From Privileges to Rights: Work and Politics in Colonial New York City (review)

The idea of a transition from small producer to capitalist production in late eighteenth-century America, a popular topic in 1980s and 1990s, is wrong. This is the message of Simon Middleton's From Privileges to Rights, a study of New York City artisans in the colonial era. Using records from the Mayor's Court (roughly equivalent to municipal courts today), and various other sources, Middleton finds possessive individualism to be a growing force among New York City artisans at least several decades before the American Revolution. In arguing this, Middleton joins a growing company of scholars who have recently begun reassessing the role of artisans in the early American politics and the early American economy.

In From Privileges to Rights, Middleton's aim is to investigate the political implications of work as New York City changed from a Dutch enclave into a productive city within the first English empire. At the heart of this process was a change from objective to subjective rights. Subjective rights derived from privileges granted by authorities to certain groups of people and were in turn viewed by them as a form of property commensurate with their contributions to community well-being. Thus, for example, medieval monarchs granted European towns specific freedoms and rights that included self-government and freedom from some forms of taxation, in return for which towns provided production and trade goods for surrounding lords and peasants.

Subjective rights were more modern creations that conceived of rights as a form of individual, not group, property. Subjective rights were rights that allowed individuals to act as they pleased, within the bounds of law and propriety. The most famous of these subjective rights were those enumerated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

In colonial New York City, the transformation of objective privileges into subjective rights required ordinary men and women to forsake ancient conceptions of hierarchy (especially class and ethnicity) that were rooted in ideas of natural difference and to embrace the idea that all people were essentially similar and possessed of equal human rights. According to Middleton, this transformation was accomplished through incremental changes in labor and popular politics.

New Amsterdam attracted various artisans from the 1640s until the city was conquered by the English in 1664. Adapting to local conditions, these Dutch artisans combined fur trading with the practice of their trades, as well as various other moneymaking activities. Yet, mixed with this seemingly modern activity, they also identified themselves as holders of certain objective rights and privileges and viewed the practice of their trades as essential to the well-being of the town.

The English conquest changed little of this, at least initially. Relatively few in number and lacking immediate political resources, the English continued previous Dutch civic practices into the 1680s. But, as the English population increased and New York City became an important pivot of the emerging English overseas empire, English officials began a program of "reform" that replaced Dutch law and privileges with their own version of English jurisprudence and politics. The fact that these reformed laws and practices were corrupt and mostly benefitted a small English elite only ensured that Dutch tradesmen would balk at the change. And this they did, taking to the streets to defend their ancient privileges and to protect their city from the imagined threat of "popery." The ensuing revolt has become known as "Leisler's Rebellion," although it was in motion long before the German politician, Jacob Leisler, became its leader.

Leisler was eventually tortured to death by the triumphant English, who wasted no time in Anglicizing New York City government. In the course of the next forty years, the English imposed English Common Law and used it to withdraw trade and commercial privileges long held by city tradesmen. Over the same period, the English established a provincial assembly that...