APUSH Chapter/Unit 3: Colonial Society in the 18th Century

Factors that led to dramatic increase (1700’s)

immigration and natural increase

Germans (where and why)

• Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Dutch country)

• economic opportunity

Scots-Irish (where and why)

• settled along the frontier in the western parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia

• were pressured out by the British government to leave Ireland.

Africans (where and why)

• taken captive, forced into European ships and sold as slaves in the South (especially South Carolina and Georgia). 

Traits of the self-determinated colonies

self-governing and non-existence of a hereditary aristocracy

Life for Men

 Worked, owned land, dominated politics, unlimited power 

Life for Women

• bore many children, household work, educated the children, and worked with husbands.

• Divorce was legal but was rare.

• Limited legal and political rights, but husbands gave women protection from abuse and active role in decision-making.

England’s economy

• Farming was limited (only enough for farm families).

• Farms were small, most work was done by members of the family, occasionally a hired worker.

• Descendants of Puritans profited from logging, shipbuilding, fishing, trading, and rum-distilling.

Middle colonies’ economy

• Rich soil produced an abundance of wheat and corn to be exported (Europe & West Indies).

• Farms often had up to 200 acres of land.

• Variety of small manufacturing efforts, including iron-making.

• Trading grew both Philadelphia and New York. 

Southern colonies’ economy

• diverse geography and climate led to varied agriculture.

• Most lived on small subsistence family farms with no slaves. Ones who lived on large, self-sufficient plantations and relied on slave labor were few.

• The products were mainly tobacco (Chesapeake and North Carolina), timber and naval stores (Carolinas), and rice and indigo (South Carolina and Georgia). 

British currency limit

• The British limited the use of currency in the colonies to control the economy. This meant growing colonies had to pay using gold and silver to pay for imports. Paper money often causes inflation.

• Colonial laws that could harm British merchants were vetoed by the British government.

Transportation in colonial life

• Due to the ease of water trading, trading centers (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston) were located around good harbors and navigable rivers.

• Even though it was more difficult, overland travel by horse became more common in the 18th century.

• Taverns provided food, lodging for travelers, social centers (news and politics).

• A postal system: overland routes and small ships on water routes.

Common Protestant denominations

Congregationalist and Presbyterian

Religious groups that faced the most discrimination

Jews, Quakers, and Catholics because Protestant denominations were the most prominent.

Great Awakening

Strongest in the 1730’s-1740’s, A movement of fervent expression of religious feeling amongst masses of people. 

Jonathan Edwards

He expressed the Great Awakening in sermons (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God). Believed that God was rightfully angry with human sinfulness, but people who repent can be saved but those who didn’t seek eternal damnation.