CHAPTER 4 Experience of Empire Eighteenth-Century America

Growth and Diversity  —colonial population rose from 250,000 to over two million  Much growth through natural increase

American Enlightenment  Age of Reason  The Enlightenment’s basic assumptions:  God set up the universe and human society to operate by natural laws  Those laws can be found through reason  Mixed reception in America  Americans defended church, embraced search for practical ways of improving life

Economic Transformation  England added to existing base of mercantilist rules from 1710s-1750s  Colonial manufacture/trade of timber, sugar, hats, and iron restricted  However, regulations not enforced (salutary neglect)  Trade was mainly with England and West Indies

Birth of a Consumer Society  English mass-production of consumer goods stimulated increase in colonial imports  Americans built up large debts to English merchants to finance increased imports

The Great Wagon Road

The Great Awakening  Spontaneous, evangelical revivals that weakened the authority of the old colonial religions  Led to optimistic view of future (a new birth for believers)  Fostered sense of American unity/identity

Jonathan Edwards  Emphasized the Calvinistic teachings of the Puritans (emphasized the importance of personal religious experience)

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” --Jonathan Edwards  “There is nothing that keeps wicked men, at any one moment, out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”  “He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it.”  “There is no fortress that is any defense from the power of God.”  “They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place.”  “The Use may be of Awakening to unconverted persons in this congregation.”

Governing the Colonies: Governors  More powers than king in England: – Veto legislation – Dismiss judges – Appoint colonial officials – Command provincial military

Governing the Colonies: Colonial Assemblies  Felt obligation to preserve colonial rights/liberties  Assemblies controlled colony’s finances  No incentive for assembly to cooperate with governors (sometimes even hostile toward them)

North America, 1750

The Albany Plan  Albany Congress, 1754  Benjamin Franklin’s idea of central colonial government  Elected representatives decide defense matters  Could levy taxes to support its operations  Albany Plan failed, disliked by English and Americans

1 st Political Cartoon in an American Newspaper, 1754

Seven Years’ War  1756—England declared war on France  Prime Minister William Pitt shifted strategy to focus on North America  Peace of Paris 1763: France lost war  British got all North America east of Mississippi  French only retained two Caribbean Islands  Spanish added Louisiana to their empire

Perceptions of War  Expanded horizons of colonists  Created trained officer corps that knew British vulnerabilities  British felt colonists ungrateful and not willing to bear their fair share of the cost of the war  Used this as justification for taxing colonies

Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763

North America after 1763

A Century of Conflict: Major Wars, 1689–1763

Benjamin Franklin  Franklin ( ) regarded as Enlightenment thinker by Europeans  Made important scientific discoveries and inventions  Symbol of material progress through human ingenuity