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At that time the colonists gave little thought to
cutting loose from their imperial moorings. They considered
the British political system the best in Europe, noted for its
equilibrium between King, Lords, and Commons assembled in Parliament.
They imported British books, furniture, and clothing; wealthy
planters and merchants imitated the manners of the English aristocracy.
Even with the restrictions imposed on their external trade
by the Navigation Acts
-- or perhaps because of them -- they had prospered in their
direct economic intercourse with Britian, the most industrialized
country in Europe. Nor was their trade rigidly confined;
they were also permitted to sell an assortment of valuable products
such as grain, flour, and rice on non-British markets in the
West Indies and in southern Europe.
In 1763 the colonists were an expanding and maturing
people; thier numbers had reached a million and a half, and they
were doubling every quarter of a century -- multiplying like
rattlesnakes, as Benjamin Franklin
said. If most provincials were sons of the soil, Americans could
nonetheless boast of five urban centers, "cities in the
wilderness" -- Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Charleston,
and Newport. The cities served as filters through which
new ideas of the European Enlightenment entered the colonies,
helping to generate an inquisitive spirit about humankind and
the total environment.
Newspapers and colleges in the cities and towns served
as disseminators of the thought and culture of what was truly
an Atlantic civlization. A new mobility, together with
a receptivity to new ideas, was a hallmark of American society.
It came about because of high wages, cheap land, and an
absence of legal privilege. Americans were -- except for
their African slaves -- one of the freest people in the world.
Another sign of that freedom was their almost complete
control over their internal and domestic affairs, exercised largely
through their popularly elected lower houses of assembly, which
in turn served as nurturing ground for such future Revolutionary
leaders as John Adams, John Dickinson,
Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.
Although the colonists had reached a high level of
maturity, there was not at mid-century a meaningful American
nationalism. The life and institutions of the parent state
continued to provide the central focus of colonial culture. The
word "American" appeared infrequently; people were
more likely to descibe themselves as "English" or "British,"
or as "Virginians" or "Pennsylvanians." Nor
did the provincials display a marked degree of intercolonial
cooperation; their own rivalries and jealousies over boundaries,
western land claims, and military contributions in the imperial
wars all tended to retard American national feeling, as may be
seen in the rejection of the Plan of Union presented by Benjamin Franklin to the Albany
Congress in 1754.
Nothing, however, unites a people like a commonly
perceived threat to their way of life; and after 1763 the colonists
felt endangered within the empire. There is a real irony in the
way the American Revolution began, for the very elements that
had wedded the colonists to the mother country -- especially
their political and economic freedoms -- were viewed in London
as signs that Britain had lost control of its transatlantic dominions,
and that the colonists were fast heading down the road to full
autonomy or absolute independence.
Those sentiments, growing steadily in the 18th century,
crystalized during the French and Indian War when British officials
complained that Americans cooperated poorly in raising men and
supplies and in providing quaters for British troops, to say
nothing of trading illegally with the enemy and generating friction
with western Indians over land and trade goods.
Whatever the truth of these charges--and they were
partly true, if exaggerated -- it was not unreasonable after
1763 for Britain to ask more of its prosperous dependencies.
Britain's heavy national debt and concurrent tax burdens stemmed
partly at least from a series of 18th-century wars that were
fought to some extent for the defense of the colonies. Nor was
it wrong to argue that a measure of reorganization in American
administration would lead to greater economy and efficiency in
imperial management. But Britain embarked upon this course with
a lack of sensitivity, ignoring the concerns of its maturing
subjects, who were scarcely the children they had once been.
In short, Britain's state of mind (meaning that of
its rulers and the parliamentary majority) corresponded to its
lofty status as the superpower of Europe in 1763. It was said
that the Pax Romana would pale in comparison with the Pax Britannica,
which would bring a "prosperity and glory unknown to any
former age." Britain no longer felt a need for its former
allies in Europe. For what nation could now threaten it? It no
longer required the goodwill of its colonies, for France had
ceased to be a threat to the thirteen colonies, whose men and
other resources--although Britain scarcely admitted it--had in
fact aided the British victory in 1763.
Even before the termination of the French and Indian
War, visible indications had appeared of a new direction in colonial
affairs. Beginning in 1759, small-scale disputes broke out between
Britain and the colonies over disallowance of measures passed
by the popular assemblies, over writs of assistance empowering
the royal customs officials to break into homes and stores, and
over judicial tenure in the colonial courts. Subsequent decisions
made in London forbade "for the time being" western
settlement beyond the Appalachian divide (the Proclamation of
1763), eliminated provincial paper currency as legal tender,
bolstered the customs department, and enlarged the authority
of the vice-admiralty courts in relation to enforcement of the
Navigation Acts. |
