
Essential Questions:

How did differences in values affect distinct
American subcultures in the Chesapeake,
Southern, New England, & Middle colonies?

What were the roles of women and the family in
colonial America? Did they differ by region?

How and why did African slavery get started in
North America? What did slavery mean for
African culture?
The English Colonies
in America
The English Colonies

In the 1600s, English settlers arrived in North
America
English colonization differed from Spanish & French
because the English gov’t had no desire to create a
centralized empire in the New World
 Different motivations by English settlers led to
different types of colonies

Migrating to the English Colonies

17th century England faced major social changes:
The most significantly was a boom in population;
Competition for land, food, jobs led to a large mobile
population (vagrants?)
 People had choices: could move to cities, Ireland,
Netherlands, or America (but this was most
expensive & dangerous)

Migrating to the English Colonies

Motives for migration to America:
Religious: purer form of worship
 Economic: Escape poverty or the threat of lifelong
poverty
 Personal: to escape bad marriages or jail terms


Migration to America was facilitated by the
English Civil War & Glorious Revolution
The Stuart Monarchs
Four Colonial Subcultures

The values of the migrants dictated the
“personality” of the newly created colonies; led
to distinct (not unified) colonies
The Chesapeake
 New England
 Middle Colonies
 The Carolinas & Georgia

By the early 1600s, Spain, England, & France
had large territorial claims in North America
(but these colonies were not heavily populated,
especially in Spanish & French claims)
These colonial claims came largely
at the expense of the Native
Americans already living there
th
17
Life in
Century
English Colonies
The Economic, Social, & Political Culture of
the English Colonies
What did
the
English
colonies
look like
in 1650?
What did
the English
colonies
look like at
the end of
the 17th
century?
Colonial Society
th
in the 17 Century:
New England
Possibly
the 1stin
society
history
Families
NewinEngland
to reasonably expect to live long
enough to see their grandchildren
• New England
was much more
Newsociety
England
“invented”
stable
than othergrandparents
colonies:
– New England Puritans migrated to America as
families
– Marriage was easy as most people shared
common values
– Colonists lived longer due to more a dispersed
population, purer water, & a cooler climate
Towns became networks
of intermarried families
Education in New England

New England towns regarded education as
fundamental family responsibility; towns began
to create elementary schools funded with local
taxes:
NE had, by far, the highest literacy rate in America
 In 1638, Harvard became America’s first college

Family Life in New England

Patriarchal Society – the father was boss of the
family, and society in general


The female was to a subservient and obedient wife
and a loving mother
Children endured a strict upbringing through
corporal punishment, plentiful chores, and
apprenticeships

Laws established systems of public education that
ensured the basic education of children
Women in New England

Was the colonial era the “golden age” for
women?


Women contributed to society as wives & mothers,
devout church members, & ran small-scale farms
But were not equals with men:
Women could not legally own or sell property;
divorce difficult
 Women did what God ordained

Religion in New England

Since most New England colonies were founded
on a belief that the colony existed through a
‘covenant’ with God, religion and state were
often one and the same
Local town governments ensured the good order of
Puritan society
 Suffrage rights and political opportunities commonly
depended on one’s membership in the local church

Triangular Trade

Though there were no plantation elite in New
England, there did arise a powerful merchant
class

The New England merchants profited from shipping
manufactured rum, and other goods received from
Southern colonies and the Indies, to Africa to be
exchanged for slaves
NE
churches
focused on in
its members;
outsiders
Social
Hierarchy
New England
were not welcomed & often moved away
Local gentry of religiously
devout families guided
town meetings
Large population of
yeomen farmers loyal
to the local community
Small population of
landless laborers,
servants, & poor
The Diverse Middle Colonies
 The Middle Colonies were a mixture of
Southern and New England societies

There were both large landowners who grew
cash crops and also wealthy merchants who
controlled growing cities
 There was broad religious diversity
 Quakers, Catholics, Anglicans, Puritans, etc…
 There were diverse ethnic backgrounds
 English, Scots-Irish, Dutch, German, Swiss,
etc…
Opportunities in the Middle Colonies
 As most immigrants came to America in
search of economic opportunity, in the Middle
Colonies they were most likely to find it…


