Download Society and Culture in Provincial America

CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
FALL 2011 - NYCCT
HISTORY 1110:
U.S. HISTORY
TO 1877
SECTIONS 6750 & 6752
BRENDAN O’MALLEY,
INSTRUCTOR
BO’[email protected]
Governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire by John Singleton Copley, 1769
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
Provincial America (1600s – 1700s)
 By “provincial” we mean “colonial”—the individual colonies were called




“provinces” rather than “states,” just as in Canada.
While some colonists had come to escape English persecution—particularly
religious persecution—most colonists still self-identified as Englishmen.
The provinces themselves were diverging from the mother country just by
virtue of the physical environment of the New World and by their openness to
accepting diverse immigrants: Scottish, Irish, Dutch, German, Spanish, etc.
The importation of slaves and the contact with Native American populations
also contributed significantly to making colonial life diverge regular from
English life.
Colonial societies in different regions were also growing in ways that are wildly
divergent from each other, not just the mother country.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Colonial Population: Indentured Servitude
 After a shaky beginning, the non-Indian population along the Atlantic Coast—




including white and African slaves—greatly outnumbered the natives by the end
of the seventeen century (1600s).
Dominant among the early settlers were English laborers. In the Chesapeake,
three-fourths of all arrivals were indentured servants.
In the 1670s, a decrease in birth rate and bettering economic conditions in
England lessened the influx of indentured servants.
Some indentured servants settled in as artisans or farmers; some women
married propertied men. But many men found themselves unpropertied and
rootless, a source of potential social unrest.
Indentured servants that did come during and after the 1670s tended to avoid
the southern colonies, thus landowners in the Chesapeake increasingly turned
to African slave labor.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
European Settlements by 1700
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Colonial Population: Birth and Death
 Early on, immigration was the most important source of population
increase in the 1600s, but overall, reproduction overtook it, although at
different rates in different regions.
 After the 1650s, rates of reproduction improved significantly in the
Mid-Atlantic and New England colonies. In New England, the rate of
reproduction quadrupled since families had more children, but also
because life expectancy in New England was unusually high. Why might
this be?
 Conditions in the South were far slower to improve; in the Chesapeake
they did not reach similar levels of other regions until the mid-1700s.
Why?
 In the South, the life expectancy for men was a little over 40; for women
it was a little less. Don’t women typically live longer now? Why this
discrepancy?
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Colonial Population: Birth and Death
 In the Chesapeake of the 1600s, one in four children died in infancy




and half died before the age of twenty. Widows, widowers, and
orphans were very common features of Chesapeake society.
Population growth was substantial in the Chesapeake in the 1600s,
but mostly reliant on immigration.
Better natural increase of the population across the colonies was due
to an improved balance between the population of men and women.
In the early Chesapeake, more than 75 percent of the settlers were
male, and even in early New England, which attracted more families
from the beginning, 60 percent of the inhabitants were male in 1650.
By 1775, the non-Indian population of the colonies was over two
million.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
Non-Indian
Population
of North America,
1700 to 1780
Frame of Reference:
2010 NYC Population:
8.39 million
2010 U.S. Population:
308 million
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
Medicine in the Colonies
 High death rates among women reflect the dangers of childbirth.
 Physicians had little knowledge of infection and sterilization, and infections




contracted childbirth often killed people.
Infectious diseases carried through water or garbage were not uncommon.
The role of midwife was a common one for colonial women: assisted in births
and dispensed other medical advice.
Doctors based their understanding of the body’s health through the lens of
“humoralism”—a theory popularized by the second-century Roman physician
Galen. He believed the body was governed by four “humors”: yellow bile
(“choler”), black bile (“melancholy”), blood, and phlegm. A healthy body had all
four in a balance, and illness represented an imbalance (moods were also seen as
connected to humors).
Bleeding a patient was practiced mostly by male doctors, while midwives
tended to use laxatives and emetics (substances that induce vomiting).
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
Women and Families in the Colonies
 The smaller number of women meant that they did not remain unmarried for






long, the average women marrying at age twenty or twenty-one in the 1600s.
