointed governor providing that free inhabitants of the plantations should elect representatives to join with the governor and an appointive council in passing ordinances for the welfare of the colony.

This proved to be one of the most far-reaching events in the entire colonial period. From then on, it was generally accepted that the colonists had a right to participate in their own government. In most instances, the King, in making future grants, provided in the charter that freemen of the colony involved should have a voice in legislation affecting them. Thus, charters awarded to Cecil Calvert of Maryland, William Penn of Pennsylvania, the proprietors of the Carolinas, and the proprietors of New Jersey specified that legislation should be with "the consent of the freemen."

In only tow cases was the self-government provision omitted. These were New York, which was granted to Charles II's brother, the Duke of York, later to become King James II; and Georgia, which was granted to a group of "trustees." In both instances the provisions for governance were short-lived., for the colonists demanded legislative representation so insistently that the authorities soon yielded.

At first, the right of colonists to representation in the legislative branch of the government was of limited importance. Ultimately, however, it served as a stepping stone to almost complete domination by the settlers through elective assemblies, which first seized and then utilized control over financial matters. In one colony after another, the principle was established that taxes could not be levied, or collected revenue spent−even to pay the salary of the governor or other appointive officers−without the consent of the elected representatives. Unless the governor and other colonial officials agreed to act in accordance with the will of the popular assembly, the assembly refused to appropriate money for vital functions. Thus there were instances of recalcitrant governors who were voted either no salary at all or a salary of one penny. In the face of this threat, governors and other appointive officials tended to become pliable to the will of the colonists.

British Reluctantly Yield

In New England, for many years, there was even more complete self-government than in the other colonies. If the Pilgrims had settled in Virginia, they would have been under the authority of the London Company. However, in their own colony of Plymouth, they were beyond any governmental jurisdiction. They decided to set up their own political organization. Aboard the Mayflower, they adopted an instrument for government called the "Mayflower Compact," to "combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation ... and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices ... as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony.. " Although there was no legal basis for the Pilgrims to establish a system of self-government, the action was not contested and, under the compact, the Plymouth settlers were able for many years to conduct their own affairs without outside interference.

A similar situation developed when the Massachusetts Bay Company, which had been given the right to govern, moved bodily to America with its charter, and thus full authority rested in the hands of persons residing in the colony. The dozen or so original members of the company who had come to America at first attempted to rule autocratically. But the other colonists soon demanded a voice in public affairs and indicated that refusal would lead to a mass migration.

Faced with this threat, the company members yielded, and control of the government passed to elected representatives. Sub-sequent New England colonies-New Haven, Rhode Island, and Connecticut-also succeeded in becoming self-governing simply by asserting that they were beyond any governmental authority and then setting up their own political system modeled after that of the Pilgrims of Plymouth.

The assumption of self-government in the colonies did not go entirely unchallenged. British authorities took court action against the Massachusetts charter and in 1684 it was annulled. Then all the New England colonies were brought under royal control with complete authority vested in an appointive governor. The colonists strenuously objected and, after the Revolution of 1688 in England, which resulted in the overthrow of James II, they drove out the royal governor.

Rhode Island and Connecticut, which now included the colony of New Haven, were able to reestablish their virtually independent position on a permanent basis. Massachusetts, however, was soon brought again under royal authority, but this time the people were given a share in the government. As in the case of other colonies, this "share" was gradually extended until it became virtual dominance, effective use being made here as elsewhere of control over finances. Still, governors were continually instructed to force adherence to policies that conformed to overall English interests, and the English Privy Council continued to exercise a right of review of colonial legislation. But the colonists proved adept at circumventing these restraints.

Beginning in 1651, the English government, from time to time, passed laws regulating certain aspects of colonial economic life, some beneficial to America, but most favoring England. Generally, the colonists ignored those that they deemed most detrimental. Although the British occasionally tried to secure better enforcement, their efforts were invariably short-lived, and the authorities returned to a policy of "salutary neglect."

