Our Fair Country: A History of New England
- Thread starter CosmicAsh
- Start date
Thank you! I am excited to be writing it, even more so that people are enjoying it.
Glad to hear. More shall be coming in due time.
They could be, or they could be mortal enemies? Long-standing enmities are terrible things.
Thank you. I too, am waiting until I can write more. I am filled with so many ideas at this junction.
I'm watching this with interest. Here's hoping the next update is a great as the previous one!
I just want to chime in and say that I'm really enjoying this as well
Thanks! Any form of support, be it a like or a post, means an immense amount. Really motivates me to keep going!
Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed the last update! I can guarantee an update this weekend, maybe as early as Friday!
I'm appreciative that you find it interesting. Glad to have you along for the timeline! You are correct that I did not mention it - it did not happen. I was hoping that would have come across. In reality, Nova Scotia passed to the English after Queen Anne's War. Ownership of Acadia (as well as Maine) remained undecided. Here, however, the English pushed further, and all of Acadia (inc. Maine) passed to the English, with little French interest/presence remaining in the area. The New French administration instead focused on Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton Island, giving only weapons to the indigenous in Acadia to harass the New Englanders. As a result of this, there was no need for Le Grand Dérangement during the Seven Years' (French & Indian) War.
III. The American Revolution
The Proclamation of 1763 alone was not a major catalyst of dissent across the British colonies. The major disruptions came the next year with the passage of the Sugar and Currency Acts. The first struck a large blow to the colonial economy as a whole, by reducing the amount of markets they had access to. The rum industry was the hardest hit, with production plummeting rapidly after the British made it known it would aggressively enforce its new laws. New England was one of the largest importers of molasses, and subsequent exporter of rum. Boston's economy entered a depression only six months after the Sugar Act passed.
The declining economy was exasperated with the Currency Act being passed. Parliament simply abolished the colonial currencies and enforced the sterling as the only legal currency in the colonies. A shortage of hard capital thus ensured, harming New England's economy even further, despite it being heavily diversified. Much of its recent prosperity came from an explosion of industry and trade with the other colonial holdings and countries, not just with the home country.
Despite this, the Acts were not catastrophic. The economy could absorb these changes, and the duties that were levied on the molasses and rum trade were comparatively small. The British then followed up on this with the Stamp Act in the spring of 1765. It was the first direct tax levied on the colonies, and made it so that almost any slip of paper was subject to a tax, the revenues going directly to London. The tax was very minor, but the discontent among the colonial elite was over the idea that the taxes were imposed without their consent.
Boston native and Philadelphia-adopted Benjamin Franklin spoke passionately in favour of the colonies in Parliament during the year 1766. His argument rested on how much the colonies as a whole had spent furnishing soldiers and outfitting them in order to fight the French and their allies, almost as much as the British had. Franklin was backed up by the First Congress of the American Colonies, which was had representatives from every colony outside of New England, with the exception of Quebec. Only Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island sent representatives to New York City for this Congress.
After much debate, the Rockingham government decided that it would respond to the disobedience in the middle and southern colonies by sending British regulars to enforce the collection of the Stamp Act. Colonists reacted negatively, violently, even, to this imposition. The terrorist group Sons of Liberty reached with torching British governmental offices, harassing British officials, and in one case, the kidnapping and murder of a high-ranking British officer. Parliament responded by reactivating the Treason Act 1543, with some modifications made to apply solely to the colonies. After a crackdown by the authorities, troublemakers Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, both of Boston, were hanged for treason.
Parliament, irate over the treason brewing in the colonies, further asserted their control by passing the Townshend Acts, placing duties on imported goods and establishing a Board of Customs in Boston, to enforce and control trade regulations. These taxes were not easily avoidable by the colonists, they needed to import these goods, being such basic things as paper, glass, and tea. The British Navy captured a sloop, named Liberty which was attempting to smuggle goods into Boston Harbour. The owner, John Hancock, was brought to Britain, placed on trial, and jailed.
