Chapter 4 (1713-1763)

Slavery and the British Empire: The 18th-Century Atlantic World

• The Big Question of Chapter 4: How did Great Britain construct the freest political system known to colonists while simultaneously dominating the global Atlantic slave trade?

• Eric Foner's Core Thesis: In the $18$th century, freedom and slavery were not opposites; they grew together, were mutually reinforcing, and the profits of slavery essentially paid for the development of British liberty.

• Statistics of the Atlantic Slave Trade:     * Approximately $6 imes 10^6$ Africans were transported across the Atlantic during the $1700$s.     * British ships were responsible for transporting more than half of that total volume.     * The Asiento: In the Treaty of Utrecht ($1713$), Britain won the right to supply slaves to Spanish America (the asiento) from the Dutch, establishing Britain as the world's leading slave trader.

• Economic Impact of Enslaved Labor:     * The primary mass-consumer goods in international commerce—sugar, rice, coffee, and tobacco—were all produced by enslaved labor.     * Profits derived from the slave trade and slave-produced goods built the cities of Liverpool and Bristol, financed the banking and insurance industries, and provided the capital required for the early Industrial Revolution.

• Demographics and Geography:     * Only about $5\%$ of all enslaved Africans were sent to mainland North America.     * The vast majority were sent to Brazil and the West Indies to work on sugar plantations, where high mortality rates necessitated constant new imports.     * By the year $1770$, approximately $20\%$ of the population in the English mainland colonies was Black.

• The Case of Olaudah Equiano:     * Kidnapped at the age of $11$.     * Navigated the trade route from Barbados to Virginia, eventually sold to a British sea captain who renamed him "Gustavus Vassa."     * He eventually purchased his freedom and published The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano in $1789$.     * The book became a bestseller and served as a powerful condemnation of the institution of slavery.

The Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage

• The Trade Route Structure:     1. British manufactured goods were sent to Africa.     2. Captured Africans were shipped to the Americas (known as the Middle Passage).     3. Colonial products (raw materials) were shipped back to Europe.

• The Middle Passage Conditions:     * Enslaved people were chained below decks in cramped spaces measuring approximately $18$ inches high.     * Death rate: Approximately $1$ in $5$ people died during the voyage.     * Disease prevention: Captains were known to throw sick individuals overboard to prevent the spread of illness.     * Equiano's description: He socialized the experience through accounts of the "shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying."

• Linkage to the North:     * New England merchants derived massive profits from the slave trade despite having few enslaved residents.     * Shippers from Massachusetts and Rhode Island carried enslaved people to the Caribbean and mainland South.     * The West Indies served as the largest market for New England and Middle Colony exports such as fish, grain, livestock, and lumber.

Three Distinct Slave Systems in Mainland British America

• By the mid-$18$th century, three distinct regional slave systems had emerged, each defined by different crops and cultures:     1. The Chesapeake (Virginia and Maryland):         * Primary Crop: Tobacco.         * Demographics: Approximately $250,000$ enslaved people by $1770$, comprising nearly half the population. Nearly half of White families in Virginia owned at least $1$ slave.         * Culture/Labor: Group labor under constant supervision; a family-centered Black community was established.         * Geographical Shift: Movement of slavery from the Tidewater (coastal) regions to the Piedmont (inland) over time.     2. South Carolina and Georgia:         * Primary Crops: Rice and indigo (introduced in the $1740$s).         * Demographics: South Carolina was the first mainland Black-majority colony. By the $1730$s, $2/3$ of the population was Black. Some districts had a ratio of $10$ Black people for every $1$ White person.         * Culture/Labor: Harshest physical conditions. Utilized the "task system" which allowed for more autonomy once daily work was done. Retention of African traditions, such as the Gullah language.         * Rice Cultivation: Africans taught the English how to grow rice, as they were familiar with the crop from West Africa. Rice required significant capital for irrigation and drainage.         * Health and Absenteeism: Africans possessed partial immunity to malaria; European plantation owners fled the mosquito-infested rice swamps for Charleston, leaving plantations to overseers and tasks to slaves.     3. The Northern Colonies:         * Primary Economy: Mixed (urban and small farm labor).         * Demographics: Smallest numbers, dispersed in small holdings.         * Culture/Labor: Physically less harsh, but it was harder to form a cohesive Black community due to geographic dispersion.

