Colonial government

colonial government
The interior of the House of Burgesses, the Virginian colonial assembly

To understand the causes of the American Revolution, one must understand how the 13 colonies were governed and American colonists saw their relationship with Britain. After settlement, every colony developed a government modelled on the British system. The function of these colonial governments, in principle, was to rule on behalf of the British monarch, to maintain order and uphold royal interests. In practice, the colonies were left to their own devices and colonial government came to be dominated by local politicians and assemblies.

Types of colony

The British government took no active part in settling North America, instead encouraging individuals, groups or corporations to colonise the New World on its behalf. As these colonies in America were settled in the 1600s, each took one of three forms, becoming either a charter colony, a proprietary colony or a royal colony.

Charter colonies, the oldest form, were founded and governed by joint stock corporations – in other words, companies owned by shareholders. Like other privately-owned companies, their mission was to generate profit for shareholders. The Crown granted these companies a charter (in effect, a licence to settle a determined area and a set of rules under which to govern it).

Proprietary colonies were similar except ownership was generally limited to one person or family, to whom the Crown granted greater levels of autonomy and control. Maryland was the first proprietary colony, a charter given to the Baltimore family in 1632. Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn and his family in 1681.

Royal colonies, in contrast, were fully owned and administered by the Crown. In 1763, on the eve of the revolution, nine of the 13 colonies were royal colonies. The outliers were Connecticut and Rhode Island, both charter colonies, and Pennsylvania and Maryland, which remained proprietary.

Obedience in principle

Whether charter, proprietary or royal, each of the 13 colonies shared acceptance that they were part of the British Empire and, therefore, a common allegiance to the British monarch.

Colonial governments came to resemble the British government in structure and composition. Each had a governor, who served as the executive power and acted on the king’s behalf. There was also an elected assembly or legislature that passed laws pertaining to colonial matters and a judiciary that oversaw the courts and justice system.

According to these principles, all of the 13 colonies were subject to laws and policies passed by the British Parliament and the British monarch. In other words, colonies were deemed politically subordinate to king and parliament. They had no authority to reject or ignore British laws.

Colonial assemblies

As mentioned, each of the 13 provinces came to possess a colonial assembly – a law-making body based on limited representation.

The first of these bodies was the Virginia House of Burgesses, established in 1619, followed by Massachusetts (1634), Connecticut (1637) and Maryland (1638). Most began as advisory councils that met in session with the governor. Over time, however, they evolved into separate representative assemblies, adopting some of the structures and procedures of a Westminster-style legislature.

Initially, colonial assemblies passed only a handful of laws each year. As the colonies grew in population and activity, they began to receive petitions from colonial residents that increased their workload. By the mid 1700s, the number of laws debated in colonial assemblies had doubled or tripled.

As in Britain, only those who owned a substantial amount of property could stand for the colonial assembly or participate in voting on its composition. Candidates in New Jersey had to own 1,000 acres of land, for example. The voting qualification in most colonies was the ownership of 50 acres. Consequently, assemblymen were almost always members of the colonial elite.

Colonial autonomy

As the 18th century proceeded and the confidence of British-Americans grew, many came to see their relationship with British differently. The growth and development of the 13 colonies saw an independent spirit emerge among many colonial politicians.

There were a few reasons for this. One was the vast distances between Britain and America that made it impossible for London to closely govern her colonies across the Atlantic. Another was the Americans had become used to managing their own affairs and, by and large, being left to their own devices.

Time and distance were critical. On average, it took between three and six weeks for a ship to cross the Atlantic, depending on conditions. Documents and messages sent from London to North America, or vice versa, were unlikely to receive a response inside four months. Ships were also routinely lost or raided by privateers, so many communications were lost altogether.

These delays made close management of the colonies from Westminster impossible. Because of this, Parliament and the Crown relied on royal governors to oversee their distant colonies.

Royal governors

As today, governors were the representatives of the British monarch in the colonies. During the 17th century, when colonial populations were small and their assemblies either non-existent or limited, the governor was the most significant figure in the colony, exercising considerable authority and control.

Royal governors remained the most powerful figures in each colony but their power was far from absolute. Indeed, a good deal of their authority was theoretical rather than actual. Over time, as the colonial assemblies matured and grew in confidence, they frequently challenged the power of royal governors.

The strongest weapon available to the assemblies was their control of finances. Governors were allocated no money from London – instead, they relied on the assemblies to raise money for administrative expenses, including their own salaries. Many assemblies were not averse to forcing compliance from their governor by stalling or delaying these payments.

That many royal governors were administrators of inferior quality did not help their cause. The positions were frequently given to men of rank of privilege who were not competent enough for important roles in England. The historian John Chester Miller describes them as “dull, commonplace Englishmen who badly needed a job but who ought to have been given a clerkship instead of a governorship.”

“Governors who challenged the assembly too strongly or too often usually found a sudden, unaccountable budget crisis delaying … their allowances, while those that bent to assembly wishes could expect bonuses in the form of cash or grants of land… While the governors learned that their great powers were not so great after all, the assemblies in every colony were making an opposite discovery: they could broaden their powers far beyond the king’s intent. They fought for and won more freedom from the governor’s supervision and influence, gaining the right to elect their own speaker of the assembly, make their own procedural rules, settle contested elections…”
Carol Berkin, historian

External distractions

In addition, British rulers had spent much of the 1600s and 1700s in hot competition with their rival empire: that of France. Four times this rivalry had broken out into open warfare, which naturally drew attention away from colonial management and onto military and naval matters. Not that it mattered: the American colonies, by and large, had proved to be a self-managing entity, capable of providing resources and enriching the empire without much involvement or intervention. The British parliament was happy not to intervene while the colonies remained productive and economically viable, so they embraced a policy of non-interference, of ‘letting the Americans be’. This approach was later termed salutary neglect, because it benefited both sides.

‘Salutary neglect’

But the distance from London, the distraction of imperial wars, the policy of salutary neglect and the ineffectiveness of royal governors all convinced the American colonists that they enjoyed a considerable degree of political autonomy. Settlers arriving in America had always been an independent-minded and self-sufficient lot (crossing the Atlantic to make your home was an intrepid feat in the 1700s). Even the first settlers had brought notions of political independence and self-government. In 1619 the settlers in Jamestown (Virginia) formed their own political assembly; a year later the Mayflower Pilgrims of Plymouth (Massachusetts) drafted a compact (promise) to form a “civil body politic” for government of their affairs. After more than a century of salutary neglect and virtual self-government, notions of political autonomy had hardened. Americans were content to live under the umbrella of the British empire, and proud to call the British king their king – but they also cherished the right to govern themselves.

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Citation information
Title: ‘Colonial government’
Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: https://alphahistory.com/americanrevolution/colonial-government/
Date published: July 14, 2019
Date updated: November 20, 2023
Date accessed: March 28, 2024
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