Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830

by John H. Elliott

  107. Brooks, Captives and Cousins, pp. 103-4.

  108. The now fashionable term `middle ground' was introduced by Richard White, The Middle Ground. Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge, 1991), where it is defined on p. x as `the place in between: in between cultures, peoples, and in between empires and the nonstate world of villages'. In so far as it connotes the desire for mutual accommodation and understanding, it is obviously more applicable to some areas of contact between Europeans and non-Europeans than others, and can easily lead to the ignoring or under-estimation of the degree of coercion involved in many such areas.

  109. See Axtell, Invasion Within, ch. 13 ('The White Indians').

  110. For Johnson's background and rise, see Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune. Crown, Colonies and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America (New York and London, 1988), pp. 75-9. His activities are traced in White, The Middle Ground.

  111. Bailyn and Morgan (ed.), Strangers Within the Realm, p. 299.

  112. Cited by Merrell, ibid., p. 118.

  113. Ibid., pp. 306-7.

  114. Cited by John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive (1994; New York, 1995), p. 230.

  115. Cited from the journal of the Rev. Charles Woodmason by Nobles, American Frontiers, p. 104.

  116. James Logan, cited by Jones in Bailyn and Morgan (ed.), Strangers Within the Realm, p. 297.

  117. Nobles, American Frontiers, pp. 107-8.

  118. Breen, Marketplace of Revolution, p. 118; and see above, pp. 243-4.

  119. See the listing of narratives in Lepore, The Name of War, pp. 50-1.

  120. Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, p. 97.

  121. Axtell, Invasion Within, ch. 13; and see also, for captivity in North America, Linda Colley, Captives. Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850 (London, 2002), part 2.

  122. Above, p. 235.

  123. Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, p. 121.

  124. Reprinted in Jehlen and Warner (eds), The English Literatures of America, pp. 349-82; and see for Mary Rowlandson, Lepore, The Name of War, especially pp. 126-31.

  125. See Demos, The Unredeemed Captive.

  126. Francisco Nunez de Pineda y Bascunan, Cautiverio feliz (Santiago de Chile, 1863); abridged edn. by Alejandro Lipschutz and Alvaro Jara (Santiago de Chile, 1973). Abridged English trans. by William C. Atkinson, The Happy Captive (Chatham, 1979). A suggestive comparison of the two captivity narratives is to be found in ch. 4 of Ralph Bauer, The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures (Cambridge, 2003), in the context of the transatlantic dialogue between creoles and their critics at the centre of empire.

  127. Ed. Jara, pp. 102, 183-4, 187.

  128. Cited by Le pore, The Name of War, p. 130.

  129. First published in Zaragoza in 1542, and included in Ramusio's Delle navigationi et viaggi (vol. 3, Venice, 1565). See the edn by Enrique Pupo-Walker: Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, Los naufragios (Madrid, 1992), and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca, ed. and trans. by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz (Lincoln, NE, 2003).

  130. S. M. Socolow, `Spanish Captives in Indian Societies: Cultural Contacts Along the Argentine Frontier', HAHR, 72 (1992), pp. 73-99; and see Peter Stern, `Marginals and Acculturation in Frontier Society', in Jackson (ed.), New Views of Borderland History, ch. 6. The question of the relative scarcity of captivity narratives in Spanish America is addressed in Fernando Opere, Historias de la frontera. El cautiverio en la America hispanica (Buenos Aires, 2001).

  131. Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, pp. 203-4 and 211-12.

  132. See Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, ch. 7.

  133. Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence, pp. 199-200; David A. Lupher, Romans in a New World. Classical Models in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America (Ann Arbor, MI, 2003), pp. 302-3.

  134. Arturo Warman, La danza de moros y cristianos (Mexico City, 1972), pp. 80 and 118-20.

  135. Above, p. 240.

  136. See Richard R. Beeman, The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America (Philadelphia, 2004), pp. 157-9; and, for a brief survey of backcountry history, Eric Hinderaker and Peter C. Mancall, At the Edge of Empire. The Backcountry in British North America (Baltimore and London, 2003).

  137. Butler, Becoming America, p. 10.

  138. Cited by Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750. A Portrait (1971; edn, New York, 1973), p. 23.

  139. Figures as given in McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, p. 222.

  140. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, p. 81; Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, p. 126.

