Leave the colonists to fend for themselves

Sunday, December 10th, 2017

I would not call the foundation of American gun culture the “American Indian foundation of American gun culture,” but the Indians did have a clear influence:

In England, there was no written, express guarantee of a right to arms until 1689, when Parliament enacted the English Bill of Rights. In America, arms rights were recognized in the Virginia Charter of 1606 and by the New England Charter of 1620. Geographically, the two charters covered all the future English colonies in what would become the United States of America. According to the charters, the colonists had the perpetual right to import arms, ammunition and other goods for their “Defence or otherwise.”

The Virginians and New Englanders also had an express guarantee of the right to use their arms at ‘‘all times forever hereafter, for their several Defences,’’ to “encounter, expulse, repel and resist’’ anyone who attempted ‘‘the Hurt, Detriment, or Annoyance of the said several Colonies or Plantations.’’ In practice, the colonists’ right of self-defense against invaders and criminals would need to be exercised through the collective action of the colonists, there being no British army anywhere near.

As history turned out, the willingness of Americans to be subjects of the British crown ended when the crown began violating its guarantees of American arms rights. The American Revolution began when Americans used their firearms to resist house-to-house gun and powder confiscation at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The attempted confiscation was part of a royal plan to disarm America, set in motion by King George III’s October 1774 embargo on the shipment of firearms and gunpowder to America. (By that point, Americans considered their arms rights to have been guaranteed by the 1689 Bill of Rights, because the 1606 and 1620 charters had long since been replaced.)

[...]

The despotic Stuart kings ruled England from 1603 to 1688. They were terrified of popular revolution and worked hard to disarm most of the population. Even under Queen Elizabeth I (who reigned from 1558 to 1603), militia training and practice were often desultory.

In the early 17th century, many English militia arms were centrally stored rather than kept at home. There were muster days, when a community would have to demonstrate that it had arms for its militia. But practice days were fewer.

[...]

In Great Britain, there was little opportunity for commoners lawfully to develop hunting skills. In the British Isles in the 17th century, hunting was very strictly regulated by the bewilderingly complex Game Laws.

[...]

But conditions in North America demanded a change. First of all, the early settlers had a greater need to hunt for survival. This is one reason that Anglo-Americans — far sooner than the English still in England — shifted from matchlocks to flintlocks. The flintlock’s ignition is much simpler than a matchlock’s: When the flintlock user pulls the trigger, a piece of flint is struck against a piece of steel, producing a shower of sparks that ignite the gunpowder. So a flintlock could be kept permanently loaded and always ready to fire in an instant. In ready mode, it does not reveal the user’s location. The flintlock was more reliable in damp or windy conditions. It was also simpler and faster to reload than a matchlock. It had obvious superiority for hunting in the forests of North America. Captain Myles Standish, an early leader of the Plymouth Colony, was America’s first famous flintlock user. A flintlock was three times more expensive than a matchlock, and in America, the extra price was well worth it.

Unlike England, America had no class-based hunting restrictions. The presumption was that everyone could hunt. Whatever restrictions might be imposed would apply to everyone equally.

An example of a neutral law was the Plymouth Colony’s statute against firing a gun after sunset. This was because when there was an emergency (e.g., an Indian attack), guns would be fired to raise the alarm. (That was how Paul Revere’s news that “The British are coming” was broadcast beyond the sound of his voice, on the night of April 18, 1775.) So Plymouth said that target practice, hunting and so on should be conducted in daylight and not when they might create a false alarm. An exception to the sundown law allowed shooting a wolf.

[...]

The Anglo-Americans faced a dilemma in their Indian trade. On the one hand, firearms sales were often a sine qua non for trade relations with any tribe of unconquered friendly Indians. On the other hand, the colonists were desperate to keep firearms out of the hands of hostile Indians. The colonists enacted many laws to attempt to control the Indian arms trade, but they were exercises in futility. To the limited extent that the laws deterred Anglo-Americans from selling arms to the Indians, Indians could acquire arms from trade networks linked to New Netherland (Delaware to Albany) or New France (Canada down to New Orleans, via the Mississippi River). Indian wars continued until the late 19th century, and nobody’s policies, including those of the U.S. government, managed to prevent Indians from acquiring arms. (See David J. Silverman’s Thundersticks: Firearms and Violent Transformation of Native America.)

Especially in frontier regions, many colonists lived in a state of constant peril from Indian raids. Even when there were formal treaty relations with the most proximate Indians, the Indians might change their minds and launch a surprise attack. For example, Virginia was nearly wiped out by the Powhatan in the Second Anglo-Powhatan War, which began in 1622.

To defend families and communities, the colonists were on their own. The general 17th century model of Spanish and French colonialism centered on trade outposts run by the central government in Europe and protected by that government’s standing army and navy. The English approach, though, was usually to grant a charter to a joint stock company or to a proprietor, to create some basic rules for colonial governance and relations with the mother country, and mostly to leave the colonists to fend for themselves. The English policy reduced the central government’s burden of expense for the colonies and forced the colonists to provide for their own defense.

Accordingly, most colonies enacted strict laws to instill and foster a firearms culture. This required changing the habits of some of the immigrants from Europe, most of whom came from places with much weaker arms cultures.

Of course the colonial laws included mandatory participation in the militia by able-bodied males and mandatory personal arms ownership for such participation. That part of the story is well-known. But the colonial laws went further.

Many laws required firearms ownership by any head of a household, even if the head were not militia-eligible (e.g., the head of the household was a woman or an old man.) Heads of households had to ensure that there was at least one firearm for every male in the household age 16 or over. This included free servants and indentured servants. Some colonies required that when a male indentured servant completed his term of service, his “freedom dues” (goods given by the master, so that the former servant could live independently) had to include a firearm.

To encourage settlement, the Carolina colony (today, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) induced immigration by offering immigrants freehold land ownership, along with strong guarantees of religious liberty. To receive the land grant, an immigrant had to bring six months worth of provisions to take care of his family while his farm was being cleared and cultivated. Also required: ‘‘provided always, that every man be armed with a good musket full bore, 10 pounds powder and 20 pounds of bullet.’’ (See “A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina” (London 1666), a pamphlet by proprietors encouraging immigration, reprinted in “9 English Historical Documents: American Colonial Documents to 1776,” David C. Douglas gen. ed., Merrill Jensen ed., 1955).

The Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered parents to arrange for arms training for all their children aged 10 or above, both boys and girls. Conscientious objectors were exempt.

Arms carrying was often mandatory for travel outside of towns and for attendance at large public events, particularly church services. Then, as now, unarmed church services were favorite targets for attack, because there would be lots of people gathered in a small space.

So one effect of the Anglo-Indian encounter was to foster a culture of widespread household gun ownership and widespread arms carrying. This was very different from conditions back in England, where the government was certainly not ordering people to always carry guns to the weekly (and mandatory) Church of England services.

Comments

  1. Adar says:

    Massasoit the American Indian chief was very friendly with the Pilgrims from the very start. Made a mutual defense pact with the Pilgrims. Massasoit wanted the superior fire power of the Pilgrims to be used in case of war with a neighboring tribe.

Leave a Reply