CHAPTER 4: FRONTIERS OF EMPIRE: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AMERICA, 1680-1763 (#2)
British Colonies in an Atlantic World
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rapid growth of an urban cosmopolitan culture and the consumer marketplace
Provincial Cities
o few 18th century Americans lived in cities
o Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, and Charles Town – the 5 largest cities
o highly specialized commercial character
o entrepôts – port towns serving intermediary trade as shipping centers where bulk cargoes were
broken up for inland distribution and where agricultural products were gathered for export
o in the cities that Americans were exposed to and welcomed the latest English ideas
o merchants transformed commercial profits into architectural splendor there
 built grand homes of enduring beauty
 described as Georgian because they were constructed during the reign of
Britain’s early Hanoverian kings (who all happened to be named George)
 provincial copies of grand country houses of Great Britain
American Enlightenment
o Age of Reason – intellectual revolution (the Enlightenment)
 characterized by the works of Newton and Locke, Voltaire and Hume
o American Enlightenment – colonists welcomed experimental science, while defending the
tenets of traditional Christianity
 power of reason to enable them to comprehend the orderly workings of his creation
o focus on a search for useful knowledge, ideas, and inventions that would improve the quality of
human life – practical experimentation
 did encourage their countrymen, especially those who attended college, to apply reason
to the solution of social and political problems
Benjamin Franklin
o genuine philosophe – a person of reason and science
 even though he had little formal education
o he and his brother founded the New England Courant – a weekly newspaper
 writing under the name of Silence Dogood
o Franklin devoted himself to the pursuit of useful knowledge, ideas that would increase the
happiness of his fellow Americans
 pushed the Lord aside, making room for free exercise of human reason
 investigation of electricity, invented the lightning rod, a marvelously efficient
stove that is still used today
o he became a symbol of material progress through ingenuity
o organized groups that discussed the latest European literature, philosophy, and science
Economic Transformation
o an abundance of land and the extensive growth of agriculture accounted for their economic
success
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more Americans produced more tobacco, wheat, or rice – just the major exports – and
by this means, they maintained a high level of individual prosperity without developing
an industrial base
o Navigation Acts – still in effect for “enumerated” items such as tobacco
 furs were added to the restricted list in 1722
o White Pines Act (1711, 1722, 1729) – forbade Americans from cutting white pine trees without
a license, reserved the best trees for the use of the Royal Navy
o Molasses Act (1733) – also called the Sugar Act, placed a heavy duty on molasses imported
from foreign ports
o Hat and Felt Act (1732) and the Iron Act (1750) – attempted to limit the production of colonial
goods that competed with British exports
 crown officials however, generally ignored the new laws
o trade with Africa involved less than 1% of all American exports
o colonial merchants relied on profits made in the West Indies
Birth of a Consumer Society
o Americans began buying more English goods than their parents or grandparents had done
 small factories produced certain goods more efficiently and more cheaply than the
colonists could
 British industrialization undercut American handicraft and folk art
o British merchants offered generous credit and colonists agreed to pay interest on their debts
 the American debt continued to grow
 substantial increase in inter-coastal trade
o Great Wagon Road – rough, hilly highway that by the time of the Revolution stretched 735
miles along the Blue Ridge Mountains to Camden, South Carolina
 Conestoga wagons – “wagons of empire” – had been invented by German immigrants
living in the Conestoga River Valley in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
o shifting patters of trade and the effect on American culture:
 first – flood of British imports eroded local and regional identities
 second – expanding coastal and overland trade brought colonists of different
backgrounds into more frequent contact