Colonial era

To the foreign visitor, America has always appeared to be not one culture, but a mixture of different cultures. In the colonial period, this mixture of contrasting traditions was already taking shape. The narrow idealism of Massachusetts existed beside the more tolerant idealism of Rhode Island, the ethnic variety of Pennsylvania and the practical commercial agriculture of Virginia. Most American colonists worked on small farms. In the southern colonies of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, landowners carved large tobacco ad rice plantations out of fertile river basins. They were worked by Africans under the system of slavery, which had been evolved slowly since 1619, or by free Englishmen who contracted to work without pay for several years in return for their passage to America.

By 1770, several small but growing urban centres had emerged, each supporting newspapers, shops, merchants and craftsmen. Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Charleston, South Carolina were the largest cities. Unlike most other nations, the United States had never a feudal aristocracy. Land was plentiful and labour was scarce in colonial America and every free American had an opportunity to achieve economic independence, if not prosperity.

All of the colonies shared a tradition of representative government. The English king appointed many of the colonial governors, but they all had to rule in a cooperation with an elected assembly. Voting was restricted to landowning males, but most white males owned enough property to vote.

By 1733, English settlers had occupied 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast, from New Hampshire in the North to Georgia in the south. The French controlled Canada and Louisiana. Between 1689 and 1815, France and Britain fought several wars, and North America was drawn into ever one of them. By 1756, England and France were fighting the Seven Years’ War, known as the French and Indian war. The Peace of Paris signed in 1763, gave Britain title to Canada and all of North America east of the Mississippi River.

Britain’s victory led directly to a conflict with its American colonies. To prevent fighting with the Native Americans a royal proclamation denied colonists the right to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. The British government charged new taxes. The Quartering Act forced the colonies to house and feed British soldiers. With the passage of the Stamp Act, special tax stamps should be attached to all newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents and licenses.

Americans distrust the power of “big government”, after all, millions of immigrants came to this country to escape political repression. In 1765, representatives from nine colonies met as the “Stamp Act Congress” and spoke out against a new tax. Merchants refused to sell British goods, mobs threatened stamp distributors and most colonists simply refused to use the stamps. The British Parliament was forced to repeal the Stamp Act, but it enforced the Quartering Act, enacted taxes on tea and other goods and sent customs officers to Boston to collect those tariffs. Again the colonists refused to obey, so British soldiers were sent to Boston.

Tensions eased when Lord North, the new British Chancellor of the Exchequer, removed all the new taxes except that on tea. In 1773, a group of patriots responded to the tea tax by staging the “Boston tea party”. Parliament then passed the “Intolerable Acts” and more British soldiers were sent to the port of Boston. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. These leaders urged Americans to disobey the Intolerable Acts and to boycott British trade. Colonists began to organize militias and to collect and store weapons and ammunition.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1153