On 5 March 1770, a large crowd gathered around a group of British soldiers in the streets of New York City. The citizens had been growing increasingly restless with the British. Similar events had been taking place in New York and Philadelphia as in Boston, and several of the colonists began to pelt the British regulars with snowballs, ice shards, even rocks. One soldier had even been assaulted with a bar chair, being knocked unconscious. Fearing for their safety, the men fired into the crowd until they quickly dispersed, hitting eighteen people, with ten being killed as a result of the incident.
The event was known across the colonies as the "New York Massacre." It exploded anti-British sentiment in New York and the rest of the colonies, and they were all quickly rounded up and tried in the colonial court system. John Jay, an aspiring lawyer, valiantly defended them, and was able to acquire an acquittal on all accounts. The myths of the massacre were powerful, however, and the colonial mindset soon became hyper-focused on this now infamous event.
The North Ministry reduced taxes in an effort to diffuse tension, which was successful in New England, where all boycotts ceased and New Englanders began to accept a new normal of taxation. The middle and southern colonies, however, still continued a boycott as best they could, spurned on by the Sons of Liberty.
A few years passed with only minor incidents occurring. The underground resistance to the British rule was continuing to organise rapidly, with Committees of Correspondence being established from Georgia to Massachusetts Bay, although the New England committees were very poorly manned. The network had started in Virginia, by the rebels Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson.
The Tea Act 1773 was passed in an effort to decrease the prices of tea exported to the colonies in order to capture business away from the Dutch East India Company. The British, however, also circumvented local colonial merchants, which angered many who saw this as yet another attempt by the British to undermine the system that the colonies already had in place. While in many cases, the tea was simply turned back because public pressure forced them to do so, this was not the case in Annapolis, Maryland. Governor Eden demanded that protesters disperse and allow the ships to offload their tea. A group of rebels, led by John Hanson, donned traditional First Nations garb, boarded the ships, and dumped thousands of pounds worth of tea into the Annapolis Harbour. This event has been immortalised into North American history as the Annapolis Tea Party.
It was clear by now that the colonists and Britain were on a collision course. Parliament began to pass what became to be known as the Intolerable Acts after the Annapolis Tea Party. The Maryland Government Act 1774 was passed in quick succession with the Annapolis Port Act 1774, disbanding the local government of Maryland and closing the Port of Annapolis. The Quartering Act 1774 was also passed, giving Governors the ability to house British soldiers in the homes of the colonists without asking for permission, although it was implied this would only take place in troublesome colonies. British regulars were pulled out of Massachusetts Bay to deal with the issues arising in Maryland, and some were diverted to New York City, which was getting equally as restless.
In response to these acts, the Anne Arundel Resolution was issued by Maryland rebels, declaring that a separate government would be formed in response to the continued injustices done against them by the British. While the British occupied Annapolis, militia began to train for actions against them in Baltimore and across the river in neighbouring Virginia.
The First Continental Congress convened in September 1774, with all colonies sending representatives. The talks were inconclusive, but John Adams proposed that the colonists would listen to Parliament, and follow their laws, as long as they were not tax related. The Congress voted for a boycott of all British goods on 1 December 1774, all delegations except New England's voted in favour of the resolution.
Massachusetts Bay, which did not endorse John Adams' proposal, instead agreed upon a small tax, administered by Massachusetts Bay, which would contribute to the defense of the colony and to support the civil government's infrastructure. Parliament offered this agreement to all the colonies, but were spurned by all of them bar the New England colonies, who stood to lose greatly from supporting a rebel government, and were satisfied with local decisions over taxation. The North Ministry responded in retaliation to being spurned by the other colonies by shutting off all trade that the middle and southern colonies had with the outside world.
British soldiers continued to drain out of Massachusetts Bay by the week, being shipped south to the more troublesome colonies. Plymouth, which had hosted a few soldiers, saw the last British regular leave its territory on in February 1775, passed a new tax to support the defense of the colony from "Rebel forces," paid to London. It was very minor, only on some large good such as printing presses, but the effort made by the colony resulted in a ringing endorsement of its citizens and actions across London.
On 23 May 1775, Lt. General Thomas Gage boarded a ship from Boston with around seven hundred men to Annapolis, which was, for all intents and purposes, the only part of Maryland controlled by the British. They landed in the night, and moved up towards the town of Baltimore to try and capture munitions stored by the rebels. There was little actual warning that the British would be assaulting the town, but rebel militia still lined up to try and defend the towns with a force around three hundred. Accounts of the situation vary, but the generally accepted[1] account says that the British asked the militia to disperse, the rebels fired first, forcing the British to respond.
