Conceived in Liberty (91 page)

The noted historian Carl Becker once raised the question about the extent to which the American Revolution was a battle for “home rule” of the colonies
vis-à-vis
England, as opposed to a battle about “who should rule at home,” within the colonies. In short, to what degree was the Revolution “internal,” and to what degree “external?” We are now able to frame a judgment about this issue for the earlier revolutions of the late seventeenth century and for their aftermath. We have seen how revolution, in the 1670s and especially after 1688, swept almost every colony in America: from Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia to Leisler’s in New York to the continuing state of revolution in the two New Jerseys. All of these revolutions may be classified as “liberal” and popular; in short, as essentially mass movements in behalf of libertarian objectives and in opposition to the tyranny, high taxes, monopolies, and restrictions imposed by the various governments. Separating the strands of “home rule” and “rule at home” is an artificial and misleading way of treating the problem. For the revolutionaries were battling against the oppressions of the state apparatus. This apparatus was certainly dominated by the “external” element, that is, the colonial governors appointed by the royal or proprietary rulers. But these governors created and then allied themselves with a “domestic” oligarchy. Through subsidies, taxes, privileges, monopolies, land grants, etc., the royal or proprietary governor and his Council
formed
an allied oligarchy, against which the people and their representatives in the lower house rebelled. The colonies, especially in New England, had been almost totally independent during most of the seventeenth century and deeply resented later English interference. But when these colonies rebelled, they did so not against England
per se,
but against the oppressions of the state, dominated by the English government. And the fact that the sudden weakening of English authority during the Glorious Revolution touched off these revolts in no sense negates this conclusion.

The liberal revolutions of the 1680s and 90s failed largely because the domestic oligarchs were propped up and reimposed by the English power. The Berkeleys and their successors, the Dudleys, the Androses, and the Hamiltons remained. But the revolutions were not a complete failure by any means. The populace was left with lower houses, Assemblies, willing
to fight continually against oligarchic oppression, and they had a great tradition of revolution to look back upon and from which to gain inspiration. By the turn of the eighteenth century the English state had come to play a much greater and more direct role in the overall sum of governmental burdens on the American colonists. For by 1696 the structure of the Navigation Acts restricting colonial trade was complete, and a royal bureaucracy, replete with customs collectors and vice admiralty courts, began to impose itself on the colonies. The increasing weight of English imperial rule began to draw the brunt of popular liberal opposition.

Hence, by the turn of the eighteenth century, the revolutions of the late seventeenth century behind, the increasingly uniform American colonies had settled down to a period of uneasy balance. It was a balance filled with inner tension and conflict, but for most of the coming century, this conflict would no longer erupt into open confrontation or result in radical change. But when the eruption eventually occurred, it was to be an explosion that would change the face of the globe.

In recommending books and references, the historian is in a happier position than his colleagues in political philosophy or the social sciences. In contrast to these other disciplines, a work of history does not lose the bulk of its value because of errors in ideology or points of view. An historical work can be extremely valuable despite great differences in basic political or even historical points of view, provided that it focuses on the right questions and that its scholarship is sound. For one thing, such a book can supply the factual data which are the vital stuff of history. The following references, then, are not in the least to be construed as endorsements of the basic points of view of the authors.

It is the increasing loss of the stuff of history, in fact, that provided much of the inspiration for the present volume. It is rare these days to find a general work on American history that retains the richness of narrative and the vital factual record. Instead, while historians have written excellent monographs on specific areas, the more comprehensive works have either been brief essays presenting the author’s point of view, or textbooks remarkable for the increasing skimpiness of their material. Perhaps college students these days are expected to know less and less actual history in their courses. The result is a series of unproven,
ad hoc
dicta by the historian; such a product fails to present the student or the reader with the factual data that support the historian’s conclusions or that allow the reader to make up his own mind about the material.

