Colonial America

by Richard Middleton, Anne Lombard

  Similar legislation was adopted by the other major towns, though Philadelphia and Charleston, with their spacious streets and house lots, were less at risk. But a serious fire in Charleston in 1740 emphasized the need for building regulations to be enforced.

  Fire was not the only hazard in the cities. Disease and epidemics were a considerable danger too, not least because of the constant influx of newcomers, the close proximity in which people lived, and the lack of sanitation. The link between these elements was not always understood, though the desirability of keeping the streets clean was recognized. Once again Boston took the lead. Following the example of Christopher Wren in London, it began the construction of sewers beneath the main thoroughfares into which householders could pour their offal and other waste material. The first sewer, completed in 1704, was the work of a private individual, Francis Thresher, but the selectmen were quick to encourage others to follow his example by the promise of compensation. New York began to build its first sewer shortly afterwards. These improvements were one reason the inhabitants of the emerging cities of British North America remained relatively healthy in comparison with their European counterparts.

  Drinking water was secured mainly from underground wells, though many citizens wisely avoided using them in summer, preferring fermented beverages instead. Some epidemics were inevitable. Boston suffered several smallpox outbreaks, and yellow fever appeared regularly in Charleston every summer, reaching as far north as New York in 1702 when 500 people perished. By 1750 the adoption of inoculation for smallpox and of quarantine procedures for other diseases substantially reduced the incidence of these particular threats.

  Linked to the need for sewers was the need to attend to the condition of the streets. As the population grew, the number of carts and coaches made these intolerable, especially in winter, when rain and snow turned them into a quagmire. Beginning in 1690 Boston once more set the tone by having its streets paved with cobblestones. This improvement was often carried out in conjunction with drainage improvements. By 1760 all the large towns had made considerable progress in this direction.

  The reason for Boston's lead in municipal improvements, apart from its being the first town to experience such problems, was its system of government. The annual election of selectmen made it more responsive. Most other towns had nonelective corporations. Charleston was most disadvantaged in this respect, having to rely on commissioners appointed by the provincial legislature, who were frequently unsympathetic to its problems.

  Private initiatives were therefore still essential to bring about urban improvements. One of the most notable of these was in public lighting. Before 1750 the only street lighting came from oil lamps provided by individuals on a random and voluntary basis. Then in 1749, a group of Philadelphia's citizens, led by the Quaker John Smith, agreed to provide lamps and pay someone to light them each evening. Their action prompted the assembly to pass an act the next year in support of this initiative. The measure was so well received that within 10 years all the major towns had adopted similar schemes, using whale oil as lighting fuel. However, such improvements rarely extended beyond the wealthier parts of a town, leaving the poorer inhabitants to do without until the following century.

  One reason for the popularity of street lighting was another urban problem, crime. Its emergence may have been the result of increased poverty in the 1730s when the first workhouses in British North America were established in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Another contribution may have been declining religious zeal among a now cosmopolitan population. In addition, the concentration of so many people undoubtedly provided temptations and opportunities which were not available in the country. With robberies and burglaries on the increase, all the townsfolk wanted better protection, especially at night. Hence, in addition to their lighting, every town made provision for increased night patrols.

  By 1760 life for the inhabitants of the five largest towns was quite different from that of the rest of the population. Most townspeople worked for a cash wage and had specialist occupations. As a result they purchased their food, clothing, and other requirements from retail shops or large markets. Everywhere the concept of the just price had been superseded by the mechanism of the marketplace. And although churchgoing remained popular, the ideal of the godly man had been replaced by that of the good citizen, someone who was concerned for the well-being of the community and its environment.

  By 1760 the major cities were sufficiently advanced to impress visitors from Europe. The Swede Peter Kalm commented on the “grandeur and perfection of Philadelphia,” while one British naval officer said of New York in 1756 that “the nobleness of the town surprised me more than the fertile appearance of the country … I had no idea of finding a place in America, consisting of near two thousand houses, elegantly built of brick …. Such is this city that very few in England can rival it.” Indeed, in their municipal developments, British North American towns were ahead of their British provincial counterparts. Civic pride and the desire for refinement were everywhere evident.

  The cities represented the cutting edge of colonial society, where fashion and ideas were most advanced. Some have argued that this was also true of politics. Although only 6 percent of the population lived in them, the towns provided the political leadership and organization that was lacking elsewhere.13

  1. Quoted in Stephanie Grauman Wolf, Urban Village: Population, Community, and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683–1800 (Princeton, 1976), 138–9.

  2. The speed of assimilation is questioned by A. G. Roeber, Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America (Baltimore, 1993); Aaron S. Fogleman, Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717–1775 (Philadelphia, 1996); and Philip Otterness, Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York (Ithaca, 2004).

