Scott Marburger
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Life was “Nasty,
brutish and short”
– Thomas Hobbs
Half the people
born in early
Virginia and
Maryland did not
live past 20.
Common diseases
were dysentery,
malaria, typhoid
•
Ratio of adult
men to adult
women was 6:1
•
Family ties were
fragile at best;
many children
were raised in
single-parent
households
because the
death rate was
so high
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The Chesapeake was the first permanent English New
World settlement.
The cultivation of tobacco helped stabilize its economy
By the 1630s, 1.5 million pounds of tobacco were
being shipped out of the Chesapeake Bay every year
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Led to an increase in the
number of indentured
servants in the colonies.
Tobacco is very rough on the
soil
• This caused colonists to move west
in search of more land
•
No other stable source of
labor; slaves too
expensive, and birthrate
too low
•
In exchange for working,
they received
transatlantic passage and
eventual "freedom
dues", including a few
barrels of corn, a suit of
clothes, and possibly a
small piece of land.
– However, most did not
receive these freedom
dues
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Freed servants had no
possessions and had to
settle on the frontier
Growing problems with
Indians
Governor Berkeley did not
help fend off the Indian
attacks
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House of Burgesses: colonial
elected assembly in Virginia
colony
1670: Landless whites
(primarily freed indentured
servants) lose the right to vote
in colonial assemblies
Growing restlessness among
landless whites; felt ignored
and unimportant
This frustration led to many
things, such as Bacon’s
Rebellion
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Indians saw and as
communal; no ownership,
just rights of some to use
certain land
Colonists saw land as
property
Conflict caused by colonists
clearing land for planting;
required constant expansion
Clashes with Indians on
frontier
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Nathaniel Bacon, a planter, led
1,000 Virginians against Governor
Berkeley
• Disliked the friendly policies
towards the Indians.
• Berkeley refused to retaliate for
a series of savage Indian
attacks on frontier settlements
(due to his monopolization of
the fur trading with them)
• The crowd attacked Indians,
chased Berkeley from
Jamestown, and torched the
capitol.
• As a result of the rebellions and
tensions started by Bacon,
planters looked for other, less
troublesome laborers to work
their tobacco plantations.
 They soon looked to Africa.
Propaganda for burning of Jamestown
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1619-first slaves in America
• However, most slaves sent to West
Indies.
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Switch from indentured servants
to slaves after the 1660s
• troublesome indentured servants
• waning supply of indentured
servants as conditions in England
improved
• break of monopoly of Royal African
Company
• Barbados slave code
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Slaves used in Southern colonies
for rice and indigo cultivation
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1698- Royal African
Company, which was first
chartered in 1672, lost its
monopoly on carrying slaves
to the colonies.
• Americans rushed to cash in
on the slave trade.
• cost went down as supply
went up
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Blacks made up half of the
Chesapeake population by
1750
Middle Passage: voyage
between Africa and
Americas
• 20% death rate
• slaves packed tightly in
and transferred under
horrible conditions
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England, West Africa,
and the Americas
Exchange of goods
between the
continents; provided
each with an economic
need
Major stimulant of the
slave trade in the
Americas as most
North American slaves
came from Africa
• Senegal to Angola,
mostly Senegal and
Gambia
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As supply of slaves
arriving to America
begins to go up, cost
of slaves begins to go
down
Rhode Island becomes
leading colony in
slave trade
• Ironically, Rhode Island
will become the first state
to abolish slavery
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Dependence on slave
labor, especially in the
South
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Blurred line existed between
slaves and indentured
servants
Slave codes were adopted to
clearly define the legal status
of slaves
• Beginning in Virginia in 1662,
these earliest slave codes made
blacks and their children the
property of the white masters for
life
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Modeled after Barbados
Slave Code
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Although Slavery began solely
for economic purposes, it was
accompanied by racial
discrimination
• to combat their growing
sentiment, slaves tried to
retain some of their own
culture
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Gullah: combination of Angola
(African region) and English
off of South Carolina’s coast
Ringshout: West African dance
that would later contribute to
jazz movement
Example of increasing slave
unrest
 More than 50 slaves tried to
march to Spanish Florida,
which promised them
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freedom in attempt to
weaken the British
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Stopped by local militia,
returned to masters, and the
South Carolina assembly
enacted a harsh slave code
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Southern society consisted of:
1)Large landowners: small group; lots of land
and slaves
2) Small Landowners: largest group; one or
two slaves
3) Landless Whites: freed indentured servants
4) Indentured Servants
5) Black Slaves
FFV’s: First Families of
Virginia – families who
arrived in VA before 1690;
made up 70% of leaders
before Revolutionary War
• Controlled most of the wealth
and political prowess in the
colony
 Center
of society was
the plantation, very
little industry
• Very few cities
 Low
life expectancy
• high number of widows
 women had more property
rights
 Economy
dependent
upon on slavery
 Longer
life
expectancy; clean
water and towns;
population growth
 Organized in
building cities; each
had a meeting house,
school, church
 Puritan cause united
colonists
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Less diverse
• The combination of Calvinism, soil, and climate in New England made
for energy, purposefulness, sternness, stubbornness, self-reliance, and
resourcefulness.
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Jermiad – a new type of sermon
preached by New England’s
ministers in the middle of the
century
• scolded parishioners for their lack
of piety and the waning importance
of religion.
 “Half Way
Covenant”
encouraged church
membership
• become a member now, have
spiritual conversion later
-Increase Mather: advocated Half-Way
Covenant
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A group of adolescent girls in
Salem, Massachusetts claimed
to have been bewitched by
certain older women.
A witch hunt ensued and led to
the legal lynching of 20 women
in 1692
Witchcraft hysteria ended when
the governor of Massachusetts
prohibited any further trials
and pardoned those already
convicted
 Women
married young (before twenty);
high birth rates
 First of the colonies to begin to confirm
their own populations by birth rather than
by immigration
 Poor
soil in Northern
Colonies that was rocky
and hard to till
 Poor climate
 Not as hospitable to
agriculture as the South
 Caused
Northern
colonists to get involved
in fledgling industries
• lumber and fishing
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Colonists worked from dawn
till dusk, and only at night if it
was “worth a candle”
Women performed domestic
duties
 Men worked primarily in
agriculture,
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• although some small industries
(lumber, fishing) existed in
New England
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Very little schooling for
children, especially in the
southern colonies
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Population in colonies
originally based on
immigration to colonies;
later they would confirm
their own populations by
birth
“Dukes don’t emigrate”-
most white emigrants
came from neither the
poor nor the rich.
 people who came to
colonies did not tend to
be previously wealthy in
England
17th century English home
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leader of rebellion: Jacob Leisler
1689-1691: revolt in New
York
Hostility between lordly
landholders and
aspiring merchants
Merchants revolt
violently against
wealthy large
landowners (created by
patroonships – similar
to headright system)
Caused by growing
aristocracy in Northern
colonies