Culture and Life in Colonial America Notes

Life in the New England Colonies

  • Family units were extremely strong.

  • Education was important; most males could read and write.

  • Harvard and Yale were founded as religious schools during this period.

New England Society

  • Few noblemen (rich) or paupers (poor).

  • This led to social mobility.

New England Towns

  • Communities centered around a town hall (government) and a house of worship (religion).

  • Town meetings allowed adult church-member males to vote.

  • Plantation farming was not viable, limiting the prevalence of slavery.

  • The economy was based on lumber, shipbuilding, fishing, and small farms.

  • They engaged in business and trade with England.

Life (and Death) in New England

  • Salem Witch Trials (1691):

    • Salem, MA, was plunged into panic when girls started acting strangely, accusing others of witchcraft.

    • 20 individuals were put to death.

Life in the Chesapeake Colonies

  • People did not migrate as families; most came as servants.

  • There were more males than females.

  • Mortality rates were extremely high, and life expectancy was lower than in New England.

  • The Chesapeake colonies were more diverse than New England due to slave labor.

  • Headright system and indentured servitude led to a society of haves and have-nots.

    • Rich planters dominated politics, especially elected assemblies.

Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion: 1676

  • Led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor Berkeley.

    • Rebels resented Berkeley’s friendly relations with Native tribes.

    • Bacon's followers felt the Governor wasn’t protecting them.

  • Bacon’s rebels attacked Native Americans, regardless of their friendliness.

  • Governor Berkeley was driven from Jamestown.

  • Bacon died suddenly of fever.

  • Berkeley crushed the rebellion and hanged 20 rebels.

Results of Bacon’s Rebellion

  • Exposed resentment between western frontiersmen/landless former servants and rich men on coastal plantations.

  • Showed discontent with a governor appointed by the King of England.

  • Upper-class planters sought laborers less likely to rebel --> African slaves.

Colonial Slavery

  • First Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619.

    • Slavery grew slowly at first but was prevalent in all southern English colonies by the end of the 1600s.

Triangular Trade

  • A term used to explain trade patterns in the “Atlantic World”.

    • Rum from the Americas to Africa.

    • Slaves from Africa to the West Indies (and South) through the Middle Passage.

    • Natural resources (sugar, tobacco, rice, fish, furs, etc.) from the Americas back to England.

  • Europe, Africa, and the Americas became dependent on each other for trade.

The Middle Passage

  • Olaudah Equiano’s account describes the horrors of the journey: Overcrowding, stench, sickness, and lack of food.

Colonial Slavery (cont.)

  • As the number of slaves increased, white colonists reacted to suppress perceived racial threats.

  • Beginning in 1662 --> “Slave Codes”:

    • Made African slaves (and their children) property “chattels” for life.

    • It was a crime to teach a slave to read or write in some colonies.

    • Slaves used covert and overt means to protest slavery.

      • Overt: Slave rebellions.

      • Stono Rebellion in SC (1739): 100 slaves seized weapons, killed whites, and tried to reach Spanish Florida.

New Ideas Sweep the Colonies

  • Mid-1700s: new ideas changed colonial society.

    • The Great Awakening.

    • Enlightenment thought and Ideas.

The Great Awakening

  • Early-1700s, Puritan church messages grew stale; colonists became less religious and more secular.

  • 1730s and 1740s: a new wave of religious fervor known as the Great Awakening swept the colonies.

Great Awakening: Names to Know

  • Jonathan Edwards:

    • Best known for \"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God\".

  • George Whitefield:

    • Powerful “field” preacher that used emotion to remind people of the importance of religion and spiritual life.

Effects of the Great Awakening

  • Increased the influence of new denominations (Baptists, Methodists, etc.).

  • Broke down sectional boundaries to unite colonists.

  • Led to “new light” religious schools like Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, King’s College (Columbia), etc.

  • Thinking critically and differently about religion allowed people to begin thinking critically about their government.

The Enlightenment

  • The product of scientific discoveries in 1600s Europe.

  • Made people feel that human reason and science could lead to a better society.

  • People should look to themselves – not God – to create progress and advance knowledge.

  • English Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke started talking about a “social contract” where everyone is born with certain rights that no one – not even government leaders can infringe upon. This is the idea of human rights.

  • Colonists like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and others took these ideas and ran with them.

Anglicization

  • The colonial American desire to emulate English society, including English tastes in foods, customs, and architecture.

  • Increased due to mercantilism and the Triangular trade.

  • British culture remained a very important part of colonial life because British goods were coming into the