  3. In 1719 the Dublin Parliament, under pressure from the more liberal Whig ministry in England, passed a limited Toleration Act allowing Presbyterians to hold religious services. At the same time it passed a Partial Indemnity Act which suspended the Test clause, allowing Presbyterians to hold public office on a grace-and-favor basis. Some of the restrictions on Irish trade with the American colonies were also relaxed in 1731 by an act of Parliament, 4 George II, c. 15. Marriages between Presbyterians were eventually legalized in 1737, though not for mixed marriages, which still had to be performed by an Anglican minister. The formal ban on office-holding was removed only in 1780, while tithes remained payable until 1870.

  4. Quoted in Michael Kammen, Colonial New York: A History (New York, 1975), 179. This view has been challenged by Sung Bok Kim, Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664–1775 (Chapel Hill, 1978).

  5. Patrick Griffin emphasizes the lack of a unified identity among the Ulster Scots in The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689–1764 (Princeton, 2001).

  6. For a discussion of Catholic emigration to America before 1776, see David N. Doyle, Ireland, Irishmen and Revolutionary America, 1760–1820 (Cork, 1981), 59–61; and Kerby A. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York, 1985), 137–49.

  7. Warren R. Hofstra argues that ethnic divisions in the backcountry were less severe than along the coast, in “Land, Ethnicity, and Community in the Opequon Settlement, Virginia, 1730–1800,” in H. Tyler Blethen and Curtis W. Wood, Jr., eds, Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish (Tuscaloosa, 1997).

  8. See Blethen and Curtis, eds, Ulster and North America.

  9. The view that the Scots-Irish were especially heroic frontier settlers owes much to Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West (New York, 1910). Roosevelt was writing at a time when exploitation of the American West was equated with progress. His attitude also reflected his own concept of manhood, typified by his formation of the Rough Riders during the war with Spain in 1898, rather th
an a historian's view. A more realistic account is to be found in James G. Leyburn, The Scots-Irish: A Social History (Chapel Hill, 1962). See also Blethen and Wood, eds, Ulster and North America; and David Colin Crass et al., eds, The Southern Colonial Backcountry: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Frontier Communities (Knoxville, 1998).

  10. Julie Ann Sweet, Negotiating for Georgia: British–Creek Relations in the Trustee Era, 1733–1752 (Athens, Ga., 2005).

  11. The plan to ban slavery was strongly supported by William Byrd II, who commented from his experience of living in Virginia: “I am sensible of many bad consequences of multiplying these Ethiopians amongst us. They blow up the pride, and ruin the Industry of our White People, who seeing a Rank of poor Creatures below them, detest work for fear it should make them look like Slaves.” Quoted in Karen Ordahl Kupperman, ed., Major Problems in American Colonial History: Documents and Essays (Lexington, Mass., 1993).

  12. See especially Joseph A. Ernst and H. Roy Merrens, “‘Camden's Turrets Pierce the Skies’: The Urban Process in the Southern Colonies during the Eighteenth Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, 30 (1973), 549–74. However, this thesis about southern backcountry towns has been challenged by Hermann Wellenreuther, “Urbanization in the Colonial South: A Critique,” William and Mary Quarterly, 31 (1974), 653–68.

  13. This theme is argued by Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1979).

  Chapter 18

  British North American Institutions of Government

  1691 The Virginian treasury comes under the control of the House of Burgesses. John Locke publishes Two Treatises of Government.

  1708 Lord Cornbury is recalled as governor of New York for maladministration.

  1718 Governor Spotswood is defeated in his appeal to the Virginia electorate.

  1719 The Massachusetts House of Representatives claims sole right to name its speaker.

  1720 An attempt is made to prevent the South Carolina assembly from adjourning without the Crown's permission. Gordon and Trenchard begin publication of Cato's Letters in London.

  1725 The Maryland assembly claims sole legislative competence against the provincial council. A Massachusetts explanatory charter gives the governor a veto over the choice of a speaker.

  1728 The Crown attempts to obtain a permanent salary for the governor of Massachusetts.

  1732 William Cosby is appointed governor of New York.

  1734 Gabriel Johnston is appointed governor of North Carolina; the Albemarle region secedes from the assembly.

  1735 The Zenger trial takes place in New York. Zenger is acquitted.

  1738 The South Carolina assembly attempts to prevent the council from amending money bills.

  1740 The Privy Council requires all bills to contain a suspending clause.

  1742 The proprietary party is defeated in an election in Pennsylvania.

  1747 Governor Wentworth refuses to extend representation for the New Hampshire assembly.

  1750 Jonathan Mayhew gives a sermon against “unlimited submission.”

  1752 The Privy Council instructs that all judicial appointments are to be at the king's pleasure. Georgia becomes a royal colony and is granted an assembly.

