Some Attempts at Imperial Co-Operation During the Reign of Queen Anne

1927 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
W. T. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Paper Money ◽  
Fundamental Causes ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Military

Recent historical investigations tend to push the fundamental causes of the American Revolution farther and farther back into the eighteenth century. It is, therefore, passing strange that the significance of the Canadian expeditions of the first decade of that century should have been neglected. These projects played an important rôle in bringing about a friendly co-operation between the continental colonies and the mother-country; they were no unimportant part of the military and naval phases of the war of the Spanish Succession; and they raised in a pointed way the whole question of sea power. In addition, the expeditions were used as pawns by the English in the diplomatic game, which eventually culminated in the treaty of Utrecht; they showed in a clear way the entire problem of imperial defence, as well as some of the tendencies in British and French imperialism in the early eighteenth century. Furthermore, such attempts at co-operation between colonists and mother-country revealed the superlative importance attached to colonial commerce by each of them, and helped create that most vexatious question of colonial paper money. Such a joint expedition against the French in North America was not only a contest between Whigs and Tories in England, but it finally became a struggle between the two great Tory rivals of the reign of Queen Anne.

Sophistry, Security, and Socio-Political Structures in the American Revolution; or, Why Jamaica did not Rebel

1986 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. R. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
North American ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Constitutional Principle ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
Political Structures

Britain's most important American colonies did not rebel in 1776. Thirteen provinces did declare their independence; but no fewer than nineteen colonies in the western hemisphere remained loyal to the mother country. Massachusetts and Virginia may have led the American revolution, but they had never been the leading colonies of the British empire. From the imperial standpoint, the significance of any of the thirteen provinces which rebelled was pale in comparison with that of Jamaica or Barbados. In the century before 1763 the recalcitrance of these two colonies had been more notorious than that of any mainland province and had actually inspired many of the imperial policies cited as long-term grievances by North American patriots in 1774. Real Whig ideology, which some historians have seen as the key to understanding the American revolution, was equally understood by Caribbean elites who, like the continental, had often proved extremely sensitive on questions of constitutional principle. Attacks of ‘frenzied rhetoric’ broke out in Jamaica in 1766 and Barbados in 1776. But these had nothing whatsoever to do with the Stamp Act or events in North America.

scholarly journals The First American Public Utility

1928 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Great Demand ◽  
Water Power ◽  
Utility Companies ◽  
Dam Building ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

In 1711, Englishmen interested in news from North America were entertained by a representation of the efficiency displayed by Canadian beavers in dam building, engraved in the border of a “New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britain” on this continent. The map is in an atlas of Herman Moll, a prominent British cartographer of the early eighteenth century. The atlas is a recent acquisition of the Society. This particular map is in great demand by public utility companies, as the first historical reference to the production of water power in America, and copies of it, when they can be found, bring from two to three hundred dollars.

Skating in the New World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Hines
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
New World ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Recreational Activity ◽  
Figure Skaters ◽  
The World ◽  
Important Center

This chapter discusses the development of skating in the New World. There is much evidence of skating activity throughout the Colonies in the years before the American Revolution. It was a recreational activity, with racing being especially popular, but as a discipline little is known about it. Bone skates as a practical solution for travel across frozen landscapes were discovered independently in various parts of the world. French trappers who worked in eastern North America learned from the Iroquois Indians the practice of tying bones to their feet to traverse frozen rivers. Thus, in North America as in Europe and Asia, skating on bones must have existed for thousands of years. Bladed skates, however, were probably unknown in the New World before the eighteenth century, perhaps introduced by British officers stationed in Nova Scotia following its seizure from the French in 1713. By the mid-eighteenth century, skating was practiced along the East Coast whenever ice was available. Philadelphia became skating's first important center and could boast of competent figure skaters.

REFASHIONING PURITAN NEW ENGLAND: THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA,c. 1680–c. 1770

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 85-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
New England ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Success Story ◽  
British North America ◽  
Colonial New England ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTThe position of the Church of England in colonial New England has usually been seen through the lens of the ‘bishop controversy’ of the 1760s and early 1770s, where Congregational fears of the introduction of a Laudian style bishop to British North America have been viewed as one of the key factors leading to the American Revolution. By contrast, this paper explores some of the successes enjoyed by the Church of England in New England, particularly in the period from the 1730s to the early 1760s, and examines some of the reasons for the Church's growth in these years. It argues that in some respects the Church in New England was in fact becoming rather more popular, more indigenous and more integrated into New England life than both eighteenth-century Congregationalists or modern historians have wanted to believe, and that the Church was making headway both in the Puritan heartlands, and in the newer centres of population growth. Up until the early 1760s, the progress of the Church of England in New England was beginning to look like a success story rather than one with in-built failure.

Palynological Evidence of the Effects of the Deerskin Trade on Forest Fires during the Eighteenth Century in Southeastern North America

2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Thomas Foster II ◽  
Arthur D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Measurable Effect ◽  
Anthropogenic Changes ◽  
Palynological Data ◽  
Biophysical Environment ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Deerskin Trade

Three palynological cores from the coastal plain of Georgia and Alabama were analyzed for paleobotanical remains. Results show that the Indians of southeastern North America increased forest fires used in hunting as a response to the demand for deer hides during the early eighteenth century. Palynological data are consistent with known anthropogenic changes in the region. Charcoal abundance increased significantly between A.D. 1715 and 1770, which is the period of the most intensive hunting by the Indians. This study shows that forest fires from hunting had a significant and measurable effect on the evolution of the biophysical environment.

