PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: FAMILIES IN AN ATLANTIC EMPIRE

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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS FAMILIES IN AN ATLANTIC
EMPIRE

• America Past and Present
• Chapter 3

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Sources of Stability New England Colonies of
the Seventeenth Century

• New Englanders replicated traditional English
  social order
• Contrasted with experience in other English
  colonies
• Explanation lies in development of Puritan
  families

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Immigrant Families and New Social Order

• Puritans believed God ordained the family
• Reproduce patriarchal English family structure in
  New England
• Greater longevity in New England results in
  invention of grandparents
• Multigenerational families strengthen social
  stability

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A Commonwealth of Families

• Most New Englanders married neighbors of whom
  parents approved
• New England towns collections of interrelated
  households
• Church membership associated with certain
  families
• Education provided by the family

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Womens Lives in Puritan New England

• Women not legally equal with men
• Marriages based on mutual love
• Most Women contributed to society as
• wives and mothers
• church members
• small-scale farmers
• Women accommodated themselves to roles they
  believed God ordained

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Rank and Status in New England Society

• Absence of very rich necessitates creation of new
  social order
• New England social order becomes
• local gentry of prominent, pious families
• large population of independent yeomen landowners
  loyal to local community
• small population of landless laborers, servants,
  poor

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The Planters World

• imbalanced sex ratio among immigrants
• high death rate
• scattered population

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Family Life in a Perilous Environment

• Normal family life impossible in Virginia
• Mostly young male indentured servants
• Most immigrants soon died
• In marriages, one spouse often died within a
  decade
• Serial marriages, extended families common
• Orphaned children raised by strangers

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Women in Chesapeake Society

• Scarcity gives some women bargaining power in
  marriage market
• Women without family protection vulnerable to
  sexual exploitation
• Childbearing extremely dangerous
• Chesapeake women died 20 years earlier than women
  in New England

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Rank and Status in Plantation Society The Gentry

• Tobacco the basis of Chesapeake wealth
• Great planters few but dominant
• Arrive with capital to invest in workers
• Amass huge tracts of land
• Gentry see servants as possessions
• Early gentry become stable ruling elite by 1700

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Rank and Status in Plantation Society The
Freemen

• The largest class in Chesapeake society
• Most freed at the end of indenture
• Live on the edge of poverty

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Rank and Status in Plantation Society
Indentured Servants

• Servitude a temporary status
• Conditions harsh
• Servants regard their bondage as slavery
• Planters fear rebellion

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Rank and Status in Plantation Society
Post-1680s Stability

• Gentry ranks open to people with capital before
  1680
• Demographic shift after 1680 creates creole elite
• Ownership of slaves consolidates planter wealth
  and position
• Freemen find advancement more difficult

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Rank and Status in Plantation Society A
Dispersed Population

• Large-scale tobacco cultivation requires
• great landholdings
• ready access to water-borne commerce
• Result population dispersed along great tidal
  rivers
• Virginia a rural society devoid of towns

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Race and Freedom in British America

• Indians decimated by disease
• European indentured servant-pool wanes after 1660
• Enslaved Africans fill demand for labor

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Roots of Slavery

• First Africans to Virginia in 1619
• Status of Africans in Virginia unclear for 50
  years
• Rising black population in Virginia after 1672
  prompts stricter slave laws
• Africans defined as slaves for life
• Slave status passed on to children
• White masters possess total control of slave life
  and labor
• Mixing of races not tolerated

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Constructing African American Identities
Geographys Influence

• Slave experience differed from place to place
• Majority of S. Carolina population black
• Nearly half Virginia population black
• Blacks much less numerous in New England and the
  Middle Colonies

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Constructing African-American Identities African
Initiatives

• Older black population tended to look down on
  recent arrivals from Africa
• All Africans participated in creating an
  African-American culture
• Required an imaginative reshaping of African and
  European customs.
• By 1720 African population, culture
  self-sustaining

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African-American Identities Slave Resistance

• Widespread resentment of debased status
• Armed resistance such as S. Carolinas Stono
  Rebellion of 1739 a threat
• Runaways common in colonial America
• Black mariners, other travelers link
  African-American communities

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Commercial Blueprint for Empire

• English leaders ignore colonies until 1650s
• Restored monarchy of Charles II recognized value
  of colonial trade
• Navigation Acts passed to regulate, protect,
  glean revenue from commerce

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Response to Economic Competition

• Mercantilism a misleading term for English
  commercial regulation
• Regulations emerge as ad hoc responses to
  particular problems
• Varieties of motivation
• Crown wants money
• English merchants want to exclude Dutch
• Parliament wants stronger Navyencourage domestic
  shipbuilding industry
• Everyone wants better balance of trade

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An Empire of Trade The Navigation Act of 1660

• Ships engage in English colonial trade
• Must be made in England (or America)
• Must carry a crew at least 75 English
• Enumerated goods only to English ports
• 1660 list included tobacco, sugar, cotton,
  indigo, dyes, ginger
• 1704-05 molasses, rice, naval stores also

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An Empire of Trade The Navigation Act of 1663

• Goods shipped to English colonies must pass
  through England
• Increased price paid by colonial consumers

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An Empire of TradeImplementing the Acts

• Navigation Acts spark Anglo-Dutch trade wars
• New England merchants skirt laws
• English revisions tighten loopholes
• 1696--Board of Trade created
• Navigation Acts eventually benefit colonial
  merchants

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Colonial Gentry in Revolt1676-1691

• English colonies experience unrest at the end of
  the seventeenth century
• Unrest not social revolution but contest between
  gentry ins and outs
• Winners gain legitimacy for their rule

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Civil War in Virginia Bacon's Rebellion

• Nathaniel Bacon leads rebellion, 1676
• Rebellion allows small farmers, blacks and women
  to join, demand reforms
• Governor William Berkeley regains control
• Rebellion collapses after Bacons death
• Gentry recovers positions, unite over next
  decades to oppose royal governors

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The Glorious Revolution in the Bay Colony King
Philips War

• 1675--Metacomet leads Wampanoag-Narragansett
  alliance against colonists
• Colonists struggle to unite, defeat Indians
• Deaths total 1,000 Indians and colonists

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Glorious Revolution The Dominion of New England

• 1684--King James II establishes Dominion of New
  England
• Colonial charters annulled
• Colonies from Maine to New Jersey united
• Edmund Andros appointed governor
• 1689--news of James IIs overthrow sparks
  rebellion in Massachusetts

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The Glorious Revolution in the Bay Colony
Outcomes

• Andros deposed
• William III and Mary II give Massachusetts a new
  charter
• Incorporates Plymouth
• Transfers franchise from "saints" to those with
  property

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Contagion of Witchcraft

• Charges of witchcraft common
• Accused witches thought to have made a compact
  with the devil
• Salem panic of 1691 much larger in scope than
  previous accusations
• 20 victims dead before trials halted in late
  summer of 1692
• Causes include factionalism, economics

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The Glorious Revolution in New York

• 1689--News of James IIs overthrow prompts crisis
  of authority in New York
• Jacob Leisler seizes control
• Maintains position through 1690
• March 1691--Governor Henry Sloughter arrests,
  executes Leisler

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The Glorious Revolution in Maryland

• 1689--news prompts John Coode to lead revolt
  against Catholic governor
• Coode's rebellion approved by King William
• Maryland taken from Calvert control
• 1715--proprietorship restored to the Protestant
  fourth Lord Baltimore

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COMMON EXPERIENCES, SEPARATE CULTURES