More militia was alerted and quickly began to converge on Baltimore. Pro-rebel sympathisers in Annapolis captured the city, stranding the British army deep in rebel-controlled territory without hope of resupply. The Massachusetts Bay Militia organised a relief force to help General Gage. The British appointed General Atemas Ward, who was born in Massachusetts Bay, to head the relief force, but it was to no avail. Gage and the rest of the British soldiers were captured and sent south to Virginia.
Ward was able to capture Annapolis from the rebels, due to their poor preparation and usage of the city's defenses. An outcry erupted in Boston over the usage of militia from the colony to assault another colony, but to the surprise of the royal government, the cries tampered down to a whimper after a few months. While the British were focused on recapturing Maryland, and dealing with the rebellion in Virginia, they were caught offhanded by rebel General George Washington, who arrived on the outskirts of New York City and threw the British out handily. The British then encamped on Long Island, reinforced by the Long Island militia, to make sure the rebels didn't swamp them. Washington, eager to try and secure all of New York Harbour for the Americans and deny the British the usage of the valuable port, assaulted Long Island, despite the issuance by the Long Island General Assembly it wished to remain neutral in the conflict. Washington was able to capture Brooklyn Heights, the British counterattacked but were rebuffed. The British then dug in at the Guan Heights, reinforced by Long Island militia. Washington ordered an assault that proved to be highly costly. In defeat, he retreated to Manhattan Island, leaving the British to take control of Brookland (Brooklyn) once again.
At this juncture, Parliament declared the Provinces of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to be in rebellion. The Long Island General Assembly passed the Loyalty Resolution, declaring themselves to be fully loyal to the British Empire and against the rebels, mostly shocked by the unprovoked invasion.
Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, rebels from New England who pledged their loyalty to the rebel cause, were able to capture Fort Ticonderoga in New Hampshire. General Washington dispatched men from New York to capture Albany, New Hampshire, before moving north to reinforce Allen and Arnold. The New Hampshire legislature, outraged by these actions, called for the militia to take up defense of the province from "Alien intruders,"[2] the harshest language used between the various colonies up until this point. Rebels in New Haven, Connecticut, set fire to munition storehouses, and rebels acting in the shadows harassed British officials.
New Englanders began to become more and more angry at the rebels, although they were not all that pleased with the British. General William Howe, sensing the ability to create even greater division in the colonies, declared the defense of New England from "rebel forces" to be a top priority, and called up militia forces to take over the defense of their own territory, unless the legislature called for help, or the British determined it needed to suppress rebel activity. While this effectively meant the British could do as they needed, the gesture went miles towards appeasing New England colonists.
The entire River Hudson fell under the control of the rebels by the beginning of 1776, and the rebels were believed to control essentially everything east of the River Connecticut north of Albany. Rebel control encroached further and further into New England, after an assault into Connecticut results in New Haven, Waterbury, and Litchfield, Connecticut being occupied by the rebels. Hartford responded with a full-throated condemnation of the invasion. While a massive rebel success, the invasion of Connecticut solidified New England's role in the War.
On 4 July 1776, the Second Continental Congress announced the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Rebels no more, the nine Provinces in rebellion officially announced their intentions to separate from the British Empire. The last remaining shreds of sympathy in New England for the rebel cause were broken by this document. Among its signers were men from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, and Long Island who were unelected and claimed to represent the entire colony. All of the New England colonies passed resolutions repudiating the Declaration of Independence. Loyalists began to flock to New England, as rebels moved in the opposite direction, rallying around the new United States of America.
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were created in 1777, attempting to form a rebel government. The new United States of America would be born from this, and the Continental Congress invited representatives from all British colonies in North America to sit with them. Quebec, Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island and Province Plantations, Connecticut, and Long Island all refused. Ignoring their not being there, rebels from these provinces were accepted as the shadow government instead. Regardless, the provisions called for Quebec, referred to as Canada, and New England to be automatically accepted into the Confederation if they ever applied.
