AP History 10
Henretta Chapter 4
I. New England’s Freehold Society
A. Farm Families: Women in the Household Economy
1. Husband the head of the household – In The Well-Ordered Family (1712), Reverend Benjamin
Wadsworth of Boston told women that it was their duty “to love and reverence” their husbands; girls
learned from their mothers to be subordinate to their fathers; courts prosecuted more women than
men for the crime of fornication.
2. Wife as the “helpmate” – Women assumed the role of dutiful helpmates; they tended gardens, spun
thread and yard from flax and wool, wove cloth, knitted sweaters and stockings, made candles and soap,
churned milk into butter, fermented malt for beer, preserved meats, and mastered dozens of other
household tasks.
3. Motherhood – Most women married in their early twenties and had given birth six or seven times by
their early forties. Fear of death during childbirth and the importance of baptism for the new baby were
believed to be a reason many Puritan women clung to the church even when fewer men were attending.
4. Restrictions – No equality for women within the church; most women accepted such restrictions as
social norms.
B. Farm Property: Inheritance
1. Family authority – Emigrants wanted farms to provide for them and their grown children; landless
children could be placed as indentured servants until age 18 or 21; landless men hoped to climb from
laborer to tenant to freeholder.
2. Children of wealthy parents – Marriage portion was given when children of well-to-do farmers were in
their early twenties; consisted of land, livestock, or farm equipment; enabled parents to choose their
children’s spouses because economic concerns outweighed love in the long-term interests of the
extended family.
3. Marriage – Bride gave her husband legal ownership of her property; she received a dower right to use
but not sell one-third of the property if her husband died; this portion went to her children if she died or
remarried.
4. Father’s duty – Was to provide an inheritance for his children or lose status in the community. Some
men moved their families to the frontier where land was cheap and abundant; on the frontier, these
men created communities of independent property owners.
C. Freehold Society in Crisis
1. Population increase – Rapid natural increase doubled New England’s population each generation from
100,000 people in Puritan colonies in 1700 to nearly 400,000 in 1750; resulted in the division and
subdivision of family farms to 50 acres or less.
2. Changes in family life – Parents could now only provide one child with an inheritance of land, which
resulted in parents having less control over their children; increase in premarital sex and marriages
arranged quickly due to pregnancy. Couples tried to limit family size or moved their new families into
the frontiers of central Massachusetts, western Connecticut, and New Hampshire and Vermont. Wheat
and barley were replaced with corn because it could feed people and provide nourishment for cattle and
pigs.
3. “Household mode of production” – System of community exchange in which families swapped labor
and goods; participants recorded debits and credits and “balanced” their accounts by exchanging only
small amounts of currency, which was in short supply.
II. Diversity in the Middle Colonies
A. Economic Growth, Opportunity, and Conflict
1. Tenancy in New York – To attract migrants to an area inhabited largely by wealthy Dutch and English
families, landowners granted long leases and the rights to sell improvements (houses, barns) to
subsequent tenants; population grew slowly because migrants desired to own land; new tools such as
the cradle scythe (1750s) increased the amount of grain produced but not enough to enable quick
profits and land ownership.
2. Conflict in the Quaker Colonies – Early Quakers had settled in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, building
simple homes and getting by with little. By the 1760s, wealthy landowners in eastern Pennsylvania were
using slaves and poor immigrants on their farms; a new class of “agricultural capitalists” was forming out
of men who were landlords, speculators, storekeepers, and large-scale farmers and whose presence
marked the growing divisions between the social classes in the region.
B. Cultural Diversity
1. Religious and ethnic diversity – The city of Philadelphia had more than 12 religious denominations
present in 1748; migrants married within their ethnic groups (though Huguenots were a major
exception); large population of wealthy Quakers helped to shape the culture of Pennsylvania and
western New Jersey; pacifists purchased land from Native Americans rather than seizing it; advocated
the abolition of slavery.
2. The German Influx – More than 100,000 German migrants settled in the Pennsylvania/western New
Jersey region in the 17th and 18th centuries; settled in Lutheran and Reformed communities;
discouraged from marrying outside of their ethnicity; advocated married women having the legal right
to hold property and write wills, as they did in Germany.