• The Georgia Experiment:     * Founded in $1733$ by James Oglethorpe.     * Initially intended as a refuge for poor English debtors and a military buffer against Spanish Florida.     * Oglethorpe originally banned slavery and limited landholdings to promote small-scale farming.     * The ban was lifted in $1751$, and Georgia quickly evolved into a rice-and-slavery colony similar to South Carolina.

The Birth of African American Culture

• Diversity of Origins: Approximately $250,000$ Africans arrived in the $1700$s from various cultures and religions, including Ibo, Ashanti, Yoruba, and Kongolese.

• Formation of Identity: Slavery aggregated strangers from different backgrounds into a single group. Their primary bond was the shared experience of slavery rather than kinship or language.

• Cultural Synthesis: By the $1800$s, individuals identified as African Americans. This new culture synthesized African traditions with European elements and American conditions.

• Religious Blending: Enslaved people who adopted Christianity often merged it with traditional African spirituality, adding the Christian God to their existing pantheons (mirroring similar developments in Brazil and Cuba).

• Re-Africanization: Throughout the $18$th century, the influx of new arrivals from Africa often outnumbered the American-born slaves (creoles), keeping African traditions fresh.

Slave Resistance and Rebellions

• The NYC Slave Uprising ($1712$): Enslaved people set fires and killed $9$ White people. In the aftermath, $18$ conspirators were executed, some of whom were burned alive.

• The Stono Rebellion ($1739$):     * The largest mainland slave revolt of the colonial period.     * Initiated by approximately $20$ enslaved people in South Carolina, many from Kongo (some with military experience).     * They seized weapons from a store near the Stono River and marched south toward Spanish Florida.     * The Spanish Offer: The Spanish King had decreed that any British slave who escaped to Florida and converted to Catholicism would be granted freedom.     * The rebels beat drums, burned property, killed White setllers, and shouted "Liberty!"     * The group grew to about $100$ before the South Carolina militia killed half of them in battle.     * Result: South Carolina passed a harsher slave code and temporarily taxed slave imports to reduce the numbers.

• NYC "Conspiracy" Panic ($1741$): Following a series of fires, $30$ Black people and $4$ White people were executed. Historians still debate the reality of the conspiracy.

• Resistance in Jamaica:     * Maroons: Communities of fugitive slaves who waged successful warfare; Britain eventually signed treaties recognizing their freedom.     * Tacky's Revolt ($1760$): The largest British colonial slave uprising of the $18$th century.

• Fort Mose ($1738$):     * A free Black settlement outside St. Augustine, Florida.     * Composed of former British slaves who fled and converted to Catholicism.     * Led by Francisco Menéndez, captain of Florida's free Black militia.     * This was the only legally free Black community in $18$th-century North America.

The Idea of British Liberty

• The "Freeborn Englishman": Britons and colonists became obsessed with the concept of liberty, viewing it as a unique inheritance that distinguished them from the "servile" Catholic populations of France and Spain.

• Core Components of Liberty:     * Liberty vs. Power: Power was seen as the natural antagonist of liberty; constant vigilance was required.     * Rule of Law: The right to live under laws consented to by representatives.     * Common Law Rights: Including jury trials, habeas corpus, and protection against arbitrary imprisonment.     * Mixed Government: A system where the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the King checked each other's power.     * Protestant Identity: Freedom and wealth were bundled with Protestantism.     * Property: Only property-owning men were considered capable of independent political judgment.

• Montesquieu's Perspective: The French philosopher described the British constitution as "the one nation in the world whose constitution has political liberty for its purpose."

• Contradictions of Liberty:     * Excluded Groups: Catholics, women, free Blacks, and enslaved people.     * The irony of the song "Rule, Britannia!" ("Britons never, never, never will be slaves") while Britain led the slave trade.

Colonial Politics and the Public Sphere

• The Electorate:     * Between $50\%$ and $80\%$ of free White men in the colonies could vote, compared to less than $5\%$ in Britain.     * Land ownership was more widespread in America, making the property requirement easier to meet.

• Limits to Democracy:     * Excluded: Women (with rare exceptions for propertied widows in Massachusetts/Long Island), Jews, Catholics, Baptists, and Quakers in some areas.     * Free Black exclusion: Many colonies revoked voting rights for free Black property owners by mid-century (Virginia in $1723$).

• Deference and Elite Control:     * Property requirements for officeholding were much higher than for voting (e.g., South Carolina required $500$ acres and $10$ slaves).     * Voters were expected to elect "their betters" (elites like the Livingstons and De Lanceys in New York).

