Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.—The Indians in the West were dissatisfied with the transference of Canada and the region of the Lakes to England. Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, combined a large number of tribes, and kindled a war against the English, which spread from the Mississippi to Canada (1763). He captured eight forts, but failed to take Detroit and Fort Pitt. Three years passed before the Indians were completely beaten, and a treaty of peace concluded with their leader (1766).

STATE OF THE COLONIES: POPULATION.—At the close of the French war, the population of the thirteen colonies probably exceeded two millions, of whom not far from one fourth were negro slaves. The number of slaves in New England was small. They were proportionately much more numerous in New York, but they were found principally in the Southern colonies. Quakers were always averse to slavery. The slave-trade was still kept up. Newport in Rhode Island was one of the ports where slave-ships frequently discharged their cargoes.

GOVERNMENT.—The forms of government in the different colonies varied. All of them had their own legislative assemblies, and regarded them as essential to their freedom. Under Charles II., the charter which secured to Massachusetts its civil rights was annulled (1684). Under James II., the attempt was made to revoke all the New England charters. Sir Edmund Andros was appointed governor of New England, and by him the new system began to be enforced. The revolution of 1688 restored to the colonies their privileges; but Massachusetts (with which Plymouth was now united), under its new charter (1691), no longer elected its governor. Prior to the Revolution, there were three forms of government among the colonies. Proprietary governments (that is, government by owners or proprietors) still remained in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. In these the king appointed no officers except in the customs and admiralty courts. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, which like Massachusetts retained their charters, the governors were chosen by the people. New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North and South Carolina, had royal or provincial governments: the governor and council were appointed by the king.

OCCUPATIONS.—The chief occupation of the colonists was agriculture. In the North, wheat and corn were raised. From Virginia and Maryland, great crops of tobacco were exported from the plantations, in English ships which came up the Potomac and the James. Rice was cultivated in the Carolinas. Indigo was also raised. Cotton was grown in the South. Labor in the fields in the Southern colonies was performed by the negroes. Building of ships was a profitable occupation on the coast of New England. The cod and other fisheries also gave employment to many, and proved a school for the training of seamen. The colonists were industrious and prosperous, but generally frugal and plain in their style of living.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION.—Common schools were early established by law in New England, and by the Dutch in New York. As Mr. Bancroft well observes, "He that will understand the political character of New England in the eighteenth century must study the constitution of its towns, its congregations, its schools, and its militia." Harvard College was founded in 1636; William and Mary, in 1693; Yale, in 1700. Eighteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, a printing-press was set up at Cambridge. In 1704 the first American newspaper, "The Boston News Letter," was established. In the Puritan colonies, the minds of the people were quickened intellectually as well as religiously, by the character of the pulpit discourses. Theology was an absorbing theme of inquiry and discussion. In the town-meetings, especially in the closing part of the colonial period, political affairs became a subject of earnest debate. In all the colonies, the representative assemblies furnished a practical training in political life. In the Eastern colonies, the people were mostly Congregationalists and Calvinists: Presbyterians were numerous in the Middle States. In Virginia the Episcopal Church was supported by legislative authority; and it was favored, though not established by law, in New York. In Pennsylvania, while there was freedom in religion, the Quakers "still swayed legislation and public opinion." Philadelphia, with its population of thirty thousand, was the largest city in America, and was held in high esteem for its intelligence and refinement.

COMPLAINTS OF THE COLONIES.—The colonists all acknowledged the authority of king and parliament, but they felt that they had brought with them across the ocean the rights of Englishmen. One thing that was more and more complained of was the laws compelling the colonies to trade with the "mother country" exclusively, and the enactments laying restraint on their manufactures. In the conflicts with the Indians from time to time, the necessity had arisen for leagues; and, more than once, congresses of delegates had met. One of these was held at Albany in 1754, where Benjamin Franklin was present. In the Old French War, there had been a call for concert of action, and a deepening of the sense of common interests and of being really one people.

