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Intro
Chap I-IV
V-VIII
IX-XII
XIII-XV
XVI-IX
 

Provincial America - Chapters 16-19


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CHAPTER XVI

PROVINCIAL INDUSTRY

(1690-1740)

THE growth of population just described implies a corresponding development of economic activity, partly on lines already indicated and partly in new directions.[*] In the south the most important characteristic of the period is the gradual rounding out and crystallizing of the plantation system. In Virginia during the seventeenth century the tendency to form large estates, favored by the physiographical conditions and the almost exclusive cultivation of tobacco, was somewhat restrained by the rule limiting grants to fifty acres for each person actually imported. These head-rights gradually became more valuable, till, in 1699, the council fixed a definite purchase price for land in sterling money. Very large grants now became common: Governor Spotswood signed on one occasion several grants of ten, twenty, and forty thousand acres, including an aggregate of over eighty-six thousand for himself. Theoretically, grants were

[* Cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chaps. xviii., xix.]

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conditioned upon occupation and improvement, but the land administration was in the hands of the governor and council, or even sometimes of the councillors alone, who, being themselves large landowners, were lax in enforcing rules which operated against the interests of their class. An extreme illustration is furnished by the record of William Byrd, of Westover, the most famous Virginian planter of the early eighteenth century. Byrd inherited from his father an estate of some twenty-six thousand acres, added to it at various times by fresh grants, one of which amounted to over one hundred thousand acres, and "owned when he died no less than 179,440 acres of the best land in Virginia."[*]

[* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, Introd.]

Similar laxity in other parts of the south resulted in a similar absorption of landed estates in comparatively few hands; the tendency was least marked in North Carolina and most so in South Carolina. The Carolina proprietors had begun by granting some large tracts, or baronies; but they afterwards tried to keep grants within more moderate limits; and, under the royal government, efforts were made to resume lands which had been improperly taken out in the first instance or never actually occupied. The best lands of South Carolina were monopolized by a few landholders and speculators; and after the overthrow of the proprietary government their claims were confirmed by a

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statute of 1731 which, though strongly opposed by the royal surveyor-general, finally escaped disallowance. By 1732 it was estimated that there were not "one thousand acres within one hundred miles of Charleston or within twenty miles of a river or navigable creek which were not already taken possession of." Many estates so formed were held together by the system of entails, which in Virginia during the early years of the eighteenth century became even stricter than that of the mother-country. Land and slaves became the dominant passion of the planter, who could rarely be induced "to sell or even lease the smallest portion of his lands."[*]

[* Smith, South Carolina, 28-70, esp. 41; Ballagh, Land System in the South (Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1897), 117; Hening, Statutes, III., 320.]

As the land system developed, the growing import trade in slaves furnished the kind of cheap labor desired for the great estates, and, especially in Virginia and South Carolina, gradually superseded the system of white service in the fields. In Maryland, however, white service continued to be important.[*] Notwithstanding all efforts towards diversification, Virginia and Maryland continued during this period to devote themselves almost wholly to tobacco. For the marketing of this product the planter was dependent upon the London merchants, who sent out their ships, not to a few trading ports in the colony, but up the rivers to the individual

[* See above, p. 237.]

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plantations, though the large planters sometimes acted as agents for their neighbors. The attempts to establish towns at which tobacco might be collected for export, especially by the small planters, were almost wholly unsuccessful. The planters complained of exorbitant freight rates, and, indeed, of difficulty in securing regular transportation on any terms. The small planters suffered most; but even the larger planters with their regular correspondents in London sometimes failed to secure sufficient shipping.

The London merchant was the planter's agent in the purchase of goods as well as in the sale of tobacco, and the natural result was a large development of the credit system. The long delays in exchange between America and England often left the planter in considerable uncertainty as to the exact extent of his balance. Thus a Virginia planter wrote to his agent in 1695, pressing him to send his account at once, "for not knowing how my account stands, I dare not send for goods though my wants are very great and pressing." This system certainly did not promote sound business methods, and many of the larger land-owners were, like Byrd himself, heavily in debt to their English agents.[*]

[* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, xxxv.-xxxix.; Bassett, Virginia Planter and London Merchant (Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1901, I.), 553-575.]

It was essential to the prosperity of the tobacco colonies that their products should maintain a good

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standard of quality, and this need was a frequent subject of provincial legislation. In this respect Maryland was less fortunate than Virginia, and her trade was seriously depressed in consequence. Bills for the inspection of tobacco, with a view to enhancing its price, were strongly urged by the small planters, who were relatively strong in the lower house; but the insistence of the latter on reducing the fees of public officers, regularly paid in tobacco, prevented the passage of such a measure by the officeholders in the council, until 1747, when a satisfactory compromise was reached and efficient inspection secured.[*]

[* Mereness, Maryland, 106-118.]

No one product in the Carolinas had quite the same position in provincial life which tobacco had in Virginia, although in South Carolina rice soon became the chief article of export, and competed with great success in the markets of southern Europe. This promising trade was checked in 1705 by an English statute which added rice to the list of enumerated articles; but in 1730 the restriction was removed as to ports south of Cape Finisterre, and the trade revived, though not on the scale which had been hoped for. Indigo, later second to rice as a staple export, was not produced in considerable quantities until near the middle of the eighteenth century. Both the Carolinas produced considerable quantities of lumber, of naval stores, including pitch and tar, and of provisions; but North

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Carolina had no one important staple, and her aggregate production for export was comparatively small. The most striking economic difference between South Carolina trade and that of the tobacco colonies was its concentration in the one important port of Charleston; but there was no such development in North Carolina.[*]

[* McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, 109, 262-265; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 609; Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 200, 224, 229; N. C. Col. Records, III., xv.]

The engrossing of estates by a few large owners and the increasing use of slave-labor checked the development of an independent small-farmer class and discouraged immigration. In North Carolina, however, where land could be had on easier terms, and where governmental authority was comparatively lax, the population was quite different from that of tide-water Virginia or South Carolina, and the large planter did not have the same overshadowing importance as in the two neighboring colonies. At the other extreme of the social scale stood the shiftless farmers whom William Byrd described so effectively in his History of the Dividing Line, who kept "so many Sabbaths every week, that their disregard of the Seventh Day has no manner of cruelty in it, either to Servants or Cattle"; they loitered "away their lives, like Solomon's Sluggard, with their Arms across, and at the Winding up of the Year scarcely have Bread to Eat." Yet some allowance must be made for the prejudices of a Virginia

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planter; and undoubtedly there stood between these two extremes a substantial though less picturesque class of small farmers.[*]

[* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, chap. xii., 61, 76.]

In the second quarter of the century the Scotch-Irish and German immigration was just beginning to complicate the social structure of the planter colonies by bringing in a class of settlers who cultivated comparatively small farms on the frontiers, without slaves for the most part, and produced wheat instead of tobacco or rice. They were still, however, of minor importance in southern life.

The industrial life of the northern colonies was developing on lines clearly divergent from that of the south. There is nothing comparable to the great plantation systems of Virginia and South Carolina, except among some exceptional communities like the Narragansett and Hudson River farmers. In New York the English governors after the revolution of 1689 continued the practice of lavish grants begun under the Dutch regime; but these grants failed to develop to any large extent a real plantation system, for the number of slaves imported was comparatively small. On the other hand, few immigrants cared to become tenants on the great estates. The chief effect of this unwise administration was, therefore, to divert immigration to other provinces. Generally speaking, therefore, the middle colonies as well as those of New England continued to be occupied by comparatively small holdings,

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not isolated economic units like the Virginia plantations, but grouped together in more or less compact communities.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel to Col. Hist., V., 368-371; cf. Ballagh, Land System in the South (Am. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1897), 110-113; Shepherd, Proprietary Government in Pa., 45 et seq.]

The labor system of the north shows a similar divergence from southern conditions. Negroes were few, and though white servants were numerous in Pennsylvania, even they did not form a permanently servile class. Aristocratic usages and traditions existed, but the general trend of economic development was towards a democratic society. The greater variety of northern industry appeared the moment one passed from the Chesapeake colonies into Pennsylvania. In 1700, Robert Quarry reported that the Pennsylvanians as the result of their industry had made "bread, flower and Beer a drugg in all the Markets in the West Indies." In later years beef, pork, and lumber appear as important articles of export. The agricultural products of New York and New Jersey were in the main similar to those of Pennsylvania. In a word, the middle colonies were the great producers of provisions.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 601-604, 686; Ames, Pa. and the English Govt.]

The colonists still depended mainly upon England for their clothing and other manufactures, though their early experiments in this field were important enough to arouse the jealousy of the mother-country. In these enterprises the southern colonies were observed

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to be far less active and successful than those of the north. The Board of Trade declared in 1732 that there were "more trades carried on and manufactures set up in the provinces on the continent of America to the northward of Virginia, prejudicial to the trade and manufactures of Great Britain, particularly in New England, than in any other of the British colonies."[*]

[* Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 194.]

The colonial woollen industry which Parliament had attempted to check by the act of 1698 continued to be an object of special interest and suspicion to the Board of Trade. During Queen Anne's War and the consequent interruption of trade, there was apparently a considerable development of the industry, especially in New England. In 1708 a zealous royal official in New England made the extreme assertion with regard to the country people that "not one in forty but wears his own carding, spinning, etc."; and soon afterwards Governor Dudley reported that "the people here clothe themselves with their own wool, though they would be glad to buy English wool if they could afford it." Later reports, however, indicate no considerable development beyond the production of the coarser grades for domestic use, which went on more or less in all the colonies. There were also some manufactures of linen, as among the Germans of Pennsylvania and the Scotch-Irish of New Hampshire. One detail of clothing acquired during this period

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an unusual historic importance. In 1721 the Board of Trade noted in its report on New England that "some hatters have lately set up their trade in the principal Towns." The industry also appeared in New York, presently came to the knowledge of the London Company of Feltmakers, and finally called forth an act of Parliament in 1732 prohibiting the export of hats from one colony to another, requiring for makers of hats an apprenticeship of seven years, and forbidding any master to employ more than two apprentices.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 63, 591-630, 938; N. C. Col. Records, III., xv.; Palfrey, New England, IV., 326, 399; 5 George II., chap. xxii.; N. J. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 306.]

