The Spanish Frontier in the Later Eighteenth Century.The Spanish Frontier in the Later Eighteenth Century.
The English danger.—The principal military problems of the new government were to keep the English out and to keep the Indians quiet. Already English traders were entering the tribes west of the Mississippi, ascending the Missouri and the Arkansas, and reaching the borders of Texas overland, or ascending its rivers from the Gulf of Mexico. Trade in Pawnee and Spanish horses extended to the English seaboard colonies, Governor Patrick Henry being among the purchasers of thoroughbred Spanish stock. To keep out the English, defence was concentrated on the Mississippi and efforts made to control the Indian tribes.
Eastern Texas abandoned.—On the other hand, since Louisiana belonged to Spain, the defences of eastern Texas, and the weak missions which they protected, were now withdrawn. At the same time the few settlers, some five hundred in number, who lived on the border, were evicted and taken to San Antonio. But they demurred, sent their Creole leader Gil Ybarbo to Mexico to represent them, and were allowed in 1774 to settle on the Trinity River. Five years later, taking advantage of a flood and Indian raids, and led by Ybarbo, they moved to Nacogdoches (1779), and from there scattered eastward toward their former homes.
The fur trade continued.—Louisiana was Spain's first colony previously occupied by Europeans, and in it many departures were made from her traditional system. As a means of controlling the Indians of Louisiana, Spain utilized the corps of French traders already among the tribes, instead of attempting to use the mission as a means of control, as was being done at the same time in California. A regular system of licensed traders was installed, vagabonds and unlicensed persons were driven from the tribes, presents were annually distributed, and medals ofmerit were given to friendly chiefs. St. Louis, the Arkansas post, and Natchitoches became important centers for the fur trade and for distributing presents. To St Louis tribes went to receive presents from the Illinois country, the upper Mississippi, and the upper Missouri. To remove them from English influence, tribes were induced to cross the Mississippi to settle.
De Mézières.—One of the most difficult problems which confronted Spain was the control of the Red River tribes, which had been friendly to the French but hostile to the Spaniards. It was now necessary to win them over to Spanish allegiance. This was accomplished by Athanase de Mézières, lieutenant-governor at Natchitoches. He installed French traders, drove out vagabonds, expelled English intruders, called in the hostile Red River tribes to make treaties, and himself made a series of notable tours among them. In 1770 he held a great council at the Cadodacho post, where the Cadodacho chief Tin-hi-ou-en was mediator. Two years later he made an expedition through the Asinai, Tonkawa, and Wichita tribes, reaching the upper Brazos River, and going thence to San Antonio. His excellent report first made northern Texas well known to Spanish officials.
Croix's plans for a war on the Apaches.—It was in 1776 that the northern provinces of New Spain were put under acomandante generalwith his capital at Chihuahua. The first comandante, Teodoro de Croix, arrived at the frontier in 177 7. As his first great task he set about checking Indian hostilities, particularly those of the Apaches on the Texas-Coahuila frontier. The essence of his plan was to unite the Red River and the eastern Texas tribes (the Nations of the North) andchasseursfrom Louisiana, commanded by Gálvez, with the soldiery of the Interior Provinces, commanded by Croix, in a joint war of extermination against the eastern Apaches.
Set aside by the American Revolution.—To consider the matter Croix held a council of war at San Antonio in January, 1778. The arrangement of details with the Indians was left to De Mézières. In 1778 he made a tour of the upper Red River, and in the following year again visited the Texas tribes. Spain soon afterward entered the American war, Gálvez was unable to leave Louisiana, and the conduct of the Apache War was left for the time being to Juan de Ugalde, governor of Coahuila.
Communication with Santa Fé and the Upper Missouri.—The explorations of De Mézières were soon followed by the opening of routes from Santa Fé to San Antonio, Natchitoches, and St. Louis. In this work the chief pathfinder was Pedro Vial. Just as the American Pike in his southwestern exploration (1807) was preceded by Vial and his associates, so Lewis and Clark, in their ascent of the Missouri River (1804), were anticipated by the agents of Glamorgan's fur trading and exploring company, who operated from St. Louis to the country of the Mandans (1794-1797).
Addison, Joseph,Charles the Third of Spain; Altamira y Crevea, Rafael,Historia de España, IV; Chapman, C.E.,The Founding of Spanish California, ch. IV; Danvila y Collado, Manuel,Reinado de Carlos III; Desdevises du Desert, Gaston,L'Espagne de l'Ancien Régime; Ferrer del Rio, Antonio,Historia del Reinado de Carlos III; Hume, M.A.S.,Spain: Its Greatness and Decay; Priestley, H.L.,José de Gálvez, Visitor-General of New Spain; Rousseau, François,Règne de Charles III d'Espagne, 1750-1788; Scelle, G.,La Traite Négrière aux Indes de Castille; Viollet, A.,Histoire des Bourbons d'Espagne.
Academy of Pacific Coast History,Publications, I-III; Bancroft, H.H.,History of California, I, 110-480; Chapman, C.E.,The Founding of Spanish California; Eldredge, Z.S.,The Beginnings of San Francisco, I, 31-170; Engelhardt, Fr. Zephyrin,Missions and Missionaries of California, I, 289-385; II, 3-414; Hittell, T.H.,History of California, I, 300-429; 441-452; 509-540; Norton, H.K.,Story of California, 1-103; Palou, Fr. Francisco,Relación Histórica de la Vida [de] ... Serra; Richman, I.B.,California under Spain and Mexico, 32-158.
Bolton, Herbert E.,Athanase de Mézières and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, I, 66-122; Gayarré, C.,History of Louisiana, III, 1-617; Hamilton, P.J.,The Colonization of the South, 423-445; 447-456; Houck, L.,The Spanish Régime in Missouri, I-II; Mason, E.C., "The March of the Spaniards across Illinois," inMagazine of American History, XV. 457-470; Robertson, J.A.,Louisiana under the rule of Spain. France, and the United States; Shepherd, W.R., "The Cession of Louisiana to Spain," inThe Political Science Quarterly, XIX, 439-458; Teggart, F.J., "Capture of St Joseph, Michigan, by the Spaniards in 1781," inThe Missouri Historical Review, V, 214-228; Thwaites, R.G.,France in America, 281-295.
Amherst's plan for defence.—While the Spaniards were occupying western Louisiana the British were organizing the country ceded by France and Spain east of the Mississippi, in Canada, and in the West Indies. In 1763 the Secretary of War asked General Amherst, commander-in-chief in America, for a plan of defence of the British possessions. In response he drew up a "Plan of Forts and Garrisons prepared for the security of North America" which reveals England's outlook upon her newly acquired territory. It provided for ten regiments of approximately seven hundred and fifty men each. The stated purposes were: (1) to keep the king's new subjects in Canada and Louisiana "in due subjection," (2) to keep the old provinces "in a state of Constitutional Dependence upon Great Britain," (3) to command the respect of the Indians, (4) to prevent encroachments of the French or Spaniards, (5) and to protect the colonies in case of war. The regiments were to be distributed in posts along the St. Lawrence, about the Great Lakes, in the Illinois country, along the lower Mississippi, and in Nova Scotia, South Carolina, Georgia, and the Floridas.
