A Colonial Comparison

1
A Colonial Comparison

• Lecture 3

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The Chesapeake/Southern Region

• Early Statistics
• Malaria, dysentery and typhoid were rampant
• One-half born in Virginia and Maryland did not
  live to see their 20th birthday.
• Remaining half would maybe see their 50th
  birthday (men) or 40th (women)
• Most early settlers were young men looking to
  get rich quick
• Number of women scarce (1650 6 to 1)
• Grandparents almost non-existent

3

• Most marriages lasted an average of 7 years due
  to death of either mate.
• Southern laws allowed for women to retain land
  ownership after their husbands passed away
  because men tended to die young.

4

• Eventually colonists would develop immunity to
  diseases and by the beginning of the 1700s,
  Virginia had become the most populous colony with
  59,000.
• Tobacco became the Souths major cash crop which
  wore out land creating an ever present need for
  land
• 1630s 1.5 million pounds
• annually.
• 1700 40 million pounds
• annually

5

• Colonists originally looked to indentured
  servants as a labor force and used the headright
  system to gain land (50 acres for every paid
  passage).
• Indentured servants served a period of usually 7
  years and lead a very hard life with hopes of
  someday owning land.

6

• Bacons Rebellion (1670)
• A group of impoverished frontiersmen had been
  pushed into the Virginia backcountry to find
  arable land and were attacked by Indians.
• Governor Berkeley would not intervene due to a
  fur trade with the Indians.

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• Bacon lead a group who attacked the Indians and
  ran Berkeley from Jamestown.
• Bacon dies of disease and the rebellion ends.
• The rebellion showed planters that white labor
  could turn rebellious and further encouraged them
  to look for an alternate labor force.

8

• Slavery caused a widening gap between classes.
• Top small but powerful group of large planters
  who owned gangs of slaves and vast amounts of
  land ruled the regions economy and controlled
  political power (oligarchy FFVs)
• Middle and largest social group small farmers
• Lower class landless whites
• Lowest class slaves

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New England Region

• Statistics and Womens Roles
• Lower death rate due to clean water and cool
  temperature
• Actually added 10 years to their life expectancy
  (avg. 70 years)
• Colonists tended to migrate as families and at
  time whole communities.

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• Early marriage encouraged a booming birthrate
  women averaged a baby every 2 years.
• The largest families were borne by several
  mothers due to frequent death during childbirth.
• Children lived in a nurturing environment with
  parents and grandparents.
• Women were seen as inferior due to original sin
  and only granted property rights in extreme
  situations and had to give up their property
  rights when they married.

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• Puritans believed that if women retained land
  ownership, it would undermine the power of men in
  society.
• Women could not vote, but in some colonies, they
  were protected by law from abuse.
• They cherished marriage and divorce was extremely
  rare. The courts could even order separated
  couples to reunite.

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• New England Society
• Society grew from small villages and farms into
  towns and eventually into cities.
• Towns consisted of a meeting house, which served
  as church and town hall, houses, a village green
  where the militia trained, a tract for growing
  crops and a tract
• for pasteurizing
• animals.
• Towns of 50
• families had to
• provide elementary
• education and the
• majority of adults knew
• how to read and write.

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Salem Witchcraft Trials

• The Salem Witchcraft trials were held when a
  group of girls claimed to be bewitched and began
  to blame the townspeople of the bewitching.
• By the end, 20 were hung, 1 was pressed to death
  and two dogs were hung.

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• Most of the accused came from families associated
  with Salems growing economy and their accusers
  came from subsistence farming families.
• The reason for the hysteria has never been
  successfully explained.
• The theories include, taking the land from those
  accused, ergot poisoning, political cover-ups and
  superstition fed by the mere power of suggestion

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• The New England wealthy tried to recapture the
  social structure of Old England and passed laws
  that kept the meaner sort in their place.
  (Example In Massachusetts in 1651, poorer folk
  could not wear gold or silver or lace and only
  gentlemen could race horses.)
• This social division was hard to enforce in the
  growing American colonies where equality and
  democracy was finding its place.

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• Democracies Without Democrats
• the colonies were largely left to govern
  themselves in spite of seemingly repressive laws
  passed by the governments of Massachusetts and
  Connecticut.
• Primary responsibility for maintaining order
  rested with the towns of the region.

A town meeting
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The Dominion of New England

• (1636) The Dominion of New England was created by
  royal authority. The Mass. Bay Colony is angry
  about this change because it removes their
  ability to govern themselves.

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Unrest in New England

• In order to protect the colonies trade from their
  competitors and enemies, England designed the
  Navigation Acts of the 1650s and 1660s.
• These acts would enforce the economic system
  called mercantilism, the belief that colonies
  should exist to benefit the mother country.
• Colonial merchants were expected by law to trade
  only with England.
• The Navigation Acts would end up straining the
  relationship between England and the colonies.

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• Sir Edward Andros is sent to enforce Navigation
  Laws and watch over the colonies
• He is strongly affiliated with the Church of
  England
• His soldiers were unruly and curbed town
  meetings.
• He restricted the courts, press and closed
  schools
• He revoked all land titles and taxed the people
  without consent of representation
• The Glorious Revolution broke out in England
  and dethrones the Catholic James II and enthrones
  Protestant William II and Mary.
• Andros flees the Bay Colony, yet more English
  officials were still in control despite the
  Revolution. (he tries to leave dressed as a
  woman)

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The Middle Colonies

• The Politics of Diversity
• The Middle Colonies developed a more
  sophisticated political culture than either New
  England or the southern colonies
• - All of the Middle Colonies had
• popularly elected representative
• assemblies, the most
• democratic society and they
• emphasized equality.
• New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians were less likely
  than southern colonists to defer to the landed
  gentry.

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• political divisions led to the trial for
  seditious libel of John Peter Zenger, the editor
  of an opposition newspaper who spoke out against
  New Yorks governor.
• the Zenger trial established truth as a defense
  against libel, which was contrary to English
  common law.
• Zenger was found not guilty, thus establishing
  the principle of freedom of the press.

22

• Settlers in western Pennsylvania were resentful
  of eastern indifference to the threat of Indian
  raids on the frontier.
• the Paxton boys slaughtered an Indian village and
  marched on the capital.
• Ben Franklin talked them out of attacking the
  town.

23
American Enlightenment

• The Enlightenment which had begun in Europe was
  the belief in the improvement and application of
  reason.
• Ben Franklin was a scientist, printer and
  enlightenment thinker.
• Education was highly promoted in the New England
  region.
• In Pennsylvania, Quakers set up private schools.
• Southern children were separated and seldom went
  to formal schools. Wealthy southerners were sent
  to England or taught by tutors on the plantations.

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The Great Awakening

• Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield the New
  Light preachers became worried when Deism began
  to grow and people were falling away from the
  established religions.
• They felt that people had become to preoccupied
  spending money instead of serving God.
• Their sermons were very emotional and held the
  congregations spellbound.
• This movement would eventually split colonial
  churches and spawned new religious denominations
  such as the Baptists, Presbyterians and
  Methodists.
• It undermined and weakened the status of the
  established clergy
• It also led to the founding of Princeton,
  Dartmouth, and Rutgers colleges.

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What is an American?

• Americans came from a variety of backgrounds and
  intermingling of the races between Indians,
  Europeans and Africans.
• although they never completely abandoned their
  various heritages, they became different from
  their relatives who remained in Old World.
• Even the most rebellious seldom intended to
  create an entirely new civilization, but physical
  separation and a new environment led to different
  patterns of development.
• On the eve of revolution these new Americans
  began to be more aware of their joined culture
  and grievances against the crown.