As a result of these trends, the reader interested in American history is no longer in a position to find those multivolume works so plentiful in the past, works which not only presented the author’s point of view and conclusions,
but also brought to the reader the narrative events, the stuff of history itself, that enabled the reader to find a comprehensive viewpoint backed by the data, and to make up his own mind about the American past. The present volume undertakes to begin to fill this gap.

No one can write an overall history of America in a single lifetime out of primary sources; but fortunately there are generally sufficient secondary works available in which the reader can find further references to the primary sources. The unfortunate fact remains that, despite the thousands of academic American historians in this country, there are still great gaps in historical research. When we consider, for example, that there is no modern history of such a vitally important organization as the Sons of Liberty or of the Committees of Correspondence in the American Revolution, we see how much work remains to be done.

The most useful and thorough text on colonial America is David Hawke,
The Colonial Experience
(1966). Still useful is Oliver P. Chitwood,
A History of Colonial America
(1st ed., 1931; 3rd ed., 1961). On the explorations and the European background to the American settlements, there is vitally important new material on the influence of the Spanish Empire on England and of the English attitude and policy toward the Irish on their attitudes towards the Indians, to be found in Charles Verlinden,
The Beginning of Modern Colonization
(trans. from the French, 1970), and in the work of David Beers Quinn, including
The Elizabethans and the Irish
(1966) and such journal articles as: “Henry VIII and Ireland, 1509-34,”
Irish Historical Studies
(1961); “Sir Thomas Smith (1513–1577) and the Beginnings of English Colonial Theory,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
(1945); R. Dudley Edwards and Quinn, “Sixteenth Century Ireland,”
Irish Historical Studies
(1968); Quinn, “Ireland and Sixteenth Century European Expansion,”
Historical Studies
(1958); see also Quinn,
Raleigh and the British Empire
(1949). Similar material is presented in the brilliant work of cultural history of colonial America by Howard Mumford Jones,
O Strange New World
(1964); see also Jones,
Ideas in America
(1944), and “Origins of the Colonial Idea in England,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
(1945). Also suggestive is Peter N. Carroll,
Puritanism and the Wilderness: The Intellectual Significance of the New England Frontier, 1629–1700
(1969). This material, as well as studies of early slavery and racism, has been synthesized in a notable unpublished paper by Leonard P. Liggio, “English Origins of Early American Racism,” delivered at a conference on the origins of racism at the Tuskegee Institute (1973).

Philip W. Powell,
Tree of Hate
(1971), has exploded the myth (“the Black Legend”) of the unique evil of the Spanish as compared to other European empires, a myth propagated by the English and by emigrés from Spain. Colonialism and slavery in the West Indies are explored by Carl and Roberta Bridenbaugh,
No Peace Beyond the Line: The English in the Caribbean, 1624–1690
(1972); and by Richard S. Dunn,
Sugar and Slaves
(1972).
Winthrop D. Jordan’s prize-winning
White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812
(1968) is the major history of American racism, although in the light of the above material on the Irish, it is clear that Jordan overemphasizes the importance of skin color in the development of racism. Almon W. Lauber,
Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within the Present Limits of the United States
(1913), is still the best book on the subject. Abbot Emerson Smith’s
Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607–1776
(1947) is the major work on indentured servitude in America.

Still useful on the European background is Edward P. Cheyney,
European Background of American History, 1300–1600(1904),
as are J. H. Parry,
The Age of Reconnaissance
(1963), and Wallace Notestein,
England on the Eve of Colonization, 1603–1630
(1951). Also see the newer work by Carl Bridenbaugh,
Vexed and Troubled Englishmen, 1500–1642
(1968). The literature on English Puritanism and the Civil War is enormous; perhaps the most useful for insights into the New England scene are the pro-Puritan
The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714
(1961) by Christopher Hill, and Hill’s
God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution
(1970); and the pro-Leveller book by H. N. Brailsford,
The Levellers and the English Revolution
(1961). Critical of Puritan migration to New England is James Truslow Adams,
Founding of New England
(1921). A neglected part of the story is told in William L. Sachse, “The Migration of New Englanders to England, 1640–1660,”
American Historical Review
(1948). An overall history of the migration is presented in Marcus L. Hansen,
The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860
(1940).

