This chapter surveys the growing diversity of peoples, interests, and outlooks in eighteenth-century North America. It also contrasts British colonial society with the society of the parent country, and illustrates the most far-reaching evidence of diversity—and conflict—in eighteenth-century North America: the struggle for control of the continent waged by the French, the Spanish, the English, and native Indian tribes. That rivalry erupted into three major wars fought in both Europe and America between 1689 and 1748, and culminated in the Seven Years' War, a conflict discussed at greater length in Chapter 6.

Diversity of peoples and interests characterized both the British settlements clustered along the Atlantic seaboard and the North American continent as a whole. Jean L'Archevêque's saga reveals the unpredictable consequences unleashed by the collision of so many different cultures and agendas on the North American continent.

Forces of Division

In 1754, the prospect of a colonial political union appeared highly improbable. American population was doubling every twenty-five years from natural increase alone, part of a global acceleration of population during the eighteenth century. The pressure of that expanding population on older towns and villages pushed settlement westward, creating communities that developed different interests and distinct cultures from those along the coast. Eighteenth-century Americans also remained deeply divided by ethnic and sectional differences. The arrival of non-English immigrants and increasingly heavy slave importations only intensified those divisions.

Most Americans on the move, both native-born and new immigrants, settled in the backcountry. Yet some swelled the populations of major colonial seaports; Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston mushroomed from small villages into major centers of commerce and culture. Disorder became common in congested, polyglot seaports; but the most serious social and political conflict drew its strength from sectional controversies between East and West, contests that focused on intercolonial boundaries, and quarrels over tenancy.

Slave Societies in the Eighteenth-Century South

The plantation districts of the eighteenth-century southern coast became tense and embattled regions, too, as slave resistance became more frequent and successful. The first half of the eighteenth century was a period of massive slave importation. As more Africans arrived, the black community received an infusion of more direct exposure to West African culture, but it also divided internally between native-born slaves and newcomers.

The differences among blacks lessened as slave importations tapered off and the black population grew through natural increase. After about 1750, the growth of a native-born population brought greater coherence to black communal and family life. A distinctively African-American culture emerged. Even so, black families remained vulnerable. Slave marriages had no legal status, and masters often separated family members as part of inheritance bequests or efforts to pay off debts.

Enlightenment and Awakening in America

Religious divisions among eighteenth-century Americans compounded the tensions of racial, regional, and ethnic diversity. The two key events that intensified religious conflict were the spread of Enlightenment ideas and the influence of the first Great Awakening.

While the Enlightenment prompted some American elites to embrace "rational Christianity," an even larger number of Americans fell under the sway of the evangelical Christianity preached by revivalists. Evangelicals enjoyed considerable success among the many unchurched men and women of the backcountry regions south of New York. These conversions sharpened the tensions between westerners and the assemblies of those colonies, which eastern elites of Quaker and Anglican faith continued to dominate.

Anglo-American Worlds of the Eighteenth Century

Despite these divisions in colonial society, a majority of white Americans shared a pride in their common English ancestry. The parent country set the tone for American taste and fashion, and colonials revered the British constitution as providing the world's best and freest form of government.

Nonetheless, an undercurrent of ambivalence characterized colonial attitudes toward England. While Americans who crossed the Atlantic gloried in English consumer culture, aped the fashions and manners of English aristocrats, and admired English technological and industrial advances, some recognized that the English elite had purchased progress and material benefits for the few at a high social cost. Many colonial observers expressed reservations about the economic and social inequality in England and the corruption of English politics.

Toward the "Seven Years" War

By 1754, events began to unfold that would determine how the competition for the North American continent would play out. The failure of the Albany Plan of Union and the defeat of George Washington's forces at Fort Necessity were part of a series of developments that resulted in the Seven Years' War, which dramatically shifted both the balance of power in North America and the nature of imperial administration.