Book Reaction US History Peaceable Kingdoms

¶ … American colonies can be divided into those in New England, those in the middle region of the country, and those in the South. The histories of each section were different, and though all were basically British by the time of the American Revolution, other European nations had founded or developed different parts of the New World. New England was developed by the British and the Dutch; the South was settled by the British, Spanish, and French at different times. The image of the Puritans of New England has become emblematic of the colonial era for most Americans, though, and historian Michael Zuckerman describes the life of a community in Puritan New England in the eighteenth century in his book Peaceable Kingdoms (1970), pointing out the importance of the town meeting and other influences of the community as a whole that kept the peace and served as government, police power, and voice of the community.

Zuckerman first discusses the pre-eminence of the local community in provincial Massachusetts and how the community was shaped by the doctrine of congregational autonomy in cities the size of Boston and in smaller communities alike. At the same time, there was a contradictory centralization of power in a General Court which treated Massachusetts as a single community rather than many communities spread across the region. Over time, power became more localized, a process that began with the early settlements and then continued throughout the colonial period. One of the tensions between the colonies and England was the tendency of the Crown to try to reassert authority and make the colonies more like royal provinces. The community was eventually shaped more as a locally autonomous entity.

Zuckerman refers to two or three hundred towns and villages around Massachusetts Bay settlement, small societies which could not support "any extensive range of social roles or allow much differentiation of labor" (47). The way these villages were settled and the form they took contributed to the development of a variety of institutions that we now identify as uniquely American, including the American version of democracy, the primacy of peace as a goal, and American capitalism. Earlier theorists have attributed many of these elements to the influence of religious doctrines such as Puritanism, and while these had an influence, the form and nature of the communities of the time was even more decisive.. Zuckerman describes these communities, the life in them, the nature of the family, the modes of commerce of the time, and especially the decision-making processes in the community and how the people influenced one another in town meetings in order to get things done. He notes how the model of a moral community was established, how order was kept by the elected constable (most often reluctant to serve, but considered necessary), how the idea of direct democracy was tested and often found wanting, how disputes were settled, and how communities managed to maintain agreement over time. Zuckerman also considers how these communities contributed to the American Revolution, choosing war over peace when faced with an intolerable situation with reference to the dispute between their new home and England.

This book was selected from an interest in the colonial era and how American society was then constituted. I was interested in learning more about it. A second reason was fueled by reading several other books that pointed out how differently people thought and behaved in different time periods, and this book was cited as giving a particularly strong account of the mode of life and thought in provincial America in the period before the American Revolution. My reading of the book began by viewing the book as offering a detailed description of the New England town of the Eighteenth Century, but as I read, I discovered more and more how the author suggested in his analysis that this structure had much to do with shaping the character of the people and of the democratic America that would emerge after the American Revolution. What Zuckerman presents in this book is logical, for of course the kind of community that existed at the time of the Revolution would have had a profound effect on the development of the Constitution and on the political thought of the Founders, but the nature of that relationship might not be so clear without the in-depth discussion of the communities of the time as offered in this book. The values of the people of New England became, to a large extent, the values of the nation that would eventually include that region. It is also likely that the values of more southern states also had an effect, given the influence of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia in particular, but the Puritans have become emblematic of the pre-colonial and colonial era for a very good reason.