The large measure of political independence enjoyed by the colonies naturally resulted in their growing away from Britain, becoming increasingly "American" rather than "English." This tendency was strongly reinforced by the blending of other national groups and cultures that was simultaneously taking place.

How this process operated and the manner in which it laid the foundations of a new nation were vividly described in 17S2 by French-born agriculturist I. Hector St. John Crevecoeur: "What then is the American, this new man?" he asked in his Letters from an American Farmer. "He is either a European, or the descendant of a European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you find in no other country I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds...." '

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. " The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

John Adams, second President of the United States, declared that the history of the American Revolution began as far back as 1620. "The Revolution,” he said, "was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people." The principles and passions that led the Americans to rebel ought, he added, "to be traced back for two hundred years and sought in the history of the country from the first plantation in America."

As a practical matter, however, the overt parting of the ways between England and America began in 1763, more than a century and a half after the first permanent settlement had been founded at Jamestown, Virginia. The colonies had grown vastly in economic strength and cultural attainment, and virtually all had long years of self-government behind them. Their combined population now exceeded 1,500,000-a six fold increase since 1700.

The implications of the physical growth of the colonies were far greater than mere numerical increase would indicate. The 18th century brought a steady expansion from the influx of immigrants from Europe, and since the best land near the seacoast had already been occupied, new settlers had to push inland beyond the fall line of the rivers. Traders explored the back country, brought back tales of rich valleys, and induced farmers to take their families into the wilderness. Although their hardships were enormous, restless settlers kept coming, and by the 1730s frontiersmen had already begun to pour into the Shenandoah Valley.

Down to 1763, Great Britain had formulated no consistent policy to her colonial possessions. The guiding principle was the confirmed mercantilist view that colonies should supply the mother country with raw materials and not compete in manufacturing. But policy was poorly enforced, and the colonies had never thought of themselves as subservient. Rather, they considered themselves chiefly as commonwealths or states, much like England herself, having only a loose association with authorities in London.

At infrequent intervals, sentiment in England was aroused and efforts were made by Parliament or the Crown to subordinate the economic activities and governments of the colonies to England's will and interest-efforts to which the majority of the colonists were opposed. The remoteness afforded by a vast ocean allayed tears of reprisal the colonies might otherwise have had.

Added to this remoteness was the character of life itself in early America. From countries limited in space and dotted with populous towns, the settlers had come to a land of seemingly unending reach. On such a continent natural conditions stressed the importance of the individual

FRONTIER FOSTERS SELF-RELIANCE

The colonists-inheritors of the traditions of the English man's long struggle for political liberty-incorporated concepts of freedom into Virginia's first charter. This provided that English colonists were to exercise all liberties, franchises, and immunities "as if they had been abiding and born within this our Realm of England." They were, then, to enjoy the benefits of the Magna Charta and the common law.

In the early days, the colonies were able to hold fast to then heritage of rights because of the King's arbitrary assumption that they were not subject to parliamentary control. In addition, for years afterward, the kings of England were too preoccupied with a great struggle in England itself a struggle which culminated in the Puritan Revolution- to enforce then will. Before Parliament could bring its attention to the task of molding the American colonies to an imperial polio, they had grown strong and prosperous in their own right.

From the first year after they had set foot upon the new continent, the colonists had functioned according to the English law and constitution-with legislative assemblies, a representative system of government, and a recognition of the common-law guarantees of personal liberty. But increasingly legislation became American in point of view, and less and less attention was paid to English practices and precedents. Nevertheless, colonial freedom from effective English control was not achieved without conflict, and colonial history abounds in struggles between the assemblies elected by the people and the governors appointed by the King.

Still, the colonists were often able to render the royal governors powerless, for, as a rule, governors had "no subsistence but from the Assembly." Governors were sometimes instructed to give profitable offices and land grants to influential colonists to secure their support for royal projects but, as often as not, the colonial officials, once they had secured these emoluments, espoused the popular cause as strongly as ever.

