Part 27 (1/2)
They spread into Franklin, Adams, and York counties and the later movement carried them southward into the great valleys.
The Southern Piedmont--By 1735 or earlier, the Scotch-Irish began moving into the Shenandoah Valley. Some of them remained in Maryland and the most eastern counties of what is now West Virginia, but most of them, moved into Virginia, taking up the lands west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Many went through the pa.s.ses and made their homes in the Piedmont region to the east of the Blue Ridge. The movement was greatly stimulated by the fact that several large land grants were made to various Pennsylvanians and Virginians, who encouraged the settlement of their lands. The early records of the Scotch-Irish in the southern Piedmont give us little exact data, but between 1740 and 1760 scattered settlements were made along the frontier from Virginia to Florida. In North Carolina the lands between the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers were settled. By 1750 the vanguard appeared in the western part of South Carolina, and a few years later in the upland country of Georgia.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE PIEDMONT
By the middle of the century results of great significance had come about. All the way from New England to Georgia a back country society had been formed, with characteristics in many ways distinct from that of the Tidewater settlements. A large portion of the settlers, particularly south of New York, were of non-English stock, and had brought with them diverse notions; but, under the influence of frontier environment, they had been moulded, together with the English stock, into a more or less h.o.m.ogeneous ma.s.s. In the main the settlers were persons of slender means, and lived hard, frontier lives. They tilled small farms with their own hands, and indentured servitude and slave-holding were consequently unimportant. Society, on the whole, was democratic, individualistic, tolerant, and self-reliant. In spite of this h.o.m.ogeneity of the frontier, the original traits of the settlers persisted, and can still be found in the Pennsylvania ”Dutch” or in the Scotch Presbyterians of the Southern Piedmont.
Being distinct in character and interests, the Piedmont and Tidewater clashed at many points, and thus arose ”sectional” contests between the East and the West, a feature which has marked American development down to the present. The simple back country const.i.tuted a debtor society, in need of an expanding credit; the coast was more aristocratic and more capitalistic. The East attempted to dominate politics, legislation, and administration. The West resisted, and before the Revolution contests arose in nearly every colony. In many instances the back country won; its victories are reflected in the provisions for religious toleration and in the democratic tendencies of the new state const.i.tutions formed during and after the Revolution.
There were other important consequences from the settlement of the back country. In spite of divergent interests, there were bonds of union between the East and the Wrest. The new settlements furnished a market for eastern goods and provided commodities in exchange, and thus lessened the dependence of the coast upon Europe. Attended by Indian wars and border hostilities with French and Spanish neighbors, the westward movement had created a fighting frontier. At the same time, by bringing the international frontiers into conflict, it had prepared the way for the final struggle between France and England in America.
It was the southern Piedmont which furnished leaders for the southwestward movement in the succeeding generations. Says Turner: ”Among this moving ma.s.s, as it pa.s.sed along the Valley into the Piedmont, in the middle of the eighteenth century, were Daniel Boone, John Sevier, James Robertson, and the ancestors of John C. Calhoun, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, James K. Polk, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett; while the father of Andrew Jackson came to the Piedmont at the same time from the coast. Recalling that Thomas Jefferson's home was in this frontier, at the edge of the Blue Ridge, we perceive that these names represent the militant expansive movement in American life. They foretell the settlement across the Alleghanies in Kentucky and Tennessee; the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark's transcontinental exploration; the conquest of the Gulf Plains in the War of 1812-15; the annexation of Texas; the acquisition of California and the Spanish Southwest. They represent, too, frontier democracy in its two aspects personified in Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. It was a democracy responsive to leaders.h.i.+p, susceptible to waves of emotion, of a 'high religious voltage'--quick and direct in action.”
READINGS
DEFENCE OF THE FRONTIERS
Channing, Edward, _History of the United States_, II, 341-365; d.i.c.kerson, O.M., _American Colonial Government_, 326-332; Fiske, John, _Old Virginia and her Neighbors_, II, 383-389; Greene, E.B.. _Provincial America_, 181-184, 249-262; Hamilton, P.J., _The Colonization of the South_, 291-308; Jones, C.C., _The History of Georgia_, I, 67-313; Kingsford, William, _The History of Canada_, III, 121-201: McCrady, Edward. _A History of South Carolina_, I, 531-680; Parkman, Francis, _A Half-Century of Conflict_, I, 183-271, II, 53-56; McCain, J.R., _Georgia as a Proprietary Province_.
