THE BRITISH COLONIES IN 1750- AMERICAN REVOLUTION

A

The American People

Britain’s 13 North American colonies experienced an extraordinary rate of population growth. In 1700 the population was about 250,000; seven decades later there were about 2,500,000 inhabitants, a tenfold increase. This phenomenal growth was a prerequisite for a successful independence movement. In 1700 there were 20 people in Britain for every American colonist; by 1775 this ratio had fallen to 3 to 1. See also Colonial America, History of.

The American population also changed in composition. The proportion of the colonists who were of English culture and ancestry steadily declined during the 1700s as the result of the arrival, by forced or voluntary migration, of new racial and ethnic groups. Among the 80 percent of Americans who were of European descent, there were important cultural divisions. Migrants from Germany, Scotland, and Ireland made up at least 30 percent of the white population. Members of these groups often settled in their own communities, especially in the mid-Atlantic colonies of Delaware, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Others migrated into the backcountry regions of the Southern colonies (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia), thus adding ethnic diversity to a region already divided along racial lines. Only the New England colonies of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire remained predominantly English in composition and culture.

In 1775 about one-fifth of the people of the mainland colonies were of African ancestry. Unlike Latin America and the West Indies, North American slaves had a high rate of natural increase. About 250,000 Africans were brought to the mainland colonies before 1775, but the total black population numbered 567,000 on the eve of independence. Most lived as slaves working on tobacco and rice plantations in the Southern colonies. Slaves and some free blacks also lived in the Northern colonies, working on small farms or in cities. See also Slavery in the United States.

Diversity existed not only in the population but also in religious life. Many of the American colonists were not members of any church. Of those who had a religious affiliation, the vast majority were Protestant Christians. There were significant numbers of Roman Catholics in Maryland and Delaware, and a small number of Jews, mostly in Rhode Island. Among the Protestants, there were significant regional variations. In New England, the Congregational Church was legally established; all residents had to contribute to its support. In the South, the Church of England likewise received state support. However, Scots-Irish migrants created Presbyterian churches in the Southern backcountry. In addition, many Baptist congregations were formed during the Great Awakening, an important religious revival that swept through all the colonies during the 1740s. In the mid-Atlantic colonies, there were many different faiths, including Quakers, Dutch Reformed, Mennonites, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Lutherans, so that it was difficult to enforce support for a single established church.

This growth in population and diversity made the American colonies more difficult for Britain to rule. It was therefore an important precondition for the rise of an independence movement and the subsequent emergence of a unique American nationality.

B

The Political System

In 1750 there was little political basis for a national consciousness in the colonies of British North America. Each of the 13 colonies was a separate entity, with its own governor and legislative assembly. The inhabitants’ first political allegiance was to their own colony. The lower house of each legislature was elected by the adult white men who were property owners. However, the upper houses, or councils, and the governors were chosen in different ways depending on the type of colony.

There were three kinds of colonies: corporate, proprietary, and royal. Rhode Island and Connecticut were corporate colonies, so called because they had been founded under charters granted by the king of England that bestowed corporate rights. In these two colonies, the corporation of property owners elected the council and governor as well as the assembly. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were proprietary colonies, ruled by descendants of their founders. Their governors and councils were chosen by their British proprietors, or owners. Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire were royal provinces. Their governors were appointed by the king on the advice of the Board of Trade, the British administrative agency that supervised colonial affairs. Their councils, except in Massachusetts, were nominated by the governor and approved by the Board of Trade.

In 1750 there were no governmental bodies or political parties that could formulate policy for the colonists as a whole. Such intercolony ties were created only in response to political events that affected all the colonies—first the French and Indian War and then the struggle for independence.

Nevertheless, the colonies shared one important political institution. Each colony had a representative assembly with authority to make laws covering most aspects of local life. The assemblies had the right to tax; to appropriate money for public works and public officials; and to regulate internal trade, religion, and social behavior. Although the British government was responsible for external matters, such as foreign affairs and trade, the American colonists had a great deal of self-government during the colonial period. The capable leaders of the assemblies took the lead in the independence struggle. These well-functioning representative institutions would form the basis for the new state governments.