Purposes regarding the West.—Regarding the interior posts the particular aims expressed were to keep open the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, maintain communication between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, hold the western tribes in check, and guard against French or Spanish intrusion. A post at St. Augustine was especially desirable as a defence against Spain, and Pensacola and Mobile would command the commerce of the Gulf as well as the tribes of the Alabama Basin. The lower Mississippi posts were essential to control the Chickasaws. A post at Crown Point was not only needed to maintaina winter highway to Canada, but might also be useful to suppress disaffection in the maritime colonies, "who already begin to entertain some extraordinary Opinions, concerning their Relations to and Dependence upon the Mother Country."
The Proclamation of 1763.—In October, 1763, the king issued a proclamation creating, within the newly acquired territory, four distinct provinces, Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada, and providing a form of government for them. Quebec comprised the Valley of the St. Lawrence from the western end of Anticosti Island to the 45th parallel and Lake Nipissing. Labrador, Anticosti, and the Magdalen Islands were attached to Newfoundland. St. Johns, Cape Breton, and the lesser adjacent islands were attached to Nova Scotia.
East Florida extended to Appalachicola River, and was bounded on the north by St. Mary's River and a line from the head of that stream to the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. The district between St. Mary's and Altamaha Rivers, formerly in dispute between Spain and England, was attached to Georgia. West Florida was the district south of latitude 310 and between the Appalachicola River and the Isle of Orleans. The Island of Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent's, and Tobago were erected into the Government of Grenada.
Crown colonies created.—These new jurisdictions were made crown colonies. For each a governor was to be appointed, with power to call assemblies, "in such Manner and Form as is used and directed in the Colonies and Provinces in America which are under our immediate Government." Until such assemblies should meet, the governors, with their executive councils, were empowered to erect courts, having appeals to the privy council.
The Indian reservation.—For the time being all British possessions on the continent not included in the foregoing jurisdictions, or within the Territory of Hudson Bay, and all lands west or north of the streams flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, were reserved as crown lands for the use of the Indians. No colony might grant lands within this Indian reservation, and settlers were requested to move out. The considerable French settlements in the reserve were ignored.
Until 1755 the English government had managed its Indian affairs through the different colonies, but the results were farfrom satisfactory. In that year the government assumed political control over the Indians, creating a southern and a northern department, and appointing a superintendent for each. In 1761 the purchase of Indian lands was taken out of the hands of the colonies.
The New British Possessions, 1763-1783.The New British Possessions, 1763-1783.
Regulation of Indian trade.—The acquisition of extensive territories in 1763 called for new trade regulations. The proclamation had created an Indian reserve and opened trade to allduly licensed subjects. In the following year Lord Hillsborough drew up a general plan for the management of Indians and the fur trade. It safeguarded the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company and provided for the continuation of the two superintendents, with three deputies for the northern and two for the southern district. In the North all trade must be conducted at regularly established posts, and in the South at the Indian towns. All traders must be licensed, must trade at schedule prices, and must have no dealings with Indians except at the prescribed places. By 1768 the plan had proved too expensive, and the management of the fur trade was restored to the individual colonies.
The West Florida posts.—On August 6, 1763, Colonel Prévost took possession of Pensacola, which became the capital of West Florida. Shortly afterwards Mobile was occupied by Major Robert Farmar. The French troops there withdrew to New Orleans, as did some of the people, but most of the latter remained. Fort Tombecbé, renamed Fort York, was given a garrison of thirty men, for the express purpose of keeping the Choctaws hostile to the Chickasaws, but was abandoned in 1768. The French among the Choctaws moved across the Mississippi into Spanish territory, but continued to trade with the tribe.
The boundary and the river forts.—In 1764 the northern boundary of West Florida was moved north to 32° 28' to take in the Natchez settlements, and to make room for the land speculators who were seeking land grants on the lower Mississippi. A garrison was placed at Natchez (Fort Panmure). In connection with efforts to keep the Mississippi open and to establish navigation through the Iberville River, Fort Bute was bunt near the latter stream in 1766. These Mississippi posts were designed also to prevent French and Spanish smuggling among the Choctaws. But there was English smuggling likewise, and to stop it Spanish posts were later built on the other bank of the river. In 1769 the troops of most of the English posts were withdrawn to St. Augustine, but there was a protest at once. Pensacola drew up a memorial, and immigrants recently arrived at theMississippi demanded protection. O'Reilly had just come to New Orleans, and it was feared that he might have designs on West Florida. In 1770, therefore, most of the troops were restored, and a new garrison was established at Manchac.
Indian agents and fur magnates.—The possession of West Florida proved an important asset to Great Britain in the control of the southwestern Indians, especially during the Revolution. John Stuart, Superintendent for the Southern Department, made his headquarters at Pensacola, but Mobile was the real center of control for the whole Southwest. Subagents convened at Mobile a great congress of all the tribes and effected an alliance with them, and soon afterward the Indian lands about Mobile were ceded to the English. The military authorities encouraged inter-tribal dissensions, and the Creeks and Choctaws were frequently at war, in which the Chickasaws sometimes joined. According to the general system, the fur trade of the Southwest was opened to all traders having a government license and a proper bond. The fur magnates at Mobile were the house of Swanson and McGillivray, who by 1777 had a branch house at Fort Bute, which conducted trade with the Illinois. At Pensacola Panton, Leslie, and Company, the largest business house, became an important factor in the trade and in the management of the tribes.
Politics and government.—West Florida was accorded a governor, council, and assembly. Governor George Johnstone arrived at Pensacola in October, 1764, but the first assembly was not elected until 1766. Mobile, Pensacola, and Campbell Town were electoral precincts at first, and after 1778 Natchez and Manchac were represented. The brief political experiences of the province were as interesting as those of the older colonies in early days. The governor and assembly frequently quarreled. In 1772 Governor Chester prorogued that body and for six years got along without it. More harmful than these quarrels were the factional disputes between the civil and military officials.
Development of West Florida.—When England took possession, Pensacola consisted of some forty thatched huts and small barracks, all enclosed within a palisade, but it was rebuilt, and practically dates from British rule. Mobile remained largely French,and was reduced in size by the emigration to New Orleans. British rule gave impetus to Mobile's commerce, and by 1776 the port was paying £4000 a year to the London custom house alone.
Immigration.—Efforts were made also to secure immigrants for West Florida. In 1763 the Board of Trade put an advertisement regarding land grants in the London Gazette, and in 1764 Governor Johnstone issued a circular to attract settlers. In 1765 or 1766 a colony from North Carolina went by sea and settled about Natchez and Baton Rouge. Speculators obtained large grants of land about Natchez as early as 1767, among them being Daniel Clark, later a great figure at New Orleans. Before the Revolution numerous settlers arrived from England, the West Indies, and most of the mainland colonies, including New England. Most of them settled on the Mississippi River between Manchac and Natchez. In 1772 three hundred persons from Virginia and the Carolinas are said to have been established on the lower Mississippi, and three or four hundred families were expected that summer. As a result, the Mississippi posts were repaired and civil government established. In 1775 a considerable immigration from New England was led by General Lyman. About the same time Colonel Putnam led a company from New England to the Yazoo district. In 1777, according to the botanist Bartram, more than half of the population of Mobile were people who had come from the northern colonies and Great Britain.
