Trenton Baltimore harbors along the coast arose the first line of cities, — Boston, Portsmouth, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, Charleston. By 1660 (that is, by the end of the first half century), when the first frontier had been transformed into settled areas, a second thin frontier had pushed on fifty or a hundred miles farther inland, to the eastern foothills of the Appalachians. Here, during the next half century, at the head of navigation, and on sites of abundant water power, appeared a second line of towns, Trenton, Princeton, Richmond, Raleigh, Columbia,-growing out of early stations for the fur trade. So far, frontier had kept in touch with settled area. But, about 1700, a third frontier leaped the first range of mountains, into the long, narrow valleys running north and south between the Alleghenies and the Blue Ridge, leaving a hundred miles of tangled 26 Columbia Augusta Rechmond Petersburg Ralpigh де THE WATERCOURSE FALL LINE. The Scotch- -35 -301 wilderness between itself and civilization. This region was the beginning of a new "section" in our history. It was our first "West." Moreover, it was made by a new type of American settler, the Presbyterian Scotch-Irish. These were really neither Scotch nor Irish in blood, but Saxon English. For centuries their fathers had lived in the Lowlands of Scotland as frontiersmen against the Celtic Scots of the Highlands. In the reigns of Elizabeth and James they had colonized northeastern Ireland, frontiersmen against the Catholic and Celtic Irish. But after the English Revolution, the new navigation laws crushed their linen manufactures, the chief basis of their prosperity there, and the English THE SCOTCH-IRISH AND THE WEST 135 laws against the Irish Catholics bore heavily also upon these Presbyterian "dissenters" from the English Church. So, about 1700, with hearts embittered toward England, they began once more to seek new homes, this time in America. In both Scotland and Ireland there had been some mixture of blood, but the dominant strain was still English. The volume of this immigration increased rapidly, and it has been estimated that between 1720 and 1750 it amounted to an average of 12,000 a year. In numbers and in significance, the Presbyterian English of the West rank in our nation-making alongside the Episcopalian English of Virginia and the Congregational English of New England. The Scotch-Irish came to America mainly through the ports of Philadelphia in the north and Charleston in the south. Many stopped in the settled areas; but a steady stream passed on directly to the mountains and over them. Reaching the Appalachian valleys in the far north and south, the two currents drifted toward each other, until they met in the Shenandoah valley in western Virginia. And thence, just before the American Revolution, under leaders like Boone and Robertson, they began to break through the western wall, to make a fourth frontier at the western foothills and farther west, in what we now call Kentucky and Tennessee. Until about 1850, the Scotch-Irish were the typical American frontiersmen, especially in the great middleWest and Southwest. They showed a marvelous power to assimilate other elements that mingled with them, German, French, Welsh, and even the real Irish and real Scotch, when these came, in small numbers, just before the Revolution. They have furnished, too, many leaders to our national life, such as Andrew Jackson and "Stonewall" Jackson, Horace Greeley, Jefferson Davis, Patrick Henry, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson. Unlike the country east of the mountains, this new "West" had its real unity from north to south. Politically, it is true, the settlers were divided by the old established colonial boundary lines, running east and west; but, from New York to Georgia, the people of this new frontier were one in race, religion, and habits of life, — hard, dogged farmers, reckless fighters and hunters, tall and sinewy of frame, saturnine, restless, dauntless of temper. Other immigrants to the New World had forced themselves into the wilderness, for high reasons, with gallant resolution, against natural inclination (page 69). But these men loved the wild for itself. Unorganized and uncaptained, armed only with ax and rifle (in the use of which weapons they have never been excelled), they rejoiced grimly in their task of subduing a continent. First of American colonists, too, did they in earnest face away from the Old World in their thought, and begin to look west toward the glorious destiny of the new continent. The struggle with France for the central valley From 1689 to 1763, with only short pauses for breath, France and England wrestled for the splendid prize of the Mississippi valley. This incessant war with the French and their dread Red allies made a somber background for all other movements in the English colonies. It was never for a moment to be forgotten by the daring frontiersman who shifted his home in search of better and