The Colonization Of North America Part 27

They spread into Franklin, Adams, and York counties and the later movement carried them southward into the great valleys.

The Southern Piedmont--By 1735 or earlier, the Scotch-Irish began moving into the Shenandoah Valley. Some of them remained in Maryland and the most eastern counties of what is now West Virginia, but most of them, moved into Virginia, taking up the lands west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Many went through the pa.s.ses and made their homes in the Piedmont region to the east of the Blue Ridge. The movement was greatly stimulated by the fact that several large land grants were made to various Pennsylvanians and Virginians, who encouraged the settlement of their lands. The early records of the Scotch-Irish in the southern Piedmont give us little exact data, but between 1740 and 1760 scattered settlements were made along the frontier from Virginia to Florida. In North Carolina the lands between the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers were settled. By 1750 the vanguard appeared in the western part of South Carolina, and a few years later in the upland country of Georgia.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE PIEDMONT

By the middle of the century results of great significance had come about. All the way from New England to Georgia a back country society had been formed, with characteristics in many ways distinct from that of the Tidewater settlements. A large portion of the settlers, particularly south of New York, were of non-English stock, and had brought with them diverse notions; but, under the influence of frontier environment, they had been moulded, together with the English stock, into a more or less h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.s. In the main the settlers were persons of slender means, and lived hard, frontier lives. They tilled small farms with their own hands, and indentured servitude and slave-holding were consequently unimportant. Society, on the whole, was democratic, individualistic, tolerant, and self-reliant. In spite of this h.o.m.ogeneity of the frontier, the original traits of the settlers persisted, and can still be found in the Pennsylvania "Dutch" or in the Scotch Presbyterians of the Southern Piedmont.

Being distinct in character and interests, the Piedmont and Tidewater clashed at many points, and thus arose "sectional" contests between the East and the West, a feature which has marked American development down to the present. The simple back country const.i.tuted a debtor society, in need of an expanding credit; the coast was more aristocratic and more capitalistic. The East attempted to dominate politics, legislation, and administration. The West resisted, and before the Revolution contests arose in nearly every colony. In many instances the back country won; its victories are reflected in the provisions for religious toleration and in the democratic tendencies of the new state const.i.tutions formed during and after the Revolution.

There were other important consequences from the settlement of the back country. In spite of divergent interests, there were bonds of union between the East and the Wrest. The new settlements furnished a market for eastern goods and provided commodities in exchange, and thus lessened the dependence of the coast upon Europe. Attended by Indian wars and border hostilities with French and Spanish neighbors, the westward movement had created a fighting frontier. At the same time, by bringing the international frontiers into conflict, it had prepared the way for the final struggle between France and England in America.

It was the southern Piedmont which furnished leaders for the southwestward movement in the succeeding generations. Says Turner: "Among this moving ma.s.s, as it pa.s.sed along the Valley into the Piedmont, in the middle of the eighteenth century, were Daniel Boone, John Sevier, James Robertson, and the ancestors of John C. Calhoun, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, James K. Polk, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett; while the father of Andrew Jackson came to the Piedmont at the same time from the coast. Recalling that Thomas Jefferson's home was in this frontier, at the edge of the Blue Ridge, we perceive that these names represent the militant expansive movement in American life. They foretell the settlement across the Alleghanies in Kentucky and Tennessee; the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark's transcontinental exploration; the conquest of the Gulf Plains in the War of 1812-15; the annexation of Texas; the acquisition of California and the Spanish Southwest. They represent, too, frontier democracy in its two aspects personified in Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. It was a democracy responsive to leadership, susceptible to waves of emotion, of a 'high religious voltage'--quick and direct in action."

READINGS

DEFENCE OF THE FRONTIERS

Channing, Edward, _History of the United States_, II, 341-365; d.i.c.kerson, O.M., _American Colonial Government_, 326-332; Fiske, John, _Old Virginia and her Neighbors_, II, 383-389; Greene, E.B.. _Provincial America_, 181-184, 249-262; Hamilton, P.J., _The Colonization of the South_, 291-308; Jones, C.C., _The History of Georgia_, I, 67-313; Kingsford, William, _The History of Canada_, III, 121-201: McCrady, Edward. _A History of South Carolina_, I, 531-680; Parkman, Francis, _A Half-Century of Conflict_, I, 183-271, II, 53-56; McCain, J.R., _Georgia as a Proprietary Province_.

