ENGLISH IMPERIAL POLICY- HISTORY OF COLONIAL AMERICA

In the first decades of settlement, England lacked a coherent imperial policy, and it created and governed colonies in a haphazard fashion. This situation began to change in 1660, when the English government reestablished its monarchy and placed King Charles II (1660-1685) on the throne. Although the king continued some of the old policies, such as awarding proprietary colonies to hi

s supporters, royal bureaucrats now tried to assert central control over the American colonies by implementing an economic policy known as mercantilism. Mercantilists believed that a nation’s strength was linked to the value of exported products and that colonies were established mainly to increase the wealth of the home country. The colonies produced raw materials, which were sent to the home country and manufactured into products that were exported. Often colonies were also markets for these finished products.

To implement this policy, England began to pass legislation to ensure that it reaped more trade benefits from its colonial possessions. From 1660 to 1696, Parliament enacted a series of navigation and trade acts (see Navigation Acts) designed to enhance English prosperity by increasing regulation of colonial trade. The new acts required that goods going into and out of the colonies be shipped in English or colonial ships, and that certain articles, such as tobacco, sugar, and other tropical products, could go only to England. Other measures specified that non-English manufactured goods should first land in England—where shippers had to pay duties and merchant commissions—before the goods were sent to the colonies. Manufacturing in the colonies was discouraged if it competed with English products.

A

New York and New Jersey

England went to war with the Dutch in 1664 to enforce these trading rules and to extend its supremacy in North America. Dutch merchants were active in the Chesapeake tobacco trade, so English forces tried to stop that lucrative commerce by attacking Dutch ships and seizing New Netherland and its spacious harbor at New Amsterdam. King Charles II gave the conquered territory to his brother James, the Duke of York (who later succeeded him as King James II). James divided the former Dutch colony into two proprietary provinces: New York, which he ruled himself, and New Jersey, which he gave to Sir George Carteret and Lord John Berkeley for their loyal support of the monarchy. New Jersey developed representative political institutions with a proprietary governor and an elected assembly. However, in New York, James ruled through an appointed governor and did not allow the settlers to have a representative assembly.

B

The Carolinas

Charles II created another proprietary settlement in Carolina, which had originally been given to an official in the court of King Charles I. The proprietor never developed the colony, so the same land was then granted to eight aristocratic supporters who eventually divided it into two colonies, North Carolina and South Carolina. These proprietors tried to create great estates owned by wealthy landlords and worked primarily by dependent peasants. Because the proprietors were reluctant to give ordinary farmers a voice in the government, representative political institutions developed slowly in the Carolinas.

C

Pennsylvania

In 1681 Charles II made his final proprietary grant, a huge tract of American land given to William Penn in repayment for a private debt owed Penn’s father. Penn, who was a member of the Society of Friends (more commonly known as Quakers), designed Pennsylvania as a refuge for fellow members of this religion. Quakers were persecuted in England because they refused to serve in the army or to pay taxes to the Church of England. Penn’s Frame of Government, a written constitution that he drew up for Pennsylvania in 1681, guaranteed political and religious liberty. The document prohibited an established church and religious taxes and allowed Christians of any denomination to vote and hold office.

To rule its expanding colonial domain, the English government created an elaborate administrative system presided over by the Lords of Trade. The lords were leading politicians who were appointed by the king to manage his American possessions and to increase the colonies’ contribution to the English economy. To achieve their goal of creating a centralized empire without representative institutions, the lords tried to convert the corporate and proprietary colonies into royal colonies. This effort reached a peak during the reign of James II (1685-1688), who believed in the divine right of kings. Since sovereigns received their power from God, James II believed he should govern England and the American colonies with unlimited power.

From 1685 to 1687 James II worked closely with the Lords of Trade to abolish the self-governing Puritan colonies in New England and to merge those settlements with New York and New Jersey, creating the vast Dominion of New England. The king appointed a governor, Sir Edmund Andros, to administer the dominion, and he gave his officials freedom to run the colony without any kind of representative legislature.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England (see England: History) cut short the expansion of the crown's authoritarian rule in America. Many Parliament leaders opposed James II because of his Roman Catholic faith and his absolutist beliefs. In 1689 Parliament offered the crown jointly to James’s daughter Mary, who had remained Protestant, and to her Dutch husband, William of Orange. They received the titles Mary II (1689-1694) and William III (1689-1702), and in turn agreed to establish a constitutional monarchy. When popular rebellions in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New York overthrew the Dominion of New England that James had created, William and Mary restored colonial self-government in America.