The recurring clashes between governor and assembly worked increasingly to awaken the colonists to the divergence between American and English interests,. Gradually, the assemblies took over the functions of the governors and their councils, which were made up of colonists selected for their docile support of royal power, and the center of colonial administration shifted from London to the provincial capitals. Early in the 1770s, following the final expulsion of the French from the North American continent, an attempt was made to bring about a drastic change in the relationship between the colonies and the mother country.

BRITISH AND IRENCH CLASH

While the British had been tilling the Atlantic coastal area with farms, plantations, and towns, the French had been planting a different kind of dominion in the St. Lawrence Valley in eastern Canada. Having sent over* fewer settlers but more explorer's, missionaries, and fur traders, France had taken possession of the Mississippi River and, by a line of forts and trading posts, marked out a great crescent-shaped empire stretching from Quebec in the northeast to New Orleans m the south. Thus they tended to pin the British to the narrow belt east of the Appalachian Mountains.

The British had long resisted what they considered "the encroachment of the French. As early as 1613, local clashes occurred between Trench and English colonists Eventually, there was organized warfare, the American counterpart of the larger conflict between England and France. Thus, between 1689 and 1697, "King William's War" was fought as the American phase of the European "War of the Palatinate." From 1702 to 1713, "Queen Anne s War" corresponded to the "War of the Spanish Succession." And from 1744 to 1748, "King George's War" paralleled the "War of the Austrian Succession." Though England secured certain advantages from these wars, the struggles were generally indecisive, and France remained in a strong position on the American continent.

In the 1750s, the conflict was brought to a final phase. The French, after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, tightened their hold on the Mississippi Valley. At the same time, the movement of English colonists across the Alleghenies increased in tempo, stimulating a race for physical possession of the same territory. An armed clash in 1754, involving Virginia militiamen under the command of 22-year-old George Washington and a band of French regulars, ushered in the "French and Indian War" with the English and their Indian allies fighting the French and their Indian allies. This was destined to determine once and for all French or English supremacy in North America.

Never had there been greater need for action and unity in the British colonies. The French threatened not only the British Empire but the American colonists themselves, for in holding the Mississippi Valley, France could check their westward expansion. The French government of Canada and Louisiana had not only increased in strength but had also in prestige with the Indians, even the Iroquois, the traditional allies of the British. With a new war, every British settler wise in Indian matters knew that drastic measures would be needed to ward off disaster.

FIRST STIRRING OF UNITY

At this juncture, the British Board of Trade, hearing reports of deteriorating relations with the Indians, ordered the governor of New York and commissioners from the other colonies to call a meeting of the Iroquois chiefs to frame a joint treaty. In June 1754, representatives of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the New England colonies met with the Iroquois at Albany. The Indians aired their grievances, and the delegates recommended appropriate action.

The Albany Congress, however, transcended its original purpose of solving Indian problems. It declared a union of the American colonies "absolutely necessary for their preservation,' and the colonial representatives present adopted the Albany Plan of Union. Drafted by Benjamin Franklin, the plan provided that a president appointed by the King act with a grand council of delegates chosen by the assemblies, each colony to be represented in proportion to its financial contributions to the general treasury. The government was to have charge of all British interests in the west-Indian treaties, trade, defense, and settlement. But none of the colonies accepted Franklin's plan, for none wished to surrender either the power of taxation or control over the development of the west.

The colonies offered little support for the war as a whole, all schemes failing to bring them "to a sense of their duty to the King." The colonists could see the war only as a struggle for empire on the part of England and France. They felt no compunction when the British government was obliged to send large numbers of regular troops to wage colonial battles. Nor did they regret that the "redcoats," rather than provincial troops, won the war. Nor did they see any reason for curtailing commerce that, in effect, constituted "trade with the enemy.”

In spite of this lack of wholehearted colonial support and in spite of several early military defeats, England's superior strategic position and her competent leadership ultimately brought complete victory. After eight years of conflict, Canada and the upper Mississippi Valley were finally conquered, and the dream of a French empire in North America faded.

