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History of the United States, Vol. I - Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard · Non-Fiction Book Collection

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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit libri ivox dot org. Read by M. L. Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio,
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Speaker 1: May two thousand and seven. History of the United States
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Speaker 1: by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard, Part one, the
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Speaker 1: Colonial period preface, as things now stand, The course of
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Speaker 1: instruction in American history in our public schools embraces three
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Speaker 1: distinct treatments of the subject. Three separate books are used. First,
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Speaker 1: there is the primary book, which is usually a very
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Speaker 1: condensed narrative with emphasis on biographies and anecdotes. Second, there
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Speaker 1: is the advanced text for the seventh or eighth grade,
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Speaker 1: generally speaking, an expansion of the elementary book by the
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Speaker 1: edition of forty or fifty thousand words. Finally, there is
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Speaker 1: the high school annual. This too, ordinarily follows the beaten path,
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Speaker 1: giving fuller accounts of the same events and characters. To
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Speaker 1: put it bluntly, we do not assume that our children
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Speaker 1: obtain permanent possessions from their study of history in the
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Speaker 1: lower grades. If mathematicians followed the same method, high school
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Speaker 1: texts on algebra and geometry would include the multiplication table
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Speaker 1: and fractions. There is, of course a ready answer to
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Speaker 1: the criticism advanced above. It is that teachers have learned
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Speaker 1: from bitter experience how little history their pupils retain as
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Speaker 1: they pass along the regular route. No teacher of history
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Speaker 1: will deny this. Still, it is a standing challenge to
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Speaker 1: the existing methods of historical instruction. If the study of
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Speaker 1: history cannot be made truly progressive, like the study of mathematics, science,
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Speaker 1: and languages, then the historians assume a grave responsibility in
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Speaker 1: adding their subject to the already overloaded curriculum. If the
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Speaker 1: success of historical texts are only in larged editions of
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Speaker 1: the first texts, more facts, more dates, more words, then
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Speaker 1: history deserves most of the sharp criticism which it is
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Speaker 1: receiving from teachers of science, civics, and economics. In this
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Speaker 1: condition of affairs we find our justification for offering a
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Speaker 1: new high school text in American history. Our first contribution
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Speaker 1: is one of omission. The time honored stories of exploration
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Speaker 1: and the biographies of heroes are left out. We frankly
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Speaker 1: hold that if pupils know little or nothing about Columbus Cortasmogellan,
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Speaker 1: or Captain John Smith by the time they reach the
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Speaker 1: high school, it is useless to tell the same stories.
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Speaker 1: For perhaps the fourth time, it is worse than useless.
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Speaker 1: It is an offense against the teachers of those subjects
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Speaker 1: that are demonstrated to be progressive in character. In the
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Speaker 1: next place, we have omitted all description of battles. Our
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Speaker 1: reasons for this are simple. The strategy of a campaign,
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Speaker 1: or of a single battle is a highly technical and
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Speaker 1: usually highly controversial matter about which experts differ widely. In
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Speaker 1: the field of military and naval operations, most writers and
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Speaker 1: teachers of history are mere novices. To dispose of Gettysburg
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Speaker 1: or the Wilderness in ten lines or ten pages is
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Speaker 1: equally absurd to the serious student of military affairs. Anyone
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Speaker 1: who compares the ordinary textbook account of a single Civil
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Speaker 1: War campaign with the account given by Ropes, for instance,
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Speaker 1: will ask for no further comment. No youth called upon
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Speaker 1: to serve our country in arms would think of turning
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Speaker 1: to a high school manual for information about the art
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Speaker 1: of warfare. The dramatic scene or episode so useful in
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Speaker 1: arousing the interest of the immature pupil seems out of
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Speaker 1: place in a book that deliberately appeals to boys and
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Speaker 1: girls on the very threshold of life's serious responsibilities. It
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Speaker 1: is not a upon negative features, however, that we rest
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Speaker 1: our case. It is rather upon constructive features. First, we
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Speaker 1: have written a topical, not a narrative history. We have
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Speaker 1: tried to set forth the important aspects, problems, and movements
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Speaker 1: of each period, bringing in the narrative rather by way
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Speaker 1: of illustration. Second, we have emphasized those historical topics which
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Speaker 1: help to explain how our nation has come to be
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Speaker 1: what it is today. Third, we have dwelt fully upon
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Speaker 1: the social and economic aspects of our history, especially in
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Speaker 1: relation to the politics of each period. Fourth, we have
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Speaker 1: treated the causes and results of wars, the problems of
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Speaker 1: financing and sustaining armed forces, rather than military strategy. These
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Speaker 1: are the subjects which belong to a history for civilians.
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Speaker 1: These are matters which civilians can understand, matters which they
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Speaker 1: must have understand if they are to play well their
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Speaker 1: part in war and peace. Fifth, by omitting the period
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Speaker 1: of exploration, we have been able to enlarge the treatment
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Speaker 1: of our own time. We have given special attention to
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Speaker 1: the history of those current questions which must form the
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Speaker 1: subject matter of sound instruction. In citizenship. Sixth, we have
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Speaker 1: borne in mind in America, with all her unique characteristics,
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Speaker 1: is part of a general civilization. Accordingly, we have given diplomacy,
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Speaker 1: foreign affairs, world relations, and the reciprocal influence of nations
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Speaker 1: their appropriate place. Seventh, we have deliberately aimed at standards
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Speaker 1: of maturity. The study of a mere narrative calls mainly
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Speaker 1: for the use of the memory. We have aimed to
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Speaker 1: stimulate habits of analysis, comparison, association, reflection, and generalization, habits
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Speaker 1: calculated to enlarge, as well as information, the mind. We
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Speaker 1: have been at great pains to make our text clear,
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Speaker 1: simple and direct, but we have earnestly sought to stretch
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Speaker 1: the intellects of our readers to put them upon their metal.
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Speaker 1: Most of them will receive the last of their formal
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Speaker 1: instruction in the high school. The world will soon expect
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Speaker 1: maturity from them. Their achievements will depend upon the possession
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Speaker 1: of other powers that memory alone. The effectiveness of their
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Speaker 1: citizenship in our Republic will be measured by the excellence
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Speaker 1: of their judgment as well as the fullness of their information.
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Speaker 1: C ab MRB, New York City, February eighth, nineteen twenty one,
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Speaker 1: end of preface History of the United States Charles A. Beard,
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Speaker 1: Mary Ridderbeard.
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Speaker 2: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 2: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 2: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by John L. White. History
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Speaker 2: of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard,
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Speaker 2: Part one, Chapter one, The Great Migration to America. The
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Speaker 2: tide of migration that set in toward the shores of
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Speaker 2: North America during the early years of the seventeenth century
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Speaker 2: was but one phase in the restless and eternal movement
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Speaker 2: of mankind upon the surface of the earth. The ancient
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Speaker 2: Greeks flung out their colonies in every direction, westward as
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Speaker 2: far as Gaul, across the Mediterranean, and eastward into Asia
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Speaker 2: minor perhaps to the very confines of India. The Romans,
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Speaker 2: supported by their armies and their government, spread their dominion
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Speaker 2: beyond the narrow lands of Italy until it stretched from
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Speaker 2: the heather of sas Gotland to the sands of Arabia.
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Speaker 2: The Teutonic tribes, from their home beyond the Danube and
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Speaker 2: the Rhine, poured into the Empire the Caesars and made
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Speaker 2: the beginnings of modern Europe. Of this great sweep of
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Speaker 2: races and empires, the settlement of America was merely a part,
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Speaker 2: and it was moreover only one aspect of the expansion
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Speaker 2: which finally carried the peoples, the institutions, and the trade
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Speaker 2: of Europe to the very ends of the earth. In
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Speaker 2: one vital point, it must be noted American colonization differed
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Speaker 2: from that of the ancients. The Greeks usually carried with
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Speaker 2: them affection for the government they left behind, and sacred
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Speaker 2: fire from the altar of the parent city. But thousands
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Speaker 2: of the emigrants who came to America disliked the state
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Speaker 2: and disowned the church of the mother country. They established
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Speaker 2: compacts of government for themselves and set up altars of
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Speaker 2: their own. They sought not only new soil to till,
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Speaker 2: but also political and religious liberty for themselves and their children.
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Speaker 2: The agencies of American colonization. It was no light matter
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Speaker 2: for the English to cross three thousand miles of water
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Speaker 2: and found homes in the American wilderness. At the opening
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Speaker 2: of the seventeenth century, ships, tools and supplies called for
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Speaker 2: huge outlays of money. Stores had to be furnished in
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Speaker 2: quantities sufficient to sustain the life of the settlers until
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Speaker 2: they could gather harvests of their own. Artisans and laborers
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Speaker 2: of skill and industry had to be induced to risk
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Speaker 2: the hazards of the New World. Soldiers were required for defense,
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Speaker 2: and mariners for the exploration of inland waters. Leaders of
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Speaker 2: good judgment adept in managing men had to be discovered. Altogether.
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Speaker 2: Such an enterprise demanded capital larger than the ordinary merchant
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Speaker 2: or gentlemen could amass, and involved risks more eminent than
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Speaker 2: he dared to assume. Though in later days, after initial
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Speaker 2: tests had been made, wealthy proprietors were able to establish
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Speaker 2: colonies on their own account, it was the corporation that
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Speaker 2: furnished the capital and leadership. In the beginning, the trading company,
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Speaker 2: English Pioneers and Exploration found an instrument for colonization in
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Speaker 2: companies of merchant adventurers, which had long been employed in
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Speaker 2: carrying on commerce with foreign countries. Such a corporation was
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Speaker 2: composed of many persons of different ranks of society, noblemen,
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Speaker 2: merchants and gentlemen who banded together for a particular undertaking,
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Speaker 2: each contributing a sum of money and sharing in the
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Speaker 2: profits of the venture. It was organized under royal authority.
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Speaker 2: It received its charter, its grant of land, and its
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Speaker 2: trading privileges from the King, and carried on its operations
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Speaker 2: under his supervision and control. The charter named all persons
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Speaker 2: originally included in the corporation and gave them certain powers
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Speaker 2: in the management of its affairs, including the right to
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Speaker 2: admit new members. The company was, in fact a little
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Speaker 2: government set up by the King. When the members of
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Speaker 2: the corporate remained in England, as in the case of
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Speaker 2: the Virginia Company, they operated through agents sent to the colony.
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Speaker 2: When they came over the seas themselves and settled in America,
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Speaker 2: as in the case of Massachusetts, they became the direct
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Speaker 2: government of the country They possessed. The stockholders, in that
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Speaker 2: instance became the voters, and the governor the chief magistrate.
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Speaker 2: Four of the thirteen colonies in America owed their origins
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Speaker 2: to the Trading corporation. It was the London Company, created
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Speaker 2: by King James the First in sixteen o six, that
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Speaker 2: laid during the following year the foundations of Virginia at Jamestown.
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Speaker 2: It was under the auspices of their West India Company,
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Speaker 2: chartered in sixteen twenty one that the Dutch planted the
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Speaker 2: settlements of the New Netherland in the valley of the Hudson.
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Speaker 2: The founders of Massachusetts were Puritan leaders and men of affairs,
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Speaker 2: whom King Charles the First incorporated in sixteen twenty nine
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Speaker 2: under the title the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts
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Speaker 2: Bay in New England. In this case, the law did
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Speaker 2: but incorporate a group drawn together by religious ties. We
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Speaker 2: must be knit together as one man, wrote John Winthrop,
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Speaker 2: the first Puritan governor in America. Far to the south,
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Speaker 2: on the banks of the Delaware River, a Swedish commercial
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Speaker 2: company in sixteen thirty eight made the beginnings of a
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Speaker 2: settlement christened New Sweden. It was destined to pass under
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Speaker 2: the rule of the Dutch and finally under the rule
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Speaker 2: of William Penn as the proprietary colony of Delaware. In
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Speaker 2: a certain sense, Georgia may be included among the company colonies.
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Speaker 2: It was, however, originally conceived by the moving spirit James
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Speaker 2: Oglethorpe as an asylum for poor men, especially those imprisoned
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Speaker 2: for debt. To realize this humane purpose, he secured from
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Speaker 2: King George the Second in seventeen thirty two a royal
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Speaker 2: charter uniting several gentlemen, including himself, into one body politic
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Speaker 2: and corporate, known as the Trustees for establishing the Colony
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Speaker 2: of Georgia in America. In the structure of their organization
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Speaker 2: and their methods of government, the Trustees did not differ
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Speaker 2: materially from their regular companies created for trade and colonization.
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Speaker 2: Though their purposes were benevolent, their transactions had to be
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Speaker 2: under the forms of law and according to the rules
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Speaker 2: of business. The Religious Congregation. A second agency which figured
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Speaker 2: largely in the settlement of America, was the religious brotherhood
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Speaker 2: or congregation of men and women, brought together in the
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Speaker 2: bonds of a common religious faith. By one of the
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Speaker 2: strange fortunes of history. This institution, founded in the early
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Speaker 2: days of Christianity, proved to be a potent force in
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Speaker 2: the origin and growth of self government in a land
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Speaker 2: far away from Galilee and the multitude of them that
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Speaker 2: believed were of one heart and of one soul. We
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Speaker 2: are told in the Acts describing the Church at Jerusalem,
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Speaker 2: we are knit together as a body and a most
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Speaker 2: sacred covenant of the Lord, by virtue of which we
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Speaker 2: hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's
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Speaker 2: good and of the whole, wrote John Robinson, a leader
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Speaker 2: among the Pilgrims who founded their tiny colony of Plymouth
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Speaker 2: in sixteen twenty. The Mayflower Compact, so famous in American history,
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Speaker 2: was but a written and signed agreement incorporating the spirit
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Speaker 2: of obedience to the common good, which served as a
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Speaker 2: guide to self government until Plymouth was annexed to Massachusetts
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Speaker 2: in sixteen ninety one. Three other colonies, all of which
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Speaker 2: retained their identity until the eve of the American Revolution,
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Speaker 2: likewise sprang directly from the congregations of the Faithful, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
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Speaker 2: and New Hampshire, mainly offshoots from Massachusetts. They were founded
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Speaker 2: by small bodies of men and women, united in solemn
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Speaker 2: covenants with the Lord, who planted their settlements in the wilderness.
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Speaker 2: Not until many a year after Roger Williams and Anne
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Speaker 2: Hutchinson conducted their followers to the Narragansett Country was Rhode
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Speaker 2: Island granted a charter of incorporation sixteen sixty three by
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Speaker 2: the Crown. Not until long after the congregation of Thomas
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Speaker 2: Hooker from Newtown blazed the way into the Connecticut River Valley.
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Speaker 2: Did the King of England give Connecticut a charter of
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Speaker 2: its own sixteen sixty two and a place among the colonies.
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Speaker 2: Half a century elapsed before the towns laid out beyond
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Speaker 2: the Merrimack River by immigrants from Massachusetts were formed into
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Speaker 2: the Royal Province of New Hampshire in sixteen seventy nine.
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Speaker 2: Even when Connecticut was chartered, the parchment and sealing wax
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Speaker 2: of the Royal lawyers did but confirm rights and habits
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Speaker 2: of self government and obedience to law previously established by
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Speaker 2: the congregations. The towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Weathersfield had
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Speaker 2: long lived happily under their fundamental orders drawn up by
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Speaker 2: themselves in sixteen thirty nine. So had the settlers dwelt
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Speaker 2: peacefully at New Haven under their fundamental articles drafted in
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Speaker 2: the same year. The pioneers on the Connecticut shore had
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Speaker 2: no difficulty in agreeing that the scriptures do hold forth
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Speaker 2: a perfect rule for the description and government of all men.
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Speaker 2: The proprietor. A third and very important colonial agency was
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Speaker 2: the proprietor or proprietary. As the name associated with the
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Speaker 2: word property implies, the proprietor was a person to whom
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Speaker 2: the King granted property in lands in North America, to
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Speaker 2: have whold use and enjoy for his own benefit and profit,
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Speaker 2: with the right to hand the estate down to his
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Speaker 2: heirs in perpetual succession. The proprietor was a rich and
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Speaker 2: powerful person, prepared to furnish or secure the capital, collect
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Speaker 2: the thud ships, supply the stores, and assemble the settlers
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Speaker 2: necessary to found and sustain a plantation beyond the seas.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes the proprietor worked alone, sometimes two or more were
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Speaker 2: associated like partners in the common undertaking. Five colonies, Maryland, Pennsylvania,
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Speaker 2: New Jersey, and the Carolinas owe their formal origins, though
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Speaker 2: not always their first settlements, nor in most cases their
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Speaker 2: prosperity to the proprietary system. Maryland, established in sixteen thirty
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Speaker 2: four under a Catholic nobleman, Lord Baltimore, and blessed with
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Speaker 2: religious toleration by the Act of sixteen forty nine, flourished
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Speaker 2: under the mild rule of proprietors until he became a
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Speaker 2: state in the American Union. New Jersey, beginning its career
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Speaker 2: under two proprietors, Berkeley and Carteret, in sixteen sixty four,
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Speaker 2: passed under the direct Government of the Crown in seventeen
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Speaker 2: o two. Pennsylvania was, in a very large measure the
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Speaker 2: product of the generation, spirit and tireless labors of its
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Speaker 2: first proprietor, the Leader of the Friends, William penn to
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Speaker 2: whom it was granted in sixteen eighty one and in
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Speaker 2: whose family it remained until seventeen seventy six. The two
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Speaker 2: Carolinas were first organized as one colony in sixteen sixty
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Speaker 2: three under the government and patronage of eight proprietors, including
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Speaker 2: Lord Clarendon, but after more than half a century both
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Speaker 2: became royal provinces governed by the King. End of chapter one.
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Speaker 2: Recording by John L. White, New Orleans, Louisiana, John White
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Speaker 2: Audio dot com.
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Speaker 3: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 3: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
18:52
Speaker 3: visit LibriVox dot org. This reading by Kara Shallenberg. History
18:59
Speaker 3: of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard,
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Speaker 3: Part one, Chapter two. The colonial peoples the English in
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Speaker 3: leadership and origin. The thirteen colonies excepting New York and Delaware,
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Speaker 3: were English during the early days of all save these two.
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Speaker 3: The main if not the sole current of immigration was
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Speaker 3: from England. The colonists came from every walk of life.
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Speaker 3: They were men, women, and children of all sorts and conditions.
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Speaker 3: The major portion were yeomen or small landowners, farm laborers
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Speaker 3: and artisans. With them were merchants and gentlemen who brought
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Speaker 3: their stocks of goods or their fortunes to the New World.
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Speaker 3: Scholars came from Oxford and Cambridge to preach the gospel
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Speaker 3: or to teach now and then the son of an
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Speaker 3: English nobleman left his baronial hall behind and cast his
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Speaker 3: lot with America. The people rep presented every religious faith,
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Speaker 3: members of the established Church of England, Puritans who had
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Speaker 3: labored to reform that church, Separatists, Baptists and friends who
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Speaker 3: had left it altogether, and Catholics who clung to the
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Speaker 3: religion of their fathers. New England was almost purely English.
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Speaker 3: During the years between sixteen twenty nine and sixteen forty,
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Speaker 3: the period of arbitrary Stuart government, about twenty thousand Puritans
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Speaker 3: emigrated to America, settling in the colonies of the far North,
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Speaker 3: Although minor additions were made from time to time. The
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Speaker 3: greater portion of the New England people sprang from this
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Speaker 3: original stock. Virginia, too, for a long time, drew nearly
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Speaker 3: all her immigrants from England alone. Not until the eve
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Speaker 3: of the Revolution did other nationalities, mainly the scotch Irish
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Speaker 3: and Germans, rival the English in numbers. The populations of
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Speaker 3: later English colonies, the Carolinas, New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia,
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Speaker 3: while receiving a steady stream of immigration from England, were
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Speaker 3: constantly augmented by wanderers from the older settlements. New York
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Speaker 3: was invaded by Puritans from New England in such numbers
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Speaker 3: as to cause the Anglican clergyman there to lament that
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Speaker 3: free thinking spreads almost as fast as the Church. North
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Speaker 3: Carolina was first settled toward the northern border by immigrants
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Speaker 3: from Virginia. Some of the North Carolinians, particularly the Quakers,
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Speaker 3: came all the way from New England, tarrying in Virginia
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Speaker 3: only long enough to learn how little they were wanted
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Speaker 3: in that Anglican colony. The scotch Irish. Next to the
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Speaker 3: English in numbers and influence were the scotch Irish Presbyterians
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Speaker 3: in belief, English in tongue. Both religious and economic reasons
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Speaker 3: sent them across the sea. Their Scotch ancestors, in the
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Speaker 3: days of Cromwell had settled in the north of Ireland,
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Speaker 3: whence the native Irish had been driven by the conqueror's sword.
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Speaker 3: There the Scotch flourished for many years, enjoying in peace
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Speaker 3: their own form of religion, and growing prosperous in the
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Speaker 3: manufacture of fine linen and woolen cloth. Then the blow
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Speaker 3: fell toward the end of the seventeenth century. Their religious
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Speaker 3: worship was put under the ban, and the export of
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Speaker 3: their cloth was forbidden by the English Parliament. Within two decades,
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Speaker 3: twenty thousand Scotch Irish left Ulster alone for America, and
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Speaker 3: all during the eighteenth century the migration continued to be heavy.
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Speaker 3: Although no exact record was kept, it is reckoned that
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Speaker 3: the Scotch Irish and the Scotch who came directly from
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Speaker 3: Scotland composed one sixth of the entire American population on
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Speaker 3: the eve of the Revolution. These newcomers in America made
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Speaker 3: their homes chiefly in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and
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Speaker 3: the Carolinas. Coming late upon the scene, they found much
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Speaker 3: of the land immediately upon the sea board already taken up.
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Speaker 3: For this reason, most of them became frontier people, settling
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Speaker 3: the interior and upland regions. There they cleared the land,
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Speaker 3: laid out their small farms, and worked as sturdy yeomen
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Speaker 3: on the soil, hardy, industrious, and independent in spirit, Sharing
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Speaker 3: neither the luxuries of the rich planters nor the easy
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Speaker 3: life of the leisurely merchants. To their agriculture. They added
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Speaker 3: woolen and linen manufactures, which, flourishing in the supple fingers
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Speaker 3: of their tireless women, made heavy inroads upon the trade
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Speaker 3: of the English merchants in the colonies of their labors.
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Speaker 3: A poet has sung, Oh, willing hands to toil, strong
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Speaker 3: natures tuned to the harvest song, and bound to the
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Speaker 3: kindly soil. Bold pioneers for the wilderness defenders in the field.
