Two Different Worlds:
England & America
Early American Social History
Term 1, Week 2
Native America
• Continental landmass, geog separation of
people, wide variety of climates.
• Over millennia facture of original migrants
in vast variety of tribal groups.
• Lifestyles partly dictated by climate,
topography, and other natural phenomena.
• Popn of NA in 1492 not known, est c.1m10m.
Native American Tribes
Variety of Tribal Groups
• No ‘typical’ Native American. Variety of
languages, religions, cultures. Some settled some
nomadic, some small some large.
• Native peoples do not see themselves as
homogenous group, great deal of conflict between
tribes.
• Problem for historians as Europeans seem to lump
all tribes together as ‘Indians’
England
• Small country, overpopulated, internal and
external conflicts.
• Yet generally unified history, language,
culture - era of the nation state (Tudors)
• Wants to be a great international power
Government
• Eng govt based on Monarchy, House of Lords,
House of Commons, in descending importance
and power.
• Monarchy reasserting power in 16thC after Wars
of Roses, power increasingly centralised in
London.
• Nobility hold all major offices of state.
• Commons grants taxes to King, franchise limited,
mainly professional men could vote.
• Tribal govt in America much more local and
simplified, personal relationships most imp
Henry VII
1485-1509
William Cecil,
Lord Burleigh
1520-98
Secretary of State,
1558-1598
Class Structure 1
• Eng : aristo wealth based on land. 9,000 landowners
controlled 50% of Kingdom: Wealth self-sustaining,
buying education, prestige, patronage, titles etc. Wealthier
merchants moving into this group in 16thC
• 1/3 of popn = middle class, i.e. freeholders, traders,
craftsmen, and yeomen farmers. Often owned significant
amounts of property, and certainly not poor. Highly mobile
people, formed backbone of migrants to America in 17thC,
seeking economic success unobtainable at home.
• Big diffs between urban and rural middle class; urban
craftsmen and traders increasingly politically important;
rural middle classes losing out; urbanisation left some
areas relatively depopulated, land values fell. Farmer
needed 30 acres of top quality land or between 50 and 100
acres of ordinary quality land to make reasonable profit.
Class Structure 2
• Lower middle class = cottagers and urban labourers;
generally poor but had enough to live on; relied heavily on
market forces, and could become destitute if there was an
economic downturn.
• Middle Classes = fluid: some rose to lower ranks of elite,
others slipped into the upper ranks of the lower classes.
Overall the middle class shrank during 16thC.
• Lower classes = Those unable to support themselves
without manual labour eg, servants, hired hands, and farm
labourers; many became poorer in 16thC becoming
vagrants, paupers, and beggars relying on others for
support.
• Poor = highly mobile; often demonised and feared by
general population. Idea that everyone had a place, a role,
otherwise = a threat to order, concept of idleness as sinful;
poor often criminals got little sympathy from judicial
system. c.f Elizabethan poor laws 1597-1601
Rural Communities 1
• 4 types of rural community - not homogeneous
1. unenclosed farming community, dominated by a local Lord
of the Manor, populated by a large number of freeholding
peasants, tenant farmers and cottagers who dominate the
social structure; common land shared for pasturage etc. Lof
M did not determine land use, or dominate the economy.
2. enclosed arable; independent farmers replaced by wage
labourers, employed by LofM; polarisation between rich
and poor, LofM held great sway over use of land, & over
lives of all who resided there.
3. enclosed pastureland; popn small as fewer people needed
to look after animals than tend crops; surplus labour fed
into the local towns to form an urban work-force; also
migration to less developed areas of the country like
woodlands, fenlands and moorlands. LofM retained role,
but not as significant as in arable areas.
Rural Communities 2
4. Unenclosed, non-farming land eg, East Anglian
fenlands, the Yorkshire moors, & Scottish borders;
absorbed a large amount of excess labour; little
social hierarchy, residents lived subsistence
'squatter' existences; often no local Lord of the
Manor; egalitarian nature of society encouraged
lack of deference. Often areas of religious or
political dissent, - outside normal control
mechanisms of society. Priests and local village
elders held more influence here than elsewhere;
particularly prone to migration since people lacked
social hierarchy to keep them in place, more so
than enclosed arable and pasture lands
Social Structure among Native Americans
• Little formal hierarchy like Eng.