The rebels remained encamped across New England's territory. Only Long Island, Rhode Island, and Plymouth had full control over their borders on the dawn of 1777. The New England colonies met in Boston and issued the Boston Declaration. In it, the New England Confederation was revived to coordinate for the defense of the colonies. General Ward was elected President of the Confederation, in charge of all New England militias. Parliament passed the New England Act 1777, authorising the creation of the alliance, and providing for funds to better integrate with the British Army. In it as well, New England was guaranteed future control over taxation so long as it provided for its own defense and government infrastructure.
The New England Confederation's first course of action was to dislodge the Americans from Connecticut. New Haven Harbour was being used to furnish privateers on Long Island Sound, and even sporadic raids against Newport, Rhode Island and New London, Connecticut. East Guilford, Connecticut was burned to the ground by Americans operating out of New Haven. Soldiers from Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut were the first to begin operations in the Connecticut campaign. Plymouth and Rhode Island soldiers converged on New London, before moving north and east to Hartford, where they met with the Connecticut regiments. They then moved down into Farmington and meeting the first resistance in Southington, where rebel advance scouts had taken up post. They retreated to Wallingford, forcing the British to split. One army took control of the village of Cheshire, the other Wallingford. The two then met the first real resistance by the rebels, their own militia units attacking the British in Wallingford. George Clinton was commanding the American Army from New Haven, and quickly sent reinforcements to try and defeat the divided British Army. Oliver Wolcott was commanding the British forces from Cheshire, and insisted on a daring manoeuvre to march his forces down to New Haven, and capture the city, severing the supply line granted to the Americans. After a quick siege, Wolcott was able to enter the city and tear down the rebel flag. This ended western Connecticut's brief time as a state inside the United States, New Haven was the acting capital of the rebel state.
Fresh off this victory, Wolcott and his now unified army dislodged from New Haven, and captured Milford, Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, and Greenwich within three months. The rebels voluntarily withdrew to the River Hudson to better consolidate their positions, but not before burning down Waterbury and Litchfield and stealing what they could, to try and deny the loyalists any useful remnants.
While the British saw success in Connecticut, they were met with disaster in northern New York and western New Hampshire. The Saratoga Campaign was an attempt by the British and New England to take control over the River Hudson, and the City of New York. British General John Burgoyne organised two assaults into the region, the first from Quebec and the second from Boston. Burgoyne would drive south from Quebec, and Sir Henry Clinton would drive west from Boston. Logistics issues hampered Clinton's movement, and the rebels, who had informants and a spy system within New England, had ample knowledge of their movements. The plans had been approved months before in London, and deviating from them was not an option.
Burgoyne recaptured Albany, and decided to wait for Clinton to meet with his army before any further movements were made south. According to the plan, they would move to the south and then William Howe would move to take New York City from where he was camped in New Jersey. The thrust would then give all of the River and the strategic city to the British. The Americans, however, knew that Clinton was still a few days away. They assaulted Albany at once, while drawing up more soldiers to reinforce them after they inevitability were repulsed the first time around.
According to plan, the Americans were pushed back, but weakened the defenses enough that the quick second assault by fresh American soldiers meant the British simply couldn't withstand the assault. General Howe moved on Philadelphia instead of New York City after defeating an American attack on New Jersey. General Burgoyne had no choice but to surrender his army. Two days later, Clinton was met with a sizable American force, one he had to surrender to as well, with the Americans executing a flawless encirclement of his forces.
Surrender of General Burgoyne
With the Americans in a favourable position, France and Spain entered the war on the side of the United States, recognising their independence. Parliament was faced with a tough choice, with a faction that was willing to offer the Americans all the demands they had first issued, and another faction demanding to stay the course, lest they upset the New England colonies, who had remained fiercely loyal to the Empire. Appeasing the small slice of their Empire they kept, they offered no new concessions to the errant colonies, and began to draw down their forces and focus on consolidation of their possession. The introduction of France and Spain meant that they had far more to worry about than upstart colonials.
