The
th
18
Century
Part 2
Birth of a Consumer Society
• After midcentury, Americans began buying
more English goods than their parents or
grandparents had done, giving birth to a
CONSUMER REVOLTIONS.
• Between 1740 and 1770, English exports to
the American colonies increased by an
astounding 360 percent.
• In part, this new American market shift reflected a
fundamental transformation in the British economy.
• The pace of the British economy picked up dramatically
after 1690.
• Small factories produced certain goods more efficiently
and more cheaply than the colonists could.
• The availability of these products altered the lives of
most Americans, even those with modest incomes.
• Franklin noted in his Autobiography how changing
consumer habits affected his life.
• To help Americans purchase American goods,
British merchants offered generous credit.
• Colonists deferred settlement by agreeing to
pay interest on their debts.
• The temptation to acquire British finery blinded
many people to hard economic
realities…American debts continues to grow…
• British industrialization undercut American
handicraft and folk art
• The shifting patterns of trade had immense effects
on the development of an American culture.
• First, the flood of British imports eroded local
regional identities. Commerce helped to
“Anglicize” American culture by exposing colonial
consumers to a common range of British
manufactured goods.
• Deep sectional differences remained (from the 13
colonies) – but all seemed drawn to sophisticated
London.
• At mid 18th century, colonial exports flowed
along well-established routes.
• More than half of American goods produced
for export went to Great Britain.
• The Navigation acts were still in effect, and
“enumerated” items such as tobacco had to
be landed first at a British port.
The Navigation Acts
1650-1696
• The Navigation Acts were passed by the
English Parliament in the seventeenth century.
• The Acts were originally aimed at excluding
the Dutch from the profits made by English
trade.
• The mercantilist theory behind the Navigation
Acts assumed that world trade was fixed and
the colonies existed for the parent country.
The Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1696 restricted
American trade in the following ways;
1. Only British ships could transport imported and
exported goods from the colonies.
2. The only people who were allowed to trade with
the colonies had to be British citizens.
3. Commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton
wool which were produced in the colonies could
be exported only to British ports.
THE NAVIGATION ACTS
• Before 1763 the English civil war and the Glorious Revolution were taking
place in Europe.
•
During this time the British had to deal with the wars in Europe and really
didn't enforce the Navigation Acts, due to their preoccupation with the war.
•
Colonist then stopped following the laws, and smuggling and bribery
became a common sight throughout the colonies.
•
The colonists began trading with non-British colonies in the Caribbean, this
trading contributed to many colonial merchants and farmers prospering.
•
Britain once again tried to enforce these laws after the French and Indian
War, but the colonists sternly objected.
• These acts aroused great hostility in the American colonies.
• The Navigation Acts were finally revoked in 1849 after Britain supported
the policy of free trade.
The Navigation Acts
• Throughout the colonial period, after the middle of the
seventeenth century, the one great source of irritation between
the mother country and her colonies was found in the Navigation
Acts.
• The twofold object of these acts was to protect English shipping,
and to secure a profit to the home country from the colonies.
• As early as the reign of Richard II steps had been taken for the
protection of shipping, but not before 1651 were there any British
statutes that seriously hampered colonial trade.
• The Long Parliament, in 1642, exempted New England exports and
imports from all duties, and a few years later all goods carried to
the southern colonies in English vessels were put on the free list.
• In addition to these laws there were two other classes
of laws, all, however, belonging to the same system,
which tended to impede the development of the
colonies, -- the corn laws and the laws against
manufacturing.
– The corn laws in the interest of the British - beginning about
1666, practically shut out from England grain raised in the
colonies.
– This drove New England and New York to manufacturing, and
this again led England to forbid manufacturing in the
colonies.
– These laws were far more effective than the Navigation Acts.
• It is stated that in 1708 New York manufactured three
fourths of the woolen and linen goods used in the
colony, and also fur hats in great numbers, many of
which were shipped to Europe and the West Indies.
• This trade was largely suppressed by English laws passed at
various times.
– In 1732 an act forbade the exporting of hats to England, to foreign
countries, or from one colony to another.
– It also limited the number of persons a maker of hats might
employ.
– Iron was found in all the colonies, and forges and furnaces were
established in many places.
• But in 1750 Parliament enacted a law declaring that "no mill
or other engine for rolling or slitting iron," "nor any furnace
for making steel shall be erected in the colonies"!
• Parliament also enacted laws at various times restricting the
manufacture of woolen goods.
