Colonial Life (1700s to the Revolution)

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Colonial Life(1700s to the Revolution)
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I. Colonial Populations

1. Early 1700s?Less than 300,000 in English-American
   colonies
2. 1775, 2.5 million
3. 20 African slaves
4. Larger than home countries
5. Largest single group of non-whites?

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African slaves90 held by Southern slave
owners
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II. Characteristics of Colonial Societies

1. StratificationGap between rich poor.
2. Puritans in New England view wealth as being part
   of? elect
3. Royal sympathizers of the English Civil War, AKA
   Cavaliers__gthonor aristocracy

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Colonial Characteristics (contd)

• Middle Colonies not as rigid socially
• Diversity
• Acceptance
• Tolerance
• N.E. Middle Colonies
• Successful merchants
• 90 involved in agriculture
• Subsistence
• Tenant Farmers

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• Family
• Married, bore children younger than Europeans
• More kidsmore handsmore earnings
• Division of Labor
• Men worked outside
• Womentake care of the homestead raise kids

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• Women had few rights legal recourses in
  colonial society

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III. Colonial Economies

1. Mercantilism was a reality
2. Triangular Trade
3. New England
4. Timber, fish, manufactured goods to Caribbean
5. Got molasses for Rum
6. Rum-running.
7. Middle Colonies
8. Agriculture light manufacturing

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Colonial Economies (contd)

• 5. Southern Colonies
• Tobacco main cash crop in the Chesapeake
• Carolinas Georgia? Rice indigo
• England West Indies?Goods and Slaves

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IV. Religion the Great Awakening

1. 1730s Many lost touch with Puritan faith
2. 1000s on the frontier had no access to churches
   services
3. Late 1630s emotional connection to a personal
   inspiration from God

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Religion the Great Awakening (contd)

• 1734 Great Awakening
• New Light preachers
• Jonathan EdwardsAsk for forgiveness and pray for
  salvation
• 1741-Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
• Obey or go to hell!!!

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Religion the Great Awakening (contd)

• Other New Light PreachersGeorge Whitfield
• Fire brimstone
• Undermined Old Light ministers
• Didnt need leadership of a man of the cloth to
  understand the gospel of the Lord
• Emotional public admissions of sin.

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Religion the Great Awakening (contd)

• Significance
• 1st time colonists claimed a common experience.
  (class, occupation, etc.)
• Foundations of democratization of colonial
  society
• New sects and division of the Protestant faith
• Baptists, Methodists

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• Universities built to train New Light ministers
  (ex. Yale, Harvard)
• Injected emotionalism
• old, intellectual approach was overshadowed

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• Great Awakening

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Ben Franklin on the Great Awakening Whitfield

• In 1739 there arrived among us from Ireland
  the Reverend Mr. Whitefield, who had made himself
  remarkable there as an itinerant preacher. He was
  at first permitted to preach in some of our
  churches but the clergy, taking a dislike to
  him, soon refus'd him their pulpits, and he was
  oblig'd to preach in the fields..

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• The multitudes of all sects and denominations
  that attended his sermons were enormous, and it
  was matter of speculation to me, who was one of
  the number, to observe the extraordinary
  influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how
  much they admir'd and respected him,
  notwithstanding his common abuse of them, by
  assuring them that they were naturally half
  beasts and half devils

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• It was wonderful to see the change soon made in
  the manners of our inhabitants. From being
  thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it
  seem'd as if all the world were growing
  religious, so that one could not walk thro' the
  town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in
  different families of every street. -- The
  Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

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V. Impact of the Enlightenment on the Colonies

• Science challenges religion
• Rationalism used to understand the universe
• British philosopher John Locke
• Theory of natural rights challenged the divine
  rule of kings and queens

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Impact of the Enlightenment on the Colonies
(contd)

• Sovereignty was derived by the will of those
  governed
• The Governed have a responsibility to rebel
  against a government that fails to protect the
  natural rights of life, liberty, and property.

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1. Benjamin Franklin
2. Reason over emotion..
3. Set the stage for a revolutionary spirit
4. Colonists now justified for rebelling against a
   government that violated their rights as
   Englishmen (Two Treatises of Government)