One other class of industrial experiments excited the interest and jealousy of the mother-country. These were the small beginnings of the American iron industry, which was carried on in several of the continental colonies during the early years of the eighteenth century. Iron was then mined in New England, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and all of these colonies began the rudimentary forms of iron manufacture in charcoal furnaces. In the Board of Trade reports for 1721 the iron works of New England are referred to as furnishing small quantities for common use, but English iron was said to have a better reputation and to be more generally used. In 1732 the Massachusetts colonists were said by one official to make "all sorts of iron-work for shipping"; but the governor, while

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admitting that the local iron-works afforded the people iron for some common necessaries, asserted that British iron was wholly used for the shipping and that the colonial product could not supply one-twentieth of the local demand. William Byrd, about the same time, describes several iron-works in Virginia in which the former Governor Spotswood, among others, was interested. During the next decade New England sent insignificant quantities of pig-iron to England; but Pennsylvania, and especially the Chesapeake colonies, exported more largely.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 396, II., 497-500; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 598; Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 192; Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, 342-361.]

There was a considerable sentiment in England in favor of developing the iron resources of the colonies; but the more finished products were objectionable as likely to come into competition with those of the mother-country. In 1719 it was proposed in Parliament to prohibit the manufacture of iron wares or even of bar-iron. About twenty years later there was a lively agitation in favor of encouraging the importation of partially worked iron from the colonies on the ground that it would stimulate the more finished manufactures of the mother-country and would also free English merchants from their dependence on Sweden and Russia. The discussion did not take shape in legislation

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until 1750, when an act was passed allowing the free importation into England of colonial pig-iron, and, at the port of London, of bar-iron, but prohibiting American manufacture beyond that stage. Probably the colonial industry was not sufficiently advanced to suffer seriously from this statutory prohibition; but it doubtless caused some irritation.[*]

[* Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 88, 167, 170, 217; Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, II., 683; 23 George II., chap. xxix.]

Two kinds of colonial manufacture which were thoroughly established and carried far beyond provincial limits were the building of ships and the distilling of rum, and the chief seat of both was New England. New-Englanders had been ship-builders almost from the first; but the industry assumed much larger proportions during the first half of the eighteenth century. The small craft of the seventeenth century were gradually replaced by larger ones, though even in 1780 a ship of five hundred tons was considered unusually large. New England ship-building was not confined to a few leading ports but spread to nearly all the coast and river towns; and Pennsylvania also developed a considerable ship-building industry. Both Pennsylvania and New England built ships not merely for their own use, but for sale abroad, in the West Indies and in Europe; hence English jealousies were again aroused, and the ship-carpenters of the Thames

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complained of the New England competition. Richard West, the legal adviser of the Board of Trade, reported that though their grievance might be well founded, "they might as well complain of shipbuilding at Bristol, because the acts of navigation recognized colonial ships as English built." The Board of Trade apparently sympathized with the ship-masters, but nothing was done.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 366-369, II., 573-576; Chalmers, Revolt, II., 33; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 604; cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chap. xix.]

During the same period the manufacture of rum first assumed large proportions. The chief seats of this industry were Massachusetts and Rhode Island, especially Newport, and it was made from West Indian molasses. It was not only consumed at home, but was regarded as indispensable for the fishing fleets, the Indian trade, and the African slave-trade.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, II., 459, 501-503; Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 180-182.]



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CHAPTER XVII

PROVINCIAL COMMERCE

(1690-1740)

IN the commerce of the provincial era the Indian fur trade continued to play an important part. In New York, peltry was one of the chief articles of export; and Cadwallader Colden, the historian of the Iroquois confederacy, said that in this trade New York was the only English colony that could successfully compete with the French. Reference has already been made to Burnet's establishment at Oswego and his efforts to break up the trade between Albany and Montreal. It was found impossible to stop the trade altogether, and a new measure was therefore adopted which aimed to discourage it by imposing higher duties than on the direct trade with the western Indians.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 687, 726-733, 745 et seq., 781, 818, 820, 824; see above, p. 212.]

A considerable Indian trade was also developed on the frontiers, from Pennsylvania southward. The founder of the Byrd family in Virginia was interested in the trade carried on by pack-horse caravans with the Catawbas, Creeks, and Cherokees of

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the southwest. During the eighteenth century there was often sharp rivalry between individual colonies for the control of this trade. The Virginians, gradually losing ground before the Carolinians, complained of unfair regulations imposed by South Carolina, which afterwards had similar complaints to make of Georgia. In the south as well as in the north the international rivalry between French and English was also active. The Board of Trade complained that the trade which ought to be a source of strength to the English interest was tainted with so many abuses that it often provoked the hostility of the Indians. They therefore urged new regulations for Indian affairs. No general measures were adopted, however, for many years.[*]

[* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, chaps. xvii.-xix.; Smith, South Carolina, 212-219; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 611, 626, 627.]

Except for the Indian trade, American commerce, whether intercolonial or international, was mainly carried on by sea, and in sea-going commerce New England easily took the lead. The abundance of good harbors on her coasts, the rich resources offered by the northern coast and deep-sea fisheries, and the ready supply of lumber for ship-building had all combined to make the New-Englanders a sea-going people.

The prosperity of New England commerce was closely related to the development of the fisheries.

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During the early French wars this interest suffered severely, and it was not until the second quarter of the eighteenth century that the New-Englanders fairly established themselves in the northern fisheries. Then the industry developed rapidly all along the north shore, and in 1741 the single port of Gloucester had seventy vessels engaged. The cod-fisheries were the most important; but there was also an interesting development in whaling, from the early catch of drift-whales and the small-boat fisheries near the coast, to the deep-sea whaling which reached its prime by the middle of the eighteenth century and carried New England seamen on perilous voyages to the most remote regions of the Atlantic.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 430-447, II., 595-598.]

The fisheries of New England may fairly be described as the foundation of her international trade; for fish was, on the whole, her steadiest article of export. The better grades were shipped to the Catholic countries of southern Europe and the produce of the trade was expended sometimes in the illegal importation of European products; but in the main, probably in English manufactures or in wine from the Azores or the Canaries, a permissible article of direct import under the navigation acts. Other important exports for this transatlantic trade were lumber and naval stores, though New England herself gradually came to depend for naval stores upon

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the Carolinas. Frequently the voyage to Europe resulted in the sale of the ship itself.

Probably no branch of New England commerce has had a more direct and evident influence upon her history than the trade with the West Indies. Here again the fisheries furnished a large part of the material for export, especially the "refuse fish" then thought good enough for the West Indian slaves. With fish went lumber, horses, provisions, and some British manufactures. From the West Indies the New-Englanders took in return various tropical products, including sugar, and especially large quantities of molasses for the distilleries of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. This commerce was closely connected with the rapid development of the African slave-trade; for, as has been seen, New England rum was sent to the Guinea coast for slaves, and these in turn found their best market in the plantation colonies, especially in the West Indies. Newport especially profited largely by this trade.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 353 et seq., 371-373, II., chaps. xii., xiv.; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 595, 597.]

Philadelphia, the chief commercial port of the middle colonies, followed to a limited extent the lines of New England commerce, though her exports were somewhat different. Grain formed an important article of export from the middle colonies to the West Indies, the Azores, and even

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to southern Europe. Beef, pork, and lumber were also exported, and, as in the case of the New-Englanders, the ship itself was sometimes sold. Return voyages brought clothing and other manufactures from England; sugar, molasses, and other tropical products-often Spanish money from the West Indies. So large a share of the latter, however, was paid for European goods that little remained in the colonies. New York's trade was similar to that of Philadelphia, though her export of peltry was more important and her ship-building less so. One other branch of trade in which the northern colonies were engaged was that of bringing logwood from Central America to be re-exported to European markets.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 601, 685; Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 171.]

There are no accurate statistics as to the trade of the continental colonies, but some figures furnished by the Board of Trade in 1721 will illustrate the general situation. The annual exports from England to the continental colonies were then valued at about £430,000, of which a little over two-thirds were British goods and the rest foreign articles re-exported. Woollen goods constituted roughly one-half of the whole value of British articles exported. Next in importance stood wrought iron and nails. The imports from the continental colonies were valued, roughly, at £300,000, and of this amount about one-half was tobacco. Next in

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order came naval stores, rice, and peltry. More than three-fourths of the total English imports from the continental colonies came from Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas, and a much larger amount (more than two-thirds of all the imports from the American colonies) came from the British sugar islands of the West Indies. Of the English export trade a much larger proportion went to the sugar islands than to either the northern or the southern group of continental colonies. In the aggregate trade of England with the continental colonies she exported more largely than she imported, this condition being due to the northern colonies, which sent no great staples directly to England and paid for their English manufactures indirectly through their ship-building and carrying trade and their commerce with the West Indies and southern Europe.

These figures show the greater value of England's direct trade with the West Indies as compared with that carried on with the northern colonies; and the same fact is emphasized by the statistics of shipping. The tonnage to the British West Indies was more than twice as large as that to New England, New York, and Pennsylvania combined, and somewhat larger than the aggregate for the Chesapeake colonies and the Carolinas. These facts explain the emphasis given by British colonial administrators to West Indian interests. It is to be remembered also that the trade of the northern colonies, especially that of New England, was carried on largely

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in their own shipping, while that of the south and the West Indies was in the hands of British merchants.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 613-619.]

Even from the mercantilist point of view there were decided advantages in the trade between the northern colonies and the West Indies; it supplied the sugar islands with provisions and lumber on cheaper terms than would otherwise have been possible, and it enabled the New-Englanders and Pennsylvanians to buy more freely of English manufactures. After 1713, however, the British West Indian planters grew jealous of the trade between their continental countrymen and the French and Dutch islands. The French relaxed their old restrictions, and their sugar production developed rapidly until it began to displace the British product in European markets. The New-Englanders also found that they could buy their sugar and molasses more cheaply from the French and Dutch. In 1721 the Board of Trade called attention to this undesirable form of New England enterprise, and in 1731 the sugar-planters and the merchants trading to the West Indies petitioned Parliament for relief. In the latter year a bill for this purpose passed the House of Commons but was dropped in the House of Lords.

During the next two years the question was much debated, but the final outcome was the molasses act of 1733, imposing prohibitory duties on foreign

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sugar, molasses, and rum imported into the English colonies.[*] The friends of the bill emphasized the value of the sugar colonies as a market for English manufactures and for African slaves and the large amount of shipping employed in the trade. They asserted also that the trade of the continental colonies was chiefly responsible for the too successful competition of the foreign sugar islands in Europe. The northern colonies claimed that the British West Indies could not meet the whole American demand in addition to that of the mother-country, dwelt on the importance of their own shipping interests and of the rum industry, and insisted that the unfortunate condition of the British sugar plantations was largely due to improvidence and mismanagement. Finally, they argued that it was the trade with the French islands which enabled them to pay for British manufactures. The act was passed, but it involved so serious a disturbance of the natural course of trade that it was systematically violated.[**]

[* 6 George II., chap. xiii.]
[** N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 597; Anderson, Origin of Commerce, III., 140, 171, 177-182; Beer, Commercial Policy of England, chap. vi. For later effects, see Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution (Am. Nation, VIII.), chap. iii.]

