The “Veneer” of Being English:
th
18 Century British North
America
The Thirteen Colonies:
British or American?
I. Economic Bonds
A. The Navigation Acts
• After Royal
restoration in 1660,
the Crown showed
more interest in
controlling the
colonies
• Various motivations
for the Navigation
Acts
• The components of
these Acts
A. The Navigations Acts (cont)
• Resisted or ignored by
the colonists at first
• Mixed record on
enforcement
• By 1700, the Acts
were largely accepted
B. Trade within the Empire
• American per capita
income figures remain
relatively stable
• 50% of American exports
went to England
• 25% of American shipping
involved in “carrying
trade”, esp. to West Indies
• West Indian trade
influenced New England
agricultural practices
B. Trade within the Empire
(cont.)
• 25% of American shipping
involved in intercoastal
trade
• Balance of trade turned
against the colonists
between 1740-1770
• Colonists went deeper into
debt, aggravated by two
depressions during the
1760’s
• Colonies began issuing
paper money as a solution
to this crisis
II. Immigrational Bonds
• Population doubled
every 25 years in the
18th century = 3%
annual growth rate
• By 1790, only half of
Americans can trace
their heritage to
England
• Largest group of
immigrants = ScotsIrish
II. Immigrational Bonds (cont)
• Germans migrated
from the Upper Rhine
Valley
• Immigrants raise
suspicions of older
English settlers
• Increasing movement
into the backcountry
III. Cultural Bonds
• The role of cities in 18th
century colonial life
--Philadelphia, New York
City, Boston, Charles
Town, and Newport, R.I.
--important centers of
ideas as well as growing
centers of poverty
III. Cultural Bonds (cont)
• Colonial American
Architecture
-- “Georgian”
--Thomas Chippendale
-- “Saltbox”
III. Cultural Bonds (cont)
• Colonial American Art
and Literature
--John Singleton
Copley
• Colonial American
Food and Language
-- “Norfolk whine”
-- “hoosier”,
“redneck”, “cracker”
IV. Political Bonds
• The English System of
Government
-- “rotten” boroughs
--Critics = Whig
pamphleteers
• American colonial
government
• Theory does not match
reality
IV. Political Bonds (cont)
• “Rise” of the Colonial
Assembly
• Controlled money bills
and governor’s
salaries
• English law used to
protect “English”
liberties in colonial
America
V. Military Bonds
• The Birth of Georgia
--James Oglethorpe
• Imperial Warfare in
America
• King William’s War
(1689-1697)
• Queen Anne’s War (17021713)
V. Military Bonds (cont)
• King George’s War
(1743-1748)
--loss of Louisbourg
• The Albany Congress
(1754)
• French and Indian War
(1756-1763)
--William Pitt
VI. Intellectual Bonds
A. The American Enlightenment
• The European
Enlightenment
--Isaac Newton
--Voltaire
• American version was
more tame in the sense
that it did not move as far
away from Christianity
• The appeal in Enlightened
thinking for Americans
was also the emphasis on
the practical
A. American Enlightenment (cont)
• Leading American
philosophes =
Benjamin Franklin and
Thomas Jefferson
--Monticello
• Enlightenment
principles are
embedded in the
Declaration of
Independence and the
Constitution
B. The Great Awakening
• More impact on the
common folk than the
Enlightenment
• The phases of the
Awakening throughout the
colonies
• No single sect
monopolized the
movement while the
Anglicans and the
Quakers generally
opposed it
B. The Great Awakening (cont)
• Begins in
Northampton,
Massachusetts in the
parish of Jonathon
Edwards
-- “Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry
God”
--Sarah Edwards
B. The Great Awakening (cont.)
• Central figure = George
Whitefield
--7 trips to America
--orphanage in Georgia
--friend of Franklin
--1st American celebrity
• Turmoil really begins with
American itinerants
following in Whitefield’s
wake
B. The Great Awakening (cont)
• Gilbert Tenant’s sermon
“The Dangers of an
Unconverted Ministry”
(1742)
• “New Lights” vs. “Old
Lights”
• Results of the Great
Awakening
--New Colleges
--Impact on the
Revolution?