American Life in the 17th Century (1607-1692)

The Unhealthy Chesapeake

• Life expectancy extremely low:
  • Half of those born in early Virginia & Maryland died before age $20$.
• Population figures at dawn of the $18^{\text{th}}$ century:
  • Virginia: $59,000$ (largest colony).
  • Maryland: $30,000$ (third, after Massachusetts).
• Key factors: widespread malaria, dysentery, typhoid; scarce clean water; dispersed settlement pattern that hindered effective medical & communal support.

The Tobacco Economy

• Commercial boom by the $1630\text{s}$: annual exports already $1.5\text{ million lb}$.
• End of $17^{\text{th}}$ century: exports approached $40\text{ million lb}$ per year.
• Tobacco’s labor-intensive nature triggered massive demand for field hands.
• Price–supply spiral: the more colonial planters planted, the lower market price fell, compelling still larger plantings to maintain profits (classic example of price elasticity & overproduction).

Indentured Servitude & the Head-right System

• Definition: workers exchanged $4$–$7$ years of labor for transatlantic passage & “freedom dues” (barrels of corn, a suit of clothes, sometimes acreage).
• Head-right: whoever paid passage of a laborer gained title to $50\text{ acres}$.
• Scale: by $1700$ roughly $100,000$ indentured servants (“white slaves”) imported; they comprised >! \frac{3}{4} of all European immigrants to Chesapeake in $17^{\text{th}}$ c.

Frustrated Freemen & Bacon’s Rebellion (Virginia, $1676$)

• Causes:
  • Large class of landless, jobless former servants banned from voting (disfranchised $1670$).
  • Governor William Berkeley’s monopoly of Indian fur trade & refusal to retaliate for frontier attacks.
• Events:
  • $\sim$ $1,000$ rebels led by $29$-year-old Nathaniel Bacon.
  • Drove Berkeley from Jamestown; torched the capitol; indiscriminately attacked both hostile & friendly tribes.
• Outcome:
  • Bacon’s sudden death by disease ➔ Berkeley’s brutal re-establishment of order; >20 rebels hanged.
  • King Charles II complained of Berkeley’s severity.
• Significance: planters began seeking a labor force less prone to revolt ➔ accelerated turn to African slavery.

Transition to African Slavery

• Africans present since $1619$ (first cargo to Jamestown) yet numbered only $\approx$ $2,000$ ($7\%$ of southern population) by $1670$.
• Wage rise in England during $1680\text{s}$ cut supply of willing white servants.
• Mid-$1680\text{s}$: incoming black slaves outnumbered white servants in plantation colonies.
• $1698$: Royal African Company lost crown monopoly, opening lucrative trade to colonial merchants (notably Rhode Islanders).
• Demographic tipping points by $1750$:
  • Virginia: blacks $50\%$ of total population.
  • South Carolina: black–white ratio approx. $2{:}1$.

Colonial Slavery & Slave Codes

• Source regions: West African coast from present-day Senegal to Angola.
• Virginia’s first comprehensive slave code $1662$ ➔ made blacks & their children chattel for life; conversion to Christianity did not alter status.
• Similar codes spread throughout South: institutionalized racial slavery & prohibited interracial marriage.

Africans in America & Slave Resistance

• Chesapeake region:
  • By $1720$ female proportion rose, facilitating natural population growth; unique “African-American” culture developed.
• Sea Islands (SC & GA):
  • Creation of Gullah language (blend of English, Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa); retained African linguistic & cultural elements (e.g., words “goober,” “voodoo,” “gumbo”).
• Revolts:
  • New York City Slave Revolt $1712$ ➔ $12$ whites killed, $21$ blacks executed.
  • Stono River Rebellion, SC $1739$ ➔ attempted march to Spanish Florida; stopped by militia.

Southern Society: Rigid Social Hierarchy

• Planters:
  • Owned gangs of slaves & vast tracts; dominated economy & politics; about $70\%$ of Virginia legislators pre-$1690$ families.
• Small Farmers (“yeomen”): biggest white group; worked own modest plots; 0–2 slaves.
• Landless Whites: former indentured servants.
• Enslaved Africans: bottom tier, property for life.

New England Family & Gender Relations

• Migrated as families ➔ strong kin networks; “invented” grandparents due to higher longevity.
• Low premarital pregnancy vs. Chesapeake.
• Property & Marriage:
  • South: early male death rates led to laws preserving widows’ property rights.
  • New England: Puritan lawmakers feared separate female property would fracture marital unity. Widows received some protection, yet normally church (not wife) inherited land at husband’s death.
• Divorce rare; adultery & abandonment were accepted grounds; public punishment (e.g., flogging, wearing letter “A”).