Of great importance, but extremely difficult to estimate even approximately, was the intercolonial coasting trade. Thus the middle colonies sent bread-stuffs to New England as well as to South Carolina. A large part of the coasting trade was carried on in New England vessels, which supplied

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the southerners not only with their own domestic commodities but with the proceeds of the European and West Indian trades, North Carolina in particular being largely dependent upon them for contact with the outside world.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, II., 589-592; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 686; N. C. Col. Records, III., xv.-xvii.]

The intercolonial wars gave rise directly or indirectly to several abnormal forms of colonial enterprise. On the border-line between war and commerce, technically legal yet tending always to degenerate into distinctly criminal courses, was privateering. The privateer had a regular commission from his government to prey upon the enemy's commerce, thus enabling him to combine patriotism with private advantage. The peace of Utrecht closed for a time the opportunity for legitimate privateering, but it developed again on a large scale upon the outbreak of war with Spain in 1739. Rhode Island merchants were conspicuous for their investments in this form of business.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 337 et seq., II., 598 et seq.]

In time of peace the more reckless privateersmen were easily drawn into piracy. Just before and after the revolution of 1689 piracy was very common, and in many of the colonial seaports was looked upon somewhat indulgently by the local merchants, who were glad to have the pirate's money without inquiring too closely as to its source.

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Much was said about the laxity of the proprietary governors in this respect, but one of the most notorious offenders was the royal governor Fletcher, of New York. To remedy this crying evil the British piracy act of 1699 was passed, and in the succeeding years pirates were severely dealt with in several of the colonies. The best-known piratical adventurer of this period was Captain William Kidd, who, under the auspices of Lord Bellomont, governor of New York, and the great Lord Chancellor Somers, set out to capture pirates, but ended by turning pirate, or half pirate, himself, and thus brought scandal on his distinguished patrons. He was finally arrested by order of Bellomont, sent to England for trial, and executed there, upon somewhat inadequate evidence, for the crimes of piracy and murder. In 1704 some pirates were executed in Boston, affording a grewsome entertainment to Samuel Sewall and his fellow-citizens.[*]

[* Dict. of National Biography, art. Kidd; Cobbett, Parliamentary History, V., 1276; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 275, 454, 470, 551, 583, 815; Weeden, Econ. and Sac. Hist. of New England, I., 340 et seq., 423, II., 559-565 Sewall, Diary, II., 108-110.]

The climax of American piracy was reached at the close of the War of the Spanish Succession, when the forces of the pirates were swelled by accessions from former privateersmen. Their chief haunts during this period were the Bahamas, which had for a time fallen into a state of anarchy; and the convenient inlets and rivers of North Carolina.

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Two of these maritime desperadoes who stand out above their fellows are Teach, or Thatch, sometimes known as Blackbeard, and Steve Bonnet, formerly a respectable inhabitant of Barbadoes. The leading proprietary officials of North Carolina were strongly suspected of complicity with the pirates, and finally, after a succession of outrages all along the coast, the neighboring governments were forced to act. In 1718, Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, sent an expedition into North Carolina, which in a pitched battle killed Thatch and some of his accomplices. In the same year the South Carolina government sent a similar expedition to the Cape Fear River, where after another desperate encounter Bonnet and his crew were captured. Bonnet himself and most of his followers were soon after tried and executed. Before the year ended, another engagement off Charleston resulted in the capture and execution of several other desperadoes. These and other vigorous measures soon made piracy a more exceptional feature of maritime life.[*]

[* Hughson, Carolina Pirates (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XII., Nos. 5-7).]

The extent of the colonial trade carried on in violation of the navigation acts has been and still is a matter of controversy. Some provisions of these acts were undoubtedly well observed, as, for instance, the rule limiting trade with the colonies to English (including colonial-built) vessels. It is also generally agreed that the molasses act, which

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attempted to break up colonial trade with the foreign sugar colonies, was systematically violated. Probably the export of enumerated articles was in the main confined to England, as the law provided, though there was said to be some illicit exportation of Virginia and North Carolina tobacco from the ill-guarded coasts of the latter colony, with the convenient aid of New England traders. The greatest doubt exists as to the enforcement of the clause requiring tfiat all European goods should be imported by way of England. During the two decades following the revolution of 1689 the colonists were charged with carrying on a large amount of this illegal import trade; but something must undoubtedly be allowed for the zealous efforts of royal agents to discredit the chartered governments, and something, perhaps, for friction in the inauguration of a new system.

After the peace of Utrecht there appear from time to time references to illegal imports from Europe. Thus Thomas Amory, of Boston, wrote to one of his correspondents in 1721, "If you have a Captain you can confide in, you will find it easy to import all kinds of goods from the Streights, France, and Spain, although prohibited." The famous Peter Faneuil was also involved in the illicit trade in European goods, and disposed to resent any excessive strictness on the part of admiralty judges. A fair general conclusion would seem to be that though there was much illegal trading, the volume

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of this illicit trade, with the exception of that carried on with the West Indies in defiance of the molasses act, was not relatively large, and that the eighteenth-century colonists drew the great bulk of their European goods from English ports.[*]

[* Ashley, Surveys Historic and Economic, 336-360; Beer, Commercial Policy of England, esp. 134-143; Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, II., 556-558, 611 et seq.; N. C. Col. Records, III., xvi.]

One of the most perplexing of colonial problems was that of securing an adequate medium of exchange. At the close of the seventeenth century the chief metallic money of the colonists was the Spanish silver piece-of-eight. This Spanish silver was not only limited in quantity, but it was subject to a confusing variety of ratings in the different colonies, and the efforts of the home government to regulate it were not successful. Nearly all the colonies during this century depended largely upon various systems of barter or payment in kind. Thus Virginia had her tobacco currency and Massachusetts her "country pay," or payment in commodities at certain fixed values. In North Carolina this primitive barter system continued until the middle of the eighteenth century.[*]

[* Bullock, Monetary Hist. of the U. S., chaps. ii., iii.; see above, p. 39.]

The want of a satisfactory circulating medium was aggravated by the financial difficulties of the colonial governments. In the colonies as in England the wars with France subjected the financial

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resources of the state to an unusual strain, which they could hardly meet by the immediate imposition of taxes. From one or the other of these motives, or both of them together, paper money was issued by all of the colonies.

The first bills were issued by Massachusetts to meet the expenses of Phips's disastrous expedition against Quebec in 1690. Though declared "in value equal to money," they depreciated rapidly; but during the next twenty years the issues were kept within moderate limits, and the notes were brought for a considerable time to par with coin. The first serious tendency to inflation appeared near the close of Queen Anne's War. The volume of bills was then swelled by numerous emissions, while credit was also impaired by postponing the taxes necessary for their redemption.

All the New England colonies were led to the same course by financial necessities and the real or supposed need of a circulating medium. Efforts to check the depreciation by legal-tender legislation and other forcing measures all failed. New issues were made to replace the old; but the "new tenor" bills only added new rates of depreciation, bringing great hardships not only to the creditor class, but to all recipients of fixed incomes. In 1749 Massachusetts was able to restore her currency to a specie basis; but her neighbors continued to suffer from a depreciated currency, Rhode Island having a particularly bad record in this respect.

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During Queen Anne's War, and as a direct result of the financial burdens imposed by the French and Indian wars, paper currencies were issued by New York and both the Carolinas. They were largely increased afterwards, with the same results of extreme depreciation, which could not be effectively checked by legal tender and forcing clauses. Virginia was much more conservative during this period, issuing no bills until 1755. Maryland and the middle colonies, except New York, were comparatively prudent also, though the Pennsylvanians were thoroughly convinced of the desirability of paper money, and their most eminent citizen, Benjamin Franklin, early distinguished himself in its defence.[*]

[* Bullock, Monetary Hist. of the U. S., 29-59, 125-156, 207-245; Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 319-330; 379-387 II., 473-486; Smith, South Carolina, 229-275; Dewey, Financial Hist. of the U. S., chap. i.]

One of the worst phases of the paper-money movement was the "bank," a natural product of a time when the nature and limitations of credit were not clearly understood, a period marked by such disastrous experiments as the French "Mississippi Scheme" and the "South Sea Bubble," in which many prominent English politicians were involved. A colonial "bank" has been described as "simply a batch of paper money" lent out either by the government or by a private company. In either case there was little or no specie value behind the

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notes, and usually very poor security for the payment either of the principal or of the interest pledged. Such "banks" were undertaken by colonial governments in New England and elsewhere, often with disastrous results. The best-known of these schemes was the Massachusetts "Land Bank" of 1740, a private institution which, however, became a conspicuous factor in provincial politics. Only an insignificant part of the stock of this bank was subscribed in cash, and for the rest commodities of various kinds might be accepted. The bank then issued notes which added perceptibly to the confusion of currency in the province, until Parliament put a stop to its operations.[*]

[* Bullock, Monetary Hist. of the U. S., 29-32; Davis, Currency and Banking in Mass. Bay, esp. pt. ii., chaps. v.-ix.; 14 George II., chap. xxxvii.]

Throughout the eighteenth century the British government showed its hostility to paper-money issues and tried to check them in various ways, especially by instructions to the governors. These instructions were, however, frequently evaded or disobeyed; for governors could be brought to terms by the assemblies refusing to vote salaries or withholding money for urgent public needs. The colonists themselves were divided on the question, as, for instance, in South Carolina, where there was a sharp contest between the planters who wished a paper currency and the merchants who opposed it. In a similar division in Massachusetts the conservative

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business interests finally secured the withdrawal of the paper altogether. Parliament also interested itself in the question, and, after some previous inquiries and resolutions, passed in 1751 an act prohibiting the issue of paper money in New England, except in certain clearly defined cases. This legislation was not extended to the other colonies until 1764.[*]

[* 24 George II., chap. liii., 4 George III., chap. iv.]

Notwithstanding unfortunate experiments of various kinds, the colonies were on the whole prosperous. Prosperity was probably more generally diffused in New England and Pennsylvania than elsewhere; but in every colony there were many persons who could, according to the standards of the time, command the material comforts and luxuries of life. In the south the most substantial wealth was probably to be found in Charleston; but a considerable number of the Virginian planters, though often land-poor and in debt, were able to secure for themselves luxuries of food, clothing, and furniture. Such a man, for instance, was William Byrd. Ir New England there were prosperous merchants, such as Peter Faneuil, or Thomas Amory, who, after a broad experience in various parts of the world, settled in Boston in 1719 and wrote of his new home, "People live handsomely here and without fear of anything." Philadelphia and New York also gave to intelligent observers like the Swedish Kalm and the English Burnaby the impression of comfort and

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prosperity. Burnaby, who visited Philadelphia in 1760, spoke of it with admiration, observing its substantial public buildings and its handsome streets. A few years earlier Kalm wrote rather extravagantly that "its fine appearance, good regulations, agreeable situation, natural advantages, trade, riches and power, are by no means inferior to those of any, even of the most ancient, towns in Europe."[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, II., 565 et seq., 624 et seq.; Jones, Present State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 28-31; Pinkerton, Voyages, XIII., 396, 456, 728, 736-739; Hart, Contemporaries, II., §§ 23, 28.]



