Chapter 4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century

Early Chesapeake life span = v short- disease + hunger

• 

• 6:1 men to women- not much procreation

  • Improved in late 17 century

Tobacco prolific crop in Chesapeake

• Tobacco to sell planted before corn to eat

• Overfarming → exhausted land → hungry for more land

• 1.5 mil lbs exported 1630, 40mil lbs exported/year end of century

English unemployment high → indentured servants sent over → Chesapeake relies on them for tobacco farming

• Headright system- paying for indentured servant = fifty acres land

• ¾ of European immigrants = servants

• Less good land available→ masters give smaller freedom dues → lots of poor, angry freemen

Virginia Co. took right to vote from poor freemen→ Bacon’s Revolution, 1676

• Led by Nathaniel Bacon

• Against allyship w/ Natives

  • Native attack- governor Berkeley didn’t relaiate → Baconeers (lol) did

• Attacked Natives and Virginians- took over capital

• Bacon suddenly died, Berkeley violently took back capital

• Led Virginians to want a different labor force

7mil Africans to New World under colonial slavery, only 400,000 to NoAmerica

• Most of 1600’s preferred white servants- cheaper

• End of 1600’s- less desperate Englishmen to become servants, lower slave mortality, more labor demand → more slaves to Chesapeake

• 1698- Royal African Company loses slave monopoly → Americans cashed in → increased slave numbers

• Middle passage- in between march through Africa and overworking in America, 20% death rate

• Slave codes, distinguishes between white servants + black slaves

  • Made slaves + children property

• Slavery created for economic reasons, sustained bc of racial bias

Big hierarchy formed in southern society

• Highest class

  • Owned lots of land and slaves

  • The Fitzhughs, the Lees, the Washingtons, dominated House of Burgesses (Virginia govt)

  • Aristocratic but hardworking- businessmen

• Small farmers

  • Biggest class

  • Maybe a couple slaves

• Landless whites

• Indentured servants

• Slaves

• Not many urbanized jobs- society focused on plantations

New England- family and marriage oriented

• Much more positive than southern life- long lifespan

  • Cleaner environment→ less disease

  • Family moves together- very strong

    • Intergenerational learning

  • Massive birthrate

• Southern men die young→women own property, not in New England

• Women gained more rights than in old England, less than in south

Life in the New England towns- based on small villages and farms- similar to other colonies and Natives in area

• Very focused on morals

• More towns chartered by authorities → towns more planned out than southern

  • authorities give land to proprietors

  • create town hall surrounded by houses + village green for troops

  • Give each family enough land to sustain themselves

• Incredibly educated for time

• Democratic government within church turned to democratic actual government

The halfway covenant- solution to allow more people into puritanism, no report of a conversion experience required to be a member (i don’t get it either)

• Concern over less religion in spreading New England→ jeremiad= new sermon type scolding for being less religious

• Caused less religious devotion, but more participation

Salem witch trials- enemies targeting each other by using religious fears

• property owning women often targeted

• Puritan farmers intimidated by Yankee market economy

• Ended with an accusation against governor’s wife

New England way of life shaped lots of America- spread their way of life around country

• Land very hard to farm, rocky→ hard workers and good traders

• Less slavery bc less farm work

• Only attracted the most disciplined people

• English abused land to get more things out of it→ felt justified taking from Natives bc they were “wasting” land

  • burned old growth for new growth forests for deer populations to hunt

  • beat paths

  • cleared woods for fields

  • introduced livestock→ sped up erosion→ increased season extremes

• Lots of reliance on ocean→ great shipbuilding

Early settlers’ days and ways

• Schedule revolved around farming-harvesting, planting

• Men + women traditional roles

• Land very cheap

• English aristocrats comfortable, lower class too poor→ most colonists middle class

  • Classes still formed in America, less dramatic

• Leisler’s Rebellion- 1689-1691

  • New York merchants against big rich landowners