Life in New England Towns

• Town founding: chartered by General Court; land distributed by proprietors in parcels (home lot, crop fields, pasture, woodlot).
• Villages with >50 families legally obliged to provide elementary school.
• Education milestones:
  • Harvard College founded $1636$ (oldest corporation in North America).
  • College of William & Mary founded Virginia $1693$.
• Congregational Church government: parishioners hired & fired ministers; “meetinghouse” served both civic & religious functions ➔ training ground for local democracy.
• Massachusetts led early colonial antislavery sentiment, discussing gradual abolition.

Half-Way Covenant & the Salem Witch Trials

• Religious anxieties crescendo mid-$17^{\text{th}}$ c.
• Jeremiad: sermon lamenting waning piety, comparing present to biblical doom.
• Half-Way Covenant $1662$:
  • Baptized but un-converted children of existing members granted partial membership (no communion); pragmatic response to declining conversions.
• Consequence: blurred distinction between elect & others; widened church participation, yet diluted spiritual purity.
• Salem Witch Crisis $1692$–$1693$:
  • Trigger: group of adolescent girls accused older women.
  • $20$ executed (19 hanged, $1$ pressed), $\sim$ $2$ dogs killed as suspected familiars.
  • Governor ended trials after his own wife was implicated; in $1713$ legislature annulled convictions & compensated heirs.
  • Interpretations: social tensions (rich vs. poor, town vs. village), misogyny, ergot poisoning hypothesis, stress from Indian wars.

New England Way of Life

• Environmental limits:
  • Thin, stony soil; short growing season; harsh winters $\Rightarrow$ small-scale mixed farming, not plantation.
  • Less attractive to cash-seeking immigrants ➔ greater homogeneity.
• Economic adaptation:
  • Shipbuilding: abundant oak & pine; by $18^{\text{th}}$ c. New England yards built $\approx$ $1/3$ of British Empire’s merchant tonnage.
  • Fishing: cod halves popularly called “gold mines of New England.”
• Cultural traits shaped by Calvinism + climate: energy, thrift, purpose, stubbornness, self-reliance.
• Native Land Use vs. Ownership: Indians recognized communal usage; English legalism insisted on individual ownership ➔ tension & dispossession.

Early Settlers’ Daily Life & Class Tensions

• Gendered labor division constant North & South:
  • Women: weaving, cooking, cleaning, child care.
  • Men: land clearing, fencing, planting, butchering, etc.
• Sumptuary regulations as social control:
  • Massachusetts $1651$: poorer folk forbidden to wear gold/silver lace.
  • Virginia $18^{\text{th}}$ c.: tailor fined/jail for entering horse into gentleman’s race.
• Populist uprisings fueled by resentment of elites:
  • Bacon’s Rebellion $1676$ (VA).
  • Protestant Associators’ Rebellion (MD late $17^{\text{th}}$ c.).
  • Leisler’s Rebellion, New York City $1689$–$1691$: clash between lordly landholders & upwardly mobile merchants; Jacob Leisler executed $1691$.

Atlantic Slave Trade: Estimated Imports $1601$–$1810$

• Totals (\% of $7,419,300$ overall):
  • Spanish America: $871,000$ ( $11.7\%$ ).
  • Brazil: $2,451,400$ ( $33\%$ ).
  • British Caribbean: $1,664,700$ ( $22.5\%$ ).
  • Dutch Caribbean: $500,000$ ( $6.7\%$ ).
  • French Caribbean: $1,504,200$ ( $20.3\%$ ).
  • Danish Caribbean: $28,000$ ( $0.4\%$ ).
  • British North America/USA: $400,000$ ( $5.4\%$ ).
  • Note: These figures emphasize that mainland North America received a small fraction of total forced migration, yet developed a self-sustaining slave population through natural increase.

Chronology of Key Events

• $1619$ – First Africans arrive in Virginia.
• $1636$ – Harvard founded.
• $1662$ – Half-Way Covenant enacted; Virginia slave code formulated.
• $1670$ – Virginia disfranchises landless freemen.
• $1676$ – Bacon’s Rebellion.
• $1680\text{s}$ – Mass expansion of slavery in English colonies.
• $1689$–$1691$ – Leisler’s Rebellion (NY).
• $1692$ – Salem Witch Trials.
• $1693$ – College of William & Mary established; governor ends witch trials.
• $1698$ – Royal African Company monopoly ended.
• $1712$ – New York City slave revolt.
• $1739$ – Stono River (SC) slave revolt.