• Salutary Neglect: The British policy of leaving the colonies to govern themselves while focusing on trade duties, which allowed colonial assemblies to grow powerful.

• Legislative Power: Assemblies used control of the "power of the purse" (the governor's salary) to gain concessions.     * Pennsylvania's assembly was the only unicameral (one-house) legislature, established by a $1701$ charter.

• The Public Sphere:     * Political debate flourished in clubs, taverns ($75\%$ of free adult men were literate), and through newspapers ($25$ existed by $1760$).     * Junto ($1727$): A political discussion club founded by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

The Zenger Trial ($1735$) and Freedom of the Press

• Seditious Libel: The crime of defaming government officials, regardless of whether the criticism was true.

• The Case: John Peter Zenger's Weekly Journal attacked New York Governor William Cosby.

• Defense: Lawyer Andrew Hamilton argued that the jury should consider the truth of the statements as a defense.

• Verdict: The jury acquitted Zenger. While it did not change the law immediately, it made libel cases difficult to win and solidified the press's role as a government watchdog.

The American Enlightenment and the Great Awakening

• The Enlightenment: Applied reason and the scientific method to social and political life.     * John Locke: Two Treatises of Government ($1689$) established the theory of natural rights (life, liberty, property) and government by consent.     * Deism: Belief that God created the world and its natural laws but does not intervene (shared by Franklin and Jefferson).     * Arminianism: Religion based on reason rather than strict Calvinist predestination.

• The Great Awakening ($1730$s–$1740$s): A religious revival emphasizing a "religion of the heart."     * Jonathan Edwards: Wrote Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.     * George Whitefield: An English minister who became North America's first intercolonial celebrity.     * Impacts:         * Split churches into "Old Lights" (traditionalist) and "New Lights" (revivalist).         * Proved subversive to authority by encouraging people to trust their own judgment.         * Brought enslaved people into Christianity.

The Seven Years' War ($1754$–$1763$)

• Causes: Competition between Britain and France over the Ohio River Valley.

• Spark: A young George Washington ambushed a French force in $1754$.

• Albany Plan of Union ($1754$): Proposed by Benjamin Franklin for intercolonial defense but was rejected by the assemblies.

• Course of War: Britain struggled until Prime Minister William Pitt committed massive resources. General James Wolfe captured Quebec in $1759$.

• Treaty of Paris ($1763$):     * France ceded Canada and all land east of the Mississippi to Britain.     * Spain ceded Florida to Britain in exchange for the Philippines and Cuba.     * France gave western Louisiana to Spain.     * France was effectively removed from North America.

• Consequences: Britain emerged as a super-power with massive debt; colonists felt intensely British and proud of their Protestant victory.

Post-War Conflicts: Pontiac and the Proclamation

• Pan-Indian Identity: The Delaware Prophet Neolin preached that all Native people were "one people" who must reject European ways.

• Pontiac's War ($1763$): An Ottawa leader led a pan-Indian revolt against British forts.

• Proclamation of $1763$: To prevent further frontier war, Britain banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.     * Colonists viewed this as tyranny; George Washington privately ordered agents to buy land across the line anyway.

• The Paxton Boys ($1763$): Scots-Irish farmers in Pennsylvania massacred peaceful Conestoga Indians. This ended the Quaker "Holy Experiment" of peaceful coexistence.

Key One-Line Memorizers

• Olaudah Equiano: Enslaved man who bought freedom; wrote influential $1789$ anti-slavery memoir.

• Asiento ($1713$): Britain's contract to dominate the slave trade, won via Treaty of Utrecht.

• Task system: South Carolina labor system allowing more Black autonomy than the Chesapeake's gang system.

• Salutary neglect: Informal British policy of non-interference that allowed colonial self-governance to flourish.

• Zenger Trial ($1735$): Established the cultural precedent that truth is a defense against libel.

• John Locke: Philosopher of natural rights and government by consent ($1689$).

• Deism: Enlightenment belief in a "clockmaker" God; held by Franklin and Jefferson.

• Great Awakening: $1730$s-$40$s emotional revival that challenged established church authority.

• Treaty of Paris ($1763$): Ended the Seven Years' War; removed France from North America.

• Neolin: Native prophet who pioneered the idea of a pan-Indian identity.

• Paxton Boys: Group that massacred Native Americans in Pennsylvania, ending Quaker dominance.