• These laws bore heavily on the northern colonies, but were
little felt in the South, where manufactories were rare.
• Probably the harshest of England's laws in the
suppression of colonial trade was the Molasses Act of
1733.
• By this act prohibitive duties were placed on molasses
and sugar, from the French West Indies to the colonies.
• HOW IT AFFECTS NEW ENGLAND:
– New England enjoyed a great trade with the islands,
receiving molasses and sugar for flour, stock, lumber, and
fish, part of which could not be sold to England owing to the
corn laws.
• Had the Molasses Act been enforced, the prosperity of
New England would have been at an end.
• The northern colonies, which produced the same
kinds of goods as England produced, and
consequently were barred from the English trade,
suffered deeply by the trade laws, while the
southern colonies, which raised commodities, such
as tobacco and rice, which could not be duplicated
in England, suffered far less.
• The Board of Trade and Plantations, established as a
permanent body in 1696, kept account of the acts
of colonial legislatures, corresponded with the
governors, and informed itself thoroughly
concerning all matters of colonial trade.
• But in spite of all efforts the Navigation Acts could scarcely
be enforced at all.
• LAWBREAKERS:
– It may be said that the whole people became lawbreakers, and
often the customs officials and even the governors connived at
their practice.
• SMUGGLING:
– Smuggling was universal. It went on regardless of the admiralty
courts established in most of the colonies. "Juries found their
verdicts against the most undoubted facts.“
• The Molasses Act was certainly an economic and a
political blunder; it not only made the people lawbreakers,
it led them to hold Parliament in contempt, as not able to
enforce its own laws.
The Clash of Political Cultures
• The political history of the 18th century
illuminates a growing tensions with the
empire.
• Americans of all regions repeatedly stated
their desire to replicate British political
institutions.
• Parliament, they claimed, provided a model
for the American assemblies.
• America wants a system of checks and balances to keep a
tyrant in check…
• The colonists assumed that their own governments were
modeled on the balanced constitution of Great Britain…
• They argued that within their political system, the governor
corresponded to the king and the governor’s council to the
House of Lords…
• The colonial assemblies were perceived as American
reproductions of the House of Commons and were expected
to preserve the interests of the people against those of the
monarch and aristocracy.
• As colonists, however, they discovered general theories about
a mixed constitution were even less relevant in America than
they were in G.B….
• By midcentury a majority of the mainland colonies
had royal governors appointed by the crown…
• Many were career army officers who had through
luck, charm, or family connection had gained
prestige…
• Posts of patronage….
• These governors did not rock the boat…
• Royal governors possess enormous power in the
colonies…
• Royal governors posses the right to VETO and
DISMISS judges…
• The Royal governors also served as military commanders in
each province…
• Political practice in America differed from the British model in
another crucial aspect…
• Royal governors were advised by a council, usually a body of
about 12 wealthy colonists selected by the Board of Trade in
London upon the recommendation of the governor…
• During the 17th century, the council had played an important
role in colonial government, but its ability to exercise
independent authority declined steadily over the course of
the 18th century…
• Its members certainly did not represent a distinct aristocracy
within American society…
• If Royal governors did not look like kings, nor American
council like the House of Lords, colonial assemblies bore little
resemblance to the 18th century House of Commons…
• The major difference was the size of the American franchise…
• In most colonies, adult white males who owned a small
amount of land could vote in colony wide elections…
• One historian estimates that 95% of this group in MA were
eligible to participate in elections…
• The number in VA was @ 85%.
• These figures have led many scholars to view the colonies as
“middle-class democracies,” Societies run by moderately
prosperous yeoman farmers who – in politics at least –
exercised independent judgment…
• Colonial governments were not democracies in the modern sense
of that term.
• Possessing the right to vote was one thing, exercising it quite
another.
• Americans participated in elections when major issues were at
stake-the formation of banks in mid-18th century MA, for example
– but most of the time were content to let members of the rural
and urban gentry represent them in the assemblies..
• These colonial politics excluded women and nonwhites from
voting.
• The point to remember is that the power to expel legislative
rascals was always present in America, and it was this political
reality that kept autocratic gentlemen from straying too far from
the will of the people.
Economic Transformation
• The colonial economy kept pace with the stunning growth of
population.
• During the first ¾ of the 18th century, the population
increased at least eightfold – and the per capita income did
not incline.
• With the exception of the urban dwellers, such as sailors
whose employment varied with the season, white Americans
did quite well.
• An abundance of land and the extensive growth of agriculture
accounted