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Speaker 3: The Germans. Third among the colonists in order of numerical
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Speaker 3: importance were the Germans. From the very beginning they appeared
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Speaker 3: in colonial records. A number of the artisans and carpenters
24:17
Speaker 3: in the first Jamestown colony were of German descent. Peter Minuitt,
24:22
Speaker 3: the famous governor of New Motherland, was a German from
24:25
Speaker 3: vaisl on the Rhine and Jacob Leisler, leader of a
24:29
Speaker 3: popular uprising against the provincial administration of New York, was
24:33
Speaker 3: a German from Frankfort On Mine. The wholesale migration of
24:39
Speaker 3: Germans began with the founding of Pennsylvania. Penn was diligent
24:43
Speaker 3: in searching for thrifty farmers to cultivate his lands, and
24:46
Speaker 3: he made a special effort to attract peasants from the
24:49
Speaker 3: Rhine country. A great association known as the Frankfort Company
24:54
Speaker 3: bought more than twenty thousand acres from him, and in
24:57
Speaker 3: sixteen eighty four established a center Germantown for the distribution
25:01
Speaker 3: of German immigrants in Old New York, Rhinebeck on the
25:06
Speaker 3: Hudson became a similar center for distribution all the way
25:10
Speaker 3: from Maine to Georgia. Inducements were offered to the German farmers,
25:14
Speaker 3: and in nearly every colony were to be found in
25:17
Speaker 3: time German settlements. In fact, the migration became so large
25:23
Speaker 3: that German princes were frightened at the loss of so
25:25
Speaker 3: many subjects, and England was alarmed by the influx of
25:28
Speaker 3: foreigners into her overseas dominions. Yet nothing could stop the
25:33
Speaker 3: movement by the end of the colonial period, the number
25:37
Speaker 3: of Germans had risen to more than two hundred thousand.
25:41
Speaker 3: The majority of them were Protestants from the Rhine region
25:44
Speaker 3: and South Germany. Wars, religious controversies, oppression, and poverty drove
25:50
Speaker 3: them forth to America. Though most of them were farmers,
25:55
Speaker 3: there were also among them skilled artisans who contributed to
25:58
Speaker 3: the rapid growth of industries in pennin Slovania. Their iron, glass, paper,
26:03
Speaker 3: and woolen mills dotted here and there among the thickly
26:06
Speaker 3: settled regions, added to the wealth and independence of the province.
26:13
Speaker 3: Unlike the Scotch Irish, the Germans did not speak the
26:16
Speaker 3: language of the original colonists or mingle freely with them.
26:20
Speaker 3: They kept to themselves, built their own schools, founded their
26:24
Speaker 3: own newspapers, and published their own books. Their clannish habits
26:29
Speaker 3: often irritated their neighbors and led to occasional agitations against foreigners. However,
26:36
Speaker 3: no serious collisions seemed to have occurred, and in the
26:39
Speaker 3: days of the Revolution, German soldiers from Pennsylvania fought in
26:42
Speaker 3: the Patriot Armies side by side with soldiers from the
26:46
Speaker 3: English and scotch Irish sections other nationalities. Though the English,
26:55
Speaker 3: the Scotch Irish, and the Germans made up the bulk
26:58
Speaker 3: of the colonial population. There were other racial strains as well,
27:03
Speaker 3: varying in numerical importance, but contributing their share to colonial life.
27:09
Speaker 3: From France came the Huguenots, fleeing from the decree of
27:12
Speaker 3: the King which inflicted terrible penalties upon Protestants. From Old
27:17
Speaker 3: Ireland came thousands of native Irish, Celtic in race and
27:21
Speaker 3: Catholic in religion. Like their Scotch Irish neighbours to the north,
27:27
Speaker 3: they revered neither the government nor the Church of England
27:30
Speaker 3: imposed upon them by the sword. How many came we
27:34
Speaker 3: do not know, but shipping records of the colonial period
27:37
Speaker 3: show that boatload after boat load left the southern and
27:41
Speaker 3: eastern shores of Ireland for the New World. Undoubtedly thousands
27:46
Speaker 3: of their passengers were Irish, of the native stock. This
27:49
Speaker 3: surmise is well sustained by the constant appearance of Celtic
27:53
Speaker 3: names in the records of various colonies. The Jews, then,
27:59
Speaker 3: as ever, in engaged in their age long battle for
28:02
Speaker 3: religious and economic toleration found in the American colonies not
28:07
Speaker 3: complete liberty, but certainly more freedom than they enjoyed in England, France,
28:11
Speaker 3: Spain or Portugal. The English law did not actually recognize
28:16
Speaker 3: their right to live in any of the dominions, but
28:19
Speaker 3: owing to the easy going habits of the Americans, they
28:22
Speaker 3: were allowed to filter into the sea board towns. The
28:26
Speaker 3: treatment they received there varied. On one occasion, the Mayor
28:29
Speaker 3: and Council of New York forbade them to sell by retail,
28:33
Speaker 3: and on another prohibited the exercise of their religious worship. Newport, Philadelphia,
28:40
Speaker 3: and Charleston were more hospitable, and their large Jewish colonies,
28:45
Speaker 3: consisting principally of merchants and their families, flourished in spite
28:49
Speaker 3: of nominal prohibitions of the law. Though the small Swedish
28:54
Speaker 3: colony in Delaware was quickly submerged beneath the tide of
28:57
Speaker 3: English migration, the Dutch in New York York continued to
29:01
Speaker 3: hold their own for more than a hundred years after
29:03
Speaker 3: the English conquest of sixteen sixty four. At the end
29:07
Speaker 3: of the colonial period, over one half of the one
29:10
Speaker 3: hundred seventy thousand inhabitants of the province were descendants of
29:14
Speaker 3: the original Dutch, still distinct enough to give a decided
29:17
Speaker 3: caste to the life and manners of New York. Many
29:21
Speaker 3: of them clung as tenaciously to their mother tongue as
29:24
Speaker 3: they did to their capacious farm houses or their Dutch ovens,
29:28
Speaker 3: But they were slowly losing their identity as the English
29:31
Speaker 3: pressed in beside them to farm and trade. The melting
29:37
Speaker 3: pot had begun its historic mission. End of chapter two,
29:44
Speaker 3: read by Kara Shallenberg on May eleventh, two thousand seven,
29:48
Speaker 3: in Oceanside, California.
30:01
Speaker 4: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
30:04
Speaker 4: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
30:08
Speaker 4: visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States by
30:13
Speaker 4: Charles A. Beard and Mary Ridderbeard, Part one, Section three.
30:20
Speaker 4: The process of colonization considered from one side, Colonization, whatever
30:25
Speaker 4: the motives of the immigrants, was an economic matter. It
30:28
Speaker 4: involved the use of capital to pay for their passage,
30:31
Speaker 4: to sustain them on the voyage, and to start them
30:33
Speaker 4: on the way of production. Under this stern economic necessity, Puritans, Scotch, Irish,
30:39
Speaker 4: Germans and all were alike laid immigrants who paid their
30:43
Speaker 4: own way. Many of the immigrants to America in colonial
30:47
Speaker 4: days were capitalists, themselves in a small or a large way,
30:51
Speaker 4: and paid their own passage. What proportion of the colonists
30:54
Speaker 4: were able to finance their voyage across the sea is
30:57
Speaker 4: a matter of pure conjecture. Undoubtedly a very considerable number
31:01
Speaker 4: could do so, for we can trace the family fortunes
31:04
Speaker 4: of many early settlers. Henry Cabot Lodge is authority for
31:08
Speaker 4: the statement that the settlers of New England were drawn
31:12
Speaker 4: from the country gentlemen, small farmers, and yeomanry of the
31:15
Speaker 4: mother country. Many of the emigrants were men of wealth,
31:18
Speaker 4: as the old lists show, and all of them, with
31:21
Speaker 4: few exceptions, were men of property and good standing. They
31:24
Speaker 4: did not belong to the classes from which immigration is
31:27
Speaker 4: usually supplied, for they all had a stake in the
31:30
Speaker 4: country they left behind. Though it would be interesting to
31:34
Speaker 4: know how accurate this statement is, or how applicable to
31:38
Speaker 4: the other colonies, no study has as yet been made
31:41
Speaker 4: to gratify that interest. For the present, it is an
31:45
Speaker 4: unsolved problem just how many of the colonists were able
31:48
Speaker 4: to bear the cost of their own transfer to the
31:50
Speaker 4: New world indentured servants that at least tens of thousands
31:56
Speaker 4: of immigrants were unable to pay for their passage is
31:58
Speaker 4: established beyond the shadow of doubt by the shipping records
32:01
Speaker 4: that have come down to us. The great barrier in
32:05
Speaker 4: the way of the poor who wanted to go to
32:07
Speaker 4: America was the cost of the sea voyage. To overcome
32:10
Speaker 4: this difficulty, a plan was worked out whereby ship owners
32:14
Speaker 4: and other persons of means furnished the passage money to
32:17
Speaker 4: immigrants in return for their promise or bond to work
32:20
Speaker 4: for a term of years to repay the sum advanced.
32:23
Speaker 4: This system was called indentured servitude. It is probable that
32:28
Speaker 4: the number of bond servants exceeded the original twenty thousand Puritans,
32:32
Speaker 4: the Yeomen, the Virginia gentlemen, and the Huguenots combined. All
32:36
Speaker 4: the way down the coast from Massachusetts to Georgia were
32:39
Speaker 4: to be found in the fields, kitchens and workshops, men,
32:43
Speaker 4: women and children, serving out terms of bondage, generally ranging
32:47
Speaker 4: from five to seven years. In the proprietary colonies, the
32:50
Speaker 4: proportion of bond servants was very high. The Baltimores, pens
32:55
Speaker 4: Carterets and other promoters anxiously sought for workers of every
32:59
Speaker 4: nationality to till their fields for land without labor was
33:03
Speaker 4: worth no more than land in the moon. Hence, the
33:06
Speaker 4: gates of the proprietary colonies were flung wide open. Every
33:10
Speaker 4: inducement was offered to immigrants in the form of cheap land,
33:13
Speaker 4: and special efforts were made to increase the population by
33:17
Speaker 4: importing servants. In Pennsylvania, it was not uncommon to find
33:20
Speaker 4: a master with fifty bond servants on his estate. It
33:23
Speaker 4: has been estimated that two thirds of all immigrants into
33:26
Speaker 4: Pennsylvania between the opening of the eighteenth century and the
33:29
Speaker 4: outbreak of the Revolution were in bondage. In the other
33:34
Speaker 4: middle colonies, the number was doubtless not so large, but
33:37
Speaker 4: it formed a considerable part of the population. The story
33:41
Speaker 4: of this traffic in white servants is one of the
33:44
Speaker 4: most striking things in the history of labor. Bondmen differed
33:47
Speaker 4: from the serfs of the feudal age in that they
33:49
Speaker 4: were not bound to the soil but to the master.
33:52
Speaker 4: They likewise differed from the negro slaves in that their
33:55
Speaker 4: servitude had a time limit. Still, they were subject to
33:59
Speaker 4: many disabilities. It was, for instance, a common practice to
34:03
Speaker 4: impose on them penalties far heavier than were imposed upon
34:06
Speaker 4: freedmen for the same offense. A free citizen of Pennsylvania
34:10
Speaker 4: who indulged in horse racing and gambling was let off
34:13
Speaker 4: with a fine. A white servant guilty of the same
34:16
Speaker 4: unlawful conduct was whipped at the post and fined as well.
34:20
Speaker 4: The ordinary life of the white servant was severely restricted.
34:24
Speaker 4: A bondman could not marry without his master's consent, nor
34:27
Speaker 4: engage in trade, nor refuse work assigned to him. For
34:32
Speaker 4: an attempt to escape, or indeed, for any infraction of
34:35
Speaker 4: the law, the term of service was extended. The condition
34:38
Speaker 4: of white bondmen in Virginia, according to Lodge, was little
34:43
Speaker 4: better than that of slaves. Loose indentures and harsh laws
34:47
Speaker 4: put them at the mercy of their masters. It would
34:50
Speaker 4: not be unfair to add that such was their lot
34:53
Speaker 4: in all other colonies. Their fate depended on the temper
34:57
Speaker 4: of their masters. Cruel the system was in many ways.
35:02
Speaker 4: It gave thousands of people in the old world a
35:04
Speaker 4: chance to reach the New, an opportunity to wrestle with
35:08
Speaker 4: fate for freedom and a home of their own when
35:11
Speaker 4: their weary years of servitude were over. If they survived,
35:14
Speaker 4: they might obtain land of their own or settle as free.
35:17
Speaker 4: Mechanics in the towns. For many a bondman, the gamble
35:21
Speaker 4: proved to be a losing venture because he found himself
35:23
Speaker 4: unable to rise out of the state of poverty and
35:26
Speaker 4: dependence into which his servitude carried him for thousands. On
35:30
Speaker 4: the contrary, bondage proved to be a real avenue to
35:32
Speaker 4: freedom and prosperity. Some of the best citizens of America
35:36
Speaker 4: have the blood of indentured servants in their veins. The
35:41
Speaker 4: transported involuntary servitude. In their anxiety to secure settlers, the
35:47
Speaker 4: companies and proprietors having colonies in America either resorted to
35:51
Speaker 4: or connived at, the practice of kidnapping men, women, and
35:55
Speaker 4: children from the streets of English cities. In sixteen eighty,
35:58
Speaker 4: it was officially estimated that ten thousand persons were spirited
36:02
Speaker 4: away to America. Many of the victims of the practice
36:06
Speaker 4: were young children, for the traffic in them was highly profitable.
36:10
Speaker 4: Orphans and dependents were sometimes disposed of in America by
36:13
Speaker 4: relatives unwilling to support them. In a single year sixteen
36:17
Speaker 4: twenty seven, fifteen hundred children were shipped to Virginia. In
36:22
Speaker 4: this gruesome business, there lurked many tragedies and very few romances.
36:27
Speaker 4: Parents were separated from their children, and husbands from their wives.
36:31
Speaker 4: Hundreds of skilled artisans, carpenters, smiths, and weavers utterly disappeared,
36:36
Speaker 4: as if swallowed up by death. A few, thus dragged
36:40
Speaker 4: off to the New World to be sold into servitude
36:42
Speaker 4: for a term of five or seven years later became
36:45
Speaker 4: prosperous and returned home with fortunes. In one case, a
36:49
Speaker 4: young man who was forcibly carried over the sea lived
36:52
Speaker 4: to make his way back to England and establish his
36:54
Speaker 4: claim to a peerage. Akin to the kidnapped, at least
36:58
Speaker 4: in economic position. Were convicts deported to the colonies for
37:02
Speaker 4: life in lieu of fines and imprisonment. The Americans protested
37:06
Speaker 4: vigorously but ineffectually against this practice. Indeed, they exaggerated its evils,
37:11
Speaker 4: for many of the criminals were only mild offenders against
37:15
Speaker 4: unduly harsh and cruel laws. A peasant caught shooting a
37:19
Speaker 4: rabbit on a lord's estate, where a luckless servant girl
37:22
Speaker 4: who purloined a pocket handkerchief was branded as a criminal.
37:26
Speaker 4: Along with sturdy thieves and incorrigible rascals. Other transported offenders
37:31
Speaker 4: were political criminals, that is, persons who criticize or opposed
37:35
Speaker 4: the government. This class included now Irish who revolted against
37:39
Speaker 4: British rule in Ireland, now cavaliers who championed the king
37:43
Speaker 4: against the Puritan revolutionists, Puritans, in turn, dispatched after the
37:48
Speaker 4: monarchy was restored, and Scotch and English subjects in general
37:52
Speaker 4: who joined in political uprisings against the King. The African slaves,
37:56
Speaker 4: rivaling in numbers in the course of time the indentured
37:59
Speaker 4: servants and whites carried to America against their will, were
38:03
Speaker 4: the African negroes brought to America and sold into slavery.
38:07
Speaker 4: When this form of bondage was first introduced into Virginia
38:10
Speaker 4: in sixteen nineteen, it was looked upon as a temporary necessity,
38:14
Speaker 4: to be discarded with the increase of the white population. Moreover,
38:18
Speaker 4: it does not appear that those planners who first brought
38:20
Speaker 4: negroes at the auction block intended to establish a system
38:24
Speaker 4: of permanent bondage. Only by a slow process did chattel
38:27
Speaker 4: slavery take firm root and become recognized as the leading
38:31
Speaker 4: source of the labour supply. In sixteen fifty thirty years
38:34
Speaker 4: after the introduction of slavery, there were only three hundred
38:37
Speaker 4: Africans in Virginia. The great increase in later years was
38:42
Speaker 4: due in no small measure to the inordinate zeal for
38:44
Speaker 4: profits that seized slave traders, both in Old and in
38:49
Speaker 4: New England. Finding it relatively easy to secure negroes in Africa,
38:53
Speaker 4: they crowded the southern ports with their vessels. The English
38:57
Speaker 4: Royal African Company sent to America annually between seventeen thirteen
39:02
Speaker 4: and seventeen forty three from five to ten thousand slaves.
39:06
Speaker 4: The ship owners of New England were not far behind
39:08
Speaker 4: their English brethren in pushing this extraordinary traffic. As the
39:12
Speaker 4: proportion of the Negroes to the free white population steadily rose,
39:16
Speaker 4: and as whole sections were overrun with slaves and slave traders,
39:20
Speaker 4: the southern colonies grew alarmed. In seventeen ten, Virginia sought
39:24
Speaker 4: to curtail the importation by placing a duty of five
39:28
Speaker 4: pounds on each slave. This effort was futile, for the
39:31
Speaker 4: Royal governor promptly vetoed it. From time to time similar
39:35
Speaker 4: bills were passed, only to meet with royal disapproval. South
39:38
Speaker 4: Carolina in seventeen sixty absolutely prohibited importation, but the measure
39:43
Speaker 4: was killed by the British Crown as late as seventeen
39:46
Speaker 4: seventy two. Virginia, not daunted by a century of rebuffs,
39:51
Speaker 4: sent to George the Third, a petition in this vein
39:54
Speaker 4: the importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast
39:58
Speaker 4: of Africa. Hath laws being considered as a trade of
40:01
Speaker 4: great in humanity, and under its present encouragement, we have
40:05
Speaker 4: too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence
40:08
Speaker 4: of Your Majesty's American dominions. Deeply impressed with these sentiments,
40:13
Speaker 4: we most humbly beseech Your Majesty to remove all those
40:17
Speaker 4: restraints on Your Majesty's governors of this colony which inhibit
40:21
Speaker 4: their assenting to such laws as might check so very
40:24
Speaker 4: pernicious a commerce. All such protests were without avail. The
40:29
Speaker 4: Negro population grew by leaps and bounds un till on
40:32
Speaker 4: the eve of the Revolution it amounted to more than
40:35
Speaker 4: half a million in five states, Maryland, Virginia, the two Carolinas,
40:39
Speaker 4: and Georgia. The slaves nearly equalled or actually exceeded the
40:43
Speaker 4: whites in number. In South Carolina, they formed almost two
40:46
Speaker 4: thirds of the population. Even in the middle colonies of
40:49
Speaker 4: Delaware and Pennsylvania, about one fifth of the inhabitants were
40:53
Speaker 4: from Africa. To the north, the proportion of slaves steadily diminished,
40:57
Speaker 4: though chattel servitude was on the same legal footing as
41:00
Speaker 4: in the South. In New York, approximately one in six
41:03
Speaker 4: In New England one in fifty were negroes, including a
41:06
Speaker 4: few freedmen. The climate, the soil, the commerce, and the
41:11
Speaker 4: industry of the North were all unfavorable to the growth
41:14
Speaker 4: of a servile population. Still, slavery, though sectional, was a
41:18
Speaker 4: part of the national system of economy. Northern ships carried
41:22
Speaker 4: slaves to the southern colonies and the produce of the
41:25
Speaker 4: plantations to Europe. If the Northern states will consult their interest,
41:30
Speaker 4: they will not oppose the increase in slaves, which will
41:33
Speaker 4: increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers,
41:37
Speaker 4: said John Rutledge of South Carolina in the Convention which
41:40
Speaker 4: framed the Constitution of the United States. What enriches a
41:44
Speaker 4: part enriches the whole. In the states are the best
41:47
Speaker 4: judges of their particular interest, responded Oliver Ellsworth, the distinguished
41:52
Speaker 4: spokesmen of Connecticut and of section three.
42:03
Speaker 5: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
42:08
Speaker 5: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
42:12
Speaker 5: visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States by
42:19
Speaker 5: Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard, Part one, Section four,
42:26
Speaker 5: Chapter two, Colonial Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce. The Land and
42:32
Speaker 5: the Westward Movement. The significance of land tenure, the way
42:39
Speaker 5: in which land may be acquired, held, divided among heirs,
42:44
Speaker 5: and bought and sold, exercises a deep influence on the
42:48
Speaker 5: life and culture of a people. The feudal and aristocratic
42:52
Speaker 5: societies of Europe were founded on a system of landlordism,
42:56
Speaker 5: which was characterized by two distinct features. In the first place,
43:01
Speaker 5: the land was nearly all held in great estates, each
43:04
Speaker 5: owned by a single proprietor. In the second place, every
43:09
Speaker 5: estate was kept intact under the law of primogeniture, which,
43:13
Speaker 5: at the death of a lord transferred all his landed
43:16
Speaker 5: property to his eldest son. This prevented the subdivision of
43:20
Speaker 5: estates and the growth of a large body of small
43:23
Speaker 5: farmers or freeholders owning their own land. It made a
43:27
Speaker 5: form of tenantry or servitude inevitable for the mass of
43:31
Speaker 5: those who labored on the land. It also enabled the
43:34
Speaker 5: landlords to maintain themselves in power as a governing class,
43:38
Speaker 5: and kept the tenants and laborers subject to their economic
43:42
Speaker 5: and political control. If land tenure was so significant in Europe,
43:47
Speaker 5: it was equally important in the development of America, where
43:51
Speaker 5: practically all the first immigrants were forced by circumstances to
43:55
Speaker 5: derive their livelihood from the soil. Experiments in common tillage.
44:02
Speaker 5: In the New World, with its broad extent of land
44:04
Speaker 5: awaiting the white man's plow, it was impossible to introduce
44:09
Speaker 5: in its entirety and over the whole area, the system
44:12
Speaker 5: of lords and tenants that existed across the sea. So
44:16
Speaker 5: it happened that almost every kind of experiment in landed tenure,
44:20
Speaker 5: from communism to feudalism, was tried. In the early days
44:25
Speaker 5: of the Jamestown Colony, the land, though owned by the
44:28
Speaker 5: London Company, was tilled in common by the settlers. No
44:32
Speaker 5: man had a separate plot of his own. The motto
44:35
Speaker 5: of the community was labor and share alike. All were
44:39
Speaker 5: supposed to work in the fields and receive an equal
44:42
Speaker 5: share of the produce. At Plymouth, the pilgrims attempted a
44:46
Speaker 5: similar experiment, laying out the fields in common and distributing
44:50
Speaker 5: the joint produce of their labor with rough equality among
44:53
Speaker 5: the workers. In both colonies, the communistic experiments were failures.
