05 - History of the United States, Vol. I by Charles Austin Beard, Mary Ritter Beard

Charles Austin Beard stands as one of the most pivotal American historians of the early 20th century, having penned hundreds of influential monographs, textbooks, and interpretive studies in history and political science. A proud graduate of DePauw University in 1898, he met and later married Mary Ritter Beard, a trailblazer in womens rights and one of the founders of Kappa Alpha Theta. Many of their works were collaborative efforts, reflecting their shared passions for feminism and labor movements, as seen in her notable book, *Woman as a Force in History* (1946). In 1921, the Beards released their groundbreaking *History of the United States*, which was praised for its innovative approach, treating topics thematically rather than chronologically. This method allowed for an exploration of movements, background contexts, and the interconnectedness of social, economic, and political forces. Their goal was to empower students to grasp the essence of American society and its place within global civilization. The books clarity and engaging style have established it as a top-tier resource for both students and the general public.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. History of the United States by
Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritterbeard, Part one, Section four,

(00:23):
Chapter two, Colonial Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce. The Land and
the Westward Movement. The significance of land tenure, the way
in which land may be acquired, held, divided among heirs,
and bought and sold, exercises a deep influence on the

(00:45):
life and culture of a people. The feudal and aristocratic
societies of Europe were founded on a system of landlordism,
which was characterized by two distinct features. In the first place,
the land was nearly all held in great estates, each
owned by a single proprietor. In the second place, every

(01:06):
estate was kept intact under the law of primogeniture, which,
at the death of a lord transferred all his landed
property to his eldest son. This prevented the subdivision of
estates and the growth of a large body of small
farmers or freeholders owning their own land. It made a
form of tenantry or servitude inevitable for the mass of

(01:28):
those who labored on the land. It also enabled the
landlords to maintain themselves in power as a governing class,
and kept the tenants and laborers subject to their economic
and political control. If land tenure was so significant in Europe,
it was equally important in the development of America, where

(01:48):
practically all the first immigrants were forced by circumstances to
derive their livelihood from the soil. Experiments in common tillage.
In the New World, with its broad extent of land
awaiting the white man's plow, it was impossible to introduce
in its entirety and over the whole area, the system

(02:09):
of lords and tenants that existed across the sea. So
it happened that almost every kind of experiment in landed tenure,
from communism to feudalism, was tried. In the early days
of the Jamestown Colony, the land, though owned by the
London Company, was tilled in common by the settlers. No
man had a separate plot of his own. The motto

(02:32):
of the community was labor and share alike. All were
supposed to work in the fields and receive an equal
share of the produce. At Plymouth, the Pilgrims attempted a
similar experiment, laying out the fields in common and distributing
the joint produce of their labor with rough equality among
the workers. In both colonies, the communistic experiments were failures.

(02:56):
Angry at the lazy men in Jamestown who idled their
time away and yet expected regular meals, Captain John Smith
issued a manifesto. Every one that gathereth not every day
as much as I do the next day, shall be
set beyond the river and forever banished from the fort,
and live there or starve. Even this terrible threat did

(03:18):
not bring a change in production. Not until each man
was given a plot of his own to till, Not
until each gathered the fruits of his own labor, did
the colony prosper. In Plymouth, where the communal experiment lasted
for five years, the results were similar to those in Virginia,
and the system was given up for one of separate

(03:39):
fields in which every person could set corn for his
own particular. Some other New England towns, refusing to profit
by the experience of their Plymouth neighbor, also made excursions
into common ownership and labor, only to abandon the idea
and go in for individual ownership of the land. By degree,

(04:00):
it was seen that even the lord's people could not
carry the complicated communist legislation into perfect and wholesome practice.
Feudal elements in the colonies quitrents, manners, and plantations. At
the other end of the scale were the feudal elements
of land tenure found in the proprietary colonies. In the

(04:23):
seaboard regions of the South, and to some extent in
New York. The proprietor was in fact a powerful feudal lord,
owning land granted to him by royal charter. He could
retain any part of it for his personal use, or
dispose of it all in large or small lots. While
he generally kept for himself an estate of baronial proportions,