A married Chesapeake woman on average had a pregnancy every two years and
would have eight children if she lived long enough to do so.
Indentured servants were not allowed to marry, so many children were born
out of wedlock and made indentured servants like their mothers.
Many women were widowed since they were often quite younger than their
husbands.
New England, which had more families arriving, had a far more stable family
structures than the Chesapeake, and most men could expect to marry.
New England women married young and continued producing children into the
thirties.
New England Puritanism emphasized the importance of family, but stressed a
patriarchal structure of nearly absolute male authority.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Beginnings of Slavery in English America
 Demand for Labor in the South: From the beginning, there was a
great demand for labor always. Shipments of African slaves remained
rare until the 1650s, when a substantial commerce in slaves grew
between the southern colonies and the Caribbean.
 Atlantic Slave Trade: From the 1500s to 1800s, the trade was
responsible for forcing as many as 11 million to cross, but interestingly,
of this number only a small percentage went to North America:
50% went South America (mostly Brazil)
42% to the Caribbean Islands
5% British North America
3% to Central America and elsewhere
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Beginnings of Slavery in English America
African Population of the
British colonies, 1620 - 1780
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Beginnings of Slavery in English America
 The “Middle Passage”: African slaves were forced to endure
being packed together in chains with minimal food, water, and no
sanitation deep within the filthy hold of a ship. Those who died
during the journey were thrown overboard; sharks followed these
ships across the Atlantic. Any sign of revolt was brutally repressed.
 Surging Slave Population: In 1697, the Royal African
Company of England lost its monopoly on the slave trade, greatly
lowering prices and increasing the flow. There were roughly
25,000 slaves in English North America in 1700; by 1760, there
were roughly ten times that amount
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Beginnings of Slavery in English America
S
l
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Beginnings of Slavery in English America
Famous graphic of a Liverpool slave ship used by abolitionists; by 1750s, English ships were
being built specifically to haul a human cargo.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
The Beginnings of Slavery in English America
 Surging Slave Population: In 1697, the Royal African
Company of England lost its monopoly on the slave trade, greatly
lowering prices and increasing the flow. There were roughly
25,000 slaves in English North America in 1700; by 1760, there
were roughly ten times that amount.
 Ambiguous Legal Status: Until the late 1600s, Africans had
ambiguous legal status, often treated much like indentured
servants. Around the 1690s, slavery started to become racialized
in the law codes, so that by the early 1700s, being black and born
into slavery meant being permanently a slave.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
Changing Sources of European Immigration
 Religious Refugees: Earliest migrants from the Continent (not
English) tended to be religious refugees; French Huguenots (Calvinists)
fled France in 1685 when the Edict of Nantes, gave them protection
from persecution. Many German-speaking people fled for similar
reasons, often settling in Pennsylvania—they became known as the
“Pennsylvania Dutch.” Why?
 Scotch-Irish: Most numerous newcomers were Scotch-Irish, Scotch
Presbyterians who had settled in Northern Ireland in the early 1600s
(the province of Ulster). Scotch-Irish commonly pushed out to the
furthest Western edge of European settlement.
 Scottish and Irish: Scottish lowlanders and Irish from southern
Ireland—with some Roman Catholics—also came. Irish from the south
were not as prevalent as they would be in the 1800s.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
Migrant Groups in Colonia America ca. 1760
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
The Southern Economy
 Boom-and-Bust Tobacco Economy: Many planters became quite wealthy
growing tobacco, but in the 1600s and 1700s, supply often exceeded demand,
leading to occasional steep drops in price on the world market. The first big
drop happened in 1640, giving a shock to the Chesapeake economy.
 Rice Production: In the 1700s, the low-lying coastal areas of South Carolina
and Georgia relied on rice production. The work of rice cultivation was so hard
and unhealthy that most white laborers refused to do it, leading to a heavy
reliance on slave labor. In addition, many slaves came from rice-producing areas
of West Africa and knew how to grow the crop. They were more accustomed to
the heat and humidity than Europeans, but still found the work brutal.
