Petitioning as Governance: The Scattered and Multinational World of the Early United States

Abstract: Government in the early United States, being decentralized and administratively weak, depended heavily upon petitions for its operation. Petitions from all walks of society figured critically in the administrative, legislative and judicial processes by which citizens ruled themselves and others. As governmental processes, petitions provided apertures for the participation and voice of enslaved and free Blacks, Native North Americans, European settlers, and French Canadians, as well as opportunities for these peoples to be subjugated. Well beyond their role in large-scale North American democratization, petitions suffused the local character of politics in states, provinces and municipalities.