Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff
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THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

century of settlement had not produced a single, homogenous society on the mainland of British North America. Instead, colonial society in 1700 was characterized by a mixture of peoples from different ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds, of peoples free and unfree. Colonials were unified neither by a common national identity, nor by a common culture. They possessed diverse interests and economic pursuits. The political fate of North America also remained in question, as the English, the French, and the Indians continued to struggle for supremacy over the continent. The developments during the half-century after 1700 intensified both social diversity and political uncertainty, resulting in an increasing incidence of violent conflict.

OVERVIEW

This chapter surveys the growing diversity of peoples, interests, and outlooks in eighteenth-century North America. It also contrasts British colonial society with the society of the parent country. The chapter introduction illustrates the most far-reaching evidence of diversity--and conflict--in eighteenth-century North America, the struggle for control of the continent waged by the French, the English, and native Indian tribes. That rivalry erupted into three major wars fought in both Europe and America between 1689 and 1748. It culminated in the Seven Years' War, a conflict discussed at greater length in Chapter 5.

Diversity of peoples and interests characterized not only the North American continent as a whole, but also the British settlements clustered along the Atlantic seaboard. Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan would have provided for greater political coherence. But the colonies rejected it, reflecting the jealous localism and social distinctiveness of eighteenth-century Americans.

Forces of Division

From the perspective of 1754, a colonial political union appeared highly improbable. The American population grew at a rapid rate from natural increase, nearly doubling every twenty-five years. The pressure of that expanding population on older towns and villages pushed settlement westward, creating communities that developed different interests and distinct cultures from those along the coast.

Eighteenth-century Americans were also deeply divided by ethnic and sectional differences. The arrival of non-English immigrants and increasingly heavy slave importations only intensified those divisions.

Most Americans on the move, both native-born and new immigrants, settled in the backcountry. Yet some swelled the populations of major colonial seaports. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston mushroomed from small villages into major centers of commerce and culture. Disorder was common in congested, polyglot seaports; but the most serious social and political conflict drew its strength from sectional controversies between east and west, contests between colonies over boundaries, and quarrels over tenancy.

Slave Societies in the Eighteenth-Century South

The plantation districts of the eighteenth-century southern coast became tense and embattled regions, too, as slave resistance became more frequent and successful. The first half of the eighteenth century was a period of massive slave importation. As more Africans arrived, the black community was both infused with a more direct exposure to West African culture and divided internally between native-born slaves and newcomers.

The differences among blacks lessened as slave importations tapered off and the black population grew through natural increase. After about 1750, the growth of a native-born population brought greater coherence to black communal and family life. A distinctively African-American culture emerged. Even so, black families remained vulnerable. Slave marriages had no legal status, and family members were often separated by the death or debts of their masters.

Enlightenment and Awakening in America

Religious divisions among eighteenth-century Americans compounded the tensions of racial, regional, and ethnic diversity. The two key events that intensified religious conflict were the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the first Great Awakening.

While the Enlightenment prompted some American elites to embrace "rational Christianity," an even larger number of Americans fell under the sway of the evangelical Christianity preached by revivalists. Evangelicals enjoyed considerable success among the many unchurched men and women of the backcountry regions south of New York. These conversions sharpened the tensions between westerners and the assemblies of those colonies, dominated as they were by Quakers and Anglicans.

Anglo-American Worlds of the Eighteenth Century

Despite these divisions in colonial society, a majority of white Americans shared a pride in their common English ancestry. The parent country set the tone for American taste and fashion, and colonials revered the British constitution as providing the world's best and freest form of government.

Still, an undercurrent of ambivalence characterized colonial attitudes toward England. While Americans who crossed the Atlantic gloried in English consumer culture, aped the fashions and manners of English aristocrats, and admired English technological and industrial advances, some recognized that the English elite had purchased progress and material benefits for the few at a high social cost. Many colonial observers expressed reservations about the extent of economic and social inequality in England and the corruption of English politics.

Toward the Seven Years' War

Even so, American criticism of England in the middle of the eighteenth century was muted both by colonials' pride in belonging to a powerful empire and the advantages that an imperial policy of "benign neglect" afforded both sides. That would not change until the end of the Seven Years' War, when both the balance of power in North America and the nature of imperial administration shifted dramatically.

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