Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  James quickly responded that such notions must be discouraged. As he told Andros in January 1676, an assembly “would be of dangerous consequence, nothing being more known than the aptness of such bodies to assume to themselves many privileges which prove destructive to … the peace of the government.” The colonists had been guaranteed their rights and property under the laws. If they had a grievance they could appeal to him through the courts. However, he confided to Andros that he would be “ready to consider of any proposals you shall send to that purpose,” thereby suggesting that he was less inflexible on the matter than is commonly supposed.3

  Andros also had problems when the burghers of New York refused to take an oath of allegiance. Believing that firmness was the best policy, he eventually imprisoned seven of the resistance leaders, including Nicholas Bayard, forcing them to forfeit one-third of their estates. In this situation there could be no question of having any Dutch in positions of authority. But from 1677 Andros gradually relaxed his stance, admitting several leading merchants to the council, most notable among them Frederick Philipse and Stephanus Van Cortlandt. The first signs of integration among the elite were beginning to take place.

  A related concern for Andros was the high cost of maintaining security in a colony where Native Americans controlled most of the territory. In 1665 New York's settler population was only about 5,000. The population of the Iroquois League alone was at least twice as high, thanks to their success in replacing losses through the adoption of captives taken in wars. Moreover, the Indians' relations with the English were becoming dangerously unstable. The Iroquois had lost a vital ally and trading partner with the departure of the Dutch at the same time as their own supply of furs was being depleted, and they had already engaged in a seemingly endless series of wars with other tribes to seize their furs and drive them out of the trade. The Iroquois had destroyed the Hurons in the 1640s, the Erie, Petun, and Neutral nations in the 1650s, and the Ottawas in the early 1660s. The native inhabitants of the Ohio Valley were fleeing Iroquois attacks, some (like the Shawnees) migrating east even as others migrated to the western Great Lakes. New wars were now erupting between the Iroquois and Abenaki peoples on the northern borders of New England, as well as with the Susquehannock and Mahican peoples on the western borders of Virginia and Maryland. The Iroquois were determined to establish their political and diplomatic dominance throughout the region. However the Iroquois at this point lacked a stable European ally and trading partner. In order to obtain the necessary supplies of guns and other trade goods, many of the western Iroquois had begun to pursue trading relationships and potentially an alliance with the French.

  Andros was committed to winning the members of the Iroquois League over to the side of New York instead of New France. Accordingly, at his instigation, English and various pro-English Iroquois leaders began during the early 1670s to negotiate a series of alliances that became known as the Covenant Chain of Friendship. New York agreed to supply the Iroquois with arms and other trade goods on favorable terms. Meanwhile Andros brokered treaties between the Iroquois, the Mahicans, and the Susquehannocks so as to stabilize New York's borders. Susquehannock refugees were invited to resettle within New York's boundaries, where they were to be protected by the Iroquois in exchange for their allegiance.

  The English appear to have understood the Covenant Chain as an acknowledgment by the Iroquois of their subordination to the English, and a guarantee that the Iroquois would provide military assistance against the French and their Indian allies. For Andros, such a guarantee was highly desirable since the Crown had never been willing (or able) to provide an army to protect the colonies from attacks by hostile Indians or by the French. Andros expected the Iroquois to provide the colony with its main line of defense.

  Members of the Iroquois League, on the other hand, seem to have understood the Covenant Chain differently. First, the Covenant Chain was actually a series of agreements between the English and numerous other Native American tribes and kinship groups south and west of New York. In each of these agreements the Iroquois would enjoy a privileged position as the representative of the other Indians. These agreements allowed the Iroquois to claim that they had established dominance over these other peoples, who were now their tributaries. Second, the Iroquois as a group never saw the Covenant Chain as an exclusive partnership with the English. The Iroquois League was not a unified nation, like a European nation-state, but rather a confederacy with a decentralized decision-making structure. A significant faction within the confederacy continued to support an alliance with the French. In fact a number of Iroquois, mostly Mohawks, had already converted to Catholicism and begun to move to New France. The village of Kahnawake, established in 1676 as a reserve for Catholic Iroquois continued to attract new immigrants at a steady pace. By 1700 it had some 800 inhabitants.

  However, the English guarantee of military assistance for the time being had boosted the prestige of the pro-English faction with the majority of the Iroquois. Pro-English leaders could now promise their people greater success in war and greater prosperity from the fur trade. The English would provide them with a considerably more reliable supply of the consumer goods they had come to covet, the trade goods that would enhance their political prestige, and the new guns and supplies they needed for campaigns against their enemies. Over the next few decades the alliance with the English produced more wars, not fewer, as Iroquois warriors proceeded to invade the Illinois country and attack other groups on the western borders of South Carolina. However, the favored targets were tribes to the west of the English colonies, so the English did not see these wars as their concern.

