Chapter 4
Convergence and Conflict
1660s–1763
"If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a
wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to
inform their discretion by education. ... If the nation expects to be ignorant
and free ... it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas
Jefferson
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the
people, who have a right and a desire to know; but besides this, they
have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that
most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge. I mean the characters and
conduct of their rulers." -- John Adams
"A popular government, without popular information, or the means of
acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be
their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which
knowledge gives." -- James Madison
"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of
mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." Alexis De
Tocqueville [1830s]
"The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we
see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according
to the different circumstances of civil society." James Madison,
Federalist #10
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has
the power to make you commit injustices." Voltaire
Key Questions
• In what ways was trade regulated between Britain and the
colonies?
• How did prominent colonists go about developing America’s
intellectual life?
• What effect did the Great Awakening have on the American
colonists?
• How did the “Glorious Revolution” effect the colonists?
• What geographic area made up the “backcountry” and who
settled there?
• How did the French and Indian War effect the colonists?
• Explain the importance of the Enlightenment on the
American colonies.
The Transformation of Culture
• Goods and Houses
– For examples, see my PowerPoint slides chapter 5
• Shaping Minds and Manners
• Age of Enlightenment – Age of Reason
• Scientific study, hypothesis, link of science to religion
• Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac
Newton
• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan [1651]
• John Locke, natural law
• French philosophes – Baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau Social Contract
[1762]
• Immanuel Kant, David Hume
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith
Overview
Biographies
•
•
•
•
George Washington
Cotton Mather
George Whitefield
Benjamin Franklin
Bibliography
• Bernard Bailyn, The Peopling of British North America: An
Introduction (1986)
• David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed (1990)
• Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
(1790)
• Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750 (1971) [consensus school
of history]
• James Kirby Martin, editor, Interpreting Colonial America (1973)
• Malachi Martin, The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the
Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church (1987)
• Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible (1979)
• Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. editor, A History of America Life (1948)
• Laurel T. Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of
Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (1982)
• David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (1992)
Identifications
Actual representation v. virtual representation
Age of Enlightenment [Age of Reason]
Albany Plan of Union, 1754
Whig ideology
Dominion of New England -- Edmund Andros, Jacob Leisler
Enumerated products – [enumerated powers in Article I, section 8]
French and Indian War [7 Years War in Europe]
Glorious Revolution [1688, William of Orange, Bill of Rights]
Great Awakening – George Whitefield – New Lights v. Old Lights
Half-way Covenant
Mercantilism
1763 Treaty of Paris
[Father Junipero Serra – Franciscan, 1834 desecularization]
[My red maple tree from George Washington’s Mt. Vernon tree!]
Text Identifications
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Enlightenment
Seven Years War/French and Indian War, 1756 – 1763
John Locke
Benjamin Franklin
Great Awakening, George Whitefield
James Oglethorpe
Stono Uprising
William Pitt, James Wolfe
Proclamation of 1763
Paxton Boys
The 13* Virtues of Benjamin Franklin
TEMPERANCE.
– Eat not to Dulness, [sic] Drink not to Elevation
SILENCE.
– Speak not but what may benefit others or your self. Avoic trifling
Conversation
ORDER.
– Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your
Business have its Time
RESOLUTION.
– Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you
resolve.
FRUGALITY.
– Make no Expence [sic] but to do good to others or yourself: i.e.
Waste nothing
INDUSTRY.
– Lose no time, -- Be always employ’d [sic] in something useful. – Cut
off all unnecessary Actions, --
SINCERITY.
– Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and , if you speak;
speak accordingly.
JUSTICE.
– Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your duty.
MODERATION.
– Avoid Extreams. [sic] Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think
they deserve.
CLEANLINESS.
– Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Cloaths [sic] or Habitation. –
TRANQUILITY.
– Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
CHASTITY.
– Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, [sic]
Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation.
HUMILITY.