Governor Richard Hughes of Nova Scotia was alarmed at the French intervention, a keen eye towards the sizable Franco population within his province. The New England Confederation authorised one thousand men to be stationed in Nova Scotia to maintain "Peace and Order." Ostensibly aimed at the American rebels, it was clear they were afraid of the Acadians rising up and fighting for France. The reality was much different, very few Acadians ever actually took up arms with the American cause. Far more fought in the Nova Scotia militias against the French and the Americans.
The Northern Theatre of the American Revolution effectively had come to a close at this point. The British were devoting no resources towards recapturing western New Hampshire, and New York City remained an American stronghold, despite it swapping hands a few times here and there. The Americans made no moves towards Quebec and New England, instead focusing on the Southern Theatre.
New England returned to peace two years before the official treaty was signed. The New England Confederation began to disband militia in 1781, but it still maintain a strong presence in southern Connecticut and Long Island. The Americans didn't attempt any invasion of New England, but still maintained control over western New Hampshire. General Washington penned a note to the New England colonies, wishing "Nothing but fair relations and the continuation of the goodwill shared before the present unpleasantness."[3]
Thus an agreement in kind was created between the Americans and the colonists where they would no longer engage against one another. Once the British finally gave in, a general armistice reigned over all of North America. In the ensuring peace deal, the Americans attempted to negotiate for keeping the western New Hampshire counties, but were rebuffed by the British. The border between New England and the United States was established along the lines that had been generally accepted during the colonial times. The United States agreed to these borders so long as Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut conceded their land that New York and Pennsylvania claimed. With this swapping of land claims, there was no longer any disputed borders between the newborn country and New England, which remain unchanged to this day.
The United States of America, 1783
With peace restored, economic ties between the two countries flourished once again. Long Island saw a decline in population as people moved to New York City, and far better prospects were elsewhere in New England. Connecticut saw its population explode, as loyalists made their way into the region, settling in western and southern Connecticut. Hartford's population actually doubled three times in the first decade after the war.
The demographics of New England saw a sudden shift as well. Enslaved Africans who were offered their freedom by fighting for the British settled in New England, and many of those who attempted to escape made their way to Boston and New Haven. New Englanders were mostly the descendants of the first colonists with little in the way of migration into the provinces. This was unsettled when people from all over the United States flooded in, escaping to friendly territory. This second wave of immigrants is called the Second Great Migration, and with them brought new religious minorities into New England, most notability the Anglicans, who settled in Rhode Island and western New Hampshire.
The British flag had been erected in New England as one of their first holdings in North America, and now it still waved across these provinces as one of its last holdings in North America, a massive chunk of its Empire lost with the Treaty of Paris. To Britain, it was now essential to maintain control of New England. The words on everyone's lips in London happened to be "The Loyal Provinces," New England's long-standing moniker which it proudly embraced.
Image Attributes: i. John Trumbull, Surrender of General Burgoyne, public domain.
ii. Own Work
Background Information: Wikipedia; Cook County, IL Public School System; New Haven County, CT Public School System; University of Connecticut
1. By modern British historians
2. Records of Colonial Proceedings, New Hampshire Provincial Library, Concord, New Hampshire, 1874.
3. Letters of Geo. Washington, Franklin Press, Philadelphia, 1803.
Interesting that Wisconsin, Michigan and northern Minnesota went to the United States. In OTL, these were the states that received the most immigration from New England (so much so, that I've seen the Upper Midwest sometimes referred to the "Greater New England"). Assuming that New England's excess population, and sketchy farmland, situation hasn't been butterflied away, you are going to see an exodus of settlers from New England looking for more land. In this situation, I wonder where they will go.
Hmm....okay. This seems like a promising TL, but here's what I'm trying to figure out: why did New England remain loyal to the U.K.? It was far more likely that the South would have done so, given that Loyalism was a fair bit stronger down there, than in most parts of the North.
You are quite correct!
Loyal as can be. Mostly.
New England's population will need to go somewhere, correct. It's important to remember that, at this time, there is no Anglo settlement in WI, MI, and MN currently. It's just empty, unorganised land.
