The First Founding: Interests and Conflicts

Native Nations and Colonial Life

Before the first colonists arrived, the land that would come to be known as the United States was not empty.⁷ Hundreds of independent Native nations and millions of Native Americans were already there. Colonists from England set up the first successful colony in America in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia. In 1620 the second colony was established in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In both places, the colonists settled on land that was occupied at the time by powerful Native nations (among them the Pequot, Narragansett, and Algonquin), who were already practicing a form of democratic self-governance. In fact, there were 60,000 Native Americans living in what would later become the New England colonies. The colonists brought desirable new goods to trade with the Native nations, but they also brought foreign diseases such as smallpox, to which the Native population had no immunity. As a result, their numbers were quickly decimated. For example, of an estimated 12,000 Native Americans when Jamestown was settled in 1607, only 1,000 were left by 1700.⁸ For this reason and others, the initially cordial relations between colonists and Native Americans worsened steadily.

Subsequent waves of English settlers rejected Native land ownership and forcibly confiscated land for themselves, displacing Native nations.⁹ This unauthorized taking of land, a process known as settler colonialism,¹⁰ made possible the growth of the colonies. After all, land was the most valuable commodity in early America. The vast amount of land on the North American continent enticed Europeans to establish and expand colonies. Though Native Americans initially welcomed European newcomers with trade and diplomacy, as the settler populations swiftly grew, especially in the English colonies, land dispossession increased. Soon, lands once controlled by Native nations became bustling colonial merchant areas in the northeast and lucrative agricultural plantations in the southeast.

British Taxes and Colonial Interests

During the first half of the eighteenth century, Britain ruled its American colonies with a light hand. British rule was hardly evident outside the largest towns, and colonists avoided most taxes levied in London. Beginning in the 1760s, however, debts and other financial problems forced the British government to search for new revenue sources. This search quickly led to the North American colonies. Here the colonists were divided into two groups: the radicals (small farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans) and the colonial elite (merchants, planters, royalists). The radicals tended to have fewer economic resources and were distrustful of the British. In contrast, many elites benefited from British rule and supported the Crown. However, its aggressive new tax and trade policies split the elites, enhancing the radicals’ political influence and setting off a chain of events that culminated in the American Revolution.¹¹

At that time, governments relied mainly on tariffs, duties, and other taxes on commerce to raise revenue. In particular, the Stamp Act of 1765 imposed taxes on many printed items in the colonies, and the Sugar Act of 1764 taxed sugar, molasses, and other commodities. Many colonists saw these moves as detrimental to their livelihoods and a challenge to the colonies’ autonomy. United under the slogan “No taxation without representation,” they organized demonstrations and a boycott of British goods that ultimately forced the Crown to rescind most of its hated new taxes.

Political Strife Radicalized the Colonists

Ongoing colonial strife was the background for the events of 1773–74. With the Tea Act of 1773, the British government granted the politically powerful East India Company a monopoly on the export of tea from Britain, eliminating a lucrative trade for colonial business interests. Worse, the company planned to sell the tea directly in the colonies instead of working through the colonial merchants. Because tea was an extremely important commodity during the 1770s, these British actions posed a serious threat to New England business interests.

In response, the radicals joined the elites to protest the Tea Act. In three colonies, antitax Americans blocked the unloading of taxed tea, resulting in its return to Britain. However, the most dramatic response was a protest that came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. When the royal governor of Massachusetts refused to allow three shiploads of unsold tea to leave Boston Harbor, the colonists seized this opportunity: on the night of December 16, 1773, fifty of them, some “disguised” as Native Americans, boarded the vessels and threw all 342 chests of tea into the harbor. In response, Parliament closed the port of Boston to commerce, changed the colonial government of Massachusetts, and removed accused persons to Britain for trial. Most important, Parliament restricted colonists’ movement to the west.

These acts of repression further radicalized the new Americans and set in motion a cycle of provocation and retaliation that in 1774 resulted in the convening of the First Continental Congress. An assembly of delegates from 12 colonies, the group called for a total boycott of British goods and, under the radicals’ prodding, began considering the possibility of ending British rule. As relations with Britain further deteriorated, there was mounting public pressure from the colonies to declare independence.

Enslaved Africans and the Colonial Economy

While the calls to end British rule were spurred by crushing taxes, repressive measures, and representational concerns, economic forces within the colonies were also at play. Key among these were issues related to enslavement—the system of holding people for the purpose of forced labor so that slaveowners could extract profit. In fact, profits gained through slavery were critical to the early development of the colonial economy and made it possible to imagine a future without the British. In 1619 a small group of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans was delivered to Jamestown, Virginia. Their arrival marked the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade in the new colony. Though, at the time, slavery was much more significant in the West Indies, over time the system would grow throughout North America.¹²

Under this dehumanizing system, enslaved African men, women, and children had no legal rights. They were considered “property” with a monetary value and could be insured, bought, and sold.¹³ Ultimately, enslaved labor was responsible for the major agricultural and mineral exports of the colonial period, including tobacco, rice, sugar, coffee, silver, and gold. Slavery was vital to manufacturers in places like New York, the largest slave-owning colony in the north. And enslaved labor was essential for the building of sprawling southern plantations, some of which were home to colonial leaders such as George Washington and James Madison.¹⁴ Although some people argued that slavery was inhumane and should be restricted or abolished, it was widely accepted because enslaved people were essential to sustaining the colonial economy.