THE GERMAN AND SWISS MIGRATION

Bernheim, G.D., _German Settlements in North and South Carolina_; Bittinger, L.F., _The Germans in Colonial Times_, 11-183; Cobb, S.H., _The Story of the Palatines_; Faust, A.B.. _The German Element in the United States_, I, 30-262; "Swiss Emigration to the American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century," in _The American Historical Review_, XXII, 21-44; Jones, C.C., _The History of Georgia_, I, 163-173. 208-214; Kuhns, O.. _The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania_, 1-192; Wayland, J.W., _The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia_.

THE SCOTCH-IRISH

Campbell, Douglas, _The Puritan in Holland, England, and America_, II, 460-485; Ford, H.J., _The Scotch-Irish in America_, 1-290; Hanna, C.A., The _Scotch-Irish_, II, 6-126; Turner, F.J., "The Old West,"' in Wis.

Hist. Soc., _Proceedings, 1908_.

CHAPTER XVIII

ENGLISH COLONIAL SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

GENERAL FEATURES

Population and settled area.--By 1760 the population of the English continental colonies was probably 1,650,000; of these the New England colonies contained about a half-million, the middle group about four hundred and fifty thousand, and south of the Mason-Dixon line there were about seven hundred thousand. Nearly half of the inhabitants were in Ma.s.sachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The bulk of the population still clung to the coastal regions, but the rivers had pointed the way to the interior; many of the valleys were occupied for a considerable distance, and the Germans and Scotch-Irish had penetrated the great valleys of the central and southern Appalachians. Practically the whole of Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had been occupied; to the northward extended three narrow lines of settlement, one along the New Hampshire and Maine coast as far as the Pen.o.bscot and extending fifty miles up the Kennebec, another reaching up the Merrimac for sixty miles into central New Hampshire, and a third following the Connecticut for fifty miles above the northern Ma.s.sachusetts line. Long Island was almost entirely settled, as was the Hudson Valley to a point a little above Albany, and the lower Mohawk Valley had been settled. New Jersey, except in the central part and a small section of the eastern coast, was occupied. Eastern Pennsylvania, the lower valley of the Susquehanna, and adjacent valleys were peopled, as was the western sh.o.r.e of Delaware Bay.

Maryland and Virginia were settled up to the mountains and had overflowed into the valleys of the Blue Ridge. In North Carolina the settlements extended back for a hundred and fifty miles or more from the coast and as far south as the valley of the Cape Fear River. In the back country of North and South Carolina and Georgia the valleys were occupied and the population had flowed over onto the eastern slopes of the Appalachians. The coast lands of South Carolina and Georgia as far as the Altamaha and the lowlands along the Pedee, Santee, and Savannah Rivers were occupied for a hundred miles from the coast.

The older settled areas were below the Fall Line. There the industrial and social life was less in a state of flux than along the ever-advancing frontier. The economic tendencies in the coast country were already fixed and showed little change until machines and transportation worked an industrial revolution early in the nineteenth century. The social life was also comparatively stable and was so to remain until the Revolutionary War.

Manufacturing and mining.--During the colonial period manufacturing made little progress, due mainly to the abundance of cheap land and English restrictions. The colonists depended mainly upon England for manufactured goods. Nevertheless, manufacturing made some headway, especially in the North, where agricultural pursuits brought less profit than in the South. The coa.r.s.er fabrics, linen, hats, and shoes were produced for the local markets. Mining was also beginning, iron mines having been developed in New England. Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and at least one copper mine was worked in New Jersey.

Ironworks were established in the neighborhood of the mines and supplied many of the local needs. In 1750 an act was pa.s.sed by parliament which allowed colonial pig-iron to be imported into England and bar-iron to enter the port of London. The manufacture of rum was an important northern industry.

NEW ENGLAND INDUSTRY

Farming.--During the colonial period the great ma.s.s of the people were engaged in agriculture. In New England, where soil and climate were less favorable than in the South, the small farm with diversified crops was the prevailing type. The supply of labor was limited and wages relatively high. Under such conditions, the farmer, his sons, and the "hired man" worked the place, and by dint of industry made a living. The New England farmer was more nearly self-sufficient that any other cla.s.s, a condition which no doubt increased his feeling of independence. The products of the farm were usually adequate for local needs but furnished practically nothing for exportation.

Lumbering and ship-building.--The New England forests continued to be a source of wealth. Lumber was produced in large quant.i.ties and ship-building was carried on extensively in the coast and river towns, the craft being of a somewhat larger type than formerly, vessels of five hundred tons burden frequently leaving the ways. The English navy and merchant marine obtained large quant.i.ties of masts and spars from New England.

