An “Empire of Goods”:
Eighteenth Century British
North America
 (71) Between 1607 and 1763, Americans gained control of
their political and economic institutions. To what extent and
in what ways do you agree or disagree with this statement?
 (78) Although the thirteen American colonies were founded
at different times by people with different motives and with
different forms of colonial charters and political organization,
by the Revolution the thirteen colonies had become
remarkably similar. Assess the validity of this statement.
 (89) In the two decades before the outbreak of the American
Revolutionary War, there was a profound shift in the way
many Americans thought and felt about the British
government and their colonial governments. Assess the
validity of this statement in view of the political and
constitutional debates of these decades.
 (95) For the period before 1750, analyze the ways in which
Britain’s policy of salutary neglect influenced the
development of American society as illustrated in the
following:
 Legislative assemblies Commerce Religion
I. Introduction: Anglicization and
Americanization
 2 v. diff. social systems in 17th (NE + VA)
not caused by slavery, rather slavery
result diff. and then reinforced
 How did these come together as
Americans to fight in Rev?
 To become American had to become more
English (Anglicization): had much to do
w/18th century city
II. Population Growth and Diversity
 1700: 250,000 colonists (Tenochtitlan 1520)
 Pop. explodes after 1700: more rapid than any
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other western society
Doubles every 25 years:
1) low mortality (less disease, abundance food)
2) immigration (Scotch-Irish, Germans)
3) high birth rate (natural increase)
A. Change in Colonial
Immigration Policy
 English migration continues but
 1) discouraged except lowest
orders increasingly need
workforce
 2) encourage immigration from
outside England: offer easy
naturalization
 Scotch-Irish: N. Ireland Protestants
 Germans: Pennsylvania Dutch
(Deutsch)
 Both come for opportunity
 Bring religious and ethnic diversity
B. Changing Demography
 1776: ½ South non-English real cultural
and social problems
 S-I resent Eng in particular and authority in
general frontier squatters
 Germans resisted acculturation (esp.
Amish and Mennonites)
 New immigrants want/need move West
for land:
 Land taken up by first immigrants
 Maintain culture/religion
 Effect: growth (pop and territory),
diversity, dispersal
 Conflict w/Indians (Doc B)
 So, how come together as Americans?
III. Commerce and the Colonial
City
 Society overwhelmingly rural (95%), but by AR
20 urban center over 3,000
 Big 3: Boston (15,000), NYC (25,000),
Philadelphia (40,000)
 (others along coast, esp. in North)
A. “Empire of Goods”
 Trade (ocean-going commerce) foundation
urbanization, colonial wealth, and
Anglicization
 Merchants bought raw materials from
interior (esp. food) Caribbean for
molasses back to make rum slaves
Caribbean
 Also fur trade and ship building
 English send woolens,
hardware, and esp.
luxury goods
 1740-1770: 360% rise
English exports to
colonies (esp. to cities)
 These goods linked
together wide variety of
people (rich, poor, rural,
urban, European, Indian,
African) into shared
consumer culture
 McRoyal with Cheese
B. Colonial Cities
 Gap btwn rural and urban in 18th nothing
by modern standards (hogs running wild in
NYC)
 BUT would be shock to backcountry
farmers or small townspeople
 Urban diversity (class,
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racial, ethnic)
Luxury
Vice (brothels,
thieves)
Anonymity (that aided
vice)
Filth
Traffic
Fires
New institutions:
 Prisons
 Alm houses (poor)
 Greater cultural
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stimulation:
Book shops
Libraries
Theaters
Social clubs
IV. Provincialism and the
Anglicization of Colonial Culture
A. Provincial Culture
 Colonial culture was provincial: not selfcontained, draw from larger, superior
center, following fashions and fads
(Danville and SF/Oakland)
 Esp. at top of society; Doc C
 Overseas trade made this possible:
Boston and Phila. closer contact London
than some English cities
 Ships carried ideas,
news (sometimes
more valuable than
goods)
 Colonial cities
resembled England:
architecture, furniture,
fashions, taverns
B. Phases of Social Development
 1. Social simplification: demands of survival
disorientation + adaptation to new environment
(except NE)
 2. Social elaboration: creolized variants
adaptation to changes but mixed w/elite
demands to resemble England
 3. Social replication (Anglicization): elites drive
recreation of English society
 Diff. Regions developed at diff. rates and in diff. ways,
but all tending along same trend
V. 18th Century Boston
 Increase Mather (major
Puritan minister): Boston the
land of the dying: impact of
commerce
 New elite of imperial
bureaucrats: elaborate
homes + slaves
(conspicuous
consumption)
 Wealthy colonial merchants
follow suit
 Slackening of
Congregationalism
some returning to
Anglican Church (to fit
in with imperial elite)
 Growing opulence:
Georgian mansions,
paintings (esp. John
Copley)
 Theater didn’t do well
(Puritanism) but
growing number
private companies
 By American
Revolution, Boston
boasted a private
society committed not
only to religion but
also commerce,
theater, art and
architecture, and the
finer things in life.
 E.g. Paul Revere,
silversmith
VI. From Anglicization to
Americanization
 This life not lived by all
 Only 5% in cities, and only small % of this lived
this life
 BUT process overflowed cities and rich
 Visitors, newspapers, “empire of goods” (T.H. Breen)
 More English became, more had in common
(across space and class)
 Boston more like Williamsburg, VA, and vice versa
 Identification w/all things English (esp.
rights; Doc E) ironically led to questioning
of things English (esp. opulence)
 Begin to celebrate American simplicity and
see selves as different from (and superior
to) English (Doc D)