During the Revolution West Florida was a refuge for Loyalists. In November, 1776, Mathew Phelps led a colony of New Englanders to the lower Mississippi. Highland soldiers defeated in North Carolina that year took refuge in the province. Loyalists from Georgia and South Carolina settled on the Tombigbee River and Mobile Bay, and others from the same colonies settled on the Tensaws Bayou.
East Florida under British rule.—In East Florida, St. Augustine became the capital and the chief military post. St. Marks on the Gulf was occupied for military purposes and the posts of Matanzas, Picolata, and Mosquito were also maintained for a time. The military of both East and West Florida were under the general command at Pensacola. James Grant was madefirst governor. In East Florida there was no assembly till 1781. Difficulties between military and civil authorities prevailed as in West Florida.
At the time of the British occupation, St. Augustine was a small Spanish town with adobe houses and narrow streets. Under British rule East Florida prospered. Harbors were improved, and highways were constructed, one being built from St. Mary's River to St. Augustine. In 1766 some forty families went from the Bermudas to Mosquito Inlet to engage in ship-building. In the following year Dr. Turnbull brought fifteen hundred indentured colonists from the Mediterranean region and settled them at New Smyrna. In 1776 the indentures were cancelled and the settlers moved to St. Augustine, where their descendants still five. During the Revolution East Florida, like West Florida, became a Mecca for southern Loyalists.
Plans to occupy the Illinois country.—By the end of 1761 British troops had taken possession of all the lake posts from Niagara to Green Bay, besides Venango, Miamis, and Ouiatanon further south. In July, 1763, orders were sent by the Governor of Louisiana for the evacuation of the Illinois posts, and boats were prepared at Fort Pitt for sending four hundred English troops to relieve the French garrisons. But the conspiracy of Pontiac delayed the complete transfer of this region for nearly three years.
The conspiracy of Pontiac.—Early in the war the tribes north of the Ohio had ravaged the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers, but after 1758 they had been quiet, although they did not like the English. They feared eviction from their lands, English traders had proved arrogant and dishonest, and General Amherst was attempting a policy of economy in presents, in spite of the criticism of the better informed Indian agents. Pontiac, head chief of the Ottawas, organized a general revolt, embracing the Algonquins, some of the tribes of the lower Mississippi, and some of the Iroquois. By a simultaneous assault in May, 1763, all but three northwestern posts—Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Niagara—fell almost without a blow. At Presq'Isle, Le Boeuf, Venango,Mackinac, Sandusky, St. Josephs, and Ouiatanon, there were massacres, and the garrison fled from Green Bay.
Failure of the Loftus expedition.—It being impracticable now to send troops to the Illinois country by way of the Ohio, this was attempted by an expedition up the Mississippi Major Loftus was sent from Mobile with three hundred and fifty men to occupy Fort Massac, Kaskaskia, and Fort Chartres. In February, 1764, he left New Orleans, but when two hundred and forty miles up the river, at Rocher à Davion, he was attacked by Tunica Indians, whereupon he abandoned the expedition and returned to Mobile.
Peace.—While Colonel Bradstreet reoccupied the Lakes, General Gage, Amherst's successor, resorted to conciliation, and a series of peace embassies were sent to the Illinois country from Mobile and from the northern garrisons. The submission of the Ohio tribes, failure of hopes for aid from New Orleans, and news of the transfer of western Louisiana to Spain, led Pontiac to negotiate at Ouiatanon in 1765 with George Croghan. At Detroit Croghan secured peace with all the western tribes. Thomas Stirling then descended the Ohio with a detachment and in October occupied Fort Chartres. "Thus, after nearly three years of fighting and negotiating, British forces were in possession of the last of the French posts in the West."
Establishment of government.—In accordance with the Treaty of Paris a proclamation of General Gage guaranteed the inhabitants the free exercise of the Catholic religion. Settlers were allowed to sell their lands and emigrate, or to become British subjects on taking the oath of allegiance. The inhabitants of Kaskaskia and other places asked and received an extension of the time for decision to March, 1766. Many of them emigrated to St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve, or to New Orleans. The Proclamation of 1763 made no provision for civil government in the Indian reserve, and local administration was left to the military authorities and Indian agents. The French people were dissatisfied, and many misunderstandings arose between them and the English settlers and officers. By 1770 the complaint took the form of a demand for civil government, which was provided in 1774 by the Quebec Act.
Western schemes.—Before the French and Indian War grants had been made by the British government of lands beyond the Alleghanies, and settlement on the back lands had been favored as a means of opposing, the French and of extending British trade. During the war the frontiers of settlement were contracted, but, in anticipation of victory, new grants were sought and new schemes proposed. Not only were lands desired, but prominent men proposed new colonial governments west of the mountains. Nearly all of the proposals involved territory in the Ohio Valley. After the Albany Congress of 1754 Franklin urged the formation of two barrier colonies in the West. In 1756 Thomas Pownall, ex-governor of New Jersey, made a similar proposal. About the same time Samuel Hazard of Philadelphia promoted the formation of a Presbyterian colony to embrace most of the Ohio Valley and extending across the Mississippi. In 1757 the Greenbrier Company secured 100,000 acres of land on the western waters.
The victory over the French stimulated new speculative and colonizing schemes for the West both in England and America. In June, 1763, the Mississippi Company was formed, composed of prominent Virginians, including Colonel George Washington and Richard Henry Lee. A memorial to the king was drawn asking for 2,500,000 acres on both sides of the lower Ohio, quit rent free for twelve years, and protection by royal forts, on condition of settling two hundred families. Late in 1763 a pamphlet published in Edinborough, Scotland, proposed a colony named Charlotiana, to include the country between the Wabash, Ohio, Mississippi, and the Great Lakes. About the same time Charles Lee proposed a colony on the Illinois and another on the Ohio.
Effect of the Proclamation.—The Proclamation of 1763 closing the Trans-Alleghany country to settlement seems to have checked for a time the schemes for speculation. The Proclamation contained an implied promise that the boundary would be revised, while it was well known that influential politicians in England favored the opening of the West. New schemes for western lands, therefore, were not long suppressed. In 1766 William Franklin, governor of New Jersey, launched a plan for twocolonies, one at Detroit, the other on the lower Ohio. Through the aid of Benjamin Franklin, father of the governor, the Ohio country was favored by the Board of Trade, but in 1768 the plan dropped from sight. Meanwhile many other land companies were formed.
