Society and Economy in the Colonies

• British colonies were part of a complex North Atlantic commercial network- companies, merchants, farmers traded tobacco, sugar, wheat, enslaved Africans and Indians.

• Trade with Great Britain who was in charge of $ colonies in the West Indies (Bermuda, Barbados, Jamaica)

• American merchants also trades (smuggled with Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, and their colonies which were often at war with Britain (illegal), while continously relying on Britain for manufactured goods and luxury items

The Southern Colonies

• As southern colonies developed, wealth disparities increased, and social life was more divided due to different clothes, housing, wealth, status

• The use of enslaved to grow and process crops generated a lot of $ for some landowners

• The status of planters and merchants increased, dominated legislatures, bout luxury goods and brick mansions- while looking down on their inferiors

• Warm weather, plentiful rainfall -> growth of $ staple crops (cash crops) valued by mother country- tobacco, sugarcane, indigo, rice

  • Tobacco soared through the 17th century– so much grown in VA that the royal governor in 1616 passed “Dale’s Laws” requiring every farmer to plant at least two acres of corn to ensure food supply

  • Rice- accounted for over half of exports during the 18th century, South Carolinas rice planters became the wealthiest in British colonies - plantations among coastal rivers (could also use barger to transport for shipment)

    • increase in rice plantation = increased demand for enslaved laborers (tons of AA-> SC had a majority black pop)

• Early English lived in primitive one-room jits (limited protection, rot quickly) -> simple cabins on stone or brick foundations roofed with thatched straw, space between timbers were chinked with wattle and daub to form sturdy wall or seam

New England-

• Religious Concerns were the most important

• Rocky soil, frigid climate = lack of commercial agriculture

• Predominately traders and shopkeepers

• Village and town less reliant on slavery

• Religion- In puritan-founded towns, the first public stricture built was usually a church, every town had to collect taxes to support the church, and every resident was required to attend midweek and Sunday services

  • Believed God had created  covenant (contract) through which people formed a congregation for common worship-> idea of people joining together to form governments

  • Leaders sought to do the will of God, Buble was the ultimate source, interpreted by political leaders (ministers and magistrates)

  • Over time, many children could not follow the expectations of religion

  • MA Royal Charter of 1691- required Puritan colonies to tolerate religious dissenters, and base the right to vote on property-owners, not church membership

  • Puritans did ban many leisure activities (even celebrating Christmas because only pagans happily celebrated rulers' birth date), but also frowned on nagging, lying, disobeying, and disrespecting civil and religious officials

    • They could drink- very little amounts if they didn’t get drunk

  • Moderation- except for piety, for everything (sex before marriage is unexpectable)

  • Funny- Repeated offenders of drunkness were required to wear a letter “D”, adulterers wore “A”

Witches in Salem- negative impact of religious zeal in MA

• Strain due to transition from Puritan utopia to a royal colony

• 1692-1693, witchcraft hysteria at Salmen Village, a port near Boston

• Belief in witchcraft was widespread in Europe and 17th-century colonies

• 1692 winter, 2 of the girls (one of them the daughter of village minister Samuel Parris) that became fascinated with Tituba (enslaved woman from Barbados) began behaving oddly- when asked who tormented them, they responded (Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne)

  • Parris beat Tituba until she confessed to doing Satan’s bidding (under rules, confessed = jailed, denied charges = hanged)

• Mass hysteria- hundreds of people accused of practicing witchcraft

  • Ex: Mary Easty- sister of one who had been hanged bc accused- was accused by young girls as a witch, refused to say she did -> was hanged on Gallows Hill.  Wrongful execution- the government gave the family 20 pounds 20 years after

• Allegations and executions multiplied, and spread beyond Salem-> MA Bay Colony began to worry witch hunts were out of control- governor intervened when his wife was accused and disbanded the special court

• Why the hysteria?