  A final piece of Andros's program to consolidate control over New York was his attempt to increase revenue, using the traditional Stuart devices of arbitrary taxation and the sale of monopolies. In particular, the decision in 1678 that all overseas trade must pass through New York City effectively gave its merchants a stranglehold on the colony's trade, for which they paid handsomely. The agreement also helped facilitate the collection of customs by eliminating Southampton and Southold on Long Island as ports of entry. Andros's alliance with the city merchants was further consolidated two years later when he gave them a monopoly over the milling of flour for export.

  These monopolies and trading privileges were immensely unpopular in the colony as a whole. The Long Island towns were especially bitter at the loss of their customs privileges, which threatened their trade with New England. Equally hurt were the merchants of Albany, who had previously enjoyed a significant share of the flour trade. Although they retained their monopoly of the fur trade, they were clearly disadvantaged by the need to channel everything through their rivals. The discontent quickly boiled over in 1680 when Andros neglected to renew the customs duties while on a visit to England. Many merchants not only refused to pay the levies but also took William Dyer, the collector, to court. A grand jury demanded that James place the province “upon equal ground with our fellow Bretheren and subjects of the realm of England,” by which it meant the granting of an assembly.

  These disturbances finally led James to the conclusion that the colonists were themselves perhaps best qualified to extract money. He therefore resolved to make a fresh start. First he appointed a new governor, Thomas Dongan, to replace the unpopular Andros. Then he decreed an assembly and gave its deputies full “liberty to consult and debate among themselves all matters” for the drafting of “laws for the good government of the said colony.” Public revenues were to be levied in the duke's name, however, and Dongan was privately told to raise sufficient revenue to make further meetings of the assembly unnecessary.

  The first assembly in the history of New York met in October 1683. A majority of the deputies were from the Dutch towns, but the English deputies from Long Island took the lead, being more familiar with such institutions. They began by drafting a charter of liberties or frame of government similar to that of Connecticut. The supreme legislative authority under the proprietor was to lie with
the governor, council, and “the people in general assembly,” who were to meet at least once every three years “according to the usage, custom and practice of the realm of England.” All freeholders or freemen were to have the vote. New York City was to return four deputies, and the other counties two each, except Schenectady, which was to have one. Members were to have all the privileges of a parliament: freedom from arrest, free speech, and the right to adjourn. Together with the governor and council, the deputies were to impose all taxes.

  What followed effectively constituted a bill of rights for New York's inhabitants, based mainly, though not entirely, on English precedents. Trial was to be by jury, due process of the law was to be observed, and punishment was to fit the crime. In accordance with an act of 1679, no soldiers were to be quartered on any settlers against their will except in wartime, and martial law was to be restricted to the military. Lands were to be an “estate of inheritance, not chattel or personal” which could be seized on some technical fault, and they were to be free of feudal dues as in England. The charter also addressed the question of religion. All peaceably behaved Christians were guaranteed freedom of conscience, though they still had to support a minister chosen by a majority of the local inhabitants. Widows were to be protected and women with property were to have the right to affirm in open court that it was their wish to sell.

  Unlike other fundamental orders in America, which had been designed to protect the position of a dominant group, this document sought to consolidate the loyalties of all of its diverse groups by establishing the rights of all settlers. The document has a modern ring to it, being comparable to the 1776 Virginia Bill of Rights, which was similarly designed for a society which was no longer homogeneous.4 The action of the assembly was more than Dongan or James had anticipated, but it was not specifically against the ducal instructions. Dongan had in any case secured a substantial revenue as the sine qua non for convening the assembly. Consequently, he accepted its measures pending approval from England.

  New York, like Virginia in 1619, at last seemed set on a course towards political stability and economic success. The population and resources of the colony were growing slowly but steadily. By 1685 the number of colonists had risen to 15,000. Of these, 3,000 were in New York City, 1,500 in Albany, and 6,000 on Long Island, where Southampton was the largest settlement with 700 people. Yet despite this continuing growth, integration of the two main ethnic groups had made little progress. Albany and Esopus remained almost exclusively Dutch, while Long Island was divided between five Dutch and 12 English settlements. Only in New York City did the two nations come close together, and even there assimilation was limited.

  4 The Carolinas: Early Settlement

  Although trade was the main reason for the conquest of New York, it was not the only motivation for colonial ventures after 1660. Land, too, was increasingly important. Although Lord Baltimore's venture giving him the personal right to govern the colony of Maryland had not increased his fortunes dramatically, feudal land grants like his still seemed to have much to offer. As has been mentioned, the noble families of England were anxious to enlarge their estates, and North American colonies seemed to promise a way for them to do so. The Crown itself had few objections to proprietary grants such as the grant Charles I had given to Baltimore, for Charles II had no definite policy regarding the internal administration of the colonies. As long as a venture was successful, the Crown stood to benefit. And proprietary grants allowed the king to pay off financial obligations which he had incurred in exile.