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CHAPTER XVIII

PROVINCIAL CULTURE

(1690-1740)

DURING the seventeenth century the pressure of material needs and the scattered character of the settlements prevented much development in the finer elements of civilization; and though New England showed a strongly idealistic spirit, her culture was narrowed by theological partisanship.

At the close of the century these unfavorable conditions were gradually changing and there began a period of substantial progress in civilization. The older communities were emerging from the hardships of the pioneer period; they were coming to have leisure and taste for intellectual pursuits, and becoming ambitious of larger opportunities for their children. The improved communications between different colonies were giving to their higher life some real community of interest, by weakening local and sectarian prejudices. The development of mercantile interests also helped to bring the backward or one-sided life of the colonies into vital contact with the main currents of European progress. In Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and

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Charleston there were many men who had regular business connections with the Old World and from time to time found it necessary to cross the ocean.

Much credit must also be given to the royal governors. Francis Nicholson, for instance, while governor in Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina, gave special attention to education, urging it upon the attention of his colonial assembly, and himself making contributions to the cause. When Yale College was founded, this zealous Anglican showed a surprising breadth of interest by contributing to its stock of books. So, too, his successor in Virginia, Governor Spotswood, was one of the chief patrons of William and Mary College.[*]

[* Mereness, Maryland, 137; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, 482; Trumbull, Connecticut, II., 30.]

In New York and Massachusetts, Governor Burnet left an enviable reputation as a man of scholarly and literary tastes. In New York he had among his political advisers a rather unusual group of intellectual men, and during his residence in Massachusetts he was understood to be a contributor of essays to the New England Weekly Journal. Governor Dudley, whatever his faults may have been, was a "gentleman and a scholar" who kept himself in sympathy with the literary and scientific activities of his time.[*]

[* Winsor, Memorial Hist. of Boston, II., 400, 435.]

The Anglican church also exerted an important civilizing influence. The first two commissaries of

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the bishop of London, Blair in Virginia and Bray in Maryland, are almost as well known for their educational as for their religious activities. The Venerable Society emphasized the educational side of its missionary work, and in many southern parishes the Anglican lay reader was the first teacher. In New England also the Anglican clergy were an important intellectual force, helping their Puritan neighbors by the stimulus of competition and preparing the way for a more tolerant practice.[*]

[* Weeks, in U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1897, II., 1380-1383.]

Perhaps the finest gift of the English church to the life of New England was the mission of George Berkeley, who lived from 1729 to 1731 in the vicinity of Newport. Dean Berkeley was the highest ecclesiastical dignitary who had hitherto visited the colonies, and was known already as a brilliant scholar. As the founders of Massachusetts had hoped to build up a "bulwark against Anti-Christ," so Berkeley saw in the fresh and youthful life of the New World a refuge for Christian and Protestant civilization. He desired to establish an American college under Anglican auspices, but the project was not supported by the English government, and he returned to England much disappointed.

Yet the time which Berkeley spent in Newport was not wasted. In a kindly way he used his influence against the sectarian spirit of New England

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Puritanism, and his sympathies were not confined within his own communion. After his return to England he gave generously to Yale College, both in books and in land, and he also contributed some books to the library of Harvard College. Through the stimulus of his intercourse and example he strengthened the intellectual life of the little colony where he lived, and his influence can be traced also in the founding of King's College in New York, 1754, under the leadership of his friend and disciple, Samuel Johnson.[*]

[* Tyler, in Perry, American Episcopal Church, I., 519-540; Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, II., 546-548; Fraser, Life and Letters of Berkeley, II., chaps. iv., v.]

During this period there was substantial progress in the founding and development of educational institutions, and in the south the most important event was the founding of William and Mary College. Some subscriptions for such a college had been taken in Berkeley's administration; but little was accomplished until 1691, when the assembly sent commissary Blair to England with instructions to secure a charter. Blair appealed successfully to the queen and the king, and in 1693 came back with a royal charter, together with a substantial endow ment from the royal revenues. From time to time this endowment was increased by grants from the assembly and by private gifts.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 300, 426, 452, 575, 693; Adams, College of William and Mary, 11-17; Letters of Blair, in Perry, American Episcopal Church, I., 116-119.]

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William and Mary College was thus founded under distinctly Anglican auspices and its close conrection with the church continued throughout the colonial era. Commissary Blair himself was its first president, holding the office for fifty years; its professors were generally clergymen in charge of neighboring parishes, and emphasis was constantly laid upon training for the service of the Anglican church. About the college there was subsequently built the capital town of Williamsburg, which, with its double attraction of the college and the seat of government, became a social centre of some importance. The college itself passed through many vicissitudes; it was burned down in 1705, and, though soon restored, it was described about 1724 by one of its professors, the Reverend Hugh Jones, as "a college without a chapel, without a scholarship, and without a statute" having "a library without books comparatively speaking; and a president without a fixed salary till of late." In 1729 the faculty consisted of President Blair and six professors, including two in theology and two in the school of philosophy. Though its influence in the colonial era was hardly comparable with that of Harvard, in Massachusetts, it trained a large proportion of the men who were to play conspicuous parts in the struggle for independence.[*]

[* Adams, College of William and Mary, 17-27; Jones, Present State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 45, 83 et seq.; William and Mary Quarterly, VI., 176, 177.]

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William and Mary was the only college in the south during the colonial era, and the demand for higher education had to be met by sending young men out of the colony either to England, or, occasionally, to one of the northern colleges. In the richer families an education over-seas was, therefore, more common than in New England.

In secondary and elementary education the south made some progress during the first half of the eighteenth century. A "grammar" school at Williamsburg gave preliminary training in Greek and Latin. In 1695 the Maryland assembly passed an act for one or more free schools in which Latin and Greek might be taught, but only one was established under its provisions, the King William's School at Annapolis. In 1763, Governor Sharpe declared that there was not in Maryland even one good grammarschool.[*]

[* Mereness, Maryland, 137-145.]

South Carolina during the earlier years of the eighteenth century passed a number of laws for the encouragement of education. In 1711 the colony, with the co-operation of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, established a school in Charleston; and a few were established elsewhere through bequests by individuals or through the efforts of societies.[*]

[* McCrady, South Carolina under Proprietary Government, 510, 700; South Carolina under Royal Government, chap. xxv.]

North Carolina was probably the most backward

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of all the colonies, but even here a few schools were established during the first two decades of the eighteenth century, chiefly through the efforts of the Anglican church. The net results, however, were small, and in 1736 Governor Johnston reproached the assembly with having "never yet taken the least care to erect one school, which deserves the name in this extended country."[*]

[* Weeks, in U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1897, II., 1380-1383; N. C. Col. Records, IV., 227.]

None of the southern colonies had a genuine public-school system, but the deficiency in organized education was partly made up by private instruction, which, in South Carolina especially, employed a considerable number of persons during the latter part of the provincial era. In that colony also something was done for the poor by the rich through the institution of schools with free scholarships.[*]

[* McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, chap. xxv.]

Eight years after the incorporation of William and Mary College another institution for higher education was incorporated in Connecticut. Yale College, like its predecessors in Massachusetts and Virginia, was founded under strongly clerical influences, and was intended to be largely, though not exclusively, a training school for ministers. Most of its promoters were Harvard graduates; but in Connecticut there was a demand for a college nearer home, while in Massachusetts many men felt that Harvard was drifting away from the orthodox standards. The

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act of 1701 incorporating the new college provided for a board of trustees composed exclusively of ministers.[*]

[* Papers by Dexter and Baldwin, in New Haven Colony Hist. Soc., Papers, III., 1-32, 405-442.]

For the next seventeen years the college led an extremely precarious existence. A part of the instruction was given at Saybrook, but some of the students were provided for at various other places. Local jealousies made it difficult to fix a permanent seat for the college; but in 1716 the trustees agreed upon New Haven, and their decision was sanctioned by the general court. There was still some resistance, and in 1718 rival commencements were held at Weathersfield and New Haven; but by concessions to the disappointed towns the breach was soon healed. Meanwhile, donations were coming in from various quarters. Jeremiah Dummer collected a number of books for the college from friends in England; but the most important benefactor was Elihu Yale, a native of Boston, who, after receiving his education in England, became a prosperous East Indian merchant, and governor for the East India Company at Madras. In 1718, at the first New Haven commencement, the school was christened by its new name of Yale College, and in 1719 Timothy Cutler was made resident rector or president of the college.[*]

[* Dexter, Ibid., 227-248.]

The college seemed at last to be definitely established; but it soon sustained a severe shock through the conversion of President Cutler to the principle

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of episcopal ordination. The trustees, however, proved equal to the occasion; Cutler was promptly deposed and a drastic rule was adopted excluding from the government of the college any one who might be tainted with "Arminian and Prelatical Corruptions." Yale College was thus more carefully forearmed against heresy than Harvard had ever been. Cutler's successors, Williams and Clap, both proved efficient administrators and safe theologians, and the college became prosperous and influential. Yale was the academic headquarters of thoroughgoing Calvinism both for New England and the middle colonies; and it trained the two great Calvinistic teachers of the period, Jonathan Dickinson and Jonathan Edwards, who became later the first two presidents of the college of New Jersey. Some of the secular leaders of the middle colonies were also educated at Yale, including such New-Yorkers as William Smith the historian and William Livingston the politician and later revolutionary leader.[*]

[* Trumbull, Hist. of Connecticut, II., 22 et seq.; Clap, Annals or History of Yale College; Talcott Papers, I., 6, n., 58.]

The enthusiasm of Cotton Mather and his friends for Yale was largely due to their consciousness of waning influence at Harvard, where there had long been a vigorous contest between liberals and conservatives for the control of the college. The Mathers desired a new charter in place of the old one of 1650, which should secure the doctrinal

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orthodoxy of the college. No act, however, which the colonists could agree upon, was acceptable to the crown or its agent the governor; until in 1707 the difficulty was solved by a short resolution declaring the old charter to be still in force.