On the American colonies themselves, overall surveys can be found in two volumes in the always useful New American Nation Series of Harper and Row: John E. Pomfret,
Founding the American Colonies, 1583–1660
(1970), and Wesley Frank Craven,
The Colonies in Transition, 1660–1713
(1968).

On economic affairs, Richard B. Morris’s
Government and Labor in Early America
(1946) is a thorough and magisterial work. Also useful is Marcus Jernegan,
The Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America (1931).
The classic work on the vital topic of land tenure is Marshall D. Harris,
Origin of the Land Tenure System in the United States
(1953). Aaron M. Sakolski’s
The Great American Land Bubble
(1932) is lively, but needs to be used with caution; it also suffers from a Henry Georgist bias. Beverly W. Bond’s
The Quitrent System in the American Colonies
(1919) is still the definitive book on the quitrent problem.

The classic works on agriculture in the colonies are P. W. Bidwell and J. I. Falconer,
History of Agriculture in Northern United States, 1620–1860
(1925); and Lewis C. Grey,
History of Agriculture in the Southern United States
(1933), vol 1. Manufactures are covered in Victor S. Clark,
History of Manufactures in the United States
(1929), vol. 1, and Rolla M. Tryon,
Household Manufactures in the United States, 1640–1860
(1917). Carl Bridenbaugh’s
Cities in the Wilderness
(1938) and
The Colonial Craftsman
(1950) deal with special aspects of seventeenth-century society and economy. Joseph Dorfman’s
Economic Mind in American Civilization, 1606–1865
(1946), vol. 1, is indispensable for economic opinion in the colonial period. It should be supplemented by Harry E. Miller,
Banking Theories in the United States Before 1860
(1927).

The most thorough work on colonial culture is Louis B. Wright,
The Cultural Life of the American Colonies, 1607–1763
(1957), in the New American Nation Series. Bernard Bailyn’s
Education in the Forming of American Society
(1960) is already a little classic on colonial education. William W. Sweet’s
Religion in Colonial America
(1942) is a thorough survey. Rufus M. Jones’s
The Quakers in the American Colonies
(1911) is a definitive study; it should be supplemented by Sydney V. James,
A People Among Peoples
(1963).

On the earliest colonial settlements, the older multivolume histories are still useful; in particular: Charles M. Andrews,
The Colonial Period of American History
(4 vols., 1934–38), and Herbert L. Osgood,
The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
(3 vols., 1904–07). Style and narrative power are distinctive in the various works of John Fiske; in particular:
The Discovery of America
(2 vols., 1892);
The Beginnings of New England
(1889);
The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America
(2 vols., 1899);
New France and New England
(1902); and
Old Virginia and Her Neighbors
(2 vols., 1897).

On New England, Roy H. Akagi,
The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies
(1924), is a classic on town government that has not been superseded. Bernard Bailyn’s
New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century
(1955) is indispensable for the economic history of the period. Douglas E. Leach’s
Flintlock and Tomahawk
(1958) is the story of King Philip’s War. The classic work on the Dominion of New England is Viola F. Barnes,
The Dominion of New England
(1928), which may be supplemented by the broader work of Harry M. Ward,
The United Colonies of New England: 1643–1690
(1961). An excellent study on the American career of Edward Randolph is Michael Garibaldi Hall,
Edward Randolph and the American Colonies, 1676–1703
(1960). Richard S. Dunn,
Puritans and Yankees: The Winthrop Dynasty of New England, 1630–1717
(1962), masterfully interweaves the life and times of three generations of Winthrops. George L. Kittredge’s
Witchcraft in Old and New England
(1929) is the best background work on the subject.