• Life in the American wilderness was very harsh and short lived for the earliest
Chesapeake settlers
• The Chesapeake colony grew slowly due to disease. The growth resulted from new settlers coming to the colonies.
• The presence of women allowed families to form as opposed to the Spanish colonies

• By the end of the seventeenth century the white population was growing on the basis of its own birthrate
• Virginia was the most populous while Maryland was the third behind Massachusetts
(New England Colony)
• The Chesapeake Colonies consisted of Virginia and
Maryland since they bordered the Chesapeake river

•
The climate of the Chesapeake colonies was very hospitable to tobacco cultivation
•
More tobacco meant more labor
•
Indians died too quickly, African slaves cost too much

• “Indentured Servants” were the answer
– Voluntary exchanged their services for passage and eventual “freedom dues” (a few barrels of corn, a suit of clothes, perhaps a small parcel of land, and their freedom
– “Headright” system-50 acres of land for each paid laborer brought to America
– Those who could afford indentured servants became the great “merchant-planters”
(plantation owners)

continued
• 100,000 indentured servants by 1700 (3/4 of all European immigrants to Virginia and Maryland
• As land became more scarce and since many of the freed servants were poor, they were forced to hire themselves back to their former masters

• By late 17 th century many discontent single young men were roaming the country
• They were disfranchised (not allowed to vote) in 1670 by
Virginia. They were looked upon as troublemakers who were not interested in the welfare of the colonies
• 1676 -1000 Virginians rebelled against Governor Berkeley of
Virginia. They were led by
Nathaniel Bacon

• They resented Berkeley’s friendly policies toward the
Indians due to the thriving fur trade.
• Many Indians were murdered and Berkeley was run out of
Jamestown
• This now pitted backcountry frontiersmen against the wealthy plantation owners.
• Plantation owners were now looking for new help-Africa

• About 10 million Africans were carried to the New World during the three centuries following Columbus (1500’s-
1700’s)
• Only 400,000 landed in North
America
• Most were sent to Spanish and
Portuguese South America or to the sugar rich West Indies
• By the mid 1680’s the economy improved in England and less were willing to come as Indentured Servants.
• By the mid 1680’s black servants outnumbered white servants

• By 1698 the Royal African
Company lost its crowngranted monopoly on carrying slaves therefore the Rhode
Islander “flesh merchants” rushed to cash in on the lucrative slave trade
• More than 10,000 slaves came to America in the decade after
1700 and tens of thousands more in the next half of the
1700’s.
• Black slaves accounted for over half of the population of
Virginia by 1750. South
Carolina 2:1
• The voyage from Africa to
America was called the
“Middle Passage”-up to 20% would perish

• A few African immigrants gained their freedom and some became slave owners
• The difference between a slave and servant had become one of race
• “Slave Codes” made the blacks and their children the property for life of the white masters
• Slavery may have started because of economic reasons but by the end of the seventeenth century, it was clear that racial discrimination had powerfully molded the
American slave system

• Life was severe for slaves in the
South: climate, very hard labor, life was short (South Carolina rice fields); new imports of slaves kept the slave population alive
• Slave life in the tobacco-growing
Chesapeake region was somewhat easier.
• Tobacco was a less physically demanding crop; plantations were closer together (connect with relatives); Families began to grow

• Blacks developed their own language Gullah probably from Angola
• Jazz developed from the
African culture
• Slave revolts: 1712-New
York; South Carolina
1739 Stono Riverviolently put down
• Slave labor was easier to manage than indentured servants

• Social structure developed:
– At the top were the wealthy planters-held the political power
(House of Burgesses); the :First
Families of Virginia or FFV’s
– Small farmers were next but far below the social, economic, and political order
– Landless whites-many were former indentured servants
– Indentured servants still serving their time
– Black slaves were at the bottom of the social ladder
• Southern life revolved around the plantation-few cities emerged-small professional class (lawyers etc.)

• Life was easier in New
England: not diseasedplagued as the Chesapeake colonies; clean water and cool temperatures. New
Englanders added 10 years by moving from the Old
World (lifespan-about 70 years)
• New England migrated as families as opposed to individuals in the
Chesapeake
• Family was the center of
New England life

• Population grew from reproduction as opposed to importation of slaves and indentured servants
• Childbearing took its toll upon the women-up to 10 pregnancies-Child raising full time job for women
• New England-invented grandparents-nurturing home; discipline
• Low premarital pregnancy rates in contrast with the
Chesapeake

continued
• Chesapeake women experienced more economic security than New England
(property rights) due to fragile life of the people;
Chesapeake women could inherit their husband's estates; and married women could retain separate property rights apart from their husbands
• Since death rates were high among men, women came to have more rights in the
Chesapeake colonies