A policy of expansion adopted.—The policy of the ministry regarding the West was vacillating, and more so, no doubt, because of the pressure of conflicting interests. But in 1768 the ministry decided on a definite plan for western settlement, the principle being that expansion should be gradual and under control of imperial agents, who should purchase land from the Indians as needed. Johnson and Stuart, Indian superintendents, had already made tentative arrangements for revising the proclamation line. In 1765 the Six Nations ceded their claims to lands between the Ohio and the Tennessee. Stuart, by a series of treaties, secured a line from the southern boundary of Virginia to the St. Mary's River. Florida, thence along the tidewater line to the Appalachicola River. West of that point the line was not completed, but important cessions were made along the Mobile coast. In 1768 the former lines were ratified, and Stuart, in two treaties with the Cherokees and Creeks (October, November, 1768), secured the extension of the line to the mouth of the Kanawha River on the north and to the Choctaw River on the south. At Fort Stanwix in 1768 the Iroquois ratified essentially their cession of 1765. The lines did not correspond, since the Iroquois cession included Western Tennessee and Kentucky, which were not within the other cessions. Meanwhile the southern line was modified by the treaty of Lochaber by running it west along the southern boundary of Virginia to the Holston River, thence direct to the mouth of the Kanawha. The purpose of the change was to take in the recently formed Watauga settlement.
Vandalia.—Having extinguished the Indian titles, it was now possible to found a new colony back of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and such a project was put on foot. Samuel Wharton of Philadelphia formed a company for the purpose of purchasing part of the lands. The company included some of the leading men in England and America, among them being Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Walpole. Official aid was enlisted byincluding two members of the ministry. In 1769 the purchase was made, and, in spite of Lord Hillsborough's opposition, by 1775 the project of a new and separate province named Vandalia had been approved by king and council. The outbreak of the Revolution set the plan aside. Had it been carried out it would have cut Virginia off from her back lands. The Quebec Act of 1774 operated in the same direction, by attaching the Northwest to Quebec. Virginia therefore resisted. Governor Dunmore opposed the Vandalia colony, made grants of land both within and beyond it, and joined a company which purchased Indian lands north of the Ohio.
Western settlements before 1763.—But it was the backwoodsmen, and not the corporations, who opened the Trans-Alleghany country. Before the war a few settlements had been made on the western waters, In 1748 Draper's Meadows, on the Greenbrier, in West Virginia, were settled. Between 1750 and 1752 a settlement was made by the Ohio Company at Redstone on the Monongahela. By 1758 several small settlements had been made on the Holston, Watauga, and Cheat Rivers. But during the war these western settlements were abandoned, and the frontier pushed eastward a hundred miles or more.
The westward movement after the war.—The French and Indian War was scarcely over when the westward movement began again, regardless of proclamations or the deliberations of the Board of Trade. In 1760 Daniel Boone, from the Yadkin in North Carolina, "cilled a bar" on the Watauga River. Between 1761 and 1765 Wallen annually led hunters to the west. In 1765 Croghan surveyed the Ohio River, and the next year James Smith and others explored the Tennessee. In 1767 Finley was in Kentucky, and Stoner, Harrod, and Lindsay were at French Lick (the site of Nashville). In 1767 and 1770 Boone was "prospecting" for Judge Richard Henderson, a land speculator of North Carolina. At the same time Mansker led a party down the Cumberland and on to Natchez. By this time others had wandered far beyond the Mississippi and were causing the Spanish officials anxiety.
The hunters, traders, and prospectors were followed by surveyorsand settlers. The chief participants in the movement were from the middle region and the South: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Prominent among the pioneers on the western waters were the Scotch-Irish who had settled the back country of the older colonies and stood waiting at the western passes.
The Appalachian barrier.—To reach the Mississippi Valley the frontiersman was forced to pass the Appalachian barrier, extending from Maine to Georgia. The easiest pass through it, by way of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, was impeded by the Six Nations who stood between the western frontier of settlement and the vacant lands beyond. Farther south the barrier was traversed by a series of interlocking rivers, flowing in opposite directions, whose valleys afforded trails. The Susquehannah led to the Alleghany, the Potomac to the Monongahela, the James and Roanoke to the Great Kanawha, the Great Pedee, the Yadkin, and Catawba to the head waters of the Tennessee. A series of longitudinal valleys on the eastern front of the southern Appalachians gave access from Virginia and North Carolina to the upper Tennessee, from whose valley an easy pass was found to Kentucky by way of Cumberland Gap.
The Indian barrier.—The Iroquois Confederacy, though friendly, was a retarding force to the northern stream of emigration. The Algonquin tribes north of the Ohio had been friendly with the French, and after the French and Indian War they favored the French traders rather than those from the seaboard colonies. At the southern end of the Appalachians westward expansion was retarded by the strong confederacies of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The region between the Ohio and the Tennessee was the "dark and bloody ground" between the northern and southern tribes, but permanently inhabited by neither. It was this region which was opened to settlement by the Indian cessions between 1768 and 1770. The cessions were followed immediately by a movement of settlers into the area.
The North Carolina Regulators.—The movement across the mountains was stimulated by a popular upheaval in the backcountry of North Carolina. Shortly before 1740 the Scotch-Irish and German migration reached North Carolina and by 1765 the lands along the headwaters of the Yadkin, Haw, Neuse, Tar, Catawba, and Deep Rivers had been occupied. Many English and Welsh also had settled in the same region. Between the Piedmont and the coastal plain was a sparsely settled country of pine forests. "Cut off ... from the men of the east, the men of the 'back country' felt no more sympathy for the former than they received from them." The coast country controlled the legislature and the courts. The men of the West complained that they were forced to pay excessive taxes, that the sheriffs were dishonest, and fees extortionate. An additional grievance was the scarcity of money. During 1765-1767 the frontiersmen began to organize and from 1767 to 1771 the back country was in a state of rebellion. Lawyers were seized and whipped, and the Hillsboro court was broken up. In 1771 the Regulators were defeated by Governor Tryon's troops in the battle of the Alamance and the rebellion soon subsided. During those troubled years many had sought new homes in the western valleys.
The Watauga settlement.—Permanent settlement was made in eastern Tennessee in 1769. In that year a band of pioneers moved down the valley from Virginia and settled on the Watauga River, a branch of the Tennessee, thinking that they were still in Virginia. A short time afterward they were joined by settlers from North Carolina, within whose bounds the colony proved to be. Two able leaders soon emerged. James Robertson, a backwoodsman and a "mighty hunter," went to Watauga in 1770 and took thither a colony of sixteen North Carolina families in 1771. A year later arrived John Sevier, a Virginian of Huguenot extraction. Like Robertson, he was an able Indian fighter and a leader of men.
The Watauga Association.—Finding themselves outside of Virginia and beyond the reach and protection of the North Carolina administration, the settlers, like the Pilgrim Fathers in a similar situation, reverted to the social compact—familiar to Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and to back-country North Carolinians who had "regulated" horse stealing—and formed a government for themselves. In 1772 a convention of the settlers createdan independent government called the Watauga Association. It had a written constitution, vesting the administration in an executive committee of five, two of whom were Sevier and Robertson. This committee exercised most of the powers of sovereignty, making treaties, administering justice, granting lands, and making war on the Indians. In 1776 the Watauga Association, realizing the need of help, petitioned the Council of North Carolina to extend its government over the new settlements, and in 1777 they were organized as Washington County.