44:59
Speaker 5: Angry yet the lazy men in Jamestown, who idled their
45:02
Speaker 5: time away and yet expected regular meals, Captain John Smith
45:07
Speaker 5: issued a manifesto. Every one that gathereth not every day
45:11
Speaker 5: as much as I do the next day, shall be
45:14
Speaker 5: set beyond the river and forever banished from the fort,
45:17
Speaker 5: and live there or starve. Even this terrible threat did
45:21
Speaker 5: not bring a change in production. Not until each man
45:25
Speaker 5: was given a plot of his own to till. Not
45:28
Speaker 5: until each gathered the fruits of his own labor, did
45:31
Speaker 5: the colony prosper. In Plymouth, where the communal experiment lasted
45:36
Speaker 5: for five years, the results were similar to those in Virginia,
45:40
Speaker 5: and the system was given up for one of separate
45:42
Speaker 5: fields in which every person could set corn for his
45:46
Speaker 5: own particular. Some other New England towns, refusing to profit
45:50
Speaker 5: by the experience of their Plymouth neighbor, also made excursions
45:55
Speaker 5: into common ownership and labor, only to abandon the idea
45:59
Speaker 5: and go in for it. Individual ownership of the land by degrees.
46:03
Speaker 5: It was seen that even the lord's people could not
46:05
Speaker 5: carry the complicated communist legislation into perfect and wholesome practice.
46:12
Speaker 5: Feudal elements in the colonies quitrents, manners, and plantations. At
46:20
Speaker 5: the other end of the scale were the feudal elements
46:22
Speaker 5: of land tenure found in the proprietary colonies in the
46:26
Speaker 5: sea board regions of the South, and to some extent
46:29
Speaker 5: in New York. The proprietor was in fact a powerful
46:32
Speaker 5: feudal lord, owning land granted to him by royal charter.
46:37
Speaker 5: He could retain any part of it for his personal use,
46:40
Speaker 5: or dispose of it all in large or small lots.
46:43
Speaker 5: While he generally kept for himself an a state of
46:46
Speaker 5: baronial proportions, it was impossible for him to manage directly
46:51
Speaker 5: any considerable part of the land in his dominion. Consequently,
46:55
Speaker 5: he either sold it in parcels for lump sums, or
46:58
Speaker 5: granted it to individuals rules on condition that they make
47:01
Speaker 5: to him an annual payment in money, known as quit rent.
47:06
Speaker 5: In Maryland, the proprietor sometimes collected as high as nine
47:10
Speaker 5: thousand pounds equal to about five hundred thousand dollars to
47:14
Speaker 5: day in a single year. From this source. In Pennsylvania,
47:18
Speaker 5: the quit rents brought a handsome annual tribute into the
47:21
Speaker 5: exchequer of the penn family. In the royal provinces, the
47:25
Speaker 5: King of England claimed all revenues collected in this form
47:28
Speaker 5: from the land, a sum amounting to nineteen thousand pounds
47:32
Speaker 5: at the time of the revolution. The quit rent, really
47:36
Speaker 5: a feudal payment from freeholders, was thus a material source
47:40
Speaker 5: of income for the crown as well as for the
47:42
Speaker 5: proprietors wherever it was laid. However, it proved to be
47:46
Speaker 5: a burden, a source of constant irritation, and it became
47:50
Speaker 5: a formidable item in the long list of grievances which
47:53
Speaker 5: led to the American Revolution. Something still more like the
47:58
Speaker 5: feudal system of the old world appear yeared in the
48:00
Speaker 5: numerous manners or the huge landed estates granted by the Crown,
48:04
Speaker 5: the companies, or the proprietors. In the Colony of Maryland alone,
48:09
Speaker 5: there were sixty manners of three thousand acres, each owned
48:12
Speaker 5: by wealthy men and tilled by tenants holding small plots
48:16
Speaker 5: under certain restrictions of tenure. In New York also, there
48:20
Speaker 5: were many manners of wide extent, most of which originated
48:24
Speaker 5: in the days of the Dutch West India Company, when
48:27
Speaker 5: extensive concessions were made to patroons to induce them to
48:31
Speaker 5: bring over settlers. The Van Rensselaire, the Van Cortland, and
48:35
Speaker 5: the Livingstone manors were so large and populous that each
48:39
Speaker 5: was entitled to send a representative to the provincial legislature.
48:43
Speaker 5: The tenants on the New England manners were in somewhat
48:46
Speaker 5: the same position as serfs on old European estates. They
48:50
Speaker 5: were bound to pay the owner a rent in money
48:53
Speaker 5: and kind, They ground their grain at his mill, and
48:56
Speaker 5: they were subject to his judicial power, because he held
49:00
Speaker 5: court and meeted out justice in some instances extending to
49:04
Speaker 5: capital punishment. The manners of New York or Maryland were, however,
49:09
Speaker 5: of slight consequence as compared with the vast plantations of
49:13
Speaker 5: the Southern Sea Board, huge estates, far wider in expanse
49:17
Speaker 5: than many a European barony, and tilled by slaves, more
49:21
Speaker 5: servile than any feudal tenants. It must not be forgotten
49:25
Speaker 5: that this system of land tenure became the dominant feature
49:29
Speaker 5: of a large section and gave a decided bent to
49:32
Speaker 5: the economic and political life of America the small freehold.
49:39
Speaker 5: In the upland regions of the South, however, and throughout
49:43
Speaker 5: most of the North, the drift was against all forms
49:46
Speaker 5: of servitude and tenantry, and in the direction of the freehold,
49:50
Speaker 5: that is, the small farm owned outright and tilled by
49:53
Speaker 5: the possessor and his family. This was favored by natural
49:57
Speaker 5: circumstances and the spirit of the immigrants. For one thing,
50:02
Speaker 5: the abundance of land and the scarcity of labor made
50:05
Speaker 5: it impossible for the companies, the proprietors, or the crown
50:09
Speaker 5: to develop over the whole continent a network of vast estates.
50:13
Speaker 5: In many sections, particularly in New England, the climate, the
50:17
Speaker 5: stony soil, the hills, and the narrow valleys conspired to
50:22
Speaker 5: keep the farms within a moderate compass. For another thing,
50:26
Speaker 5: the English, scotch Irish and German peasants, even if there
50:31
Speaker 5: had been tenants in the Old World, did not propose
50:34
Speaker 5: to accept permanent dependency of any kind in the New
50:38
Speaker 5: If they could not get freeholds, they would not settle
50:41
Speaker 5: at all. Thus they forced proprietors and companies to bid
50:45
Speaker 5: for their enterprise by selling land in small lots. So
50:49
Speaker 5: it happened that the freehold of modest proportions became the
50:52
Speaker 5: cherished unit of American farmers. The people who tilled the
50:56
Speaker 5: farms were drawn from every quarter of Western Europe, but
51:00
Speaker 5: the freehold system gave a uniform cast to their economic
51:04
Speaker 5: and social life. In America, social effects of land tenure,
51:12
Speaker 5: land tenure and the process of Western settlement thus developed
51:16
Speaker 5: two distinct types of people engaged in the same pursuit agriculture.
51:21
Speaker 5: They had a common tie in that they both cultivated
51:24
Speaker 5: the soil and possessed the local interest and independence which
51:28
Speaker 5: arise from that occupation. Their methods and their culture, however,
51:32
Speaker 5: differed widely. The Southern planter, on his broad acres tilled
51:38
Speaker 5: by slaves, resembled the English landlord on his estates more
51:42
Speaker 5: than he did the colonial farmer, who labored with his
51:45
Speaker 5: own hands in the fields and forests. He sold his
51:48
Speaker 5: rice and tobacco in large amounts directly to English factors,
51:52
Speaker 5: who took his entire crop in exchange for goods and cash.
51:56
Speaker 5: His fine clothes, silverware, china, and cutlery he bought in
52:01
Speaker 5: English markets. Loving the ripe old culture of the mother country,
52:05
Speaker 5: he often sent his sons to Oxford or Cambridge for
52:08
Speaker 5: their education. In short, he depended very largely for his
52:13
Speaker 5: prosperity and his enjoyment of life upon close relations with
52:17
Speaker 5: the old world. He did not even need market towns
52:20
Speaker 5: in which to buy native goods, for they were made
52:23
Speaker 5: on his own plantation by his own artisans, who were
52:26
Speaker 5: usually gifted slaves. The economic condition of the small farmer
52:32
Speaker 5: was totally different. His crops were not big enough to
52:35
Speaker 5: warrant direct connection with English factors or the personal maintenance
52:39
Speaker 5: of a corps of artisans. He needed local markets, and
52:43
Speaker 5: they sprang up to meet the need. Smiths, hatters, weavers,
52:47
Speaker 5: wagon makers, and potters at neighboring towns supplied him with
52:51
Speaker 5: the rough products of their native skill. The finer goods
52:56
Speaker 5: bought by the rich planter in England, the small farmer
52:59
Speaker 5: ordinarily could not buy. His wants were restricted to staples
53:03
Speaker 5: like tea and sugar, and between him and the European
53:06
Speaker 5: markets stood the merchant. His community was therefore more self
53:10
Speaker 5: sufficient than the sea board line of great plantations. It
53:14
Speaker 5: was more isolated, more provincial, more independent, more American. The
53:20
Speaker 5: planter faced the Old East, the farmer faced the New West.
53:27
Speaker 5: The westward movement. Yeomen and planter nevertheless were alike in
53:32
Speaker 5: one respect. Their land hunger was never appeased. Each had
53:37
Speaker 5: the eye of an expert for new and fertile soil,
53:40
Speaker 5: and so north and south. As soon as a foothold
53:43
Speaker 5: was secured on the Atlantic coast, the current of migration
53:47
Speaker 5: set in westward, creeping through forests, across rivers, and over mountains.
53:53
Speaker 5: Many of the later emigrants, in their search for cheap lands,
53:57
Speaker 5: were compelled to go to the border, but in a
53:59
Speaker 5: large part the path breakers to the west were Native
54:02
Speaker 5: Americans of the second and third generations, fired by curiosity
54:07
Speaker 5: and the lure of the mysterious unknown, and hunters, fur traders,
54:11
Speaker 5: and squatters, following their own sweet wills, blazed the trail,
54:15
Speaker 5: opening paths and sending back stories of the new regions
54:18
Speaker 5: they traversed. Then came the regular settlers, with lawful titles
54:23
Speaker 5: to the lands they had purchased, sometimes singly and sometimes
54:26
Speaker 5: in companies. In Massachusetts, the westward movement is recorded in
54:32
Speaker 5: the founding of Springfield in sixteen thirty six and Great
54:35
Speaker 5: Barrington in seventeen twenty five. By the opening of the
54:39
Speaker 5: eighteenth century, the pioneers of Connecticut had pushed north and
54:43
Speaker 5: west until their outpost towns adjoined the Hudson Valley settlements.
54:48
Speaker 5: In New York, the inland movement was directed by the
54:51
Speaker 5: Hudson River to Albany, and from that old Dutch center
54:55
Speaker 5: it radiated in every direction, particularly westward through the Mohawk Valley.
55:00
Speaker 5: New Jersey was early filled to its borders, the beginnings
55:04
Speaker 5: of the present city of New Brunswick being made in
55:07
Speaker 5: sixteen eighty one and those of Trenton in sixteen eighty five.
55:12
Speaker 5: In Pennsylvania, as in New York, the waterways determined the
55:16
Speaker 5: main lines of advance. Pioneers, pushing up through the valley
55:20
Speaker 5: of the Scuoylkill, spread over the fertile lands of Burkes
55:23
Speaker 5: and Lancaster Counties, laying out reading In seventeen forty eight,
55:28
Speaker 5: another current of migration was directed by the Susquehanna, and
55:32
Speaker 5: in seventeen twenty six the first farmhouse was built on
55:36
Speaker 5: the bank where Harrisburg was later founded. Along the southern
55:40
Speaker 5: tier of counties, a thin line of settlements stretched westward
55:43
Speaker 5: to Pittsburgh, reaching the upper waters of the Ohio. While
55:47
Speaker 5: the colony was still under the penn family in the south.
55:52
Speaker 5: The westward march was equally swift. The sea board was
55:55
Speaker 5: quickly occupied by large planters and their slaves engaged in
55:59
Speaker 5: the cultivation of tobacco and rice. The Piedmont plateau, lying
56:04
Speaker 5: back from the coast, all the way from Maryland to Georgia,
56:07
Speaker 5: was fed by two streams of migration, one westward from
56:11
Speaker 5: the sea and the other southward from the other colonies,
56:14
Speaker 5: Germans from Pennsylvania and Scotch Irish, furnishing the main supply.
56:20
Speaker 5: By seventeen seventy tide water Virginia was full to overflowing,
56:24
Speaker 5: and the back country of the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah
56:27
Speaker 5: was fully occupied. Even the mountain valleys were claimed by
56:31
Speaker 5: sturdy pioneers. Before the declaration of independence, the oncoming tide
56:36
Speaker 5: of home seekers had reached the crest of the Alleghanies.
56:40
Speaker 5: Beyond the mountains, pioneers had already ventured harbingers of an
56:45
Speaker 5: invasion that was about to break in upon Kentucky and Tennessee.
56:49
Speaker 5: As early as seventeen sixty nine that Mighty Nimrod Daniel Boone,
56:54
Speaker 5: curious to hunt buffaloes of which he had heard weird reports,
56:58
Speaker 5: passed through the Cumberland Gap and brought back news of
57:01
Speaker 5: a wonderful country awaiting the plow. A hint was sufficient.
57:06
Speaker 5: Singly in pairs and in groups, settlers followed the trail
57:10
Speaker 5: he had blazed a great land corporation, the Transylvania Company,
57:15
Speaker 5: emulating the merchant adventurers of earlier times, secured a huge
57:19
Speaker 5: grant of territory and sought profits in quitrents from lands
57:23
Speaker 5: sold to farmers. By the outbreak of the revolution there
57:27
Speaker 5: were several hundred people in the Kentucky region. Like the
57:30
Speaker 5: older colonists, they did not relish quitrents, and their opposition
57:34
Speaker 5: wrecked the Transylvania Company. They even carried their protests into
57:39
Speaker 5: the Continental Congress in seventeen seventy six, for by that
57:42
Speaker 5: time they were our embryo fourteenth colony. End of section four.
57:56
Speaker 6: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
57:59
Speaker 6: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
58:02
Speaker 6: visit libervox dot org. History of the United States by
58:07
Speaker 6: Charles A. Beard and Mary Ridderbeard, Part one, Part five
58:14
Speaker 6: Industrial and commercial development. Though the labour of the colonists
58:19
Speaker 6: was mainly spent in farming, there was a steady growth
58:22
Speaker 6: in industrial and commercial pursuits. Most of the staple industries
58:26
Speaker 6: of today, not omitting iron and textiles, have their beginnings
58:31
Speaker 6: in colonial times. Manufacturing and trade soon gave rise to
58:35
Speaker 6: towns which enjoyed in importance all out of proportion to
58:39
Speaker 6: their numbers. The great centers of commerce and finance on
58:43
Speaker 6: the sea board originated in the days when the King
58:45
Speaker 6: of England was lord of these dominions. Illustration domestic industry
58:52
Speaker 6: dipping tallow candles. Textile manufacturing as a domestic industry, colonial women,
59:00
Speaker 6: in addition to sharing every hardship of pioneering, often the
59:04
Speaker 6: heavy labor of the open field, developed in the course
59:08
Speaker 6: of time a national industry which was almost exclusively their own.
59:12
Speaker 6: Wool and flax were raised in abundance in the North
59:15
Speaker 6: and the South. Every farmhouse, says Comyn the Economic Historian,
59:21
Speaker 6: was a workshop where the women spun and wove the Surges,
59:25
Speaker 6: Curseys and Lindsey woolseys, which served for the common wear.
59:30
Speaker 6: By the close of the seventeenth century, New England manufactured
59:33
Speaker 6: cloth in sufficient quantities to export it to the southern
59:36
Speaker 6: colonies and to the West Indies. As the industry developed,
59:40
Speaker 6: mills were erected for the more difficult process of dyeing,
59:43
Speaker 6: weaving and fulling, but carting and spinning continued to be
59:47
Speaker 6: done in the home. The Dutch of New Netherland, the
59:51
Speaker 6: Swedes of Delaware, and the Scotch Irish of the interior
59:54
Speaker 6: were not one whit behind their Yankee neighbors. The of
1:00:00
Speaker 6: this enterprise to British economic life can hardly be overestimated.
1:00:04
Speaker 6: For many a century, the English had employed their fine
1:00:07
Speaker 6: woolen cloth as the chief staple in a lucrative foreign trade,
1:00:11
Speaker 6: and the government had come to look upon it as
1:00:13
Speaker 6: an object of special interest and protection. When the colonies
1:00:16
Speaker 6: were established, both merchants and statesmen naturally expected to maintain
1:00:20
Speaker 6: a monopoly of increasing value. But before long the Americans,
1:00:24
Speaker 6: instead of buying cloth, especially of the course of varieties,
1:00:28
Speaker 6: were making it to sell in the place of customers.
1:00:31
Speaker 6: Here were rivals in the place of helpless reliance upon
1:00:35
Speaker 6: English markets. Here was the germ of economic independence. If
1:00:39
Speaker 6: British merchants had not discovered it in the ordinary course
1:00:42
Speaker 6: of trade, observant officers in the provinces would have conveyed
1:00:46
Speaker 6: the news to them. Even in the early years of
1:00:49
Speaker 6: the eighteenth century, the royal Governor of New York wrote
1:00:52
Speaker 6: of the industrious Americans to his home government, the consequence
1:00:57
Speaker 6: will be that if they can clothe themselves won once,
1:01:00
Speaker 6: not only comfortably, but handsomely too, without the help of England,
1:01:04
Speaker 6: they who already are not fond of submitting to government,
1:01:08
Speaker 6: will soon think of putting in execution designs they have
1:01:11
Speaker 6: long harbored in their breasts. This will not seem strange
1:01:15
Speaker 6: when you consider what sort of people this country is
1:01:17
Speaker 6: inhabited by the iron industry. Almost equally widespread was the
1:01:23
Speaker 6: art of iron working, one of the earliest and most
1:01:26
Speaker 6: picturesque of colonial industries. Lynn Massachusetts had a forge and
1:01:32
Speaker 6: skilled artisans within fifteen years after the founding of Boston.
1:01:36
Speaker 6: The smelting of iron began at New London and New
1:01:39
Speaker 6: Haven about sixteen fifty eight in Lichfield County, Connecticut, a
1:01:43
Speaker 6: few years later at Great Barrington, Massachusetts in seventeen thirty one,
1:01:48
Speaker 6: and nearby at Lenox some thirty years after that. New
1:01:52
Speaker 6: Jersey had iron works at Shrewsbury. Within ten years after
1:01:55
Speaker 6: the founding of the colony in sixteen sixty five, iron
1:01:59
Speaker 6: forges appeared to the valleys of the Delaware and the
1:02:01
Speaker 6: Susquehanna early in the following century, and iron masters then
1:02:06
Speaker 6: laid the foundations of fortunes in a region destined to
1:02:09
Speaker 6: become one of the great iron centers of the world.
1:02:12
Speaker 6: Virginia began iron working in the year that saw the
1:02:15
Speaker 6: introduction of slavery. Although the industry soon elapsed, it was
1:02:18
Speaker 6: renewed and flourished in the eighteenth century. Governor Spotswood was
1:02:22
Speaker 6: called the tubal Cane of the Old Dominion because he
1:02:25
Speaker 6: placed the industry on a firm foundation. Indeed, it seems
1:02:28
Speaker 6: that every colony except Georgia had its iron foundry. Nails, wire,
1:02:33
Speaker 6: metallic ware, chains, anchors, bar and pig iron were made
1:02:37
Speaker 6: in large quantities, and Great Britain, by an act in
1:02:40
Speaker 6: seventeen fifty, encouraged the colonists to export rough iron to
1:02:44
Speaker 6: the British Isles shipbuilding. Of all the specialized industries in
1:02:50
Speaker 6: the colonies, shipbuilding was the most important. The abundance of
1:02:54
Speaker 6: fur for masts, oak for timbers and boards, pitch for
1:02:58
Speaker 6: tar and turpentine and made the way of the ship
1:03:01
Speaker 6: builder easy. Early in the seventeenth century a ship was
1:03:05
Speaker 6: built at New Amsterdam, and by the middle of that
1:03:08
Speaker 6: century shipyards were scattered along the New England coast at Newburyport, Salem,
1:03:13
Speaker 6: New Bedford, Newport, Providence, New London, and New Haven. Yards
1:03:18
Speaker 6: at Albany and Poughkeepsie. And New York built ships for
1:03:20
Speaker 6: the trade of that colony with England and the Indies.
1:03:23
Speaker 6: Wilmington and Philadelphia soon entered the race in out distance
1:03:26
Speaker 6: New York, though unable to equal the pace set by
1:03:29
Speaker 6: New England. While Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina also built ships,
1:03:34
Speaker 6: Southern interest was mainly confined to the lucrative business of
1:03:37
Speaker 6: producing ship materials fir cedar, hemp and tar fishing. The
1:03:43
Speaker 6: greatest single economic resource of New England outside of agriculture
1:03:47
Speaker 6: was the fisheries. This industry, started by hardy sailors from
1:03:51
Speaker 6: Europe long before the landing of the Pilgrims, flourished under
1:03:54
Speaker 6: the indomitable seamanship of the Puritans, who laboured with the
1:03:58
Speaker 6: net and harpoon in almost every of the Atlantic. Look,
1:04:02
Speaker 6: exclaimed Edmund Burke in the House of Commons, at the
1:04:05
Speaker 6: manner in which the people of New England have of
1:04:07
Speaker 6: late carried on in the whale fishery, whilst we follow
1:04:11
Speaker 6: them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them
1:04:13
Speaker 6: penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and
1:04:17
Speaker 6: Davis's Straits. While we are looking for them beneath the
1:04:20
Speaker 6: Arctic Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the
1:04:23
Speaker 6: opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the
1:04:26
Speaker 6: Antipodes and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South.