  141. Alan Taylor, American Colonies. The Settlement of North America to 1800 (London, 2001), pp. 241-3.

  142. See above, pp. 105-6. For a general survey of the Atlantic plantation complex, see Philip D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex. Essays in Atlantic History (Cambridge, 1990).

  143. McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, p. 222.

  144. For a valuable attempt to classify the varieties of labour systems that developed in British America, see Richard S. Dunn, `Servants and Slaves: the Recruitment and Employment of Labor', in Greene and Pole (eds), Colonial British America, ch. 6.

  145. These differences are skilfully charted in Morgan's Slave Counterpoint. For the summary account of slave societies that follows, I have also drawn on Allan Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves. The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800 (Chapel Hill, NC and London, 1986), as well as Berlin, Many Thousands Gone.

  146. For Maryland, up to 1720, see Main, Tobacco Colony; and, for the general characteristics of tobacco culture, T. H. Breen, Tobacco Culture. The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of Revolution (Princeton, 1985).

  147. See for this, and what follows, Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana, IL and Chicago, 1999), ch. 1. Also Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, pp. 72-4.

  148. Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, p. 160. For Africans in Spanish American cities, see above, pp. 100-1.

  149. Ben Vinson III, Bearing Arms for His Majesty. The Free Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, CA, 2001).

  150. Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, p. 182.

  151. John Shy, Toward Lexington. The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (Princeton, 1965), p. 12.

  152. The relationship between the two is explored with great subtlety by Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom.

  153. For the construction of this world in Virginia, see Mechal Sobel, The World They Made Together. Black and White Values in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Princeton, 1987), and Morgan, Slave Counterpoint, part 2.

  154. Bernand and Gruzinski, Les Metissages, pp. 253-5.

  155. Cited by Rhys Isaac, Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom. Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation (Oxford, 2004), p. 117. This book brilliantly re-creates the physical environment and troubled mental world of a Virginia planter who left a copious record of his daily life.

  156. For a horrifying account of Jamaican plantation life, based on the diaries of Thomas Thistlewood, appointed overseer of a sugar plantation shortly after his arrival on the island in 1750, see Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire. Thomas Thistlewood and his Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (Chapel Hill, NC, 2004). There were, however, significant differences between the Jamaican and Virginian environments, as also between their African populations and the nature of their plantations, and it would be a mistake to extrapolate from one plantation to the entire plantation complex of the Caribbean and the American South.

  157. Isaac, Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom, p. 75 (1757).

  158. Sobel, The World They Made Together, pp. 147-52; Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, p. 161.

  159. Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, pp. 178-9.

  160. Nash, Urban Crucible, p. 107; Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, p. 107.

  161. Nash, Urban Crucible, F107

  162. See Richard S. Dunn, `The Recruitment and Employment of Labour'
, in Greene and Pole (eds), Colonial British America, pp. 182-3.

  163. See Salvucci, Textiles and Capitalism, pp. 101-3 (for numbers employed), and 110-111.

  164. Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico, p. 27.

  165. John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808-1825 (2nd edn, New York and London, 1973), pp. 191 and 380-1; CHLA, 2, pp. 375-7.

  166. A point well made by Bennett in Africans in Colonial Mexico.

  167. Dunn, `The Recruitment and Employment of Labour', p. 182.

  168. See Marc Egnal, `The Economic Development of the Thirteen Colonies, 1720 to 1775', WMQ, 3rd set. (1975), pp. 191-222, for a valuable discussion of the relationship between population growth, immigration and increasing productivity.

  169. Greenberg, `The Middle Colonies in Recent American Historiography'.

  170. McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. 101-11.

  171. Nash, Urban Crucible, pp. 136-8, and 212-14; T. H. Breen and Timothy Hall, `Structuring Provincial Imagination: the Rhetoric and Experience of Social Change in Eighteenth-Century New England', AHR, 103 (1998), pp. 1411-39.

  172. For the Great Awakening, see Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven, ch. 5, Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, ch. 6, and Robert A. Ferguson, American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1997), ch. 3. For its impact in New England, see Nash, Urban Crucible, pp. 204-19, and Breen and Hall, `Structuring Provincial Imagination'.

