PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: FAMILIES IN AN ATLANTIC EMPIRE

1. PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: FAMILIES IN AN ATLANTIC EMPIRE America: Past and Present Chapter 3

2. Sources of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century • New Englanders replicated traditional English social order • Contrasted with experience in other English colonies • Explanation lies in development of Puritan families

3. Immigrant Families and New Social Order • Puritans believed God ordained the family • Reproduce patriarchal English family structure in New England • Greater longevity in New England results in “invention” of grandparents • Multigenerational families strengthen social stability

4. A Commonwealth of Families • Most New Englanders married neighbors of whom parents approved • New England towns collections of interrelated households • Church membership associated with certain families • Education provided by the family

5. Women’s Lives in Puritan New England • Women not legally equal with men • Marriages based on mutual love • Most Women contributed to society as • wives and mothers • church members • small-scale farmers • Women accommodated themselves to roles they believed God ordained

6. Rank and Status in New England Society • Absence of very rich necessitates creation of new social order • New England social order becomes • local gentry of prominent, pious families • large population of independent yeomen landowners loyal to local community • small population of landless laborers, servants, poor

7. The Planters’ World • imbalanced sex ratio among immigrants • high death rate • scattered population

8. Family Life in a Perilous Environment • Normal family life impossible in Virginia • Mostly young male indentured servants • Most immigrants soon died • In marriages, one spouse often died within a decade • Serial marriages, extended families common • Orphaned children raised by strangers

9. Women in Chesapeake Society • Scarcity gives some women bargaining power in marriage market • Women without family protection vulnerable to sexual exploitation • Childbearing extremely dangerous • Chesapeake women died 20 years earlier than women in New England

10. Rank and Status in Plantation Society: The Gentry • Tobacco the basis of Chesapeake wealth • Great planters few but dominant • Arrive with capital to invest in workers • Amass huge tracts of land • Gentry see servants as possessions • Early gentry become stable ruling elite by 1700

11. Rank and Status in Plantation Society: The Freemen • The largest class in Chesapeake society • Most freed at the end of indenture • Live on the edge of poverty

12. Rank and Status in Plantation Society: Indentured Servants • Servitude a temporary status • Conditions harsh • Servants regard their bondage as slavery • Planters fear rebellion

13. Rank and Status in Plantation Society: Post-1680s Stability • Gentry ranks open to people with capital before 1680 • Demographic shift after 1680 creates creole elite • Ownership of slaves consolidates planter wealth and position • Freemen find advancement more difficult

14. Rank and Status in Plantation Society: A Dispersed Population • Large-scale tobacco cultivation requires • great landholdings • ready access to water-borne commerce • Result: population dispersed along great tidal rivers • Virginia a rural society devoid of towns

15. Race and Freedom in British America • Indians decimated by disease • European indentured servant-pool wanes after 1660 • Enslaved Africans fill demand for labor

16. Roots of Slavery • First Africans to Virginia in 1619 • Status of Africans in Virginia unclear for 50 years • Rising black population in Virginia after 1672 prompts stricter slave laws • Africans defined as slaves for life • Slave status passed on to children • White masters possess total control of slave life and labor • Mixing of races not tolerated

17. Constructing African American Identities: Geography’s Influence • Slave experience differed from place to place • Majority of S. Carolina population black • Nearly half Virginia population black • Blacks much less numerous in New England and the Middle Colonies

18. Constructing African-American Identities: African Initiatives • Older black population tended to look down on recent arrivals from Africa • All Africans participated in creating an African-American culture • Required an imaginative reshaping of African and European customs. • By 1720 African population, culture self-sustaining

19. African-American Identities: Slave Resistance • Widespread resentment of debased status • Armed resistance such as S. Carolina’s Stono Rebellion of 1739 a threat • Runaways common in colonial America • Black mariners, other travelers link African-American communities

20. Commercial Blueprint for Empire • English leaders ignore colonies until 1650s • Restored monarchy of Charles II recognized value of colonial trade • Navigation Acts passed to regulate, protect, glean revenue from commerce

21. Response to Economic Competition • “Mercantilism” a misleading term for English commercial regulation • Regulations emerge as ad hoc responses to particular problems • Varieties of motivation • Crown wants money • English merchants want to exclude Dutch • Parliament wants stronger Navy—encourage domestic shipbuilding industry • Everyone wants better balance of trade

22. An Empire of Trade: The Navigation Act of 1660 • Ships engage in English colonial trade • Must be made in England (or America) • Must carry a crew at least 75% English • Enumerated goods only to English ports • 1660 list included tobacco, sugar, cotton, indigo, dyes, ginger • 1704-05 molasses, rice, naval stores also

23. An Empire of Trade: The Navigation Act of 1663 • Goods shipped to English colonies must pass through England • Increased price paid by colonial consumers

24. An Empire of Trade:Implementing the Acts • Navigation Acts spark Anglo-Dutch trade wars • New England merchants skirt laws • English revisions tighten loopholes • 1696--Board of Trade created • Navigation Acts eventually benefit colonial merchants

25. Colonial Gentry in Revolt:1676-1691 • English colonies experience unrest at the end of the seventeenth century • Unrest not social revolution but contest between gentry “ins” and “outs” • Winners gain legitimacy for their rule

26. Civil War in Virginia: Bacon's Rebellion • Nathaniel Bacon leads rebellion, 1676 • Rebellion allows small farmers, blacks and women to join, demand reforms • Governor William Berkeley regains control • Rebellion collapses after Bacon’s death • Gentry recovers positions, unite over next decades to oppose royal governors

27. The Glorious Revolution in the Bay Colony: King Philip’s War • 1675--Metacomet leads Wampanoag-Narragansett alliance against colonists • Colonists struggle to unite, defeat Indians • Deaths total 1,000+ Indians and colonists

28. Glorious Revolution: The Dominion of New England • 1684--King James II establishes “Dominion of New England” • Colonial charters annulled • Colonies from Maine to New Jersey united • Edmund Andros appointed governor • 1689--news of James II’s overthrow sparks rebellion in Massachusetts

29. The Glorious Revolution in the Bay Colony: Outcomes • Andros deposed • William III and Mary II give Massachusetts a new charter • Incorporates Plymouth • Transfers franchise from "saints" to those with property

30. Contagion of Witchcraft • Charges of witchcraft common • Accused witches thought to have made a compact with the devil • Salem panic of 1691 much larger in scope than previous accusations • 20 victims dead before trials halted in late summer of 1692 • Causes include factionalism, economics

31. The Glorious Revolution in New York • 1689--News of James II’s overthrow prompts crisis of authority in New York • Jacob Leisler seizes control • Maintains position through 1690 • March 1691--Governor Henry Sloughter arrests, executes Leisler

32. The Glorious Revolution in Maryland • 1689--news prompts John Coode to lead revolt against Catholic governor • Coode's rebellion approved by King William • Maryland taken from Calvert control • 1715--proprietorship restored to the Protestant fourth Lord Baltimore

33. COMMON EXPERIENCES, SEPARATE CULTURES