Chapter 10 Democracy in America, 1815–1840 Norton Media Library Eric Foner.
Norton Media Library - MPSUSHistory - home Media Library Chapter 4 Eric Foner Slavery, Freedom, and...
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Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The Old Plantation, a late-
eighteenth-century
Slavery and the Empire:• Slave trade a regulated business of European merchants, African traders, American
planters
• Rising demand for sugar, tobacco, rice, coffee leads to the rapid growth of the Atlantic
Slave Trade
• Triangular Trades: In 18th century Caribbean remained commercial focus of British
empire
• Triangle trade - British manufactured goods are shipped to Africa and Colonies,
Colonial products tobacco rice and sugar brought to Europe, African slaves brought to
Colonies
• NY, Mass, RI merchants profit greatly from the shipping of slaves
• Atlantic commerce consisted primarily of slaves, crops produced by slaves, or goods
going to slave societies
• 1762 abolitionist John Woolman writes "the idea of slavery being connected with the
black color, and liberty with the white"
Triangular Trades:• In 18th century Caribbean remained commercial focus of British
empire
• Triangle trade - British manufactured goods are shipped to Africa and
Colonies, Colonial products tobacco rice and sugar brought to Europe,
African slaves brought to Colonies
• NY, Mass, RI merchants profit greatly from the shipping of slaves
• Atlantic commerce consisted primarily of slaves, crops produced by
slaves, or goods going to slave societies
• 1762 abolitionist John Woolman writes "the idea of slavery being
connected with the black color, and liberty with the white"
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.1 Atlantic Trading Routes
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.2 The Slave Trade in The Atlantic World, 1460–1770
Africa and Slave Trade:
• African rulers helped the slave trade immensely and made
great profits by playing the European nations off one another
• Few Europeans went inland from the coast instead slaves were
brought to them by African rulers and dealers
• Guns brought by Europeans only helped to further the slave
trade because in order to get guns you needed to produce slaves
• The yearly loss of tens of thousands of young men and women
in their prime greatly hurt the society and economies of West
Africa
Africa and Slave Trade:
• African rulers helped the slave trade immensely and made
great profits by playing the European nations off one another
• Few Europeans went inland from the coast instead slaves were
brought to them by African rulers and dealers
• Guns brought by Europeans only helped to further the slave
trade because in order to get guns you needed to produce slaves
• The yearly loss of tens of thousands of young men and women
in their prime greatly hurt the society and economies of West
Africa
The Middle Passage:• Called Middle passage because it is second leg of the Triangular
pattern
• Men, women, and children crammed tightly together to maximize
profits
• Chained to decks by necks and legs
• Disease spread rapidly one in five die before reaching colonies
• Only 5% headed for Colonies most were going to Brazil and West
Indies
• By 1770 1/5 of the 2.3 million people living in colonies were
Africans or their descendants
Chesapeake Slavery:
• Virginia and Maryland most closely linked colonies to Britain on the eve of the
revolution
• Supplied valuable raw material, imported large amounts of British goods,
closely linked culturally and politically
• As demand for tobacco increases so does demand for slaves
• As tobacco farming spread west so did slavery
• Nearly half of Virginias families owned at least one slave in 1770
• Tobacco planters, tobacco merchants, lawyers who defend their interests
become dominating forces of Chesapeake society and politics
Chesapeake Slavery:
• Best land taken by plantation owners making less economic opportunities for
whites
• Bottom rung of Chesapeake society - convicts, indentured servants, tenant
farmers (1/2 white households in 1770)
• Planters make laws that give them more power and restrict any chances for
freedom of slaves
• Free blacks viewed as dangerous and undesirable, unable to own guns, hire
white servants, have to pay special taxes
• 1723 Virginia revokes voting rights for land owning blacks
• Free blacks make up less the 4% of Virginia society in 1750
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyThe title page of Olaudah Equiano’s
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyA mid-eighteenth-century image of a
Woman going to church in Lima
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyAn architect’s plan for a slave ship
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyBenjamin Latrobe’s water color
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
A detail from a 1768 map of Virginia and Maryland
Illustrates a tobacco wharf.