1:04:30
Speaker 6: Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than
1:04:34
Speaker 6: the accumulated winner of both poles. We know that whilst
1:04:38
Speaker 6: some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon
1:04:40
Speaker 6: on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and
1:04:44
Speaker 6: pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No
1:04:48
Speaker 6: see but what is vexed by their fisheries, No climate
1:04:51
Speaker 6: that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance
1:04:55
Speaker 6: of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous
1:04:58
Speaker 6: and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most
1:05:01
Speaker 6: perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which
1:05:04
Speaker 6: it has been pushed by this recent people. The influence
1:05:08
Speaker 6: of the business was widespread, A large and lucrative European
1:05:12
Speaker 6: trade was built upon it. The better quality of the
1:05:15
Speaker 6: fish caught for food was sold in the markets of Spain, Portugal,
1:05:19
Speaker 6: and Italy, or exchanged for salt, lemons and raisins for
1:05:23
Speaker 6: the American market. The lower grades of fish were carried
1:05:26
Speaker 6: to the West Indies for slave consumption, and in part
1:05:29
Speaker 6: traded for sugar and molasses, which furnished the raw materials
1:05:33
Speaker 6: for the thriving rum industry of New England. These activities
1:05:37
Speaker 6: in turn stimulated shipbuilding, steadily enlarging the demand for fishing
1:05:41
Speaker 6: and merchant craft of every kind, and thus keeping the shipwrights, calkers,
1:05:46
Speaker 6: rope makers, and other artisans of the seaport towns rushed
1:05:49
Speaker 6: with work. They also increased trade with the mother country.
1:05:53
Speaker 6: Four out of the cash collected in the fish markets
1:05:56
Speaker 6: of Europe and the West Indies, the colonists paid for
1:05:59
Speaker 6: english Men facts. So an ever widening circle of American
1:06:03
Speaker 6: enterprise centered around this single industry, the nursery of seamanship
1:06:07
Speaker 6: and the maritime spirit, oceanic commerce and American merchants. All
1:06:14
Speaker 6: through the eighteenth century, the commerce of the American colonies
1:06:17
Speaker 6: spread in every direction until it rivaled in the number
1:06:19
Speaker 6: of people employed, the capital engaged, and the profits gleaned
1:06:23
Speaker 6: the commerce of European nations. A modern historian has said,
1:06:28
Speaker 6: the enterprising merchants of New England developed a network of
1:06:31
Speaker 6: trade routes that covered well nigh half the world. This commerce,
1:06:36
Speaker 6: destined to be of such significance in the conflict with
1:06:38
Speaker 6: the mother country, presented broadly speaking two aspects. On the
1:06:43
Speaker 6: one hand, it evolved the export of raw materials and
1:06:46
Speaker 6: agricultural produce. The Southern colonies produced for shipping tobacco, rice, tar,
1:06:51
Speaker 6: pitch and pine. The Middle colonies grain, flour, furs, lumber,
1:06:56
Speaker 6: and salt, pork. New England fish, flour, rum, furs, in
1:07:00
Speaker 6: small articles of manufacture. The variety of products was in
1:07:04
Speaker 6: fact astounding. A sarcastic writer, while sneering at the idea
1:07:08
Speaker 6: of an American union, once remarked of colonial trade, what
1:07:12
Speaker 6: sort of dish will you make? New England will throw
1:07:15
Speaker 6: in fish and onions, the Middle States flax seed and flour,
1:07:18
Speaker 6: Maryland and Virginia will add tobacco, North Carolina pitch, tar
1:07:23
Speaker 6: and turpentine. South Carolina rice and indigo. And Georgia will
1:07:27
Speaker 6: sprinkle the whole composition with sawdust. Such an absurd jumble
1:07:31
Speaker 6: will you make if you attempt to form a union
1:07:33
Speaker 6: among such discordant materials as the thirteen British provinces. On
1:07:38
Speaker 6: the other side, American commerce involved the import trade, consisting
1:07:41
Speaker 6: principally of English and Continental manufactures. Tea and India goods,
1:07:46
Speaker 6: sugar and molasses brought from the West Indies supplied the
1:07:49
Speaker 6: flourishing distilleries of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The carriage
1:07:54
Speaker 6: of slaves from Africa to the southern colonies engaged hundreds
1:07:58
Speaker 6: of New England sailors and thousands of pounds of her capital.
1:08:02
Speaker 6: The disposition of imported goods in the colonies, though in
1:08:05
Speaker 6: part controlled by English factors located in America, employed also
1:08:09
Speaker 6: a large and important body of American merchants, like the
1:08:13
Speaker 6: Willings and Morrises of Philadelphia, the Amoryes, Hancocks and Faniels
1:08:18
Speaker 6: of Boston, and the Livingstones and Lows of New York.
1:08:22
Speaker 6: In their zeal And enterprise, they were worthy rivals of
1:08:25
Speaker 6: their English competitors, so celebrated for worldwide commercial operations. Though
1:08:30
Speaker 6: fully aware of the advantages they enjoyed in British markets
1:08:33
Speaker 6: and under the protection of the British Navy. The American
1:08:36
Speaker 6: merchants were high spirited and meddlesome, ready to contend with
1:08:40
Speaker 6: royal officers in order to shield American interests against outside interference.
1:08:45
Speaker 6: Illustration the Dutch West India Warehouse in New Amsterdam, New
1:08:50
Speaker 6: York City. Measured against the immense business of modern times,
1:08:55
Speaker 6: colonial commerce seemed perhaps trivial. That, however, is not the
1:08:59
Speaker 6: test of its owns significance. It must be considered in
1:09:02
Speaker 6: relation to the growth of English colonial trade in its entirety,
1:09:06
Speaker 6: a relation which can be shown by a few startling figures.
1:09:10
Speaker 6: The whole export trade of England, including that to the colonies,
1:09:13
Speaker 6: was in seventeen oh four six million, five hundred nine
1:09:17
Speaker 6: thousand pounds sterling. On the eve of the American Revolution. Namely,
1:09:22
Speaker 6: in seventeen seventy two, English exports to the American colonies
1:09:27
Speaker 6: alone amounted to six million, twenty four thousand pounds sterling,
1:09:32
Speaker 6: in other words, almost as much as the whole foreign
1:09:35
Speaker 6: business of England two generations before. At the first date,
1:09:39
Speaker 6: colonial trade was but one twelfth of the English export business.
1:09:43
Speaker 6: At the second date, it was considerably more than one third.
1:09:47
Speaker 6: In seventeen oh four, Pennsylvania bought in English markets goods
1:09:50
Speaker 6: to the value of eleven thousand, four hundred and fifty
1:09:54
Speaker 6: nine pounds sterling. In seventeen seventy two, the purchases of
1:09:58
Speaker 6: the same colony amounted to five hundre in seven thousand,
1:10:01
Speaker 6: nine hundred and nine pounds sterling. In short, Pennsylvania imports
1:10:05
Speaker 6: increased fifty times within sixty eight years, a mounting in
1:10:09
Speaker 6: seventeen seventy two to almost the entire export trade of
1:10:12
Speaker 6: England to the colonies of the opening of the century.
1:10:15
Speaker 6: The American colonies were indeed a great source of wealth
1:10:18
Speaker 6: to English merchants intercolonial commerce. Although the bad roads of
1:10:24
Speaker 6: colonial times made overland transportation difficult and costly, the many
1:10:28
Speaker 6: rivers and harbors along the coast favored a lively waterborne
1:10:31
Speaker 6: trade among the colonies. The Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehanna
1:10:36
Speaker 6: rivers in the north and the many smaller rivers in
1:10:38
Speaker 6: the south made it possible for goods to be brought
1:10:41
Speaker 6: from and carried too the interior regions in little sailing
1:10:44
Speaker 6: vessels with comparative ease, sloops laden with manufacturers domestic and foreign,
1:10:49
Speaker 6: collected at some city like Providence, New York, or Philadelphia
1:10:52
Speaker 6: skirted the coasts, visited small ports, and sailed up the
1:10:56
Speaker 6: navigable rivers to trade with local merchants who had for
1:11:00
Speaker 6: exchange the raw materials which they had gathered in from
1:11:03
Speaker 6: neighboring farms. Larger ships carried the grain, live stock, cloth,
1:11:08
Speaker 6: and hardware of New England to the southern colonies, where
1:11:10
Speaker 6: they were traded for tobacco, leather, tar, and ship timber
1:11:14
Speaker 6: from the harbors along the Connecticut shores, there were frequent
1:11:17
Speaker 6: sailings down through Long Island Sound in Maryland, Virginia, and
1:11:21
Speaker 6: the distant Carolinas growth of towns. In connection with this
1:11:26
Speaker 6: thriving trade and industry there grew up along the coast
1:11:29
Speaker 6: a number of prosperous commercial centers, which were soon reckoned
1:11:32
Speaker 6: among the first commercial towns of the whole British Empire,
1:11:35
Speaker 6: comparing favorably in numbers and wealth with such ports as
1:11:38
Speaker 6: Liverpool and Bristol. The statistical records of that time are
1:11:42
Speaker 6: mainly guesses, but we know that Philadelphia stood first in
1:11:46
Speaker 6: size among these towns, serving as the port of entry
1:11:49
Speaker 6: for Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Western Jersey. It had drawn within
1:11:53
Speaker 6: its borders just before the Revolution about twenty five thousand inhabitants.
1:11:58
Speaker 6: Boston was second in rank, with somewhat more than twenty
1:12:01
Speaker 6: thousand people. New York, the commercial capital of Connecticut and
1:12:05
Speaker 6: Old East Jersey, was slightly smaller than Boston, but growing
1:12:09
Speaker 6: at a steady rate. The fourth town in size was Charleston,
1:12:13
Speaker 6: South Carolina, with about ten thousand inhabitants. Newport in Rhode Island,
1:12:18
Speaker 6: a center of rum manufacture and shipping, stood fifth with
1:12:22
Speaker 6: a population of about seven thousand. Baltimore and Norfolk were
1:12:26
Speaker 6: counted as considerable towns. In the interior. Hartford and Connecticut,
1:12:30
Speaker 6: Lancaster and York and Pennsylvania, and Albany and New York,
1:12:34
Speaker 6: with growing populations and increasing trade, gave prophecy of an
1:12:38
Speaker 6: urban America away from the sea board. The other towns
1:12:42
Speaker 6: were straggling villages. Williamsburg, Virginia, for example, had about two
1:12:46
Speaker 6: hundred houses in which dealt a dozen families of the
1:12:49
Speaker 6: gentry and a few score of tradesmen. Inland, county seats
1:12:53
Speaker 6: often consisted of nothing more than a log court house,
1:12:56
Speaker 6: a prison, and one wretched inn to house judges, lower
1:13:00
Speaker 6: and litigants during the sessions of the court. The leading
1:13:04
Speaker 6: towns exercised an influence on colonial opinion all out of
1:13:08
Speaker 6: proportion to their population. They were the centers of wealth
1:13:11
Speaker 6: for one thing, of the press and political activity for another.
1:13:16
Speaker 6: Merchants and artisans could readily take concerted action on public
1:13:19
Speaker 6: questions arising from their commercial operations. The towns were also
1:13:23
Speaker 6: centers for news, gossip, religious controversy, and political discussion. In
1:13:28
Speaker 6: the market places. The farmers from the countryside learned of
1:13:31
Speaker 6: British policies and laws, and so mingling with the townsmen
1:13:35
Speaker 6: were drawn into the main currents of opinion which set
1:13:38
Speaker 6: in toward colonial nationalism and independence. References Jay Bishop, History
1:13:45
Speaker 6: of American Manufacturers, two volumes. E. L. Bogert, Economic History
1:13:51
Speaker 6: of the United States. P. A. Bruce Economic History of Virginia,
1:13:56
Speaker 6: two volumes, E. Simple American History and Its Geographical Conditions. W.
1:14:03
Speaker 6: Whedon Economic and Social History of New England, two volumes.
1:14:07
Speaker 6: Questions Number one, is land in your community parceled out
1:14:12
Speaker 6: into small farms. Contrast the system in your community with
1:14:15
Speaker 6: the feudal system of land Tenure Number two are any
1:14:19
Speaker 6: things owned and used in common in your community? Why
1:14:23
Speaker 6: did common tillage fail in colonial times? Number three describe
1:14:27
Speaker 6: the elements akin to feudalism which were introduced in the colonies.
1:14:31
Speaker 6: Number four explain the success of freehold tillage. Number five.
1:14:36
Speaker 6: Compare the life of the planner with that of the farmer?
1:14:39
Speaker 6: Number six? How far had the Western frontier advanced by
1:14:43
Speaker 6: seventeen seventy six? Number seven? What colonial industry was mainly
1:14:48
Speaker 6: developed by women? Why was it very important to both
1:14:51
Speaker 6: the Americans and to the English? Number eight? What were
1:14:55
Speaker 6: the centers for iron working ship building? Number nine explained
1:14:59
Speaker 6: how the fisheries affected many branches of trade and industry.
1:15:03
Speaker 6: Number ten show how American trade formed a vital part
1:15:06
Speaker 6: of English business. Number eleven. How was interstate commerce mainly
1:15:11
Speaker 6: carried on? Number twelve. What were the leading towns? Did
1:15:15
Speaker 6: they compare in importance with British towns of the same period?
1:15:20
Speaker 6: Research topics Land Tenure Coman Industrial History, Revised Edition, Pages
1:15:26
Speaker 6: thirty two through thirty eight. Special reference Bruce. Economic History
1:15:31
Speaker 6: of Virginia, Volume one, Chapter eight, Tobacco planting in Virginia. Calendar,
1:15:38
Speaker 6: Economic History of the United States, Pages twenty two through
1:15:41
Speaker 6: twenty eight. Colonial Agriculture Coman, pages forty eight through sixty three. Calendar,
1:15:48
Speaker 6: pages sixty nine through seventy four reference j. R. H.
1:15:53
Speaker 6: Moore Industrial History of the American People, pages one thirty
1:15:58
Speaker 6: one through one sixty two. Colonial Manufacturers Commen, Pages sixty
1:16:04
Speaker 6: three through seventy three. Calendar pages twenty nine through forty four.
1:16:09
Speaker 6: Special reference. Wheden Economic and Social History of New England,
1:16:14
Speaker 6: Colonial Commerce Comman, pages seventy three through eighty five. Calendar
1:16:19
Speaker 6: pages fifty one through sixty three, seventy eight through eighty four.
1:16:24
Speaker 6: More pages one sixty three to two O eight Lodge
1:16:28
Speaker 6: Short History of the English Colonies, pages four O nine
1:16:31
Speaker 6: to four twelve two twenty nine to two thirty one,
1:16:36
Speaker 6: three twelve to three fourteen end of section five.
1:16:48
Speaker 7: This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
1:16:52
Speaker 7: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
1:16:57
Speaker 7: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Leon Meyer. History of
1:17:03
Speaker 7: the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ridderbeard,
1:17:09
Speaker 7: Part one, Chapter six, Social and Political Progress. Colonial life,
1:17:17
Speaker 7: crowded as it was, of the hard and unremitting toil,
1:17:21
Speaker 7: left scant pleasure for the cultivation of the arts and sciences.
1:17:25
Speaker 7: There was little money in private purses or public treasuries
1:17:29
Speaker 7: to be dedicated to schools, libraries, and museums. Few there
1:17:34
Speaker 7: were with time to read long and widely, and fewer
1:17:37
Speaker 7: still who could devote their lives to things that delight
1:17:40
Speaker 7: the eye and the mind. And yet poor and meager,
1:17:44
Speaker 7: as the intellectual life of the colonists may seem by
1:17:47
Speaker 7: way of comparison, heroic efforts were made in every community
1:17:51
Speaker 7: to lift the people above the plane of mere existence.
1:17:56
Speaker 7: After the first clearings were opened in the forest, those
1:17:59
Speaker 7: efforts were redoubled, and with lengthening years, told upon the
1:18:03
Speaker 7: thought and spirit of the land. The appearance during the
1:18:07
Speaker 7: struggle with England of an extraordinary group of leaders familiar
1:18:10
Speaker 7: with history, political philosophy, and the arts of war, government
1:18:15
Speaker 7: and diplomacy itself bore eloquent testimony to the high quality
1:18:19
Speaker 7: of the American intellect. No one, not even the most critical,
1:18:23
Speaker 7: can run through the writings of the distinguished Americans scattered
1:18:27
Speaker 7: from Massachusetts to Georgia, the Adamses, Ellsworth, the Morrises, the Livingstones, Hamilton, Franklin, Washington, Madison, Marshall, Henry,
1:18:38
Speaker 7: the Randolph's, and the Pinkneys, without coming to the conclusion
1:18:42
Speaker 7: that there was something in American colonial life which fostered
1:18:46
Speaker 7: minds of depth and power. Women surmounted even greater difficulties
1:18:50
Speaker 7: than the men in the process of self education, and
1:18:54
Speaker 7: their keen interest in public issues is evident in many
1:18:57
Speaker 7: a record, like the letters of Missus John Adams to
1:19:00
Speaker 7: her husband during the Revolution, the writings of Missus Mercy
1:19:03
Speaker 7: Otis Warren, the sister of James Otis, who measured her
1:19:07
Speaker 7: pen with the British propagandists, and the Patriot newspapers founded
1:19:11
Speaker 7: and managed by women. The leadership of the churches. In
1:19:19
Speaker 7: the intellectual life of America, the churches assumed a role
1:19:22
Speaker 7: of high importance. There were abundant reasons for this in
1:19:27
Speaker 7: many of the colonies, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New England. Their
1:19:31
Speaker 7: religious impulse had been one of the impelling motives in
1:19:34
Speaker 7: stimulating immigration. In all the colonies, the clergy, at least
1:19:39
Speaker 7: in the beginning, formed the only class with any leisure
1:19:42
Speaker 7: to devote to matters of the spirit. They preached on
1:19:45
Speaker 7: Sundays and taught school on week days. They led in
1:19:48
Speaker 7: the discussion of local problems and in the formation of
1:19:51
Speaker 7: political opinion, so much of which was concerned with the
1:19:55
Speaker 7: relation between church and state. They wrote books and pamphlets
1:20:00
Speaker 7: filled most of the chairs in the colleges under clerical
1:20:03
Speaker 7: guidance intellectual and spiritual. The Americans received their formal education,
1:20:08
Speaker 7: and several of the provinces the Anglican Church was established
1:20:12
Speaker 7: by law. In New England, the Puritans were supreme, notwithstanding
1:20:16
Speaker 7: the efforts of the crown to overbear their authority. In
1:20:19
Speaker 7: the middle colonies, particularly the multiplication of sex made the
1:20:23
Speaker 7: dominance of any single denomination impossible, and in all of
1:20:28
Speaker 7: them there was a growing diversity of faith, which promised
1:20:31
Speaker 7: in time a separation of church and state and freedom
1:20:34
Speaker 7: of opinion. The Church of England Virginia was the stronghold
1:20:41
Speaker 7: of the English system of church and state. The Anglican
1:20:45
Speaker 7: faith and worship were prescribed by law, sustained by taxes
1:20:49
Speaker 7: imposed on all, and favored by the governor, the provincial councilors,
1:20:53
Speaker 7: and the richest planters. The established church, says Lodge, was
1:20:58
Speaker 7: one of the appendages of the Virginia areas aristocracy. They
1:21:01
Speaker 7: controlled the vestries and the ministers, and the parish church
1:21:05
Speaker 7: stood not infrequently on the estate of the planter who
1:21:08
Speaker 7: built and managed it. As in England, Catholic and Protestant
1:21:13
Speaker 7: dissenters were at first laid under heavy disabilities. Only slowly
1:21:18
Speaker 7: and on sufferance were they admitted to the province. But
1:21:21
Speaker 7: when once they were even covertly tolerated, they pressed steadily
1:21:26
Speaker 7: in until by the Revolution they outnumbered the adherents of
1:21:30
Speaker 7: the established order. The Church was also sanctioned by law
1:21:35
Speaker 7: and supported by taxes in the Carolinas after seventeen o
1:21:38
Speaker 7: four and in Georgia after that colony passed directly under
1:21:42
Speaker 7: the crown in seventeen fifty four. This in spite of
1:21:45
Speaker 7: the fact that the majority of the inhabitants were dissenters
1:21:49
Speaker 7: against the protests of the Catholics. It was likewise established
1:21:52
Speaker 7: in Maryland in New York too, notwithstanding the resistance of
1:21:57
Speaker 7: the Dutch. The Established Church was fostered by the officials,
1:22:01
Speaker 7: and the Anglicans, embracing about one fifteenth of the population,
1:22:06
Speaker 7: exerted an influence all out of proportion to their numbers.
1:22:11
Speaker 7: Many factors helped to enhance the power of the English
1:22:14
Speaker 7: Church and the colonies. It was supported by the British
1:22:17
Speaker 7: government and the official class sent out to the provinces.
1:22:21
Speaker 7: Its bishops and archbishops in England were appointed by the King,
1:22:25
Speaker 7: and its faith and service were set forth by acts
1:22:27
Speaker 7: of Parliament. Having its seat of power in the English monarchy,
1:22:31
Speaker 7: it could hold its clergy and missionaries loyal to the crown,
1:22:35
Speaker 7: and so counteract to some extent the independent spirit that
1:22:38
Speaker 7: was growing up in America. The Church, always a strong
1:22:42
Speaker 7: bulwark of the state, therefore had a political role to
1:22:45
Speaker 7: play here, as in England. Able bishops and far seeing
1:22:49
Speaker 7: leaders firmly grasped this fact about the middle of the
1:22:52
Speaker 7: eighteenth century and redoubled their efforts to augment the influence
1:22:56
Speaker 7: of the church and provincial affairs. Unhappily, for their plans,
1:23:00
Speaker 7: they failed to calculate in advance the effect of the
1:23:03
Speaker 7: methods upon dissenting Protestants, who still cherished memories of bitter
1:23:07
Speaker 7: religious conflicts in the mother country Puritanism in New England.
1:23:15
Speaker 7: If the established faith made for imperial unity, the same
1:23:19
Speaker 7: could not be said of Puritanism. The Plymouth Pilgrims had
1:23:22
Speaker 7: cast off all allegiance to the Anglican Church and established
1:23:26
Speaker 7: a separate and independent congregation before they came to America.
1:23:30
Speaker 7: The Puritans, essaying at the first task of reformers within
1:23:35
Speaker 7: the church, soon after their arrival in Massachusetts, likewise flung
1:23:39
Speaker 7: off their yoke of union with the Anglicans. In each town,
1:23:43
Speaker 7: a separate congregation was organised, the male members choosing the pastor,
1:23:46
Speaker 7: of the teachers and the other officers. They also composed
1:23:50
Speaker 7: the voters in the town meeting, where secular matters were determined.