– Imitate Jesus and Socrates. --
Chronology
1636 Harvard College founded
1651 – 1733 Series of Navigation Acts
1660 Charles II becomes King, “restoration”
1662 Half-Way Covenant in New England
1674 Bishopric of Quebec established
1680s William Penn begins recruiting settlers from Europe
1682 Mary Rowlandson's Sovereignty & Goodness of God
1685 James II becomes King of England
1686-89 Dominion of New England
1689 Toleration Act passed by Parliament, Bill of Rights
1690s Beginnings of Jesuit missions in Arizona
1693 College of William and Mary founded
1698 First French Settlements near mouth of Miss. River
1700s Plains Indians domesticate the horse
1701 Yale College founded; Iroquois sign treaty of neutrality
1704 Deerfield raid
1708 Saybrook Platform in Connecticut
1716 Spanish begin Texas missions
1718 French found New Orleans
1730s French decimate the Natchez and defeat the Fox Indians
1732 Ben Franklin begins publishing Poor Richard's Almanac
1733 Georgia founded
1734 Great Awakening begins + Jonathan Edwards in Mass.
1735 John Peter Zenger acquitted from libeling New York’s governor
1738 George Whitefield first tours the colonies
1740s Great Awakening gets under way in the Northwest
1740 Parliament passes a naturalization law for the colonies
1746 College of New Jersey (Princeton) founded
1754 – 63 French and Indian War in North America
1760s Great Awakening - full impact in South
1769 Spanish colonization of CA begins (Father Junípero Serra)
1773 Pope Clement XIV abolished Society of Jesus (resurrected
Pope Pius VII, 1814)
1775 Indian revolt at San Diego
1776 San Francisco founded
1781 Los Angeles founded
Map 4-1 Anglo-American Transatlantic Commerce
By the eighteenth century, Great Britain and its colonies were enmeshed in
a complex web of trade. Britain exchanged manufactured goods for colonial
raw materials, while Africa provided the enslaved laborers who produced
the most valuable colonial crops.
Map 4-2 European Empires in North America, 1750–1763
Great Britain’s victory in the French and Indian War transformed the map of
North America. France lost its mainland colonies, England claimed all lands
east of the Mississippi, and Spain gained nominal control over the TransMississippi West.
New Amsterdam, 17th century
City Hall and Great Dock in the late 17th century. (colored engraving, 1898).
Paul Revere
John Singleton Copley’s portrait
of the silversmith Paul Revere,
painted about 1769, depicts one
of Boston’s most prominent
artisans. As colonists grew
wealthier, some commissioned
portraits for their homes to serve
as emblems of their rising social
aspirations. Even so, Copley
despaired that America would
ever provide a suitable market
for his artistic talents and he
eventually moved to England.
Mahogany Clothespress
During the eighteenth century,
quantities of imported English
manufactures began to appear in
many colonial houses. This
elegant mahogany clothespress,
made in England in the 1740s,
may have graced the Boston
home of Charles Apthorp, once
called “the greatest and most
noble merchant” in America.
George Whitefield
George Whitefield (who,
contemporaries noted, was
cross-eyed) enjoyed a
remarkable career as a powerful
preacher on both sides of the
Atlantic. This portrait shows him
preaching indoors to a rapt
audience. During his tour of the
colonies, Whitefield reportedly
had a similar effect on crowds of
thousands who gathered
outdoors to hear his sermons.
Benjamin Franklin portrait
Painted at about the time
Franklin retired from his
printing business, this portrait
depicts the one-time
craftsman as an aspiring
gentleman. Wearing a wig
and a shirt with ruffled cuffs,
Franklin would no longer
work with his hands but
would pursue his scientific
experiments and other
studies.
SRC: Robert Feke (1707 –
1752), Portrait of Benjamin
Franklin (1706 – 1790), c.
1746. Oil on canvas, 127 x
02 cm. Courtesy of the
Harvard University Portrait
Collection. Bequest of Dr.
John Collins Warren, 1856.
Español, con India, Mestizo
This panel of an eighteenthcentury painting by an unknown
Mexican artist is representative
of a genre of portraits illustrating
the categories Spanish colonists
developed to designate the
offspring of various kinds of
mixed marriage. This one,
labeled Español, con India,
Mestizo, depicts a Spanish
father, an Indian mother, and
their mestizo child. The scarcity
of European women made mixed
marriage common in Spanish
colonies. Such unions were
exceedingly rare in the English
colonies, where cultural
preferences and the relative
abundance of European women
discouraged intermarriage.