The surveyors and first settlers.—Settlement had also begun in what is now Kentucky. Ahead of the settlers went the prospectors and surveyors, who descended the Ohio and the Kanawha to select and survey lands. In 1770 and 1772 George Washington explored lands in what is now northeastern Kentucky. In 1773 the McAfees led a party of surveyors down the Ohio, crossed Kentucky, and returned over the Cumberland Mountains. In the following year several parties of surveyors and land hunters were sent by Virginia officials to lay out bounty lands for soldiers. Others went without official sanction. One party was led by John Floyd from Fincastle County, Virginia, who descended the Kanawha and Ohio to the Falls, crossed Kentucky, and returned by Cumberland Gap. During his expedition he surveyed lands for George Washington, Patrick Henry, and others. Attempts at settlement had already been made. In 1773 Daniel Boone led a colony from North Carolina toward Kentucky, but was driven back by Indians. The next year Harrod, of Virginia, founded a settlement in Kentucky called Harrodsburg, but it was broken up by Indians, whose hostilities drove out all settlers and land hunters.
Indian ravages.—The border war which now occurred was the culmination of a long series of troubles between the frontiersmen of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the Indians of the Ohio Valley. The Delawares had been pushed over the Pennsylvania Mountains to the Muskingum and Tuscarawas Rivers. Among them settled the Moravian missionaries, who formed them into Christian towns and kept them peaceful when others were hostile.The Shawanee had been pushed north to the Scioto River, whence they marauded the Virginia border. Behind them were the hostile tribes who had taken part in Pontiacs War. Through 1773 an Indian uprising was threatening, and preparations were made in the westernmost settlements of Virginia. Early in 1774 many settlers fled from the Holston and Clinch Valleys. Minor outrages being committed along the Ohio, alarm, spread, and in April there was a retreat across the Monongahela, which was crossed by more than a thousand refugees in a single day.
Lord Dunmore's War.—Governor Dunmore now prepared for war, which, there is some ground for thinking, he helped to bring on as a means of strengthening Virginia's claims to the Northwest. To warn the surveyors and settlers Colonel Preston, lieutenant-sheriff and surveyor of Fincastle County, Virginia, sent Boone and Stoner through Kentucky. They went as far as the Falls of the Ohio, and saved most of the men on the frontier. The governor organized a campaign, himself leading the Virginia regulars down the Ohio, while the frontier levies were led by Colonel Andrew Lewis. They were to meet at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. When Lewis reached that point he was attacked before the arrival of Dunmore by the Indians under Chief Cornstalk, whom he defeated. Thereupon the Indians sued for peace with Dunmore, who had entered their country north of the Ohio. In the following October a treaty was made at Fort Pitt which kept the northern Indians quiet during the first two years of the Revolution and made it possible to settle Kentucky.
Henderson and Transylvania.—Harrodsburg was now refounded by Virginians (1775) who constituted the majority of the settlers. Henderson, the North Carolina land speculator, formed a land company, called the Transylvania Company. To improve his title in 1775 he made a treaty with the Overhill Cherokees paying them £10,000 for their claims to lands along and between the Cumberland and the Kentucky. Boone, with a party of thirty men, was sent ahead to clear a road for Henderson's colony from the Holston River to the Kentucky (1775). It became the famous highway known as the Wilderness Road. Henderson followed with his colony, founded Boonesborough, built a fort, and opened a land office, naming his colonyTransylvania. He attempted to set up in the wilderness a modified proprietary régime. Having established his colony, he called a convention; the delegates made laws which Henderson approved, and a compact was formed between the delegates and proprietors defining the irrespective rights. The proprietors retained control by reserving to themselves the veto power.
Transylvania absorbed by Virginia.—Henderson's procedure was regarded as illegal, and he was denounced by the governors of both Virginia and North Carolina. When the Revolution broke out the proprietors sent a delegate to the Continental Congress and appealed to that body for protection, but, largely through Virginia's influence, the delegation was rejected. The Virginia settlers in Kentucky, led by Harrod, opposed Henderson's claim to lands, appealed to Virginia, and sent George Rogers Clark to the assembly. Virginia asserted sovereignty over Kentucky, and stormy times continued till 1777, when Kentucky with her present boundaries was organized as Kentucky County, Virginia.
Westsylvania.—While Henderson was founding Transylvania another region west of the mountains was being settled and was struggling for independent statehood. Emigrants from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and other states had crossed the mountains and settled on the tributaries of the upper Ohio in what are now western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and eastern Ohio. By the middle of 1776 there were said to be 25,000 families on the tributaries of the Ohio above the Scioto River. But the land which they occupied was in dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the Indiana and Vandalia Companies, and the settlers took up the struggle, quarreling over land titles and jurisdiction. The disorders prevented effective organization against the Indians. Shortly after the Declaration of Independence the settlers memorialized Congress, asking independent statehood as a "sister colony and fourteenth province of the American confederacy," under the name of Westsylvania, whose boundaries they described, but the request was not granted.
The Cumberland settlement.—Robertson was the type of frontiersmen desirous to be ever on the move. In 1779 he prospected at French Lick, returned to Watauga, raised a colony, and in the fall led it forth. The women and children were conducted by Donelson down the Tennessee and up the Cumberland, while Robertson, guided by Mansker, led the men overland. Nashborough, now Nashville, was founded at the Cumberland Bend, and other stations were occupied along the river. In 1780 a convention formed an "Association" much like that of Watauga, but after three years of independence the district became Davidson County, North Carolina.
The French people.—At the time of the conquest the Canadian people numbered about 65,000 living in the St. Lawrence Valley, with several thousand scattered among the western posts. The settlers were in the main a frugal, industrious, unlettered, religious people. They were of two distinct classes, the gentry and the peasant tenants. After the war there was a considerable emigration to France of the official, noble, and commercial classes, leaving chiefly cultivators of the soil and fur traders. By 1775 the population had grown to perhaps 90,000, chiefly through natural increase of the French. By 1784 the population was 113,000.
The British settlers.—The conquest left in the province and attracted to it later a small body of British settlers but by 1775 they did not number more than five or six hundred. Most of them lived in the towns of Quebec and Montreal, and engaged in business, especially in the fur trade, many as agents for English houses, others being independent merchants. When Hillsborough restored seignorial tenure, many of them acquired seigniories, though they continued to live by trade.
Military rule.—British rule in Canada began with the capitulation of Montreal in September, 1760. General Amherst was made governor-general, with lieutenant-governors at Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers. From that time to the enforcement of the Proclamation of 1763 Canada was under military rule. But French law and customs were followed in the main, and there was little discontent.
Civil government established.—Civil government was established in August, 1764. The governor was assisted by an executive council composed of the lieutenant-governor, chief justice, and eight citizens. The government provided by the Proclamation of 1763 was unsuited to a population almost wholly French, professing the Catholic religion, and living under laws and customs of their own. The Proclamation provided for an assembly, but none was held in Quebec because the French people would not take the test oath, and the British settlers were too few in numbers to warrant an assembly representing them alone. Uncertainty existed regarding tithes and the future status of the Catholic Church. The Proclamation contemplated the establishment of British law, but practice was uncertain. The French inhabitants were not politically ambitious, but the British were aggressive in their demands for an assembly and the uniform establishment of English law.