  • Theatrical adolescents

  • Community tensions -> accusation for spite or vengeance

  • Most of the accused were women-> many of whom had defied  traditional roles

  • Psychological strains due to constant Indian attacks (along New England’s northern frontier, near Salem)- PTSD

• Witchcraft controversy represented social tensions and personal feuds

• Salem uses that event for tourism “Witch City”

• Book by Arthur Miller that critiqued witch hunts for COmmunists in federal government (Second Red Scare, the early 1950s)

Dwellings and Daily Life

• End of the 17th century- NE homes were plain & sturdy, often plastered & whitewashed- dark interiors illuminated by candles or oil lamps ($ so most people went to sleep after sunset)

• No bathrooms (privies)- relieved outside

• Family revolved around the main room on the ground floor (called the hall) where they cooked and ate (where they lived most of the time-> living rooms)

• Food served on rough-hewn planks (the board); father = chairman (the only person who got a chair, everyone else stood or sat on stools/benches); used spoons or hands; meal = cornbread, corn, boiled meat, vegetables

Economy of NE

• John Winthrop and Puritans emphasized superiority from birth, elites should show mercy, and the masses should be obedient

  • Puritans were given a calling from God to work hard and ensure no material greed overcame spiritual devotion

• Early NE farmers and families lived hard lives (60 days to clear rocks per acre); no staple crops grew in the harsh climate-> crops and animals in NE were common in England (=not extremely profitable)

• Many NE turned to the sea- codfish (waters in NE were abundant, common in England); whale supplied ambergris (for perfume/lube/lamps

• Export dried fish to Europe, lesser grades to West Indies as food for enslaved-> encouraged the development of shipbuilding and transatlantic commerce (rising incomes, booming trade w/ Britain = taste of luxury unfitting for Puritan ideals)

• Trade was different than other colonies

  • Lack of agricultural staple crops to exchange for English goods = disadvantage, but the success of shipping & commercial enterprise

  • 1660, to protect agr & fisheries, gov placed prohibitive duties (taxes) on items like fish, not for high-demand (like timber, fur, and whale oil)

  • NE & NY bought more than they exported to it -> unfavorable trade balance-> triangular trade (NE gave rum to the coast of Africa in exchange for enslaved; ships to Caribbean islands, which returned home with various commodities (ex: molasses, used for rum)

  • OR Ships sent food to the Caribbean, carried sugar and molasses to England, and returned with goods manufactured in Europe

The Middle Colonies- Reflected diversity of colonial life and foreshadowed pluralism of the future nation; a mix of NE and South

• Produced surplus of foodstuffs for export to slave-based plantations of the South and West Indies: wheat, barley, oats, grains, flour, livestock

• Rivers: Hudson, Delaware, and Susquehanna  tributaries provided access to the backcountry of PA and NY; rich fur trade with NA

• Land policies by headright system prevalent in Chesapeake colonies

  • Continued Dutch practice of the patroonship (vast estates to influential men aka patroons who controlled large domains farmed by tenants who paid fees to use the landlord’s tools

  • When free land was available elsewhere, the NY population decreased, and immigrants sought PA

Differed

• Dutch culture and language lingered (ex: toponyms like Wall Street)

• The HEadright system continued the Dutch practice of patroonship-> vast estates to influential men (patroons) who controlled large domains farmed by tenants who paid rent and fees to use tools

  • Land available elsewhere -> population decreased b/c everyone moved to PA

• “Yankee” was a Dutch word, describing the NE that harassed them

• Delaware River near Philadelphia (Swedes and Finns) had an influx of Europeans (Middle Colonies = fastest growing in the 18th century)

• Germans came to America from the Rhineland region of Europe *brutal religious wars, Protestants vs. Catholics); Penn’s brochures spread through Europe, and religious freedom promised = to appeal to persecuted sects (like the Mennonites, German Baptists)

• In 1683, Mennonites founded Germantown, near Philadelphia (represented the first wave of German migrants most of them, indentured servants)

• Scots-Irish immigrants most of them farmers, moved into the PA  backcountry (moving west because of plentiful land)

  • Mos landed they squatted on were ancestral acres claimed by NA

• 1741, Delaware Indians protested that the Scots-Irish were taking their land without giving anything in return, and if the government didn’t stop them, they would drive them off

• Scots-Irish and Germans became the largest non-English ethnic groups

  • Other minorities- Huguenots (religious freedom in 1685), Irish, Welsh, Swiss, and Jews.

