Albion’s Seed: American Cultural Origins and Political Conflict, Part One

“American Culture” is an ill-defined idea in the popular imagination. A cursory Google image search of the term demonstrates the vapidity and confusion which exists around this term in the minds of many. However, the lack of wide-spread understanding does not preclude there being a robust understanding of a definition or set of definitions. While there is a common set of values, there are also deep divides between regional cultures which date back to the original settlement of the American colonies.

A fantastic work of cultural history by Dr. David Hackett Fischer explores the multifaceted nature of American history through the examination of four distinct British Folk-Ways which were present in the earliest settlers and thereby defined the subsequent regional cultures of America.

The first group of settlers described by Hackett-Fischer is the Puritan migrants from the east of England who settled in Massachusetts between the years 1629-1640. The second was the movement of a Royalist elite and lower class who became indentured servants from the south and west of England to Virginia around 1649-75. The third was the Quaker migration from the North Midlands and Wales to the Delaware Valley between the years of 1675-1725. Fourthly, the exodus from the turbulent borderlands of North Britain and northern Ireland to the American back country from 1717-75.

Cultural historians have long noted the fact that the first group to settle a region– regardless of the size of later group settlement– can have a profound defining influence on the culture of the area. Thus, while over 80% of American’s today are not of British Ancestry, the patterns of life, accents, and values that the first British settlers had largely colored their regions for centuries following.

Fascinating continuities exist between the 17 century East Anglian Puritan and the Northeasterner of today which provide clues to the enduring social divides that permeate our social and political cultures today. The rowdy red-neck goes back to the borderland Briton and the Scots-Irish from Ulster while the polite and reserved Midwesterner has his roots in the English Midland and Quakers from Wales.

Check back next week for part two of this series where I will analyze the closing section of Hackett-Fischer’s book where he traces the political consequences for liberty and regional conflict that stem from America’s variegated cultural origins in the Sceptred Isle.