The Quebec Act.—Under these circumstances a change of system was deemed necessary. It was provided by the Quebec Act of 1774, the first parliamentary legislation for Canada. The act maintained the privileges of the Catholic clergy, tithes from Catholic subjects being continued. French civil procedure was established, with some exceptions, but English criminal procedure was enforced. Provision was made for an appointive executive council with powers to make ordinances for the province, but no provision was made for a provincial assembly.
Boundaries extended.—The population of the Illinois country was similar to that of Quebec. The Frenchhabitantsthere had been demanding civil government, and it had been complained by the Montreal traders that the prosperity of Canada had been impaired by cutting off the western posts. Therefore the boundaries of Quebec were extended to include the region between the Ohio River and the Upper Mississippi. By the Proclamation of 1763 Labrador east of River St. John's, Anticosti, and the Magdalens, had been attached to Newfoundland. Labrador now began to develop commerce with the interior and the North and with Newfoundland. Opposition to the fishing admirals of Newfoundland caused these three districts to be annexed to Quebec in 1774.
Not intended as a blow at liberty.—The Quebec Act was regarded in the other colonies as a blow at popular liberties and as an encroachment upon colonies whose chartered boundaries extended into the Northwest. It was in fact an administrative act intended primarily as a means of providing for the interests of the great body of the inhabitants, the French. The attachment of the Ohio country to Quebec, however, checked the natural spread of settlement from the seaboard colonies, and the act, on the other hand, prevented the assimilation of the French people by the English in Canada.
The Loyalists in Canada.—During the American Revolution a considerable number of Loyalists crossed into Canada and settled at the border posts. Many others joined the British army against the Americans. At the close of the war some of the border counties of New York were almost depopulated. In 1783 there were in the Montreal district seventeen hundred Loyalists at seventeen posts, not counting enlisted men. Of those who migrated after the revolution the greater number at first settled in Nova Scotia. By the end of 1784 the number there exceeded 28,000 and caused the forming of the new province of New Brunswick. Over three thousand went to Cape Breton Island, and three times that number to the interior of Canada. Thirteen hundred settled at Kingston and formed the nucleus of Upper Canada, which was separated from Lower Canada in 1791. More important than this, the Revolution determined the course of Canadian history. In order not to be absorbed by the United States, Canada was forced into unswerving loyalty to the British Empire.
Supervision of the fur trade.—The fur trade of Quebec under the new régime was supervised according to the principles of the Proclamation of 1763. The most fundamental fact was that the French monopolistic system was discontinued, except at certain "King's posts" in the lower St. Lawrence Valley. The trade was open to any duly licensed subject, superintendents were established at the posts, local courts were erected in the interior, and settlement limited to the immediate neighborhood of the posts in order not to drive away the fur bearing animals.
The French traders ruined.—The conquest had destroyed the French fur trading organization. Under the mercantile system then in vogue, supplies and markets had now to be sought in England. The French merchants were ruined, and the entire trade of the Great Lake region was thrown into the hands of the British traders. The Frenchcoureurs de bois, however, remained in the country, and, in the employ of the British, continued to be the backbone of the fur gathering business in the interior.
The rush to the interior.—As early as 1761 British traders of Montreal began to enter the field left vacant by the French. Pontiac's War caused a suspension of their activities, and during it British traders were plundered and murdered. By 1765, however, there was a new rush to the interior, though it was 1771 before they could safely trade in the most remote posts on the Saskatchewan. In the meantime the Indians had learned to take their furs to the posts on Hudson Bay or down the Mississippi.
Extent of operations.—The American Revolution destroyed the western fur trade of the seaboard colonies and threw the commerce of the entire Northwest into the hands of the Quebec and Montreal traders. By the close of the war they were conducting operations on both sides of the Great Lakes, in the Illinois country, beyond the upper Mississippi, on the Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Churchill, and Athabasca Rivers, to the neighborhood of Great Slave Lake. They traded on the Assiniboine, and may have reached the Missouri by that route.
Management of the trade.—During and after the Revolution the value of the furs annually sent from Montreal and Quebec to London was probably $1,000,000. The trade centered mainly in Montreal. In London great mercantile establishments throve by the commerce. At Montreal other great houses were founded. Detroit and Michillimackinac were interior supply posts, where branch houses or lesser merchants conducted business. Wintering partners and clerks went with the fleets of batteaux into the far interior, but most of the common hands orengagéswere French and half-breedcoureurs de bois, just as in the case of the Spanish fur trade in Louisiana. The entire business was conducted on the credit system.
The fur magnates.—Many of the fur magnates were Scotchmen. Among the Montreal merchants of importance in this period were Alexander Henry, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, James Finlay, and Peter Pond. Henry was one of the earliest in the West. Finlay is said to have been among the first on the Saskatchewan River. The Frobishers were leading traders on the Saskatchewan and Churchill. Pond was probably the pioneer on the Athabasca, having wintered there in 1778-1789.
The Northwest Company formed.—The free access of all licensed traders to the interior resulted in reckless competition in regions remote from the military posts. Acts of violence were committed and Indians were involved in the contest. Besides the grave disadvantages of competition, there were obvious advantages of combination. In 1779, therefore, nine enterprises were consolidated for one year. The success caused the arrangement to be repeated, and finally in 1783-1784 the Northwest Company was organized and became permanent. This company soon monopolized the larger part of the Montreal trade, and became the great rival of the Hudson's Bay Company.
Advance of Hudson's Bay Company.—After the Peace of Utrecht the Hudson's Bay Company had returned to an era of prosperity. Urged on by French competition, by 1700 expeditions inland had been made by Kelsey (1691) and Sanford, and Henley House had been built a hundred and fifty miles inland from Fort Albany; and by 1720 other minor inland expeditions had been made by Macklish and Stewart, but in the main the Company had held to the shores of the Bay. Instead of sending employees inland, as did the French, reliance was placed on furs brought by the Indians to the posts, all of which were close to the Bay. The monopoly enjoyed was a cause of jealousy among British merchants, and critics arose, notably Arthur Dobbs, who charged that the Company had failed in its obligation to seek the northwest passage and explore the interior. Coerced by criticism, between 1719 and 1737 the Company made some explorations, but little was accomplished.
Hearne's explorations.—After 1763 criticism of the Company was reinforced by the rise of the Montreal trade, and new explorations northwestward were undertaken. After two unsuccessful attempts in 1769 and 1770 to reach the Coppermine Riveroverland, in December, 1770, Samuel Hearne set out from Fort Prince of Wales to seek "a North-West Passage, copper-mines, or any other thing that may be serviceable to the British nation in general, or the Hudson's Bay Company in particular." Going west, then north, on July 18, 1771, Hearne reached the mouth of the Coppermine River near latitude 68°, where he took formal possession of the Arctic Ocean for the Company. Returning by way of Lake Athabasca, which he discovered and crossed, he reached his fort on June 30, 1772.
Rival posts in the interior.—Hearne's explorations were indicative of a new policy. Coerced by the aggressive Montreal traders, the Company now pushed into the interior in a struggle for the mastery. Side by side the two, companies placed rival forts on all the important streams from the Hudson Bay to the Rockies and from the Red River of the North to Great Slave Lake.