• Ethnic and Religious tolerance from Dutch

• 18th cen., the population in British North America soared (only half of the nation’s inhabitants could trace their origins to England

• PA became a distribution point for ethnic groups of European origin,

• Chesapeake Bay region and Charlestown SC became the distribution points for African people

  • Most of them died on the way across the Atlantic

• Before the 18th century, white settlers in PA backcountry reached the Appalachain Mountain range (described as natural wanderers who wished for better land than the one they were in)

  • south down, Scots-Irish and Germans moved down the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia into Carolina and Georgia backcountry

    • German's first white settlers in the Upper Shenandoah Valley in southern PA, western MD, and northern VA

    • Scots-Irish filled the lower valley in western VA and NC

• The Social and Political Order

  • The urban social elite was dominated by wealthy merchants and property owners served by a middle class of shop owners, innkeepers, skilled craftsmen

  • ⅔ of urban male workers were artisans –carpenters and coopers (barrel makers(, shoemakers, tailors, smiths, sailmakers, stonemasons, weavers, and potters

  • Bottom of social order- sailors, manual laborers, servants, enslaved

  • Colonial cities were busy and crowded, with killer epidemics, being common

    • Frequent fires common-> development of fire companies

    • Rising crime & violence -> increased policing by sheriffs and local militias

    • Urban elites concerned about poor and homeless -> increased number of poor receiving aid (money, food, clothing, fuel) -> poorhouses in some towns to house homeless and provide them with jobs

  
  

  The Urban web-

  • First American roads were Indian trails widened with frequent travel before many of them were rocky and mountainous

  • Overland travel was initially by horse or foot -> wagons and coaches (inns and taverns were essential social institutions bc of night travel and love for drinking and gossip; soon ministers and town leaders worried that taverns promoted drunkenness and social rebellious among the poor white people and Indians)

  • Anti-tavern law in the early-18th century (MA Bay Colony), was rarely enforced after a few years, but concerns remained

  • End of the 17th century- more taverns in American colonies than any other business, and most important and democratic social institutions- both rich and poor, y mid-18th would become gathering spots for protest against British rule

  
  

  • Long-distance communication- little postal service (always letters to travelers or sea captains in hopes they’d be delivered)

  • Parliamentary law of 1710- postmaster of London named a deputy in charge of the colonies (postal system eventually emerged along Atlantic Seaboard which provided colonies with effective means of communication that would be crucial in controversy with Great Britain

  • More reliable mail delivery increased the popularity of newspapers

    • John Peter Zenger’s 1735 trial for publishing criticisms of NY’s royal governor in his newspaper (New-York Weekly Journal) was important in the development of freedom of the press

    • English common law held said one might be punished for libel (publishing false statements damaging to a person”s reputation), or printing criticism that fostered an ill opinion of the government; Zenger’s lawyer claimed the editor had published the truth- the jury found him not guilty

  
  

  Citizenship in the Empire

  • British America was an immigrant-welcoming society (ex: Virginia encouraged people of different nations there with families by promising them the rights and privileges of citizens born there

    • Why? Because immigrants have enriched and advanced the colony through their diligence, industry, and trade

  • English sought to restrict immigration to England, fearing that Protestant sects would undermine the authority of the Church of England, or that immigrants given the right to vote/hold office would endanger their ancient polity and government- intermarriage would extinguish the English race

  • 1740 Naturalization Act- to sustain high levels of immigrants in British America, immigrants living in America for 7 years would become subjects of the British Empire after swearing a loyalty oath and providing proof that they were Protestants (exceptions for Jews, excluded “papists” (Roman Catholics)