AP US History- Chapter 3, The Role of Women and Slavery in the New World

Chapter Three: Colonial Ways of Life

• New Civilization in the New World involved violent encounters with European, African, and Indian cultures

• Involves violence and enslavement, as well as acculturation (blending and accommodation)

• Colonizers in the 17th and 18th centuries were part of a massive social migration through Europe and Africa (constant motion, farms -> villages -> cities; homelands -> colonies)

• Why migrate (Europe)

  • Social and economic forces– rapid pop growth, increased commercial agriculture = enclosure, farmers pushed into cities, desperately poor, willing to risk the journey to colonies
  • Political security or religious freedom
  • Africans were captured and transported against their will

• People

  • Initial- young (half under 25), male, poor, half were indentured servants or enslaved people
  • British transported convicts to jails in the new world to address the labor shortage
  • Once in America, many keep moving in search of better lands or new business opportunities -> creating America's enduring institutions and values, distinct spirit, and restless energy

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The Shape of Early America

• Population Growth

  • British America- first colonists dead of disease/starvation/killed by NA
  • The average death rate was 50%
  • Colonial life was more settled, with rapid population increase (doubling rate = 25 years)
  • Huge increase in population- How was Birtian going to rule them?
  • Benjamin Franklin- observer of life in British America
  • Said that colonial pop grew rapidly bc plentiful and cheap land, laborers were scarce and expensive -> incentive for migration bc Europe was overpopulated and expensive farmland
  • An incentive for large families because farm children = more laborers (could help in fields)

• Birth and Death Rates

  • Tended to marry and start a family earlier in New World than in Europe, the birth rate rose accordingly (women who married earlier tend to have more children)
  • High infant mortality rate- childbirth was dangerous, unsanitary conditions, miscarriage
  • Disease and epidemics-> half of children in VA and MD died before reaching 20
  • Over time, infants had a  better chance of reaching maturity in New England than in England, longer lifespan in general
  • Plentiful land (seldom famine after years of colonization)
  • Plenty of lumber/firewood for cold winters
  • Younger = less susceptible to disease
  • More scattered = less exposed to infectious diseases (changed after colonial cities became larger and more densely populated, mid-18th century disease levels in Americas were similar to Europe)

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Nativism- bitter prejudice against particular groups of immigrants

• Emerged in colonies as the population grew

• Èx: PA started as a haven for all, mid-17th, concerns abt German influx (Franklin thought the German inferior and was a source constant tension, due to Germans that might outnumber them soon, that they might become a majority in any area, wished for them to be scattered around the colony)

• Ex: Increase of poor Irish immigrants = increase prejudice against them, increase of Irish and Scots-Irish (aka Scotch-Irish), the mostly Presbyterian population that British government transplanted from Scotland to Northern Ireland to protestantize Catholic Ireland

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Women in the Colonies

• British America had far more women than New Spain and New France (the reason for the difference in pop. growth rates)

• More women did not equal more equality

• Women are expected to focus on housewifery, obey and serve, nurture, to be subservant to their husbands and family

• Lopsided gender relationship (gender inequality) = increased ill will between husbands and wives (hate sparking)

• Women had few rights- for most, could not vote, own property, hold office, attend schools, bring lawsuits, or sign contracts.  

  • DIvorce is rarely allowed (unless under extreme cases like desertion of the husband)
  • No matter the “guilty party”, the father had custody of the children, with only occasional exceptions

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Women’s Work

• Every member worked, but women were expected to work the hardest in the family

• Women who failed to perform household duties were punished

  • Harsh conditions led to a song popular with women, aimed at those in England considering coming to Virginia (cautionary)

• 18th century- women's work typically involved activities in the house, garden, and fields

• Examples: Unmarried women moved into other households to help with children or to make clothes (spun thread into yarn in exchange for cloth); others were apprentices to learn a skilled trade or craft, or operated laundries or bakeries)-- usually woke at sunrise