 Cash-Crop Dependence: Because of southern reliance on cash crops, the
region did not develop commercial trading centers, financial and insurance
services, or the industrial enterprises of the northern colonies.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
The Northern Economy and Technological Development
 Northern Agriculture: New York, Pennsylvania, and southern New England
became the colonies’ main producer of wheat, a far less labor-intensive crop.
 Artisans and Entrepreneurs: In northern colonial towns, craftsmen and artisans
like cobblers, blacksmiths, riflemakers, cabinetmakers, silversmiths, and printers set
up shop; in certain locations, endeavors like shipbuilding took off.
 Ironworks: The first substantial ironworks in the colonies opened in Saugus,
Massachusetts, in 1640, and although it produced quality iron, it failed financially.
Over the next century, metalworks became an important part of the northern
economy, with the largest run by German immigrant Peter Hasenclever in 1764 in
northern New Jersey, which eventually employed hundreds of people.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
The Northern Economy and Technological Development
 Parliament’s Limitations: Parliament passed the Iron Act in 1750 to limit
colonial iron production; it also put limits on the production of other manufactured
goods like woolen goods and hats to prevent competition for English goods.
 Limits to Industrialization: Lack of labor supply, a small domestic market, and
inadequate transportation and energy supply prevented the same rapid
industrialization that was happening in England in the 1760s and 1770s.
 Limits to Technology: Much of colonial society lacked any real technological
resources at all; many farmers even lacked a plow, or metal pots and kettles. Poverty
was fairly widespread. The myth that colonial households were self-sufficient—
making their own clothes and candles—was not correct, as most households lacked
the molds or spinning wheels to make these items.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
The Rise of Colonial Commerce
 Obstacles to Trade: American merchants lacked the basic tools of commerce, not
having nearly any gold or silver, rudimentary financial institutions, and a paper
currency that was worthless abroad. They also had little information on supply and
demand, leading to big losses if prices dropped unexpectedly.
 Growth of Commerce: Trade nevertheless grew, mostly between the colonies
themselves and the West Indies. The colonies offered Caribbean partners rum,
agricultural products, and salted fish and meat. The islands returned sugar, molasses,
and occasionally slaves. Growing professional mercantile class emerges.
 Trans-Atlantic Trade: Trade between England, the Continent, and Africa also
took place, although not in a neat “triangular trade.” The trade routes were messier
and more complicated, managed by an emerging merchant class. Timber and furs
from the colonies reached England, but merchants also indulged in illegal trade with
the Dutch, French, and Spanish Caribbean.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
The Not Very “Triangular Trade”
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES
The Rise of Consumerism
 Class Difference: While class difference obviously existed in the 1600s, it became
more pronounced in the 1700s. The elites viewed the purchase and display of
consumer goods as a means to demonstrate their membership in the upper ranks of
society.
 Industrialization in England and Europe: Imported goods that were mass
produced in England or Europe became cheaper than fine goods crafted by hand by
artisans. Some luxury goods thus became affordable to the middle class.
 “Refinement”: The quality of your home and the possessions it contained became
associated with how “refined” an individual was: furniture, formal gardens,
wardrobes, and London magazines.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES: The Rise of Consumerism
Silver tea service crafted by Boston silversmith Paul Revere
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY
 Social Mobility: A rigid class system like the one in England did not emerge in the colonial
America. Aristocracies developed, but these were more based on control of labor rather than
land ownership, and were more unstable than the English ones.
Masters and Slaves on the Plantation
 Precarious Nature of the Plantation Economy: Planters could not control the markets,
so they were always at risk. Many got rich, but many were ruined when prices collapsed.
 Slave Culture: Slaves were able to develop their own culture on the plantation: their own
religious practices that blended Christianity with African elements, their own family
traditions and practices, and even their own language in some remote places (Geechee and
Gullah along the SC/GA coast). But they were vulnerable to white intrusion at any moment.
 Stono Rebellion: Violent slave uprisings were surprisingly rare, but on occasion they did
erupt. The largest during the colonial era happened near the Stono River in South Carolina in
Sept. 1739. A band of about 100 slaves killed over 20 whites, marching down the road with a
banner that said “liberty.” A militia tracked down the rebels and decapitated who they thought
the leaders were, putting their heads on posts as an example.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY
The Puritan Community
 Close-Knit Communities: In the early years of Puritan settlement, each resident
became a member of a “covenant” binding each individual together to the local
church and town government, which were one in the same. Families lived in houses
that were close together, with agricultural lands surrounding the housesm often
with a “Common” in the middle for grazing animals.
