Ch 4: American Life in the 17th Century (1607-1692)
A) Early Settlers in Chesapeake Led Difficult Lives
Effect of diseases
B) Tobacco Economy → Slavery
Profit-hungry settlers need more land to plant more & more tobacco b/c:
C) Slavery → Bigger Gaps in Southern Society
Reasons for Slavery
Effect of diseases
- Cut 10 yrs of life expectancy of newcomers from Eng
- Half of people born did not survive to 20 yrs old
- Most died soon after arrival
- Due to high male:female ratio, most surviving men couldn’t find mates
- Most marriages destroyed by death of a partner within 7 yrs
- Scarcely any children reached adulthood under care of 2 parents
- High pregnancy rate among unmarried young girls
- Native-born ppl acquired immunity to killer diseases
- Presence of more women → more families
- Pop’n of Chesapeake growing thru birthrate
B) Tobacco Economy → Slavery
Profit-hungry settlers need more land to plant more & more tobacco b/c:
- Intense tob cultivatn exhausted soil → desire for more land → Indian attacks
- Lots of tab exported → depressed prices → need to grow more → more land
- Families procreated too slowly, Indians died too quickly, Africans too costly
- Solution: import Eng’s surplus pop’n, yearning for employment → Indentured Servants, who mortgaged labor for several yrs to Chesapeake master in exchange for eventual “freedom dues” (corn, clothes, maybe land)
- Headright System enforced to encourage Ind Servs imports; 50 acres given to anyone who paid passage of a laborer; Result: ind servs = ¾ of all immigrants
- Hwvr, as time went on, land became scarcer → masters don’t want to include land grants in freedom dues and even extended terms as punishment
- Freemen, frustrated by broken hopes of acquiring land & getting married, roam Chesapeake area much to annoyance of powerful planters → disfranchised
- Many freemen forced into untamed backcountry in search of arable land → Indian attacks → resented governor’s Ind-friendly policies for fur trade
- 1000 Virginians, led by Nathaniel Bacon, murdered Indians, chased Gov Berkeley from Jamestown, and raided/torched capital
- Bacon died suddenly of disease → Berkeley crushed rebellion, hanging 20+
- Though Bacon’s Rebellion ended, existing class tensions remained & planters looked for a source of labor which would not insurrect as horribly → Afr slaves
C) Slavery → Bigger Gaps in Southern Society
Reasons for Slavery
- After B’s Rebellion, planters didn’t want ind servs though less costly than slaves
- Rising wages in Eng → decrease in penniless folk willing to risk life in New World
- Royal African Company lost crown-granted monopoly on carrying slaves to colonies → Ams, esp Rhode Islanders, rush to cash in on lucrative slave trade
- VA- Blacks accounted for ½ pop’n; SC- Black: White = 2:1
- Africa to Americas “Middle Passage” death rate 20% + more misery in Ams
- Some of earliest Afr gained freedom, but as more & more Afr came, whites felt threatened → “slave code” = discriminate agnst blacks due to skin color
- Deepest South: esp severe due to hostile climate & life-draining labor (rice); only fresh imports could sustain slave pop’n
- Chesapeake region: tobacco easier to plant & plantations larger + closer together → saw friends & family more often →family life allowed black pop’n to grow by natural reproduction
- Native-born Afr Ams contributed to stable & distinctive slave culture mix
- Slave uprisings occurred, but nowhere near extent of Bacon’s Rebellion
D) New England Settlers had Friendlier Environment
Clean water & cool temp prevented spread of killer microbes, adding 10 yrs of life expectancy of newcomers, allowing settlements to grow thru natural reproduction
E) Life in New England Towns
Tightly-knit society, mostly small villages & farms. Unity due to:
F) Half-Way Covenant & Salem Witch Trials: Attempts at Purification
Declining religious zeal due to
G) The New England Way of Life: Influenced by the Environment & Vice Versa
Rocky soil
Summary: Life in America 1700s
1. Seasons regulated colonists’ lives; majority of colonists were farmers → planted in spring, tended crops in summer, harvested in fall, prepared to begin cycle in winter
2. Women wove, cooked, cleaned, cared for children. Men cleared land, fenced, planted, cropped, cut firewood, butchered livestock. Children helped w. tasks
3. Humble yet contemporary life; most migrants were neither aristocratic (who would have no incentive to move) nor poor (who would have no money to start anew) w. exception of ind servs
4. Equality & democracy found fertile soil in New World
Clean water & cool temp prevented spread of killer microbes, adding 10 yrs of life expectancy of newcomers, allowing settlements to grow thru natural reproduction
- Early marriage → booming birthrate
- Women married at 20 & gave birth every abt 2 yrs
- Unlike Chesapeake settlers, New Eng settlers migrated as families
- Longevity "invented" grandparents
- Low premarital birthrate
- Divorce uncommon; adulterers whipped & forced to wear “A” on clothes
- Southern women allowed retain sep prop rts & could inherit husband’s estates, since men frequently died, leaving widows w. small children to support.
