Research Paper on "Origins of the Thirteen Colonies"

Research Paper 10 pages (3081 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Origins of the Thirteen Colonies

Prior to the revolution of 1688-9 the only colony which contained a large non-British element in its white population was New York. There the Dutch predominated, and there was also a considerable proportion of Frenchmen. The other colonies were mainly peopled from the British Isles. New England was almost exclusively English. Pennsylvania contained a large Welsh element, and Catholic Irish were numerous there and in Maryland. Irishmen and Scotsmen were also to be found throughout the southern colonies. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, many Huguenots went from France to America, settling principally in New York, Virginia and South Carolina (Archibald, 1978). Exact or even approximate figures are not obtainable, but it seems clear that until the second decade of the eighteenth century the sum of all these emigrations was not sufficient to modify the predominantly British coloring of the American population. After 1709, however, a great German wave began to pour across the Atlantic. In that year no less than 13,000 persons from the Rhine country appeared in England seeking passage to the colonies. A few reached no further than Ireland, but the government, with a mercantile motive for expanding colonial population, favored the wishes of the remainder. Some Germans and Swiss went to North Carolina, many to the frontier regions of New York, and a still greater number to Pennsylvania, where they were sufficiently numerous to retain their own speech and customs. The German emigration to this colony long continued in large volume. Twenty years after its commencement thousands were still arriving annually: in 1739 and 1743 two German newspapers were founded in Pennsylvania (Akenson, 1985). Successive arrivals took service as "redemptioners" or indentured servants with established colonists of their own nationality (Lipset, 1963). Negroes were also sold into America at a much greater rate than during the seventeenth century. Upon those colonists of British descent changed environment and climate were beginning to work a subtle alteration of outlook and to weaken the ties of instinctive allegiance. In addition, the duration, hardship and expense of the Atlantic passage, coupled with the absence of all but the most primitive postal arrangements, formed a barrier to sunder those family ties which nowadays preserve the affection of the wandering Englishman for the land of his birth. The result was that insensibly the Americans became a distinct race (Lipset, 1968). "In 1660 the people of England and of the English colonies . . . formed parts of one nation; in 1760, this was no longer true. . . . In all that constitutes nationality, two nations now owed allegiance to the British crown" (Appleby, 1984).

Constitutional Machinery was of one general type throughout the colonies: each had a governor representing the crown; a council which advised the governor, assisted in legislation, and acted also as a supreme court of law; and a lower chamber or assembly composed of elected representatives. The methods of appointment to these offices were various. Connecticut and Rhode Island, having recovered their old seventeenth-century charters, appointed their own governors and councils (Lipset, 1968). In Pennsylvania, Maryland and the Carolinas the proprietors selected the governors subject to the royal veto. The Penn and Baltimore families had each lost their rights in 1689. The former recovered theirs two years afterwards, and the latter in 1715. Thereafter proprietary government continued, in name at least, in their respective colonies until British rule came to an end. In the Carolinas, on the other hand, the proprietors surrendered their rights to the crown, for the southern province in 1719, and for the northern in 1728. In the remaining colonies the governors were of royal appointment throughout the period under review. In the choice of the councilors also there was no strict uniformity. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had locally elected councils. In the other colonies the crown or the proprietors had the principal share in the selection (Appleby, 1984). The assemblies were all popularly elected, although the franchise qualification varied. Generally it may be said that most freeholders possessed the vote. To maintain touch with the home government each colony sent one or more agents to reside in London, their duties being very similar to those of the consuls of foreign powers. In the negotiations and disputes which preceded the War of Independence some of these agents, notably Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, played a prominent part.

Three subjects of dispute were of continual recurrence -- the salaries of the governor and royal officials, the right of colonies to issue paper money, and the right of the crown to veto colonial legislation (Lipset, 1963). It was a settled principle of the home administration that once a colony was fairly established it should defray the salaries of the officials appointed to govern it. In the West Indies this principle had been enforced, not without loud complaint on the part of the planters. In the American colonies a long struggle on the point ended with the defeat of the central government. The salary argument erupted most fiercely in Massachusetts. It started under Sir William Phipps, the earliest governor chosen under the new charter of 1691. He and his heirs were ordered from home to exact a fixed and enduring salary of at least £1000 a year (Archibald, 1978). The colonial leaders progressively refused compliance. They were careful to lift the struggle to the plane of principle by making voluntary and temporary grants often exceeding the amount demanded. But on the principle they were adamant, and however generously they provided for their governor they would do so only for a year at a time, reserving the right to cut off supplies should they see fit. In the power of the purse lay the real freedom of an elective assembly; lacking that it might sink to the status of a debating society (Appleby, 1984). The Commons of England had fought the battle and won it in the seventeenth century, and they were now disinclined to share the victory with the American colonists. But the latter succeed also by their stable perseverance. Consecutive governors, getting no money from home, established temporary grants in non-payment of a permanent salary, and beneath Jonathan Belcher, who was elected in 1729; the central government eventually gave way and concurred with the colonial view (Lipset, 1968). In New York and other colonies the same principle prevailed, although the salary question was interwoven with other issues and not clearly isolated as in Massachusetts. Political opinion in England never truly faced the deeper implication of the dispute-that colonial freedom was incompatible with subordination to the will of the mother-country. From the contemporary viewpoint we who take satisfaction in the determination of Elyot and Hampden cannot rationally denounce the colonial leaders who endeavored for related objects (Shenkman, 1988).

On the question of paper currency the British government occupied a sounder position. Owing to the balance of trade being continually adverse to the colonies they suffered always from a deficiency of the precious metals (Parsons, 1951). In consequence they were tempted to issue paper money at times when extraordinary expenditure was necessary (Lipset, 1968). Some colonies, notably Rhode Island, did this to excess, and their currency became heavily depreciated. This in its turn had unfavorable effects upon commerce, and led the mercantile interest at home to complain. The home authorities passed Acts of Parliament and issued instructions to the governors to curb what was undoubtedly an abuse. But here again the colonial assemblies had usually the last word and the views of British statesmen were only partially enforced.

The vetoing of colonial legislation was a source of perpetual ill feeling. Throughout the period the crown sought to exercise overseas the right which it had allowed to fall into abeyance in England. Sometimes governors received instructions in advance to disallow certain classes of legislation. More usually the veto was imposed at home when the acts of the colonial assemblies came up for review (Myrdal, 1944). The legislation which was vetoed was in most cases of a type which sought, directly or indirectly, to subvert the operation of the imperial laws of trade; and again the principle at stake was that of colonial liberty as opposed to mercantile subordination. The colonists did not deny the crown's right to veto. They found means of circumventing it by passing temporary Acts and renewing them as often as they fell to the ground, relying upon the fact that an interval of two or three years commonly elapsed before the decision of the home government was promulgated. 1 The outcome of all these trials of strength emphasized the unsatisfactory nature of representative government unaccompanied by full responsibility of the executive officers to the assembly (Shenkman, 1988). 2 It illustrated also the chronic weakness, rather than the tyranny, of the British administration, which was continually asserting powers theoretically justifiable but incapable of enforcement (Appleby, 1992).

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