  173. Beeman, Varieties of Political Experience, ch. 3; Breen, The Good Ruler.

  174. Beeman, Varieties of Political Experience, ch. 2.

  175. Ibid., ch. 5.

  176. Tully, Forming American Politics, p. 126.

  177. Cited by Randall H. Balmer, A Perfect Babel of Confusion. Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies (Oxford and New York, 1989), p. 87. This book provides a cogent account of the attempt to anglicize, and Anglicanize, the New York Dutch.

  178. Above, pp. 180-1.

  179. In addition to Balmer, see Beeman, Varieties of Political Experience, p. 104; Patricia U. Bonomi, A Factious People. Politics and Society in Colonial New York (New York and London, 1971), and Kammen, Colonial New York.

  180. See in particular Nash, Urban Crucible, and Tully, Forming American Politics.

  181. Kammen, Colonial New York, ch. 8.

  182. Nash, Urban Crucible, pp. 140-8.

  183. Tully, Forming American Politics, pp. 140-9.

  184. Butler, Becoming America, p. 200.

  185. Ruth H. Bloch, Visionary Republic. Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756-1800 (Cambridge, 1985).

  186. Above, p. 154.

  187. Above, p. 151.

  Chapter 10. War and Reform

  1. Anderson, Crucible of War, ch. 5.

  2. Above, p. 265.

  3. Cited by Isaac, Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom, p. 157.

  4. Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 135.

  5. See John Robert McNeill, Atlantic Empires of France and Spain. Louisbourg and Havana, 1700-1763 (Chapel Hill, NC and London, 1985), for the role of Louisbourg in the French imperial system.

  6. See Anderson, Crucible of War, parts IV to VI, for a vivid account of the course and outcome of the conflict.

  7. Ibid., pp. 484-5 and 489-90.

  8. For the siege of Havana see Hugh Thomas, Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom (London, 1971), ch. 1, and McNeill, Atlantic Empires, pp. 103-4.

  9. For the terms of the Peace of Paris, see Wright, Anglo-Spanish Rivalry, pp. 107-8, and Anderson, Crucible of War, pp. 504-6.

  10. Cited by Cespedes de Castillo, America hispknica, p. 324.

  11. Above, p. 274.

  12. Above, p. 284.

  13. For the deficiencies of the militia system and military reorganization in New Spain, see Lyle N. McAlister, `The Reorganization of the Army of New Spain, 1763-1766', HAHR, 33 (1953), pp. 1-32, and his The `Fuero Militar' in New Spain, 1764-1800 (Gainesville, FL, 1957), p. 2.

  14. Shy, A People Numerous, pp. 37-9.

  15. John Shy, Armed Force in Colonial North America: New Spain, New France, and AngloAmerica', in Kenneth J. Hagan and William R. Roberts (eds), Against All Enemies. Interpretations of American Military History from Colonial Times to the Present (Greenwood Press, Contributions in Military Studies, no. 51, New York, Westport, Conn., London, 1986), at p. 9.

  16. Cited by Andrews, Colonial Period, vol. 4, p. 417.

  17. Anderson, Crucible of War, ch. 7. For ambivalent attitudes in London to plans for colonial union, see Alison Olson, `The British Government and Colonial Union, 1754', WMQ, 3rd set., 17 (1960), pp. 22-34.

  18. Anderson, Crucible o f War, p. 85. For William Johnson, who was appointed superintendent of Northern Indian affairs, see above pp. 275-6.

  19. Cited by Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 148.

  20. Jack P. Greene, `The Seven Years' War and the American Revolution: the Causal Relationship Reconsidered', in Peter Marshall and Glyn Williams (eds), The British Atlantic Empire Before the American Revolution (London, 1980), pp. 85-105, at p. 88. For the problem, and extent, of illicit trade in these years see Barrow, Trade and Empire, ch. 7.

  21. Cited by Barrow, Trade and Empire, p. 152.

  22. Shy, Toward Lexington, p. 35 for troop numbers; for relative tax burdens, Taylor, American Colonies, p. 438.

  23. John L. Bullion, "`The Ten Thousand in America": More Light on the Decision on the American Army, 1762-1763', WMQ, 3rd set., 43 (1986), pp. 646-57.

  24. Lynch, Bourbon Spain, pp. 312-17.

  25. A. S. Aiton, `Spanish Colonial Reorganization Under the Family Compact', HAHR, 12 (1932), pp. 269-80; Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire. Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789 (Baltimore and London, 2003), pp. 58-68.