The more liberal element in the church was gradually increasing its representation in the corporation, and in 1707, with the help of Governor Dudley, they elected John Leverett as president. In 1717 the Mather influence suffered another severe check when two more ministers of the liberal school were elected to the corporation. In 1722 the conservatives were strong enough to get through the general court a vote which, by adding the resident tutors to the corporation, would have eliminated the objectionable new members, but this project was blocked by Governor Shute.[*]

[* Quincy, Harvard University, I., chaps. iv.-xiv., passim, and App.]

These controversies between ecclesiastical factions, though petty enough in themselves, are historically significant because they involve the important issue of academic freedom against ecclesiastical control; and because the victory of the liberals made the college for the future one of the strong humanizing forces in New England life. In other ways, also, this was a period of educational progress for Harvard. In 1721 and 1727 the London merchant, Thomas Hollis, established the first two professorships at the college, one in divinity and one in natural

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philosophy. The latter chair was assigned, in 1738, to John Winthrop, a young graduate who during forty years of service was to be one of the best representatives in America of the scholar's life.[*]

[* Quincy, Harvard University, I., 232-241, 398, 399, II., 25-27.]

Educational progress came more slowly in the middle colonies. The Quakers of Pennsylvania believed thoroughly in elementary education, but they cared little for the higher learning, partly because they had no clergy requiring special teaching. The first college in Pennsylvania was not founded until 1755, and then the chief mover in the enterprise was Benjamin Franklin, a transplanted New-Englander. Perhaps the most important Pennsylvania school founded before that time was the one established at Philadelphia in 1697 and subsequently known as the William Penn Charter School.[*]

[* Cf. Sharpless, Quaker Experiment in Government (ed. of 1902), I., 35 et seq.]

In New York the presence of two distinct nationalities interfered seriously with educational progress, and, though there were schools in the province, they had a poor reputation. William Smith the historian, himself a native and prominent citizen of the province, wrote in 1756 that the schools were "in the lowest order."[*]

[* Smith, Hist. of New York (ed. of 1756), 229.]

In New Jersey a law authorizing towns to levy taxes for the support of public schools was passed as early as 1693, and during the next half-century

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a considerable number of schools were actually established. The educational leadership in New Jersey came largely from the Presbyterian church, which had gathered to itself not merely the original Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish stock, but their fellow-Calvinists from New England, Holland, and Germany. Largely through the efforts of Presbyterian ministers, the first charter of the College of New Jersey was granted in 1746, three of the four principal ministerial promoters being graduates of Yale, and one of Harvard. A year later, another Harvard graduate, Jonathan Belcher, became governor of New Jersey, and through his efforts a new charter was granted, which placed the college upon a secure foundation. Thus the higher education of the middle colonies was in large measure the product of New England training.[*] No other college was founded in the middle region before 1750, but the subject was already attracting attention, and the next decade saw the founding of Columbia College under Anglican auspices at New York, and of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, the freest from ecclesiastical control of all the colonial colleges.

[* De Witt, in Murray, Hist. of Education in N. J. (U. S. Bureau of Education, No. 1.), chap. ix.]

An important evidence of a developing civilization is the accumulation of private and public libraries. In the endowment of the early American colleges, notably of Harvard and Yale, donations

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of books had played an important part. Gradually there developed in New England such considerable private collections as those of the Mathers and Thomas Prince. In the south the best-known private collection was that of Westover, in Virginia, which, when sold in 1778, numbered nearly four thousand volumes, collected largely by William Byrd, the contemporary of Governor Spotswood, and showing broad literary and scientific interests.[*]

[* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, p. lxxxii., and App.]

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, Reverend Thomas Bray collected and sent to various places in America small libraries, made up largely, but not wholly, of theological literature. Most of these were in Maryland, but one of the most important was in Charleston, South Carolina, and there were three in New England. About 1729 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent to New York a library of one thousand volumes for the use of the neighboring clergy. Generally speaking, little was done by the colonists to develop these collections, but in 1698 the South Carolina assembly appropriated money for the support of the library in Charleston, for which the distinction has been claimed of being the first public library in America.[*]

[* Steiner, in Am. Hist. Review, II., 59-75; Smith, New York (ed. of 1792), 213; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, 508.]

Of more importance as an indication of colonial

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initiative in this field was the public subscription library in Philadelphia founded by Franklin in 1731 and incorporated in 1742. Franklin tells us that "The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces . . . reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries." A somewhat similar movement resulted in the formation of the Charleston Library Society in 1743.[*]

[* Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I., 167-170; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, 510-512.]

The development of journalism is one of the most important social facts of this provincial era. At the close of the seventeenth century there was not a single newspaper published in North America, and even after the founding of the Boston News Letter, in 1704, fifteen years passed before it had any rival on the continent. During the next two decades, however, newspapers were established in Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. These were generally weekly publications, very imperfect in their reports of American news, giving considerable space to English court life and parliamentary procedure and to scientific or literary essays. Though often cautious

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about the expression of editorial views they became important agencies of political controversy, and furnish to-day valuable sources of information upon numerous aspects of provincial politics.[*]

[* Thomas, Hist. of Printing (Am. Antiq. Soc., Collections, VI), II., 7-204, passim.]

During the first half of the eighteenth century Boston was the chief journalistic centre in the colonies, and in 1735 there were five newspapers simultaneously published in the town. There Franklin began his career as printer and journalist by assisting his brother in the publication of the New England Courant. Papers of a much higher order were the New England Weekly Journal and the Weekly Rehearsal, afterwards continued in the Boston Weekly Post, which had distinctly literary aims and received contributions from leading ministers and laymen.[*]

[* Goddard, in Winsor, Memorial Hist. of Boston, II., chap, xv.]

During the seventeenth century the clergy were almost the only educated professional men in America. Lawyers were few and were regarded with suspicion, and there were few thoroughly trained physicians. During the next half-century there was a decided advance in all of these professions. The development of the Anglican church brought into the middle and southern colonies a few clergymen like Blair in Virginia and Garden in South Carolina, who had shared in the best educational opportunities of their time and yet were ready to spend their lives in the New World.

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In New England the clergy lost ground relatively, but their best men began to show a broader spirit. At the beginning of this era the representative men were the two Mathers, especially Cotton Mather, who, though a man of great learning, felt it to be one of his chief functions to check the rising tide of innovation. With all his voluminous publications, he lacked the scholar's critical instinct. The men who succeeded him differed from him not so much in their formal statements of doctrine as in their more tolerant temper. Such a man was Benjamin Colman, one of the liberals whose influence in Harvard College was so much dreaded by Cotton Mather. "There are some practices and principles," he said, "that look Catholic, which though I cannot reason myself into, yet I bear a secret reverence to in others, and dare not for the world speak a word against. Their souls look enlarged to me; and mine does so the more to myself, for not daring to judge them." Yet Colman had misgivings about Yale College accepting Berkeley's generous gift of books.[*]

[* Tyler, Hist. of Am. Literature (ed. of 1879), II., 171-175; Tyler, in Perry, American Episcopal Church, I., 537.]

The most scholarly Puritan minister of the next generation was Thomas Prince, a graduate of Harvard in 1707, and for forty years pastor of the South Church in Boston. Prince found time to build up a large library and to write his scholarly though fragmentary Chronological History of New England.

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In his dedication he enunciated principles of scholarship strikingly different from those of the Magnalia Christi. "I would not," he said, "take the least iota upon trust, if possible," and "I cite my vouchers to every passage."[*]

[* Quoted in Tyler, Hist. of Am. Literature, II., 145 et seq.]

The progress of the medical profession was comparatively slow. One of the best-known and in some respects most intelligent of American physicians during this period was William Douglass, the author of an entertaining but not quite trustworthy historical and descriptive account of the colonies. Strangely enough, the sceptical Douglass opposed inoculation as a protection against small-pox, while Cotton Mather defended it. William Smith gave a gloomy view of physicians in New York about the middle of the eighteenth century, declaring that there were few really skilful ones, while "quacks abound like locusts in Egypt." South Carolina had a few physicians who showed not only practical skill but some capacity for scientific research.[*]

[* Smith, New York (ed. of 1792), 230; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, chap. xxii.]

At the beginning of the eighteenth century lawyers were so few that even the most important judicial positions were often filled by men without specific legal training. This was true in the southern and middle colonies as well as in New England. In South Carolina, for instance, the first professional lawyer of whom there seems to be any

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definite record was Nicholas Trott, who came to the province in 1698.

During the next fifty years there was a steadily increasing number of trained lawyers, many of whom, especially in the southern and middle colonies, had learned their profession in England. The political leadership of the lawyers may be illustrated by such names as those of Charles Pinckney in South Carolina, Daniel Dulany the elder, in Maryland, and Andrew Hamilton in Pennsylvania, all professional lawyers and all leaders in their respective assemblies. Even Massachusetts, where the common-law traditions were weakest, was producing some strong lawyers; among them John Read, the leader among his contemporaries in the profession; Paul Dudley, a student at the Temple in London and afterwards attorney-general and chief-justice of his native province; and Jeremiah Gridley, who seems to have been a sort of mentor for the younger lawyers of the revolutionary era.[*]

[* Washburn, Judicial Hist. of Mass., 207-209, 211, 283-287.]

There are many evidences of increased refinement and of genuine intellectual interests. It has been said that the New-Englanders of the early eighteenth century show little appreciation of the contemporary literary movement in England; and it is true, for instance, that the Harvard College library contained few of the memorable books of the age of Anne. Nevertheless, Franklin while a boy in Boston undertook to form his style on the Spectator, and the

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newspaper essays of the period show clearly the influence of Addison and Steele.[*]

[* Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I., 47; Goddard, in Winsor, Memorial Hist. of Boston, II., chap. xv.]

A wide-spread interest in natural science corresponded to the contemporary tendency of English thought; even Cotton Mather was interested in these studies, as were his contemporaries Joseph and Paul Dudley. Many Americans of that time were members of the Royal Society of London or contributors to its transactions, including the Winthrops and Paul Dudley in Massachusetts, William Byrd in Virginia, and the physician Lining of South Carolina. In Philadelphia the Quaker John Bartram won a European reputation as a naturalist; and there Franklin, in 1743, issued his appeal for the formation of an American philosophical society to stimulate and organize research.[*]

[* Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I., 480.]

In some of the provincial towns there were considerable groups of cultivated people. With increasing wealth came a development of the æsthetic side of life, especially in domestic architecture and the furnishing of the house. The artist Smibert, who came to New England with Berkeley, left some portraits of representative provincial personages, which, like the later ones by Copley, indicate refined and comfortable standards of life.