Opportunities were not limited to ethnic
background in the diverse Middle Colonies
Most became farmers, but many also found
opportunities to become artisans in rapidly
expanding cities such as Philadelphia and
New York
Colonial Society in the
th
17 Century:
The Chesapeake
Families in the Chesapeake

“Normal, English” family life was impossible in
Virginia:
70-85% of immigrants were young male indentured
servants
 High death rate (average age was 10-20 years lower
than NE)
 One married spouse often died within a decade
 Children often never knew their parents (let alone
grandparents)

Women in Chesapeake Society


Scarcity gave some women bargaining power in
the marriage market; allowed some women to
improve their social status
But women were vulnerable:
sexual exploitation
 Childbearing was dangerous
 Chesapeake women died 20 years earlier than women
in New England

Life in the Early South

Due to their few numbers women were able to
gain broad social and legal rights, as well as
wealth
Due to the short life spans women were commonly
able to marry many times due to the death of
husbands  these many marriages would allow
them to gain large estates
 With their material power came social and political
influence

Social Hierarchy
The plantation
gentryin the Chesapeake
dominated society &
the House of Burgesses
Tobacco
waswere
the basis
Free
farmers
largest
of wealth
of
class;
Came&ascause
indentured
social inequalities
servants;
most lived on
edge of poverty
Indentured servants
were often mistreated
& cheated out of land
African slaves
Chesapeake Culture

By 1680, social mobility in the Chesapeake was
limited:
An American-born elite class had emerged (this
social aristocracy was absent earlier)
 The plantation economy & ownership of slaves
allowed the gentry to produce more tobacco
 High death rates halted the development of schools
& towns

Life in the Early South

Due to the fact that there were very few large
towns public education never came to be an
important issue
Rural and sporadic small-town society
 Illiteracy was very common
 The education that did take place was primarily
given by either private tutors or educated parents
 For higher levels of schooling children were sent
overseas to European institutions

Split Southern Society



The head right system quickly created a society split
between poor freed farmers (former indentured
servants) and wealthy plantation owners
Over half of settlers in the southern colonies were
indentured servants…
Small farmers were kept poor by…



Falling tobacco prices due to overproduction
Poor land
High taxes
Family Life in the South




Life was very isolated due to the scattering of
families on farms and plantations
Children were much less disciplined than in the
New England region, and of course less educated
Women did not have to perform manual labor, but
in some rare cases they did run the plantation
The Anglican Church was the established religion
of the region
Non-English in the South

The Scotch-Irish developed a strong presence
in…
North Carolina due to its open policy of granting
lands and its open-minded, democratic society
 Georgia in the 1750’s after the cheap lands of the
tidewater regions were exhausted in Virginia and
South Carolina

Colonial Society
th
in the 17 Century:
African Slaves
Roots of Slavery

The importation of African slaves was
based on a “need” for labor:
– Indians decimated by disease
– Indentured servant-pool waned after 1660

An estimated 11 million slaves (mostly
males) were brought to the English
American colonies
Roots of Slavery

Slaves were originally treated as indentured
servants but the growing black population in
VA by 1672 prompted stricter slave laws:
– Africans were defined as slaves for life; slave
status was passed on to children
– By 1700, slavery was based exclusively on skin
color
Origins & Destinations of African
Slaves, 1619-1760
Free & enslaved
blacks
were
much
less
40%
in
VA
60%
in
SC
The
Slave
Population
numerous in NE & Middle colonies
• In the Chesapeake & Southern colonies
with large black populations, slaves found
it was easier to maintain African culture
• By 1720, the African population became
self-sustaining:
– Fertility rates exceeded immigration rates for
1st time
– Did not occur in the Caribbean or in South
America
The Slave Population
150 blacks rose up and seized munitions
hold killed & killed several white planters
• Widespread resentment of their slave status
led to resistance in the 18th Century:
– Armed resistance such as the Stono Rebellion of
1739 (SC)
– In 1741, 106 slaves were hanged or deported
due to a rumor that slaves planned to burn NYC
– Runaways were common