1:23:55
Speaker 7: The union of church and government was thus complete, and
1:23:58
Speaker 7: uniformity of faith and life prescribed by law and enforced
1:24:01
Speaker 7: by civil authorities. But this worked for local autonomy instead
1:24:05
Speaker 7: of imperial unity. The clergy became a powerful class, dominant
1:24:11
Speaker 7: through their learning and their fearful denunciations of the faithless.
1:24:15
Speaker 7: They wrote the books for the people to read, the
1:24:17
Speaker 7: famous Cotton Mather having three hundred and eighty three books
1:24:21
Speaker 7: and pamphlets to his credit. In cooperation with the civil officers,
1:24:25
Speaker 7: they enforced a strict observance of the Puritan Sabbath, a
1:24:29
Speaker 7: day of rest that began at six o'clock on Saturday
1:24:32
Speaker 7: evening and lasted until sunset on Sunday. All work, all trading,
1:24:37
Speaker 7: all amusement, and all worldly conversation were absolutely prohibited during
1:24:41
Speaker 7: those hours. A thoughtless maid servant who for some earthly
1:24:45
Speaker 7: reason smiled in church was in danger of being banished
1:24:48
Speaker 7: as a vagabond. Robert Pike, a devout Puritan, thinking the
1:24:52
Speaker 7: sun had gone to rest, ventured forth on horseback one
1:24:56
Speaker 7: Sunday evening and was luckless enough to have a ray
1:24:59
Speaker 7: of light striking through a rift in the clouds. The
1:25:02
Speaker 7: next day he was wrought into court and fined for
1:25:05
Speaker 7: his quote ungodly conduct with persons accused of witchcraft. The
1:25:11
Speaker 7: Puritans were still more ruthless when a mania of persecution
1:25:15
Speaker 7: swept over Massachusetts in sixteen ninety two. Eighteen people were hanged,
1:25:20
Speaker 7: one was pressed to death, many suffered imprisonment, and two
1:25:24
Speaker 7: died in jail. Just about this time, however, there came
1:25:28
Speaker 7: a break in the uniformity of Puritan rule. The Crown
1:25:32
Speaker 7: and Church in England had long looked upon it with disfavor,
1:25:36
Speaker 7: and in sixteen eighty four King Charles the Second annulled
1:25:39
Speaker 7: the old charter the Massachusetts Bay Company. A new document,
1:25:44
Speaker 7: issued seven years later wrested from the Puritans of the
1:25:46
Speaker 7: colony the right to elect their own governor and reserved
1:25:50
Speaker 7: the power of appointment to the King. It also abolished
1:25:53
Speaker 7: the rule limiting the suffrage to church members, substituting for
1:25:57
Speaker 7: it a simple property qualification. Thus a royal governor and
1:26:02
Speaker 7: an official family certain to be Episcopalian in faith, and
1:26:06
Speaker 7: monarchists and sympathies were forced upon Massachusetts, and members of
1:26:11
Speaker 7: all religious denominations, if they had the required amount of property,
1:26:15
Speaker 7: were permitted to take part in the elections. By this
1:26:18
Speaker 7: act in the name of the Crown, the Puritan monopoly
1:26:21
Speaker 7: was broken down in Massachusetts, and that province was brought
1:26:24
Speaker 7: into line with Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, where property,
1:26:29
Speaker 7: not religious faith, was the test for the suffrage. Growth
1:26:34
Speaker 7: of religious toleration. Though neither the Anglicans of Virginia nor
1:26:40
Speaker 7: the Puritans of Massachusetts believed in toleration for other denominations,
1:26:44
Speaker 7: that principle was strictly applied in Rhode Island. There Under
1:26:49
Speaker 7: the leadership of Roger Williams, liberty and matters of conscience
1:26:53
Speaker 7: was established in the beginning Maryland by granting in sixteen
1:26:57
Speaker 7: forty nine freedom to those who profess to believe Jesus
1:27:00
Speaker 7: Christ opened its gates to all Christians, and Pennsylvania, true
1:27:05
Speaker 7: to the tenets of the Friends, gave freedom of conscience
1:27:08
Speaker 7: to those quote who confess and acknowledged the One, Almighty
1:27:12
Speaker 7: and Eternal God. To be the creator, upholder, and ruler
1:27:15
Speaker 7: of the world by one circumstance or another. The Middle
1:27:21
Speaker 7: colonies were thus early characterized by diversity rather than uniformity
1:27:25
Speaker 7: of opinion. Dutch Protestants, Huguenots, Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, New Lights, Moravians, Lutherans, Catholics,
1:27:35
Speaker 7: and other denominations became too strongly entrenched and too widely
1:27:39
Speaker 7: scattered to permit any one of them to rule if
1:27:42
Speaker 7: it had desired to do so. There were communities, and
1:27:46
Speaker 7: indeed whole sections where one or another church prevailed, but
1:27:50
Speaker 7: in no colony was a legislature steadily controlled by a
1:27:53
Speaker 7: single group. Toleration encouraged diversity, and diversity in turn worked
1:27:59
Speaker 7: for greater des toleration. The government and faith of the
1:28:04
Speaker 7: dissenting denominations conspired with economic and political tendencies to draw
1:28:09
Speaker 7: America away from the English state. Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, and
1:28:14
Speaker 7: Puritans had no hierarchy of bishops and archbishops to bind
1:28:18
Speaker 7: them to the seat of power in London. Neither did
1:28:21
Speaker 7: they look to that metropolis for guidance in interpreting articles
1:28:24
Speaker 7: of faith. Local self government and matters ecclesiastical helped to
1:28:30
Speaker 7: train them for local self government in matters political. The
1:28:34
Speaker 7: spirit of independence which led dissenters to revolt in the
1:28:37
Speaker 7: Old world, nourished as it was amid favorable circumstances in
1:28:41
Speaker 7: the New world, made them all the more zealous in
1:28:44
Speaker 7: their defense of every right against authority imposed from without.
1:28:50
Speaker 7: End of chapter six.
1:29:00
Speaker 6: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
1:29:03
Speaker 6: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
1:29:07
Speaker 6: visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States by
1:29:12
Speaker 6: Charles A. Beard and Mary Ridder Beard, Part one, Section
1:29:17
Speaker 6: seven Schools and Colleges, Religion and local Schools. One of
1:29:24
Speaker 6: the first cares of each Protestant denomination was the education
1:29:27
Speaker 6: of the children in the faith. In this work, the
1:29:30
Speaker 6: Bible became the center of interest. The English version was
1:29:33
Speaker 6: indeed the one book of the people, farmers, shopkeepers, and
1:29:37
Speaker 6: artisans whose life had once been bounded by the daily
1:29:40
Speaker 6: routine of labour. Found in the scriptures not only an
1:29:44
Speaker 6: inspiration to religious conduct, but also a book of romance,
1:29:47
Speaker 6: travel and history, quote legend and annal end quote says
1:29:53
Speaker 6: John Richard Greene. Quote warsong and psalm, state role and biography.
1:29:58
Speaker 6: The mighty voices, of the parables of evangelists, stories of
1:30:03
Speaker 6: mission journeys, of perils by sea, and among the heathen
1:30:07
Speaker 6: philosophic arguments apocalyptic visions. All were flung broadcast over minds,
1:30:12
Speaker 6: unoccupied for the most part by any rival learning as
1:30:16
Speaker 6: a mere literary monument. The English version of the Bible
1:30:19
Speaker 6: remains the noblest example of the English tongue. It was
1:30:23
Speaker 6: the King James version just from the press, that the
1:30:26
Speaker 6: pilgrims brought across the sea with them, for the authority
1:30:29
Speaker 6: of the established church was substituted the authority of the scriptures.
1:30:33
Speaker 6: The Puritans devised a catechism based upon their interpretation of
1:30:37
Speaker 6: the Bible, and very soon after their arrival in America
1:30:41
Speaker 6: they ordered all parents and masters of servants to be
1:30:43
Speaker 6: diligent in seeing that their children and wards were taught
1:30:46
Speaker 6: to read religious works and give answers to the religious questions.
1:30:51
Speaker 6: Massachusetts was scarcely twenty years old before education of this
1:30:55
Speaker 6: character was declared to be compulsory, and provision was made
1:30:59
Speaker 6: for public schools where those not taught at home could
1:31:01
Speaker 6: receive instruction in reading and writing. Illustration a page from
1:31:06
Speaker 6: a famous school book in Adam's fall, we send all
1:31:10
Speaker 6: heaven defined the Bible mind, Christ crucified for sinners died.
1:31:14
Speaker 6: The deluge drowned the earth around Elijah, hid by ravens
1:31:19
Speaker 6: fed The judgment made Felix afraid and illustration. Outside of
1:31:26
Speaker 6: New England, the idea of compulsory education was not regarded
1:31:29
Speaker 6: with the same favor. But the whole land was nevertheless
1:31:32
Speaker 6: dotted with little schools kept by dames, itinerant teachers or
1:31:36
Speaker 6: local parsons. Whether we turn to the life of Franklin
1:31:40
Speaker 6: in the north or Washington in the south, we read
1:31:43
Speaker 6: of tiny school houses where boys and sometimes girls were
1:31:46
Speaker 6: taught to read and write. Where there were no schools,
1:31:50
Speaker 6: fathers and mothers of the better kind gave their children
1:31:52
Speaker 6: the rudiments of learning. Though illiteracy was widespread, there is
1:31:57
Speaker 6: evidence to show that the diffusion of knowledge among the
1:32:00
Speaker 6: masses was making steady progress. All through the eighteenth century,
1:32:05
Speaker 6: religion and higher learning. Religious motives entered into the establishment
1:32:10
Speaker 6: of colleges as well as local schools. Harvard, founded in
1:32:14
Speaker 6: sixteen thirty six and Yale, opened in seventeen eighteen, were
1:32:19
Speaker 6: intended primarily to train learned and godly ministers for the
1:32:22
Speaker 6: Puritan churches of New England to the far north. Dartmouth,
1:32:27
Speaker 6: chartered in seventeen sixty nine, was designed first as a
1:32:31
Speaker 6: mission to the Indians, and then as a college for
1:32:33
Speaker 6: the sons of New England farmers preparing to preach, teach
1:32:36
Speaker 6: or practice law. The College of New Jersey, organized in
1:32:40
Speaker 6: seventeen forty six and removed to Princeton eleven years later,
1:32:44
Speaker 6: was sustained by the Presbyterians. Two colleges looked to the
1:32:48
Speaker 6: established church as their source of inspiration and support. William
1:32:52
Speaker 6: and Mary, founded in Virginia in sixteen ninety three, and
1:32:56
Speaker 6: King's College now Columbia University, chartered by King George the
1:33:00
Speaker 6: Second in seventeen fifty four on an appeal from the
1:33:03
Speaker 6: New York Anglicans, alarmed at the growth of religious descent
1:33:07
Speaker 6: and the Republican tendencies of the age. Two colleges revealed
1:33:12
Speaker 6: a drift away from sectarianism. Brown established in Rhode Island
1:33:16
Speaker 6: in seventeen sixty four, and the Philadelphia Academy forerunner of
1:33:20
Speaker 6: the University of Pennsylvania, organized by Benjamin Franklin, reflected the
1:33:25
Speaker 6: spirit of toleration by giving representation on the board of
1:33:28
Speaker 6: trustees to several religious sects. It was Franklin's idea that
1:33:32
Speaker 6: his college should prepare young men to serve in public
1:33:35
Speaker 6: office as leaders of the people and ornaments to their country.
1:33:40
Speaker 6: Self education in America important. As were these institutions of learning,
1:33:46
Speaker 6: higher education was by no means confined within their walls.
1:33:50
Speaker 6: Many well to do families sent their sons to Oxford
1:33:52
Speaker 6: or Cambridge in England. Private tutoring in the home was
1:33:55
Speaker 6: common in still more families. There were intelligent children who
1:33:59
Speaker 6: grew up in the great colonial school of adversity, and
1:34:02
Speaker 6: who trained themselves until in every contest of mind and
1:34:05
Speaker 6: wit they could vibe with the sons of Harvard, or
1:34:08
Speaker 6: William and Mary, or any other college. Such, for example,
1:34:12
Speaker 6: was Benjamin Franklin, whose charming autobiography, in addition to being
1:34:16
Speaker 6: an American classic, is a fine record of self education.
1:34:20
Speaker 6: His formal training in the classroom was limited to a
1:34:23
Speaker 6: few years at a local school in Boston, but his
1:34:26
Speaker 6: self education continued throughout his life. He early manifested a
1:34:30
Speaker 6: zeal for reading, and devoured, he tells us, his father's
1:34:33
Speaker 6: dry library on theology, Bunyan's works, Defoe's writings, Plutarch's lives,
1:34:39
Speaker 6: locks on the human understanding, and innumerable volumes dealing with
1:34:43
Speaker 6: secular subjects. His literary style perhaps the best of his time.
1:34:48
Speaker 6: Franklin acquired by the diligent and repeated analysis of the spectator.
1:34:53
Speaker 6: In a life crowded with labors, he found time to
1:34:55
Speaker 6: read widely in natural science and to win single handed
1:34:58
Speaker 6: recognition at the hands of rus European savants for his
1:35:01
Speaker 6: discoveries in electricity. By his own efforts, he attained an
1:35:05
Speaker 6: acquaintance with Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, thus unconsciously preparing
1:35:10
Speaker 6: himself for the day when he was to speak for
1:35:12
Speaker 6: all America at the court of the King of France.
1:35:16
Speaker 6: Lesser lights than Franklin, educated by the same process, were
1:35:20
Speaker 6: found all over colonial America. From this fruitful source of
1:35:24
Speaker 6: native ability, self educated, the American cause grew great strength
1:35:28
Speaker 6: in the trials of the Revolution. End of section seven.
1:35:39
Speaker 8: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
1:35:43
Speaker 8: the public domain. For more information than to volunteer, please
1:35:48
Speaker 8: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Chris Chapman. History of
1:35:55
Speaker 8: the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard,
1:36:00
Speaker 8: Part one, Chapter eight. The Colonial Press the rise of
1:36:06
Speaker 8: the newspaper. The evolution of American democracy into a government
1:36:12
Speaker 8: by public opinion, enlightened by the open discussion of political questions,
1:36:18
Speaker 8: was in no small measure aided by a free press that, too,
1:36:23
Speaker 8: like education, was a matter of slow growth. A printing
1:36:28
Speaker 8: press was brought to Massachusetts in sixteen thirty nine, but
1:36:32
Speaker 8: it was put in charge of an official censor and
1:36:35
Speaker 8: limited to the publication of religious works. Forty years elapsed
1:36:41
Speaker 8: before the first newspaper appeared, bearing the curious title public Occurrences,
1:36:47
Speaker 8: both foreign and domestic, and it had not been running
1:36:51
Speaker 8: very long before the government of Massachusetts suppressed it for
1:36:55
Speaker 8: discussing a political question. Publishing indeed seemed to be a
1:37:00
Speaker 8: precarious business, but in seventeen o four there came a
1:37:04
Speaker 8: second venture in journalism, the Boston news Letter, which proved
1:37:09
Speaker 8: to be a more lasting enterprise because it refrained from
1:37:13
Speaker 8: criticizing the authorities. Still, the public interest languished. When Franklin's
1:37:20
Speaker 8: brother James began to issue his New England Currant about
1:37:25
Speaker 8: seventeen twenty, his friends sought to dissuade him, saying that
1:37:30
Speaker 8: one newspaper was enough for America. Nevertheless, he continued it,
1:37:35
Speaker 8: and his confidence in the future was rewarded. In nearly
1:37:39
Speaker 8: every colony a gazette or chronicle appeared within the next
1:37:43
Speaker 8: thirty years or more. Benjamin Franklin was able to record
1:37:47
Speaker 8: in seventeen seventy one that America had twenty five newspapers.
1:37:52
Speaker 8: Boston led with five, Philadelphia had three, two in English
1:37:57
Speaker 8: and one in German. Censorship and restraints on the press.
1:38:04
Speaker 8: The idea of printing unlicensed by the government and uncontrolled
1:38:08
Speaker 8: by the church was, however, slow in taking form. The
1:38:13
Speaker 8: founders of the American colonies had never known what it
1:38:16
Speaker 8: was to have the free and open publication of books, pamphlets,
1:38:21
Speaker 8: broadsides and newspapers. When the art of printing was first discovered,
1:38:27
Speaker 8: the control of publishing was vested in clerical authorities. After
1:38:32
Speaker 8: the establishment of the State Church in England in the
1:38:35
Speaker 8: reign of Elizabeth, censorship of the press became a part
1:38:39
Speaker 8: of royal prerogative. Printing was restricted to Oxford, Cambridge and London,
1:38:46
Speaker 8: and no one could publish anything without previous approval of
1:38:49
Speaker 8: the official centre. When the Puritans were in power, the
1:38:53
Speaker 8: Popular Party with a zeal which rivaled that of the
1:38:57
Speaker 8: Crown sought in turn to silence royalist and clerical writers
1:39:02
Speaker 8: by a vigorous censorship. After the restoration of the monarchy,
1:39:07
Speaker 8: control of the press was once more placed in royal hands,
1:39:11
Speaker 8: where it remained until sixteen ninety five, when Parliament, by
1:39:16
Speaker 8: failing to renew the Licensing Act, did away entirely with
1:39:20
Speaker 8: the official censorship. By that time, political parties were so
1:39:25
Speaker 8: powerful and so active, and printing presses were so numerous
1:39:30
Speaker 8: that official review of all published matter became a sheer impossibility.
1:39:36
Speaker 8: In America, likewise, some troublesome questions arose in connection with
1:39:41
Speaker 8: freedom of the press. The Puritans of Massachusetts were no
1:39:45
Speaker 8: less anxious than King Charles of the Archbishop of London
1:39:49
Speaker 8: to shut out from the prying eyes of the people
1:39:52
Speaker 8: all literature not meet for them to read, and so
1:39:56
Speaker 8: they established a system of official licensing for presses, which
1:40:01
Speaker 8: lasted until seventeen fifty five. In the other colonies, where
1:40:05
Speaker 8: there was more diversity of opinion and publishers could set
1:40:09
Speaker 8: up in business with impunity, they were nevertheless constantly liable
1:40:13
Speaker 8: to arrest for printing anything displeasing to the colonial governments.
1:40:19
Speaker 8: In seventeen twenty one, the editor of the mercury in
1:40:23
Speaker 8: Philadelphia was called before the Proprietary Council and ordered to
1:40:27
Speaker 8: apologize for a political article and for a later offense
1:40:31
Speaker 8: of a similar character. He was thrown into jail. A
1:40:36
Speaker 8: still more famous case was that of Peter Zenger, a
1:40:40
Speaker 8: New York publisher, who was arrested in seventeen thirty five
1:40:44
Speaker 8: for criticizing the administration. Lawyers who ventured to defend the
1:40:49
Speaker 8: unlucky editor were deprived of their licences to practice, and
1:40:54
Speaker 8: it became necessary to bring an attorney all the way
1:40:57
Speaker 8: from Philadelphia. By this time, the tension of feeling was high,
1:41:02
Speaker 8: and the approbation of the public was forthcoming. When the
1:41:06
Speaker 8: lawyer for the defense exclaimed to the jury that the
1:41:09
Speaker 8: very cause of liberty itself, not that of the poor printer,
1:41:14
Speaker 8: was on trial. The verdict for Zenger, when it finally came,
1:41:19
Speaker 8: was the signal for an outburst of popular rejoicing. Already
1:41:23
Speaker 8: the people of King Georgia's province knew how precious a
1:41:27
Speaker 8: thing is the freedom of the press. Thanks to the schools,
1:41:33
Speaker 8: few and scattered as they were, and to the vigilance
1:41:37
Speaker 8: of parents, a very large portion, perhaps nearly one half,
1:41:42
Speaker 8: of the colonists could read. Through the newspapers, pamphlets, and
1:41:47
Speaker 8: almanacs that streamed from the types, the people could follow
1:41:52
Speaker 8: the course of public events and grasp the significance of
1:41:56
Speaker 8: political arguments. An American opinion was in the process of making,
1:42:02
Speaker 8: an independent opinion, nourished by the press and enriched by
1:42:06
Speaker 8: discussions around the fireside and at the taverns. When the
1:42:11
Speaker 8: day of resistance to British rule came, government by opinion
1:42:15
Speaker 8: was at hand. For every person who could hear the
1:42:19
Speaker 8: voice of Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, there were a
1:42:23
Speaker 8: thousand who could see their appeals on the printed page.
1:42:27
Speaker 8: Men who had spelled out their letters while pouring over
1:42:31
Speaker 8: Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac lived to read Thomas Paine's Thrilling
1:42:36
Speaker 8: Called to Arms, end of Chapter eight.
1:42:47
Speaker 6: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
1:42:51
Speaker 6: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
1:42:54
Speaker 6: visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States, Charles A.
1:43:00
Speaker 6: Beard and Mary Ridder Beard, Part one, Section nine. The
1:43:08
Speaker 6: evolution in political institutions. Two very distinct lines of development
1:43:14
Speaker 6: appeared in colonial politics, the one exalting royal rights and
1:43:18
Speaker 6: aristocratic privileges was the drift toward provincial government through royal
1:43:23
Speaker 6: officers appointed in England. The other leading toward democracy and
1:43:28
Speaker 6: self government was the growth in the power of the
1:43:30
Speaker 6: popular legislative Assembly. Each movement gave impetus to the other
1:43:36
Speaker 6: with increasing force during the passing years, until at last
1:43:39
Speaker 6: the final collision between the two ideals of government came
1:43:43
Speaker 6: in the War of Independence. The royal provinces of the
1:43:48
Speaker 6: thirteen English colonies, eight were royal provinces in seventeen seventy six,
1:43:52
Speaker 6: with governors appointed by the King. Virginia passed under the
1:43:56
Speaker 6: direct rule of the Crown in sixteen twenty four when
1:43:59
Speaker 6: the charter of the London Company was annulled. The Massachusetts
1:44:03
Speaker 6: Bay Corporation lost its charter in sixteen eighty four, and
1:44:06
Speaker 6: the new instrument granted seven years later stripped the colonists
1:44:10
Speaker 6: of the right to choose their chief executive. In the
1:44:12
Speaker 6: early decades of the eighteenth century, both the Carolinas were
1:44:16
Speaker 6: given the provincial instead of the proprietary form. New Hampshire
1:44:20
Speaker 6: severed from Massachusetts in sixteen seventy nine and Georgia, surrendered
1:44:24
Speaker 6: by the Trustees in seventeen fifty two, went into the
1:44:28
Speaker 6: hands of the crown. New York transferred to the Duke
1:44:31
Speaker 6: of York on its capture from the Dutch in sixteen
1:44:34
Speaker 6: sixty four, became a province when he took the title
1:44:37
Speaker 6: of James the Second in sixteen eighty five. New Jersey,
1:44:41
Speaker 6: after remaining for nearly forty years under proprietors, was brought
1:44:45
Speaker 6: directly under the king in seventeen o two. Maryland, Pennsylvania,
1:44:49
Speaker 6: and Delaware, although they retained their proprietary character until the Revolution,
1:44:54
Speaker 6: were in some respects like the royal colonies, for their
1:44:57
Speaker 6: governors were as independent of popular choice as were the
1:45:00
Speaker 6: appointees of King George. Only two colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut,
1:45:06
Speaker 6: retained full self government on the eve of the Revolution.