Hugh Jones thought that while his Virginian friends were not much disposed "to dive into books,"

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the southwest. During the eighteenth century there was often sharp rivalry between individual colonies for the control of this trade. The Virginians, gradually losing ground before the Carolinians, complained of unfair regulations imposed by South Carolina, which afterwards had similar complaints to make of Georgia. In the south as well as in the north the international rivalry between French and English was also active. The Board of Trade complained that the trade which ought to be a source of strength to the English interest was tainted with so many abuses that it often provoked the hostility of the Indians. They therefore urged new regulations for Indian affairs. No general measures were adopted, however, for many years.[*]

[* Bassett, Writings of William Byrd, chaps. xvii.-xix.; Smith, South Carolina, 212-219; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 611, 626, 627.]

Except for the Indian trade, American commerce, whether intercolonial or international, was mainly carried on by sea, and in sea-going commerce New England easily took the lead. The abundance of good harbors on her coasts, the rich resources offered by the northern coast and deep-sea fisheries, and the ready supply of lumber for ship-building had all combined to make the New-Englanders a seagoing people.

The prosperity of New England commerce was closely related to the development of the fisheries.

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During the early French wars this interest suffered severely, and it was not until the second quarter of the eighteenth century that the New-Englanders fairly established themselves in the northern fisheries. Then the industry developed rapidly all along the north shore, and in 1741 the single port of Gloucester had seventy vessels engaged. The cod-fisheries were the most important; but there was also an interesting development in whaling, from the early catch of drift-whales and the small-boat fisheries near the coast, to the deep-sea whaling which reached its prime by the middle of the eighteenth century and carried New England seamen on perilous voyages to the most remote regions of the Atlantic.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 430-447. II., 595-598.]

The fisheries of New England may fairly be described as the foundation of her international trade; for fish was, on the whole, her steadiest article of export. The better grades were shipped to the Catholic countries of southern Europe and the produce of the trade was expended sometimes in the illegal importation of European products; but in the main, probably in English manufactures or in wine from the Azores or the Canaries, a permissible article of direct import under the navigation acts. Other important exports for this transatlantic trade were lumber and naval stores, though New England herself gradually came to depend for naval stores upon

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their "quick apprehension" gave them a "Sufficiency of Knowledge and Fluency of Tongue." During the second quarter of the eighteenth century the genteel public of Charleston was listening to lectures on natural science, paying good prices at the theatre to see such plays as Addison's tragedy of "Cato," and observing St. Cecilia's day by a concert of vocal and instrumental music. William Smith, writing of New York, gives the impression, confirmed by later writers, of a community which had some of the social graces, but was not very intellectual.[*]

[* Jones, Present State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 44; McCrady, South Carolina under Royal Government, 492, 526-528.]

Boston was thought by the Anglican clergyman, Burnaby, in 1760, to be "undeniably forwarder in the arts" than either Pennsylvania or New York. He considered their public buildings "more elegant" and observed "a more general turn for music, painting, and the belles lettres." The strict observance of Sunday was still a subject of comment by visitors, and the theatre was under the ban, but otherwise the Puritan discipline was much relaxed. Smith thought his own people of New York "not so gay as our neighbors at Boston," and in 1740 the Boston ladies were reported as indulging "every little piece of gentility to the height of the mode."[*] In Boston and New York, as well as in Annapolis,

[* Smith, New York (ed. of 1792), 229; Burnaby, Travels (Pinkerton, Voyages, XIII.), 730, 738, 747; cf. Hart, Contemporaries, II., chaps. xii., xiv.; Winsor, Memorial Hist. of Boston, II., chap. xvi.]

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Williamsburg, and Charleston, English models were closely followed in dress and social practices, though it was observed in New York that the London fashions were adopted in America just as they were going out of use in England.[*]

[* Journal and Letters of Eliza Lucas, 6, 17; Jones, Present State of Virginia (ed. of 1865), 31.]

Provincial society was growing richer, freer, more cosmopolitan in the eighteenth century, but it was felt by many to be losing in ethical and religious vigor. Significant as a protest against the prevailing tendencies of the time was the religious revival which had for its chief preachers Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. The "Great Awakening" may be said to have begun in 1734 with the revival in Edwards's Church at Northampton, in western Massachusetts. A short period of comparative inaction followed, but in 1739 the smouldering fire was fanned into flame by the passionate eloquence of Whitefield. The new revival spread through the southern and middle colonies and produced a powerful impression upon nearly all classes. Even the unemotional Franklin found it hard at times to resist the spell of Whitefield's oratory.

Gradually, however, the inevitable reaction came; for the movement was unwelcome not only to those who were tinged with the new secular spirit, but also to many who stood for the old ecclesiastical order. Thus Whitefield found among his antagonists the Anglican commissary Garden, of South Carolina,

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many of the leading Puritan ministers of New England, and the faculties of Yale and Harvard.[*] By 1745 the "Great Awakening" had largely spent its force, and to-day men question whether it really helped or harmed the cause of morals and true religion. Many of its leaders were men of no great significance in American life; and even Whitefield was not a man of commanding intellect or character.

[* Palfrey, New England, V., 1-41.]

One of these men cannot be so easily dismissed. Jonathan Edwards was not only a preacher of extraordinary power, trying to bring back his people to the hard but virile Calvinism from which they were gradually drifting, but perhaps the keenest and most original thinker America has ever produced. A graduate of Yale College at a time when it seemed on the verge of disintegration, he spent nearly all his life as the pastor of a small country town. Yet the great Scotch metaphysician, Stewart, said of him that in "logical acuteness and subtilty" he was not inferior "to any disputant bred in the universities of Europe"; and the German scholar, Immanuel Fichte, nearly a century after Edwards's death, expressed his admiration for the contributions to ethical theory made by this "solitary thinker of North America."[*]

[* Fisher, "The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards," in North American Review, CXXVIII., 284-303.]

This preacher and metaphysician was also a genuine

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poet. Like Dante, he used his imaginative power in depicting the terrors of the world to come for those who died unsaved, but he was also finely sensitive to beauty in nature and in the world of spirit. His record of his early spiritual experience contains many passages of exquisite beauty. In one of them he describes "the soul of a true Christian" as resembling "such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun's glory, rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly, in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun."[*]

[* Edwards, Works (Dwight's ed.), I., lvi.]

Edwards was born in 1703 and Franklin in 1706, both before the close of the first century of English colonization. The two men were alike in the keenness and range of their intellectual interests, and alike also in a reputation transcending the limits of the provincial communities in which they lived. In other respects they were as opposite as the poles. In sharp contrast to Franklin, with his worldly wisdom, his unemotional temper, and his matter-of-fact philanthropy, stands the great idealist Edwards, who in his writings and his life probably approached more nearly than any American before or since his time the highest levels of the human spirit.

In 1743, while Edwards was absorbed in the

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problems of the Great Awakening, Franklin wrote his Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America,[*] in which he urged that, "the first drudgery of settling new colonies" being "pretty well over," Americans might do their part in scientific and philosophical inquiry. Certainly his own achievements and those of Edwards might well have encouraged such a hope.

[* Franklin, Works (Bigelow's ed.), I., 480.]

From these studies, however, Franklin himself was soon diverted by new and perplexing political problems. Already the final struggle was coming on for the mastery of the continent. Already, too, there lay beneath the obscure questions of provincial politics deeper issues which were to estrange the colonies from the mother-country and force upon them the great problems of government for a new nation. Thus politics rather than speculation became the absorbing interest of the next generation, which saw the end of the provincial era.



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CHAPTER XIX

CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AIDS

JUSTIN WINSOR, Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., 1884-1889), gives the most detailed account of the literature of this period, chiefly in vol. V.; but much important material has since appeared. Channing and Hart, Guide to the Study of American History (1896), is a compact and systematic collection of reference lists, in which, however, the topics are less developed for this than for the earlier period. J. N. Larned, Literature of American History (1902), contains useful descriptive and critical notes, mainly by competent hands. Charles McL. Andrews, American Colonial History (1690-1750) (American Historical Association, Report, 1898), and his "Materials in British Archives for American Colonial History" (American Historical Review, X., 325-349 January, 1905), are serviceable accounts of printed and manuscript material. See also, Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature (2 vols., 1879; revised ed., 1897).


GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS

No comprehensive treatment of this period has yet appeared which represents fairly the present state of knowledge or the point of view of recent students. Of the general histories written during the eighteenth century, John Oldmixon, British Empire in America (2 vols., 1708; revised edition, 1741), and William Douglass, A Summary, Historical and Political, . . . of the British Settlements in

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North America (2 vols., 1749, 1751), are still worth consulting, though neither is accurate. The most scholarly of the eighteenth-century writers was George Chalmers, whose works covering this period are An Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the American Colonies (vol. I., 1782; 2 vols. 1845), and his fragmentary Continuation (to 1696) of his Political Annals of the Present United Colonies (this continuation is in New York Historical Society, Collections, Publication Fund, 1868). Chalmers was a royalist official who had had experience in America, and argued that the colonists were during this period aiming at independence. Notwithstanding this theory, his careful study of the British state papers makes his Revolt still the best general account of colonial politics in the eighteenth century.

The accounts of the period by George Bancroft, History of the United States (last revision, 6 vols., 1888), and Richard Hildreth, History of the United States (6 vols., 1849-1852), are both scholarly, but defective on the institutional side and antiquated in method of treatment and point of view. The various volumes by John Fiske are fragmentary in their treatment of the eighteenth century, especially for New England, and lay special stress upon the picturesque aspects of politics and society. Another popular treatment is by Bryant and Gay, Popular History of the United States (4 vols., 1881, especially vol. III.), but neither this work nor Fiske gives an adequate view of general political conditions and tendencies. Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America (8 vols., 1888-1889), contains in vol. V. some learned and indispensable chapters, especially that by the editor on New England; but there is little account of general movements except on the international side. John A. Doyle, English in America (3 vols., 1882-1887), is as yet mainly confined to the seventeenth century.


GENERAL COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES

The most important repository of material relating to the colonies is the State-Paper Office in London. Abstracts

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of these papers have been published in the Calendars of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies (9 vols., 1860-1903); but the last volume so far published stops at1696 . Much of the remaining material has, however, been published by state governments and historical societies. Especially valuable for general colonial conditions are: the Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York (14 vols. and index, 1856-1883); Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New Jersey (22 vols., 1880-1902); and Colonial Records of North Carolina (10 vols., 1886-1890).

Important contemporary documents are reprinted in Peter Force, Tracts and other Papers relating principally to the Colonies in North America (4 vols., 1836-1846), and in G. P. Humphrey, American Colonial Tracts (18 Nos., 1897-1898). Albert Bushnell Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries (4 vols., 1897-1901; vol. II. on this period), is representative both in the topics covered and in the narratives chosen to illustrate them.


INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The following histories of England covering this period are important for international relations: Leopold von Ranke, History of England, principally in the Seventeenth Century (6 vols., 1875); W. E. H. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century (8 vols., 1878-1890); Lord Mahon, History of England, 1713-1783 (vols. I.-III., 1858); Earl Stanhope, History of England, 1701-1713 (2 vols., 1872; also 1 vol., 1870); Carl von Noorden, Der Spanische Erbfolge-Krieg (3 vols., 1870-1882; published as vols. I.-III. of his Europaische Geschichte in Achtzehnten Jahrhundert), is the most adequate account of the War of the Spanish Succession and the underlying issues of commerce and politics. The lives, memoirs, and published papers of such statesmen as Marlborough, Bolingbroke, and Walpole should also be studied, together with the reports of debates, in William Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England (36 vols., 1806-1820).

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For the colonial wars from 1689 to 1713, the leading secondary authorities are: Francis Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France (1878), and his Half-Century of Conflict (2 vols., 1892); Henri Lorin, Le Comte de Frontenac (1895); William Kingsford, History of Canada (vols. II., III., 1888); S. A. Drake, Border Wars of New England (1897). G. W. Schuyler, Colonial New York (3 vols., 1885), is valuable for the New York frontier.

The principal English documents are in Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, III.-V.; vol. IX. contains translations from the French archives. The important contemporary history of the border warfare is Samuel Penhallow, Wars of New England with the Eastern Indians (1726; new ed., 1859). Cadwallader Colden, Five Indian Nations (1727; good editions by J. G. Shea, 1866, and G. P. Winship, 1904), is also valuable. Compare, on this section, Reuben G. Thwaites, France in America (American Nation, VII.), chap. xix.


RELATIONS WITH THE MOTHER-COUNTRY

For the relation of colonial policy to economic development see William Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times, pt. i. (1903). An old-fashioned but substantial work is Adam Anderson, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce (4 vols., 1787-1789). The best brief account of British colonial policy is H. E. Egerton, Short History of British Colonial Policy (1897), based in part upon the state papers. G. L. Beer, Commercial Policy of England towards the American Colonies (Columbia University Studies, III., No. 2, 1893), is the most complete study on the commercial side.

Contemporary English opinion may be studied in numerous political tracts (see bibliography in Beer, as above); in William Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England (1806-1820); in Journals of the House of Commons and Journals of the House of Lords. The statutes to 1713 are in Statutes of the Realm (12 vols., 1810-1828); after that

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date in Danby Pickering, Statutes at Large (109 vols. and index, 1762).

Louise P. Kellogg, The American Colonial Charter (American Historical Association, Report, 1903, I., 185-341), is an excellent essay upon British administrative policy, chiefly during this period, based largely upon the state papers in London. Other useful essays are: Eleanor L. Lord, Industrial Experiments in the British Colonies of North America (Johns Hopkins University Studies, extra vol., 1898); H. D. Hazeltine, Appeals from Colonial Courts to the King in Council (American Historical Association, Report, 1894); E. P. Tanner, "Colonial Agencies," in Political Science Quarterly, XVI., 24-49 (1901). For legal questions, Chalmers, Opinions of Eminent Lawyers on Various Points of English Jurisprudence, etc. (2 vols., 1814; also I vol., 1858), is of the first importance; it contains a number of official reports on disallowing colonial statutes. See also St. G. L. Sioussat, The English Statutes in Maryland (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XXI., Nos. 11, 12).

The documentary collections of New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina mentioned above contain important material on this subject. Especially valuable also are the following volumes of official correspondence: Robert N. Toppan, ed., Edward Randolph (5 vols., 1898-1899); the Belcher Papers (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 6th series, VI., VII.); the Talcott Papers (Connecticut Historical Society, Collections, IV., V.); G. S. Kimball, ed., Correspondence of the Colonial Governors of Rhode Island, 1723-1775 (2 vols., 1902-1903); Correspondence between William Penn and James Logan (Pennsylvania Historical Society, Memoirs, IX., X.).

Consult for subject-matter and bibliography of this section, Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (American Nation, V.), especially chaps. i., ii., xvii., xx.


POLITICS AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS IN THE COLONIES

H. L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (1904), in the two volumes published, is limited

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to the proprietary and corporate colonies, but the royal provinces are to be considered in a third volume. Though dealing mainly with earlier conditions, these scholarly volumes constitute a valuable introduction to the study of political institutions in the eighteenth century. For the later period the student must depend upon monographic and documentary material.

E. B. Greene, The Provincial Governor in the English Colonies of North America (Harvard Historical Studies, VII., 1898), includes the royal and proprietary colonies, and gives special attention to the conflicts between the governors and the representative assemblies. The representative element in the constitution is considered in two careful monographs: C. F. Bishop, History of Elections in the American Colonies (Columbia University Studies, III., No. x), is chiefly a summary of colonial legislation; A. E. McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies (University of Pennsylvania, Publications, Series in History, No. 2, 1905), is extremely detailed, giving more attention to causes and effects. Frank H. Miller, Legal Qualifications for Office (American Historical Association, Report, 1899, I., pp. 87-151), deals with another side of the representative system.

The following are useful accounts of particular provinces: [Edward] Long, History of Jamaica (3 vols., 1774), a good early description of a royal province; J. V. L. McMahon, An Historical View of the Government of Maryland (vol. I., 1831); [Benjamin Franklin], Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania (London, 1759; reprinted in Franklin, Works, Sparks's edition, 1809), a partisan narrative. The best recent study of a royal government is W. Roy Smith, South Carolina as a Royal Province (1903); less successful, but useful, is C. L. Raper, North Carolina (1904); cf. E. L. Whitney, Government of the Colony of South Carolina (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XIII., No. 2, 1895). The best account of a proprietary province is N. D. Mereness, Maryland as a Proprietary Province (1901). W. R. Shepherd, History of Proprietary

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Government in Pennsylvania (Columbia University Studies, VI., 1896), contains valuable material and shows thorough research, but is unfortunately constructed. Isaac Sharpless, History of Quaker Government in Pennsylvania, 1682-1783 (1898, also 1902 as vol. I. of his Quaker Experiment in Government), is fair minded and suggestive.


CHURCH AND STATE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.--J. S. M. Anderson, History of the Church of England in the Colonies (revised ed., 3 vols., 1856), is written by a moderate Anglican, largely from first-hand material, and, though old-fashioned, is still valuable. The most important recent history is W. S. Perry, History of the American Episcopal Church (2 vols., 1885); it contains some monographic chapters contributed by other writers, and important selections from the sources. Arthur L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies (Harvard Historical Studies, IX., 1902), is a scholarly monograph founded on manuscript as well as printed material dealing with the colonial jurisdiction of the Bishop of London and the attempts to establish an American episcopate. Bishop [William] Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia (2 vols., 1857, also, 1872), is a valuable authority on religious and social history. The most important documentary collections are: Hawks and Perry, Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States (2 vols., 1863-1864), and W. S. Perry, Papers Relating to the History of the Church (5 vols., 1870-1878), containing documents for Connecticut, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Delaware.

NEW ENGLAND PURITANISM.--See on this subject, H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism as Seen in Its Literature (1880); P. E. Lauer, Church and State in New England (Johns Hopkins University Studies, X., Nos. 2, 3); I. Backus, History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (2d ed., 1871), valuable for the relations between the Congregational establishment and the dissenting bodies; E. F.

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Slafter, ed., John Checkley, or the Evolution of Religious Tolerance in Massachusetts Bay (2 vols., 1897); A. P. Marvin, Life and Times of Cotton Mather (1892); Barrett Wendell, Cotton Mather, the Puritan Priest (1891), a brief but suggestive study, based largely on Mather's diaries. Important as illustrating religious feeling are: Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702; best ed., 2 vols., 1853); and Samuel Sewall, Diary (Massachusetts Histoncal Society, Collections, 5th series, V.-VII.).

WITCHCRAFT.--For the abundant literature on this episode, see Justin Winsor, The Literature of Witchcraft in New England (American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, X., 351-373, 1896). The most detailed study is in C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft (2 vols., 1867); but his treatment of the Mathers has been ably criticised by W. F. Poole, in North American Review, CVIII., 337-397. Important also are Samuel G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England (1869); and W. E. Woodward, ed., Records of Salem Witchcraft, Copied from the Original Documents (2 vols., 1864.).

OTHER RELIGIOUS BODIES.--See the various volumes of the American Church History Series, including bibliographical chapters and a final bibliographical volume. See also Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York (4 vols., 1901-1902).


ECONOMIC HISTORY

There is as yet no comprehensive economic history of the American colonies; but, for New England, William B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England (2 vols., 1890-1891), is a valuable storehouse of facts. Philip A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols., 1896), describes the initial conditions. Of the histories of particular colonies, Edward McCrady, History of South Carolina under the Royal Government (1899), is especially serviceable on the economic side.

SOUTHERN LAND ADMINISTRATIONS.--See. J. C. Ballagh, Introduction to Southern Economic History--The Land System

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in the South (American Historical Association, Report, 1897), and the chapters on the subject in Mereness, Maryland; Raper, North Carolina; and Smith, South Carolina. There are two scholarly essays by J. S. Bassett: The Relation between the Virginia Planter and the London Merchant (American Historical Association, Report, 1901, pp. 551-575); and the introduction to his edition of the Writings of Colonel William Byrd (1901).

MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE.--Some material may be found in the works of Anderson, Cunningham, and Weeden mentioned above; and in J. L. Bishop, History of American Manufactures (3 vols., 1867); but the printed material is chiefly in the documentary collections.

FINANCIAL HISTORY.--See the references in Davis R. Dewey, Financial History of the United States (1903), chap. i. The best general view of colonial currency is Charles J. Bullock, Essays on the Monetary History of the United States (1900). The most detailed study of currency and banking is Andrew McF. Davis, Currency and Banking in Massachusetts Bay (American Economic Association, Publications, 3d series, I., No. 4, and II, No. 2).