• Legally, any money earned by a married woman was the property of her husband

• Prostitution was one of the most lucrative trades among colonial women who could not find other work (many servants resorted after indenture was fulfilled)

  • Port cities had brothels, aimed at sailors or soldiers
  • Men from all walks of life walked into “bawdy houses” (disorderly houses)-- prostitution was generally frowned upon by local authorities, looked down on, and punished severely (if convicted)
  • Some enslaved women demanded compensation from owners who expected sexual favors

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Eliza Lucas Pinckney- 18th century, Moved to Charleston, South Carolina (from England, born in West Indies)

• Sometimes, circumstances forced women to exercise leadership outside of the home

• Moved to Charlestown, SC when her father (a British officer) inherited plantations, but he was called back to Antigua, leaving Pinckney to care for her ailing mother and young sister, as well as manage three plantations worked by enslaved people

• Loved the “vegetable world”- focus on growing indigo, a weed that produced blue dye for fabric (like coloring military uniforms, made fortune, like many who sold indigo)

• 1733, married Charles Pinckney (leader of SC Assembly), who she made him promise to let her continue to manage her plantations)

  • When Charles Pinckney died, Eliza added to her husband’s plantations to her already substantial responsibilities

• Eliza Pinckney signaled the possibility of white women breaking out of the confining tradition of housewifery and assuming roles of social prominence and economic leadership

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Women and Religion

• In the colonial era, no religious denomination allowed women to be ordained as ministers (only Quakers allowed women to hold church offices and preach in public)

• Puritans cited biblical passages claiming that God wanted women to submit and stay silent- not meddle and stay within the confines of gender roles

• Women who challenged ministerial authority were usually prosecuted and punished, but by the 18th century, most members of the church were women (worried ministers bc the feminized church was perceived to be a declining church)

• In the colonial era, Black women’s roles in religion

  • West African societies- women served in high positions at church (ex: priest)
  • Tried to sustain African religions, but were prohibited from doing so
  • Black people in America were often excluded from church membership for fear that Christianized slaves might seek to gain freedom

• The acute shortage of women in Britain made them more highly valued in British America than in Europe

  • Puritan emphasis on a well-ordered family => laws protecting wives from physical abuse and allowing for divorce gave wives greater control over the property they brought into a marriage or left after the death of their husband.

• But the notion of female subordination and domesticity remained

Race-Based Slavery in the Colonies

• 17th century, all colonies used slavery; 18th-century colonists reliant on slaver– race-based slavery was considered normal, as a “God determined station in life”, normalized, a personal misfortune rather than a social evil

• Economic, political, and cultural effects of African slavery felt in further, the late-18th century began large questioning about ethics in slavery

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African Slavery in North America

• Slavery was rooted in ancient Mediterranean societies, like Muslims (imprisoned Christian and Africans) Christian (imprisoned Muslims), and Africans (rulers, Europeans had a slave trade network, provided enslaved people who had been captured by war or kidnapped in exchange for cloth, rum, metal objects, muskets (most young, taken to Brazil or NA)

• First Africans in NA was to New Spain 16th century (before the British arrived in VA)- 1539, Hernando de Soto bought 50 enslaved for settlement in Florida -> hudreds more enslaved Africans to Florida

• The difference in treatment btw Spanish Florida and British colonies

  • Spanish monarchy said enslaved people might be freed if converted to Roman Catholicism -> many people from British colonies escaped to Spanish Florida-> 1623, the Spanish gov announced that enslaved who touched Spanish0controlled soil, requested refuge, agreed to serve in the militia, and converted to Catholicism could become a free Spanish citizen

• Creek and Seminole Indians in Florida provided refuge for enslaved ppl who escaped from British colonies (British officials reported that it was difficult to get back freedom seekers from Georgia and who  made their way to an Indian town