Alden, G.H.,New Governments west of the Alleghanies before 1780; Alvord, C.W., "Virginia and the West: An Interpretation," inThe Mississippi Valley Historical Review, III, 19-38;The Critical Period, 1763-1765;The Mississippi Valley in British Politics; Alvord, C.W., and Carter, C.E., editors,The New Régime, 1765-1767; Bassett, J.S., "The Regulators of North Carolina," in American Hist. Assoc.,Annual Report, 1894, pp. 141-212; Bourinot, J.G.,Canada under British Rule, 1760-1905(G.W. Wrong revision), chs. 2-3; Bryce, George,The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company, chs. 8-13; Carter, C.E.,Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 1763-1774; "The Beginnings of British West Florida," inThe Mississippi Valley Historical Review, IV, 314-341; Coffin, Victor,The Quebec Act; Hamilton, P.J., Colonial Mobile, chs. 23-31; The Colonisation of the South, chs. 20-21; Henderson, A., "Richard Henderson and the Occupation of Kentucky, 1775," inThe Mississippi Valley Historical Review, I, 341-363; Hinsdale, B.A.,The Old Northwest, ch. 8; Howard, G.E.,Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763-1775, ch. 13; Roosevelt, Theodore,The Winning of the West, I-II; Siebert, W.H., "The Loyalists in West Florida and the Natchez District," inThe Mississippi Vauey Historical Review, II, 465-483; Stevens, W.E., "The Organization of the British Fur Trade, 1760-1800," inThe Mississippi Valley Historical Review, III, 172-202; Thwaites, R.G.,Daniel Boone; Thwaites, R.G., and Kellogg, L.P., editors,Documentary History of Dunmore's War, 1774, Introduction; Turner, F.J., "Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era," inAmerican Historical Review, I, 70-87, 251-269; Wallace, S.,The United Empire Loyalists; Winsor, Justin,The Westward Movement, 38-100; Wood, W.,The Father of British Canada; Davidson, G.C.,The North West Company.
Nature of the causes.—While British statesmen were working out a system of government for the newly acquired domains, in the empire forces of disintegration were at work which brought on the American Revolution. The causes of that convulsion cannot be traced to a group of events or laws. Through a long period social, political, and economic forces were at work which gradually brought thirteen of the mainland colonies into open rebellion. Because this opposition is more evident after the French and Indian War, and because the economic is the most obvious phase of the struggle, historians have sometimes concluded that the laws passed by parliament between 1763 and 1776 were the cause of the Revolution. The policy pursued by the British government no doubt hastened it, but alone does not account for it.
A mixed population.—For more than a century the colonies had been receiving new elements which were producing a society in many respects different from that of England. America had been the recipient of many of the radicals, the down-trodden, and the discontented from the mother country. The acquisition of New Netherlands had brought under British control a considerable number of Dutch, Swedes, and Finns. The Huguenot migration which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had added another element. The German and Scotch-Irish influxes had brought in thousands. Welsh, Scotch, Irish, and Jews were also to be found in the colonies. America, then as now, was a melting pot of the nations.
Lack of American nationality.—Influenced largely by climatic and physiographic conditions, distinct industrial systemshad developed. In the northern colonies the small farm prevailed, in the South the plantation system. The North produced the seamen, fishermen, and merchants, while few of the southerners were seafarers. The frontier with its foreign elements, its scattered settlements, and freedom from restraint had produced a society which differed from the tide-water region. The fur-trader, the cattleman, the lumberman, and the small farmer were distinctly different in speech, dress, habits, and point of view from the Boston merchant, the Philadelphia Quaker, or the Virginia planter. Separatist tendencies were stronger than those of coalescence. A Virginian was a Virginian and not an American. There was little in common between the New Englander and the southern planter, or between the people of the Hudson Valley and the Quakers.
Class distinctions.—In individual colonies society was continually growing in complexity. Though the great mass of the population continued to be rural, town life was becoming an important factor. Members of an aristocracy, of which the governor was usually the central social figure, were inclined to rear their heads above their fellows. The merchants and lawyers, ever increasing in numbers, found themselves outside the social pale of the official aristocracy, a source of silent mortification which was a real force in producing radicals.
Evolution of English society.—English as well as American society had also undergone a rapid evolution. Puritan England had passed away; the Stuarts, the Hanoverians, and foreign conquests had transformed the viewpoint of the Englishman. Little was there in common between John Milton and Horace Walpole, or between a Cromwell and a Newcastle. The sudden greatness that had come through the Seven Years' War well-nigh turned the heads of Englishmen. To acquire wealth, to wield power, and to live gaily seemed to be the ideals of the upper class Englishman of the reign of George III. The colonial who still considered the mother country as the traditional England of Magna Carta, the Puritan Revolution, and the Bill of Rights, had as little understanding of a Townshend as had a Townshend a comprehension of the colonial.
The assemblies control the purse.—The governmental institutions of the colonies had gradually evolved toward a commontype, whose constituent parts were the governor, council, and assembly, the governor and council, except in Connecticut and Rhode Island, representing imperial or proprietary authority, and the assembly the will of the colonial inhabitants. The power of the assemblies to control the purse had been steadily growing, until the colonies considered the principle established both by precedent and by inherent rights guaranteed by the English constitution. By controlling the budgets and the salaries of the governors, the assemblies held the whip hand over the executives.
English and colonial ideas of representation.—The meaning of the term representation differed in England and the colonies. To the Englishman parliament represented the British Empire and legislated for the whole of it, allowing the colonies to handle local matters within their chartered rights. Parliament was regarded as representing the three estates or classes of society, rather than individuals. The idea that every Englishman was represented by a man in whose selection he had had a voice had not become a part of the English political system. Members of parliament were frequently chosen in rotten boroughs. A few thousand men at most chose the entire parliamentary body. The king's ministers, selected from the party which could command a majority in the House of Commons, directed public policy and enforced their will upon a subservient commons. In America the suffrage was usually restricted by a property or church qualification, but every member of an assembly actually represented a colonial community and a known constituency. When the colonial orator declared for no taxation without representation, he was talking in the terms of a system that had grown up in America, but which England did not begin to adopt until the Reform Bill of 1832.
The causes of the development of nationalism.—French political philosophers and observant travelers had predicted that the removal of French power from America would cause the colonies to seek independence. Franklin ridiculed the idea, for he believed that colonial jealousies were too strong to allow united action, a view which was also held by Pitt. After the French and Indian War the English government, by enforcing and extending the colonial system, quickened public opinion, overthrew separatisttendencies, and brought many of the colonists to think and act together in opposition to English policy. When this was attained, a national consciousness had come into existence which gradually developed into open rebellion.
