For the 400th
anniversary of the landing of the first slaves in what is now the United States
the New York Times published its 1619
Project in August 2019. This project
while well received in some quarters was criticized in others for its
historical inaccuracies. One of the
major claims that this project made was one of the leading causes of the
American Revolution was to protect slavery.
This claim has been widely, and correctly, criticized by several members
of the historical community. For this
blog posts I am going to discuss why these criticisms are correct in the 1619
Project’s promise that slavery was a major factor leading to the revolution is
incorrect, rather it was the lack of slaves in Britain’s mainland colonies that
allowed the political developments that led to revolt and independence, and
therefore the destruction of Britain’s first empire.
At the end of the French Indian
War in 1763 Britain stood as the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the
world. It is Empire encompassed what is
now the United States and Canada multiple islands in the Caribbean, territories
in India, Central and South America, and interests in Africa and even Southeast
Asia. However, problems have already
begun to develop within the Empire. The
citizens of Great Britain were some of the most heavily taxed citizens in the
world at the time, and the British government recognized they could not achieve
any more tax revenue from Great Britain itself.
The debts incurred in this
conflict drove up Britain’s national debt to its highest level yet, causing it
to double between 1756 and 1763 from £74.6 million to £132.6 million. With the end of the war Britain’s political
leaders wanted to reduce the national debt, as over half of United Kingdom’s
budget was used to service the national debt.
The only way to do this was to increase taxation, however this proved to
be difficult, as the regressive nature of taxation insured that the burden of
providing funds for the government fell on the less wealthy members of British
society. In order to address the high
indebtedness of the nation Parliament had passed the Cider Bill of 1763 which
levied a tax on the production of cider in the United Kingdom. This new tax resulted in riots in the West
Country convincing British leadership they could no longer increase taxes
within Great Britain. So, in order to
bring the debt down to more manageable levels the British government had to
find alternative sources of revenue. The
only places to do this were Britain’s colonies.
This push to extract revenue from their colonies directly led to the
American Revolution. But to explain why
the Americans were able to revolt you must first look at their position within
the British Empire.
Contrary to Americans' belief of
their importance to the British Empire this was not the case by 1763. Although the British Mainland Colonies were
settled first and had a large population by the end of the French and Indian
War, the Sugar Islands were more financially important to the British Government
as these islands provided a large portion of the tax revenue that funded the
government. Further, many of the
wealthiest sugar planters were members of the British government themselves as
they had moved back to Britain and acquired enough land to vote and be elected to Parliament, or received noble titles and sat in the House of Lords, and by the 1780s it was estimated that as many as 74 MPs were absentee planters or had connections with various British West Indian colonies.[iii] This importance caused the British government
to be far more responsive to the issues and the concerns of these wealthy and
important colonies, providing them with military support, and being sensitive
to their political concerns. This
allowed the Sugar Islands, who like the mainland colonies were jealous of their
rights and worked to prevent Parliament from undermining them to better defend their
rights. However, the balance of power
between the Sugar Islands and the metropole was hardly even, as the years
progressed the balance of power continued to shift further towards the central government,
due to one factor and one factor alone, slaves.
These slaves, although brining imminence wealth to these islands and the
owners of the plantations, the slaves also brought instability as the
increasing number of slaves began to dwarf the white population of these
islands. Due to the unhealthy climate of
the islands and the limited amount of land available the white population grew
slowly. To safeguard their interests and
prevent, or put down, slave revolts the islands needed military support, which
could only be supplied by the United Kingdom.
Further, the regular decimation of troops sent to the islands through
disease, also increased the bargaining position of Parliament as the Sugar Islands
were forced to regularly request more troops to be sent to the islands to
replace those that died. This gave
Parliament a strong negotiating position, and they used this to demand
concessions from these islands, such as demanding they pay for the upkeep of
the troops stationed on the island, building hospitals, forts, or other
military infrastructure, or even paying taxes like the Stamp Tax. While the Sugar colonies resented these
demands and complained about them, but they had very little choice but to
comply as the white population on these islands were far to small to prevent or
put down a slave revolt. These colonies
did attempt to protect their rights and privileges and had many of the same
complaints as the mainland colonists but with the ever present the threat of
slave rebellions the Sugar Colonies were unable to defend their rights and every
time they gave into a demand of Parliament, such as agreeing to the Stamp Tax, set
the precedent that Parliament was supreme and could legislate for these
colonies. Although the Caribbean Island
colonies worked to protect and assert their rights, their actions were
undermined by the large number of slaves.
In contrast to the Sugar Islands
the mainland colonies had fallen in importance by the end of the French and
Indian War. That is not to say these
colonies were unimportant, but they no longer supplied a large amount of
revenue to the British government, thought they did provide important goods
such as timber and other naval supplies.
Further, these colonies having a larger population than the Sugar
Islands provided a large market for manufactured goods produced in
Britain. However, besides the larger
population the mainland colonies differed from the Sugar Islands in one other
way: they were self-sufficient in military defense. The mainland colonies with their larger
population were able to conduct independent military operations, such as the
Siege of Louisburg (1745) where colonial forces were able to capture the French
fortress[iv]. Further, slavery, although present, was much
less present in these colonies then in the Sugar Islands, by 1790 18% of the
entire population of the US were slaves, while in some of the sugar colonies
the number of enslaved was well over 50%.
This low number of slaves ensured that any revolts could be suppressed
by the white population of the colonies.
The low slave population in the mainland colonies reflected that fact
these colonies had much less wealth than their Caribbean counterparts. This wealth disparity was due to the crops
grown on the mainland. Unlike the
Caribbean Islands there were few areas on the mainland that were suitable for
growing sugar, and cotton had yet become a major cash crop. The main product of the southern mainland
colonies was tobacco, whose price had declined due to overproduction and soil
depletion.[v] In the northern colonies, which did not have
the climate to support a cash crop economy had fewer slaves then the southern
colonies. This fact, that the mainland
colonies were not only largely military self-sufficient, combined with the low
number of slaves, partially in New England allowed the colonists to assert
their rights in the face of Parliament’s attempts to assert their authority
over the mainland colonies. Without the
threat of slave revolts, thus lessoning the need of British military support
Parliament lacked the leverage over the mainland that they had with the Sugar
Islands. This lack of leverage allowed
the mainland colonists to continue assert their rights in the face of Parliamentary
attempts to control them. As Parliament
continued in its attempts to tax the mainland colonies Parliament antagonized
the Colonial Americans ultimately leading to the outbreak of the American
Revolution and the American War for Independence.
[i]
The Philippines Were returned to Spain at the end of the French and Indian War.
[ii] British
West Indies, 1900. British Honduras and British Guiana did not exist at the
time of the American Revolution, with them becoming British colonies in 1862
and 1814 respectively.
[iii]
At any given time between 20 and 70 MPs who were part of the West Indies Lobby.
[iv]
In this siege was supported by the Royal Navy but carried out largely by New
England troops
[v]
That is not to say that tobacco wasn’t valuable, it was, but it was much less
valuable than sugar.
