Life in the English Colonies
Chapter 6
Working and Trading
Lesson 1
• As an apprentice rope
maker in the early 1700s,
William Mathews had ten
years of hard work ahead of
him.
• Apprentice—a young
person who learns a skill
from a more experienced
person.
• Apprentices could expect to
work long hours—often
more than twelve hours a
day.
• They had very little free
time and rarely got a day
off.
• In spite of the hardships,
becoming an apprentice could
be a great opportunity.
• For many young people in the
colonies, this was the only
way to become an artisan.
• Artisan—a skilled worker who
makes things by hand
• A rope maker, blacksmith, or
carpenter is an artisan.
• Young surgeons also
learned their jobs working
as an apprentice.
• As a surgeon’s apprentice,
you would help carry
medical instruments and
observe the doctor at
work.
• You also had the important
responsibility of holding
down patients during
painful operations.
• As the colonial economy
grew during the early
and mid 1700s, there
was a growing need for
artisans.
• This created new
opportunities for
thousands of young
apprentices.
• Young girls learned trade
like cooking and sewing.
• Not all young people in colonial times worked as apprentices.
• Most children grew up on farms, where they had just as much
work to do as apprentices in towns and cities.
• From a very young age, children were given jobs like gathering
wood for fires, serving food, and helping in the garden.
• As they grew older, boys hunted, chopped firewood, and joined
their fathers at work in the fields.
• Girls helped their mothers make
household products like soap, candles,
clothing, and food for the family.
• These were hard jobs.
• Candles, for example, were made from
the fat of sheep or cows.
• First the candle maker melted the
chunks of fat in an iron kettle.
• Then she dipped the candle wick in the
fat and let it harden.
• She did this over and over until she had
a thick candle.
• These candles gave off plenty of light,
but they gave off something else too—a
bad smell.
• Colonists were very happy when they
discovered they could make candles out
of pleasant-smelling wax from wild
berries.
Colonial Jobs
Job
What They Did
Shoemaker
Made shoes from leather and wood.
Blacksmith
Made and repaired iron goods, such as horseshoes, axes,
gun parts, and nails.
Fisherman
Caught cod and other fish in the Atlantic Ocean.
Cooper
Made barrels from wood and iron.
Printer
Printed posters, newspapers, and books.
Surveyor
Made maps and marked boundary lines.
Miller
Ran mills where colonists could grind corn and wheat
into flour.
Merchant
Traded goods with England and other countries.
Dressmaker Made clothes from woven material.
• Different parts
of the 13
colonies were
rich in different
natural
resources.
• Therefore, the
New England,
Middle, and
Southern
colonies each
developed a
different type of
economy.
• The New England economy was
based on products from the
forests and sea.
• Timber was a valuable export—
especially to England, where
most of the forests had been
cut down.
• Trees from the New England
forests were also used to build
houses, ships, and barrels.
• Barrels were needed to store
everything from wine to wheat
to dried fish.
• Once colonists had their own
ships, they could fish in the rich
waters off the New England
coast.
• Fishing and whaling quickly
became important industries.
• The economy of the
Middle Colonies was
based on farm products
and valuable minerals,
such as iron.
• Middle Colony farms
grew so much wheat,
the region became
known as “the
breadbasket of the
colonies.”
• Mills were built to grind
grain into flour.
• The mills were powered
by running water or
wind.
• From the mills, flour was
shipped to other
colonies and exported to
other countries.
• The Southern Colonies had rich soil, warm climate, and plenty of
rain, and they developed an economy based on farming.
• Farms ranged in size from small family farms to large plantations
powered by the work of slaves.
• Cash crops included tobacco, rice, and indigo, a plant used to make a
blue dye.
• As the colonial economy grew, cities like Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Charleston became thriving trading
centers.
• An important part of colonial trade was the slave trade.
• In this type of trade, ships brought captive Africans to the
colonies, where they were sold and forced to work as slaves.
• Some trade routes became known as triangular
trade routes.
• These routes were called “triangular” because
they were shaped like giant triangles.
• On one common
triangular trade
route, ships began
in New England.
• They carried guns
and other goods to
ports on the coast
of West Africa.
• Here they traded
these goods for
gold and captive
Africans.
• The ship then sailed for the
West Indies.
• Because this was the second
leg of the voyage, it was
known as the Middle Passage.
• Captive Africans suffered
terribly during the Middle
Passage.
• Many died as a result of
hunger, thirst, disease, or cruel
treatment.
• A West African boy named
Olaudah Equiano was probably
brought to North America on a
trading ship in about 1756.
• He later wrote a book about
the Middle Passage, writing
that people were “so crowded
that each had scarcely had
room to turn himself…many
died.”
• In the West Indies, the
ships traded the captive
Africans and gold for
sugar and molasses, a
syrup made from
sugarcane.
