U.S. History

Provincial America

British people have a reputation of being snooty…and vain. With really cool accents. So apparently nothing’s changed since the 1700’s.

In America during the 18th century, the colonies were growing quickly. This led to a dilemma. The British had to make sure they were Anglicizing properly (a big fancy word that means being snooty people with really cool accents). They wanted the colonists to be completely English and not forget their roots.

Anglicizing meant that the wealthy colonists copied British styles (because apparently—only the rich could afford to be British). This included clothes, fashion, and even houses. For example Lawrence Washington (ancestor of good ol’ George) was a successful planter and built a fancy home on a hill named Mount Vernon—the house, not the hill.

Americans also put religion as a top priority (I wonder what that was like…) and demanded clergymen who were educated at Cambridge or Oxford in England. I guess it must have hard to find adequate ministers in the unsettled wild back then. Anyway, pretty soon the demand surpassed the supply, so the people of the north were forced to build schools to educate itself. The south—not so much.

Another part of colonial America was that the “Gentlemen” dominated local politics. They rode around the countryside, telling people who to vote for. A gentleman was classified as someone who didn’t do manual labor. If that’s the case gentility is definitely NOT something we lack nowadays.

There was a European double-standard:

1.) Married woman in an affair was harshly punished. Not just punished but harshly so—which is doubly distressing.
2.) Married man in an affair was not. Some even laughed it off—didn’t really care.

I always knew Europeans were to blame for this, ladies. Before Anglicization, there was never any double standard because the Puritans were so…pure. (Scarlet Letter, anyone?)
Other than geography, the North and South also differed in other ways.

South Carolina’s population was 70% slaves, and therefore, they were paranoid of a slave revolt. They also had the richest group in British North America—rice planters. (What is this? China?) Not to mention 3 major crops: tobacco, indigo, and wheat—NOT COTTON! (Yet.)
Slaves were the most expensive thing in southern economy. They organized the workers into task system which recognized human’s self-motivation: they required slaves to do and finish a certain amount of work before they can have free time and do nonslave-ish things. (Sounds like kindergarten. Except more brutal.) Slave owners also wanted more slave babies—so they can grow up and do slave-ish things. And make them rich. So the owners encouraged sex among the slaves. Sometimes the owners had huge harems of slave women. (DOUBLE STANDARD!)
The Middle Colonies (or the Mid-Atlantic colonies, if you prefer) included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. They were considered the “bread-basket” meaning they had many good farms that produced a lot of the food. The Quakers that ran Pennsylvania were pacifists (peacemakers—not the kind you give to babies when they start teething). Scots-Irish colonists were the lowest on the social hierarchy; they were the burnouts in high school. Because of this, the Quakers settled the Scots-Irish in the backcountry, so they would suffer most of the hostile Indian attacks, but what they did not expect was that the Scots-Irish developed an offensive attack, and they were kicked out of Pennsylvania to Georgia.

Now, the New England colonies had the worst economic growth caused by ruined crops which also resulted in poverty. They had to create new ideas to come up with money for the economy, so they began to harvest lumber, invested in shipbuilding, cod-fishing (very profitable), and the colonists learned whaling from the Indians. Whaling became a major industry. They also traded with the French, the archenemy of Britain—but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. They obtained French molasses from the Caribbean islands and began making rum. This, in turn, upset England, who passed the Molasses Act of 1733.

The Molasses Act of 1733 raised taxes on French molasses to make it less profitable. This did practically nothing; it only served to encourage smuggling and bribing. (Nice to know what America is really based on)

Another thing Britain did to upset the colonies was they banned fiat money, which is paper money that has no value except that the government promised it was an acceptable payment for taxes. Britain wanted real gold and silver or specie.

On the job market of colonial America there were some changes being made. Doctors became more respectable; they were being college trained now. Before, college wasn’t necessary to become a doctor. Now imagine a world where anyone could be a doctor—even that hobo under the bridge. You really didn’t want to get sick then. Anyways, Benjamin Rush was a doctor and leader (a double threat); he was the one who came up with the idea of a smallpox vaccine. And it worked! Gin was also a drug of choice for people back then: it was cheap and powerful. Kind of like the king…

A dominant philosophy at the time was the Enlightenment; it was the idea that with enough education, man can be perfected. So education was becoming more and more important, and another Benjamin—Franklin this time—supported it.

Leaders of the Enlightenment created a colony for the poor—Georgia. It was a place for “worthy poor.” And to be honest—it was an idealistic plan. They were planning to give land away! Georgia also banned all alcoholic beverages and slavery, and they wanted to produce silk. (They probably also wanted to build the houses out of marshmellows and end world hunger too—such ambitious people) None of which worked.

There was also the Great Awakening: a massive Christian revival in the colonies and in England. This shattered the unity of old denominations (congregational denominations) and turned to newer denominations, which grew as a result. The most important were:

1. Baptists – They multiplied rapidly
2. Methodists – They also grew quickly
3. Presbyterians – They became more and more important.
They were all considered poor people churches.

New Protestant colleges were founded, unifying the American colonies, and they began to think as a unit. (Thanks to the Enlightenment)

There several popular ministers, the rock stars of their time.
Gilbert Tennent preached “The Dangers of an Unconverted Ministry” in 1740.
Jonathan Edwards was delivered the “Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God” in 1737, but his most famous was probably “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

John and Charles Wesley were brothers and founders of the Methodist denomination. John was the preacher and Charles was a singer. They created the Holy Club—created for spiritual growth.

George Whitfield, a friend of the Wesley duo, was an Oxford student and probably the most popular preacher in America.

Meanwhile, there was also political culture in the colonies. People in England were divided between two parties: the Whigs and the Tories. The Whigs were for “country” and the Tories were for “court” (king and all that). This divided the colonies a bit too: Jefferson was a Whig and Hamilton a Tory.

Most colonies were ruled by a royal government directly under the king, paid by the king, allegiance to the king (more like the money).