• New Englanders (Puritans) feared that recognizing women’s separate property rights would undercut the unity of married persons by acknowledging conflicting interests between husband and wife
• New England women usually gave up all property rights when married
• Widows could have some property rights and did give some protections to women in marriage
• Women’s right were beginning to appear in the New World as opposed to England. Women still could not vote; weaker morally than men; laws did prevent abusive spouses

• Women did have some autonomy
(jobs or positions only for women); midwifery, midwives also bonded women together
• Laws of Puritan New England sought to defend the integrity of marriages. Divorce was very rare
• Abandonment or adultery were causes for New England divorce
• Convicted adulterers, especially women, were whipped in public and forced forever to wear the capital letter “A” (basis for
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 The
Scarlet Letter

• Small villages and farms
• Puritanism made for unity of purpose and the moral health of the whole community
• Eighteenth Amendmentabolitionism stemmed from
New England
• Towns grew in an orderly fashion colonial authorities legally chartered new towns; town fathers or proprietors distributed land

• Each town consisted of a meeting house (town hall and church; surrounded by houses; village green (militia could drill)
• Each family received a parcel of land
• Towns of more than 50 were required to provide elementary education and a majority of adults knew how to read and write
• 1636 Harvard College in
Massachusetts (8 years after founding) –train for ministry; 1693
86 years after Jamestown Virginia established William and Mary
College

• Puritans ran their own churches, and democracy in Congregational church government led logically to democracy in the political government.
• The town meeting in which the adult males met together and each man voted was a prelude for American democracy.
• Thomas Jefferson stated about the New England town meeting, “The best school of political liberty the world ever saw.”

• The Puritan colonies were beginning to spread out and the religious zeal was beginning to wane
• “jeremiad” (fire and brimstone) preaching developed
• Church membership was declining”Half-Way
Covenant” developed-this gave partial membership rights to people not yet converted. Eventually church membership was opened to all.

• The distinction between the “elect” and other members of society became less clear
• Women were the majority in the Puritan congregations
• Women played an important role in the
“Salem Witch Trials”-
1692-this gave way to legal lynching of 20 individuals

• Many of those convicted were of the merchant elite and the accusers were of the poor families of Salem’s agricultural areas. This showed the widening social stratification of New
England and the anxieties of the
Puritan traditionalists that their beliefs were being watered down by Yankee commercialism.
• “Witch hunting” became an
American vocabulary as a metaphor for often dangerously irrational urges to find a scapegoat for social resentments

• The rocky New England soil dictated their way of life: small villages, small farms, growth of towns, industry
• Back-breaking toil and penny-pinching frugality came to be known as the
“Puritan work ethic”
• Climate, soil, harsh religious laws caused
New England to be less ethnically mixed than the
Middle Colonies

• Slavery did not thrive in
New England
• The mountains ran close to the ocean keeping the people close together
• The Indians used the land; the settlers owned the land
• Shipbuilding, fishing, and commerce flourished due to the harbors and forests
• Cod fishing became the gold field of New England

• “The combination of
Calvinism, soil, and climate in New England made for energy, purposefulness, sternness, stubbornness, selfreliance, and resourcefulness.
Righteous New
Englanders prided themselves on being
God’s chosen people.
They long boasted that
Boston was ‘the hub of the universe’-at least in spirit.”

• “Yankee ingenuity” originally fostered by the rocky fields and harsh climate came to be claimed by all Americans as a proud national trait.”
• “The fabled “New
England conscience,” born of the steadfast
Puritan heritage, left a legacy of high idealism in the national character and inspired many later reformers.”

• The overwhelming majority of colonists were farmers
• Women, slave or free on southern plantations or northern farms, wove, cooked, cleaned, and cared for children. Men cleared land, fenced, planted, and harvested crops. Children helped with all tasks, while picking up schooling when ever possible
(division of labor)

• Compared to most seventeenth-century
Europeans, Americans lived in affluent abundance. Land was relatively cheap. Land was easier to buy in New England and the Middle Colonies as opposed to the Southern
Colonies.
• Most colonists were neither aristocrats nor of low European class since Aristocrats seldom migrated and the very poor could not pay their way. Most were middle class

continued
• There were little class distinctions and there was a certain simple sameness especially in the New England and Middle Colonies
• Some class riots erupted:
Bacon’s Rebellion-1676;
Maryland’s Protestant rebellion-end of the 17 th century; 1689-1691Leisler’s
Rebellion between lordly landholders and aspiring merchants
• Equality and democracy found fertile soil in the colonies (by the end of the 17 th century, class distinctions led to unrest)