Melted into a New Race of Men

“Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world…” said Crevecoeur in the early 1770’s. Yet that new race of men still felt a strong bond with their mother country, Great Britain, considering it like a protective parent whose military and economic guidance they needed to survive. Never mind they were being taxed heavily on ordinary, everyday items such as paper. Never mind that tea, the drinking of which had developed to be a leisurely social activity enjoyed as a sign of status, was almost impossible to afford. Never mind Parliament was restricting their trading and economic progress severely. Contrary to popular belief, the colonists were not all ardent patriots waving flags, rushing to join the militia and yelling “No taxation without representation” in the streets to anyone who would listen. The colonists still felt like a part of the British Empire. Yet at the same time they had their own separate identity, as “colonists” living in a flourishing and prospering land, which they were proud of and which was vastly different from their mother country. They always felt as an extension of Great Britain, although different culturally and socially, still needing their mother country’s guidance and protection. Unification was another matter. Being of such different opinions as far as identity was concerned - as some considered a different identity ground for independence - the colonists were never very united, either before the war or during the war. It was that discovery of a unique American identity as well as the fact that the colonies were not as dependent on Great Britain, economically and for protection, that led to thoughts of independence for the first time. And independence being controversial, novel and not widely supported made unity among the colonies almost non-existent by the eve of the revolution.

A “new race of men”, as Crevecoeur said, was indeed rising out of the remains of the humble beginnings of tiny British colonies, which had started as struggling towns in the North American wilderness. Great bustling cities and prosperous ports stretched across the East coast, and immigrants hoping to start a new life kept arriving in ships from Europe, bringing with them their unique cultures. Especially the trade of these colonies was flourishing, in particular agricultural products and raw materials, drawing these cultures together. This “new race” was extremely mixed, and decidedly different from their mother country, Great Britain, in more than economy and location. Diverse cultures brought together by immigration were blending into one to form the American society. Poor and from the very bottom of the societies in their homelands, Scottish and Irish immigrants arrived in large numbers, mainly settling in the backcountry and taking to farming. From African tribes (especially West Africa) arrived a totally different type of people who had been taken as slaves, and those were taken to the plantations in the South and in the Chesapeake. Smaller numbers of immigrants came from Germany, Holland and other European nations. Except for the Africans, these immigrants saw America as a land of opportunity and a fresh start. They brought with them their different languages, their religion (the Irish were mostly Catholic, a religion that had barely grown in the colonies), their traditions (holidays, fashions, foods) etc. The colonists still considered themselves an extension of Great Britain, but it was undeniable that they were very different and had an individual identity due to this blending of cultures. There was a gulf of distinctions between British culture and the culture attributed to the “colonists”, which was becoming less British and more multicultural.

At the beginning, the colonies had been made up of a mayor British population. But as the years went on and the colonies grew, largely because of immigration from several places in the 1600’s more than from natural increase, the nationalities varied greatly, and the population was not all British anymore. All these immigrants; Germans, Irish, Scottish, Africans, brought their own cultures, and had no reason to feel any loyalty towards Great Britain, not being connected to it in any way save for the fact that they happened to live in a colony controlled by it. A lot of families were mixed, like the one Crevecoeur wrote about, a family whose grandfather was English, and “whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman…” The colonies were not, culturally, completely British anymore but had a distinct culture and identitydue to the mixing of nationalities. The language, English, and fashions, since anything that was popular in England was considered sophisticated in the colonies, were similar, as well as some ways society was structured and how public offices were. Yet that did not make the colonists just like British citizens living in Great Britain. After the first tentative decades, the colonists had started to become differentiated from their mother country, like a child who grows up.