The Empire in Transition
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bbri38559_ch04_104-129.inddri38559_ch04_104-129.indd PPageage 110404 110/15/080/15/08 88:50:42:50:42 PPMM uuserser //Volumes/203/MHSF070/mhbri13%0/bri13ch04Volumes/203/MHSF070/mhbri13%0/bri13ch04 Chapter 4 THE EMPIRE IN TRANSITION THE BOSTON MASSACRE (1770), BY PAUL REVERE This is one of many sensationalized engravings, by Revere and others, of the confl ict between British troops and Boston laborers that became important propaganda documents for the Patriot cause in the 1770s. Among the victims of the massacre listed by Revere was Crispus Attucks, probably the fi rst black man to die in the struggle for American independence. (Library of Congress) bbri38559_ch04_104-129.inddri38559_ch04_104-129.indd PPageage 110505 99/10/08/10/08 99:44:21:44:21 AAMM uuser-s180ser-s180 //Volumes/203/MHSF070/mhbri13%0/bri13ch04Volumes/203/MHSF070/mhbri13%0/bri13ch04 S LATE AS THE 1750s, few Americans saw any reason to object to their SIGNIFICANT EVENTS membership in the British Empire. The imperial system provided them with 1713 ◗ Treaty of Utrecht concludes Queen Anne’s War many benefi ts: opportunities for trade and commerce, military protection, 1718 ◗ New Orleans founded to serve French plantation economy in Louisiana political stability. And those benefi ts were accompanied by few costs; for 1744–1748 ◗ King George’s War the most part, the English government left the colonies alone. While Britain did 1749 ◗ French construct fortresses in Ohio Valley A 1754 ◗ Albany Plan for intercolonial cooperation rejected attempt to regulate the colonists’ external trade, those regulations were laxly ◗ Battle of Fort Duquesne begins French and Indian administered and easily circumvented. Some Americans predicted that the War 1756 ◗ Seven Years’ War begins in Europe colonies would ultimately develop to a point where greater autonomy would 1757 ◗ British policies provoke riots in New York become inevitable. But few expected such a change to occur soon. 1758 ◗ Pitt returns authority to colonial assemblies ◗ British capture Louisbourg fortress and Fort By the mid-1770s, however, the relationship between the American colonies Duquesne and their British rulers had become so strained, so poisoned, so characterized by 1759 ◗ British forces under Wolfe capture Quebec suspicion and resentment that the once seemingly unbreakable bonds of empire 1760 ◗ George III becomes king ◗ French army surrenders to Amherst at Montreal were ready to snap. And in the spring of 1775, the fi rst shots were fi red in a war 1763 ◗ Peace of Paris ends Seven Years’ (and French and that would ultimately win America its independence. Indian) War ◗ Grenville becomes prime minister The revolutionary crisis emerged as a result of both long-standing differences ◗ Proclamation of 1763 restricts western settlement between the colonies and England and particular events in the 1760s and 1770s. ◗ Paxton uprising in Pennsylvania Ever since the fi rst days of settlement in North America, the ideas and institutions 1764 ◗ Sugar Act passed ◗ Currency Act passed of the colonies had been diverging from those in England in countless ways. Only 1765 ◗ Stamp Act crisis because the relationship between America and Britain had been so casual had ◗ Mutiny Act passed ◗ those differences failed to create serious tensions in 1766 Stamp Act repealed Sources of Crisis ◗ Declaratory Act passed the past. Beginning in 1763, however, the British 1767 ◗ Townshend Duties imposed government embarked on a series of new policies toward its colonies—policies 1768 ◗ Boston, New York, and Philadelphia merchants make nonimportation agreement dictated by changing international realities and new political circumstances 1770 ◗ Boston Massacre within England itself—that brought the differences between the two societies into ◗ Most Townshend Duties repealed 1771 ◗ Regulator movement quelled in North Carolina sharp focus. In the beginning, most Americans reacted to the changes with 1772 ◗ Committees of correspondence established in relative restraint. Gradually, however, as crisis followed crisis, a large group of Boston ◗ Americans found themselves fundamentally disillusioned with the imperial Gaspée incident in Rhode Island 1773 ◗ Tea Act passed relationship. By 1775, that relationship was damaged beyond repair. ◗ Bostonians stage tea party 1774 ◗ Intolerable Acts passed ◗ First Continental Congress meets at Philadelphia ◗ North Carolina women sign Edenton Proclamation calling for boycott of British goods 1775 ◗ Clashes at Lexington and Concord begin American Revolution 105 bbri38559_ch04_104-129.inddri38559_ch04_104-129.indd PPageage 110606 99/10/08/10/08 99:44:21:44:21 AAMM uuser-s180ser-s180 //Volumes/203/MHSF070/mhbri13%0/bri13ch04Volumes/203/MHSF070/mhbri13%0/bri13ch04 106 CHAPTER FOUR