The Declaration of Independence Explained Why the Colonists Wanted to Break with Great Britain

As the slave trade took hold, mounting tensions led to violent skirmishes between British soldiers and American militia at Lexington and Concord that ultimately erupted into the Revolutionary War. In 1776, more than a year after the war commenced, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft a statement of American independence from British rule. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, who drafted the majority of the document, had the daunting task of legitimizing separation from Britain and announcing the creation of a new nation to the rest of the world. After revisions by other delegates, on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to officially accept the document and declare independence. (The Declaration is reprinted in the appendix, pp. A1–A4.) Politically, the Declaration was remarkable because despite the colonists’ differences along regional, economic, and philosophical lines, it focused on principles, goals, and grievances that might unify the various groups.

The first section begins with a sweeping statement of human rights: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” In the world of 1776, in which some kings still claimed a God-given right to rule, this was a dramatic statement. The Declaration then states that the purpose of governments is to secure the aforementioned rights and that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Therefore, when governments violate these rights—when governments no longer have the support of the people—the people have a duty to overthrow them.

The second part of the Declaration lists 27 grievances against King George III. The long list of grievances made clear to the global community that the colonists could not reconcile with Britain.

Yet, even while the Founders were issuing this document that extolled the importance of freedom and self-government, the burgeoning self-sovereign nation was at the same time limiting sovereignty for Native nations. Of particular concern to the colonists was Native resistance to white settlers advancing on the frontier. They were especially worried those Native nations would form an alliance with the British against the colonies. In fact, the last grievance cited in the Declaration accuses the king of colluding with Native Americans. Black people were also excluded from the Founders’ belief that all men were created equal. At the time of the signing of the Declaration, slavery was legal in all 13 colonies, and most of the signatories, including Thomas Jefferson, enslaved Black people.¹⁵

The final paragraph of the Declaration is an assertation of independence. Overall, the document both reviewed a history and identified a set of principles that, together, would forge a new national identity.¹⁶ Today, the Declaration is recognized as a key document from the Founding period, marking the transition from a group of colonies into an independent nation.

The European Enlightenment Influenced the Founders

In describing the expectations of good government in the Declaration, Jefferson drew heavily from philosophers associated with the European Enlightenment. Indeed, while America’s leaders were first and foremost practical politicians, they also read political philosophy and were influenced by the important thinkers of their day, including Hobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu. In comparison to what the Americans experienced under British rule, the Enlightenment writings concerning the relationship between organized government and the people presented an exciting alternate future.

The seventeenth-century British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) advanced the principles of republican government by arguing not only that monarchical power was not absolute but that such power was dangerous and should therefore be limited. Locke held that the people retain rights despite the social contract they make with the monarch. Preserving safety in society is not enough; people’s lives, liberty, and property also require protection. Further, Locke wrote in his Second Treatise of Civil Government that the people of a country have a right to overthrow a government they believe to be unjust or tyrannical. This key idea shaped the thinking of the Founders, including Jefferson, who said that the Declaration of Independence was “pure Locke.” Locke advanced the important ideas of limited government and consent of the governed.

Another British political thinker, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), was no advocate of democratic government, but he wrote persuasively in Leviathan about the necessity of a government authority as an antidote to human existence in a government-less state of nature, where life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” He also believed that governments should have limits on the powers they exercised and that political systems are based on the idea of “contract theory”—that the people of a country voluntarily give up some freedom in exchange for an ordered society. The monarchs who rule that society derive their legitimacy from this contract, Hobbes argued, not from a God-given right to rule.

Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu (1689–1755) was a French philosopher who advocated the idea that power needed to be balanced by power as a bulwark against tyranny. This could be achieved through the separation of governing powers. This idea was already in practice in Britain, where legislative and executive powers were divided between Parliament and the monarch. In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu argued for the separation and elevation of judicial power, which in Britain was still held by the monarch. Montesquieu did not argue for a pure separation of powers; rather, basic functions would be separated, but there would also be some overlap of functions. These ideas were central in shaping the three-branch system of government that America’s Founders would later outline in the Constitution of 1787.

The Articles of Confederation Created America’s First National Government

Having declared independence, the colonies needed to establish a government. In November 1777 the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation—the United States’ first written constitution. Eventually ratified by all the states in 1781, it functioned as the country’s constitution until the final months of 1788.

The colonists’ experience with the powerful British government made them fearful of establishing a powerful central government of their own. Thus, the first goal of the Articles was to limit the powers of the central government; as provided under Article II, “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” (These attributes define a confederation.) Given that there was no president or other presiding officer, the entire national government consisted of a Congress with very little power. Its members were little more than messengers from the state legislatures: their salaries were paid out of the state treasuries; they were subject to immediate recall by state authorities; and each state, regardless of its population, had only one vote. All 13 states had to agree to any amendments to the Articles of Confederation after it was ratified.

Congress was given the power to declare war and make peace, to negotiate treaties and alliances, to issue currency, to borrow money, and to regulate trade with the Native nations. Any laws it passed, however, could be carried out only by state governments. Congress could also appoint the senior officers of the U.S. Army—but there was no such army, because the nation’s armed forces consisted only of the state militias. Finally, Congress had no power to collect taxes. These extreme limits on the national government made the Articles of Confederation hopelessly impractical.¹⁷