The fisheries.--The importance of the fisheries increased greatly after the War of the Spanish Succession. From the Newfoundland banks were derived the chief products for foreign trade. Almost every coast town had its fishing fleet, Gloucester alone boasting nearly a hundred vessels. The cod was the most important catch, but as the century progressed whaling became a more and more important industry.

Commerce.--With the West Indies the New Englanders carried on an extensive trade, lumber, fish, and rum being exchanged for sugar, mola.s.ses, and other tropical products. Rum was also an important factor in the slave trade, which was carried on mainly by the Rhode Islanders, who exchanged the products of the distilleries for negroes on the Guinea Coast and in the West Indies. These in turn were traded to the southern colonies for tobacco, rice, indigo, and naval stores. From the profits of southern commerce and from fish, lumber, and naval stores, the New Englanders were able to purchase English textiles, hardware, gla.s.s, and other manufactured articles. The chief port was Boston which contained about twenty thousand inhabitants.

THE MIDDLE COLONIES

Intensive farming was at its best in the middle colonies, which were the great producers of provisions. Live stock, cereals, fruit, and vegetables were raised in large quant.i.ties, the animal products and grain furnishing the chief products for exportation. Lumber and furs were also important items of commerce.

New York.--An observant English traveler who visited New York in 1760, gives the following excellent description of the colony: "The province in its cultivated state affords grain of all sorts, cattle, hogs, and great variety of English fruits.... The people ... export chiefly grain, flour, pork, skins, furs, pig-iron, lumber, and staves.... They make a small quant.i.ty of cloth, some linen, hats, shoes, and other articles of wearing apparel. They make gla.s.s also, and wampum; refine sugars, which they import from the West Indies; and distil considerable quant.i.ties of rum." He also noted that the New Yorkers were engaged in ship-building.

The Indian traffic was mainly carried on through Albany. The foreign and coastwise trade was concentrated at New York, a city with a population of sixteen or seventeen thousand.

New Jersey.--New Jersey was fortunate in having an historian who has left us an excellent account of the province. Samuel Smith's history gives the following description: "Almost the whole extent of the province adjoining on the atlantick, is barrens, or nearly approaching it; yet there are scattering settlements all along the coast, the people subsisting in great part by raising cattle in the bog undrained meadows and marshes, and selling them to graziers, and cutting down the cedars.... Another means of subsistence along the coast, is the plenty of fish and oysters, these are carried to New-York and Philadelphia markets.... The lands in general, (perhaps something better than two thirds of the whole) are good, and bear wheat, barley, or anything else suitable to the climate, to perfection. As the province has very little foreign trade on bottoms of its own, the produce of all kinds for sale, goes chiefly to New-York and Philadelphia; much of it is there purchased for markets abroad; but some consumed among themselves."

Pennsylvania and Delaware.--Agriculture was the mainstay of the people of Pennsylvania and Delaware. The thrifty Quakers, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and Swedes who formed the bulk of the population, produced large quant.i.ties of grain and live-stock. The surplus was brought to Philadelphia, a well-built city of nearly twenty thousand inhabitants.

Peter Calm has left the following picture of its industrial life: "Several ships are annually built of American oak in the docks.... The town carries on a great trade both with the inhabitants of the country and to other parts of the world, especially to the West Indies, South America, and the Antilles; to England, Ireland, Portugal, and to several English colonies in North America. Yet none but English ships are allowed to come into this port. Philadelphia reaps the greatest profits from its trade to the West Indies: for thither the inhabitants ship almost every day a quant.i.ty of flour, b.u.t.ter, flesh, and other victuals, timber, plank, and the like. In return they receive either sugar, mola.s.ses, rum, indigo, mahogany, and other goods, or ready money.... They send both West India goods and their own products to England; the latter are all sorts of woods, especially walnut, and oak planks for ships; ships ready built, iron, hides, and tar.... Ready money is likewise sent over to England; from whence in return they get all sorts of goods there manufactured, viz: fine and coa.r.s.e cloth, linen, iron ware, and other wrought metals, and East India goods; for it is to be observed, that England supplies Philadelphia with almost all stuffs and manufactured goods which are wanted here. A great quant.i.ty of linseed goes annually to Ireland, together with many of the ships which are built here. Portugal gets wheat, flour, and maize which is not ground. Spain sometimes takes some corn. But all the money which is got in these several countries, must immediately be sent to England, in payment for the goods which are got from thence, and yet those sums are not sufficient to pay all the debts."

