New England Colonies

1. New England Colonies Erica Carcelen, Hunter Richey, and Katrina Sahawneh

2. Religion • Puritan • Believed in Calvinism • Witch Trials • Conducted many witch trials, especially Salem, Massachusetts • Believed witches had joined with the devil and were to do what the devil asked • Believed witches would send out their spirits to torture others • Huge amount of people sent to prison or executed • People realized many of the accused were innocent • Governor Phips decides to end the trials

3. Government • Under British rule • Charter of New England • United the New England Colonies • Created a council to lead the colonies appointed by the people • President of the council elected by council members • Stated that those associated with the Roman Church would not be allowed in • Some colonies also had individual charters • Charter of Massachusetts Bay, Charter of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

4. Economy • Dependent on English assistance with sending in supplies and commodities. • The wealthy were merchants who traded with other countries or with the native Americans. • The poorer were fishermen or raised livestock. • The colonists were dependent on trade • There was no cloth to make clothing • The colonies traded the food that they raised or grew for materials used to make clothing or other products. From: Letter to William Pond, A Letter to Father and Mother (1631) http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/17-pon.html

5. Lifestyle • Lived simple, hardworking lives. • Cut timber for houses and raised livestock for food • Dependent on the English • English ships brought vital supplies that they needed • Many are subject to disease • Scurvy, burning fever • Drank nothing but water to start with, unless tea was available • Religious, as shown when they celebrate Micahelmas. • Many colonists left family members behind in England, and wrote to them, sending letters back on ships Letter to William Pond, A Letter to Father and Mother (1631)

6. Lifestyle (continued) • Education was important, but there was little opportunity and time only during the winter. • Parents taught children how to read so that they could read the Bible. Puritans thought that reading was essential because a minister could deceive people. • Houses were built for heat retention during the winter: small windows, low ceilings, central fireplace. • Most common houses were one room for lower class, or two stories with two or three rooms on each story for the upper class.

7. Marriage and Relationships • Death rates were high among both children and adults. • This caused many remarriages because two people were needed to run a household. Teenagers were often unrelated to the people raising them. • Sleeping with someone outside of marriage was a crime; adultery received the death sentence. • Governor Winthrop recorded a trial of a woman caught in adultery in his diary. • Bundling was a courting custom were the couple who were deciding whether or not to get married would get into bed together clothed (“in order to prevent scandal”). • After that, they either decide to marry, or probably never see each other again. If a child was conceived, however, a marriage would take place no matter what.

8. Culture • Food: • Pork was the main meat staple, with vegetables added in forms of stews of pot roast. • Beer was the main beverage. • Leisure time: • The lower class did not have time to do much other than work, but they played games such as billiards, draughts, dominoes, and whist. • The upper class had more leisure time because they did not have to work as much, and so could socialize more often. • Receipt for a Battalia Pie • “Take four small chickens, and squab pigeons, four suckling rabbits, cut them in pieces, and season them with savory spice, lay them in the pie, with four sweetbreads sliced, as many sheeps tongues and shivered palates, two pair of lambs stones, twenty or thirty cockscombs, with savory balls and oysters; lay on butter, and close the pie with a lear.” • Susannah Carter, The Frugal Housewife

9. Clothing • Clothes: • Woman of the working class wore long dresses that allowed the greatest mobility. Hats and aprons were almost always worn. Rich ladies would have the same basic design, but would be more complex with decoration and color. • Working men wore breeches and a leather doublet, leather being cheap and durable protection. Rich men, again, had more ornate clothes. • Wigs were very common. The styles varied during the time period.

10. Works Cited • “Letter to William Pond, A Letter to Father and Mother.”Swarthmore.edu. 15 March 1631. Web. 18 November 2010.<http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/17-pon.html> • William Phips. “Two Letters of Governor William Phips.” Law.umkc.edu. University of Missouri-Kansas City.1692-1693. Web. 17 November 2010.<http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASA_LETT.HTM> • “The Charter of New England:1620.” The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 1620. Web. 17 November 2010.<http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/mass01.asp> • EyeWitness to History.com. Ibis Communications, Inc., 1997. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. • Archiving Early America. Ed. Don Vitale. 1996. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.