Colonial adoption of English legal doctrines was driven by local elites, not imperial fiat.

Evidence

As this instance shows, English law was full of hidden traps, and these traps were particularly dangerous in a new country, with very few legal technicians. Landowners made use of these doctrines, when it suited their purposes, and never mind colonial customs and habits. The king’s government in London was not imposing these doctrines on the colonists. In this case, the strings that bound colonial law to English law were not imperial strings but social and political. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 215