(04:45):
it was impossible for him to manage directly any considerable
part of the land in his dominion. Consequently, he either
sold it in parcels for lump sums, or granted it
to individuals on condition that they make to him an
annual p payment and money, known as quit rent. In Maryland,
the proprietor sometimes collected as high as nine thousand pounds

(05:08):
equal to about five hundred thousand dollars to day in
a single year. From this source. In Pennsylvania, the quit
rents brought a handsome annual tribute into the exchequer of
the penn family. In the royal provinces, the King of
England claimed all revenues collected in this form from the land,
a sum amounting to nineteen thousand pounds at the time

(05:30):
of the revolution. The quit rent, really a feudal payment
from freeholders, was thus a material source of income for
the crown as well as for the proprietors wherever it
was laid. However, it proved to be a burden, a
source of constant irritation, and it became a formidable item
in the long list of grievances which led to the

(05:51):
American Revolution. Something still more like the feudal system of
the old world appeared in the numerous manners or the
huge landed distins dates granted by the Crown, the companies,
or the proprietors. In the Colony of Maryland alone, there
were sixty manners of three thousand acres, each owned by
wealthy men and tilled by tenants holding small plots under

(06:14):
certain restrictions of tenure. In New York also, there were
many manners of wide extent, most of which originated in
the days of the Dutch West India Company, when extensive
concessions were made to patroons to induce them to bring
over settlers. The Van Rensselaire, the Van Cortland, and the
Livingstone manners were so large and populous that each was

(06:36):
entitled to send a representative to the provincial legislature. The
tenants on the New England manors were in somewhat the
same position as serfs on old European estates. They were
bound to pay the owner a rent in money and kind,
They ground their grain at his mill, and they were
subject to his judicial power, because he held court and meeted

(06:58):
out justice in some instances extending to capital punishment. The
manners of New York or Maryland were, however, of slight
consequence as compared with the vast plantations of the Southern
Sea Board, huge estates, far wider in expanse than many
a European barony, and tilled by slaves more servile than

(07:19):
any feudal tenants. It must not be forgotten that this
system of land tenure became the dominant feature of a
large section and gave a decided bent to the economic
and political life of America the small freehold. In the
upland regions of the South, however, and throughout most of

(07:40):
the North, the drift was against all forms of servitude
and tenantry, and in the direction of the freehold, that is,
the small farm owned outright and tilled by the possessor
and his family. This was favored by natural circumstances and
the spirit of the immigrants. For one thing, the abundance
of land and the scarcity of labour made it impossible

(08:03):
for the companies, the proprietors or the crown to develop
over the whole continent a network of vast estates. In
many sections, particularly in New England, the climate, the stony soil,
the hills, and the narrow valleys conspired to keep the
farms within a moderate compass. For another thing, the English,

(08:24):
scotch Irish and German peasants, even if there had been
tenants in the Old World, did not propose to accept
permanent dependency of any kind in the New. If they
could not get freeholds, they would not settle at all.
Thus they forced proprietors and companies to bid for their
enterprise by selling land in small lots, so it happened

(08:47):
that the freehold of modest proportions became the cherished unit
of American farmers. The people who tilled the farms were
drawn from every quarter of Western Europe, but the freehold
system gave a uniform cast to their economic and social life.
In America, social effects of land tenure, land tenure and

(09:10):
the process of Western settlement thus developed two distinct types
of people engaged in the same pursuit agriculture. They had
a common tie in that they both cultivated the soil
and possessed the local interest and independence which arise from
that occupation. Their methods and their culture, however, differed widely.

(09:32):
The Southern planter, on his broad acres tilled by slaves,
resembled the English landlord on his estates more than he
did the colonial farmer, who labored with his own hands
in the fields and forests. He sold his rice and
tobacco in large amounts directly to English factors, who took
his entire crop in exchange for goods and cash. His

(09:54):
fine clothes, silverware, china, and cutlery he bought in English markets.
Loving the ripe old culture of the mother country, he
often sent his sons to Oxford or Cambridge for their education.
In short, he depended very largely for his prosperity and
his enjoyment of life upon close relations with the old world.

