Honestly, down here, after Jamestown but before the turn of the century, colonists viewed themselves as Virginians first, English second, if English at all...one author even goes so far as to state that Virginians were so into politics/law that English governors never had a chance... Virginians would pass laws, then put them on the books prior to the King's approval, then IF the monarch did disapprove of a law they created, they would take it off the books and automatically replace it with the same law, just rewritten... and then the entire process of sending it to England for the King's approval would start all over again, while the law remained in effect in the colony...got to love em!