THE SOUTHERN COLONIES

The tobacco colonies.--Maryland, Virginia, and the northeastern part of North Carolina continued to be devoted largely to the raising of tobacco. Except on the frontiers the small farms had disappeared, having been, absorbed by great landholdings. Many of the plantations covered thousands of acres, but probably not more than a tenth of the land was under cultivation. The tobacco crop was extremely exhaustive to the soil, and when the land had been cropped until its productivity decreased, wheat or corn were usually planted, or it was turned into pasturage. The tangled thicket soon sprang up and in the wilderness ranged cattle and hogs. The breeding of horses was attended to with care, for horse-racing and fox-hunting were favorite diversions among the planters, but the cattle and hogs were of inferior quality. The great article of commerce was tobacco, but grain, pork, and lumber were also exported. From the Madeiras the planters received wines and from the West Indies rum, sugar, mola.s.ses, and slaves. Most of the manufactured articles came directly from England. In spite of the considerable trade, no large towns had sprung up, the plantation continuing to be the economic and social unit of the tobacco colonies.

The industries of North Carolina were more diversified than those of the other southern colonies as is shown by the following statement from Edmund Burke's _Account of the European Settlements in America_: Exported from all the ports of North Carolina in 1753:

Tar 61,528 barrels Pitch 12,055 ditto Turpentine 10,429 ditto Staves 762,330 no.

Shingles 2,500,000 no.

Lumber 2,000,647 feet Corn 61,580 bushels Peas, about 10,000 ditto Pork & Beef 3,300 barrels Tobacco, about 100 hogsheads Tanned leather about 1,000 hundred weight Deer skins, in all ways, about 30,000

Besides a very considerable quant.i.ty of wheat, rice, bread, potatoes, bees-wax, tallow, candles, bacon, hogs lard, some cotton, and a vast deal of squared timber of walnut and cedar, and hoops and headings of all sorts. Of late they raise indigo, but in what quant.i.ty I cannot determine, for it is all exported from South Carolina. They raise likewise much more tobacco than I have mentioned, but this, as it is produced on the frontiers of Virginia, so it is exported from thence.

They export too no inconsiderable quant.i.ty of beaver, rac.o.o.n, otter, fox, minx, and wild cat skins, and in every ship a good deal of live cattle, besides what they vend in Virginia.

The rice country.--The great staple of South Carolina was rice, which was grown upon the marshy lands. A limited amount was also produced in North Carolina and Georgia. The unhealthfulness of the rice fields, coupled with the large profits from the business, were factors which made negro slavery seem desirable. In 1733 the whites in South Carolina numbered about seven thousand, in 1748 about twenty-five thousand, and in 1765 about forty thousand, but this increase was due largely to the great migration to the back country. Between 1753 and 1773 it is estimated that about forty-three thousand slaves were brought into the province.

Indigo.--In 1741 or 1742 Miss Elizabeth Lucas, the daughter of the governor of Antigua, planted some indigo seed on the Lucas plantation near Charleston. From this beginning the indigo business rapidly developed. In 1747 the colony produced 134,118 pounds; in 1754 over 200,000 pounds were exported, and shortly before the Revolution over 1,000,000 pounds were shipped annually.

Commerce.--Charleston was the commercial center. Its white population was about five thousand in 1760 and it contained about an equal number of negroes. In the summer and autumn the population increased, as the planters' families stayed in the metropolis to escape the unhealthfulness of the back country. Hundreds of vessels were engaged in the South Carolina trade, the products being shipped to the northern colonies and to the West Indies, to Holland, Portugal, the Mediterranean, and England. From the profits the planters purchased the necessities and luxuries of English manufacture, the wines of Portugal and Madeira, and the rum, sugar, mola.s.ses, and slaves of the West Indies.

Georgia.--In 1760 Georgia contained about six thousand whites and thirty-five hundred negroes. Industry was diversified, as is shown by a report of Governor Wright of 1766 which says: "Our whole time and strength ... is applied in planting rice, corn, peas, and a small quant.i.ty of wheat and rye, and in making pitch, tar, and turpentine, and in making shingles and staves, and sawing lumber and scantling, and boards of every kind, and in raising stocks of cattle, mules and hogs...." In addition there was considerable fur trade, for which Augusta was the center.

LABOR SYSTEMS

Free labor.--The preponderance of agriculture and the abundance of cheap land made a continual demand for laborers. The climatic and soil conditions determined the labor system of each area. In the north the small farm was usually tilled by the owner and his sons, aided by hired help especially during harvest time. The men of a neighborhood frequently combined to do important pieces of work, such as clearing land, house-building, haying, harvesting, and corn-husking.