Elfreth’s Alley in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Elfreth’s Alley in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is commonly held to be the oldest residential street in the USA, dating back to 1702. Englishman William Penn (1644-1718) founded the city in 1682, after he had been granted land on the Delaware River by King Charles II as repayment on a debt of honour to Penn’s father. Penn drew up the new colony’s ‘frame of government’, a groundbreaking venture into democratic accountability. The foundations laid by Penn were built on by Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790), the Sixth President of the Commonwealth of Philadelphia, and through him Penn’s ideas profoundly influenced the Constitution of the United States in 1776.
Part 1 of 2
THE policy of Europe has very little to boast of, either in the original establishment, or, so far as concerns their internal government, in the subsequent prosperity of the colonies of America.
The conquest of Mexico was the project, not of the council of Spain, but of a governor of Cuba; and it was effectuated by the spirit of the bold adventurer to whom it was entrusted, in spite of every thing which that governor, who soon repented of having trusted such a person, could do to thwart it.* The conquerors of Chile and Peru,* and of almost all the other Spanish settlements upon the continent of America, carried out with them no other public encouragement, but a general permission to make settlements and conquests in the name of the king of Spain.
Those adventures were all at the private risk and expense of the adventurers. The government of England contributed as little towards effectuating the establishment of some of its most important colonies in North America.
Smith’s ‘bold adventurer’ was Hernán Cortés, who had helped Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar to conquer Cuba in 1511, and to become its first Governor. Velázquez then sent Cortés on a mission to add Mexico to his bag in 1519, but a growing fear that Cortés posed a political threat prompted him to revoke his orders at the last moment. Cortés sailed anyway.
Spanish adventurer Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in Chile on 12 February 1541. In 1532, a party of conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas of Peru, and Lima became the capital of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru in 1543.
Précis
Adam Smith argued that in the establishment of the American colonies of Spain and Britain, neither government of those two nations played any significant role. Indeed, he would not attribute the foundation of Mexico even to the Governor of Cuba who commissioned it, reminding us that he tried to cancel the expedition. (52 / 60 words)
Part Two
The Philadelphia skyline.
The city of Philadelphia today. Adam’s Smith argued that the tremendous success of Britain’s American colonies was the result not of government policy, which tended to discourage it, but of the enterprise, character and intellectual values of individuals such as William Penn and Benjamin Franklin. Such leading figures did not slavishly implement government policy back home, but fostered individual aspiration and freedom of trade, speech and conscience in a world where such things were regarded as prejudicial to the common good.
IN what way, therefore, has the policy of Europe contributed either to the first establishment, or to the present grandeur of the colonies of America?
In one way, and in one way only, it has contributed a good deal. It bred and formed the men who were capable of achieving such great actions, and of laying the foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other quarter of the world, of which the policy is capable of forming, or has ever actually, and in fact, formed such men.
The colonies owe to the policy of Europe the education and great views of their active and enterprising founders; and some of the greatest and most important of them, so far as concerns their internal government, owe to it scarce anything else.*
Smith thought that London was the best (or least bad) of the imperial powers of Europe, but he still believed that our colonies’ runaway success was down to thoroughly British individuals being thoroughly British, rather than to any Government policy, and that small nations with free markets and no trade barriers possessed all the advantages of Empire, with none of the drawbacks. See The ‘Empire’ of Free Trade, and posts tagged Free Trade and Markets (35).
Précis
Although Smith did not believe that European governments could take credit for her American colonies, he believed that European peoples could. No other Continent at the time, he claimed, was so advanced in culture and noble values, and hence only Europeans could have colonised America so successfully. (47 / 60 words)
