Localism in America

Lecture Learning Objectives

This lecture examines the development of another component of American

culture—localism. You should be able to define what is meant by “localism”
and to identify and discuss the major roots of localism in the colonial
American period.

Identifications

Sarah Knight
William Byrd
“A History of the Dividing Line”
Dominion of New England
Charles Woodmason

The conviction that local loyalties are more important than national loyalties; that
local concerns are more important than national problems; that a persons real
identity is with his or her locality and not with the nation as a whole.

 Colonies thought in the local way, nation did not exist. They were from
different countries from Europe.
 Local attachments produce hostility between one to each other.
 Colonies were different between them, thus were hostility.
 It was not just colony to colony, it was inside colony too.
Factors contributing to Localism:

1. Colonies established at different time and for different reasons.

a. Jamestown: Economic
b. Massachusetts Bay: City upon the hill, England was going to looked them
up and called them back.
c. Plymouth: Puritans Separatist
d. Maryland: Calvert family / Roman Catholic
e. Georgia: Economic
f. They came from different part of Englnad. They were not thinking about
create a country.
2. Geographical realities: Fiscal space
a. They had to deal with geographical realities. They did not have anything
when they landed from the ship. They had to start all over again.
b. It was difficult to move from ne point to another.
c. Everything as natives Americans, river systems wide animals were
unknown.
d. They did not know each other.

Sara Knight:
(born April 19, 1666, Boston, Mass. [U.S.]—died Sept. 25, 1727, New London,
Conn.), American colonial teacher and businesswoman whose vivid and often
humorous travel diary is considered one of the most authentic chronicles of 18th-
century colonial life in America.

Sarah Kemble was the daughter of a merchant. Sometime before 1689 she
married Richard Knight, of whom little is known. She is said to have taken over
the family business after her father’s death in 1689, and it may have been in that
connection that she set out on an unchaperoned journey on horseback in
October 1704. Her successful completion of the trip from Boston to New York
speaks volumes for Knight’s energy, self-reliance, and courage. She returned to
Boston in March, having kept along the way a detailed journal account of her
travels and adventures, her food and lodgings, and the speech and customs of
people she met throughout the journey.

In her memories we can see how geographical issues could affect colonial life in
America.

The History of the Dividing Line is an account of the surveying trip that William
Byrd led to draw the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina. The
History of the Dividing Line is a story about the early travelers' journey to
America. In this story, Byrd is writing about the early travelers coming to America.
The romantic quality of his writing left the History without a greater context until
the nineteenth century when the Romantic Movement began. This single text, and
its treatment through the ages, represents the perception of the American
wilderness as a concept, both at home and abroad, over the span of three
centuries. In this essay, I would be discussing the summary of The History of the
Dividing Line.

The History of the Dividing Line is based on account from Byrd's journal. It also
reveals the dichotomy of his own identity as well as his perception of America and
the American.
When I examined the text, it was possible to see the relationship between Byrd's
colonial views of the wilderness and his more progressive appreciation and even
celebration of the wilderness. It shows how they present the American idea of
trust, which evolved to become a concept where people respect God, each other,
and authority.

On March 14, before nine o'clock in the morning, the early travelers were getting
packed and ready to go on their journey through the wilderness. The early
travelers were weighed down with heavy backpacks on their back. "Besides their
luggage at their backs, they were obliged to measure the distance, mark the trees,
and clear the way for the surveyors every step they went." There was a moment
when they got a chance to relax and enjoy their accomplishments. They were also
traveling for a very long time...

Charles Woodmason, a newly ordained Anglican minister, left the comforts of

Charleston, South Carolina, in 1761 to travel for six years in the Carolina
backcountry as an itinerant minister, seeking to bring the established church to
areas where it had not taken hold. He also became a fierce partisan of the
Regulator movement, a frontier rebellion attempting to obtain a greater voice and
fairer claims for backcountry residents who resented the monopolization of power
by the coastal leaders. Although Woodmason was hostile toward the colony’s elite
for their lack of concern over the political and especially religious life of the
frontier, the British migrant held traditional beliefs about morality and social order.
He was appalled by the immoral and irreligious behavior rampant on the frontier,
as he made clear in this selection from his journal of 1768.

3- English imperial policy discouraged a separate American Identity:

They did not know how to unify colonies

They did not impose order. Exception: Domination on New England (1688- 1688)
It did not work because people did not want to be under English control.
There was not an American Identity.

4- Population diversity. There was a lot of non-English coming to America.

This challenged to Englishmen to be unite.

 Scots/ Irish: Protestants

 Germans: Religious freedom /economic / most of them were farmers.
 France

 Africans (SLAVE TRADE)

5: Religious diversity: Presbyterians/ Lutherans/ Puritans/ Roman

Catholics.