A Military History of the American Revolution, 1754–1783

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Conway
Keyword(s):  
American Revolution ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
Military History ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Dependent Relationship ◽  
Mother Country ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military

The military history of the American Revolution is more than the history of the War of Independence. The Revolution itself had important military causes. The experience of the Seven Years’ War (which started in 1754 in North America) conditioned British attitudes to the colonies after that conflict was over. From 1764, the British Parliament tried to raise taxes in America to pay for a new permanent military garrison. British politicians resisted colonial objections to parliamentary taxation at least partly because they feared that if the Americans established their right not to be taxed by Westminster, Parliament’s right to regulate colonial overseas trade would then be challenged. If the Americans broke out of the system of trade regulation, British ministers, MPs, and peers worried, then the Royal Navy would be seriously weakened. The War of Independence, which began in 1775, was not the great American triumph that most accounts suggest. The British army faced a difficult task in suppressing a rebellion three thousand miles from Britain itself. French intervention on the American side in 1778 (followed by the Spanish in 1779, and the Dutch in 1780) made the task still more difficult. In the end, the war in America was won by the French as much as by the Americans. But in the wider imperial conflict, affecting the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, West Africa, and South Asia, the British fared much better. Even in its American dimension, the outcome was less clear cut than we usually imagine. The British, the nominal losers, retained great influence in the independent United States, which in economic terms remained in an essentially dependent relationship with the former mother country.

British Military Sites from Albany to Crown Point

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Starbuck
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New York City ◽  
Native American ◽  
North America ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Hudson River ◽  
Transportation Corridor ◽  
British Military ◽  
Lake George

British forces on the frontier of eighteenth-century North America faced potent adversaries in the form of French armies and forts, often accompanied by their Native American allies. The lack of easily traversed roads could have been a logistical nightmare, but armies were able to overcome this by travelling along the waterways that formed a natural transportation corridor between Canada and New York City. Numerous British fortifications were constructed in the 1750s along Lake Champlain, Lake George, and the Hudson River north of Albany, and many of these positions were reoccupied twenty years later during the American Revolution. Strategically positioned forts were accompanied by large seasonal encampments, by specialized structures that included blockhouses and hospitals, and by battlefields where clashes occurred. Archaeologists have conducted excavations at many of these sites, seeking to understand the strategies, provisioning, and building techniques employed by British Regulars as they fought on the American landscape.

Military and Civilian Justice in Eighteenth-Century England: An Assessment

1978 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur N. Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
North America ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Military Justice ◽  
Military Institutions ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Military

Opinion in the eighteenth century varied widely on whether or not “military justice” was, in fact, justice by the civilian standards of the day. Many leading legal commentators viewed the system with disdain. Blackstone dismissed military justice in these words:Martial law which is built upon no settled principles, but is entirely arbitrary in its decisions is … in truth and reality, no law, but something indulged rather than allowed ….Another writer, arguing along similar lines, wrote: “The moment … a gentleman enters the service, he waives the Rights and Privileges he might be entitled to as an Englishman.” It was generally believed that law in the army was deemed less important than order and discipline. A man who opted for the army or was forced into service left more than his civilian clothes behind: he abandoned the legal rights under which he had been born and bred.Yet defenders of military justice were not lacking, particularly during the last half of the eighteenth century. Stephen Payne Adye, who had served as Judge Advocate in North America, wrote a treatise praising military justice; and at the end of the century, Alexander Tytler, drawing heavily on Adye's work, did the same. Other writers occasionally complimented the army on certain legal practices they viewed as superior to civilian court procedures. Still, then as now, the arguments of the advocates of the military system were largely ignored — a reflection of the deep distrust of all military institutions in Great Britain.

Indigenous Cosmologies of the Early Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Rivett
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
North American ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Human Diversity ◽  
Martha's Vineyard ◽  
Martha’S Vineyard ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Challenges to biblical linguistics made it increasingly difficult to map human diversity. Consequently, early eighteenth-century language philosophers turned to the specificity of place to integrate language and national genealogy. Edward Lhwyd designed a comprehensive study of British languages. I contrast Lhwyd and his philosophical coterie with Joseph-Francois Lafitau’s and Cotton Mather’s attempts to explain to a European audience how the peopling and languages of North America accord with Genesis. Unmoored from the need to fit indigenous words back into a Christian cosmology and somewhat detached from the broader Atlantic network of knowledge exchange, missionary and indigenous philosophers arrived at new insights into North American linguistics. Among the Wampanoag in Plymouth and Martha’s Vineyard, the Abenaki in Maine, and the Miami-Illinois, Experience Mayhew, Josiah Cotton, Sebastian Rale, Jacques Gravier, and Antoine-Robert Le Boullenger compiled massive dictionaries that in some cases remain the most lasting evidence we have of these languages.

GREECE AND ROME IN AMERICA

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
JOHN PAUL RUSSO
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Window Dressing ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

The classics appear conspicuously in the pamphlet wars of the American Revolution, though in the opinion of Bernard Bailyn (written many years ago), their presence is “window-dressing” and their influence “superficial.” They are “everywhere illustrative, not determinative, of thought” (my italics). Up the scale in influence comes Enlightenment rationalism, also “superficial” but only “at times”—that removes the foreigners, ancient and modern. Then, further up the scale are English common-law writers, “powerfully influential” though still insufficiently “determinative”; above them, a “major source,” New England Puritan thought and culture; and finally, at the top, seventeenth-century British “heroes of liberty” and the “early eighteenth-century transmitters of this tradition,” e.g. Commonwealth men, Bishop Hoadly. Who would have thought that the bishop of Winchester weighed in the balance more heavily than Plato and Aristotle? Only once in passing does Bailyn even mention Machiavelli, to whom J. G. A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and Harvey C. Mansfield would grant large prominence in the development of Revolutionary thought.

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