1:45:09
Speaker 6: They alone had governors and legislators entirely of their own choosing.
1:45:14
Speaker 6: The chief officer of the royal province was the governor,
1:45:17
Speaker 6: who enjoyed high and important powers, which he naturally sought
1:45:21
Speaker 6: to augment at every turn. He enforced the laws, and,
1:45:24
Speaker 6: usually with the consent of a council, appointed the civil
1:45:27
Speaker 6: and military officers. He granted pardons and reprieves. He was
1:45:32
Speaker 6: head of the highest court. He was Commander in chief
1:45:35
Speaker 6: of the militia. He levied troops for defense, and enforced
1:45:38
Speaker 6: martial law in time of invasion, war, and rebellion. In
1:45:42
Speaker 6: all the provinces except Massachusetts. He named the councilors who
1:45:46
Speaker 6: composed the upper house of the legislature, and was likely
1:45:49
Speaker 6: to choose those who favored his claims. He summoned, adjourned,
1:45:53
Speaker 6: and dissolved the Popular Assembly or the lower House. He
1:45:56
Speaker 6: laid before it the projects of law desired by the Crown,
1:46:00
Speaker 6: and he vetoed measures which he thought objectionable. Here were
1:46:03
Speaker 6: in America all the elements of royal prerogative against which
1:46:07
Speaker 6: Hampden had protested and Cromwell had battled in England. Illustration
1:46:12
Speaker 6: the Royal Governor's palace at newbern The colonial governors were
1:46:17
Speaker 6: generally surrounded by a body of office seekers and hunters
1:46:20
Speaker 6: for land grants. Some of them were noble men of
1:46:23
Speaker 6: broken estates who had come to America to improve their fortunes.
1:46:27
Speaker 6: The pretensions of this circle, graded on colonial nerves and
1:46:31
Speaker 6: privileges granted to them, often at the expense of colonists,
1:46:34
Speaker 6: did much to deepen popular antipathy to the British government.
1:46:38
Speaker 6: Favors extended two adherents of the established church displeased dissenters.
1:46:43
Speaker 6: The reappearance of this formidable union of church and state
1:46:47
Speaker 6: from which they had fled stirred anew the ancient wrath
1:46:50
Speaker 6: against that combination. The colonial assembly, coincident with the drift
1:46:56
Speaker 6: toward administration through royal governors, was the second and oppot
1:47:00
Speaker 6: visit tendancy, namely a steady growth in the practice of
1:47:03
Speaker 6: self government. The voters of England had long been accustomed
1:47:06
Speaker 6: to share in taxation and lawmaking through representatives in parliament,
1:47:10
Speaker 6: and the idea was early introduced in America. Virginia was
1:47:14
Speaker 6: only twelve years old sixteen nineteen when its first representative
1:47:19
Speaker 6: assembly appeared. As the towns of Massachusetts multiplied and it
1:47:23
Speaker 6: became impossible for all the members of the corporation to
1:47:25
Speaker 6: meet at one place, the representative idea was adopted in
1:47:29
Speaker 6: sixteen thirty three. The River towns of Connecticut formed a
1:47:33
Speaker 6: representative system under their Fundamental Orders of sixteen thirty nine,
1:47:38
Speaker 6: and the entire colony was given a royal charter in
1:47:40
Speaker 6: sixteen sixty two. Generosity, as well as practical considerations, induced
1:47:46
Speaker 6: such proprietors as Lord Baltimore and William penn to invite
1:47:50
Speaker 6: their colonists to share in the government as soon as
1:47:52
Speaker 6: any considerable settlements were made. Thus, by one process or another,
1:47:57
Speaker 6: every one of the colonies secured a popular It is
1:48:02
Speaker 6: true that in the provision for popular elections, the suffrage
1:48:05
Speaker 6: was finally restricted to property owners or taxpayers with a
1:48:09
Speaker 6: leaning toward the freehold qualification. In Virginia, the rural voter
1:48:13
Speaker 6: had to be a freeholder owning at least fifty acres
1:48:16
Speaker 6: of land if there was no house on it, or
1:48:19
Speaker 6: twenty five acres with a house twenty five feet square.
1:48:23
Speaker 6: In Massachusetts, the voter for Member of the Assembly under
1:48:27
Speaker 6: the Charter of sixteen ninety one had to be a
1:48:29
Speaker 6: freeholder of an estate worth forty shillings a year at least,
1:48:33
Speaker 6: or of other property to the value of forty pounds sterling.
1:48:37
Speaker 6: In Pennsylvania, the suffrage was granted to freeholders owning fifty
1:48:41
Speaker 6: acres or more of land well seated twelve acres cleared,
1:48:44
Speaker 6: and to other persons worth at least fifty pounds in
1:48:47
Speaker 6: lawful money. Restrictions like these undoubtedly excluded from the suffrage
1:48:52
Speaker 6: a very considerable number of men, particularly the mechanics and
1:48:56
Speaker 6: artisans of the towns, who were by no means content
1:48:59
Speaker 6: with their position. Nevertheless, it was relatively easy for any
1:49:03
Speaker 6: man to acquire a small freehold. So cheap and abundant
1:49:06
Speaker 6: was land, and in fact a large proportion of the
1:49:09
Speaker 6: colonists were landowners. Thus the assemblies, in spite of the
1:49:13
Speaker 6: limited suffrage, acquired a democratic tone. The popular character of
1:49:18
Speaker 6: the assemblies increased as they became engaged in battles with
1:49:21
Speaker 6: the royal and proprietary governors. When called upon by the
1:49:25
Speaker 6: executive to make provision for the support of the administration,
1:49:28
Speaker 6: the legislature took advantage of the opportunity to make terms
1:49:32
Speaker 6: in the interests of the taxpayers. It made annual, not permanent,
1:49:36
Speaker 6: grants of money to pay official salaries, and then insisted
1:49:39
Speaker 6: upon electing a treasurer to dole it out. Thus the
1:49:42
Speaker 6: colonists learned some of the mysteries of public finance, as
1:49:46
Speaker 6: well as the management of rapacious officials. The legislature also
1:49:50
Speaker 6: used its power over money grants to force the governor
1:49:53
Speaker 6: to sign bills which he would otherwise have vetoed contests
1:49:57
Speaker 6: between legislatures and governors, as may be imagined, many and
1:50:01
Speaker 6: bitter were the contests between the royal and proprietary governors
1:50:05
Speaker 6: and the colonial assemblies. Franklin relates an amusing story of
1:50:09
Speaker 6: how the Pennsylvania Assembly held in one hand to bill
1:50:11
Speaker 6: for the executive to sign, and in the other hand
1:50:14
Speaker 6: the money to pay his salary. Then, with sly humor,
1:50:17
Speaker 6: Franklin adds, quote, do not, my courteous reader, take pet
1:50:22
Speaker 6: at our proprietary constitution for these our bargain and sale
1:50:26
Speaker 6: proceedings in legislation. It is a happy country where justice
1:50:30
Speaker 6: and what was your own before can be had for
1:50:33
Speaker 6: ready money. It is another addition to the value of money,
1:50:37
Speaker 6: and of course another spur to industry. Every land is
1:50:40
Speaker 6: not so blessed. It must not be thought, however, that
1:50:44
Speaker 6: every governor got off as easily as Franklin's tale implies.
1:50:48
Speaker 6: On the contrary, the legislatures, like Caesar, fed upon meat
1:50:52
Speaker 6: that made them great, and steadily encroached upon executive prerogatives
1:50:56
Speaker 6: as they tried out and found their strength. If we
1:50:59
Speaker 6: may believe contemporary laments, the power of the crown in
1:51:03
Speaker 6: America was diminishing when it was struck down altogether in
1:51:06
Speaker 6: New York. The friends of the governor complained in seventeen
1:51:09
Speaker 6: forty seven that quote, the inhabitants of plantations are generally
1:51:13
Speaker 6: educated in Republican principles. Upon Republican principles, all is conducted.
1:51:19
Speaker 6: Little more than a shadow of royal authority remains in
1:51:21
Speaker 6: the northern colonies end quote. Quote here quote echoed the
1:51:28
Speaker 6: governor of South Carolina the following year. Leveling principles prevail.
1:51:34
Speaker 6: The frame of the civil government is unhinged. A governor,
1:51:37
Speaker 6: if he would be idolized, must betray his trust. The
1:51:41
Speaker 6: people have got their whole administration in their hands. The
1:51:44
Speaker 6: election of the members of the assemblies by ballot not
1:51:48
Speaker 6: civil posts only, but all ecclesiastical preferments are in the
1:51:51
Speaker 6: disposal or election of the people. End quote. Though baffled
1:51:56
Speaker 6: by the leveling principles of the colonial assemblies, the governors
1:52:00
Speaker 6: did not give up the cases hopeless. Instead, they evolved
1:52:03
Speaker 6: a system of policy and action which they thought could
1:52:05
Speaker 6: bring the obstinate provincials to terms. That system, traceable in
1:52:09
Speaker 6: their letters to the government in London, consisted of three parts. One,
1:52:13
Speaker 6: the royal officers and the colonies were to be made
1:52:15
Speaker 6: independent of the legislatures by taxes imposed by acts of Parliament.
1:52:20
Speaker 6: Two a British standing army was to be maintained in America. Three,
1:52:25
Speaker 6: the remaining colonial charters were to be revoked, and government
1:52:28
Speaker 6: by direct royal authority was to be enlarged. Such a
1:52:32
Speaker 6: system seemed plausible enough to King George the Third and
1:52:35
Speaker 6: to many ministers of the Crown in London. With governors,
1:52:38
Speaker 6: courts and an army independent of the colonists, they imagined
1:52:42
Speaker 6: it would be easy to carry out both royal orders
1:52:45
Speaker 6: and acts of Parliament. This reasoning seemed both practical and logical,
1:52:50
Speaker 6: nor was it founded on theory, for it came fresh
1:52:52
Speaker 6: from the governors themselves. It was wanting in one respect
1:52:56
Speaker 6: only it failed to take account of the fact that
1:52:58
Speaker 6: the American people were growing strong in the practice of
1:53:01
Speaker 6: self government and could dispense with the tutelage of the
1:53:04
Speaker 6: British ministry, no matter how excellent it might be or
1:53:07
Speaker 6: how benevolent its intentions. References A. M Earle home life
1:53:14
Speaker 6: in colonial days, A. L. Cross, the Anglican Episcopate and
1:53:20
Speaker 6: the American Colonies. Harvard Studies E. G. Dexter, History of
1:53:26
Speaker 6: Education in the United States C. A. Dunaway Freedom of
1:53:30
Speaker 6: the press in Massachusetts. Benjamin Franklin Autobiography. E. B. Green
1:53:36
Speaker 6: The Provincial Governor, Harvard Studies. E. A. McKinley, The suffrage
1:53:41
Speaker 6: franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies, Pennsylvania University Studies M. C. Tyler.
1:53:48
Speaker 6: History of American literature during the Colonial times in two volumes.
1:53:53
Speaker 6: Questions Number one, why is leisure necessary for the production
1:53:58
Speaker 6: of art and literature? How may leisure be secured? Number
1:54:03
Speaker 6: two explain the position of the church and colonial life.
1:54:07
Speaker 6: Number three contrast the political roles of Puritanism and the
1:54:11
Speaker 6: established Church. Number four. How did diversity of opinion work
1:54:16
Speaker 6: for toleration? Number five show the connection between religion and
1:54:21
Speaker 6: learning in colonial times? Number six? Why is a free
1:54:25
Speaker 6: press such an important thing to American democracy? Number seven
1:54:30
Speaker 6: relate some of the troubles of early American publishers. Number
1:54:34
Speaker 6: eight give the undemocratic features of provincial government. Number nine
1:54:39
Speaker 6: How did the colonial assemblies help to create an independent
1:54:42
Speaker 6: American spirit in spite of a restricted suffrage? Number ten
1:54:48
Speaker 6: explain the nature of the contests between the governors and
1:54:50
Speaker 6: the legislatures. Research topics Religious and intellectual life Lodge Short
1:54:58
Speaker 6: History of the English colony one in New England, Pages
1:55:03
Speaker 6: four eighteen to four thirty eight, four sixty five to
1:55:07
Speaker 6: four seventy five, Number two in Virginia, pages fifty four
1:55:12
Speaker 6: through sixty one, eighty seven through eighty nine three in Pennsylvania,
1:55:18
Speaker 6: pages two thirty two to two thirty seven, two fifty
1:55:22
Speaker 6: three to two fifty seven, Number four in New York,
1:55:26
Speaker 6: pages three sixteen to three twenty one. Interesting source Materials
1:55:31
Speaker 6: in Heart American History Told by Contemporaries, Volume two, pages
1:55:37
Speaker 6: two fifty five to two seventy five, two seventy six
1:55:41
Speaker 6: to two ninety The Government of a Royal Province Virginia Lodge,
1:55:47
Speaker 6: pages forty three to fifty Special reference E. B. Green,
1:55:51
Speaker 6: The Provincial Governor Harvard Studies. The Government of a proprietary
1:55:57
Speaker 6: Colony Pennsylvania Lodge, page save two thirty to two thirty two.
1:56:02
Speaker 6: Government in New England Lodge, pages four twelve to four seventeen.
1:56:08
Speaker 6: The Colonial Press, Special reference G. H. Paine. History of
1:56:13
Speaker 6: Journalism in the United States, nineteen twenty. Colonial Life in General,
1:56:19
Speaker 6: John fisk Old, Virginia and Her Neighbors, Volume two, pages
1:56:23
Speaker 6: one seventy four to two sixty nine. Elson History of
1:56:27
Speaker 6: the United States, pages one ninety seven to two ten.
1:56:31
Speaker 6: Colonial Government in General, Elson, pages two ten to two sixteen,
1:56:38
Speaker 6: end of section nine.
1:56:48
Speaker 9: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
1:56:51
Speaker 9: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
1:56:56
Speaker 9: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Nicholas Iliche. History of
1:57:02
Speaker 9: the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Riddterbeard,
1:57:06
Speaker 9: Part one, Chapter four, Chapter four The development of colonial nationalism.
1:57:16
Speaker 9: It is one of the well known facts of history
1:57:18
Speaker 9: that a people loosely united by domestic ties of a
1:57:21
Speaker 9: political and economic nature, even a people torn by domestic strife,
1:57:26
Speaker 9: may be welded into a solid and compact body by
1:57:29
Speaker 9: an attack from a foreign power. The imperative call to
1:57:33
Speaker 9: common defense, the habit of sharing common burdens, the fusing
1:57:37
Speaker 9: force of common service. These things, introduced by the necessity
1:57:41
Speaker 9: of resisting outside interference, act as an amalgam, drawing together
1:57:46
Speaker 9: all elements except perhaps the most discordant. The presence of
1:57:51
Speaker 9: the enemy allays the most virulent of quarrels, temporarily at least.
1:57:56
Speaker 9: Politics runs an old saying stops at the water's edge.
1:58:01
Speaker 9: The ancient political principle so well understood in diplomatic circles,
1:58:05
Speaker 9: applied nearly as well to the original thirteen American colonies,
1:58:09
Speaker 9: as to the countries of Europe, the necessity for common defense,
1:58:13
Speaker 9: if not equally great, was certainly always pressing. Though it
1:58:18
Speaker 9: has long been the practice to speak of the early
1:58:21
Speaker 9: settlements as founded in a wilderness, this was not actually
1:58:25
Speaker 9: the case. From the earliest days of Jamestown on through
1:58:29
Speaker 9: the years, the American people were confronted by dangers from without.
1:58:35
Speaker 9: All about their tiny settlements were Indians, growing more and
1:58:37
Speaker 9: more hostile as the frontier advanced in as sharp conflicts
1:58:41
Speaker 9: over land around angry passions. To the south and west.
1:58:44
Speaker 9: Was the power of Spain humiliated, it is true, by
1:58:48
Speaker 9: the disaster to the Armada, but still presenting an imposing
1:58:51
Speaker 9: front to the British Empire. To the north and west
1:58:55
Speaker 9: were the French ambitious, energetic, imperial and temper, and prepared
1:59:00
Speaker 9: to contest on land and water. The advance of British
1:59:03
Speaker 9: dominion in America, relations with the Indians, and the French
1:59:10
Speaker 9: Indian affairs, it is difficult to make general statements about
1:59:15
Speaker 9: the relations of the colonists to the Indians. The problem
1:59:19
Speaker 9: was presented in different shape in different sections of America.
1:59:22
Speaker 9: It was not handled according to any coherent or uniform
1:59:25
Speaker 9: plan by the British government, which alone could speak for
1:59:28
Speaker 9: all the provinces. At the same time, neither did the
1:59:31
Speaker 9: proprietors and the governors, who succeeded one another in an
1:59:34
Speaker 9: irregular train have the consistent policy or matured experience necessary
1:59:40
Speaker 9: for dealing wisely with Indian matters. As the difficulties arose
1:59:44
Speaker 9: mainly on the frontiers where the restless and pushing pioneers
1:59:48
Speaker 9: were making their way with gun and ax, nearly everything
1:59:50
Speaker 9: that happened was the result of chance rather than of calculation.
1:59:55
Speaker 9: A personal quarrel between traders and an Indian, a jug
1:59:59
Speaker 9: of whiskey at keg of gunpowder, the exchange of guns
2:00:02
Speaker 9: for first personal treachery, or a flash of bad temper
2:00:07
Speaker 9: often set in motion destructive forces of the most terrible character.
2:00:12
Speaker 9: On one side of the ledger may be set innumerable
2:00:15
Speaker 9: generous records of Squanto and Samoset teaching the pilgrims the
2:00:19
Speaker 9: ways of the wilds, of Roger Williams buying his lands
2:00:22
Speaker 9: from the friendly natives, or of William Penn treating with
2:00:26
Speaker 9: them on his arrival in America. On the other side
2:00:30
Speaker 9: of the ledger must be recorded many a cruel and
2:00:32
Speaker 9: bloody conflict. As the frontier rolled westward with deadly precition.
2:00:38
Speaker 9: The Pequots on the Connecticut border, sensing their doom, fell
2:00:42
Speaker 9: upon the tiny settlements with awful fury in sixteen thirty seven,
2:00:46
Speaker 9: only to meet with equally terrible punishment. A generation later,
2:00:51
Speaker 9: King Philip Son of Massasoy, the friend of the Pilgrims,
2:00:55
Speaker 9: called the tribesmen to a war of extermination, which brought
2:00:58
Speaker 9: the strength of all New England to the fields and
2:01:01
Speaker 9: ended in his own destruction. In New York, the relations
2:01:05
Speaker 9: with the Indians, especially with the Algonkins and the Mohawks,
2:01:08
Speaker 9: were marked by periodic and desperate wars. Virginia and her
2:01:12
Speaker 9: southern neighbors suffered, as did New England. In sixteen twenty two,
2:01:17
Speaker 9: Ope Kacano, a brother of Powhatan, the friend of the
2:01:20
Speaker 9: Jamestown settlers, launched a general massacre, and in sixteen forty
2:01:25
Speaker 9: four he attempted a war of extermination. In sixteen seventy five,
2:01:29
Speaker 9: the whole frontier was ablaze. Nathaniel Bacon vainly attempted to
2:01:34
Speaker 9: stir the colonial governor to put up an adequate defense,
2:01:38
Speaker 9: and failing in that Flea himself headed a revolt and
2:01:41
Speaker 9: a successful expedition against the Indians. As the Virginia outpost
2:01:46
Speaker 9: advanced into the Kentucky country, the strife with the natives
2:01:50
Speaker 9: was transferred to that dark and bloody ground, while to
2:01:53
Speaker 9: the southeast, a desperate struggle with the Tuscaroras called forth
2:01:57
Speaker 9: the combined forces of the two Carolinas and Virginia from
2:02:02
Speaker 9: such horror. As New Jersey and Delaware were saved on
2:02:05
Speaker 9: account of their geographical location, Pennsylvania, consistently following a policy
2:02:10
Speaker 9: of conciliation, was likewise spared until her western vanguard came
2:02:14
Speaker 9: into full conflict with the allied French and Indians. Georgia,
2:02:18
Speaker 9: by clever negotiations and treaties of alliance, managed to keep
2:02:22
Speaker 9: on fair terms with her belligerent Cherokees and Creeks, but
2:02:26
Speaker 9: neither diplomacy nor generosity could stay the inevitable conflict. As
2:02:31
Speaker 9: the frontier advanced, especially after the French soldiers enlisted the
2:02:35
Speaker 9: Indians in their imperial enterprises, it was then that the
2:02:39
Speaker 9: desultory fighting became general warfare. Early relations with the French
2:02:47
Speaker 9: during the first decades of French exploration and settlement in
2:02:50
Speaker 9: the Saint Louis County. The English colonies, engrossed with their
2:02:54
Speaker 9: own problems, gave little or no thought to their distant neighbors. Quebec,
2:02:58
Speaker 9: founded in sixteen o eight Montreal in sixteen forty two,
2:03:02
Speaker 9: were too far away, too small in population, and too
2:03:05
Speaker 9: slight in strength to be much of a menace to Boston,
2:03:08
Speaker 9: Hartford or New York. It was the statesmen in France
2:03:12
Speaker 9: and England, rather than the colonists in America, who first
2:03:15
Speaker 9: grasped the significance of the slowly converging empires in North America.
