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This Is Ricky's Web Site This page was last updated on 09/27/01.
Home Attack On America Cool Web Sites Chain reactions
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Chain Reactions For My Social Studies Class Folk music of the American Revolution The Scooby Doo/X Files Conspiracy Monty Python And The Holy Grail Sound Clips |
French and Indian Wars Subsequently, the wars over the fur trade in North America merged with the rivalries of the colonizing countries in Europe. In 1689 King William’s War began between the English and French settlers. Frontenac organized raids on English frontier settlements and in 1690 defended Québec from the seaborne attack of Sir William Phips with his New England volunteers. Louis XIV’s dynastic ambitions soon led to the War of the Spanish Succession, known in North America as Queen Anne’s War. The war was ended by the Peace of Utrecht, established in 1713 between France and Great Britain (a union of England with Scotland and Wales). The treaty gave Great Britain Hudson Bay and part of the French colony known as Acadia, which comprised present-day New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and part of Maine. The treaty was a sign of British strength in North America. French colonists in North America numbered only about 12,000 in 1713, while there were almost 1 million British colonists. Even more significant for the future was the fact that Britain, not France, was ruler of the seas. The years between 1713 and 1749 were years of peace. During this period the people of New France had the opportunity to build a society that was distinct from other colonial societies, yet in many ways similar. The Saint Lawrence colony was, after all, North American, and the society, like colonial societies to the south, reflected the needs and possibilities of America as much as the character of the mother country. The seignorial system is usually considered the most distinctive feature of Québec’s social order. The seigneur, or lord, received his grant from the Crown for acting as agent to settle the land. In return for this and other minor services to the Crown, he received rent from the habitants, or inhabitants, and certain feudal privileges, such as the corvée, which entitled him to several days of work a year from each of his habitants. Most seigneurs derived only a part of their income from their seigneury, or lands. They engaged in the fur trade, served as government officials, and entered freely into various business enterprises. The people were for the most part devout Catholics, but the shortage of parish priests made religious observance difficult, at least in outlying areas. As in all Catholic countries, welfare and education were in the hands of the church. To the French Canadians, this practice was a normal and valuable part of the social system. It was a constant concern of the bishop and priests to enforce a code of behavior, and their proclamations against drunkenness, gambling, and immorality required frequent repetition. The government of New France lacked the representative institutions that characterized the colonies to the south. The theory of the king as absolute ruler that was dominant in France itself was also applied to the colony. Each individual citizen had the right of direct appeal to the king, governor, or intendant. No one could speak for a group, however, because this would threaten the king’s absolute power. The sovereign council, as the colony’s ruling body was called, consisted of the governor, the intendant, and the bishop. Economic development during the years of peace in the first half of the 1700s was rapid. In addition to capital acquired through the fur trade, money came from the French government. The French encouraged agricultural and industrial development in Québec to lessen its need for supplies from France. Shipbuilding, lumbering, and wheat growing were promoted, and an iron mine and ironworks were developed. The population grew steadily, but without new immigrants it had barely reached the 50,000 mark when the North American part of Europe’s Seven Years War began in 1754. The North American conflict became known as the French and Indian War. F The British Secure Québec The opening battles of the final Anglo-French struggle for control of North America were fought in the Ohio valley. Many of the British and Anglo-Americans realized, however, that only by striking at the root of French power, the Saint Lawrence colony and its key fortress, Québec, could final victory be won. The capture of Québec in 1759 was accomplished after months of siege by the daring of Major General James Wolfe, a decisive British victory on the Plains of Abraham in Québec City, and the tactical skill of Admiral Charles Saunders, in command of the British fleet. By the following year the British were firmly in command of the Atlantic approaches. Montréal capitulated, and the colony came under British control under the Treaty of Paris negotiated in 1763. The French Canadians were now a conquered people. Their new masters at first assumed that they would be quickly Anglicized as English-speaking settlers moved into the colony. In the meantime the new rulers demanded little more than obedience and cooperation in restoring the colony’s trade. Many members of the colony’s aristocracy returned to France. Others, who hoped to gain control of trade in the colony, quickly found that British and Anglo-American merchants were monopolizing it. The social structure of the colony, which was now called Québec, began to assume the characteristics that persisted into the 20th century. Trade and commerce centered in the two cities of Québec and Montréal and were virtually monopolized by the English-speaking minority. French-speaking Canadians were left largely with the prospect of careers in the church, the law, minor government posts, or, most likely, farming. King William’s War, first of four North American wars, waged by the English and French from 1689 to 1697, and part of a larger European war fought by the Grand Alliance against France over the succession to the throne of England. The French and English colonists, aided by Native Americans, raided each other's settlements. Following a series of English raids in Canada, the French governor of Canada, Comte de Frontenac, planned counterattacks on New York City and Boston in 1690. As initial steps in his campaign, the French and their Native American allies burned Schenectady, New York, laid waste Salmon Falls, New Hampshire, and destroyed Fort Loyal, Maine, while French privateers based in Nova Scotia harried New England shipping. The New England colonists raised an expeditionary force and placed it under the command of the new governor of Massachusetts, Sir William Phips. This force captured Port Royal in Nova Scotia and unsuccessfully attacked Québec. For the rest of the war the French and their Native American allies ravaged the northern frontiers of the English colonies. The Peace of Ryswick in 1697 restored Port Royal to the French but left the colonial problem unresolved. Warfare resumed in 1702 in