(10:15):
He did not even need market towns in which to
buy native goods, for they were made on his own
plantation by his own artisans, who were usually gifted slaves.
The economic condition of the small farmer was totally different.
His crops were not big enough to warrant direct connection
with English factors or the personal maintenance of a corps

(10:37):
of artisans. He needed local markets, and they sprang up
to meet the need. Smiths, hatters, weavers, wagon makers, and
potters at neighboring towns supplied him with the rough products
of their native skill. The finer goods bought by the
rich planter in England, the small farmer ordinarily could not buy.

(10:58):
His wants were restricted to taples like tea and sugar,
and between him and the European markets stood the merchant.
His community was therefore more self sufficient than the sea
board line of great plantations. It was more isolated, more provincial,
more independent, more American. The planter faced the Old East,

(11:19):
the farmer faced the New West. The westward movement. Yeomen
and planter nevertheless were alike in one respect. Their land
hunger was never appeased. Each had the eye of an
expert for new and fertile soil, and so north and south.

(11:39):
As soon as a foothold was secured on the Atlantic coast,
the current of migration set in westward, creeping through forests,
across rivers, and over mountains. Many of the later emigrants,
in their search for cheap lands, were compelled to go
to the border, but in a large part the path
breakers to the west were native Americas of the second

(12:01):
and third generations, fired by curiosity and the lure of
the mysterious unknown, and hunters, fur traders, and squatters, following
their own sweet wills, blazed the trail, opening paths and
sending back stories of the new regions they traversed. Then
came the regular settlers, with lawful titles to the lands
they had purchased, sometimes singly and sometimes in companies. In Massachusetts,

(12:27):
the westward movement is recorded in the founding of Springfield
in sixteen thirty six and Great Barrington in seventeen twenty five.
By the opening of the eighteenth century, the pioneers of
Connecticut had pushed north and west until their outpost towns
adjoined the Hudson Valley settlements. In New York, the inland
movement was directed by the Hudson River to Albany, and

(12:50):
from that old Dutch center it radiated in every direction,
particularly westward through the Mohawk Valley. New Jersey was early
filled to its borders, the beginnings of the present city
of New Brunswick being made in sixteen eighty one and
those of Trenton in sixteen eighty five. In Pennsylvania, as

(13:10):
in New York, the waterways determined the main lines of advance. Pioneers,
pushing up through the valley of the Scuoylkill, spread over
the fertile lands of Burkes and Lancaster Counties, laying out
reading In seventeen forty eight, another current of migration was
directed by the Susquehanna, and in seventeen twenty six the

(13:31):
first farmhouse was built on the bank where Harrisburg was
later founded. Along the southern tier of counties, a thin
line of settlements stretched westward to Pittsburgh, reaching the upper
waters of the Ohio, while the colony was still under
the Penn family. In the south, the westward march was
equally swift. The sea board was quickly occupied by large

(13:54):
planters and their slaves, engaged in the cultivation of tobacco
and rice. The Piedmont Platteaux, lying back from the coast,
all the way from Maryland to Georgia was fed by
two streams of migration, one westward from the sea and
the other southward from the other colonies, Germans from Pennsylvania
and Scotch Irish, furnishing the main supply. By seventeen seventy

(14:18):
tide water Virginia was full to overflowing, and the back
country of the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah was fully occupied.
Even the mountain valleys were claimed by sturdy pioneers. Before
the declaration of independence, the oncoming tide of home seekers
had reached the crest of the Alleghanies. Beyond the mountains,

(14:39):
pioneers had already ventured harbingers of an invasion that was
about to break in upon Kentucky and Tennessee. As early
as seventeen sixty nine that Mighty Nimrod Daniel Boone, curious
to hunt buffaloes of which he had heard weird reports,
passed through the Cumberland Gap and brought back news of
a wonderful country awaiting the plow. A hint was sufficient. Singly,

(15:04):
in pairs and in groups, settlers followed the trail he
had blazed a great land corporation, the Transylvania Company, emulating
the merchant adventurers of earlier times, secured a huge grant
of territory and sought profits in quitrents from lands sold
to farmers. By the outbreak of the revolution there were

(15:24):
several hundred people in the Kentucky region. Like the older colonists,
they did not relish quitrents, and their opposition wrecked the
Transylvania Company. They even carried their protests into the Continental
Congress in seventeen seventy six, for by that time they
were our Embryo fourteenth colony. End of Section four