Chapter 4
Life in the Colonies
Ch 4-1 I Can Statement
I can understand how the
English ideas about
government and trade
affected the colonies
Ch 4-1 Bullet Point Statements
• Bullet Point #1: The Magna Carta and English
Bill of Rights guaranteed the rights of English
citizens.
• Bullet Point #2: By 1760, each of the 13
colonies had a legislature to make laws.
• Bullet Point #3:England passed the Navigation
Acts to regulate colonial trade.
Magna Carta
• Magna Carta: document that limited the
power of a ruler
• 1215 King John of England was forced to sign
• Made it so the ruler had to consult the nobles
to make taxes
• Protected the right to private property and
trial by jury
Parliament
• Legislature: a group of people who have the
power to make laws
• Two-house legislature, house of
lords(inherited titles) and house of
commons(elected)
• Main job: approve new taxes
English Bill of Rights
• 1688 Parliamentary power increases
• Glorious Revolution: parliament removes King
James II from the throne
• Mary and William of Orange invited to rule
• Bill of rights: written list of freedoms that a
government promises to protect
• Habeas Corpus: the principle that a person
can’t be held in prison without being charged
with a specific crime
Colonial Legislature
• Colonists wanted to take a part in governing
themselves
• House of Burgesses= 1st legislature in North
America
• 1760, every British colony in North America
had a legislature of some kind
Right to Vote
• Political rights increasing
• People not allowed to vote= women, African
Americans, and Indians
Freedom of Press
• Freedom of Press: the right of journalists to
publish the truth without restriction or
penalty
• Zenger Trial
• Libel: publishing of statements that could
damage a person’s reputation
• The press has a right and responsibility to to
keep the public informed of the truth
Regulating Trade
• North America= source of raw materials and a
place to sell England’s products
• Navigation acts:
– 1. Shipments from Europe to English colonies had
to go through England first
– 2. Any imports to England from the colonies had
to be sent in English made ships
– 3. The colonies could only sell tobacco and sugar
to England
Ch 4-2 I Can Statement
I can understand the
characteristics of colonial
society.
Ch 4-2 Bullet Point Statements
• Bullet Point #1: In colonial society, men,
women, and children had clearly defined
roles.
• Bullet Point #2: Colonial American offered
poor and middle-class whites the opportunity
to own land and improve their social status.
Family in Colonial Times
Farm:
• Need for large families
• Widely separated from
others
• Families were very close
• Each family member had
many responsibilities
Town:
• Easier for single people
to live
• Families still important
Extended family: a family that includes parents,
children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins
Roles of Women
• Expected to marry who their parents chose for
them
• Childcare focused
• Domestic jobs: cooking, laundry, sewing
• Jobs differed from on the frontier to in the city
Young People
• Big deal if children survived infancy
• After age 7, before children were required to
work
• Worked on farm and household chores,
believed it was to prepare kids for adult life
• Started to become apprentices(someone who
learns a trade by working for someone in that
trade for a certain period of time)
Social Classes
• Gentry: upper class of colonial society
• Middle Class: made up of small planters,
independent farmers and artisans
• Indentured Servants: signed contracts to
work from 4-10 years in the colonies for
anyone who would pay for his or her passage
to the Americas.
Gentry
Middle Class
Indentured
Servants
Free African
Americans
Ch 4-3 I Can Statement
I can understand how
slavery developed in the
colonies and affected
colonial life.
Ch 4-3 Bullet Point Statements
• Bullet Point #1: More than 10 million Africans
were transported to the Americas in the
Atlantic slave trade.
• Bullet Point #2: The plantation economy of the
South became dependent on the labor of the
enslaved African Americans.
• Bullet Point #3: Slave codes did not stop
occasional slave revolts.
Atlantic Slave Trade
• Spanish and Portuguese brought over the
first Africans
• British, French and Dutch also entered the
trade
• About 10 million enslaved Africans brought to
the Americas between 1500s to 1800s
Middle Passage
• Voyage from African coast across the Atlantic
in slave ships
• Overcrowded ships to increase profit
• Led to death, suicide, families being
separated
Triangular Trade
• Triangular trade: three-way trade between
the colonies, the islands of the Caribbean and
Africa
• Made New England Merchants rich
• Disobeyed navigation acts
Slavery in the Colonies
• First Africans were servants not slaves
• Plantation system, reason why slavery took
root and grew
• Slaves preferred to servants
• Need for cheap labor grows
• Early attempts to stop slavery that failed
• Not all Africans were slaves
• Slavery was linked to racism
• Racism: the belief that one race is superior or
inferior to another
Resistance to Slavery
• Numbers of enslaved increase
• Whites scared of revolts
• Slave codes: strict laws that restricted the
rights and activities of slaves
African Cultural Influences
• Lives differed from colony to colony
• North: worked as blacksmiths, house
servants, or on farms
• South: farmed
• Tried to keep customs from Africa
Ch 4-4 I Can Statements
I can understand how ideas
about religion and
government influenced
colonial life.
Ch 4-4 Bullet Point Statements
• Bullet Point #1: Education during colonial
times was influenced by religion.
• Bullet Point #2: The Great Awakening of the
1730s and 1740s led to the rise of new
churches.
• Bullet Point #3:Enlightenment thinkers
influenced ideas about government and
natural rights.
Puritan Beginnings
• Promoted education
• Required parents to teach children and
servants how to read
• Public school: school supported by taxes
• Puritan schools were run by both public and
private money
Colonial Schools
• Included religious instruction
• Taught reading, writing and arithmetic
• Learned from a hornbook(paddle-shaped
board with a printed lesson on top, protected
by a transparent piece of animal horn)
• South had fewer schools
• Poor children didn’t attend school
• Not all schools allowed girls, or only allowed
them in the summer when boys weren’t
around
• Dame schools: schools that women opened
in their homes to teach girls and boys to read
and write
Education for African Americans
• Some churches offered schooling for free
Africans
• Enslaved people passed on learning in secret
Upper Levels
• After elementary school came grammar
school(similar to high school)
– Only boys went
• Learned Greek, Latin, geography, math, and
English composition
• Colleges opened up in the 1630s
Roots of American Literature
Poetry
• Anne Bradstreet: first
colonial poet
• Phillis Wheatly: enslaved
African poet
Ben Franklin
• Best loved colonial writer
• Started a newspaper
• The Pennsylvania Gazette
The Great Awakening
• 1730s-1740s religious revival
• Jonathan Edwards: Massachusetts preacher
who called upon people to examine their
lives and commit themselves to God
• Led to the rise of many new churches
• National movement
• Reinforced democratic ideas
The Enlightenment
• Intellectual movement
• All problems could be solved by reason
• Enlightenment thinkers looked for natural laws
that would govern politics, society and
economics
John Locke
• Englishman and Enlightenment thinker
• Wrote the Two Treatises on Government
• Natural rights: rights that belong to every
human being from birth; life liberty and
property
• Challenged divine right(belief that monarchs
get their authority to rule directly from God)
Montesquieu
• Wrote the Spirit of the Laws
• Argued that the powers of government should
be clearly defined and limited
• Separation of powers: division of the power
of government into separate branches
– 3 branches: legislative(make laws),
executive(enforce laws), and judicial(make
judgments)
Enlightenment Thinkers
• Locke
• Montesquieu