 Participatory Democracy: Puritan towns held an annual town meeting in which
“selectmen” were directly elected to take care of the town’s important business.
Adult males who were members of the church and should signs of being among the
“elect” predestined for salvation were the only ones allowed to participate in town
government.
 Communal Strains and Tensions
 Witchcraft
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY
The Puritan Community
 Communal Strains and Tensions: Over several generations, land in the towns
became scarce, forcing members to cultivate lands far away from the church.
Eventually younger members broke off an form their own communities.
 Witchcraft Hysteria: The close-knit, gossipy, and intensely religious
environment of small town life could produce some bizarre results, most notably
the witchcraft mania that broke out in Massachusetts in the 1690s, most famously in
Salem. New Englanders believed that Satan was a real presence in people’s lives and
accused each other of fraternizing with him. Most of those who were accused were
poorer middle-aged women with no children of their own, or women who were
widowed or single but had inherited some resources, thereby challenging the
society’s gender norms.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY: Cities
 Two Largest Ports: In the 1770s, there were Philadelphia (28,000) and New York
(25,000). Other sizeable communities included Boston (16,000), Charles Town
(12,000), and Newport
(11,000).
 Leadership: The most
prominent citizens tended
to be the wealthy merchants
who had enriched
themselves from overseas
commerce, and who put
their wealth on display in
fancy homes.
Colonial Philadelphia
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
PATTERNS OF SOCIETY: Cities
 Urban Problems: Unlike small towns and rural areas where most
American colonists lived, cities dwellers needed to set up constables,
fire protection, and systems to the support the poor.
 Information Exchange: Cities provided a place to exchange
information and for new ideas to circulate. Printers published
newspapers and books, and the taverns and coffeehouses were forums
for business and political discussions.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
AWAKENINGS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS
PATTERNS OF RELIGION
 Multiplying Denominations: The official religion of Virginia, Maryland, New
York, the Carolinas, and Georgia was the Church of England. But new Protestant
sects were constantly arising or coming over with immigrants: Dutch Reformed,
several Baptist sects, etc.
 Persistent Anti-Catholicism: Roman Catholics were too few to cause major
conflict in the 1700s—the biggest concentration was 3,000 in Maryland—but they
were nonetheless persecuted. In Maryland they lost all political rights when the
original proprietors lost control of the colony in 1691.
 Anti-Semitism: Jews only numbered no more than 2,000 through the colonial
period, but they could not hold office or vote in most places.
 Declining Piety: By the turn of the 1700s, religious piety was in decline. As early
as the 1660s, Puritan father gave “jeremiads” warning of the consequences.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
AWAKENINGS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS
The Great Awakening
 Appeal: In the 1730s and 1740s, a new evangelical movement arose.
 “New Lights” and “Old Lights”
The Enlightenment
 “Natural Law”: Thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire emphasize a faith in
human reason to figure out the world and discover “natural laws” that govern it.
Originates with the scientific discoveries of Newton, Copernicus, etc. Puts less of
an emphasis on religion in explaining how the world functions.
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
AWAKENINGS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS
Literacy and Technology
 Almanacs: Poor Richard’s Almanac
 Publick Occurrences: first colonial newspaper founded in Boston in 1639.
Education
 Growth of Public Education
 Higher Education: Harvard (1636), William and Mary (1693),Yale (1701),
King’s College/Columbia (1754), The Academy and College of Pennsylvania (U.
Penn), 1755
CHAPTER THREE
Society and Culture in Provincial America
AWAKENINGS AND ENLIGHTENMENTS
The Spread of Science
 Growing Interest
 Smallpox Innoculation
Concepts of Law and Politics
 Growth of Public Education
 Higher Education: Harvard (1636), William and Mary (1693),Yale (1701),
King’s College/Columbia (1754), The Academy and College of
Pennsylvania/University of Pennsylvania), 1755.