Chapter 3: The Colonial Ways of Life

• Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans

• War

• Duplicity

• Displacement

• Enslavement

• Social and economic; political security, and religious freedom

• Young people (½+ were under 25 years old) males and poor

• ½ were indentured servants or slaves 

• 50,000 convicts

• ⅓ came with their families

The Shape of Early America

• “Land was cheap, workers were expensive” ~ Benjamin Franklin

• Women

• Married

• Younger

• Had kids earlier which increased the population

• More women

• Told to be subordinate to men

• African women were often the leaders of the house

• Due to a lack of workers, women got to have jobs outside of the house

• People lived longer

Society and Economy in the Southern Colonies

• Class became apparent

• 1642: Gov. William Berkley (VA) → Anglican Colony

• Southern colonies had a climate advantage

• Tobacco, rise, resin (from pine trees)

• Kids were kidnapped in London

• Convicts can move to the colonies (1717)

• White opportunity and black slavery

• Sugar cane = need workers = slavers

• Most were 15 years old-30 years old

• 1 in 6 captives died in the middle passages

• 11% (1700) → 20% (1770) 

• Tabby, tote, cooter, yam, goober, and banana

• Coosaw, Pee Dee, and Wanda rivers

Society and Economy in New England

• Township grants were awarded to groups of people

• Fishing

• Cod

• Whales

• Traded illegally with Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and their colonies

• Americans bypass taxes by building their own ships = own merchants

• Paper money → inflation

• Non-Christians/churchgoers still paid taxes to the church

• Salem Witch hunts

• Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne (Read the Crucible)

Society and Economy in the Middle Colonies

• More fully foreshadowed the American Nation

• Wheat, barley, oats, and other cereals, flour, and livestock

• Husdon, Delaware, and Susquehanna Rivers

• Headright system

• Mixed racial groups

• Germans

• Mennonites

• German Baptists

• Scot-Irish people come

Colonial Cities

• 18th-century ⇒ rapid expansion

• Philadelphia was the biggest city

• Busy

• Crowded

• Dangerous 

• fires caused building codes

• Rising crime required Police Departments

• Travel by horse or foot

• 1732: Stagecoach

• Taverns: important to the travel

• No postal system → entrusts letters to travellers or captains → start of the Postal system

• Newspapers

The Enlightenment in America

• Rational inquiry, scientific research, and individual freedom

• Heliocentric solar system: Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish)

• Gravity: Isaac Newton (1687)

• Benjamin Franklin: American Philosophical Society

The Great Awakening

• Widespread revival of religious zeal

• Jonathan Edwards (Northhampton): Heaven and hell

• William Tennent (PA): priest/ministers were “Cold and sapless”

• George Whitefield: “new birth”

• Edwards = sinners in the hands of an angry God

• Individuals could receive God’s grace without a clergy

Timeline:

• 1642: Virginia → Anglican Colony

• 1687: Newton discovers gravity

• 1717: Convicts can move to the colonies

• 1732: Stagecoach

Chapter 4