2.6

Essential Questions:

  • What was the South Atlantic System?

    • trade of slaves, sugar, and other goods

      • linked Europe, Africa, and the Americas, specifically the Caribbean and the southern regions of North America.

      • triangular trade - European merchants traded goods (guns, cloth, and rum) in Africa for slaves.

        • Slaves shipped to the Americas (the Middle Passage), where they worked on plantations.

        • Raw materials like sugar, tobacco, and molasses were then sent back to Europe for processing and consumption.

  • Compare and contrast slavery in the Chesapeake with slavery in South Carolina?

  • How would you characterize the African American community that developed in the early 17th century?

  • How did the growth of the Middle colonies both support and challenge tolerance and diversity?

  • What role did women play in the household economy?

Identification/Key Terms

New England’s Freehold Society

  • 1630s - puritans fled to New England & created yeoman soc of equal landowning farm families

    • 1750, migrants descendents overused farmland, threating freehold future

      • 1630s England - small elite of nobles & gentry ownded 75% arable land, tenants & workers farmed

  • Farm Families: Women in the Household Economy (112)

    • Purtitan vision of social equity didnt extend to women

      • men placed at head of household

      • wife’s duty to love & reverence husband (“silent company”

    • women were “helpmates” to husbands, performed household tasks

    • Bearing & rearing children were important tasks

    • women went to church more than men

      • still exluded from an equal role in church

    • equality minded Quaker and evangelist Baptist churches welcomed women

      • 1760s - became male dominated

  • Farm Property: Inheritance (113)

    • european men migrting into colonies → escaped lanslessness

      • gave poor peasant a new social identity

    • searched for competency, sustainability for farm families

      • passed on land to future generations

        • those who couldnt placed kids as indentured servants in wealthy households

          • propertyless → climb up agricultural ladder

    • marriage portions led to marriages arrenged by parents

      • bride gave husband legal owndership of her property

        • widows received dower right → could use 1/3 familiy’s property

          • widow death → portions divided among children

    • fathers duty - provide inheritances for children for their properity

      • failures lost social status

  • Thinking like a Historian: Women’s Labor  (114)

  • Freehold Society in Crisis (116)

    • (1700 - 1750) rapid natural increase, N.E. pop doubled each generation

      • farm lands became smaller → parents could provide only one childe w/ sufficient inheritance

        • Less to give to children → less control over kid’s lives

          • pre marital conceptions rose, urgency of pregnancy allowed choice of marriage

      • Families worked with what they had

        • some chose smaller families, othrs petitioned provincial gov for frontier lands, othrs imrpoved farm productivity by planting potatoes & maize (corn)

          • N.E. changed from grain to livestock economy

            • major exporter of salted meat to West Indies plantations

      • “household made of production

        • everyone played their part, maximized agricultural output & preserved freehold ideal

Diversity in the Middle Colonies

  • Middle colonies became diverse, each culture seeking to presrve identities when pursuing eco opportnity

    • pop growth → strained public isntitutions, pressured Indian lands, & created dyamic but unstable society

  • Economic Growth, Opportunity, and Conflict

    • Founding of Penn & NJ → amplified already diverce Mid-Atlantic region

      • colonie’s rapid settlement financed by fertile land & grain exports

        • (1720-1770) wheat, corn, & flour high priced

          • growth → conflict within middle colonies & natives

  • Tenancy in New York (117)

    • New York’s fertile Hudson River Vally

      • contained wealthy dutch & English fams

        • like chesapeak, wanted to mimic english gentry, but little migrnats wanted to labor as peasants

          • manorial lords gave long leases w/ right to sell improvements (houses & barns) to attract tenants

            • struggled to pop estates

    • Preindustrial tech limited output of tenant fams hoping to but farmsteads

      • hard work had little result → road to landownership difficult

    • Conflict in the Quaker colonies (117)

      • Quaker dominated Penn & NJ - initially wealth distributed more evenly than in NY, but proprietors of each colony (like NY manor lords) held large land claims

        • first migrants lived simply → Eco growth → prosperity → conflicts betw settlers & proprietors who tried to cntrl access to land, resources, & political pwr

      • William Penn appeal to british Quakers & protestants → boom in immigrants → proprietors overwhelmed by demand for land

        • 1720s - migrants forced to become squatters, settled illegally on land

      • Penn family Walking purchase (1737) - exploited old indian deed to claim 1mil+ acres of prime farmland north of philly

        • poisoned indian relations in colony, indians migrated to w penn

      • Growth → higher laborer demand

        • contested land titles, & settlers rioting against proprietors

          • class of agricultuaral capitalists formed

            • built large stone houses for families

        • ½ middle colonies white men were landless → rising land prices prevented prosperity

  • America in the World: Transatlantic Migragration, 1500-1700  (118)

  • Cultural Diversity (119)

    • (Middle atlantic colonies) European migrants held tighlt to traditions → patchwork of ethnically & religiously diverse communities

      • married within ethnic groups, some (huguneots) didnt → lost french identities by marrying protestants

    • Quakers - shaped culture bc numbers, wealth, & social cohesion

      • came from english counties w/ few landlords →brought traditions of local village governance, popular participation in politics, & social equality

        • 1720+ - growth of German & Scot-Irish pop challenged dominance

    • The German Influx (120)

      • Quaker ideologiy → appealed to fleeing german migrants

        • could excersice religion freely, & better wages

        • redemptioner system - flexible indentured servitude allowing German families to negotiate terms upon arrival

        • Germans dominated eastern Pennsylvania. MAryland, Virginia, & Carolinas

          • Preserved identity by settling in german speaking lutheran & reformed communities

          • Geore I & Geore II - german protestand monarchs

            • protected cultural practices

    • Scots-Irish Settlers (120)

      • Migrants from ireland were most numerous of incoming Europeans

      • Scots descended from Calvinist protestants sent to Ireland (1700s) to solidify Engl rule there

        • In ireland, scots faced hostility from Irish catholics & Engl officials/landlords

          • Irish Test Act 1704 - members of Church of Engl couldnt vote/hold office

          • Eng mercantilist regs → heavy import duties & higher taxes

            • American seemed desireable

        • 1720 - Scot-Irish fams migrated to philly for relig tolerance

          • Gov William gooch of virginia - welcomedscot-irish to secure country against indians

          • held onto culture by holding firm presvyterian church

  • Religion and Politics (120)

    • Western Europe - leaders of church & state condemned relig diversity

      • to their mistake, religious diveisity enforced moral behaviors through joint self-discipline

        • quaker meetings - worship, buisness, allowed couples to marry only if they had land sufficient to support fam

          • Quaker self contained & prosperous community

    • 1740s new migrants made quakers minority

      • Scot irish demanded angressive indian policy, challenging pacifism

        • quaker politicians allied w/ pacifist German religious groups

          • german leaders demanded more seats in assemble, & laws respecting their inheritance customs

          • othr tried to control assembly by a “general confederacy” w/ scot irish presbyteruans

    • 1750s - Middle colony conflicts rose

      • broad agreemeny on importance of eco oppurtinity & liberty of science

        • balance betw shared values & mutal mistruct → tensions percading divers American soc in future