A combination of things. First, the butterflies from the POD being so far back. Second, Very minor changes along the way - Fortress Louisbourg was actually kept by the English the first time around, in reality they gave it back to the French, angering the colonists. Major rebels in Massachusetts Bay were captured and neutralised by the British early on. Massachusetts Bay was also much less powerful, keep in mind that Maine and Plymouth are separate provinces. The British essentially manage to not piss off the New Englanders. This is not to say that there were not rebels. In this timeline, the hotbed of Patriots was in the Middle Colonies, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE instead of New England. Let's assume that the percentages are 50% patriot, 35% neutral, 15% loyalist in these parts. The South was, let's say 40% patriot, 35% neutral, and 25% loyalist - so above the average in reality. New England let's say was 30% patriot, 30% neutral, and 30% loyalist. A pretty big swing from the rest. The British were also better at propaganda in New England, and didn't piss them off as much. Moving the percentage points a bit here and there gives at least a working majority for staying loyal in New England.
The author is also writing from a biased viewpoint. Gloss over the "anti-British" sentiment and play up the "pro-British" sentiment. This is a very important central aspect of the timeline.
The focus on writing about the war was only on New England. Due to the lack of battles, it was not expanded upon. I will let the reader figure out how the British were defeated elsewhere. The British did an exemplary job of defending New England, with the exception of western New Hampshire.
Deleted member 67076
With New England remaining in the Empire, would it still industrialize at the same pace as it did historically given it seems unlikely it would be able to secure tariffs for its own use?
As well, what does this means for the American economy now that their industrial heart gets aborted?
As well, what does this means for the American economy now that their industrial heart gets aborted?
I would imagine that their OTL plan of holding the Connecticut River works here, another reason that the New Englanders may not have split off. If the British hold the line at the Connecticut, then no American force is coming into the New England colonies. I imagine most fighting would have occurred in Pennsylvania and the Middle Colonies area.
If New England does not join the US, it may butterfly the civil war. If things go otherwise the same until 1820, the north USA will have far fewer states than the south. The north will have New York, New Jersey, Pa, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The south will have Va. NC, SC, Md, Ga, Tenn, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri. I left out Delaware, which was on its way to being a free state
The slave states will have 20 senators, while the free states will have only 12.
The slave states will have 20 senators, while the free states will have only 12.
Time will certainly tell...
Essentially.
The Slaveocracy will rise! Keep in mind all of the nation's greatest orators and anti-Slave activists who came from New England, now a separate country. Quite a wild United States, no?
Sadly an important product release has sapped my time to write this. It is now ending, and I can resume writing this weekend, so expect an update! However, I have made some content, particularly this wikibox on the City of Brooklyn, which is considered fully canonical within the realm of "Our Fair Country."
IV. Post-Revolution Era
With the coming of American independence, little changed for the New England colonies. The colony's coastal towns remained focused on merchant shipping and fishing, and the interior was dominated by farmers. Subsistence farming was practiced by the vast majority of New Englanders, due to the lack of any large non-agricultural population centers. The only place that large amounts of commercial agriculture took place was directly outside the colony's few population centres.
The most notable political advancement was the abolition of slavery in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1784. New Hampshire followed suit in 1789. The Province of Long Island had the most slaves of any province in the colonies nearly quadruple the amount of the other provinces combined, and a growing contingent of politicians felt the need to preserve it. The Long Island General Assembly passed a resolution in 1790 that called for slavery to continue "as long as is expedient."
Near the turn of the century, the disruptions caused by the war seemed to have been smoothed out. Trade between the New England colonies and the United States was strong, as the traditional colonial trade routes reestablished themselves. Movement between both of them isn't believed to be very high. A growing population of New Englanders migrated around within the colonies instead of leaving them, with a large contingent moving into New Hampshire west of the River Connecticut.
This was a wild region, with disparate communities, little governmental control, and worst of all, in the eyes of the colonial authorities, little tax revenue. New Hampshire's Royal Governor petitioned London for the areas west of the River Connecticut to be split off in its own province, to relieve the need for New Hampshire to try and administer the vast territory, especially when the majority of its population was towards the east. The Province of Adirondack, named after the mountain range, was formed in 1794 out of Albany County, Champlain County, Cumberland County, and the First Nations territory. New Hampshire retained control of the more populated counties east of the River Connecticut. Albany became the capital of this new province, despite some calls for it to move moved to Windsor in Cumberland County.
