World History from 1500: The American Revolution

I. Colonization

A. The Virginia Model

1. Roanoke--the first attempted colonization by the British was at Roanoke Island, in what is now known as the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, it was meant to be a base for privateers (licensed pirates) to raid the Spanish treasure fleets sailing to Spain via the Gulf-stream.

2. Jamestown--the first successful English colony. Initial purpose was to be a self-sustaining military outpost. Finding little material wealth, efforts turned to agrarian products to turn a profit for the Virginia Company. John Rolf (married to one of Chief Powhattan’s daughters, Pocohantas’. Chief Powhattan was the chief of the Powhattan group) conceived of an idea to a noxious weed that the native s used for ceremonial purposes (tobacco). This necessitated importing labor to cultivate it--indentured servants and slaves.

3. Carolinas--settled initially be family members of Barbadian sugar plantations, the plantations in the Carolinas was responsible for growing food to feed the slave populations the sugar plantations, because all arable land on the sugar islands was used to grow sugar cane.

B. Massachusetts model

1. Plymouth colony--the Puritans’ “Citty on the Hill,” New England, where all the settlers with any political power would be right-thinking Puritans.

a) Town meeting--are seen as exemplars of democracy, but the right to vote was limited to church members, and church membership was limited to those people who had been saved.

b) Anne Hutchins--a woman who questioned control of religious doctrine by a select few men; she was eventually tricked into stating that she believed that God spoke directly to her, a serious deviation from Puritan doctrine, and she was banished from the colony.

2. Roger Smith--a true practitioner of religious freedom, for which he was banished from Plymouth. He fled to Providence and established his own settlement, where he allowed various denominations to worship as they wished; it was in nearby Newport that the first Jewish synagogue was built.

C. Middle Colonies

1. William Penn’s colony--the only colony besides Rhode Island to practice religious freedom--but the Society of Friends (the Quakers) held the dominant political positions.

2. New York

3. New Jersey--the Middle Colonies, like the Virginia model, used slaves and indentured servants for most of the labor that was carried out in the colony--although in far smaller numbers than in the southern colonies.

II. The Costs of Opportunity

A. “Possession” of Land

1. Common Cultural Trait Among Native Peoples--in North America was their conception that, as a people, they were granted the right to use the land that they occupied, but that individual members did not have any ownership rights to a particular plot of land. They were willing to share the land they had been granted with others, as long as they received “just” compensation for its use--and with the understanding that they could revoke the right to use the land at any time.

2. European cultural practice--on the other hand, Europeans utilized a different concept, which emphasized the rights of individuals to own a particular piece of land, with which they were allowed to use in anyway they chose--including selling it to someone else at a hefty profit.

a) Europeans also delighted in “sharp dealing,” meaning selling commodities at the highest possible price while buying commodities at the lowest possible price.

B. The Cost of the Conflict

1. The Frontier--is defined by the conflicts over possession of land between Europeans (or, as we might start calling them, whites) and native peoples. These conflicts necessitated that European powers found it necessary to have armies on the ground in the American colonies to keep the peace. All of this cost a great deal of money, and led to the European powers--England in particular--to seek ways of making the colonists bear a greater share of these costs.

2. Attempts to cut British costs--centered on limiting the contact between whites and native peoples by restricting the settlement of whites in frontier areas.

3. Increasing tax revenue streams--the British government attempted to get American colonists to pay an increased share of the cost of maintaining the colonies’ administrative and military costs.

C. Colonial Resistance

1. French and Indian War (Seven Year’s War)--ended in 1763, resulted in Great Britain obtaining European control of most of North American east of the Mississippi River. It was the attempt to administer this territory--and make it a paying proposition, particularly regarding the fur trade with native peoples--that led to a series of political moves that alienated the European population south of the St. Lawrence river, and led to the American Revolution.

2. North American smugglers--a number of merchants in North American circumvented restrictions on trading with non-English traders. Most of the taxes and duties passed by Parliament were attempts to enforce this restriction, but juries in the colonies refused to convict smugglers.

3. “No Taxation without Representation”

a) Sugar Act (1764)--like many of the laws passed during the decade leading up to the American Revolution, this law cut the tax rate, but also beefed up enforcement--and British sugar was more expensive than the which could be acquired from French plantations in Haiti.

b) Stamp Act (1765)--required the presence of a stamp from the government on any legal document--and also on newspapers, magazines

c) Quartering Act (1767)--required colonists to directly pay for the cost of troops in the colonies by housing and feeding them in their own homes.

d) Tea Act (1773)--required colonists to purchase tea from the British East India Tea Company. Even though the price of tea was slashed, colonists in Boston resisted the enforcement of this act by disguising themselves as Native Americans and tossing the tea into Boston Harbor.

4. Continental Congress--began as a body authorized by the individual colonial legislatures to petition for redress after Boston Harbor was closed down after the incident over the tea.

a) Sons of Liberty--one of the extra-legal bodies that sprang up as a result of these disagreements. Made up of the same kinds of people who were attracted to the New Model Army--small merchants, urban craftsmen, and small prosperous farmers.

b) Power of the Mobility--the “mob” had a long history of involvement in politics, characterized by taking protest to the streets and assaulting the property or person who was accused of putting their self-interest above that of the well-being to the community. The mob took to the streets because they had no other way of making their voice heard--they had no right to vote.

(1) The Boston Massacre

(2) The Boston Tea Party

III. Propaganda and Class

A. Propaganda

1. Thomas Paine and Common Sense--perhaps the only author to approach the popularity of Paine’s pamphlet in modern times is J.K. Rowling (Common Sense sold about 150,000 copies in a country of less then 3 million people, including slaves who were kept largely illiterate--the equivalent sale today, with a population of 300 million, would be 15 million copies). Paine’s irreverent, vigorous prose captured the mood of the times, and was probably responsible for giving voice to a great deal of dissatisfaction.

B. Class conflict

1. Worcester County Mass.--farmers closed down the county court system to prevent creditors from using the courts to collect debts; this same action after the victory over the British provoked a different action from the men known to us as the Founding Fathers.

2. Hudson Valley New York--small farmers at this location decided to support the loyalist side, because of the obscene rents they had to pay to Patriot Patroon landholders.

3. The Revolution and Slavery--the rhetoric of freedom and rights resonated with many slaves--and many whites in the northern colonies,who began to question the morality of holding other humans in bondage

a) Many slaves in the north fought for their freedom--and the freedom of whites--in the militias and in the Continental navy.

b) In the colonies of the south, on the other hand, many slaves fled their masters in the hope of gaining freedom promised by the British government (Thos. Jefferson’s reaction to this was excised from the final edition of the Declaration of Independence.

IV. The War

A. The Turning Points

1. American fighting capability--Washington and his army won few battles, but he was able to keep on Army in the field, because his soldiers believed in the cause they were fighting for.

2. British incompetence--British military generals were chosen for their connections to the British royal family, rather than their military experience.

3. French assistance--men (including slave soldiers from Haiti), material, and particularly ships that were able to harass British supply lines and most important cut off the avenue of retreat at the Battle of Yorktown.