  1758 Virginia passes the Twopenny Act.

  1 The Royal Framework

  BY THE END of the 1720s colonial government in British North America had acquired the pattern it would retain until the Revolution. The Crown would not attempt to further centralize political control over the colonies until after the French and Indian War, instead allowing them considerable autonomy in running their own political affairs. Every province had a governor, council, and assembly elected by the freemen. However, there were significant differences between one province and another in the manner of selecting the governor and council. In the royal colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and the Carolinas, the king appointed the governor, who in turn chose the council. The only exception was Massachusetts, where the assembly selected the councillors in agreement with the governor.

  Under the proprietary system in Maryland and Pennsylvania, the proprietor chose the governor and council subject to the consent of the monarch. In the corporate colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut, on the other hand, the freemen elected not only the assembly and council but the governor, too, though the king could theoretically exercise a veto.

  Before the Glorious Revolution the colonists' political relationship with England had been confined largely to the Crown; and this situation did not change after 1689. Until 1760 Parliament was little concerned with the administration of the colonies beyond ensuring that the mercantilist framework was in place. Their internal management was still the responsibility of the king and was jealously protected as part of the royal prerogative. Most of the routine administration was performed by the Board of Trade, which answered to the Privy Council, where most major decisions about the colonies were made.

  The king's principal representative in each colony was the governor. In many respects he performed the same function as the monarch in England. He was head of the executive, approved all appointments on behalf of the king, and was responsible for the execution of the laws. He also summoned the local assemblies by the issue of writs, similarly proroguing or dismissing them in the manner of Parliament. He was in addition commander-in-chief of the local forces with responsibility for the defense of the province. On paper his powers were formidable.

  To help administer the colony, the governor had a number of officials, including a secretary, attorney general, deputy auditor, and naval officer. He also had a council, which was a cross between the Privy Council and the House of Lords, with executive, judicial, and legislative functions. This body assisted the governor in all administrative matters and was also the highest provincial court of appeal. In addition, it had legislative responsibilities, constituting an upper house for the passage of bills. The only provincial exception to this rule was Pennsylvania, which had a unicameral legislature under the charter of 1701.

  The third branch of English government was the judiciary, which was responsible for dealing with those who broke the law or were in some kind of civil dispute. In medieval times judges had been officers of the king and dismissible at his pleasure. However, since the 1701 Act of Settlement they could no longer be removed except by impeachment in the House of Commons. This granting of tenure during “good behaviour” had been instigated to ensure their independence and to check abuses by the executive branch of government.

  The colonial judiciary had not yet attained this eminence. Indeed, in many respects it was still a branch of the executive. Colonial judges did not enjoy security of tenure but could be removed “at the pleasure” of the king. The reasons for this were various. Before 1689 justice had been the responsibility of part-time members of the council, who by definition had only limited knowledge of the law. Thereafter all the colonies created separate bodies to act as a superior court of judicature, probate, and admiralty. Nevertheless, the Crown still felt that colonial judges were not sufficiently trained to be given tenure for life. Perhaps most important was the belief that the colonial judiciary, like colonial assemblies, could not enjoy the same exalted status as its counterpart in England. Mercantilist theory dictated that all colonial institutions be subordinate to the mother country, and making judges independent was incompatible with that aim.

  2 Local Government: Town Meeting and County Court

  Most colonists dealt only with the lowest strata of government. They were remote even from the provincial capital, and very few ever made the journey to the mother country.

  The structure of local government varied considerably from province to province. In New England the town was its principal element. Originally, only church members could participate, but since the end of the seventeenth century a property qualification had been instituted instead. The voters elected a wide range of officials: constables,
tax assessors, highway surveyors, and tithingmen. Most important were the selectmen, who had general responsibility for the town, determining taxes and dispensing justice for minor offenses. However, one responsibility not granted them was the distribution of town lands, which after 1692 lay with the proprietors or founding families, acting separately. Elections were annual.

  The New England provinces also had a system of county courts, consisting of a panel of justices appointed by the governor. Their main business was to act as an intermediate judicial stage between the petty misdemeanors handled by the selectmen and the major crimes involving “life, limb, banishment, or divorce” dealt with by the provincial superior court.

  The middle colonies had a more varied system of local government. New York City was governed by a mayor, aldermen, and councillors. Under Governor Dongan's charter of 1686, the aldermen and councillors were elected by the free male inhabitants. Since the posts of mayor, sheriff, recorder, and town clerk were still chosen by the governor, however, the citizens' real power was limited. Like the New England selectmen, the mayor and aldermen acted as justices of the peace.

  Most of the rest of the province was divided into counties, with a sheriff and panel of justices appointed by the governor. Some counties, like Suffolk on Long Island, also had towns structured on the New England model, in which all freeholders had the vote. In addition, the Van Rensselaer patroonship remained, though with greatly restricted legal and administrative authority. The other manors merely gave their possessors ownership of the land. Local government was exercised either by the county courts or by town officers elected by the inhabitants.