• The ships completed the
triangle by carrying
sugar and molasses back
to colonial ports.
• The molasses were used
to make rum.
• With this rum, trading
ships set sail for Africa,
beginning the triangular
trade routes again.
• Many Africans
were enslaved in
the West Indies,
where they were
forced to work on
sugar plantations.
• Others were
brought to the 13
Colonies.
Cities, Towns, and Farms
Lesson 2
• Benjamin Franklin
needed to live in a city.
• He wanted to be a
printer, and printing
businesses were only
found in cities.
• When he could not find
work in his hometown
of Boston, he looked
elsewhere.
• Franklin arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1723.
• He found a growing city with a diverse population.
• There were people of different ethnic backgrounds and
religions.
• There was a busy port on the Delaware River.
• Most importantly for Franklin, there was a printer who
gave him a job.
Population of Colonial Cities, 1760
Population
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
Population
• By the middle 1700s, Philadelphia was the largest city in the
13 Colonies.
• Benjamin Franklin had a lot to do with the success of the city.
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He founded the city’s first newspaper.
He established the city’s first public library.
He established the city’s first hospital.
To help fight dangerous fires, he started the first volunteer fire
department in the 13 Colonies. Fires were a very serious problem
in colonial cities where most buildings were made of wood.
• In about 1760, a
traveler named
Andrew Burnaby
visited Philadelphia.
• He wrote that the city
was thriving.
• “The streets are
crowded with people,
and the river with
vessels [boats].”
• The Puritans built towns in Massachusetts in
the 1630s.
• Throughout colonial times, similar small towns
were established all over New England.
• Many New England towns were self-sufficient.
• Self-sufficient—ability to rely on oneself for most of what one
needs
• The food came from the fields surrounding the town.
• Families who lived in town owned small plots of land, where they
grew crops and raised animals.
• Other work was done in town.
• Workshops belonging to the blacksmith, cooper, and shoemaker
were often found around the town common.
• Town common—an open space where cattle and sheep could graze
• Meeting house—the most important building in town where
ordinary citizens could help make decisions at the town meetings
and attend church on Sundays
• The Middle Colonies also had many small towns.
• Here, towns often served as busy market places.
• Farmers came to sell their crops and buy things such as
clothing and tools.
• The town’s general store might have imported goods, such as
tea and sugar.
• Like New England towns, many Middle Colony towns had
workshops and a mill where grain could be turned into flour.
• While there were many small farms in the Southern Colonies, this
region was also home to a different kind of farm—the plantation.
• Southern plantations were large farms where cash crops such as
tobacco, rice, and indigo were grown.
• Most of the work on plantations was done by enslaved Africans.
• Plantations were similar to small towns.
• Like small towns, plantations were largely self-sufficient.
• Plantations were owned by wealthy
landowners known as planters.
• Planters were usually men, though women
also ran plantations.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney
• Eliza Lucas Pinckney
began managing
plantations in South
Carolina when she
was still a teenager.
• In 1744, she became
the first person in the
13 colonies to raise a
successful crop of
indigo.
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Eliza Lucas Pinckney
At age 16, Elizabeth Lucas Pinckney, called Eliza, had already lived in England and the West Indies.
Now she had just arrived in South Carolina.
Eliza’s mother was sick, and her father hoped that a new life on a plantation would help her get better.
Soon after the family arrived, Eliza’s father, and officer in England’s army, was called away.
He left his daughter in charge of the family’s plantation.
Eliza loved the challenge of her new role.
On a typical day, she would get up at 5 A.M., read until 7 A.M., then go to the fields to look over the
plantation, all before breakfast.
The rest of her busy day included teaching her sister and two girls who were enslaved on the plantation
how to read.
Eliza even studied law and helped her neighbors write their wills.
She wrote to a friend that running a plantation “requires much writing and more business and fatigue
[tiredness]…than you can imagine.”
Eliza Pinckney believed that she could make the plantation—and all of South Carolina—richer by
experimenting with new crops.
She was especially interested in indigo, a plant that makes blue dye that was very valuable in Europe.
Eliza wrote: “I had greater hopes from the Indigo…than any of the rest of the things that I had tried.”
After several years of hard work, Pinckney successfully grew indigo on her plantation.
Soon she gave indigo seeds to her neighbors.
Indigo became a major export of South Carolina for many years.
By 1754, South Carolina was exporting more than 1 million pounds of indigo every year.
• The day-to-day work on the plantation was directed by the plantation manager,
known as the overseer.
• The overseer gave the slaves orders.
• The slaves could be beaten as punishment for not doing what they were told.
• Many slaves had to work from morning to night planting and harvesting crops.
• Others, often women and children, cooked and cleaned in the planter’s house.