Queen Anne's War. Chain Reaction # 1 The English Legal Tradition in America When English immigrants came to the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, most assumed that they would have the same protections against government abuses of power that they had in England. The most important of these were the right to trial by jury and the right of habeas corpus, which prevented the government from jailing people arbitrarily. Other personal liberties brought from England to America included the right of accused persons to have legal assistance at trials, and a ban on excessive fines and bail. These rights came from several centuries of English legal tradition, recorded in documents such as the Magna Carta of 1252, the Petition of Right of 1628, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689, from which the American Bill of Rights took its name. The assumption of basic legal rights of citizens also came out of the English common law, a body of English court-made law that evolved from the 12th century.English settlers in America included many of these protections in colonial laws. The English Americans decided to codify (write into law) some parts of the common law and to make additions suited to the colonial society. The 1632 charter for the Maryland colony, for example, declared that all people who were born or who moved there were entitled to "all Privileges, Franchises and Liberties" of a native Englishman. By 1639 the Maryland General Assembly had passed an act for "the liberties of the people." Residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony created the Body of Liberties in 1641, an important forerunner of the American Bill of Rights. The Body of Liberties granted limited religious freedom, assured landowners of the equal protection of the laws, the right to petition the government for change, and the use of the writ of habeas corpus. It also banned punishments considered "inhumane, Barbarous or cruel" and recognized the right of an accused person to have legal assistance under some circumstances. The Body of Liberties also required the presence of several witnesses to a crime before a person could be sentenced to death. It also granted citizens the right to travel and settle abroad, an important freedom often denied in England. Some colonies created religious protections stronger than those in Massachusetts, even though religious freedom was not part of the English legal tradition. Religious intolerance in the Massachusetts Bay Colony spurred some people, including clergyman Roger Williams, to flee to other areas. Williams went to Rhode Island in 1636, where he started a new colony based on religious freedom and political equality. Eventually these freedoms were incorporated into the Rhode Island Charter of 1663. This charter banned government repression of religious groups and guaranteed individuals the right to their own beliefs. The strong religious protections in Rhode Island marked out a significant new limit on government power. B Rebellion and Agitation for New Rights By the 18th century, several generations of English Americans in the colonies accepted the basic rights of citizens as part of their birthright. British authorities shattered this assumption during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), during which European powers fought for control of North America. During the war British soldiers searched many colonists’ homes in an effort to find smuggled goods. By the end of the war, many colonists resented royal authority. The Stamp Act of 1765, which imposed a tax on a wide range of items, further increased tensions. The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 issued a Declaration of Rights that condemned the tax as unjust and also advocated trial by jury, the right to petition the government for change, and "all the inherent rights and liberties" of people native to England. The rebellion against English rule had started and eventually led to the American Revolution (1775-1783). England repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, but the crisis continued. In 1774 the Continental Congress issued a Declaration of Rights that claimed the civil liberties provided under English law, but that also expanded beyond them to include claims based on a so-called natural law. This idea of rights based on natural law emerged from several English writers of the period, especially John Locke and William Blackstone. Locke argued that government rested on the consent of the governed, and that no government could violate basic natural principles of justice. Blackstone put English common law into writing, and also asserted that God had created "certain immutable laws." Although the Declaration of Rights asserted new principles of freedom, it had little impact beyond popularizing the cause of the American rebels. The English government resisted American claims for freedom, and fighting broke out in 1775. Many of the colonies called conventions to create new state governments free of English control. In June 1776 Virginia’s state constitutional convention adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights. The declaration created basic civil liberties, including safeguards for accused persons: the right to call witnesses, the right against self-incrimination, a ban on excessive bails and fines, and due process of law. The declaration also banned widespread government searches, discouraged the creation of standing armies, and called for freedom of the press. James Madison, a delegate to the convention, successfully argued for the inclusion of a guarantee of freedom of religion. Many colonies followed Virginia’s lead when they established new state governments. Traces of the Virginia bill soon appeared in the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware declarations. By 1781 Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and the provisional government of Vermont had all prefaced their constitutions with some type of bill of rights. Most other states, including New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Georgia, protected civil liberties through a bill of rights in their new constitutions or through new supplementary laws. Only Rhode Island and Connecticut continued to rely on common law and existing legal provisions to guarantee personal rights. The idea of a bill of rights as a basic protection of civil liberties thus dates to the American Revolution. From 1776 to 1781, the eight bills of rights adopted by the states contained a total of 90 different provisions. Some were heavily tailored to local circumstances. Most shared provisions for jury trial, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms (weapons), the right to petition the government for change, and a range of other freedoms rooted in the Magna Carta and the English common law. Through their assertions of broad rights to freedom of speech and religion, however, these documents broke with English tradition. In addition, the American bills of rights went far beyond the English precedents by ordering restraints on the powers of government that had been unthinkable before 1776. |