3. Scots-Irish Settlers – Largest group of migrants came from Ireland, numbering about 115,000. Some
were Irish and Catholic, but most were Scots and Presbyterians who had faced religious and economic
repression by the English; settled in Pennsylvania region for religious tolerance; retained cultural
practices.
C. Religion and Politics
1. Religious Diversity – Orthodox church officials of several religions brought intolerance to the colonies.
In America, religious groups enforced acceptable behavior through communal self-discipline. Quaker
marriage rules maintained that couples have land and livestock; wealthy Quakers encouraged marriage
among their children, while the poor remained single or married later in life. As Quaker population
declined by 1750s, religious groups seeking increased political power (Lutherans and Baptists) had bitter
conflicts raging among them.
III. Commerce, Culture, and Identity
A. Transportation and the Print Revolution
1. Improved transportation networks – From 1700 to 1750, colonies transformed by dramatic increases
in shipping in the north Atlantic and construction of new networks of roads; transportation networks
carried people, merchandise, information, and printed matter.
2. Print revolution – In 1695, British government surrendered the power to censor all printed materials;
printers in England responded with a flood of newspapers, pamphlets, handbills, advertisements,
scientific treatises, novels, and other printed matter; publications crossed the Atlantic and colonies
began to create their own new publications, which facilitated the development of colonial identity and
solidarity.
B. The Enlightenment in America
1. The European Enlightenment – Emphasized the power of human reason; appealed to urban artisans,
well-educated from merchant and planter families; 17th-century teachings of Copernicus (earth traveled
around the sun). Philosophers used empirical research and scientific reasoning to study social
institutions and human behavior; four fundamental principles: law-like order of the natural world,
power of human reason, natural rights of individuals (self-government), and the improvement of society
through progress.
2. John Locke – English philosopher; wrote Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), stressing
the importance of environment and experience on human beliefs and behavior; argued that change was
possible through education, thought, and action; hisTwo Treatises on Government (1690) argued that
political authority did not come from divine right but from social compacts with the people who have
the power to change their government.
3. Franklin’s Contributions – Born in Boston in 1706, Franklin was the exemplar of the American
Enlightenment; shaped by Enlightenment literature and not the Bible. Franklin became a “deist” and
believed that a Supreme Being (or Grand Architect) had created the world and then allowed it to
operate by natural laws but did not intervene in people’s lives; rejected the divinity of Christ and the
authority of the Bible; instead relied on “natural reason,” or the innate moral sense to define right and
wrong.
C. American Pietism and the Great Awakening
1. Pietism – An evangelical Christian movement that stressed a personal relationship with God; attracted
farmers and urban laborers; appealed to “believers hearts rather than their minds.”
2. New England Revivalism– In the 1730s, Jonathan Edwards in the Connecticut River Valley preached
the helplessness of men and women; his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), spoke
of “Hell’s wide gaping mouth” and his promotion of conversions; successfully incited religious fervor in
the region.
3. Whitefield’s Great Awakening – Spoke from memory about the power of God and the need to seek
salvation; followers were called “New Lights” for their claim that they felt a new light in them after
hearing Whitefield preach.
D. Religious Upheaval in the North
1. Old Lights and New Lights – Old Lights (conservative ministers) condemned the crying and fainting of
New Lights in revival meetings and the New Light practice of women speaking in public; New Lights
withheld tax payments from Old Light churches; new enthusiasm for religion led to the founding of
schools for ministers (Princeton, Columbia, Brown, and Rutgers); people felt new power to be part of the
religious experience.
2. Challenges to authority – Great Awakening challenged authority of all ministers; gave new sense of
authority to the many who felt more justified in expressing religious and political opinions.
E. Social and Religious Conflict in the South
1. The Presbyterian Revival – New Lights challenged the Church of England in the South; ritual displays of
wealth became less meaningful as competition existed between the churches; Virginia governor
denounced New Lights as offering “false teachings.”
