English-American Relationship

After 1680 England was no more the chief source of immigration. There appeared Dutch, Swedish, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German settlements. By 1690 the American population was a quarter of a million; it doubled every 25 years and in 1775 it numbered more than 2.5 million.

New England’s Boston became one of America’s greatest ports (one-third of all vessels under the British flag were built in New England). Rum and slaves were profitable commodities.

The Middle colonies gave home to Dutch, French, Danes, Swedes, English, Scots, Irish, Germans, Poles, Portuguese and Italians. Pennsylvania was the principal gateway for the Scots-Irish who hated the English.

The Southern colonies were rural settlements: Charleston, South Carolina, became the leading port and trading centre of the South. Rice and indigo were exported.

The royal control was never deep in colonies. In each colony locally-elected assemblies inhibited the governors’ power over the societies they ruled. In the mid-17^th century the English Parliament began passing navigation acts aiming to control the movement of goods in and out of the colonies. The colonists bribed the officials and evaded many of the trade regulations. Britain’s control over its colonies remained slight and shallow.

The British colonies – the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven – formed the New England Confederation in 1643. It was the European colonists’ first attempt at regional unity. In New England there was more complete self-government than anywhere else. Other colonies followed their example and set up their own political system modeled after the Plymouth one.

The Civil War (1642-1649) and Cromwell’s Protectorate in Britain made it difficult for the country to rule its colonies. The Glorious Revolution (1688-1689) led to the unification of Massachusetts and Plymouth in 1691 as the royal colony of Massachusetts Bay. By the early 18^th century the colonial legislatures held two powers similar to those held by the English Parliament: the right to vote on taxes and expenditure, and the right to initiate legislation rather than merely act on proposals of the governor. The clashes between governor and assembly showed the colonists the difference between American and English interests. In time, the centre of colonial administration shifted from London to the provincial capitals.

The Wars

In the 18^th century France and Britain fought for their positions in North America at certain intervals. In spite of some advantages Britain got from the wars, France remained powerful in America in 1754 when the Seven Years War began.

France had a strong relationship with a number of Indian tribes in Canada; it established a line of forts and trading posts in the colonies, its empire stretched from Quebec to New Orleans. The British were confined to the narrow belt of the Appalachian Mountains. The French threatened not only the British Empire but the American colonists themselves, for in holding the Mississippi Valley, France could limit their westward expansion.

An armed clash took place in 1754 at Fort Duquesne (now on this site Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is located) between a band on French regulars and Virginia militiamen under the command of 22-year-old George Washington, a Virginian planter and surveyor. His 150 Virginians held a victory over a French exploratory party.

The Board of Trade in London called a meeting of representatives from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and the New England colonies. From June 19 to July 10, the Albany Congress, as it came to be known, met with the Iroquois at Albany, New York, in order to improve relations with them and secure their loyalty to the British.

The delegated also adopted the Albany Plan of Union (union of the American colonies). The plan was written by Benjamin Franklin. He suggested the appointment of a president by the king act, a grand council of delegates chosen by the assemblies and that each colony should be represented in proportion to its financial contributions to the general treasury. This organ would have charge of defense, Indian relations, and trade and settlement of the west, as well as the power to levy taxes.

None of the colonies accepted Franklin’s plan (they didn’t want to surrender either the power of taxation or control over the development of the western lands to a central authority).

In response to the “Plan of the Union” passed by the Albany Congress, the English Board of Trade proposed a looser union, with one commander-in-chief for the English colonies and a commissioner of Indian affairs. In February 1755 General Edward Braddock, accompanied by two regiments of English troops, arrived in Virginia to assume the post of commander-in-chief of all the English forces in the American colonies. He appointed Sir William Johnson as Indian commissioner. In the Battle of Wilderness (July 9, 1755) Braddock was mortally wounded and Washington led the remains of the army to Fort Cumberland. Later Massachusetts governor William Shirley replaced Braddock.

In September 1755 Sir William Johnson rapidly erected Fort William Henry on Lake George to meet French attack. In May 1756 Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, arrived in Canada to command the French forces and destroyed some English forts. On August 9, 1757, Lieutenant Colonel George Munro surrendered the Fort William Henry only to be attacked by the Indians. He led 1400 survivors to Fort Edward.

In 1760 Cherokee Indians attacked the English Fort Prince George and the Indian hostages held in it were slain, thus breaking the peace treaty of December 1759. In a conference with the Indians at Detroit in 1761 the English policy resulted in further conflicts with the Indians. English Colonel Grant ended the series of devastating Indian raids on the western frontier settlements of the southern colonies by forcing the Cherokee Indians to seek peace.

In February 1762 the British overrun the Spanish colonial outposts of Cuba and of Manila in the Philippines.

In November 1762, in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau, Louis XV deeded to Spain all French territory west of the Mississippi River and the Isle of Orleans in Louisiana to compensate Spain for her losses at the hand of the British. France also signed a preliminary peace pact with the English at Fontainebleau.

In 1763 the Peace of Paris was signed and France relinquished all of Canada, the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi Valley to the British. England’s superior strategic position and her competent leadership put an end to a dream of a French empire in North America. Spain was given back Cuba, in return for her territory in East and West Florida.

The war with the Indians, however, continued. The British garrisons of Fort Sandusky, Fort Saint Joseph, Fort Miami, Fort Ouiatenon, Fort Venango and others were destroyed by the forces of Chief Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians. During the war General Jeffrey Amhurst suggested to spread smallpox among the Indians by means of infected blankets. To the honor of Colonel Henry Bouguet he rejected this plan.

On April 12, 1764 peace treaties with a number of rebellious Indian tribes were signed. Chief Pontiac continued his resistance for another two years, when the Indians surrendered to British forces and signed a peace treaty in 1766.

Having triumphed in the war, Britain faced a long-neglected problem – the governance of its empire. In North America British territories had more than doubled. A population that had been predominantly protestant and English included French-speaking Catholics from Quebec, and large number of partly Christianized Indians. The old colonial system could not control the situation.