In 1792, the War of the First Coalition erupted, and New England once again found itself being called to the service of the home country. The first signs of the war came in 1793, when recruitment for men began in Boston. The Governor of Plymouth also furnished one thousand men for an expedition against French colonies in the Caribbean. Few in New England feared that the colony’s Francophone population would revolt, or that the French would even look towards New England militarily. The main concern was with the colony’s nearest neighbour, the United States.
The United States Congress during this time was regarded as the most ineffective institution in North America, much to the delight of many Britons and to the chagrin of those in Paris. Rival factions wanted extreme positions from supporting the British to supporting the French, and most other positions in between.
The United States was also mired in the dealings with attempting to replace its first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, which had been ongoing for the better part of a decade. Be it the luck of timing or not, the United States found itself far more interested in the national debate over what form of government it should have, rather than convene another war against the British on behalf of the French.
Governor Jonathan Bliss of Massachusetts Bay was the first to take action against France in the war, commissioning a fleet of twelve ships to sail from Boston to the island of Martinique. The funds were raised with a small tax and alcohol throughout the Province, and enough was raised to sail and capture the island in early 1794. The Royal Navy followed suit and captured St. Lucia and Guadeloupe after the success of the New Englanders filtered back to London. The Battle of the Lesser Antilles would play out between the French and New England for several years, both sides swapping islands every few months.
This would prove to be the only notable military action during the French Revolutionary Wars. Wild and vapid reports of an incoming French fleet to sweep away the defenses of Boston Harbour never materialised, and fishermen off New England’s coasts never once noticed any ships out of the ordinary straying close to its shores.
It was no secret that New England’s soil was poor and rocky, and its farmers mostly focused on feeding themselves and their families, there was little incentive to produce large numbers of one crop due to the need to sustain one’s family. Richard Arkwright Junior saw great potential in this, and established the first textile mills in New England. He choose to establish two mills upon the River Mad and the River Naugatuck in the Province of Connecticut, making use of their strong water flows to power his machines.
A disgruntled employee of Arkwright’s system named Samuel Slater soon set up his own mills in the Province of Rhode Island. Both would prove to be wildly successful. The British Government, not wanting to have its monopoly on industrial goods broken, attempted to shut down both operations. Much to the surprise of London, both the Connecticut General Assembly and the Rhode Island General Assembly passed resolutions condemning the British actions, which the governors endorsed, but at a distance, both declaring publicly they didn’t want to stand in the way of the legislature, but committed to the actions of the home country.
The mill’s success sparked more to continue to appear along New England’s major waterways. Villages and towns began to condense around these mills to provide labour, while forests on the edges of the river were chopped down to accommodate for new farmland. For the first time, there was a growing contingent of mainland population centres, thought to be unthinkable even twenty years previously.
The turn of the century was uneventful in the colonies. News came up in early January from the United States that the Constitution had finally been ratified. An election later that year saw Alexander Hamilton win in a contentious election over James Madison. The differences between the United States and New England, minimal during the time of the former’s independence, grew much wider by this time. Slavery was abolished throughout all of New England by 1804, while it was flourishing in the United States. This was in no small part to the growing industrial prowess of the colonies, which imported American cotton at an ever increasing pace. The British had shifted priorities, and instead focused on trying to finance industrial progress in New England and profit from it, and hope that it remained in New England and didn’t spread down south.
New England’s excess population could no longer be satisfied with internal migration or divergence into factory towns, which were already overflowing with workers. This began the period of the “Great Emigration” in which thousands of New Englanders left their homes in search of better land to settle. The primary benefactor of this was Upper Canada, who saw populations boom from around seventy thousand people in the middle of the 1800s to ninety thousand in 1811. Immigrants from the United States also found their place in Upper Canada, resulting in a unique mixture of New Englanders and Americans.
The United States was the second, and only other, target of note for New England settlers. Many of them settled in the county’s northwest, in the Ohio Country and along the River Mississippi. At the same time this was taking place, immigrants from England and France began to make their way to the colonies in earnest, replacing the outgoing population.
In 1809, the Province of Adirondack, the United Kingdom, and the First Nation representatives met in Brooklyn, Long Island in order to settle ongoing disputes. With the movement of people, settlers had been moving further and further into First Nations Territory in the province, despite the large influx of people along the River Hudson and River Mohawk, they still demanded more land.