George Washington portrait
This, the earliest known portrait
of George Washington, was
painted by Charles Wilson
Peale in 1772. It depicts him in
his military uniform from the
French and Indian War. Military
service helped to strengthen
Washington’s ties with the
British Empire.
Washington/Custis/Lee
Collection, Washington and Lee
University, Lexington, VA.
Cotton Mather's "Late Memorable Providences Relating to
Witchcrafts and Possessions, Clearly Manifesting”
A historic title page
containing a brief summary
of the book concerning
witchcraft in New England.
Phillis Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley
was brought to
Boston on a
slave ship in
1761 and was
educated in
English, Greek,
and Latin by the
Wheatley family.
By the 1770s,
she had written
and published
several books of
poetry.
San Xavier del Bac
The San Xavier del Bac mission near Tucson, Arizona with its tall towers.
"To be sold. . .a cargo of 170 prime young likely healthy Guinea
slaves. Savannah, July 25, 1774."
The proprietary colony of
Georgia came late to
slavery. Initially forbidden
from owning enslaved
Africans, Georgians
''rented'' them for ''100year'' terms from South
Carolinians. After 1750,
Georgians moved rapidly
to secure their share of
the ever-increasing trade
in Africans.
Faneuil Hall, Boston
Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts. Built by Peter Faneuil in 1742, this
building became a hotbed of Revolutionary sentiment. Samuel Adams,
James Otis, and others came here to express their opposition to British
colonial policies.
Thanksgiving Proclamation, Connecticut, 1721
Public festivals and days of
thanksgiving were
prominent in Colonial
society. Here, Governor
Gurdon Saltonstall
proclaims November 8,
1721, as a ''day of Publick
THANKSGIVING.''
The Old Tun Tavern, Philadelphia
Colonial taverns served not only food, drink, and lodging--they were also an
arena for the exchange of community information. The Tun Tavern, built by
Samuel Carpenter in 1685, served as the headquarters for several
charitable, fraternal and social organizations, counted numerous colonial
celebrities as frequent visitors, and is acknowledged as being the birthplace
of the United States Marine Corps in 1775.
Acrostic, by Benjamin Franklin
B-e to thy parents an obedient son,
E-ach day let duty constantly be done.
N-ever give way to sloth or lust or pride,
I-f free you'd be from thousand ills beside;
A-bove all ills, be sure avoid the shelf'
M-an's danger lies in Satan, sin, and self.
I-n virtue, learning, wisdom progress make,
N-e'er shrink at surrendering for thy Saviour's sake.
F-raud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee,
R-eligious always in thy station be,
A-dore the maker of thy inward part.
N-ow's the accepted time; give God thy heart
K-eep a good conscience, 'tis a constant friend;
L-ike a judge and witness this thy act attend.
I-n heart, with bended knee, alone, adore
N-one but the Three-in-One forevermore.
Economic Development & Imperial Trade in
the British Colonies
• The Regulation of Trade
– Mercantilism
– “Enumerated products”
• The Colonial Export Trade and the Spirit of Enterprise
– Transatlantic commerce – triangular trade
– The Import Trade and Ties of Credit
– Becoming More Like England
Colonial Religion and the Great Awakening
• Halfway Covenant
• Great Awakening
• New Lights v. Old Lights
The Colonial Political World
• The Dominion of New England and Limits of British Control
• The Legacy of the Glorious Revolution
• Diverging Politics in the Colonies and Great Britain
– Virtual verse actual representation
• Boston Celebrates a New King [August 1727]
Expanding Empires
• British Colonists in the Backcountry
• The Spanish in Texas and California
• The French along the Mississippi and in Louisiana
A Century of Warfare
• Imperial Conflict and the Establishment of an
American Balance of Power, 1689-1738
– King Williams War
– Queen Anne’s War
– Country or “Real Whig” Ideology
– Grand Settlement of 1701
• King George’s War Shifts the Balance, 1739-1754
• The French and Indian War, 1754-1760
• Albany Plan of Union
• French and Indian War
• The Triumph of the British Empire, 1763
• Treaty of Paris
Chronology