Growth and Diversity
The English colonies experienced a remarkable annual population growth rate of three percent between 1700 and 1770. The growth of the colonies emanated from increased natural reproduction, a decline in the mortality rate, and substantial immigration. Many of these newcomers populated the backcountry where living conditions were demanding and often violent.

Scots-Irish Flee Oppression
Non-English colonists, especially the Scots-Irish, arrived in great numbers throughout the eighteenth century, many settling on the Pennsylvania frontier. Many who came were more interested in improving their material lives than in finding religious freedom. Ethnic differences, however, often spurred disputes with English colonists.

Germans Search for a Better Life
The second largest group of non-English settlers came from the upper Rhine Valley. The first wave of German immigrants, the Mennonites, came for religious toleration, but soon Lutheran Germans began coming for potential gains in their material lives. Like the Scots-Irish, they most often settled in the Middle Colonies, especially Pennsylvania. Additionally, they too experienced cultural conflict with the English settlers around them.

Convict Settlers
Between 1715 and 1775, some 50,000 convicts were shipped to America from Britain to be employed as indentured servants. These individuals rarely flourished and faced a great deal of resentment from other settlers.

Native Americans Stake Out a Middle Ground
Many Native Americans migrated to the western backcountry and joined existing confederacies of Indian tribes. Rather than isolating themselves from European colonials, the Indians interacted, traded, and compromised with Europeans as much as possible, effectively creating a “middle ground.” European trade goods, though desirable, often changed tribal organization and structure, eroding traditional roles. Additionally, disease continued to take its toll, claiming Native American lives.

SPANISH BORDERLANDS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
From the time the Spanish established settlements in North America until the early nineteenth century, they tenuously held onto their northern frontier, creating complex multicultural societies.

Conquering the Northern Frontier
International rivalries and the lure of gold and silver attracted Spanish settlers to North America. Spanish enthusiasm waned significantly by the eighteenth century. California played only a small role in Spanish settlement until much later.

Peoples of the Spanish Borderlands
Spanish outposts in North America grew very slowly as Catholic priests and imperial administrators made up the bulk of Spaniards willing to settle there. Spanish colonials exploited and enslaved Native Americans and attempted to convert them to Catholicism despite Indian resistance. Spanish settlements in North America consisted primarily of military outposts and Catholic missions.

The Impact of European Ideas on American Culture
An urban cosmopolitan culture developed among the more established Atlantic colonies as the colonists participated in an expanded consumer marketplace.

Provincial Cities
Urban populations remained small in colonial America, but were growing quickly. Most American cities were intermediary trading ports where the latest in European ideas and styles were successfully integrated.

American Enlightenment
Americans accepted and followed many of the ideals of European enlightenment, especially the search for useful knowledge and ideas even while they rejected most enlightenment ideals as they pertained to religion.

Benjamin Franklin
Chief among the American enlightenment thinkers was Benjamin Franklin. He was the true eighteenth-century American representative of the cosmopolitan, materialistic Atlantic culture. He became the symbol of material progress through human ingenuity.

Economic Transformation
Despite the growth of the population, living standards kept pace and actually improved. Growing trade with the West Indies, coupled with the ability to purchase cheap manufactured products on credit from England, enriched living standards. England remained the most important trading partner for the colonies.

Birth of a Consumer Society
As the British economy picked up significantly after 1690, Americans imported far more commodities than before, and American indebtedness increased dramatically. This influx of British manufactured goods helped to “Anglicize” American culture. The period also witnessed a substantial increase in inter-coastal trade that brought far-flung colonists into greater contact with each other.

Religious Revivals in Provincial Societies
The Great Awakening had a profound impact in colonial America and caused colonists to rethink their basic assumptions about church and state institutions and society as a whole.

The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening, which began in New England in the 1730s, brought with it a profound infusion of evangelical exhortations and revival spirit that crossed denominational boundaries and varied in intensity from region to region.

The Voice of Popular Religion
Preachers like George Whitefield, Gilbert Tennent, and Jonathan Edwards vividly depicted the horrors of hell to captivate audiences in an effort to restore religious vitality within the colonies. The movement swept through America, and although in some cases it bitterly polarized communities, it generally brought the colonists closer together as Americans, encouraged lay persons to take an active role in their denominations, gave the colonists an awareness of a larger religious community, and enhanced their optimism. The expressive evangelicalism especially appealed to African Americans.

Clash of Political Cultures
American political theorists often revered the British form of government and its “unwritten” constitution, but the more they studied it, the more aware they became of American difference.

The English Constitution
In concept at least, political power was divided among the monarchy and his council of advisors, the two-chamber Parliament, and various local governments. Each group theoretically represented a different socio-economic interest and provided a check on the ambitions of the others.

The Reality of British Politics
In practice, the English system was vulnerable to corruption and idleness as the three bodies in English government did NOT represent distinct socio-economic groups and therefore did NOT act independently as a check on one another. Some protesters, such as the “Commonwealthmen,” observed that many of England’s rulers were corrupt and that the institutions of the “mixed” constitution were no longer in balance.

Governing the Colonies: The American Experience
Although colonial leaders attempted in many ways to recreate British-style institutions, government in America was decidedly different. Royal governors appointed by the crown to oversee colonial affairs had a great deal of power. Governor’s councils, appointed by the Board of Trade, did not represent a distinct class of people in the colony. And, legislative assemblies, elected by the people, rose to great prominence in the colonies. Though colonial governments were not democracies, the power to expel legislators who misbehaved was always present, acting as a check on their actions.

Colonial Assemblies
Often aggressive in asserting rights and powers, the colonial assemblies viewed their mission as protecting the rights of the American colonists. They tolerated little criticism and saw any action taken against their bodies as actions taken against the colonists.

Century of Imperial War
A number of wars, the results of the imperial ambitions of Britain and France, occurred in the colonies for the mastery of North America. In these wars, the scope and character of the colonists’ participation changed dramatically as the eighteenth century progressed.

King William's and Queen Anne's Wars
Although these wars resulted in little change in territorial control, both sides, as well as the colonists, realized the enormous stakes in their rivalry for control in North America. Native Americans greatly suffered as they were swept up in the undeclared warfare that continued on the American frontier after the formal end of these two wars.

King George's War and Its Aftermath
This war revealed the capability of American colonial forces in waging war against the French as well as the colonial desire to gain complete control of the West. The treaty that ended this war proved to be a disappointment to the colonists as the French were not removed from the continent. The imperial struggle spread to the Ohio Valley by the 1750s in undeclared warfare.

Albany Congress and Braddock's Defeat
Although the colonial assemblies failed to accept it, Benjamin Franklin proposed a most ambitious plan for common colonial defense and western expansion. In an attempt to stop French expansion, British General Braddock led an unorganized and failed attempt to seize control of the Ohio Valley by attempting to take Fort Duquesne from the French.

Seven Years' War
After Braddock’s defeat, George III officially declared war on the French and, finally, between 1756 and 1760, the showdown for North American supremacy was staged. The British were overwhelmingly triumphant, largely owing to the efforts of William Pitt in London and their strength of numbers in America. The war left Britain with an empire that expanded around the globe.

Perceptions of War
As a result of the Seven Years’ War, the American colonists became aware of their part in a great empire, but they also gained an intimate sense of what America had become. The war also pointed out some potential problems and conflicts between England and the colonies.

Conclusion: Rule Britannia?
Most colonial Americans enthusiastically identified with and supported the British Empire, rejoicing at being “equal partners” in this great imperial enterprise. Though they perceived themselves as “not quite British,” they did not foresee that the British did not perceive them as “Brothers.”