The British North American Colonies Were Not Homogeneous Political Units

Through the 1600s, the English established colonies along the North American coast. Of course, these colonies shared much in common: shared language, shared appreciation for English citizenship and rights, and a shared commitment to Protestant Christianity (though, with different denominational and traditional commitments). But, it is worth considering just how different these colonies were.

One work that is absolutely worth considering is David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed. Fischer explains that, from 1629 to 1775, the territory that would become the present-day United States was settled by four major waves of English immigrants.

The first was that of the Puritans from 1629-1640. They came from the east of England to Massachusetts and broader New England.

The second major wave was that of the Cavaliers and their indentured servants from 1642 to 1675. They came from the south of England to settle in Virginia and the Chesapeake.

Then, from 1675-1725, a wave of Quakers came from the North Midlands of England and Wales to the Delaware Valley, including Pennsylvania.

From 1718-1775, a wave of “Scots-Irish” or “Ulster Scots” from the borders of North Britain and North Ireland came to the Appalachian mountains and the backcountry.

Now, Fischer’s book is a massive work with far more than I can convey, but he considers these four major waves and describes their unique characteristics. Of course, he explains that they were similar: English, Protestant, and committed to British liberties and laws, but they were distinct in the denominations, society, history, culture, daily habits, and, most significantly, their considerations of power, order, and freedom. These realities are significant because they will shape the United States for generations, and, arguably, to this day.

Now, of course, we could focus on the environments, religious commitments, and other characteristics that set the colonial regions apart from each other. The environments, including the climate and the soil of the places where the colonists landed, and agendas of the colonists who came shaped the colonies to look very differently from the ways that their towns were organized to the way that they shaped their economy. Fischer goes further than that describing the difference in the ways that the people in certain regions prepared their food, raised their children, built their houses, and used their time. However, I want to consider a particular difference between the colonial regions that Fischer points out was unique between the colonial regions. That is, their visions of liberty.

David Hackett Fischer emphasizes the vision of liberty held by the New England colonies. Rather than fierce independence in the southern colonies, New England held to what Fischer calls “ordered liberty.” New Englanders believed that in order to be a “free” community, the group could place limits on individual freedom in order to ensure the good of the whole. They also believed that liberty meant that the community should provide for those who were on the margins and that a provision of necessities was essential for everyone to experience liberty.

Let us note that the Puritans did not believe in what we think of as “religious freedom” or “tolerance.” They came to the New World to exercise what they believed was right and imposed that on the people in their communities.

Now, this takes us a long way down the road, but it is vital to see. It is no coincidence that ideas like Progressivism, as Murray Rothbard has shown, have their roots in New England and the areas where descendants of those colonists spread. New England had long been the center of support for those who wanted stronger centralization in the government.

Indeed, they lost their religious zeal, but they did not lose their zeal for placing limitations on others for what they viewed as the general good. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, brought to theological liberalism by Darwinism, they were all the more committed to their willingness to force others into their mold, moved by the “Social Gospel” and “Social Darwinism.” Now they are ready to tell you what size soft drinks you can buy at the convenience store and whether or not you’re allowed to use a straw.

Fischer described the Virginian visions as the desire to rule, but not to be ruled. In other words, they had a local vision of rule. This was, in their view, pictured in the paternalistic plantation system. A man’s manor was his domain and they were opposed to outside interference.

It is easy for us to look back at these men and conclude that they were hierarchical and patriarchal. I think they would wonder what the issue was. They would have agreed with those characterizations, believing that they could bring out the best in the people for whom they were responsible. Of course, many of the Cavaliers in Virginia abused their place and their power. But that was not the case across the board as we can see demonstrated in many of those in the Southern colonies.

Pennsylvania, because of the Quaker leadership which led to religious liberty and economic opportunity, was characterized by diverse settlement. Because of that, Fischer explains that the Quaker colonies developed a vision of liberty he called the “reciprocal” or the “golden rule” vision. Because the Quakers wanted and needed toleration of their own beliefs and practices, they granted that to others.

I grew up on the edges of Appalachia in Walker County, Alabama. My people were Borderlanders. Because of their long and troubled history on the border between England and Scotland, they distrusted authority, including the state and established churches, though many of them were connected to the Presbyterian church in some way. They were always willing to move farther west in order to avoid the exertion of authority on them. One historian described them as “always on guard, fiercely protective of family, loyal toward friends, and ruthless toward enemies.” Fischer called their vision of liberty as “natural freedom” which he described as heavy on individual autonomy and fiercely resistant to outside authority.

Now, here is one reason why this matters. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he was not “bringing forth a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” at least not in the sense that Lincoln meant it at Gettysburg.

This was not one nation; it was multiple. With different agendas, priorities, aims, and especially, as we have seen, different visions for what it meant to be free. Regional tensions did not arise because of slavery, did not develop simply because of westward expansion, nor did they appear in the 1850s. Rather, the colonies were different from the go. This shaped the colonies as they became states. Southerners did not want the New England vision imposed on them. The same was true in the other direction. The same was true for the Middle Colonies and those who settled in the backcountry. This kind of arrangement necessitated a federal approach. No central power could fully satisfy all of the regions.