chapter 5
Society and Wars
in the Old Countries
A
part from the Spaniards who were drawn to the New World
by the lure of riches, most colonists were not so much com-
ing to America as going away from Europe. English, French, and German
migrants had suffered, often egregiously, in the “old countries.” They took
with them the emotional baggage of their travail, so that what they created
in the New World was in part shaped by their memories of the Old World.
For them as for the Spaniards, we can say that American history begins in
Europe.
Much about European society and government in the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries would seem unusual to modern Americans. Governments
were small and had limited resources. They were made up of the personal
servants, retainers, relatives, and friends of the monarch’s coterie. When a
ruler appointed a man to manage one of the functions of the state, which were
originally just the chores of the monarch’s household, the appointee brought
his own retainers with him. When he was dismissed, he took them away with
him. Titles of personnel in the British and French governments betray their
original functions as the monarch’s personal servants. In the sixteenth cen-
tury, and for generations thereafter, the entire government of the British
empire numbered less than 1,000 men. The government of France was only
marginally larger.
With so few officials putting into effect the decisions of the king, his
ministers, judges, and the legislature, citizens or subjects, even those living
in the capital cities, seldom heard of edicts. A typical French subject, as the
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