cheaper land, or by the Assemblyman who wrangled with a royal governor for larger selfgovernment. For the most part the campaigns were fought on European fields; but at bottom the conflict was not determined on the battlefield. Two systems of colonization were at war in America, and free individualism won over despotic centralization (page 12). A French governor could wield effectively all the resources of New France, though this advantage was offset in part by the corruption that always threatens such a system; while among the English, dissensions between colony and colony, and, within a given colony, between governor and Assembly, many times cost dear. But in the long run, the autocratic governor proved no match for the democratic town meeting. Had the French ever succeeded in seizing Boston, they could never have held it WARS WITH FRENCH AND INDIANS 137 not even as long as King George did a few years later. On the other hand, the English needed only one decisive victory. For, despite the noble patriotism of a few great French leaders, the mass of French colonists had too little political activity to care greatly what country they belonged to, provided only they were treated decently. The closing chapter of the struggle was "the Great French War" of 1754-1763, often called the "French and Indian War." Here the interest centers around two heroic antagonists, Montcalm and Wolfe. England's command of the seas made it impossible for France to send Montcalm the reinforcements he pled for; and Wolfe's vic- Treaty of tory at Quebec settled forever the fate of the con- 1763 tinent. By the final treaties of 1763, England received Florida from Spain, and Canada and the eastern half of the Mississippi valley from France. The rest of the valley France ceded to her ally Spain, and, except for some West India islands, she ceased herself to be an American power. North America was left to the vigorous English commonwealths and to decaying Spain, with a dividing line, temporarily, at the great central river. The continent was destined to be English in speech and civilization. In internal development the seventy years from the English Revolution to the American Revolution have been called "a forgotten half century." There are Political deno brilliant episodes, no heroic figures, and no velopment new principles. Much was done, however, in extending institutions already established. The central theme is the continuance of that inevitable conflict that appeared in the preceding period (page 132). Under the pressure of ceaseless war, England felt, even more keenly than before, the need of controlling her colonies; and the colonies, realizing dimly their growing strength, felt more and more their right to regulate their own affairs. The projects of the English government to extend its influence in the colonies had two phases, commercial and political. 1. Several new Navigation Acts extended the old commercial policy of the home country. To the "enumerated articles" to be exported only through England, rice New Navigation Acts was added in 1706, and copper, naval stores,1 and beaver skins in 1722. More important was a new kind of restriction upon American industry, a series of attempts to restrict or prohibit manufactures. In 1696, a parliament of William III forbade any colony to export, even to England or to any other colony, any woolen manufacture. In 1732, exportation of hats 2 was forbidden. Legislation of this sort had no such excuse as the earlier navigation laws. The motive now was plain jealousy on the part of English manufacturers. Bad as this was, the restrictions upon manufacturing so far were indirect: no colony had been forbidden to make Restrictions any article for its own consumption. But in 1750 on industry (almost at the close of the period) the erection or use of iron mills was prohibited altogether. Unlike the unpleasant features of the earlier. commercial restrictions, too, this law could not be evaded. The half dozen iron mills that had appeared in the northern colonies were closed, and all manufacture of iron ceased, except for nails, bolts, and the simpler household and farm implements, such as in that day were turned out at the village smithy. These English laws of 1696, 1732, and 1750 were selfish and sinister, — the most ominous feature in all American colonial history. They must have become bitterly oppressive ere long, had the colonists continued under English rule; and at the time they fully deserved the condemnation visited upon them by the English economist, Adam Smith: "Those prohibitions are only impertinent badges of slavery, imposed upon [the colonies] without sufficient reason by the groundless jealousy of the manufacturers of the mother country." Unhappily the colonists seem to have felt aggrieved quite as much by 1 England compensated the colonies by paying generous bounties upon such materials sent to her. 2 Making hats from beaver skins had been a prominent industry in some northern colonies and in Pennsylvania. |