LOOSENING TIES laws at home as well as overseas; none could concentrate on colonial affairs alone. To complicate matters further, After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England and the there was considerable overlapping and confusion of collapse of the Dominion of New England in America, the authority among the departments. English government (which became the British govern- Few of the London offi cials, moreover, had ever visited ment after 1707, when a union of England and Scotland America; few knew very much about conditions there. created Great Britain) made no serious or sustained effort What information they did gather came in large part from to tighten its control over the colonies for over seventy agents sent to England by the colonial assemblies to lobby years. During those years, it is true, an increasing number for American interests, and these agents, naturally, did of colonies were brought under the direct control of the nothing to encourage interference with colonial affairs. king. New Jersey in 1702, North and South Carolina in (The best known of them, Benjamin Franklin, represented 1729, Georgia in 1754—all became royal colonies, bring- not only his own colony, Pennsylvania, but also Georgia, ing the total to eight; in all of them, the king had the New Jersey, and Massachusetts.) power to appoint the governors and other colonial offi - It was not only the weakness of administrative author- cials. During those years, Parliament also passed new laws ity in London and the policy of neglect that weakened supplementing the original Navigation Acts and strength- England’s hold on the colonies. It was also the character ening the mercantilist program—laws restricting colonial of the royal offi cials in America—among them the gover- manufactures, prohibiting paper currency, and regulating nors, the collectors of customs, and naval offi cers. Some trade. On the whole, however, the British government of these offi ceholders were able and intelligent men; most remained uncertain and divided about the extent to were not. Appointments generally came as the result of which it ought to interfere in colonial affairs. The colonies bribery or favoritism, not as a reward for merit. Many were left, within broad limits, to go their separate ways. appointees remained in England and, with part of their salaries, hired substitutes to take their places in America. Such deputies received paltry wages and thus faced great A Tradition of Neglect temptations to augment their incomes with bribes. Few In the fi fty years after the Glorious Revolution, the British resisted the temptation. Customs collectors, for example, Parliament established a growing supremacy over the king. routinely waived duties on goods when merchants paid During the reigns of George I them to do so. Even honest and well-paid offi cials usually Growing Power of (1714–1727) and George II found it expedient, if they wanted to get along with their Parliament (1727–1760), both of whom were neighbors, to yield to the colonists’ resistance to trade German born and unaccustomed to English ways, the restrictions. prime minister and his fellow cabinet ministers began to Resistance to imperial authority centered in the colo- become the nation’s real executives. They held their posi- nial legislatures. By the 1750s, the American assemblies tions not by the king’s favor but by their ability to control had claimed the right to levy taxes, make appropriations, a majority in Parliament. approve appointments, and pass laws for their respective These parliamentary leaders were less inclined than colonies. Their legislation was subject to veto by the gov- the seventeenth-century monarchs had been to try to ernor or the Privy Council. But tighten imperial organization. They depended heavily on the assemblies had leverage over Powerful Colonial Legislatures the support of the great merchants and landholders, most the governor through their con- of whom feared that any such experiments would require trol of the colonial budget, and they could circumvent the large expenditures, would increase taxes, and would Privy Council by repassing disallowed laws in slightly diminish the profi ts they were earning from the colonial altered form. The assemblies came to look upon them- trade. The fi rst of the modern prime ministers, Robert selves as little parliaments, each practically as sovereign Walpole, deliberately refrained from strict enforcement of within its colony as Parliament itself was in England. the Navigation Acts, believing that relaxed trading restric- tions would stimulate commerce. Meanwhile, the day-to-day administration of colonial The Colonies Divided affairs remained decentralized and ineffi cient. There was Despite their frequent resistance to the authority of no colonial offi ce in London. The nearest