  Interest in the area south of Virginia had been growing for some time. Indeed, settlers had already begun moving from Virginia into the area around Albemarle Sound, though settlement further south had so far been inhibited by the threat of Spanish retaliation and the presence of numerous Indian nations. England's capture of Jamaica in 1655 indicated that Spanish power was on the decline; the local Indians, however, remained a concern. Many of the Native Americans in the area were descended from members of the Mississippian cultures, who by the seventeenth century had reorganized themselves into smaller political units. The peoples here included members of the Muskogean-speaking Yamasee and Creek nations, the Iroquoian-speaking Cherokees, and the Siouan-speaking Catawbas. All were relatively numerous, lived in well-defined territories, and were powerful enough to have prevented the English from colonizing the region, had they chosen to do so. However, traders and settlers from Virginia had begun to discover that the Indians were more apt to trade with Europeans than to fight with them, so there was increasing optimism that a colony here could be successful.

  The chief promoter of English colonization at this time was a Barbadian planter, Sir John Colleton. Barbados, like other West Indian islands, was by 1660 experiencing a crisis, all of its land being either exhausted or claimed. Sugar was an expensive crop to grow, and its production was becoming concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few, which left an increasingly discontented mass of poor planters or younger sons no longer able to compete. An opportunity to settle elsewhere was thus likely to be well received. Colleton was on good terms with Sir William Berkeley of Virginia, his brother John Lord Berkeley, and an ambitious young politician, Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had once owned a plantation in Barbados. Lacking sufficient resources to launch a new colony, the four men entered an arrangement with four of the most powerful figures in the kingdom: Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, the king's chief minister; George Monck, duke of Albemarle, whose march from Coldstream had made possible Charles II's restoration; and the earl of Craven and Sir George Carteret, two prominent friends of the duke of York. Together, the eight men agreed to approach the king for a palatinate grant, like Lord Baltimore's grant in Maryland.

  Map 7 The early Carolinas.

  The king's grant, issued on March 24, 1663, gave the eight proprietors lands extending from Luck Island on the thirty-sixth parallel to the St. Matthias River on the borders of Florida. They were to be “absolute Proprietors of the Country,” paying a nominal rent for lands which they could sell or lease. They could also create titles and manors, make war in defense of their territories, and declare martial law for the suppression of any rebellion. They were empowered to make all laws and raise taxes. As in Maryland, they could issue emergency decrees which would have the same force as acts of the assembly. Thus the proprietors had enormous powers to rule over the colony, though they were subject to several legal restrictions. Laws made by the proprietors or their agents could not contravene the settlers' “liberties, franchises and privileges” as Englishmen. Taxes were subject to “the advice, assent and approbation of the freemen of the said province.” And the settlers were also to be allowed liberty of conscience, provided they periodically affirmed their loyalty to the throne.

  To avoid the problems of acclimatization and the expenses of an Atlantic crossing, the proprietors planned to recruit settlers already in America, particularly from Barbados. The proprietors believed that the lack of available land in Barbados would be sufficient inducement to get the enterprise started. They expected settlers to be lured by the rich alluvial lands along the many rivers, which would, they hoped, support the cultivation of silk, vines, ginger, waxes, almonds, and olives.

  Between 1663 and 1665, Colleton and the governor of Barbados, Sir John Yeamans, organized a number of exploratory voyages, which proved sufficiently encouraging for a substantial group of Barbadians to offer themselves as colonists. But the enterprise did not last long. The newcomers disliked the demand for quitrents and found the Cape Fear region relatively infertile, so that within two years the settlement had broken up. Some colonists went on to Virginia; the rest returned to Barbados.

  Nevertheless, the proprietors, notably Cooper, now earl of Shaftesbury, determined to persist, not least because the Privy Council had announced that in future such grants would lapse unless settlement was effected within a reasonable period. Another incentive to continue was that a peace treaty had been concluded in 1667 with Spain, reducing the fears of a Spa
nish attack.5

  The proprietors put into place a system of government which reveals a great deal about their vision of an ideal society. The chief architects of this system, called the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, were Lord Shaftesbury and his secretary, John Locke. The constitutions were designed to create a society led by great landlords who, it was assumed, would promote order and stability more effectively than merchants and traders.6 The province was to be administered by a palatinate court, which could call the provincial “parliament,” prepare legislation, appoint officers, and dispose of public money. The parliament itself was to consist of the proprietors and other nobility, together with deputies representing the freeholders of every precinct. Each representative had to possess 500 acres and each voter 50, thus ensuring that laws would be made by landed gentlemen and not by social upstarts. The parliament was to sit every other November, and its first action would be to reaffirm the Fundamental Constitutions.

  Although the Church of England was to be supported from public funds, other Christian sects would be tolerated. The Indians, too, would be shown forbearance as their “idolatory, ignorance, or mistake gives us no right to expel or use them ill.” The proprietors hoped a policy of toleration would attract settlers and would simultaneously bring Indians into their society, first as peaceful trading partners and then as farmers. The Fundamental Constitutions also stipulated, however, that African slaves who converted to Christianity would not be freed, thus closing off potential legal challenges to the enslavement of Christians. The proprietors clearly anticipated that Carolina's plantations would be developed using the labor of African slaves, who by now provided the main source of labor in Barbados.