THE GERMAN AND SWISS MIGRATION
Bernheim, G.D., _German Settlements in North and South Carolina_; Bittinger, L.F., _The Germans in Colonial Times_, 11-183; Cobb, S.H., _The Story of the Palatines_; Faust, A.B.. _The German Element in the United States_, I, 30-262; ”Swiss Emigration to the American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century,” in _The American Historical Review_, XXII, 21-44; Jones, C.C., _The History of Georgia_, I, 163-173. 208-214; Kuhns, O.. _The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania_, 1-192; Wayland, J.W., _The German Element of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia_.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH
Campbell, Douglas, _The Puritan in Holland, England, and America_, II, 460-485; Ford, H.J., _The Scotch-Irish in America_, 1-290; Hanna, C.A., The _Scotch-Irish_, II, 6-126; Turner, F.J., ”The Old West,”' in Wis.
Hist. Soc., _Proceedings, 1908_.
CHAPTER XVIII
ENGLISH COLONIAL SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
GENERAL FEATURES
Population and settled area.--By 1760 the population of the English continental colonies was probably 1,650,000; of these the New England colonies contained about a half-million, the middle group about four hundred and fifty thousand, and south of the Mason-Dixon line there were about seven hundred thousand. Nearly half of the inhabitants were in Ma.s.sachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The bulk of the population still clung to the coastal regions, but the rivers had pointed the way to the interior; many of the valleys were occupied for a considerable distance, and the Germans and Scotch-Irish had penetrated the great valleys of the central and southern Appalachians. Practically the whole of Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut had been occupied; to the northward extended three narrow lines of settlement, one along the New Hamps.h.i.+re and Maine coast as far as the Pen.o.bscot and extending fifty miles up the Kennebec, another reaching up the Merrimac for sixty miles into central New Hamps.h.i.+re, and a third following the Connecticut for fifty miles above the northern Ma.s.sachusetts line. Long Island was almost entirely settled, as was the Hudson Valley to a point a little above Albany, and the lower Mohawk Valley had been settled. New Jersey, except in the central part and a small section of the eastern coast, was occupied. Eastern Pennsylvania, the lower valley of the Susquehanna, and adjacent valleys were peopled, as was the western sh.o.r.e of Delaware Bay.
Maryland and Virginia were settled up to the mountains and had overflowed into the valleys of the Blue Ridge. In North Carolina the settlements extended back for a hundred and fifty miles or more from the coast and as far south as the valley of the Cape Fear River. In the back country of North and South Carolina and Georgia the valleys were occupied and the population had flowed over onto the eastern slopes of the Appalachians. The coast lands of South Carolina and Georgia as far as the Altamaha and the lowlands along the Pedee, Santee, and Savannah Rivers were occupied for a hundred miles from the coast.
The older settled areas were below the Fall Line. There the industrial and social life was less in a state of flux than along the ever-advancing frontier. The economic tendencies in the coast country were already fixed and showed little change until machines and transportation worked an industrial revolution early in the nineteenth century. The social life was also comparatively stable and was so to remain until the Revolutionary War.
Manufacturing and mining.--During the colonial period manufacturing made little progress, due mainly to the abundance of cheap land and English restrictions. The colonists depended mainly upon England for manufactured goods. Nevertheless, manufacturing made some headway, especially in the North, where agricultural pursuits brought less profit than in the South. The coa.r.s.er fabrics, linen, hats, and shoes were produced for the local markets. Mining was also beginning, iron mines having been developed in New England. Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and at least one copper mine was worked in New Jersey.
Ironworks were established in the neighborhood of the mines and supplied many of the local needs. In 1750 an act was pa.s.sed by parliament which allowed colonial pig-iron to be imported into England and bar-iron to enter the port of London. The manufacture of rum was an important northern industry.
NEW ENGLAND INDUSTRY
Farming.--During the colonial period the great ma.s.s of the people were engaged in agriculture. In New England, where soil and climate were less favorable than in the South, the small farm with diversified crops was the prevailing type. The supply of labor was limited and wages relatively high. Under such conditions, the farmer, his sons, and the ”hired man” worked the place, and by dint of industry made a living. The New England farmer was more nearly self-sufficient that any other cla.s.s, a condition which no doubt increased his feeling of independence. The products of the farm were usually adequate for local needs but furnished practically nothing for exportation.