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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: OPPORTUNITY AND OPPRESSION IN COLONIAL SOCIETY

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: OPPORTUNITY AND OPPRESSION IN COLONIAL SOCIETY. America: Past and Present Chapter 3. Sources of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century . New Englanders replicated traditional English social order Contrasted with experience in other English colonies

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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: OPPORTUNITY AND OPPRESSION IN COLONIAL SOCIETY

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  1. PUTTING DOWN ROOTS: OPPORTUNITY AND OPPRESSION IN COLONIAL SOCIETY 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. 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. Social Hierarchy in New England • 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 Challenge of the Chesapeake Environment • Imbalanced sex ratio among immigrants • High death rate • Scattered population

  8. Family Life at Risk • 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. The Structure of Planter 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. The Structure of Planter Society: The Freemen • The largest class in Chesapeake society • Most freed at the end of indenture • Live on the edge of poverty

  12. The Structure of Planter Society: Indentured Servants • Servitude a temporary status • Conditions harsh • Servants regard their bondage as slavery • Planters fear rebellion

  13. The Structure of Planter 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. The Structure of Planter 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. Origins and Destinations of African Slaves, 1619-1760

  18. Constructing African American Identities: Geography’s Influence • Slave experience differed from colony to colony • 60% of South Carolina population black • Nearly half Virginia population black • Blacks much less numerous in New England and the Middle Colonies

  19. 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

  20. Constructing 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

  21. Rise of a Commercial 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

  22. 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

  23. Regulating Colonial 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

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

  25. Regulating Colonial 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

  26. Colonial Factions Spark Political 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

  27. 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

  28. 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

  29. 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

  30. 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

  31. 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

  32. 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

  33. 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

  34. COMMON EXPERIENCES, SEPARATE CULTURES

  35. Local Aspirations Within an Atlantic Empire • By 1700 England’s attitude toward the colonies had changed dramatically • Sectional differences within the colonies were profound • They were all part of Great Britain but had little to do with each other

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