SYSTEM OF LABOR

On colonial slavery, see especially G. H. Moore, Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts (1866); Edward McCrady, Slavery in South Carolina (American Historical Association, Report, 1895, pp. 331-373); Edward Needles, An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society (1848); Edwin V. Morgan, Slavery in New York (American Historical Association, Papers, V.); and the following numbers of the Johns Hopkins University Studies: B. C. Steiner, History of Slavery in Connecticut (XI., Nos. 9, 10); Edward Channing, Narragansett Planters (IV., No. 3); Jeffrey R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland (extra vol. VI.); J. C. Ballagh, A History of Slavery in Virginia (extra vol., 1902); Stephen B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery (extra vol. XV., 1890). The most scholarly treatment of the slave-trade

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and its regulation is W. E. B. Du Bois, Suppression of the African Slave-Trade (Harvard Historical Studies, I.). Important studies of white servitude are K. F. Geiser, Redemptioners and Indented Servants in Pennsylvania (supplement to Yale Review, X., No. 2, 1901); and two numbers in the Johns Hopkins University Studies: E. I. McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland (XXI., Nos. 3, 4); and J. C. Ballagh, White Servitude in Maryland (XIII., Nos. 6, 7). See critical chapter in Albert Bushnell Hart, Slavery and Abolition (American Nation, XVI.).


CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVES ILLUSTRATING SOCIAL CONDITIONS

For seventeenth-century narratives, see Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (American Nation, V.), 340-342 The footnotes in Henry Cabot Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies in America (1881), are still useful guides in this field. Many extracts are printed in Albert Bushnell Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, II. (1899).

The following records of travel are noteworthy: Madam [S. K.] Knight, Journal, 1704-1705 (editions, 1825, 1865), a realistic account of contemporary conditions chiefly in New England; George Keith, Journal of Travels from New Hampshire to Caratuck (1706; reprinted in Protestant Episcopal Historical Society, Collections, I., 1851), records the missionary journeys of a zealous Anglican; George Whitefield, Journal of a Voyage from London to Savannah (2d ed., 1738, and numerous other editions of this and the continuations). For conditions at the close of this period, consult Peter Kalm, Travels into North America (in trans., 1770 and later eds.; reprinted in Pinkerton, Voyages, XIII.), written by a Swedish naturalist who travelled chiefly in the middle colonies during the years 1749 and 1750; Andrew Burnaby, Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America (1775, and later editions; reprinted in Pinkerton, Voyages, XIII.).

Important contemporary descriptions of particular

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colonies are John Callender, Historical Discourse on the Civil and Religious Affairs of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (1739; reprinted in Rhode Island Historical Society, Collections, IV., 1838); [Robert Beverley], History of Virginia (1705 and later eds.); Hartwell, Blair, and Chilton, The Present State of Virginia and the College (1727); Hugh Jones, The Present State of Virginia (1724; reprinted, 1865); William Byrd, Writings (1841; later eds. by T. H. Wynne, 1866, 2 vols., and J. S. Bassett, 1901), the observations of a cultivated man of the world. Much the most important personal records are Samuel Sewall, Diary, mentioned above, and Franklin, Autobiography (many eds. and in all eds. of his works). See also Eliza Lucas, Journal and Letters (Holbrook's ed., 1850), for South Carolina in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Good descriptions of social life founded on contemporary records are the numerous volumes of Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, dealing chiefly with New England, which are listed in Larned, Literature of American History, 70. See also articles on colonial life by Edward Eggleston (Century Magazine, 1883-1885), and the William and Mary College Quarterly (1893-). The numerous local histories, of which the best is Justin Winsor, Memorial History of Boston (4 vols., 1880-1881), are important for social conditions. See lists in Channing and Hart, Guide, § 23.


COLONIAL IMMIGRATION. NON-ENGLISH STOCKS

There is much monographic and antiquarian material on this subject, but no comprehensive treatise. For the Germans, especially in Pennsylvania, the best introduction is Oscar Kuhns, The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania (1901), which includes a good bibliography. Some important special studies are: Friedrich Kapp, Die Deutschen im Staate New York während des Achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (revised ed., 1884); various works by F. R. Diffenderffer, J. F. Sachse, and S. W. Pennypacker

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(titles given by Kuhns); G. D. Bernheim, History of German Settlements in North and South Carolina (1872). C. A. Hanna, The Scotch-Irish or the Scot in Great Britain, North Ireland, and North America (2 vols., 1902), is unscientific but contains some valuable matter. See also S. S. Green, The Scotch-Irish in America (American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, X., 32-70, with bibliography). C. W. Baird, History of the Huguenot Emigration to America (2 vols., 1885), deals chiefly with the seventeenth century. See also Huguenot Papers (in Virginia Historical Society, Collections, new series, V.).

On colonial regulation of immigration, see Emberson E. Proper, Colonial Immigration Laws (Columbia University Studies, XVI., No. 2, 1900); A. H. Carpenter, "Naturalization in England and the Colonies," in American Historical Review, IX., 288-303.


PROVINCIAL EDUCATION AND CULTURE

On the colonial colleges, the most scholarly work is Josiah Quincy, History of Harvard University (2d ed., 2 vols., 1860); the appendices contain many original documents. For the founding of Yale, see Thomas Clap, Annals or History of Yale College (1766); papers by F. B. Dexter and Simeon E. Baldwin, in New Haven Colony Historical Society, Papers, III.; and W. L. Kingsley, Yale College (2 vols., 1879). On William and Mary College, see H. B. Adams, The College of William and Mary (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, No. 1, 1887), which contains an extended bibliography; and various numbers of the William and Mary College Quarterly (1893-).

The reports and circulars of the U. S. Bureau of Education, though of unequal value, contain some valuable papers on colonial education. See also E. W. Clews, Educational Legislation and Administration of the Colonial Governments (Columbia University, Contributions to Philosophy, etc., VI., 1899).

The best introduction to the study of colonial culture is

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Moses Coit Tyler, History of American Literature, 1607-1765 (2 vols., 1879; revised ed., 1897). Important also are Isaiah Thomas, History of Printing in America (best ed. in American Antiquarian Society, Archælogia Americana, V., VI., 1874); Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of Americana Literature (11 vols., 1887-1890); and A. B. Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, II.


HISTORIES OF PARTICULAR COLONIES

A few essential books for this period will be given under each colony. For other critical estimates, see Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (American Nation, V.), chap. xx.

NEW ENGLAND.--J. G. Palfrey, History of New England (vols. IV., V., 1875, 1890), is the most important single work on New England; it is based upon a wide range of printed and manuscript material and is not soon likely to be superseded. See also Weeden, Economic and Social History, mentioned above.

For Massachusetts, the most important history is Thomas Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, 1628-1750 (2 vols., 1764, 1767; 3d ed., 1795), which is in part the record of a contemporary. The most useful documentary publication is the Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (10 vols., 1869-1902). Besides the statutes there is much original material in the notes. Indispensable also are the Collections and Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. For New Hampshire, the standard history is Jeremy Belknap, The History of New Hampshire (3 vols., 1784-1792); and the chief documentary collection is New Hampshire Provincial Papers (7 vols., 1867-1873). For Connecticut, Benjamin Trumbull, History of Connecticut (2 vols., 1797; new ed., 1898), should be used with the Colonial Records of Connecticut (15 vols., 1850-1890), and the Connecticut Historical Society, Collections (9 vols., 1860-1903). For Rhode Island, the chief authorities are S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (2 vols., 1859-1860; 4th ed.,

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1899), and the Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (10 vols., 1856-1865).

MIDDLE COLONIES.--John Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies (2 vols., 1899), is a general, popular account. William Smith, History of New York (1757 and various later editions), is valuable for this period. Of the numerous documentary collections the most important are the Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, already mentioned; the Documentary History of the State of New York (4 vols., 1849-1852); and the Colonial Laws of New York (5 vols., 1894). For New Jersey, see Samuel Smith, History of the Colony of New Jersey (1765), an unsatisfactory history, but containing many documents; and the Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey (22 vols., 1880-1902), containing public records and important extracts from colonial newspapers.

For Pennsylvania, the most useful histories are Robert Proud, History of Pennsylvania (2 vols., 1797-1798), and those of W. R. Shepherd and Isaac Sharpless, already mentioned. The latter author asserts that "an authentic and impartial history of Colonial Pennsylvania is yet to be written." The chief documentary collections are Colonial Records, 1683-1776 (10 vols., 1851-1852); Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives (6 vols., 1752-1776); the Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Historical Society and its Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography; and the Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania (vols. II.-VIII., 1896-1902).

SOUTHERN COLONIES.--For Virginia, the chief secondary authorities for this period are J. D. Burk, History of Virginia (3 vols., 1804-1805), and Charles Campbell, History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia (1860). There are three interesting chapters, chiefly on social conditions, in John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, II. (1898). The principal collection of documents is W. W. Hening, Statutes at Large, 1619-1792 (13 vols., 1823). See also the Calendar of Virginia State Papers, I. (1875); the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (1893-); the

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William and Mary College Quarterly; the Virginia Historical Society, Collections, especially vols. I. and II., containing the Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood. For Maryland during this period, the most useful secondary works are those of McMahon and Mereness already mentioned. The valuable collection of The Archives of Maryland has so far been confined mainly to the seventeenth century. Much important material is included in the Maryland Historical Society, Fund Publications, especially No. 34 (the Calvert Papers, II.).

The narrative history of South Carolina can be best studied in Edward McCrady, History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government (1897) and History of South Carolina under the Royal Government (1899). The first volume is rigidly chronological, but the second contains valuable chapters on special topics. The older works by W. J. Rivers, Sketch of the History of South Carolina (1856) and A Chapter in the Early History of South Carolina (1874), contain many documents and should still be consulted. See also Smith, South Carolina as a Royal Province, already mentioned. For the narrative history of North Carolina, see F. L. Hawks, History of North Carolina (2 vols. 1857-1858), and on the institutional side, C. L. Raper, North Carolina (1904). The most complete documentary collection for the Carolinas is the Colonial Records of North Carolina, already mentioned. There is no similar collection for South Carolina; but important source material may be found in the Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society, still in progress, and in B. R. Carroll, Historical Collections of South Carolina (2 vols., 1836).

The best of the older histories of Georgia is W. B. Stevens, History of Georgia (2 vols., 1847, 1859); it shows extensive and scholarly use of the sources. C. C. Jones, Jr., History of Georgia (2 vols., 1883), though based in part on the older writers, shows also independent examination of source material, much of which is incorporated with the text. Among the numerous lives of Oglethorpe, the most important is still Robert Wright, Memoir of General James

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Oglethorpe (1867); see also Letters from General Oglethorpe (Georgia Historical Society, Collections, III.).

The Journal of the Transactions of the Trustees of the Colony of Georgia in America was published in 1886, by C. C. Jones. Important contemporary narratives are published in the Georgia Historical Society, Collections (vols, I.-IV., 1840), and in Peter Force, Tracts on the Colonies. Further bibliographical data are given by C. C. Jones, in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, V., 392-406.


Provincial America - End of Chapters 16-19

 
Intro
Chap I-IV
V-VIII
IX-XII
XIII-XV
XVI-IX
 


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