NEW GROUNDS OF DISAFFECTION.—The colonies had taxed themselves in the French War; but the condition of the finances in England at the close of it inspired the wish there to enforce the laws of trade more rigidly in America, and to levy additional taxes upon the provinces. These English laws were so odious that they were often evaded. The writs of assistance in Massachusetts authorized custom-house officers to search houses for smuggled goods (1761). In the legal resistance to this measure, a sentence was uttered by a Boston patriot, James Otis, which became a watchword. "Taxation," he said, "without representation is tyranny." Taxation, it was contended, must be ordained by the local colonial assemblies in which the tax-payers are represented. But the Stamp Act (1765), requiring for legal and other documents the use of stamped paper, was a form of taxation. It excited indignation in all the colonies, especially in Virginia and in New England. In all the measures of resistance, Virginia and Massachusetts were foremost. Patrick Henry, an impassioned, patriotic orator, in the Virginia Legislature, was very bold in denouncing the obnoxious Act, and the alleged right to tax the colonies which it implied. This right was denied in a Congress where nine colonies were represented, which met in New York in 1765. They called for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and declared against the importation of English goods until the repeal should be granted. William Pitt, in the House of Commons, eulogized the spirit of the colonies. The Stamp Act was repealed. The discussions which it had provoked in America had awakened the whole people, and made them watchful against this sort of aggression. Political topics engrossed attention. When Parliament ordered that the colonies should support the troops quartered on them, and that the royal officers should have fixed salaries, to be obtained, not by the voluntary grants of colonial legislatures, but by the levy of new duties, there was a renewed outburst of disaffection, especially in New York and Boston (1768). By way of response to a petition that was sent to the king against these Acts of Parliament, four regiments of troops were sent to Boston. Their presence was a bitter grievance. In one case, there was bloodshed in a broil in the street between the populace and the soldiers, which was called "The Boston Massacre" (1770). An influential leader of the popular party in Boston was the stanch Puritan patriot, Samuel Adams.

PROGRESS OF THE CONTROVERSY.—After the other taxes were repealed, the tax on tea remained in force. A mob of young men, disguised as Indians, went on board three vessels in Boston Harbor, and threw overboard their freight of tea (1773). Before, there had been outbreakings of popular wrath against the stamp-officers. Their houses had been sometimes attacked: they had been burnt in effigy, and in some cases driven to resign. In general, however, the methods of resistance had been legal and orderly. When the news of the destruction of the tea reached England, Parliament retaliated by passing the Boston Port Bill (1774), which closed that port to the exportation or importation of goods, except food or fuel. The courts, moreover, were given the power to send persons charged with high crimes to England, or to another colony, for trial. To crown all, General Gage, the commander of the British troops, was made Governor of Massachusetts.

THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.—In order to produce concert of action, committees of correspondence between the several colonies were established. The First Continental Congress, composed of delegates from the colonies, was convened in Philadelphia (1774). The remedies to which they resorted were, addresses to the king and to the people of Great Britain; an appeal for support to Canada; and a resolve not to trade with Great Britain until there should be a redress of grievances.

CONCORD AND BUNKER HILL.—The Legislature in Massachusetts, which Gage would not recognize, formed itself into the "Provincial Congress." The first collision took place at Concord (April 19, 1775), where a detachment of British troops was sent to destroy the military stores gathered by this body. On Lexington Green, the British troops fired on the militia, and killed seven men. Arriving at Concord, they encountered resistance. There the first shot was fired by America in the momentous struggle,—"the shot heard round the world." A number were killed on both sides, and the attacking force was harassed all the way on its return to Boston. The people everywhere rose in arms. Men flocked from their farms and workshops to the camp which was formed near Boston. Israel Putnam, who had been an officer in the French War, left his plow in the field at his home in Connecticut, and rode to that place, a distance of sixty-eight miles, in one day. Stark from New Hampshire, and Greene from Rhode Island, soon arrived.