New York City, 1664–1710

Conquest and Change

Thomas J. Archdeacon

• Publisher: Fall Creek Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780801479106
• eBook ISBN: 9780801468919
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Norteamérica

Integrating sophisticated demographic techniques with clearly written narrative, this pioneering book (first published in 1976) explores the complex social and economic life of a major colonial city. New York City was a vital part of the middle colonies and may hold the key to the origins of political democracy in America. Family histories, public records of births, marriages, and assessments, and records of business transactions and poll lists are among the rich sources Thomas J. Archdeacon uses to determine the impact of the English conquest on the city of New York. Among his concerns are the changing relationships between the Dutch and the English, the distribution of wealth and the role of commerce in the city, and the part played by ethnic and religious heritage in provincial politics.

1 The Importance of the Middle Colonies

By applying analytic techniques adopted from the social sciences to new topics of investigation, students of the colonial period have made their field an exciting area of historical research. Inspired by English demographers,1 a group of American scholars has developed a modern version of the “new social history.” Some have focused on the family and on rural communal life in early America. Others have begun to chart with long needed precision the distribution of wealth in the provinces and the prospects of upward mobility.

Large dividends have already been derived from these efforts, but they are not immune from problems. The historians of seventeenth and eighteenth century American communities have produced a “model” of provincial society which differs in critical respects from that conceived by those studying economic stratification. As a result, these two groups have proposed or implied explanations of popular responses to political events that are at least partially incompatible with each other and with findings about the basis of such behavior in later eras.

Works by political historians have not been able to reconcile the discordant theses put forward by the “new social historians.” Colonial scholars among the quantitatively-oriented “new political historians” have concentrated their attention on leadership elites and on legislative institutions. They have not taken the same approach as the social historians, whose examinations try to encompass all elements of the population, or as those traditional political historians who have sought through nonquantitative means to uncover the role of the inarticulate. Not having systematically scrutinized the behavior of ordinary men and women, they do not provide a theory to unite the divergent models of the new social history.

Kenneth Lockridge and Philip Greven have produced fine examples of the new social history in their books about the colonial communities of Dedham and Andover, Massachusetts, respectively.2 Though different in methods and goals, and appreciative of the peculiarities of each town’s history, their analyses of social and economic life are strikingly similar. Established in 1636, Dedham enjoyed great success for half a century. But the stable original settlers eventually died, and even worse, land reserves were exhausted by 1713. Time also overtook Andover, which was founded in 1646 and likewise experienced early prosperity followed by an era of shortages. By the middle of the eighteenth century both Dedham and Andover were faced with unprecedented amounts of out-migration as the continued natural growth in population reduced individual land holdings below an acceptable level.

“Generation” is the most important analytic concept to have emerged from the research of Lockridge and Greven.3 They are not alone in categorizing their subjects by generation rather than by some other characteristic. John Demos’s work on Plymouth Colony emphasized intergenerational relations, and he has argued that family tensions, especially between mothers and daughters, helped create the witch hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. After assaying the writings of Lockridge, Greven, and Demos, John Murrin has suggested that opposition to the Halfway Covenant was a tactic of the Puritan founders, who used the fates of their grandchildren’s souls as a potent psychological weapon to stimulate the second generation to duplicate their conversion experiences.4

A generational analysis of society seriously affects the interpretation of politics. Unless constant antagonism between parents and children is the order of the world, it must assume that schisms within the population will be infrequent. The divisions that do occur will follow lines of age rather than of the social and economic cleavages usually prominent in historical analysis, and differences will always be resolvable since the older generation will eventually die. More often, however, a unified people will relieve the inevitable tensions associated with social and economic change by a purging ritual or by a hostile outburst against an outside agent believed to be responsible for the difficulties.

Although not labeled as such, the generational or “communal” interpretation of politics has become common in treatments of early America. The approach is persuasive because it offers a rationale for the widely accepted notion that the colonial era lacked political parties. On-going partisan organizations thrive on permanent or long-lasting divisions within the populace, but from the generational perspective time resolves all differences. The inevitable victory of the younger generation seems to be the corollary of Murrin’s comments on the Halfway Covenant. In less extreme situations physical expansion of the community or migration of the young will ease tensions. Lockridge’s and Sumner C. Powell’s analyses of the growth of new villages around Dedham and Sudbury, Massachusetts, attest to the existence of this process.5

The generational interpretation can also explain major events like the Great Awakening. Richard Bushman’s optimistic description of the prosperity of some eighteenth century communities differs from the darker portrayals by Lockridge and Greven, but his Connecticut Yankees apparently underwent inner struggles analogous to those experienced in Massachusetts. Puritans pursuing mammon, they were caught between prevailing economic realities and older religious ideals, until the Awakening, a cathartic episode of humiliation and rebirth, enabled them to erase the unbearable guilt.6

Even the American Revolution can fit into the generational schema. Lockridge notes that the colonists never lost the utopian urge which gave Dedham its spirit. In such a framework the Revolution can be interpreted as a cleansing and revivifying experience by which a unified people reacted to the fear that their society was beginning to resemble that of Europe. Michael Zuckerman, whose controversial work describes the unity of a colonial society, likewise sees the Revolution as a response to English threats upon a cherished communal way of life.7