• Enslaved people also worked in blacksmith and carpentry workshops,
smokehouses, bakeries, laundry buildings, and stables.
• From New Hampshire to Georgia, most
colonists, free and slave, lived on small family
farms.
• No matter where they lived, all farming
families had one thing in common—
– Hard work
• Poem from Ruth Belknap:
“Up in the morning I must rise
Before I’ve time to rub my
eyes…
But, Oh! It makes my heart to
ache,
I have no bread till I can bake,
And then, alas! It makes me
sputter,
For I must churn or have no
butter.”
• Ruth Belknap lived and worked on a small
farm in New Hampshire in the 1700s.
• As her poem illustrates, farming families had
to make or grow most of what they needed.
Everyday Life in the Colonies
Lesson 3
• Education was very important to early settlers
in New England.
• In 1647, the leaders of Massachusetts passed
a law requiring towns to establish free and
public schools.
• For most colonists, this was a new idea.
• Free schools did not exist in Europe at this
time.
• In the years that followed, small public schools were built
throughout the colonies.
• Schools in colonial times were very different from schools
today.
• Most schools had just one room.
• Students of different ages sat together.
• They learned the basics—reading, writing, and arithmetic.
• Students also learned the
rules of polite behavior.
• When George Washington
was a young student in
Virginia, he copied a list of
rules into his notebook.
• He wrote down rules such
as:
– “Every action done in
company, ought to be with
some sign of respect, to those
that are present.”
– “Be careful to keep your
promise.”
• Most students did not stay in school for as
many years as children do today.
• When they reached their early teens, many
boys and girls started working full time on
family farms.
Others began apprenticeships.
•Only a small percentage of students went to
college.
•Harvard, established near Boston, Massachusetts, in
1636, is the oldest college in the United States.
•The next was the College of William and Mary, which
opened in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1693.
• When they were not at school, children spent
time doing chores around their family’s house
or farm.
• Most young people had less free time than
they do today.
Children still found time for games and sports.
They danced, played hide-and-seek, and invented
a wide variety of time for games or tag.
They climbed trees, went swimming, and flew
kites.
In winter, children enjoyed ice-skating and sledding.
• Religion was an important part of life in all regions of the English
Colonies.
• You know that several colonies were founded as places where
people could enjoy religious freedom.
• Some colonies continued to be refuges for religious groups that
faced persecution in Europe.
• For example, many Jews came to the 13 Colonies.
• They settled in Rhode Island, New York, and South Carolina.
• In 1763, many Jews in Newport, Rhode Island built what is today
the oldest synagogue in the United States.
Great
Awakening
• Among Christians, an important
religious movement known as the
Great Awakening began in the 1730s.
• This movement “awakened” or revived
many colonists’ interest in religion.
• The Great Awakening was led by
Protestants.
• Protestant preachers traveled from
town to town, giving sermons that
were fiery and emotional.
• Services were often held outside,
because churches could not hold all
the people who wanted to attend.
The Great Awakening
• Many new churches were build during the Great
Awakening.
• New colleges were established to train
ministers.
• The Great Awakening also inspired people to
help others.
• One of the leaders of the Great Awakening,
George Whitefield, traveled through the
colonies collecting money to build an orphanage
in Georgia.
• When Whitefield was in Philadelphia in 1739,
Benjamin Franklin went to hear him preach.
• Franklin was so impressed with Whitefield’s
sermon, he decided to contribute all the money
he had with him to the orphanage.
• “I emptied my pocket wholly to the collector’s
dish, gold and all,” Franklin later wrote.
First Newspaper
• A colonists walking down the street of Boston on April 24, 1704,
could have bought the first edition of Boston News-Letter.
• This became the first newspaper in the 13 Colonies to be published
on a regular basis.
• By the 1770s, there were dozens of newspapers in the colonies.
• Sometimes, however, printing a newspaper could be a dangerous
job.
• In 1734, John Peter Zenger was thrown in a New York City jail for
printing his political opinions in the New-York Weekly Journal.
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Poor Richard’s
Almanack
Reading was an important
form of entertainment in the
colonies.
When the day’s work was
done, families often sat
together and listened as one
family member read aloud
from a book.
Benjamin Franklin’s Poor
Richard’s Almanac was one
of the most popular books in
the 13 Colonies.
Only the Bible sold more
copies at this time.
Almanac—a reference book
with facts and figures
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Benjamin
Franklin
Benjamin Franklin was 12 years old when he became an apprentice to his older brother James, a
printer.
Until he turned 21, Benjamin was to obey his brother in exchange for learning about printing.
James Franklin started the second newspaper in the 13 Colonies.
Although Ben had not attended much school, he was interested in being a writer.
Sometimes he would write an article, sign it “Silence Do-good,” and slip it under a printer’s door.
