Shaping of the Colonies in 1763

There have been few eras in human history possessed with more of the expectant optimism, and the grim pragmatism, than the century following first contact with the new world of North America. With an expansive landmass, the size of which more than doubled that known to citizens of any European country at the time, brimming with natural resources and lying open for exploration and settlement, many thinkers of the age shared Benjamin Franklin's fateful estimation, made in his tract America as a Land of Opportunity, which claimed "so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully." Penned and published in 1751, Franklin's treatise on the seemingly infinite riches to be reaped by the American colonies failed to fully anticipate man's overwhelming compulsion to compete for the control of land. While America's preeminent philosopher was prescient in...
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