C

Economy and Society

In addition to the rapid growth and diversity of the population and the experience in representative government, the emergence of a prosperous agricultural and commercial economy in the colonies during the 18th century helped pave the way for the independence movement. This economic system was based on the production of wheat, cattle, corn, tobacco, and rice in America for export to the West Indies, Britain, and Europe.

C1

The South

Southern agriculture was founded on the cultivation of tobacco, wheat, and corn in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, and of rice and indigo (a blue dye) in South Carolina and Georgia. There was a large demand for these crops in Europe. These crops were cultivated with the help of black slaves imported from Africa. The white planter class in the South was the most powerful, both politically and economically.

C2

The North

Wheat was the main cash crop of the mid-Atlantic colonies of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. These colonies, along with those in New England, exported wheat—along with corn, cattle, horses, fish, and wood—primarily to the West Indies. The British and French planters of the Caribbean, exploiting a mainly African labor force, specialized in the production of sugar for export to Europe and imported many of their foodstuffs. The Northern mainland prospered from this vast transatlantic division of labor. In payment for supplies shipped to the West Indies, their merchants received bills of exchange (essentially credit slips) from merchant houses in Great Britain. These credits were then used to purchase British manufactured goods.

C3

Trade Patterns and Urban Growth

The two most important trade routes in terms of volume and financial return were controlled by British merchants: the tobacco and the sugar trades. American merchants dominated two small trade routes: the export of rice to Europe and the export of supplies from the Northern mainland to the West Indies. However, American control of these subsidiary trade routes undermined the British policy of mercantilism, which depended on raw materials from the colonies that were shipped to Great Britain and then exported as finished products. This policy discouraged any colonial trade except with Great Britain.

The colonists’ participation in transatlantic trade accounted for the rise of the American port cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newport, and Charleston. These shipping centers gradually came to provide the commercial services, such as insurance and wholesale trade, and the small-scale industries, such as rope and sail manufacture and shipbuilding, that were necessary to sustain a merchant fleet. The independence movement began in these cities.

C4

Social Divisions

The contrast between the rich and the poor was stark in the colonial cities. In 1774 about 29 percent of the adult men in Boston possessed no taxable property at all. These men were wage earners, working for others. They lived in the back of shops, taverns, or rented rooms. Since they had little or no property, they could not vote, and thus lacked direct political power.

Next in social rank were the artisans and small shopkeepers. Constituting almost half of a town’s population, they owned about one-third of the total wealth. Shopkeepers had once dominated town life, but their political and social influence had waned with the rise of wealthy merchants. Artisans feared a similar decline in their position; the influx of British manufactures might destroy their small businesses, reducing them to the status of propertyless wage laborers. As threatened social groups, artisans and shopkeepers were vital to the revolutionary upheaval. They took the strongest stand against the new British measures of taxation and control. They also challenged the political domination of the merchants and lawyers.

Urban merchants also played key leadership roles in American resistance. By 1770 these men, about 10 percent of the taxpayers, owned from 50 to 60 percent of the total wealth of these towns. Their wealth also gave them much prestige and enabled them, and their lawyer allies who handled complex commercial transactions, to dominate political life.

The gap between rich and poor was much narrower in the farming regions of the Northern colonies. However, even in rural communities, where most Americans lived, social differences were increasing. Inequality was especially apparent in areas where crops were raised for sale, rather than just for subsistence. For example, in the Southern colonies, great disparity existed between plantation farmers who grew rice and tobacco on a large scale and family farmers who grew food to feed themselves. In both the North and the South these differences divided farming communities.

In 1775 it was not clear whether the many divisions within American society—among racial and ethnic groups, religious denominations, and social classes—and the fragmented character of colonial political institutions would prevent a unified movement for independence. But it was increasingly apparent that the battle with Britain for American home rule would also involve a struggle among Americans over which people would rule in the new country.