Life in the English Colonies

1. Life in the English Colonies Chapter 9 Mrs. Christman

3. Lesson 1 • Overview: In the 1700s, the population of the English colonies grew as Europeans came to find a better life and Africans were enslaved. • Lesson Objectives: *Analyze why Europeans came to the English colonies. *Distinguish between indentured servants and enslaved captives.

4. Why They Came • Beginning in the 1600s, many Europeans came to the English colonies seeking a better life for themselves. • The Pilgrims and the Puritans came seeking religious freedom. Others came in search of wealth.

6. Freedom and Opportunity • The voyage to the English Colonies was dangerous and uncomfortable. • The people suffered many hardships including sickness and death from overcrowded ships, rotten food, and bad water. • Cheap land, more jobs, and religious freedom made the hardships of the trip worthwhile.

7. Indentured Servants • Many Europeans paid their passage to the colonies by becoming indentured servants. • Out of every five colonists who came to Maryland and Virginia, four came as servants.

8. The Slave Trade • By 1750 over 250,00 people had come to the Southern Colonies as slaves. • Farmers could not hire enough workers to tend their crops. Instead, they bought captives from the slave trade in Africa. • A slave trade is the business of buying and selling people for profit.

9. Colony Fever • The colonies grew slowly at first but after 1700, began to grow rapidly. • The population more than tripled between 1720 and 1760. • The English government passed laws forbidding people to leave the country. Yet they still came to the colonies . • Many Europeans sold everything they had to pay for the trip, others became servants.

11. Lesson 2 • Overview: As people in each group of colonies developed profitable industries from local resources, they began to resent English control of their trade. • Lesson Objectives: *Analyze the English control of colonial trade. *Explain the growth of the colonial economy in each region. *Analyze triangular trade in the 1700s.

12. The Colonial Economy • In the 1700s, agriculture, or the business of farming, was the major way of life in the English colonies. • Some farmers were so successful that they had surplus crops to sell. • English merchants were able to buy colonial goods at low prices and sell them to other countries at higher prices. • By selling crops and other products, colonists were following a system of free enterprise. • In a free enterprise system, people can start any business they want.

13. Southern Colonies • Each region of the colonies had different natural resources. • In the early 1700s, farmers in the Southern Colonies exported tobacco, rice, and indigo to England. • In 1744, a young woman named Elizabeth Lucas Pinckney managed three farms in South Carolina; she succeeded in growing indigo. • English merchants needed the blue dye from the indigo plant for their huge cloth-making businesses. Indigo quickly became a major cash crop of the Southern Colonies.

14. Middle Colonies • The Middle Colonies grew so much wheat and corn that people called their region the “breadbasket of the colonies.” • They sold their surplus grain to the West Indies. • The West Indian planters needed to import grain to feed their enslaved workers

15. New Englanders and The Sea • In New England , farmers barely grew enough crops to feed themselves. As a result, colonist turned to the sea to make a living. • Because English ships were so expensive and the Colonists had a large supply of wood, the Colonists built their own ships to support their fishing fleet. • New Englanders sold their fish to Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies. • Fishing and shipbuilding were the made industries in New England. An industry is all the businesses that made one kind of product or provide one kind of service. • By 1741,the New England fishing fleet had 800 boats.

17. The Triangular Trade • The triangular trade were colonial routes between Boston or New York, Africa, and the West Indies. • There were three legs (routes) of the triangle. The first leg started at Boston or New York and sailed to West Africa, where they traded rum and guns for gold, ivory, and captive Africans. • The second leg of the triangle began in Africa and traveled to the West Indies. They exchanged African people for molasses, a thick syrup made from sugarcane. This part of the voyage was called the Middle Passage because it was the middle part of the triangular trade route. • The third leg was from West Indies back to New England. The sea captains took the molasses to New England where it was made into rum.

19. Lesson 3 • Overview: Although practiced in all the colonies, slavery was most common in the South, where African captives endured severe restrictions and were forced into hard labor. • Lesson Objectives: *Evaluate the effect of slave codes on the lives of African captives *Analyze how the plantation system affected the development of slavery.

20. Slavery in the Colonies • Overview: Although practiced in all the colonies, slavery was most common in the South, where African captives endured severe restrictions and were forced into hard labor. • Lesson Objectives: *Evaluate the effect of slave codes on the lives of African captives *Analyze how the plantation system affected the development of slavery.

21. Slavery in the Colonies • Slavery was practiced throughout North America and in the English colonies. But most enslaved people worked on large plantation in the Southern Colonies. • The Native Americans, Europeans, and Asians practiced slavery before the 1500s. • Before the 1500s, most slaves were prisoners of war.

22. Slavery in the English Colonies • Most enslaved Africans in the North worked as servants or skilled workers side-by-side with their owners. • The greatest number of enslaved men and women worked in the south on plantations.

23. Slave codes • The slave codes were rules that stripped away from captives many of the rights that most free people enjoyed. • Under the slave codes, for example, enslaved people were not allowed to practice their own religion, learn to read, marry, or own property.

25. Plantations • A plantations was like a small village. • The center of the plantations was the planter’s home, the big house. The slave cabins surrounded the “big house”. • Work on the farm was supervised by the overseers.

27. The Slave’s Life • Field slaves planted and harvested crops. They also took care of animals, cooked, cleaned, and repaired tools. • Skilled workers made furniture, shoes, or glass; Some were carpenters who constructed buildings.

28. The Plantation at Night • At night, the captives did their own chores, such as feeding animals, cut firewood, tended gardens, and cooked supper. • When they had free time, they sang songs, talked, and told stories. • Secret meetings were sometimes held to plan escapes, and learn to read and write.

29. Struggling Against Slavery • African captives rebelled against slavery in many ways. Some expressed their anger by refusing to work, working slowly, breaking tools, and escaping. • Their strong family ties kept many from giving up hope.