The Rice Kingdom:• Rice production in South Carolina and Georgia
• By 1730 2/3 population of South Carolina was black
• Indigo staple crop requires large scale cultivation and slaves
• Africans who taught English how to cultivate rice which then becomes
basis of slave system
• South Carolina planters own more land and slaves then their Virginia
counterparts
• Watery Rice fields filled with malaria infested mosquitoes so planters
leave their slaves under the control of overseers and other slaves
Slavery in the North:• Small farmers dominate
• Slaves work as farm hands, in artisan shops, loading and unloading ships, as personal
servants
• Early 18th century 3/4 of urban elite own at least one slave
• Small slave population in north makes it so their is no fear of major revolt so laws in the
north are much less harsh
• New England - Slave marriages recognized by law, sever physical punishment of slaves
is prohibited, slave could go to court and testify against whites, own property and pass it
along to their children
• 30% of laborers in NY were slaves in 1746
• Urban economies that expand and contract based on the market. This leads employers
to determine they are better off with wage earners then slaves
• Wage earners can hired and fired while slaves are a long term investment
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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Slave Sale Broadside.
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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Slavery existed in the eighteenth century
in all the colonies
Becoming African American:• 300k Africans brought to mainland during 18th century came
from different cultures, spoke different languages, had different
religions
• Their bond was the experience of slavery
• Over the years they begin to identify themselves as African
Americans through music, art, folklore, language and religion
• Good conditions in the Chesapeake lead to slaves reproducing and
creating an environment for families Centered communities
• Chesapeake slaves have much interaction with whites so they
learn English and get swept up in English religion like the Great
Awakening
• On Rice plantations in SC and GA life was much more
harsh and slaves did not reproduce as much, they had
little contact with whites and created much more
African based societies (houses, names, language)
• Slaves in Charleston and Savannah who worked as
servants or skilled laborers had much more interaction
with whites and assimilated quicker in to European
culture
• Slaves in the north were much fewer and more spread
out and had more freedom then ones down South so it
took them longer to develop a distinct African American
culture
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyHenry Darnall III
Resistance to Slavery:
• Common link is experience of slavery and desire for
freedom
• Colonial newspapers filled with ads for runaway slaves
• Fugitives mostly young men who had recently arrived
• In SC & GA they try to make it to Spanish Florida
which had uninhabited swaps or to Charleston or
Savannah were they could blend in with free mulatto
population that had sprung up because of masters and
women slaves sexual liaisons
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
An advertisement seeking the return of a
run away slave from Port Royal
• First slave uprising in NYC 1712 - slaves set fire to houses then
kill first 9 whites who arrived on scene
• Some conspirators were tortured or burned alive in public to
intimidate the black community
• Battles between European empires and Indians during 1730s and
1740s opened door to slave resistance
• Crisis of 1739 - 1741 during War of Jenkins Ear (England v.