James printed the articles, not suspecting that Ben was the author.
Ben was not completely happy.
He did not like having to obey his brother, and he wanted more say in running the newspaper.
He later wrote:
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“Thinking my apprenticeship very tedious [boring], I was continually wishing for some opportunity of
shortening it,…”
When Ben was 16, James was arrested for printing articles critical of colonial leaders.
Ben had to run the paper himself.
While this helped Ben gain independence and confidence in his writing, he believed that it was
wrong for a government to jail people because of their opinions.
Soon after James was freed, Ben left his brother’s shop in Boston to start a new life in Philadelphia.
He became a successful printer.
As an adult, Benjamin Franklin was a famous writer, scientist, inventor, as well as one of the
founders of our nation’s government.
He helped write the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution.
Franklin hoped that everyone would take advantage of the liberties provided by the new country.
He said, “The declaration only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You
have to catch it yourself.”
Letter Writing
• Letter-writing was another important activity
for colonists.
• Letters were folded and sealed with melted
wax.
• Envelopes were not used because they were
considered a waste of paper, which was
expensive and hard to make.
• Letters helped colonists living far apart to stay
in touch.
Colonial
Food
• Early colonists learned to
grow corn from the Native
Americans.
• Colonists used corn to
make breads, puddings, and
pancakes that were served
with maple syrup.
• Colonists also cooked stews
in large iron pots.
• Stews were made of fish or
meat with vegetables and
seasoned with salt and
pepper.
Delicious?
• Many desserts were common in the colonies, including ice
cream, donuts, and a variety of fruit pies.
• Desserts were not always tasty, though.
• In 1758, a Swedish traveler wrote home about an apple
pie he ate in Delaware.
• The pie was “made of apples neither peeled or freed from
their cores, and its crust is not broken if a wagon wheel
goes over it.”
Slavery in the Colonies
Lesson 4
Venture Smith
• Venture Smith told the story of his life in a
book that was published in 1798.
• Smith was one of thousand of Africans who
were enslaved in the 13 Colonies during the
1700s.
Enslaved Population, North and South
250,000
200,000
150,000
South
North
100,000
50,000
0
1670
1700
1730
1760
Slaves in the North?
• Some of the Africans
enslaved in the north
(New England and
Middle Colonies) work
on small farms.
• Most however, worked
in towns and cities.
• They worked in stores,
inns, and as skilled
artisans.
• They worked in people’s
homes as cooks and
servants.
Opportunities for slaves in the north
• There were more opportunities for slaves in
the north to improve their lives than those in
the south.
• Some were able to earn money by taking on
jobs:
– At night
– On weekends
Venture Smith Earned Money
• Venture Smith earned money by “catching
muskrats and minks, raising potatoes and
carrots,…and by fishing at night.”
Freedom
• Some slaves in the north earned enough
money to purchase their freedom.
• This was a long and difficult process though.
Laws in the North
• Strict laws limited the rights of slaves in the
north.
• Slaves could not travel or go on a ship without
special permission.
• Colonies passed these laws to make it more
difficult for slaves to escape.
Slavery in the South
• Enslaved population in the south grew quickly
during the 1700s.
• Some slaves were held on farms or in cities.
• Most were forced to work on plantations.
Slaves' Skills
• Enslaved people
brought a variety
of skills to
Southern
plantations.
Rice
• Some West Africans had experience growing
rice.
• In the Carolinas, they showed planters how to
raise this valuable crop.
Artisans
• Others were expert blacksmiths, carpenters,
or tailors.
Long Hours
• No matter what their
skills, their work lasted
long hours into the
night.
• A Virginia planter wrote
that he forced slaves to
work at night, “by moon
or by candlelight.”
Slave Families
• Facing harsh conditions of plantation life, enslaved people
struggled to preserve their families.
• Slave owners could sell family members and break up
families.
• Family members tried to get together whenever they could.
Keeping African Culture Alive
• They made drums, banjos, and other instruments similar to the
ones they knew from Africa.
• Some Southern Colonies banned the use of these instruments.
• Plantation owners were afraid that enslaved people were using
these instruments to send secret messages to one another.
Olaudah Equiano
• Enslaved as a young
boy.
• Later gained his
freedom and wrote a
book.
• Published in 1789, his
book demanded that
readers think about the
evils of slavery.
Resisting Slavery
• Enslaved people found
many ways to resist
slavery:
– Work slowly
– Break tools
– Pretend to be sick
– Escape
– Fight back
Help
• African men and women as well as whites
often helped escaped slaves by hiding them or
giving them money.
Stono Rebellion
• Armed rebellions also occurred.
• In the bloody Stono Rebellion, a group of
enslaved people fought with slave owners near
the Stono River in South Carolina in 1739.
• About 25 white colonists were killed before the
slaves were captured and executed.