The Treaty of Brooklyn was thus the result of negotiations, which by all historical accounts were one sided, in which the First Nations ceded half of their land to Adirondack for settlement. The area encompassed the entire River St. Lawrence, as well as the northern half of the First Nations territory. Two counties were formed from this new region, and population soon boomed, so much so that just three years later in 1811, a third county was formed in northeastern Adirondack.
In Europe, the United Kingdom was embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars. Parliament passed a modification to the New England Act 1777, which allowed them to levy temporary taxes on New England during times of incredible national strain. This was met with discontent and a minor economic downturn, but no real protests took place much to the relief of London, not willing to deal with another colonial war.
The real sign of trouble came in 1807 when London ordered thousands of men from the colonies to fight in Europe. Men crossing the Atlantic to take part in a European war had not happened since the English Civil War, but the colonies obliged dutifully.
Of the roughly two million people living in New England during the Napoleonic Wars, around fifty thousand of them found themselves in service of the United Kingdom at some point or another, the vast majority of them fighting in Europe. A significant portion of those who did not fighting Europe were raised in a panic during the autumn of 1814. In the United States, French negotiations had advanced to a point where the young nation was considering attacking both New England and the Canadas in a bid to help the French.
Sir Henry Dearborn of Massachusetts Bay was called upon to organise the defense of the colonies, creating the first true New England Military. He was given special dispensation by the Crown to raise an army from all the provinces, with the exception of the Canadas, which organised their own defenses.
Dearborn’s plan was to recruit regiments from each province and integrate them as best as he could. Men from Connecticut would lead soldiers from Maine, while Plymouth men would lead soldiers from Vermont, and so on. In his letters obtained years later, Dearborn had planned on trying to capture the City of New York and holding the River Hudson in an attempt to stifle American commerce, and hold the line elsewhere. Hasty fortifications were erected in southern Adirondack, western Massachusetts and western Connecticut. The largest and most important was Fort George in Waterbury, protecting the colony’s sizeable industrial might.
All of this preparation was for naught, however. President Hamilton was able to persuade the “War Hawks” in Congress that such an action was unnecessary. With the War in Europe winding down, the last winds of war between New England and the United States also faded. Interestingly enough, his refusal to go to war with the United Kingdom is widely regarded as the reason he lost the 1816 Presidential Election to Thomas Jefferson.
While New Englanders had been copacetic thus far this century, this was not to say everything was perfect. Patriots who supported independence along with the United States still did exist in New England, although quietly. They organised themselves as a political party, and won elections to several Provincial legislatures. While their views did modify slightly, they still desired more autonomy for New England, and viewed themselves as having a separate identity than purely British. Their leader was John Adams from Massachusetts Bay, who attempted to represent Massachusetts Bay during the 1770s, but instead settled on becoming an influential voice in the colony.
Adams’ political faction focused on a larger separation from the United Kingdom, but not integration into the United States by any means. For many, the time for that had passed. Opposing them were the loyalist faction, growing smaller every day, which saw themselves as wholly British.
The Reformers would lead a period in New England known as the “Period of Discontent,” as they continued to grow in strength as New England grew in strength. Many of New England’s most notable politicians of this period found their beginnings with the reformers, and a road towards independence was soon embarked upon by these ambitious visionaries. While some of them and their predecessors saw the answer in violent separation from the United Kingdom, they saw an opportunity to carve out what they believed to be their Shining City on a Hill, clinging to the rocky shores of the Atlantic Ocean, while remaining true to their deep-rooted Yankee, and more importantly, British, heritage.
Image Attributes: i. The Old Slater Mill, Courtesy Old Slater Mill Association. Obtained through the National Park Service.
Background Information: Wikipedia; Cook County, IL Public School System; New Haven County, CT Public School System; University of Connecticut
N.B.: I do apologise for the lateness and the poor quality of this update. Work has been hectic, only today, a sick day, was I able to catch up on it. I plan on being much more motivated for future updates the post-Revolution slog had my writers block in full swing. I have many more plans for the future of New England from here...