Spain) SC slaves rise up and begin marching towards Florida
were Spain had offered them exile along the way they burnt
houses, barns and killed whites. The upraising was finally put
down and lead to severe tightening of SC slave codes
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyA 1770 engraving from the Boston
An Empire of Freedom:• British Patriotism
• Despite slave economy GB prided itself on being world most advanced and
freest nation with great navy, commercial power, complex government with a
Parliament representing interests of landed aristocracy and merchant class
• Common law, common language, and (with few exceptions) common devotion
to Protestantism
• France was now seen as England's main rival and aggressions between the two
countries help lead to a greater sense of national identity against a common foe
• Symbols of British identity begin to become stronger in 18th century - songs
like "God Save the King" and international rules for cricket
• Expanding British overseas commerce was a point of great pride
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyEven though less than 5 percent of the
British population enjoyed the right to vote
The British Constitution:
• House of Commons, House of Lords, King all acted as checks on each others
power
• Freedom from over use of government power becomes and essential part of
British understanding of freedom
• View other nations of Europe as enslaved to popery, tyranny, or barbarism
• People across the empire begin to look at liberty as something that no longer
has to do with class but rather as a right of all Englishmen
• They begin to have demonstrations against what they view as abuses of power
like merchants raising the price of bread or the British governments practice of
impressments
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The Polling, by the renowned eighteenth-century
British artist William Hogarth
Republicanism and Liberal• Two Views of 18th Century freedom: Republicanism and Liberal
• Republicanism: active participation public life by economically independent citizens
• Only property owning citizens had virtue to do what is right for the public good
• This view is associated with a group called "Country Party" Whose support came from
landed gentry
• Condemn government appointees in House of Commons, rising national debt, and
growing wealth of speculators in commercial economy
• This growing sense of luxury and political manipulation they saw as a threat to liberty
• Writings such as "Cato's Letters" (1720) had little impact in England but were
devoured by Colonists who sympathized with idea of independent landowner and threat
of big government infringing upon liberty
• Second group – Liberalism
• Individual and private - John Lock leading philosopher "Two Treatises on
Government" (1680) he argues against common held view of government being set up
like a family in which power came from the top
• Instead a "Social Contract" a mutual agreement among equals - in which people
surrender part of the right to govern themselves in order to enjoy benefits of rule of
law...in which their property would be protected
• Locke's ideas of individual rights, consent of the governed, right to rebel against unjust
or oppressive government become familiar on both sides of Atlantic in 18th century
• While Locke believed in a government run by propertied white men. He defended
property rights for women and condemned slavery. He also helped right constitution of
Carolina which set up oppressive slave codes and he was an investor in Royal African
Company which had a monopoly on slave trade
• Regardless his ideas opened the door for poor, women, and even slaves to challenge
limitations on their freedom using his arguments
Republicanism and Liberal
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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The British political philosopher John Locke
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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The title page of John Locke’s
• Both republican and liberalism
ideas in 18th century overlapped
and had many compatible aspects
such as protection of property,
constitutional government,
individual rights....both spread to
America and would help to divide
the empire
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyThis anonymous engraving depicting a 1764 Pennsylvania
The Right to Vote:• America has more democratic quality then British with different voting
requirements suffering from colony to colony but property qualification is still
the linchpin
• Property requirements insured that men with an economic stake in government
determined it's policies
• Slaves, tenants, servants, wives, sons living at home all lacked a "will of their
own"
• Because of the greater distribution of property in colonies many more people
had the right to vote then in the Old World
• 50 - 80% of adult white colonial males could vote in 18th century number was
less then 5% in Britain
• Voting was primarily a white Protestant propertied male thing and excluded
women, free blacks, Indians, Catholics, and Jews
Political Cultures:• Members of colonial assemblies remained out of touch with their constituents
• Competitive elections only norm in middle colonies
• Power was with those who held appointed not elective office
• Governors and councils appointed by Crown in 9 royal colonies and by proprietors in
Pennsylvania and Maryland
• Only in RI and CT were these offices of Governor and council elected
• Laws passed by assemblies could vetoed by Governors or in London