Illicit traffic during the French and Indian War.—Since the reign of Anne England had not enforced the trade laws strictly. The Molasses Act of 1733 had been practically a dead letter from the date of its passage and the other navigation acts had been frequently violated. Smuggling was winked at by governors and customs officials, who in many cases profited from the traffic. During the French and Indian War the colonies traded extensively with the French West Indies. This was especially galling to England, whose chief weapon against France was control of the seas. Though the colonies in 1756 were forbidden to trade with the French, the colonial skippers evaded the command by shipping goods to the Dutch ports of Curaçoa and St. Eustatius, or to the French West Indies. In 1757 parliament forbade the exportation of food stuffs from the colonies to foreign ports, but the colonials continued to make shipments to the French or Dutch colonies and to bring back cargoes of molasses, sugar, and rum. To stop Dutch trade with the French colonies, Dutch merchant vessels were seized. As the English navy gradually isolated or captured the French West Indies, the colonials found a new method of circumventing the regulations by shipping to Monte Cristi, a Spanish port in Española near the French boundary. A commerce of less importance but of similar nature was also maintained with Florida and Louisiana. In 1760, when the English navy had gained the upper hand, the illicit commerce diminished but did not entirely cease. When Spain entered the war a considerable increase occurred. The naval and military authorities did all in their power to end the traffic with the enemy, for they considered that its continuance meant a prolongation of the war.
Writs of assistance.—To prevent smuggling English officials resorted to the issuance of writs of assistance. These were general search warrants which enabled the holder to search any house, ship, or other property where smuggled goods might be stored. The writs naturally aroused great opposition among the merchants, who claimed that they were illegal. In 1761 whenthe Boston customs officers applied for the writs, the merchants objected to them. When the merchants' cause was presented before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, James Otis argued that the writs, being general, were illegal and struck at the liberty of the individual. "No acts of parliament can establish such a writ.... An act against the constitution is void." The courts upheld the legality of the writs but Otis's speech did much to arouse and formulate public opinion.
The Parson's Cause.—In Virginia Patrick Henry performed a similar function in formulating public opinion. The speech which made him the leader of the Virginia radicals was delivered in connection with a suit brought by one of the Virginia clergy. Tobacco was the medium of exchange in the Old Dominion and ministers were paid annually 17,000 pounds of tobacco. In 1755 and 1758, the burgesses passed acts which allowed debts to be redeemed at two pence for each pound of tobacco. This worked a hardship upon the ministers, who naturally desired the benefit of the high price of tobacco to compensate them for the hard years when prices were low. The acts were disallowed by the crown in 1759, and the ministers attempted to recover their losses. In a suit brought in 1763 by Reverend James Maury, Patrick Henry appeared for the vestry. Realizing the weakness of his legal position, Henry resolved to carry the jury by an emotional attack upon the king's prerogative. He argued that the act of 1758 was a law of general utility consistent with the original compact between ruler and ruled, upon which government was based, and that the king, by disallowing this salutary act, became a tyrant and forfeited his right to the obedience of his subjects.
Economy and reform.—At the end of the French and Indian War, England was burdened with a staggering debt. To build up the resources of the empire, increase the revenues, and protect the dominions were the objects of the ministers of George III. In this program the colonies were expected to play their part. The Bute Ministry planned to enforce the navigation acts, to tax the colonies directly, and to use the colonial revenue to support an army in America. The powers of the admiraltycourts were immediately enlarged and commanders of war vessels were authorized to act as customs officials. Soon after Grenville came into office (April, 1763), he ordered customs collectors who were lingering in England to proceed at once to their colonial stations and he instructed the governors to enforce the trade laws rigidly.
Trade encouragement during 1764-1765.—To encourage commerce several important provisions were made during 1764 and 1765. To stimulate the fur business the old duties were abolished and an import duty of only one pence a skin and an export duty of seven pence were levied. To stimulate hemp and flax production bounties were paid on those products shipped from the colonies to England. The bounty on indigo was somewhat reduced but was still sufficient to protect the planters. The duties on whale fins were repealed to the great benefit of Massachusetts. The rice business was stimulated by allowing Georgia and the Carolinas to ship without restrictions to the southward.
The Sugar Act.—Grenville's beneficial measures were more than offset by the Sugar, Colonial Currency, Stamp, and Quartering Acts. The Sugar Act "was a comprehensive measure, whose openly expressed aim was, in the first place to raise a colonial revenue, and in the second to reform the old colonial system both in its administrative and in its economic features." The act confirmed and modified the Molasses Act of 1733. The duty on sugar shipped to the British colonies was raised but that on molasses was lowered. To injure the French island trade, the importation of foreign rum or spirits and commerce with Miquelon and St. Pierre were forbidden. Oriental and French textiles, Portuguese and Spanish wines, and coffee, if brought directly to the British colonies, were taxed heavily, but if shipped from England the duty was low. To protect South Carolina a duty was imposed upon foreign indigo shipped to the colonies. With a few exceptions no drawbacks were henceforth to be allowed, and revenues derived from the Sugar Act were to be paid into the royal exchequer. They were to be kept separate from other moneys and were to be used only for the protection of the British colonies in America.
Stringent regulations were provided for the enforcement ofthe Sugar Act and other navigation laws. At the option of the informer or prosecutor, penalties for breach of the trade laws might be recovered in any court of record in the district where the offence was committed or in any admiralty court in America. The accused was required to give security for costs if he lost his suit, but if he won his case, he was not entitled to costs if the judge certified that the grounds of action seemed probable. Furthermore in the Molasses Act which was now confirmed, the burden of proof was placed upon the owner or claimant.
Every shipmaster was required to give a bond to land only enumerated goods at European ports north of Cape Finisterre and to possess a certificate from the customs collector at the point of loading. West Indian goods not properly certified were to be treated as foreign goods. Vessels cleared from British ports must contain only goods loaded in Great Britain. This, however, did not apply to salt and Irish linen. Breaches of these regulations subjected the law breaker to severe penalties.
Regulation of Colonial Currency.—Another important measure was the Colonial Currency Act. Lack of specie had compelled the issuance of colonial paper money, and though Massachusetts had retired such issues in 1749, most of the colonies were still suffering from depreciated and unstable currency. To protect the English merchant, parliament passed the Colonial Currency Act which prevented colonists from paying their debts to the home country in depreciated currency and stopped the issues of unsound money. The act caused a shortage of the medium of exchange at the time that the colonists were deprived of the West Indian commerce which had supplied them with specie to settle balances in London. The act produced embittered feeling which paved the way for greater opposition.
Colonial protests.—When it became known in the colonies that the Ministry intended to enforce a more rigid policy which included the levying of internal taxes by parliamentary enactment, vigorous protests were made. Memorials, resolutions, and addresses poured in upon the king, lords, commons, and Board of Trade, and numerous pamphlets appeared which presented the economic and constitutional viewpoint of the colonists.
The Massachusetts protest.—The Boston town meeting urged the assembly to use its influence to protect the rights of thecolonies and in its instructions to the Boston representatives the principles were stated that there should be no taxation without representation and that colonials were entitled to full rights of Englishmen. It was also suggested that other injured colonies should be asked to coöperate in seeking redress. A committee of the assembly presented a memorial drafted by Otis which contained the additional principle that parliament had no right to alter the constitution. The memorial was sent to the Massachusetts agent in England with instructions to urge the repeal of the Sugar Act and to protest against the proposed Stamp Act. A committee of correspondence headed by Otis was authorized to inform the other colonies of the action of Massachusetts and to seek their coöperation. As the action had been taken by the assembly without the consent of the council, the governor was soon petitioned to call the general court. He complied and a petition was drawn which temperately protested.