Colonial Life in 17th Century America: Challenges and Society

1. Chapter 4 American Life in the Seventeenth Century, 1607–1692

2. I. The Unhealthy Chesapeake • Life in the American wilderness • Half died before age 20 (Virginia and Maryland) • Chesapeake settlements grew slowly • Immigrants -Mostly were single men • Families were few and fragile SOCIAL HISTORY

3. II. The Tobacco Economy • Chesapeake=hospitable to tobacco cultivation • More tobacco meant more labor • England still had a “surplus” of displaced worker • Recruited some 100,000 indentured servants

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5. III. Frustrated Freemen and Bacon’s Rebellion • Freedmen (knockabouts) were frustrated • No land, no wives, no vote, Indian conflicts • (Nathaniel) Bacon’s Rebellion (1676) • Attacked all Indians • Attacked Jamestown capital • Rebellion eventually suppressed

8. IV. Colonial Slavery • 1680s mass expansion of slavery in colonies • From West Africa via the middle passage trip • “Slave codes” slaves & their children = property • Mid-1680s black slaves outnumbered whites • Racial id/discrimination key to U.S. slave system

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14. V. Africans in America • In the deepest South, slave life was severe • Nasty climate, hard labor, lonely • Chesapeake region was somewhat easier • 1712 The New York slave revolt • 1739 South Carolina slave revolt erupted

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20. VI. Southern Society • Slavery spread & social structure gaps widened • The great planters • Small farmers (largest group) • Landless whites. • Former indenturers • Few cities sprouted in the colonial South • Few passable roads • Southern life evolved around the plantations

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22. VII. The New England Family • First generations of Puritans averaged 70 years • Families established early • Women had no vote • Women had no property rights when married

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25. VIII. Life in the New England Towns • Society—based on small villages and farms • Puritanism moral health of the community • Each family got farm, pasture & wooded land • Towns required elementary education • 1636 Harvard was founded.

26. IX. The Half-Way Covenant and the Salem Witch Trials • 1662 Half-Way Covenant • Partial church membership • Open the church to all comers • The Salem Witch Trials (1692-93 ) • A group of girls claimed to have bewitched • Twenty individuals (& 2 dogs) executed • Reflected an changing social structure • Reflected widening social stratification

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30. Inspection of an Accused Witch

31. The ‘pressing’ of a witch in Salem

32. X. The New England Way of Life • Calvinism, climate and soil molded New England • Duty to “improve” the land • Traits - purposefulness, sternness, self-reliance, • Prided themselves on being God’s chosen people • New England -incalculable impact on the nation

33. XI. The Early Settlers’ Days and Ways • Overwhelming majority were colonial farmers • Frontier life was simple sameness, egalitarian • Some wanted social structure of the Old World • Leisler’s Rebellion (1689-1691) in New York • Between lordly landholders and aspiring merchants

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