• Property qualifications for voting much higher for holding office then for voting
example SC 50 acres to vote 500 acres to hold office
• While many people had the right to vote there was an ingrained sense among ordinary
people that wealth, education, and social prominence carried with it a right to public
office
Thomas Jefferson's first
campaign for House of
Burgesses in 1768: he
hired two people for the
job of "bringing up rum" to
the polling places
Colonial Government:• SALUTARY NEGLECT - because of events in Europe the British governments
during first half of the 18th century left the colonies alone to govern themselves
for the most part
• With weak imperial power - large landowners, merchants, and lawyers who
controlled local assemblies claimed the right and will of the people to make
local decisions
• Because assemblies controlled levying taxes that paid Governors salaries many
governors quickly learned that they had to work with the assemblies
• THE RISE OF ASSEMBLIES
• 17th century governor focal point of political authority
• 18th century elite demand that local assemblies have same power as House of
commons
POLITICS IN PUBLIC• 18th century sees widening of the "public
sphere" of people debating and discussing
political matters outside of the assemblies
• Ben Franklin founds the Junto club in 1727
weekly discussions on political and economic
matters
• Taverns and coffee houses become important for
political debates
THE COLONIAL PRESS
• Expands rapidly in 18th century
• Widespread literacy sparks demand
• By 1776 3/4 of free adult male colonist could read and write
along with 1/3 of free women
• Free circulating libraries spring up in the colonies
• 25 colonial newspapers by 1765
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The first page of the New York Weekly Journal
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
AND IT'S LIMITS
• Freedom of speech is first a belief that was only given to members of Parliament while
they were debating in parliament
• Not intended to be a universal right of an Englishman
• Governments believe freedom of the press was a dangerous idea
• Publishers or individual journalist could be prosecuted for "seditious libel" of
government officials
• Colonial newspapers fight for right of freedom of press
• Reprint selections from Cato's Letters "with out freedom of thought there can
be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty, without
freedom of speech"
THE AMERICAN
ENLIGHTENMENT
• Enlightenment thinkers believe every human institution,
authority, and tradition be judged against the bar of
reason
• Ben Franklin many pursuits establish him as the most
well known American in the world
• Thinkers believe that reason not religion should govern
human affairs (bloody religious wars of Europe in 17th
century)
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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A portrait of Benjamin Franklin in
fur hat and spectacles
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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Benjamin Franklin’s quest for self-improvement
THE GREAT AWAKENING
• Religion remains central to 18th century American life
• Sermons, bibles, theologians writings were most printed
material in the colonies
• Religious disputes gain more public attention than political
ones
• Yet religious leaders worried as economic growth soon turned
more colonists to worldly affairs
RELIGIOUS REVIVALS• Ministers worry that westward expansion, enlightenment, commercial
development, and decrease in church attendance is under ing religious
devotion
• 1730s religious revivals sweep colonies known as Great Awakening
• "religion of the heart" more personal and emotional Christianity then
former colonial religion
• Intensely emotional style of preaching
• Jonathan Edwards sermon "Sinners In The Hands Of Angry God"
• Only a "new birth" of immediately acknowledging ones sins and pleading
for divine grace could save one from hell
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Jonathan Edwards, one of the most prominent
Preachers of the Great Awakening.
• English minister George Whitefield sparks Great Awakening arrives
in America in 1739
• Preaches from Georgia to New England asks listeners to look into their
own hearts and ask the question "am I saved?" if not you must repent
your sins and surrender life to Jesus
• Revival events become the first major inter-colonial events in North
American history
• Preachers threaten established churches who publish literature
Condemning them
• CT passes laws to try and stop preachers
• Revivals bring the Emergence of new denominations - Baptist,
Methodist, Presbyterian and others
• Defend religious freedom as one which government should not restrict
through tax supported established churches
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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George Whitefield
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
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This 1740 pamphlet by Gilbert Tennent,
AWAKENINGS IMPACT• Revivals reflect existing social tension, question authority, and inspire criticism of
colonial society
• Attract men and women of modest means
• Criticize commercial society urge listeners to seek salvation not profit
• Speaking in southern backcountry to small farmers they criticized planter elite,
gambling, and lavish entertainment on the Sabbath
• Some preachers denounce slavery which importantly brought some slaves to