- New Eng lawmakers feared that recognizing women’s sep prop rts = weaken unity of marriage, so women gave up prop rts when married. Hwvr, should husband die, widows could inherit prop.
- Adam & Eve → women regarded as morally weaker than men; couldn’t vote; Hwvr, husband’s power of wife was not absolute & could be punished for abusiveness
- Could manage finances after husband’s death or become midwife
E) Life in New England Towns
Tightly-knit society, mostly small villages & farms. Unity due to:
- Geography
- Hemmed in by Inds, Fr, Dutch
- Puritanism
- New towns legally chartered by colonial authorities
- Distribution of land was entrusted to sober-minded town fathers, “proprietors”
- Towns consisted of meetinghouse (place of worship-cum-town hall) surrounded by houses + village green where militia could drill
- Each family received woodlot (fuel), arable land (crops), tract (pasturing animals)
- Elementary education required; adult lit rate 50%
- Harvard (MA) est 86 yrs before William & Mary (VA)
- Puritans ran their own churches & dem in Church → dem in govt
- Town meeting: adult males congregated & each man voted to elect officials, etc
F) Half-Way Covenant & Salem Witch Trials: Attempts at Purification
Declining religious zeal due to
- Growing pop’n dispersing Puritans → out of control of church & neighbors
- Passage of time dampened 1st generation’s flaming religious zeal
- Jeremiads scolded parishioners for waning piety
- Apparent decline in conversions → less church membership
- Originally, only full church members (the elect) could have children baptized
- Now, membership partially extended to offspring of full church members
- Purpose: to maintain Church’s influence in community
- Result: weakened distinction b/w “elect” & others, further diluting spiritual purity
- Salem: adolescent girls claimed to have been bewitched by some older women
- Hysterical “witch hunt” ensued, leading to legal lynching of 20 individuals, ending only when the governor, alarmed by accusation agnst his wife, prohibited trials
- Stemmed from superstitions, prejudices & soc/rel changes
- Displayed social stratification of New Eng & fear of rel traditionalists that rel was being eclipsed by secular affairs
- “Witches” came from families associated w. Salem’s burgeoning market economy. Accusers came from subsistence farming families in Salem’s hinterland
- 20 yrs later, penitent MA legislature made reparations to “witches’” heirs
G) The New England Way of Life: Influenced by the Environment & Vice Versa
Rocky soil
- Hard to make a living → penny-pinching frugality
- Not attractive to Eur immigrants → less ethnically mixed than south
- Repelled by ~, turned to natural harbors: timber, shipbuilding, fishing
- Encouraged diversified agriculture & industry (tobacco didn’t flourish there)
- Slavery too expensive (small farms); no broad, fertile land; mts & rapid rivers
- Cleared woodlands for pasturage (for livestock) & tillage
- Animals’ big appetites & heavy hooves compacted soil → erosion & flooding
- Made certain areas more susceptible to extremes of heat & cold
- Ousted by sterile soil, scattered to diff places, sprinkling land w. new communities modeled on orderly New Eng town
- “New Eng conscience”→ high idealism → inspired reformers
Summary: Life in America 1700s
1. Seasons regulated colonists’ lives; majority of colonists were farmers → planted in spring, tended crops in summer, harvested in fall, prepared to begin cycle in winter
2. Women wove, cooked, cleaned, cared for children. Men cleared land, fenced, planted, cropped, cut firewood, butchered livestock. Children helped w. tasks
3. Humble yet contemporary life; most migrants were neither aristocratic (who would have no incentive to move) nor poor (who would have no money to start anew) w. exception of ind servs
4. Equality & democracy found fertile soil in New World
- Crude frontier life did not permit flagrant display of class distinctions. Though many settlers tried to recreate Old World social structure, dem forces stultified efforts.
- Several uprisings against upper-class pretensions → Leisler’s Rebellion- bloody insurgence sparked by animosity b/w lordly landholders & aspiring merchants in NY
- Pretensions of “meaner sort” also resented & laws passed to try to keep them in their place; e.g. MA prohibited poorer folk from “wearing gold/silver lace”
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