• Wealth not a criteria to measure social status: age,
family links, gender all more important.
• Most possessions held in common by tribe or
family group, no individual land holding.
• Imp chiefs held power over other tribes though
military might, and within tribe by family
connections.
• Some tribes matrilineal and matri-focal, giving
more influence to women than customary in
European societies.
Social Problems 1: Overpopulation
• 1520 Eng. popn = 2.3m but doubled to reach 5m by 1630 put immense pressure on economic resources, especially
in the south east, concentrated around London. New
agricultural techniques increased output enough to avoid
starvation, but only at the price of a lower standard of
living
• Rising popn highly vulnerable to disease, fires, plagues,
bad harvest. Poorly nourished people less able to resist
disease. 1515 -1665 only 12 years without an outbreak of
bubonic plague - endemic in English towns. Poor harvests
in the 1620s have been accredited with pushing many
people from England to America
Social Problems 2: Inflation & Unemployment
• 16thC inflation rate 3%, totally new phenomenon to
England; price of wheat increased eight fold between 1500
and 1600; Rents rose rapidly - poorest people had to pay
ever more to the rich to stay at the same level; wage
inflation was much lower, hence rise in poverty.
• Unemployment and underemployment mainly due to
decline in cloth industry; war with Spain in the 16thC cut
off trade with England's best market for cloth; areas most
affected by the decline of cloth making were south west
England and East Anglia; areas which supplied large no. of
colonists to the New World.
• Structural shift in economy: in 1500 the richest man in
England was a Suffolk cloth merchant, by 1640 Earl of
Cork was richest man, - fortune from Irish colonisation.
• By 1600 between 25% and 50% of English population
lived in abject poverty; poverty hit young worst - no
coincidence that most of migrants to America were young.
Social Problems in America?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Lack of money means inflation unknown
population levels not a problem
unemployment unknown.
Fewer pressures on land
no cities to cultivate diseases
food plentiful.
Religious Problems in Europe
• 1519 Martin Luther starts Reformation, theological
disputes about nature of salvation. Luther says that God
only gave his Grace (salvation) to humans because Jesus
Christ had died on the cross thus expunging our sins (ie no
role for man). This was heresy. Papacy says man did have
some control, ie good works, absolution.
• Catholic priests sold profitable indulgences for future sin,
priests lived in luxury in comparison to most people.
Luther argued this was not spirit of the original church,
with its concentration on the word of God, which
eschewed physical comforts for spiritual rewards.
• Luther's complaints led to split in church, between loyal
Catholics, and protestants. By 1560 about 70% of the
German states and most of Scandinavia was protestant,
with control over their own churches, denying the
authority of the pope.
Martin
Luther
14831546
English Reformation
• Henry VIII originally defended papacy; granted the title
Fidei Defensor by Pope, not until 1530s that relationship
with Rome changed. Problem was Henry's desire to
divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, Pope refused
annulment on grounds of consanguinity, - real reason
Catherine had not had a son, leads to split with Rome and
formation of independent state church, the Church of
England, with H as the head. Henry therefore not a
protestant but a schismatic Catholic.
• Later problems: Edward VI = Minor, leading nobles
ensured that Anglicanism was more Protestantism than
Catholicism. Accession of Mary in 1553, staunch Catholic,
married to, Philip II, King of Spain, returned England once
again to Rome. Confusion of people, persecution of prots,
'Bloody Mary', 1558 Mary succeeded by Elizabeth
England was once again to be Protestant - social turmoil
affected every single parish.. Elizabeth brought stability
but Q as to what happens next, ie succession
Henry VIII
1509-1547
Painted by
Holbein
Mary
Tudor,
1553-8
by Mor
Philip II of
Spain, 1527-98
King Consort to
Mary Tudor,
artist unknown
Elizabeth I
1558-1603
Conclusions
• 16thC English society overpopulated, under
resourced
• little opportunity for economic or social
advancement for the underprivileged,
• main export industry, cloth making, in decline
• Religious uncertainties denied religious freedoms
to many
• 16thc North America, unaware of these types of
problems
• East coast tribes wouldn’t know what hit them.