Having triumphed over France, not only in America but in India and throughout the colonial world generally, Britain was compelled to face a problem that she had hitherto neglected-the governance of her empire. It was essential that she now organize her vast possessions to facilitate defense, reconcile the divergent interests of different areas and peoples, and distribute more evenly the cost of imperial administration.

In North America alone, British overseas territories had more than doubled. To the narrow strip along the Atlantic coast had been added the vast expanse of Canada and the territory between the Mississippi River and the Alleghenies, an empire in itself. A population that had been predominantly Protestant English and Anglicized continentals now included Catholic French and large numbers of partly Christianized Indians. Defense and administration of the new territories, as well as the old, would require huge sums of money and increased personnel. The “old colonial system" was obviously inadequate. Even during the exigencies of a war imperiling the very existence of the colonists themselves the system had proved incapable of securing colonial cooperation or support. What then could be expected in time of peace when no external danger loomed?

COLONISTS RESIST

Clear as was the British need for a new imperial design, the situation in America was anything but favorable to a change. Long accustomed to a large measure of independence, the colony were demanding more, not less, freedom, particularly now that the French menace had been eliminated. To put a new system into effect, to tighten control, the statesmen of England had to contend with colonists trained to self-government and impatient of interference.

One of the first things attempted by the British was to organize the interior. The conquest of Canada and of the Ohio Valley necessitated policies that would not alienate the French and Indian inhabitants. But here the Crown came into conflict with the interests of the colonies, which, fast increasing in population, were bent upon exploiting the newly won territories themselves. Needing new land, various colonies claimed the right to extend their boundaries as tar west as the Mississippi River.

The British government, tearing that farmers migrating into the new lands would provoke a series of Indian wars, believed that the restive Indians should be given time to settle down and that lands should be opened to colonists on a more gradual basis. In 1763, a royal proclamation reserved all the western territory between the Alleghines, the Floridas, the Mississippi, and Quebec for the use of the Indians, Thus the Crown attempted to sweep away every western land claim of the thirteen colonies and to stop westward expansion. Though never effectively enforced this measure, in the eves of the colonists, constituted a high-handed disregard of then most elementary right to occupy and utilize western lands as needed.

More serious m its repercussions was the new financial policy of the British government, which needed more money to support the growing empire. Unless the taxpayer in England was to supply it all, the colonies would have to contribute. But revenue could be extracted from the colonies only through a stronger central administration, at the expense of colonial self-government.

The first step in inaugurating the new system was the passage of the Sugar Act of 1764. This was designed to raise revenue without regulating trade. In fact, it replaced the Molasses Act of 1733, which had placed a prohibitive duty on the import of rum and molasses from non-English areas. The amended Sugar Act forbade the importation of foreign rum; put a modest duty on molasses from all sources; and levied duties on wines, silks, coffee, and a number of other luxury items. To enforce it, customs officials were ordered to show more energy and strictness. British warships in American waters were instructed to seize smugglers, and "writs of assistance" (blanket warrants) authorized the King's officers to search suspected premises.

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

AT ISSUE

It was not so much the new duties that caused consternation among New England merchants. It was rather the fact that steps were being taken to enforce them effectively, an entirely new development. For over a generation, New Englanders had been accustomed to importing the larger part of the molasses for their rum distilleries from the French and Dutch West Indies without paying a duty. They now contended that payment of even the small duty imposed would be ruinous.

As it happened, the preamble to the Sugar Act gave the colonists an opportunity to rationalize their discontent on constitutional grounds. The power of Parliament to tax colonial commodities for the regulation of trade had long been accepted in theory though not always in practice, but the power to tax "for improving the revenue of this Kingdom," as stated in the Revenue Act of 1764, was new and hence debatable.

The constitutional issue became an entering wedge in the great dispute that was finally to wrest the American colonies from England. "One single act of Parliament," wrote James Otis, fiery orator from Massachusetts, "has set more people a-thinking in six months, more than they had done in their whole lives before." Merchants, legislatures, and town meetings protested against the

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