Christianity which is an important step in them becoming African Americans
• Newspaper wars caused by the Great Awakening help to spread circulation of
newspapers
• Give idea to common man that he has a right to make judgments act for himself
• This idea of an "independent frame of mind" had great political ramifications
IMPERIAL RIVALRIES
• Colonies of England's rivals
covered immense territories but
were thinly populated and far
weaker economically
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.3 European Empires in North America, ca. 1750
BATTLE FOR THE CONTINENT• 18th century sees the Western frothier of births north America become the focal point
of imperial rivalries
• Ohio River Valley becomes battleground of British, French, Rival Indian tribes, and
settlers and land companies
• Indians had learned that direct military confrontation with Europe meant suicide so
they turn to forming alliances and attempt to play the powers off one another
• Iroquois become masters of balance of power diplomacy
• In 1749 Virginia Government awards an immense land grant to the Ohio Company
(George Washington a member as well as the Lee family)
• At the time their were very few whites in the area so this moves threatens the Indians
and the French who bolster their presence in the region
• This beef is the beginning of the Seven Years War first to begin in the colonies and first
to have a decisive victor
THE SEVEN YEARS WAR• By 1750s British trade reaches all around the world
• Existence of global empires meant that war would stretch around globe
• What starts in the Ohio River Valley would eventually spread to Europe, Africa, and
Asia
• 21 year old George Washington is sent to persuade French to abandon a fort they were
occupying on what Virginia believed was it's land
• In 1754 GW builds Fort Necessity he loses 1/3 of his men and is forced to surrender
• Soon General Edward Braddock attempts to take Fort Duquesne (Pitt) the French and
Indians kill or wound him and 2/3 of his 3k men
• First 2 years of war is bad for British as the French capture their forts in North
America
• Both sides expelled people's from their land
The Seven Years War
• Prime Minister William Pitt (1757) takes office pours money, men, and naval
forces into the war and turns tide in favor of the British
• Pitt pays money to Austria and Prussia to hold off Spain and France in Europe
so that Britain could focus on crushing the French in North America
• America was won in Europe as French get bogged down in war and can't send
reinforcements to
• their weak colonies
• In 1760 last outpost of New France surrenders
• British also gain control of French Caribbean islands and French holdings in
India
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
What was the impact of the Seven Years’ War
on imperial and Indian–white relations?
A WORLD TRANSFORMED• Treaty of Paris 1763
• France gives Britain Canada in return for sugar islands in Caribbean
• Spain gives Britain control of Florida in return for Philippines and Cuba which
Britain had seized during the war
• France gives Spain Louisiana territory
• This ends Frances 200 year old North American empire
• Everything East of the Mississippi is now in hands of the British
• The war lead to a financial crisis in France that lasted 3 decades and helped
lead to the French Revolution
• British attempt to recoup losses of war by raising taxes on the colonies
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyA sketch of New Orleans as it appeared in 1720.
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
In this lithograph from 1816, Indians perform
a dance at Mission
PONTIAC's REBELLION • With the French gone e Indians can no longer play the rival powers off one another
• Indian's see British victory as a threat to their freedom
• Indians had fought on both sides of war but primarily the French
• French cede land that Indians thought was their own
• 1763 Indians of Ohio Valley wage war on encroachment of British settlers onto their
land
• Neolin a religious prophet told his people to reject European technology, stop taxing
with whites, stop wearing white clothes, reject alcohol, and drive invaders from their
land
• Pan Indian Identity - belief that all Indians were the same people and only through
tribal cooperation could they regain their independence
• Mixing of Indian warriors into French army helps develop this idea of Pan Indian
Identity
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The cover of a magazine published in Pennsylvania
THE PROCLAMATION LINE
• Proclamation of 1763 prohibits British settlement west of the
Appalachian Mountains and bans sale of Indian lands to
private individuals only colonial governments could make
these purchases
• British looking to avoid an all out war against the Indians
• Law outrages settlers and speculators who believed they had
won this land in the war and that it was rightfully theirs
• Colonists ignore the law (including GW)
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyMap 4.4 Eastern North America after the Peace of Paris, 1763
Give Me Liberty!: An American history, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & CompanyBenjamin Franklin produced this famous cartoon in 1754
COLONIAL IDENTITIES
• Colonist like the Indians emerge from the war with a
heightened sense of collective identity
• Greater bonds among colonies and colonists who had
little interaction before war
• Ben Franklin "join or die" cartoon
• Also brings tensions between professional British
soldiers who look down on untrained colonial militia