• Chesapeake colonies (VA and MD)- originally were treated like indentured servants (service for a limited term, afterward received freedom but not equality)

  • afterward, lifelong slavery for Black people became custom and law- In 1660 colonial legislatures formalized the institution of race-based slavery with detailed slave codes regulating most aspects of enslaved people’s lives
  • SC code- all “N*groes, Mulattoes, and Indians sold into bondage were enslaved for life, and their children”

• 1667- VA legislature declared enslaved could not serve n juries, travel without permission, gather in groups of more than 2 or 3, use their native languages, religions, or cultures

  • Some even prohibited manumission- owners couldn’t free their enslaved people
  • Most slaves were prohibited from owning anything unrelated to their work, on farms of plantations from dawn-dusk in oppressive weather and conditions

• Slave codes allowed owners to punish enslaved people by physically harming them, 1669 VA law stated that accidental murder of an enslaved through physical punishment was not a serious crime

  • 1713, suffocation vs. suicide of slave

• 17th and 18th centuries- sugar-based economies of French and British West Indies and Portuguese Brazil = demand of enslaved Africans increase, most enslaved in Caribbean island colonies 1675

• As cash crops (tobacco, rice, and indigo) became more established in MD, VA, and Carolinas0 enslaved Africans increased while indentured servants slowed (until 18th, English = 90% of colonists, after = enslaved Africans = 5x European immigrants combined)

• All 13 colonies allowed slavery, most slaves were in southern colonies

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The Business of Slavery

• Late-17th century- profitability of African slavery -> more slave-trading companies (in Europe and America) = increased availability of enslaved, lowering the price (bought at auction highest bidder)

• Enslaved Africans offered better investment because

  • Viewed as property, with no civil rights, lifelong servants
  • Could not escape easily in a land they stood out because of their skin 

• Enslaved workers were employed in every activity within the expanding colonial economy, improving farm

• Slavery in NYC

  • Most enslaved in northern colonies lived in towns/cities
  • NYC had more enslaved people than any other American city, 2nd to only Charlestown in enslaved population
  • The number of Africans increased in the city, and fear and tension increased and exploded
  • 1712, enslaved people revolted and started fires, a militia called to suppress the “Negro plot”, NY officials passed a citywide black code which strictly regulated the behavior of free and enslaved Blacks (but didn’t prevent other resistance acts)
  • Conspiracy of 1741- a plot supposedly led by John Hughson (stolen goods trafficker), his wife, enslaved black people, and poor white people were going to burn down the town— ended with many executed or deported to Caribbean colonies

• Freedom Seekers and Slave Rebellions

  • Freedom Seekers- enslaved people who ran away
  • Faced severe punishments when caught
  • Antonio (slave) was tortured & killed by his owner after attempting to escape several times, all-white jury acquits Syman Overzee (planter- charged with murder by authorities)
  • In some rebellions, enslaved people  organized rebellions by stealing weapons, burning/looting plantations, and killing their captors (ex: 9/9/1739 in Stono, SC- killed cruel colonists, freed enslaved people as they moved south towards Florida- militiamen caught up to them and most enslaved were killed)
  • Stono Rebellion- the largest uprising of the colonial period- frightened white planters so that they convinces the SC assembly to ban the importation of enslaved Africans for ten years and the “N*gro Act of 1740”
  • N*gro Act of 1740- more oversight of enslaved people’s activities and harsher punishments for rebellious behaviors, enslaved people could no longer grow their food, gather in groups, learn to read/write, or earn money on the side (leaving owner’s supervision required to have a pass documenting their whereabouts; reduced white penalty for killing enslaved on a minor offense, banned enslaved from testifying in court

• Slavery-system in which the powerless are brutalized by the powerful

  • Slavery in WH rapidly grew by the time of the American Revolution- driven by high profits and justified by pervasive racism (perceived superiority over other cultures and skin colors, with wouldn’t even change with the American Revolution’s ideas of freedom and equality (for White)