EXPERIENCE OF EMPIRE: EIGHTEENTHCENTURY AMERICA

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EXPERIENCE OF EMPIRE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA
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Growth and Diversity

• 1700-1750--colonial population rises from 250,000
  to over two million
• Much growth through natural increase
• Large influx of non-English Europeans

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Distribution of European and African Immigrants
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Scotch-Irish Flee English Oppression

• Many from Northern Ireland
• Concentrate on the Pennsylvania frontier and
  Shenandoah Valley
• Often regarded as a disruptive element

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Germans Search for a Better Life

• Fled from warfare in Germany
• Admired as peaceful, hard-working farmers
• Tried to preserve German language, customs
• Aroused the prejudice of English neighbors

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The Impact of European Ideas on American Culture

• Change in eighteenth-century colonies
• Growth of urban cosmopolitan culture
• Aggressive participation in consumption

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Provincial Cities

• Urban areas included Boston, Newport, New York,
  Philadelphia, and Charles Town
• Economies were geared to commerce
• Inhabitants took lead in adopting new fashions,
  the latest luxuries
• Emulated British architecture
• Cities attract colonists seeking opportunity

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American Enlightenment

• An intellectual movement stressing reasoned
  investigation of beliefs and institutions
• optimistic view of human nature
• view cosmos as orderly result of natural laws
• belief in perfectibility of the world
• search for practical ways of improving life
• Mixed reception in America

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Benjamin Franklin

• Franklin (1706-1790) epitomized provincial, urban
  culture
• Became a writer by emulating British literature
• Achieved wealth through printing business
• Dedicated to practical uses of reason, science

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Economic Transformation

• Rising demand for English, West Indian goods
• Colonists paid for imports by
• exporting tobacco, wheat, and rice
• purchasing on credit
• Dependence on commerce led to colonial resentment
  of English regulations
• England restricted colonial manufacture or trade
  of timber, sugar, hats, and iron.

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Birth of a Consumer Society

• English mass-production of consumer goods
  stimulated rise in colonial imports
• Wealthy Americans began to build up large debts
  to English merchants
• Intercolonial, West Indian trade earn colonists
  the surplus needed for imports
• Inter-colonial commerce gave Americans a chance
  to learn about one another

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The Great Wagon Road
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Religious Revivals in Provincial Societies

• The Great Awakening was a series of revivals
• revival a phenomenon among Protestant
  Christians characterized by large meetings where
  large numbers experience religious conversion in
  response to gifted preaching
• People began to rethink basic assumptions about
  church and state, institutions and society

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The Great Awakening

• Awakening occurred among many denominations in
  different places at different times
• New England in the 1730s, Virginia in the 1750s
  and 1760s
• Jonathan Edwards was a prominent minister during
  this time
• His sermons encouraged people to examine their
  eternal destiny

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The Voice of Popular Religion

• George Whitefield symbolized the revivals
• Whitefield preached outdoor sermons to thousands
  of people in nearly every colony
• Itinerants disrupted established churches
• Laypeople, including women and blacks, gain
  chance to shape their own religious institutions
• The Awakening promoted a democratic, evangelical
  union of national extent

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The Voice of Popular Religion (2)

• Most revivalists well-trained ministers
• Revivalists found Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown,
  and Rutgers
• Revivalists held optimistic attitudes toward
  America's religious role in world history
• Fostered American patriotism

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Governing the Colonies The American Experience

• Colonists attempt to model Englands balanced
  constitution
• Royal governors
• most incompetent
• most bound by instructions from England
• possessed little patronage for buying votes
• little power to force their will
• Governors councils steadily lose influence

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Colonial Assemblies

• Elected officials depended on popular sentiment
• Assemblies more interested in pleasing
  constituents than in obeying the governor
• Assemblies controlled all means of raising
  revenue
• Assemblies jealously guarded their rights
• Assemblies held more popular support than governor

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Century of Imperial War

• British Americans increasingly drawn into
  European conflict during eighteenth century
• Main opponents France and Spain
• British colonies militarily superior to New
  France but ineffective

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North America, 1750
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Albany Congress and Braddock's Defeat

• Albany Congress, 1754--Benjamin Franklin propose
  plan for a central government
• Albany Plan disliked by English and Americans,
  fails
• 1755--General Edward Braddock leads force to
  drive French from Ohio Valley
• Braddocks army ambushed, destroyed

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Seven Years' War

• 1756--England declares war on France
• Prime Minister William Pitt leads English to
  concentrate on North America
• 1759--Quebec captured
• 1763--Peace of Paris cedes to Great Britain all
  North America east of Mississippi

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The Seven Years War, 1756-1763
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Perceptions of War

• Colonists realize how strong they could be when
  they worked together
• English learn that Americans took forever to
  organize, easier to command obedience

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North America after 1763
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Rule Britannia?

• Most Americans bound to England in 1763
• Ties included
• British culture
• British consumer goods
• British evangelists
• British military victories
• Empire seemed bound by affectionate ties