How did the british government predominantly view the american colonies prior to the revolution?

John Spencer Bassett, 1867-1928
The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771)
[Washington]: [Govt. Print. Off.], [1895].

John Spencer Bassett (1867-1928), professor of history at Trinity College (later Duke University), wrote extensively about North Carolina history, including the Regulation movement, about which he published a lengthy article in the 1894 American Historical Association Report. The Regulators were a large group of North Carolina colonists who opposed the taxation and fee system imposed by colonial officials in the late 1760s. This political argument led to a battle between the colonial militia and the Regulators in 1771. Following this battle, a few Regulators were hanged and the majority pardoned, bringing the movement to an end.

Prior to Bassett's investigation, North Carolina historians had seen in North Carolina's War of Regulation the beginning of the American Revolution in the colony, in part spurred by the religious beliefs of backcountry settlers. John Spencer Bassett argues in his frequently cited text that North Carolina's Regulation movement was not a revolution and that it was only slightly tied to the unrest in other parts of the North American colonies. Bassett's view is that the Regulators did not wish to change the form or principle of their government, but simply wanted to make the colony's political process more equal. They wanted better economic conditions for everyone, instead of a system that benefited the colonial officials. Bassett interprets the events of the late 1760s in Orange and surrounding counties as "a peasants' rising, a popular upheaval" (142).

Bassett notes that this upheaval was not religious in nature, but rather was opposed by four of the five leading denominations in the area. Indeed, Presbyterians were instrumental in helping raise troops to fight the Regulators, and a portion of Baptists excommunicated those who had taken part in the unrest. Bassett also downplays the role played by Herman Husband, the Quaker pamphleteer who is often identified as one of the movement's leaders. To Bassett, Husband was a moderate, simply attempting to bring the various sides together, but because of his prominence as a writer and a correspondent of Benjamin Franklin, government officials continually identified him as a leader of the disgruntled faction. Bassett's analysis of the Regulators' uprising remains the predominant understanding of these events, although today Herman Husband is still generally recognized as a leader of the Regulators.

Kevin Cherry

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journal article

The American Revolution

The American Historical Review

Vol. 105, No. 1 (Feb., 2000)

, pp. 93-102 (10 pages)

Published By: Oxford University Press

https://doi.org/10.2307/2652437

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2652437

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Journal Information

The American Historical Review (AHR) is the official publication of the American Historical Association (AHA). The AHA was founded in 1884 and chartered by Congress in 1889 to serve the interests of the entire discipline of history. Aligning with the AHA’s mission, the AHR has been the journal of record for the historical profession in the United States since 1895—the only journal that brings together scholarship from every major field of historical study. The AHR is unparalleled in its efforts to choose articles that are new in content and interpretation and that make a contribution to historical knowledge. The journal also publishes approximately one thousand book reviews per year, surveying and reporting the most important contemporary historical scholarship in the discipline.

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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. It currently publishes more than 6,000 new publications a year, has offices in around fifty countries, and employs more than 5,500 people worldwide. It has become familiar to millions through a diverse publishing program that includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and academic journals.

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How did the British public view the American Revolution?

The “constrained voice” is a good synopsis of how the British viewed the American Revolutionary War. From anxiety to a foreboding sense of the conflict being a civil war, to some admiration, and to a hardened resolve most present in their monarchy.

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