1 - Jacobitism, party politics and the British Atlantic world

Summary

In the late seventeenth century the British Empire in the Atlantic was a variegated, institutionally disjointed entity, in many respects little more than a patchwork of diverse religious, political, ethnic and economic cultures. Though the population was primarily English, settlers also migrated from Scotland, Ireland and Continental Europe under the aegis of a composite British monarchy. Government structures and church establishments varied from colony to colony, adding a layer of institutional confusion. Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina, among others, were governed by proprietors, not by the crown. Virginia and a number of the Caribbean colonies were royal colonies whose governors were royal appointees answerable to the king. By the late seventeenth century England and Scotland possessed, through plantation or conquest, nearly twenty Atlantic colonies, each with a separate and unique government or charter, creating a lively variety of local institutions and political cultures. These diverse settlements, looking to London as the metropolitan centre of an expanding empire were united by a shared history, heritage, economy, a public sphere and, increasingly throughout the early eighteenth century, the rage of party.

Prodigious amounts of scholarship have debated the origins, structures and ideological features of British party politics in the early eighteenth century. Parties were divided by issues of religion, finance and theories of empire. Although such conflict is well established within the context of England, Scotland and Ireland, there is much more to be said about its transatlantic impact. Party conflict affected political appointments, among other things, directly connecting colonial political cultures to British party divisions. Moreover, issues undergirding the rage of party were also undoubtedly linked to questions concerning the Protestant succession, an event with dramatic imperial consequences. The overlap evident in Jacobitism and Tory political culture during the rage of party in Britain, especially the years 1710 to 1714, did not go unnoticed in the colonies. As the appointments illustrate, a hazy distinction between Toryism and Jacobitism was instrumental in shaping colonists’ views of Jacobitism. The existence of Jacobitism and Toryism in the British Atlantic, whether the result of local politics or imperial appointments, suggests the likelihood and significance of both in larger transatlantic interactions. Jacobitism was a central aspect of Tory and Whig political divisions, and therefore a significant element in an increasingly cohesive, though multifaceted, transatlantic political culture.