  26. For the military reforms, see McAlister, `The Reorganization of the Army of New Spain'; Cespedes del Castillo, Ensayos, pp. 261-9; Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico, pp. 9-16.

  27. Archer, The Army, p. 12; Greene, `Seven Years' War', p. 89.

  28. CHLA, 1, p. 400.

  29. Cespedes del Castillo, America hispanica, p. 325.

  30. McAlister, The `Duero Militar', pp. 10-11.

  31. See Juan Marchena Fernandez, Ejercito y militias en el mundo colonial americano (Madrid, 1992), table, p. 62, and his `The Social World of the Military in Peru and New Granada: the Colonial Oligarchies in Conflict', in John R. Fisher, Allan J. Kuethe and Anthony McFarlane (eds), Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru (Baton Rouge, LA and London, 1990), ch. 3.

  32. Shy A People Numerous, p. 40.

  33. Anderson, Crucible of War, pp. 560-2.

  34. Greene, `Seven Years' War', p. 95.

  35. P. D. Thomas, British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis. The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763-1767 (Oxford, 1975), p. 38.

  36. Above, pp. 228-9.

  37. Burkholder and Chandler, From Impotence to Authority, part 1; Mark A. Burkholder, `From Creole to Peninsular; the Transformation of the Audiencia of Lima', HAHR, 52 (1972), pp. 395-415; Jaime E. Rodriguez 0., The Independence of Spanish America (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 21-2.

  38. Cited by Labaree, Royal Government in America, p. 308.

  39. Greene, Quest for Power, pp. 70 and 360-1.

  40. Olson, Anglo-American Politics, pp. 147-8; Barrow, Trade and Empire, pp. 157-8.

  41. For `rational' and scientific preoccupations in the Spain of Charles III, and their impact on imperial government, see in particular the essays in the exhibition catalogue, Carlos III y la Ilustracion, 2 vols (Madrid and Barcelona, 1989). For Britain, Drayton, Nature's Government, especially pp. 67-9, and Shy, A People Numerous, pp. 77-9.

  42. See Allan J. Kuethe and G. Douglas Inglis, 'Absolutism and Enlightened Reform: Charles III, the Establishment of the Alcabala, and Commercial Reorganization in Cuba', Past and Present, 109 (1985), pp. 118-43.

  43. For the overthrow of Esquilache and its consequences, see Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, ch. 4, and the exhaustive study by Jose And
res-Gallego, El motin de Esquilache, America y Europa (Madrid, 2003).

  44. Cespedes del Castillo, Ensayos, p. 308; MacLachlan, Spain's Empire, pp. 93-4.

  45. The administrative career of Galvez deserves a comprehensive study. The now antiquated study by Herbert Ingram Priestley, Jose de Galvez, Visitor-General of New Spain, 1765-1771 (Berkeley, 1916), does not extend beyond his visitation of New Spain. For a recent brief survey, see Ismael Sanchez-Bella, `Las reformas en Indias del Secretario de Estado Jose de Galvez (1776-1787)', in Feliciano Barrios Pintado (ed.), Derecho y administration publica en las Indias hispanicas (2 vols, Cuenca, 2002), 2, pp. 1517-54.

  46. Above, p. 260. By 1800 Spanish America would have some 13.5 million inhabitants to Spain's 10.5 million (CHLA, 2, p. 34).

  47. See Table 4.1 in OHBE, 2, p. 100.

  48. Cited by Thomas, British Politics, p. 34.

  49. Anderson, Crucible of War, ch. 59.

  50. Robert L. Gold, Borderland Empires in Transition. The Triple Nation Transfer of Florida (Carbondale, IL and Edwardsville, IL, 1969); Cecil Johnson, British West Florida, 1763-1783 (New Haven, 1943), ch. 1; C. L. Mowat, East Florida as a British Province, 1763-1784 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1943), ch. 1.

  51. For seventeenth-century French Acadia and its replacement in 1713 by the British colony of Nova Scotia, see John G. Reid, Acadia, Maine and New England. Marginal Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (Toronto, Buffalo, NY, London, 1981).

  52. For the background to the promulgation of the 1763 Proclamation, see Jack M. Sosin, Whitehall and the Wilderness. The Middle West in British Colonial Policy, 1760-1775 (Lincoln, NE, 1961), ch. 3.

  53. Barrow, Trade and Empire, pp. 187-8.