2. The Baptist Insurgency – In the 1760s, thousands of white farmers converted to Baptist (adult
baptism); Whitefield encouraged slaveholders to bring the enslaved to church, but many whites
opposed; free blacks in Virginia embraced the church’s teachings; Baptist churches continued to grow in
spite of these pressures; ministers spread teachings among slaves and began to shrink the cultural divide
between white and black.
IV. The Midcentury Challenge: War, Trade, and Social Conflict, 1750–1763 (Key events: British war
against French in America, surge in trade increased American debt to British, and an increase in
westward migration led to violence and rebellion.)
A. The French and Indian War
1. Conflict in the Ohio Valley – In the 1750s, French authorities, alarmed by British inroads into Ohio,
build a string of defensive forts; British Governor Dinwiddie dispatched military expedition led by
George Washington to reassert British claims; result was an international incident that prompted
Virginian and British expansionists to demand war.
2. The Albany Congress – In June 1754, delegates from British colonies met in Albany to discuss relations
with the Iroquois and French expansion; Franklin proposed a “Plan of Union” with a continental
assembly to manage trade, Indian policy, and defense in the western territories to counter French
expansion; Franklin’s effort failed; war between France and England seemed imminent.
3. The War Hawks Win – Rising British statesman William Pitt and Lord Halifax in England wanted a war
in North America with the French; fighting began June 1755; expanded to Europe by 1756 with Britain
vowing to destroy France’s ability to compete economically.
B. The Great War for Empire
1. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) – Pitt directed the war successfully from England, controlling both
the commercial and military strategies; British had stunning successes and acquired Cuba and the
Philippines from Spain, French Senegal, Martinique and Guadeloupe (eventually returned to France).
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ending the war gave Britain control of over half of North America, including
French Canada.
2. Pontiac’s Rebellion – British acquisitions in North America frightened the Native American population,
who believed that they would lose more territory to Anglo-American migrants; inspired by a Delaware
prophet (Neolin), the Ottawa chief Pontiac, with a group of loosely affiliated tribes, launched an uprising
against the British. Though Pontiac’s rebellion was put down, the Proclamation of 1763 prohibited white
settlement west of the Appalachians; this edict was largely ignored by colonists.
C. British Industrial Growth and the Consumer Revolution
1. Resources – Since 1700, Britain had become the dominant commercial power in the Atlantic and
Indian oceans. By 1750, it was also becoming the first nation to use manufacturing technology and work
discipline to expand output. Mechanical power was key to Britain’s Industrial Revolution; artisans
designed and built water mills and steam engines that powered a wide array of machines: lathes for
shaping wood, jennies and looms for spinning and weaving textiles, and hammers for iron forging.
2. American consumers – Soon Americans were purchasing 30 percent of all British exports. To pay for
British manufactures, mainland colonists exported tobacco, rice, indigo, and wheat; New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia supplied wheat to Europeans; profits from exports enabled
colonists to buy goods from England. Americans became more dependent on overseas credit and
markets.
D. The Struggle for Land in the East
1. Land disputes – Rising population of colonies meant more land needed; disputes over land and
tenant uprisings broke out in Hudson River Valley of New York, in New Jersey, and in some southern
colonies. Courts favored wealthy landowners; increasingly, the landless moved west to the Appalachian
Mountains region.
E. Western Rebels and Regulators (Movement of landless into the west meant clashes over Indian
policies, political representation, and debts.)
1. The South Carolina Regulators – During Seven Years’ War, Anglo-American and Scottish settlers in
South Carolina clashed with Cherokee; so-called Regulators were vigilante landowners who demanded
that South Carolina’s eastern-controlled government provide western districts with more courts, fairer
taxation, and greater representation in the assembly for those who had settled the region. The South
Carolina Regulators were unsuccessful in gaining power from the eastern elite.
2. Civil Strife in North Carolina – 1766 saw a significant economic crisis in North Carolina as tobacco
prices fell. To avoid losing their land, mobs of farmers (also called “Regulators”) closed the courts and
intimidated judges; the Regulators proposed a series of reforms, including legislation to lower their legal
fees and taxes. In May 1771, North Carolina’s royal governor sought to suppress the rebellion; violence
ensued, ending with thirty men dead and seven Regulator leaders executed.