2:03:20
Speaker 9: It was the ambition of Louis the fourteenth of France,
2:03:23
Speaker 9: rather than the labors of Jesuit missionaries and French rangers,
2:03:27
Speaker 9: that sounded the first note of colonial alarm. Evidence of
2:03:33
Speaker 9: this lies in the fact that three conflicts between English
2:03:36
Speaker 9: and the French occurred before their advancing frontiers met on
2:03:39
Speaker 9: the Pennsylvania border. King Williams's War from sixteen eighty nine
2:03:44
Speaker 9: to sixteen ninety seven, Queen Anne's War from seventeen oh
2:03:48
Speaker 9: one to seventeen o three, and King George's War from
2:03:51
Speaker 9: seventeen forty four to seventeen forty eight owed their origins
2:03:55
Speaker 9: and their endings mainly to the intrigues and rivalries of
2:03:58
Speaker 9: European powers, although they all involved the American colonies and
2:04:03
Speaker 9: struggles with the French and their savage allies. The clash
2:04:08
Speaker 9: in the Ohio Valley, the second of these wars, had
2:04:12
Speaker 9: hardly closed, however, before the English colonists themselves began to
2:04:16
Speaker 9: be seriously alarmed about the rapidly expanding French dominion in
2:04:21
Speaker 9: the West. Marquis and Joliet, who opened the Lake Region,
2:04:25
Speaker 9: and the Salle who in sixteen eighty two had gone
2:04:28
Speaker 9: down the Mississippi to the Gulf, had been followed by
2:04:31
Speaker 9: the builders of forts. In seventeen eighteen, the French founded
2:04:35
Speaker 9: New Orleans, thus taking possession of the gateway to the
2:04:39
Speaker 9: Mississippi as well as the Saint Lawrence. A few years
2:04:43
Speaker 9: later they built Fort Niagara. In seventeen thirty one, they
2:04:47
Speaker 9: occupied Crown Point. In seventeen forty nine, they formally announced
2:04:51
Speaker 9: their dominion over all the territory drained by the Ohio River.
2:04:55
Speaker 9: Having asserted this lofty claim, they set out to make
2:04:59
Speaker 9: it good by con instructing In the years seventeen fifty
2:05:02
Speaker 9: two to seventeen fifty four, Fort Le Boeuf near Lake Erie,
2:05:07
Speaker 9: Fort Venango on the upper waters of the Allegheny, and
2:05:10
Speaker 9: Fort Dusna at the junction of the streams forming the Ohio.
2:05:15
Speaker 9: Though they were warned by George Washington in the name
2:05:18
Speaker 9: of the Governor of Virginia to keep out of territory
2:05:21
Speaker 9: so notoriously known to be property of the Crown of
2:05:25
Speaker 9: Great Britain, the French showed no signs of relinquishing their
2:05:29
Speaker 9: pretensions the final phase the French and Indian War. Thus,
2:05:37
Speaker 9: it happened that the shot which opened the Seven Years' War,
2:05:41
Speaker 9: known in America as the French and Indian War, was
2:05:43
Speaker 9: fired in the wilds of Pennsylvania. There began the conflict
2:05:48
Speaker 9: that spread to Europe and even Asia and finally involved
2:05:51
Speaker 9: England and Prussia on the one side, and France, Austria, Spain,
2:05:56
Speaker 9: and minor powers on the other. On the American soil.
2:06:00
Speaker 9: The defeat of Braddock in seventeen fifty five and Wolfe's
2:06:03
Speaker 9: exploit in capturing Quebec four years later were the dramatic
2:06:06
Speaker 9: features when the continent of Europe. England subsidized Prussian arms
2:06:11
Speaker 9: to hold France at bay in India on the banks
2:06:15
Speaker 9: of the Ganges, as on the banks of the Saint Lawrence,
2:06:19
Speaker 9: British arms were triumphant. Well could the historian write conquest
2:06:24
Speaker 9: equaling in rapidity and far surpassing in magnitude those of
2:06:27
Speaker 9: Cortes and Pizarro had been achieved in the East? Well
2:06:32
Speaker 9: could the merchants of London declare that, under the administration
2:06:36
Speaker 9: of William Pitt, the imperial genius of this world wide conflict,
2:06:40
Speaker 9: commerce had been united with and made to flourish by war.
2:06:46
Speaker 9: From the point of view of the British Empire, the
2:06:49
Speaker 9: results of the war were momentous. By the peace of
2:06:52
Speaker 9: seventeen sixty three, Canada and the territory east of the
2:06:55
Speaker 9: Mississippi except New Orleans, passed under the British flag. The
2:07:00
Speaker 9: remainder of the Louisiana territory was transferred to Spain, and
2:07:04
Speaker 9: French imperial ambitions on the American continent were laid to rest.
2:07:09
Speaker 9: In exchange for Havana, which the British had seized during
2:07:12
Speaker 9: the war, Spain ceded to King George the colony of Florida.
2:07:17
Speaker 9: Not without warrant did Maclay write in after years that
2:07:20
Speaker 9: Pitt was the first Englishman of his time, and he
2:07:24
Speaker 9: had made England the first country in the world end
2:07:30
Speaker 9: of chapter four.
2:07:37
Speaker 3: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
2:07:40
Speaker 3: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
2:07:43
Speaker 3: visit LibriVox dot org. This reading by Kara Shallenberg. History
2:07:50
Speaker 3: of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard,
2:07:54
Speaker 3: Part one, Chapter eleven. The effects of warfare on the colonies.
2:08:02
Speaker 3: The various wars with the French and the Indians, trivial
2:08:06
Speaker 3: in detail as they seemed to day, had a profound
2:08:09
Speaker 3: influence on colonial life and on the destiny of America.
2:08:13
Speaker 3: Circumstances beyond the control of popular assemblies, jealous of their
2:08:18
Speaker 3: individual powers, compelled co operation among them, grudging and stingy,
2:08:22
Speaker 3: no doubt, but still co operation. The American people, more
2:08:28
Speaker 3: eager to be busy in their fields or at their trades,
2:08:31
Speaker 3: were simply forced to raise and support armies, to learn
2:08:35
Speaker 3: the arts of warfare, and to practice, if in a
2:08:38
Speaker 3: small theater, the science of state craft. These forces, all cumulative,
2:08:43
Speaker 3: drove the colonists so tenaciously provincial in their habits in
2:08:48
Speaker 3: the direction of nationalism the New England Confederation. It was
2:08:55
Speaker 3: in their efforts to deal with the problems presented by
2:08:57
Speaker 3: the Indian and French menace that the Americans took the
2:09:00
Speaker 3: first steps toward union. Though there were many common ties
2:09:05
Speaker 3: among the settlers of New England, it required a deadly
2:09:08
Speaker 3: fear of the Indians to produce. In sixteen forty three,
2:09:12
Speaker 3: the New England Confederation composed of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and
2:09:17
Speaker 3: New Haven. The colonies so united were bound together in
2:09:23
Speaker 3: a firm and perpetual league of friendship and amity, for
2:09:27
Speaker 3: offense and defense, mutual service and succor upon all just occasions.
2:09:34
Speaker 3: They made provision for distributing the burdens of wars among
2:09:37
Speaker 3: the members, and provided for a congress of commissioners from
2:09:40
Speaker 3: each colony to determine upon common policies. For some twenty
2:09:45
Speaker 3: years the Confederation was active, and it continued to hold
2:09:49
Speaker 3: meetings until after the extinction of the Indian peril on
2:09:52
Speaker 3: the immediate border Virginia. No less than Massachusetts was aware
2:09:58
Speaker 3: of the importance of intercourse colonial cooperation. In the middle
2:10:02
Speaker 3: of the seventeenth century. The Old Dominion began treaties of
2:10:06
Speaker 3: commerce and amity with New York and the colonies of
2:10:09
Speaker 3: New England. In sixteen eighty four, delegates from Virginia met
2:10:14
Speaker 3: at Albany with the agents of New York and Massachusetts
2:10:17
Speaker 3: to discuss problems of mutual defense. A few years later,
2:10:22
Speaker 3: the Old Dominion co operated loyally with the Carolinas in
2:10:26
Speaker 3: defending their borders against Indian forays. The Albany Plan of Union,
2:10:34
Speaker 3: an attempt at a general colonial union, was made in
2:10:37
Speaker 3: seventeen fifty four on the suggestion of the Lords of
2:10:41
Speaker 3: trade in England. A conference was held at Albany to
2:10:44
Speaker 3: consider Indian relations, to devise measures of defense against the French,
2:10:49
Speaker 3: and to enter into articles of union and confederation for
2:10:53
Speaker 3: the general defense of His Majesty's subjects and interests in
2:10:57
Speaker 3: North America, as well in time of peace as of war.
2:11:02
Speaker 3: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and
2:11:08
Speaker 3: Maryland were represented. After a long discussion, a plan of union,
2:11:13
Speaker 3: drafted mainly it seems by Benjamin Franklin, was adopted and
2:11:17
Speaker 3: sent to the colonies and the Crown for approval. The colonies,
2:11:22
Speaker 3: jealous of their individual rights, refused to accept the scheme,
2:11:26
Speaker 3: and the King disapproved it for the reason Franklin said
2:11:29
Speaker 3: that it had too much weight in the democratic part
2:11:32
Speaker 3: of the Constitution. Though the Albany Union failed, the document
2:11:38
Speaker 3: is still worthy of study because it forecast many of
2:11:41
Speaker 3: the perplexing problems that were not solved until thirty three
2:11:44
Speaker 3: years afterward, when another convention, of which also Franklin was
2:11:48
Speaker 3: a member, drafted the Constitution of the United States. The
2:11:54
Speaker 3: military education of the colonists, the same wars that showed
2:12:00
Speaker 3: the provincials the meaning of union, likewise instructed them in
2:12:04
Speaker 3: the art of defending their institutions. Particularly was this true
2:12:08
Speaker 3: of the last French and Indian conflict, which stretched all
2:12:12
Speaker 3: the way from Maine to the Carolinas and made heavy
2:12:15
Speaker 3: calls upon them all for troops. The answer, it is admitted,
2:12:20
Speaker 3: was far from satisfactory to the British government, and the
2:12:24
Speaker 3: conduct of the militiamen was far from professional. But thousands
2:12:28
Speaker 3: of Americans got a taste, a strong taste of actual
2:12:32
Speaker 3: fighting in the field. Men like George Washington and Daniel
2:12:36
Speaker 3: Morgan learned lessons that were not forgotten in after years.
2:12:40
Speaker 3: They saw what American militiamen could do under favorable circumstances,
2:12:44
Speaker 3: and they watched British regulars operating on American soil. This
2:12:50
Speaker 3: whole transaction shrewdly, remarked Franklin, of Braddock's campaign gave US
2:12:56
Speaker 3: Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the
2:13:00
Speaker 3: prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded.
2:13:05
Speaker 3: It was no mere accident that the Virginia colonel who
2:13:08
Speaker 3: drew his sword under the elm at Cambridge and took
2:13:11
Speaker 3: command of the Army of the Revolution was the brave
2:13:14
Speaker 3: officer who had spurned the whistle of bullets at the
2:13:18
Speaker 3: memorable battle in western Pennsylvania. Financial burdens and commercial disorder.
2:13:28
Speaker 3: While the provincials were learning lessons in warfare, they were
2:13:31
Speaker 3: also paying the bills. All the conflicts were costly in
2:13:35
Speaker 3: treasure as in blood. King Philip's war left New England
2:13:40
Speaker 3: weak and almost bankrupt. The French and Indian struggle was
2:13:44
Speaker 3: especially expensive. The twenty five thousand men put in the
2:13:48
Speaker 3: field by the colonies were sustained only by huge outlays
2:13:51
Speaker 3: of money. Paper currency streamed from the press and debts
2:13:57
Speaker 3: were accumulated, was driven from its usual channels, and prices
2:14:02
Speaker 3: were enhanced. When the end came, both England and America
2:14:07
Speaker 3: were staggering under heavy liabilities and to make matters. Worse,
2:14:12
Speaker 3: there was a fall of prices accompanied by a commercial
2:14:15
Speaker 3: depression which extended over a period of ten years. It
2:14:20
Speaker 3: was in the midst of this crisis that measures of
2:14:22
Speaker 3: taxation had to be devised to pay the cost of
2:14:25
Speaker 3: the war, precipitating the quarrel which led to American independence
2:14:32
Speaker 3: the expulsion of French power from North America. The effects
2:14:37
Speaker 3: of the defeat administered to France, as time proved, were
2:14:41
Speaker 3: difficult to estimate. Some British statesmen regarded it as a
2:14:46
Speaker 3: happy circumstance that the colonists, already restive under their administration,
2:14:51
Speaker 3: had no foreign power at hand to aid them in
2:14:54
Speaker 3: case they were struck for independence. American leaders, on the
2:14:59
Speaker 3: other he hand, now that the soldiers of King Louis
2:15:02
Speaker 3: were driven from the continent, thought that they had no
2:15:05
Speaker 3: other country to fear if they cast off British sovereignty.
2:15:10
Speaker 3: At all events, France, though defeated, was not out of
2:15:14
Speaker 3: the sphere of American influence. For as events proved, it
2:15:18
Speaker 3: was the fortunate French alliance negotiated by Franklin that assured
2:15:22
Speaker 3: the triumph of American arms in the War of the Revolution.
2:15:29
Speaker 3: End of Chapter eleven read by Kara Shallenberg www dot
2:15:34
Speaker 3: kay dot org on May third, two thousand seven, in Oceanside, California.
2:15:47
Speaker 6: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
2:15:50
Speaker 6: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
2:15:54
Speaker 6: visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States by
2:15:59
Speaker 6: Charles V. A. Beard and Mary ridder Beard, Part one,
2:16:03
Speaker 6: Part twelve. Colonial relations with the British government. It was
2:16:09
Speaker 6: neither the Indian Wars nor the French Wars that finally
2:16:11
Speaker 6: brought forth American nationality. That was the product of the
2:16:16
Speaker 6: long strife with a mother country which culminated in union
2:16:19
Speaker 6: for the War of Independence. The forces that created this
2:16:24
Speaker 6: nation did not operate in the colonies alone. The character
2:16:28
Speaker 6: of the English sovereigns, the course of events in English
2:16:31
Speaker 6: domestic politics, and English measures of control over the colonies, executive, legislative,
2:16:37
Speaker 6: and judicial, must all be taken into account. The last
2:16:42
Speaker 6: of the Stuarts, the struggles between Charles the First sixteen
2:16:46
Speaker 6: twenty five to forty nine and the Parliamentary Party in
2:16:48
Speaker 6: the turmoil of the Puritan regime sixteen forty nine to
2:16:52
Speaker 6: sixty so engrossed the attention of Englishmen at home that
2:16:55
Speaker 6: they had little time to think of colonial policies or
2:16:58
Speaker 6: to interfere with colonial affairs. The restoration of the monarchy
2:17:03
Speaker 6: in sixteen sixty, accompanied by internal peace in the increasing
2:17:06
Speaker 6: power of the mrcantile classes in the House of Commons,
2:17:10
Speaker 6: changed all that. In the reign of Charles the Second
2:17:13
Speaker 6: sixteen sixty to eighty five, himself an easygoing person, the
2:17:18
Speaker 6: policy of regulating trade by active parliament was developed into
2:17:21
Speaker 6: a closely knit system, and powerful agencies to supervise the
2:17:25
Speaker 6: colonies were created. At the same time, a system of
2:17:29
Speaker 6: stricter control over the dominions was ushered in by the
2:17:32
Speaker 6: annulment of the Old Charter of Massachusetts, which conferred so
2:17:36
Speaker 6: much self government on the Puritans. Charles's successor, James the Second,
2:17:41
Speaker 6: a man of sterner stuff and jealous of his authority
2:17:44
Speaker 6: in the colonies as well as at home, continued the
2:17:47
Speaker 6: polony thus inaugurated and enlarged upon it. If he could
2:17:51
Speaker 6: have kept his throne, he would have bent the Americans
2:17:53
Speaker 6: under a harsh rule, or brought on in his dominions
2:17:57
Speaker 6: a revolution like that which he precipitated at home. Sixteen
2:18:00
Speaker 6: eighty eight, he determined to unite the northern colonies and
2:18:05
Speaker 6: introduce some more efficient administration based on the pattern of
2:18:08
Speaker 6: the royal provinces. He made a martinette, Sir Edmund Andros,
2:18:12
Speaker 6: governor of all New England, New York, and New Jersey.
2:18:16
Speaker 6: The charter of Massachusetts annulled in the last days of
2:18:19
Speaker 6: his brother's reign, he continued to ignore, and that of
2:18:22
Speaker 6: Connecticut would have been seized if it had not been
2:18:24
Speaker 6: spirited away and hidden, according to tradition, in a hollow oak.
2:18:29
Speaker 6: For several months. Andros gave the northern colonies a taste
2:18:32
Speaker 6: of ill tempered despotism. He run quit rents from landowners
2:18:36
Speaker 6: not accustomed to feudal dues, He abrogated titles to land where,
2:18:40
Speaker 6: in his opinion, they were unlawful. He forced the Episcopal
2:18:44
Speaker 6: service upon the Old South Church in Boston, and he
2:18:47
Speaker 6: denied the rid of Habeas corpus to a preacher who
2:18:50
Speaker 6: denounced taxation without representation. In the middle of his arbitrary course, however,
2:18:55
Speaker 6: his hand was stayed. The news came that King James
2:18:58
Speaker 6: had been dethroned by his angry subject, and the people
2:19:01
Speaker 6: of Boston, kindling a fire on Beacon Hill, summoned the
2:19:04
Speaker 6: countryside to dispose of Andros. The response was prompt and hearty.
2:19:09
Speaker 6: The hated governor was arrested in prison and sent back
2:19:12
Speaker 6: across the sea under guard. The overthrow of James, followed
2:19:16
Speaker 6: by the accession of William and Mary, and assured by
2:19:19
Speaker 6: parliamentary supremacy, had an immediate effect. In the colonies. The
2:19:24
Speaker 6: new order was greeted with thanksgiving. Massachusetts was given another charter, which,
2:19:29
Speaker 6: though not so liberal as the first, restored the spirit,
2:19:32
Speaker 6: if not the entire letter, of self government. In the
2:19:35
Speaker 6: other colonies where Andros had been operating, the old course
2:19:38
Speaker 6: of affairs was resumed the indifference of the two Georges.
2:19:44
Speaker 6: On the death in seventeen fourteen of Queen Anne, the
2:19:47
Speaker 6: successor of King William, the throne passed to a Hanoverian
2:19:50
Speaker 6: prince who, though grateful for English honors and revenues, was
2:19:54
Speaker 6: more interested in Hanover than in England. George the First
2:19:58
Speaker 6: and George the Second, whose combined reigns extended from seventeen
2:20:02
Speaker 6: fourteen to seventeen sixty, never even learned to speak the
2:20:06
Speaker 6: English language, at least without an accent. The necessity of
2:20:10
Speaker 6: taking thought about colonial affairs bored both of them, so
2:20:14
Speaker 6: that the stoutest defender of popular privileges in Boston or
2:20:17
Speaker 6: Charleston had no ground to complain of the exercise of
2:20:20
Speaker 6: personal prerogatives by the King. Moreover, during a large part
2:20:24
Speaker 6: of this period, the direction of affairs was in the
2:20:27
Speaker 6: hands of an astute leader, Sir Robert Walpole, who betrayed
2:20:31
Speaker 6: his somewhat cynical view of politics by adopting as his motto,
2:20:35
Speaker 6: let sleeping dogs lie. He revealed his appreciation of popular
2:20:39
Speaker 6: sentiment by exclaiming, I will not be the minister to
2:20:43
Speaker 6: enforce taxes at the expense of blood. Such kings and
2:20:47
Speaker 6: such ministers were not likely to arouse the slumbering resistance
2:20:51
Speaker 6: of the thirteen colonies across the sea. Control of the
2:20:55
Speaker 6: Crown over the colonies, while no English ruler from James
2:20:58
Speaker 6: the Second to George ventured to interfere with colonial matters personally,
2:21:03
Speaker 6: constant control over the colonies was exercised by royal officers
2:21:07
Speaker 6: acting under the authority of the Crown. Systematic supervision began
2:21:12
Speaker 6: in sixteen sixty when there was created by royal order
2:21:16
Speaker 6: a committee of the King's Council to meet on Mondays
2:21:18
Speaker 6: and thursdays of each week to consider petitions, memorials and
2:21:22
Speaker 6: addresses respecting the plantations. In sixteen ninety six, a regular
2:21:27
Speaker 6: board was established, known as the Loures of Trade and Plantations,
2:21:31
Speaker 6: which continued until the American Revolution to scrutinize closely colonial business.
2:21:36
Speaker 6: The chief duties of the board were to examine acts
2:21:39
Speaker 6: of colonial legislatures, to recommend measures to those assemblies for adoption,
2:21:44
Speaker 6: and to hear memorials on petitions from the colonies relative
2:21:47
Speaker 6: to their affairs. The methods employed by this board were varied.
2:21:51
Speaker 6: All laws passed by American legislatures came before it for
2:21:55
Speaker 6: review as a matter of routine. If it found an
2:21:57
Speaker 6: act unsatisfactory to the King, the exercise of his veto
2:22:02
Speaker 6: power known as the royal disallowance. Any person who believed
2:22:06
Speaker 6: his personal or property rights injured by a colonial law
2:22:09
Speaker 6: could be heard by the Board in person or by attorney.
2:22:13
Speaker 6: In such cases, it was the practice to hear at
2:22:15
Speaker 6: the same time the agent of the colony so involved.
2:22:18
Speaker 6: The royal veto power over colonial legislation was not therefore
2:22:22
Speaker 6: a formal affair, but was constantly employed on the suggestion
2:22:26
Speaker 6: of a highly efficient agency of the Crown. All this
2:22:30
Speaker 6: was in addition to the powers exercised by the governors
2:22:33
Speaker 6: in the royal provinces. Judicial control supplementing this administrative control
2:22:39
Speaker 6: over the colonies was a constant supervision by the English
2:22:42
Speaker 6: courts of law. The King, by virtue of his inherent authority,
2:22:47
Speaker 6: claimed and exercised high appellate powers over all judicial tribunals
2:22:50
Speaker 6: in the Empire. The right of appeal from local courts,
2:22:54
Speaker 6: expressly set forth in some chapters, was on the eve
2:22:57
Speaker 6: of the revolution, maintained in every case. Any subject in
2:23:01
Speaker 6: England or America who, on the regular legal course was
2:23:04
Speaker 6: aggrieved by any act of a colonial legislature or any
2:23:07
Speaker 6: decision of a colonial court, had the right, subject to
2:23:10
Speaker 6: certain restrictions, to carry his case to the King and Council,
2:23:14
Speaker 6: forcing his opponent to follow him across the sea. In
2:23:18
Speaker 6: the exercise of appellate power, the King and Council, acting
2:23:21
Speaker 6: as a court, could, and frequently did, declare acts of
2:23:24
Speaker 6: colonial legislatures duly enacted and approved null and void on
2:23:29
Speaker 6: the ground that they were contrary to English law. Imperial
2:23:33
Speaker 6: control in operation day after day, week after week, year
2:23:37
Speaker 6: after year. The machinery for political and judicial control over
2:23:41
Speaker 6: colonial affairs was in operation. At one time the British
2:23:45
Speaker 6: governors in the colonies were ordered not to approve any
2:23:47
Speaker 6: colonial law imposing a duty on European goods imported in
2:23:51
Speaker 6: English vessels. Again, when North Carolina laid attacks on pedlars,
2:23:56
Speaker 6: the Council objected to it as restrictive upon the trade
2:23:59
Speaker 6: and dispersion of English manufactures throughout the continent. At other times,
2:24:04
Speaker 6: Indian trade was regulated in the interests of the whole Empire,
2:24:07
Speaker 6: or grants of land by a colonial legislature were set aside.
