The content of A Summary View, deemed radical by many
in 1774, did much to establish Jefferson’s reputation as an eloquent political
writer and philosopher, and was likely responsible for his election to the
Second Continental Congress in 1775, and his being chosen as the principle
writer of the Declaration of Independence. Among other things it accomplished
two basic tasks. First, it laid out Jefferson’s view of the political and
social relationship between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. And second,
it discussed the roots of the ongoing conflict between those two bodies. The
latter had been tackled before, by individual writers and various colonial legislatures,
and Jefferson’s views didn't diverge all that much from what had already been
said. His conception of the colonies’ foundings and their place within the
larger British Empire, however, was more than a little unconventional, and was
likely what raised the ire of the more moderate delegates at Philadelphia in
1774.
Jefferson’s theory was fairly
straightforward, if a bit unusual, and followed from a series of factual
declarations. First he asserted in paragraph two that when his ancestors and
those of his fellow colonists first arrived in America they did so as free
inhabitants of the British Empire. Like all British subjects they were
possessed of certain basic, natural rights, and by choosing to inhabit a land
heretofore unsettled (by Europeans, anyway) and accordingly establishing new
societies of their own design, these same rights were not rendered null and
void. The Saxons of antiquity, a tribe of Germanic barbarians that settled in
England beginning in the 5th century, did so in a similar manner to
the earliest English colonists in America. The Saxons worked, and warred, and
spilt their blood and sweat in attempting to take England for themselves, and
consequently whatever gains they made were their property, and not those of
whatever authorities existed in Saxony. Just so, Jefferson argued, the people
of Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania owed whatever prosperity they
enjoyed to their own hard work, their own toil and suffering, and not to
British authorities whose financial assistance was minimal, recent, and
self-interested.
Indeed, Jefferson continued, the
then-recent Seven Years War that pitted Britain and France against each other
yet again and saw battles rage across their respective North American colonies
was conducted for Britain’s benefit. The colonists would have been pleased to
trade with France or any of its colonies to their mutual satisfaction had
Britain not felt threatened by this proposition and made war as a result. And
though, Jefferson conceded, the financial assistance that Britain had granted
the colonies had indeed been useful, it did not give Parliament the right to
legislate for those colonies, any more than British aid to Portugal allowed
them to regulate the laws of that sovereign kingdom. Rather, Jefferson
believed, the colonies were tied to the British crown by choice. They had
adopted models of government similar to that of Britain out of a sense of
familiarity, and had chosen to acknowledge the British monarch as their own for
similar reasons. Thus, the colonies that could be said to constitute British
North America were not subsidiaries to Great Britain itself, but separate and
equal political entities linked by a shared king. Jefferson followed this in
paragraph four by definitively stating that whatever political divisions had
been undertaken in British North America in the 17th century by the
granting of land to favourites and followers of the monarch were fundamentally
unjustified.
Simple enough, right? Virginia,
Georgia, New Hampshire; these and their sister-colonies were established by the
colonists themselves, and Britain’s assistance was mercurial at best. Thus, the
colonies of British North America were independent political entities, with the
right to make their own laws, collect their own taxes, and refuse to recognize
any authority other than that of their legally accepted sovereign (who also
happened to be the British monarch). As I said, this was a radical view in
1774, but did it have a basis in fact? Was Jefferson right, in spite of the
more conservative views taken by many of his colleagues?
To answer that, I’d like to look
at how each of the Thirteen Colonies was founded and test Jefferson’s
hypothesis against the facts as they are now understood. Bear with me, if you
would.
Deep breath.
1) Province
of Virginia: following failed attempts at colonization during the Elizabethan
era, the London Company (a joint stock company) was granted a royal charter by
James I in 1607 and authorized to settle along the coast of North America
between the 34th and 41st parallels. The Company was
required to pay all costs themselves, but in return reserved the right to all
property and resources within their territory. The intention of the investors
was to establish a permanent settlement, extract what resources they could in
the way of minerals, timber or produce, and export and sell them in Britain at
a profit (hopefully). After several disastrous years of famine, falling stock
prices, lawsuits and conflicts with Natives, the Company had its charter
revoked and Virginia became a crown colony in 1624. Though it was certainly
intended to be an independent venture, and the early colonists did not receive
aid from the British government, the colony’s inability to establish a firm
footing, and its founders’ frequent financial missteps, ensured that little
permanent success was achieved prior to the imposition of royal authority in
the 1620s. Let’s say Jefferson was half-right in reference to his native land,
but only just.
2)Province
of Massachusetts Bay: Massachusetts was formed of a merger of two earlier
colonies: the Massachusetts Bay Colony (founded 1628), and the Plymouth Colony
(founded 1620). Both were founded with the help of private investment, either
through the London Company or one of its competitors. Colonists in these
territories tended to be religious dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) who
borrowed money to obtain colonial charters and were actively fleeing
persecution in Britain. In spite of hardships they managed to survive the harsh
conditions in North America and developed into thriving centres of trade and
agriculture. After several decades of virtual independence the colonies
experienced a period of tumultuous relations with Britain from the 1660s
through the 1680s, culminating in the merger and founding of the Province of
Massachusetts Bay under royal authority in 1691. Because the colony/colonies
enjoyed a lengthier period of independence from British governance than
Virginia, and were generally less likely to have received aid due to their
status as havens of religious dissent, I’d argue that Massachusetts fits more
closely to Jefferson’s model (though it too was eventually reorganized under
royal auspices).
3) Province
of New York: founded in 1614 by a chartered Dutch trading company as Nieuw-Nederlandt,
it remained a private venture until captured by the English in 1664 during the
Second Anglo-Dutch War. Thereafter the territory was granted to the Duke of
York, who never visited the region himself and governed it through a series of
appointed officers and administrators as a proprietary colony (one that is
essentially owned by a single individual and governed via a royal charter). In
1685 the Duke ascended the throne and became King James II, whereupon New York
became a crown colony. Unless Jefferson considered the Dutch period to be
within the scope of his evaluation, I don’t suppose New York could have ever
been considered particularly autonomous (or at least not in the way he
described).
4)Province
of Pennsylvania: a proprietary colony founded in 1681 by Quaker William Penn
after King Charles II awarded him a 45,000 square mile grant in payment for
debts the crown owed to William’s father, Pennsylvania remained in the hands of
the Penn family until the Revolution. William Penn parcelled out land to a host
of prospective settlers, helped establish a frame of government (which was
considered very progressive at the time) and took pains to enforce religious
freedom. The colony subsequently became one of the most successful and
cosmopolitan European settlements in North America. More than most, I’d say
Pennsylvania adheres to Jefferson’s vision of an independently founded and
prosperous colony that owed little of its success to British assistance. That
being said, without that initial land grant from Charles II it’s unlikely that
Pennsylvania would have ever existed.
5) Province
of New Jersey: established in 1665 after the Duke of York granted territory
between the Hudson and Delaware rivers in his colonial holdings to Sir George
Cateret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton, New Jersey was administered as a
proprietary colony, then split into East and West Jersey in 1674, and then
recombined as a crown colony in 1702. A reasonably successful colony with a
fitful history, New Jersey seems to fall somewhere between autonomy and
dependence. Again I’d say that Jefferson is perhaps half-right.
With several more colonies to go, I think I’ll break off
here and pick things up in the next post. So far, though, Jefferson’s argument
is not necessarily being borne out by the evidence.
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