Shaping of the Colonies in 1763 There

Shaping of the Colonies in 1763

There have been few eras in human history possessed with more of the expectant optimism, and the grim pragmatism, than the century following first contact with the new world of North America. With an expansive landmass, the size of which more than doubled that known to citizens of any European country at the time, brimming with natural resources and lying open for exploration and settlement, many thinkers of the age shared Benjamin Franklin's fateful estimation, made in his tract America as a Land of Opportunity, which claimed "so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully." Penned and published in 1751, Franklin's treatise on the seemingly infinite riches to be reaped by the American colonies failed to fully anticipate man's overwhelming compulsion to compete for the control of land. While America's preeminent philosopher was prescient in his predictions regarding the exponential increase in population, declaring "there are suppos'd to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho' 'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) & #8230; our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years," the fallacy of immeasurable resources clouded his vision. The bitterly disputed French and Indian War would erupt just three years after Franklin's essay was written, proving that no matter how far flung natural borders may appear to be, frontiers must always meet their end, and when they do people will fiercely defend the soil beneath their feet.

The numerous indigenous tribes which thrived throughout North America before contact with European exploration, from the Inuit of the Canadian North to the Iroquois and Sioux of the American heartland, were the first people to feel the pressure of foreign encroachment onto occupied lands. Almost immediately, the English, French and Spanish imposed their sovereign rule on unwitting and unwilling subjects of conquest, driving families from their homes and pushing entire cultures to the brink of ever shrinking borders. At the heart of the conflict between natives and newcomers was a fundamentally different conception of land ownership, property, and the purpose of natural resources. The revered Ottawa chief Pontiac, who would lead ill fated rebellion which bore his mantle in 1763, once famously put forth the stance of his fellow natives in the boldest of terms, pronouncing "these lakes, these woods and mountains were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance; and we will part with them to none." Pontiac's worldview was wholly shaped by his people's religious and cultural values, evidenced in the portion of his incitement to insurrection which plainly stated that "The Master of Life has said & #8230; the land on which you live I have made for you and not for others. Why do you suffer the white man to dwell among you?"

In contrast to the native people's almost instinctual reverence for the lands which sustained them, the European mindset emphasized a sort of cruel moral calculus, emulated by Franklin's formulaic justification of aggressive expansion: "America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less & #8230; and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail'd on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers." Once again Franklin misjudged the devoted defense of one's homeland engrained in the identity of a cornered culture, expressed thusly with typical eloquence by Pontiac's final summation: "And as for these English, - these dogs dressed in red, who have come to rob you of your hunting grounds, and drive away the game, - you must lift the hatchet against them."

After decades spent dispatching natives from the confines of constantly expanding British and French empires, both through the deployment of merciless military campaigns and the slow erosion of their cultural heritage, the stewards of burgeoning new civilizations were charged with the arduous task of locating a cheap and expendable labor force. While the imprisonment and import of African slaves formed the foundation of this forced labor for a number of years, plantation owners and politicians alike increasingly turned to the industry of indentured servitude to staff their tobacco and cotton enterprises. Shipped en masse to the new world on a string of empty promises and broken contracts, indentured servants were ostensibly unpaid apprentices working to pay for their passage over the Atlantic Ocean to the promised land. Inspired by the offer of open land for eventual agricultural development, indentured servants soon discovered the awful truth, described by John Hammond as early as 1656, that "there is no land customarily due to the servant, but to the Master, and therefore that servant is unwise that will not dash out that custom in his covenant and make that due of land absolutely his own, which although at the present, not of so great consequences; yet in few years will be of much worth." In reality, indentured servants like Elizabeth Sprigs of Maryland were subjected to terms of slaver labor which often became life sentences. In a sorrowful letter to her forlorn father, Sprigs recounted the reprehensible treatment afforded to indentured servants living and working in the colonies, counting herself as "one of the unhappy number & #8230; toiling almost day and night, and very often in the horse's drudgery & #8230; scarce any thing but Indian corn and salt to eat and that even begrudged" and concluding that despite her supposed status as a free person, "nay many Negroes are better used."