2:24:11
Speaker 6: Virginia was forbidden to close reports to North Carolina lest
2:24:15
Speaker 6: there should be retaliation. In short, foreign and intercolonial trade
2:24:19
Speaker 6: were subjected to a control higher than that of the colony,
2:24:23
Speaker 6: foreshadowing a day when the Constitution of the United States
2:24:26
Speaker 6: was to commit to Congress the power to regulate interstate
2:24:29
Speaker 6: and foreign commerce and commerce with the Indians a superior
2:24:33
Speaker 6: judicial power towering above that of the colonies, as a
2:24:36
Speaker 6: Supreme Court at Washington now towers above. The States kept
2:24:39
Speaker 6: the colonial legislatures within the meets and bounds of established law.
2:24:44
Speaker 6: In the thousands of appeals, memorials, petitions, and complaints, and
2:24:48
Speaker 6: the rulings and decisions upon them were written. The real
2:24:51
Speaker 6: history of British imperial control over the American colonies. So
2:24:55
Speaker 6: great was the business before the lords of trade that
2:24:57
Speaker 6: the colonies had to keep skilled agents in Las London
2:25:00
Speaker 6: to protect their interests. As common grievances against the operation
2:25:04
Speaker 6: of this machinery of control arose, there appeared in each
2:25:08
Speaker 6: colony a considerable body of men, with the merchants and
2:25:11
Speaker 6: the lead, who chafed at the restraints imposed on their enterprise.
2:25:16
Speaker 6: Only a powerful blow was needed to weld those bodies
2:25:19
Speaker 6: into a common mass, nourishing the spirit of colonial nationalism.
2:25:23
Speaker 6: When to the repeated minor irritations were added general and
2:25:26
Speaker 6: sweeping measures of Parliament applying to every colony. The rebound
2:25:31
Speaker 6: came in the Revolution parliamentary control over colonial affairs. As
2:25:36
Speaker 6: soon as Parliament gained in power at the expense of
2:25:38
Speaker 6: the king, it reached out to bring the American colonies
2:25:41
Speaker 6: under its sway as well. Between the execution of Charles
2:25:45
Speaker 6: the First and the accession of George the Third there
2:25:48
Speaker 6: was enacted an immense body of legislation regulating the shipping,
2:25:52
Speaker 6: trade and manufactures of America, all of it based on
2:25:55
Speaker 6: the mrcantile theory then prevalent in all countries of Europe
2:25:59
Speaker 6: was designed to control the overseas plantations in such a
2:26:02
Speaker 6: way as to foster the commercial and business interests of
2:26:06
Speaker 6: the mother country, where merchants and men of finance had
2:26:09
Speaker 6: got the upper hand. According to this theory, the colonies
2:26:13
Speaker 6: of the British Empire should be confined to agriculture and
2:26:16
Speaker 6: the production of raw materials, and forced to buy their
2:26:19
Speaker 6: manufactured goods of England. The Navigation Acts in the first rank.
2:26:25
Speaker 6: Among these measures of British colonial policy must be placed
2:26:28
Speaker 6: the Navigation Laws, framed for the purpose of building up
2:26:31
Speaker 6: the British merchant, marine and navy arms so essential in
2:26:34
Speaker 6: defending the colonies against the Spanish, Dutch and French. The
2:26:38
Speaker 6: beginning of this type of legislation was made in sixteen
2:26:41
Speaker 6: fifty one, and it was worked out into a system
2:26:44
Speaker 6: early in the reign of Charles the second sixteen sixty
2:26:48
Speaker 6: to eighty five. The Navigation Acts in effect gave a
2:26:51
Speaker 6: monopoly of colonial commerce to British ships. No trade could
2:26:56
Speaker 6: be carried on between Great Britain and her Dominions, save
2:26:59
Speaker 6: in vessels built and manned by British subjects. No European
2:27:03
Speaker 6: goods could be brought to America, save in the ships
2:27:06
Speaker 6: of the country that produced them, or in English ships.
2:27:10
Speaker 6: These laws, which were almost fatal to Dutch shipping in America,
2:27:14
Speaker 6: fell with severity upon the colonists, compelling them to pay
2:27:18
Speaker 6: higher freight rates. The adverse effect, however, was short lived,
2:27:22
Speaker 6: for the measures stimulated shipbuilding in the colonies, where the
2:27:26
Speaker 6: abundance of raw materials gave the master builders of America
2:27:29
Speaker 6: an advantage over those of the mother country. Thus, the colonists,
2:27:33
Speaker 6: in the end profited from the restrictive policy written into
2:27:37
Speaker 6: the Navigation Acts. The Acts against Manufacturers, the second group
2:27:43
Speaker 6: of laws, was deliberately aimed to prevent colonial industries from
2:27:47
Speaker 6: competing too sharply with those of England. Among the earliest
2:27:51
Speaker 6: of these measures may be counted the Woolen Act of
2:27:53
Speaker 6: sixteen ninety nine, forbidding the exportation of woolen goods from
2:27:57
Speaker 6: the colonies and even the woolen trade between towns and colonies.
2:28:02
Speaker 6: When Parliament learned, as the result of an inquiry that
2:28:05
Speaker 6: New England and New York were making thousands of hats
2:28:08
Speaker 6: a year and sending large numbers annually to the southern
2:28:11
Speaker 6: colonies and to Ireland, Spain and Portugal. It enacted in
2:28:15
Speaker 6: seventeen thirty two a law declaring that no hats or
2:28:19
Speaker 6: felts dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished should be put
2:28:23
Speaker 6: upon any vessel, or laden upon any horse or cart,
2:28:26
Speaker 6: with intent to export to any place whatever. The effect
2:28:31
Speaker 6: of this measure upon the hat industry was almost ruinous.
2:28:34
Speaker 6: A few years later, a similar blow was given to
2:28:37
Speaker 6: the iron industry by an Act of seventeen fifty. Pig
2:28:41
Speaker 6: and bar iron from the colonies were given free entry
2:28:44
Speaker 6: to England to encourage the production of the raw material,
2:28:47
Speaker 6: but at the same time the law provided that no
2:28:50
Speaker 6: mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron,
2:28:53
Speaker 6: no plating forged to work with a tilt hammer, and
2:28:56
Speaker 6: no furnace for making steel should be built in the colonies.
2:29:00
Speaker 6: As for those already built, they were declared public nuisances
2:29:04
Speaker 6: and ordered clothed. Thus, three important economic interests of the colonies,
2:29:09
Speaker 6: the woolen, hat and iron industries, were laid under the
2:29:13
Speaker 6: ban the trade laws. The third group of restrictive measures
2:29:18
Speaker 6: passed by the British Parliament related to the sale of
2:29:21
Speaker 6: colonial produce. An Act of sixteen sixty three required the
2:29:25
Speaker 6: colonies to export certain articles to Great Britain or to
2:29:29
Speaker 6: her dominions alone, while sugar, tobacco and ginger consigned from
2:29:33
Speaker 6: the continent of Europe had to pass through a British port,
2:29:36
Speaker 6: paying custom duties and through a British merchant's hands, paying
2:29:40
Speaker 6: the usual commission. At first, tobacco was the only one
2:29:44
Speaker 6: of the enumerated articles which seriously concerned the American colonies,
2:29:48
Speaker 6: the rest coming mainly from the British West Indies. In
2:29:51
Speaker 6: the course of time, however, other commodities were added to
2:29:55
Speaker 6: the list of enumerated articles, until by seventeen sixty four
2:29:59
Speaker 6: it is embraced rice, naval stores, copper, furs, hides, iron lumber,
2:30:06
Speaker 6: and pearl ashes. This was not all. The colonies were
2:30:10
Speaker 6: compelled to bring their European purchases back through English ports,
2:30:14
Speaker 6: paying duties to the government and commissions to merchants. Again,
2:30:19
Speaker 6: the Molasses Act not content with laws enacted in the
2:30:23
Speaker 6: interest of English merchants and manufacturers, Parliament sought to protect
2:30:27
Speaker 6: the British West Indies against competition from their French and
2:30:30
Speaker 6: Dutch neighbors. New England merchants had long carried on a
2:30:34
Speaker 6: lucrative trade with the French islands in the West Indies
2:30:37
Speaker 6: and Dutch Guiana, where sugar and molasses could be obtained
2:30:41
Speaker 6: in large quantities at low prices. Acting on the protests
2:30:45
Speaker 6: of English planners in the Barbados and Jamaica Parliament in
2:30:49
Speaker 6: seventeen thirty three passed the famous Molasses Act, imposing duties
2:30:53
Speaker 6: on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from foreign countries,
2:30:57
Speaker 6: rates which would have destroyed the American tree made with
2:31:00
Speaker 6: the French and Dutch if the law had been enforced.
2:31:03
Speaker 6: The duties, however, were not collected. The molasses and sugar
2:31:07
Speaker 6: trade with the foreigners went on merrily smuggling, taking the
2:31:11
Speaker 6: place of lawful trade. Effects of the laws in America,
2:31:15
Speaker 6: as compared with the strict monopoly of her colonial trade
2:31:19
Speaker 6: which Spain consistently sought to maintain, the policy of England
2:31:23
Speaker 6: was both moderate and liberal. Furthermore, the restrictive laws were
2:31:27
Speaker 6: supplemented by many measures intended to be favorable to colonial prosperity.
2:31:33
Speaker 6: The Navigation Acts, for example, redounded to the advantage of
2:31:37
Speaker 6: American shipbuilders and the producers of hemp, tar, lumber, and
2:31:40
Speaker 6: ship stores. In general, favors in British ports were granted
2:31:44
Speaker 6: to colonial producers as against foreign competitors, and in some
2:31:48
Speaker 6: instances bounties were paid by England to encourage colonial enterprise.
2:31:53
Speaker 6: Taken all in all, there is much justification in the
2:31:56
Speaker 6: argument advanced by some modern scholars to the effect that
2:32:00
Speaker 6: the colonists gained more than they lost by British trade
2:32:03
Speaker 6: and industrial legislation. Certainly, after the establishment of independence, when
2:32:09
Speaker 6: free from these old restrictions, the Americans found themselves handicapped
2:32:14
Speaker 6: by being treated as foreigners rather than favored traders, and
2:32:17
Speaker 6: the recipients of bounties in English markets. Be that as
2:32:21
Speaker 6: it may, it appears that the colonists felt little irritation
2:32:24
Speaker 6: against the mother country on account of the trade and
2:32:27
Speaker 6: navigation laws enacted previous to the close of the French
2:32:30
Speaker 6: and Indian War. Relatively few were engaged in the hat
2:32:34
Speaker 6: and iron industries as compared with those in farming and planning,
2:32:38
Speaker 6: so that England's policy of restricting America to agriculture did
2:32:41
Speaker 6: not conflict with the interests of the majority of the inhabitants.
2:32:45
Speaker 6: The woolen industry was largely in the hands of women
2:32:48
Speaker 6: and carried on in connection with their domestic duties, so
2:32:51
Speaker 6: that it was not the sole support of any considerable
2:32:54
Speaker 6: number of people. As a matter of fact. Moreover, the
2:32:57
Speaker 6: restrictive laws, especially those related to trade, were not rigidly enforced.
2:33:02
Speaker 6: Cargoes of tobacco were boldly sent to continental ports without
2:33:06
Speaker 6: even so much as a bow to the English government,
2:33:08
Speaker 6: to which duties should have been paid. Sugar and molasses
2:33:12
Speaker 6: from the French and Dutch colonies were shipped into New
2:33:15
Speaker 6: England in spite of the law. Royal officers sometimes protested
2:33:19
Speaker 6: against smuggling, and sometimes connived at it, but at no
2:33:23
Speaker 6: time did they succeed in stopping it. Taken all in all,
2:33:27
Speaker 6: very little was heard of the galling restraints of trade
2:33:30
Speaker 6: until after the French War, when the British government subtly
2:33:33
Speaker 6: entered upon a new course. End of section twelve.
2:33:44
Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
2:33:47
Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
2:33:51
Speaker 1: visit lbrivox dot org. The History of the United States
2:33:57
Speaker 1: by Charles A. Beard and Mary Riderbeard, Part one, the
2:34:00
Speaker 1: Colonial Period, Chapter thirteen. Summary of the Colonial Period, read
2:34:06
Speaker 1: by M. L. Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio, May two thousand seven.
2:34:11
Speaker 1: In the period between the landing of the English at Jamestown,
2:34:14
Speaker 1: Virginia in sixteen o seven and the close of the
2:34:17
Speaker 1: French and Indian War in seventeen sixty three, a period
2:34:21
Speaker 1: of a century and a half, a new nation was
2:34:24
Speaker 1: being prepared on this continent to take its place among
2:34:27
Speaker 1: the powers of the earth. It was an epoch of migration.
2:34:30
Speaker 1: Western Europe contributed emigrants of many races and nationalities. The
2:34:35
Speaker 1: English led the way. Next to them in numerical importance
2:34:38
Speaker 1: were the Scotch, Irish and the Germans. Into the melting
2:34:42
Speaker 1: pot were also cast Dutch, Swedes, French, Jews, Welsh and Irish.
2:34:48
Speaker 1: Thousands of Negroes were brought from Africa to till southern
2:34:51
Speaker 1: fields or labor as domestic servants in the North. Why
2:34:56
Speaker 1: did they come The reasons of various Some of them,
2:35:01
Speaker 1: the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England, the French, Huguenots, Scots,
2:35:05
Speaker 1: Irish and Irish, and the Catholics of Maryland fled from
2:35:08
Speaker 1: intolerant governments that denied them the right to worship God
2:35:11
Speaker 1: according to the dictates of their consciences. Thousands came to
2:35:16
Speaker 1: escape the bondage of poverty in the Old World and
2:35:19
Speaker 1: to find free homes in America. Thousands, like the negroes
2:35:23
Speaker 1: from Africa, were dragged here against their will. The law
2:35:28
Speaker 1: of adventure appealed to the restless, and the lore of
2:35:30
Speaker 1: profits to the enterprising merchants. How did they come? In
2:35:37
Speaker 1: some cases, religious brotherhoods banded together and borrowed or furnished
2:35:41
Speaker 1: the funds necessary to pay the way. In other cases,
2:35:45
Speaker 1: great trading companies were organized to found colonies. Again, it
2:35:49
Speaker 1: was the wealthy proprietor, like Lord Baltimore or William Penn,
2:35:53
Speaker 1: who undertook to plant settlements. Many immigrants were able to
2:35:58
Speaker 1: pay their own way across the sea. Others bound themselves
2:36:01
Speaker 1: out for a term of years in exchange for the
2:36:03
Speaker 1: cost of passage. Negroes were brought on account of the
2:36:07
Speaker 1: profits derived from their sell as slaves. Whatever the motive
2:36:12
Speaker 1: for their coming, however, they managed to get across the sea.
2:36:16
Speaker 1: The immigrants set to work with a will. They cut
2:36:18
Speaker 1: down forests, built houses and laid out fields. They founded churches,
2:36:23
Speaker 1: schools and colleges. They set up forges and workshops. They
2:36:27
Speaker 1: spun and wove, They fashioned ships and sailed the seas.
2:36:31
Speaker 1: They bartered and traded here and there on favorable harbors.
2:36:35
Speaker 1: They established centers of Commerce, Boston's Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
2:36:42
Speaker 1: and Charlestown. As soon as a firm foothold was secured
2:36:46
Speaker 1: on the shore line, they pressed westward, until by the
2:36:49
Speaker 1: close of the colonial period they were already on the
2:36:52
Speaker 1: crest of the Alleghenies. Though they were widely scattered along
2:36:57
Speaker 1: a thousand miles of sea coast, Callonnists were united in
2:37:01
Speaker 1: spirit by many common ties. The major portion of them
2:37:04
Speaker 1: were Protestants. The language, the law, and the literature of
2:37:09
Speaker 1: England furnished the basis of national unity. Most of the
2:37:13
Speaker 1: colonists were engaged in the same hard task, that of
2:37:17
Speaker 1: conquering a wilderness. To ties of kinship and language were
2:37:21
Speaker 1: added ties created by necessity. They had to unite in defense,
2:37:25
Speaker 1: first against the Indians and later against the French. They
2:37:30
Speaker 1: were all subjects of the same sovereign, the King of England.
2:37:35
Speaker 1: The English Parliament made laws for them, and the English
2:37:37
Speaker 1: government supervised their local affairs, their trade, and their manufactures.
2:37:43
Speaker 1: Common forces assailed them, common grievances vexed them, common hopes
2:37:49
Speaker 1: inspired them. Many of the things which tended to unite
2:37:55
Speaker 1: them likewise tended to throw them into opposition. To the
2:37:58
Speaker 1: British Crown in Parliament. Most of them were freeholders, that
2:38:03
Speaker 1: as farmers who owned their own land and tilled it
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Speaker 1: with their own hands. A free soil nourished the spirit
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Speaker 1: of freedom. The majority of them were dissenters, critics, not
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Speaker 1: friends of the Church of England, that staunch defender of
2:38:17
Speaker 1: the British monarchy. Each colony, in time developed its own legislature,
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Speaker 1: elected by the voters. It grew accustomed to making laws
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Speaker 1: and laying taxes for itself. Here was a people learning
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Speaker 1: self reliance and self government. The attempts to strengthen the
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Speaker 1: Church of England in America and a transformation of colonies
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Speaker 1: into royal provinces only fanned the spirit of independence which
2:38:41
Speaker 1: they were designed to quin. Nevertheless, the Americans owed much
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Speaker 1: of their prosperity to the assistance of the government that
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Speaker 1: irritated them. It was the protection of the British navy
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Speaker 1: that prevented Holland, Spain and France from wiping out their settlements.
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Speaker 1: Though their manufacture and trade were controlled in the interests
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Speaker 1: of the mother country, they also enjoyed great advantages in
2:39:05
Speaker 1: her markets. Free trade existed nowhere upon the earth, but
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Speaker 1: the broad Empire of Britain was open to American ships
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Speaker 1: and merchandise. It could be said with good reason that
2:39:17
Speaker 1: the disadvantages which the colonists suffered through British regulation of
2:39:21
Speaker 1: their industry and trade were more than offset by the
2:39:24
Speaker 1: privileges they enjoyed. Still, that is somewhat beside the point,
2:39:30
Speaker 1: for mere economic advantage is not necessarily the determining factor
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Speaker 1: in the fate of peoples. A thousand circumstances has helped
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Speaker 1: developed on this continent a nation, to inspire it with
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Speaker 1: a passion for independence, and to prepare it for a
2:39:45
Speaker 1: destiny greater than that of a prosperous dominion of the
2:39:48
Speaker 1: British Empire. The economists who tried to prove, by logic
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Speaker 1: unassailable that America would be richer under the British flag
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Speaker 1: could not change the spirit of Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams,
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Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, or George Washington references G. L. Beer, Origin
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Speaker 1: of the British Colonial System and the Old Colonial System. A. Bradley,
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Speaker 1: The Fight for Canada and North America. C. M. Andrews
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Speaker 1: Colonial Sealth, Government, Prence's American Nation Series. H. Edgerton's Short
2:40:29
Speaker 1: History of British colonial policy. F Parkman, France and England
2:40:34
Speaker 1: North America. Prence The's twelve volumes, Arthwait's France and America parentheses,
2:40:42
Speaker 1: American Nation Series, Jay Windsor, The Mississippi Valley and Cardier
2:40:48
Speaker 1: to Frontenac. Questions, How would you define nationalism? Two? Can
2:40:57
Speaker 1: you give any illustrations of the way that war promotes nationalism? Three?
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Speaker 1: Why was it impossible to establish and maintain a uniform
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Speaker 1: policy in dealing with the Indians? Four? What was the
2:41:14
Speaker 1: outcome of the final clash with the French?
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Speaker 3: Five?
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Speaker 1: Enumerate the five chief results of the wars with the
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Speaker 1: French and the Indians. Discuss each in detail. Six. Explain
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Speaker 1: why it was that the character of the English king
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Speaker 1: mattered to the colonists. Seven. Contrast England under the Stewards
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Speaker 1: with England under the Hanaverians. Eight. Explain how the English Crown,
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Speaker 1: courts and Parliament controlled the colonies. Nine Name the three
2:41:55
Speaker 1: important classes of English legislation affecting the colonies. Explain each.
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Speaker 1: Ten do you think the English legislation was beneficial or
2:42:07
Speaker 1: injurious to the colonies? Why? Research topics Rise of French
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Speaker 1: power in North America Special reference Francis Parkman Struggle for
2:42:21
Speaker 1: a Continent. Two The French and Indian Wars Special reference
2:42:27
Speaker 1: w N Sloan French War in the Revolution, chapters six
2:42:32
Speaker 1: through nine. Parkman Mountcommon Wolf Volume two, pages one ninety
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Speaker 1: five to two ninety nine. Elson History of the United States,
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Speaker 1: pages one seventy one to one ninety six. Three English
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Speaker 1: Navigation Acts, MacDonald Documentary source Book, pages fifty five seventy
2:42:50
Speaker 1: two seventy eight ninety one oh three. Coleman Industrial History,
2:42:54
Speaker 1: pages seventy nine to eighty five. Four British Colonial Policy Calendar,
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Speaker 1: Economic History of the United States, pages one o two
2:43:03
Speaker 1: to one oh eight. Five. The New England Confederation analyzed
2:43:10
Speaker 1: the document in MacDonald Sourcebook, page forty five. Special reference
2:43:15
Speaker 1: Fisk Beginnings of New England pages one forty one ninety eight.
2:43:21
Speaker 1: Six The Administration of Andros Fisk Beginnings, pages two forty
2:43:27
Speaker 1: two to two seventy eight, and seven. Biographical studies. William
2:43:33
Speaker 1: Pitt and Sir Robert Walpole consult Green Short History of
2:43:38
Speaker 1: England on their policies using the index. End of US
2:43:46
Speaker 1: History by Charles and Mary Beard, Section thirteen. Summary of
2:43:53
Speaker 1: the Colonial period
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Speaker 5: Y