Zapor Gane - Section 04

=Control of the Crown over the Colonies.=--While no English ruler from James II to George III ventured to interfere with colonial matters personally, constant control over the colonies was exercised by royal officers acting under the authority of the crown. Systematic supervision began in 1660, when there was created by royal order a committee of the king's council to meet on Mondays and Thursdays of each week to consider petitions, memorials, and addresses respecting the plantations. In 1696 a regular board was established, known as the "Lords of Trade and Plantations," which continued, until the American Revolution, to scrutinize closely colonial business. The chief duties of the board were to examine acts of colonial legislatures, to recommend measures to those assemblies for adoption, and to hear memorials and petitions from the colonies relative to their affairs.

In short, foreign and intercolonial trade were subjected to a control higher than that of the colony, foreshadowing a day when the Constitution of the United States was to commit to Congress the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and commerce with the Indians. A superior judicial power, towering above that of the colonies, as the Supreme Court at Washington now towers above the states, kept the colonial legislatures within the metes and bounds of established law. In the thousands of appeals, memorials, petitions, and complaints, and the rulings and decisions upon them, were written the real history of British imperial control over the American colonies.

• Bernardo Gallegos - Bernardo Gallegos co-edited the Indigenous Education in the Americas: Epistemologies, and Postcolonial Spaces
• Bernardo Gallgos - Bernardo Gallegos reviewed for his Literacy, Education, and Society in New Mexico, 1693-1821
• Bernardo Gallegos - organizer Bernardo Gallegos for the Globalization Conference Program
• Sporgus No. 20 on the Net

This page is Copyright © 2007 Zapor Gane. All Rights Reserved. We'll appreciate your not copying anything you find here for your own Web sites. But that is your problem if you do.

No harm intended. Links pointing to other sites may or may not lead to interesting content. We make no warranties or guarantees. In fact, these links are not necessarily endorsements or recommendations for other Web sites. Surf at your own risk. You've been warned.