What experiences tended to unify the colonists in British North America during the eighteenth century?

> CHRONOLOGY

1730s
  • Jonathan Edwards promotes religious movement known as Great Awakening.

1740s
  • George Whitefield preaches religious revival in North America.

1754
  • Seven Years’ War begins.

1769
  • American Philosophical Society founded.

  • First Spanish mission in California, San Diego de Alcalá, established.

1770
  • Spanish mission and presidio established at Monterey, California.

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Robert “King” Carter Virginia grandee Robert “King” Carter amassed one of the largest estates in the Chesapeake during the early eighteenth century. Carter owned 45 plantations worked by more than 700 slaves who grew tobacco on some of his 30,000 acres of land. Carter matched his economic prowess with political influence, serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses and as governor. His wig hints at his embrace of English fashions while his somewhat plain clothing suggests an understated colonial restraint compared to the lavish outfits worn by wealthy Englishmen.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource, NY.

The societies of New England, the middle colonies, and the southern colonies became more sharply differentiated during the eighteenth century, but colonists throughout British North America also shared unifying experiences that eluded settlers in the Spanish and French colonies. The first was economic. All three British colonial regions had their economic roots in agriculture. Colonists sold their distinctive products in markets that, in turn, offered a more or less uniform array of goods to consumers throughout British North America. Another unifying experience was a decline in the importance of religion. Some settlers called for a revival of religious intensity, but most people focused less on religion and more on the affairs of the world than they had in the seventeenth century. Also, white inhabitants throughout British North America became aware that they shared a distinctive identity as British colonists. Thirteen different governments presided over these North American colonies, but all of them answered to the British monarchy. British policies governed not only trade but also military and diplomatic relations with the Indians, French, and Spanish arrayed along colonial borderlands. Royal officials who expected loyalty from the colonists often had difficulty obtaining obedience. The British colonists asserted their prerogatives as British subjects to defend their special colonial interests. [[LP Photo: P05.06 Robert “King” Carter/ROA_704115_05_P06.JPEG]]