At first impression, the studies of economic stratification in colonial America lend support to the theories of the generational or communal school. Both agree that the eighteenth century wasa time of increasing economic inequality. James Henretta, James Lemon and Gary Nash, and Aubrey Land, in their respective examinations of Boston, Pennsylvania’s Chester County, and the northern Chesapeake, demonstrate that, as the provincial era passed, the rich in each area accumulated a larger share of the available assets. The people of middle and low rank became at least relatively less prosperous, and the percentage of propertyless citizens increased.8

Closer comparison shows that the investigators of economic stratification diverge from the community historians in fundamental respects. Working in the tradition of the Progressives they reject descriptions which stress the pervasiveness of consensus in early America. In so far as the “neo-Progressives” relate their conclusions to politics, they proceed from the assumption that inequities in the distribution of wealth cause serious conflict in society, and that perceptions of class rather than of generation underlie popular political attitudes.

Recent examinations of colonial politics do not resolve the discrepancies between the generational and economic approaches. Historians using traditional methods make the assumption that the ordinary citizen either shared the same aspiration as the provincial leadership or that they independently pursued class interests.9 The few “new political historians” studying pre-Revolutionary America have been primarily interested in the formation and functions of elites. Their analyses of voting in the assemblies indicate that the issues tended to be sectional, but this finding has little direct significance for discerning grass root divisions in an era when all elections were local.10 Presumably candidates from the same region would share the economic outlook of that area.

Unfortunately, the overall impact of the new social history has been to isolate interpretations of the colonial era from those of later periods. Doubtless the studies have discovered many of the unique qualities of provincial America, and further research into the typology of communities may show that generational and economic approaches have their own appropriate applications. Nevertheless the image of provincial life presented in these analyses obscures the roots of later American experience, and does not explain why the continuation under the Republic of social and economic divisions similar to those of the colonial period produced such radically different political forms.

Independence did not dissipate the sources of tension discovered by the social historians of the colonies. Gordon Wood has shown that the spirit of communal regeneration sought by the revolutionaries did not last past the initial phase of the war. Allan Kulikoff’s study of Boston demonstrates that wealth became even more unevenly distributed after 1776, and Lemon and Nash’s extension of their Chester County data until 1802 shows a similar trend.11

Despite continuing societal problems, the type of politics characteristic of post-Revolutionary America was remarkably unlike that portrayed by colonial historians. In fact, partisan politics flourished.12 The alignments not only reflected sectional disputes, but parties also found catalysts in local divisions, in direct contrast to the colonial unity indicated by the generational historians.

Data from the nineteenth century likewise make less persuasive the explanation of popular politics which underlies the stratification studies. Using statistical tests to identify the determinants of the electorate’s behavior, “new political historians” like Richard McCormick have denied that class considerations were of primary importance. Scholars like Lee Benson, Robert Swierenga, and Richard Jensen have instead pointed to the importance of ethnocultural allegiances.13

Reconciling interpretations of the colonial era with interpretations of later eras is possible if scholars shift their focus of investigation and expand the number of factors which they take into consideration. The generational historians have concentrated their attention almost exclusively on Massachusetts, but during the early years of the Republic, New England revealed itself to have social ideals quite unlike those of other sections. On the other hand, the historians of class have analyzed only the role of economics and have neglected other potential influences on popular behavior.

The basis of social and political division in the middle colonies remained constant across the entire span of the American past. History is the study of what was beginning as well as of what was ending, and the middle colonies’ early years were particularly relevant to the study of the development of later America. New York and Pennsylvania, the largest provinces in the region, were the spawning grounds of the first political parties in the United States, and almost from the beginning had heterogeneous populations more characteristic of nineteenth and twentieth century America. Indeed, as an English visitor commented in 1800, the middle colonies were “never out of step in the national march.”14

Even in its provincial phase, New York City exhibited the pluralism so typical of a later America, and this attribute has created conditions discouraging to scholars. New York lacks the consistency of politics, the sense of heritage, and the abundance of preserved records found in stable, homogeneous societies. Its labyrinthine politics and haphazard management of vital sources are ultimately the consequence of a tempestuous process of conflict and assimilation present from the beginning.

Neglect of New York history, though, obscures important elements of the American heritage. Ironically, the qualities which make the city difficult to study are the very ones which make the examination mandatory. Historians must recognize that sources, albeit imperfect, do exist. They must value the subject more than the data, willingly recognize that descriptions of a city churning with vitality can never be as exact as those of comparatively stable villages, and confront again New York’s colonial past.

This book attempts to make a harmonious combination of the “new social” and the “new political” histories.15 It draws inspiration from its predecessors, borrows some techniques from them, and, I hope, makes a few worthwhile innovations. Although not an exercise in demography, the work approaches the history of New York City by means of a population analysis. Cognizant of the importance of economic factors, though doubtful of their primacy, the study incorporates examinations of the distribution of wealth and of the role of commerce. Finally, it follows the lead of nineteenth century political historians in attempting to identify the reasons for the voters’ responses to public issues.

A great variety of sources form the b...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. The Importance of the Middle Colonies
• 2. The People of New York City
• 3. The Merchants
• 4. Social Geography
• 5. Leisler’s Rebellion
• 6. Ethnic Politics
• 7. Conclusion
• Essay on Sources and Methods
• Bibliography