Colonial American Lifestyle

1. Colonial American Lifestyle AP U.S. History

2. Colonial Religion • New England • Dominated by Puritan/Congregationalist • Religious conformity • Middle Colonies • Diverse population of churches • “We find there Lutherans, Reformed, Catholics, Quakers, Menonists or Anabaptists, Herrnhuters or Moravian Brethren, Pietists, Seventh Day Baptists, Dunkers, Presbyterians, . . . Jews, Mohammedans, Pagans.” – visitor to Pennsylvania (1750) • Religious toleration • Southern Colonies • Dominated by Anglican Church

3. New England and Religion • Calvinist inspiration • Congregationalist • Predestination and “the elect” • John Cotton • Antinomianism • Covenant of grace • Cotton Mather • Defended Puritanism • Believed in mystical influence of witchcraft, but also in scientific understanding (inoculation) • Halfway Covenant (1662) • THE ANSWER OF THE ELDERS AND OTHER MESSENGERS of the Churches, Assembled at Boston in the Year 1662, TO The Questions Propounded to them by ORDER of the Honoured GENERAL COURT. • Quest, 1. WHo are the Subjects of Baptism? • Answ: The Answer may be given in the fol­lowing propositions, briefly confirmed from the Scriptures. • 1. They that according to Scripture, are Members of the Visible Church, are the subjects of Baptisme. • 2. The Members of the Visible Church according to scrip­ture, are Confederate visible Believers, in particular Church­es, and their infant-seed, i. e. children in minority, whose next parents, one or both, are in Covenant. • 3 The Infant-seed of confederate visible Believers, are members of the same Church with their parents, and when grown up, are personally under the watch, discipline and Go­vernment of that Church. • 4 These Adult persons, are not therefore to be admitted to full Communion, meerly because they are and continue[Page 2]members, without such further qualifications, as the Word of God requireth therunto. • 5 Church-members who were admitted in minority, under­standing the Doctrine of Faith, and publickly professing their assent thereto; not scandalous in life, and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church, wherin they gave up themselves and their children to the Lord, and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in the Church, their children are to be Baptised. • 6 Such Church-members, who either by death, or some other extraordinary Providence, have been inevitably hindred from publick acting as aforesaid, yet have given the Church cause in judgment of charity, to look at them as so qualified, and such as had they been called thereunto, would have to acted, their children are to be Baptised. • 7 The members of Orthodox Churches, being sound in the Faith, and not scandalous in life, and presenting due testimo­ny thereof; these occasionally comming from one Church to another, may have their children Baptised in the Church whither they come, by virtue of communion of churches: but if they remove their habitation, they ought orderly to co­venant and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in the church where they settle their abode, and so their children to be Baptised. It being the churches duty to receive such unto communion, so farr as they are regular­ly sit for the same. • - PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING THE SUBJECT of BAPTISM AND CONSOCIATION of CHURCHES, Collected and Confirmed out of the WORD of GOD, BY A SYNOD of ELDERS ANDMESSENGERS of the CHURCHES in Massachusets-Colony in New-England. Assembled at BOSTON,according to Appointment of the Honoured GENERAL COURT, In the Year 1662. (Half-way Covenant)

4. New England and ReligionRoger Williams • The BloudyTenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience – A Plea for Religious Liberty (1644) • “[T]he faithful labors of many witnesses of Jesus Christ, extant to the world, abundantly proving that . . . when they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made His garden a wilderness, as at this day.  And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world; and that all that shall be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the world, and added unto His church or garden.” –Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, examined and Answered (1644)

5. New England and ReligionAnne Hutchinson • Antinomianism • Personal salvation and divine revelation • Prayer meetings • Led women and men • Criticized and undermined minister authority • Trial • Winthrop:You have spoken divers things as we have been informed [which are] very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex. • Hutchinson:Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women, and why do you call me to teach the court? • Hutchinson: You have no power over my body, neither can you do me any harm — for I am in the hands of the eternal Jehovah, my Saviour. I am at his appointment, the bounds of my habitation are cast in heaven, no further do I esteem of any mortal man than creatures in his hand, I fear none but the great Jehovah, which hath foretold me of these things, and I do verily believe that he will deliver me out of your hands. Therefore take heed how you proceed against me — for I know that, for this you go about to do to me, God will ruin you and your posterity and this whole state. • General Court orders her expulsion and banishment Anne Hutchinson on Trial- Edwin Abbey (1901)

6. New England and ReligionSalem Witch Trials (1691-1693) • Young women acted strangely and accused Tituba (African slave woman) and two local white women • Judges ignored ban on spectral evidence • 185 accused • 141 women; 44 men • 19 executed • 14 women; 5 men • Result of hysteria and controversial trials weakened Puritan influence and control in New England

7. First Great Awakening (1730s-1740s) • Evangelism • Born again • Bible as ultimate authority • Atonement • Spreading the “Good News” • Revivalism • Appeal to salvation rather than doctrine and governance • Appeal to emotion rather than intellect • Jonathan Edwards • Itinerant preachers • George Whitefield • Old Lights and New Lights – Debate • Old Lights - rationalists • New Lights - revivalists • Impact • Decline in Congregationalists, Quakers, Anglicans • Increase in Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists • Educational institutions • Increase in acceptance and conversion of African Americans and Native Americans • Women granted rights to speak and vote in Church George Whitefield Preaching c. 18th century

8. The First Great AwakeningJonathan Edwards • Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

9. The First Great AwakeningGeorge Whitefield • Marks of a True Conversion

10. Colonial Politics • Limited Self-Government • Elected bicameral legislative assemblies • Dominated by landed gentry and/or church leaders • Governors • Local governments • Townships in New England • County governments in Middle Colonies • Landed elite-dominated county government in Southern Colonies • Voting • Limited to adult male educated and/or property owners • Freedom of Expression • John Peter Zenger Case (1735)

11. Relations with Natives • Anglo-Powhatan Wars in Virginia • Pequot War (1636-1638) • Massacre at Mystic* • “It was a fearful sight to see them [the Pequots] thus frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they [the English] gave the praise to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.” – Governor William Bradford (1637) • New England Confederation (1643-1684) • Defense alliance among Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven • King Philip’s (Metacom) War (1675-1676) • New England Confederation defeats Wampanoag alliance • War declined Native population by 40% “These English having gotten our land, they with scythes cut down the grass, and with axes fell the trees; their cows and horses eat the grass, and their hogs spoil our clam banks, and we shall all be starved.” – Miantonomi, Narragansett sachem (1642)

12. Dominion of New England (1686-1689) Established by King James II to consolidate colonies Administrative union of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey Governor Edmund Andros Dissolution

13. Colonial Society • New England • Landowners, professionals, and merchants dominated • Middle Colonies • Dominated by wealthy merchants and small farmer class • Much more fluid • Southern Colonies • Dominated by planter class • Slavery much more prevalent • Very rigid social structure • Overall • Social Status • Landed Gentry • Professionals and Merchants • Small Farmers and Craftspeople • Hired Hands and Tenant Farmers • Indentured Servants Debtors • Slaves • 1600s Society much more opportunistic • Success of 1700s led to more concentration of wealth and more rigid class-based society

14. Colonial Gender Roles • Men • Patriarch • Responsibility for family • Fulfilled economic and political roles in society • Taught sons advanced education and trade • Women • Maintain household • Encourage morality • Submission to husbands • Taught children basic literacy • Limited political and economic roles • Subject to humiliation

15. Colonial Culture - Education • Limited to wealthy males; females learned domestic chores • Higher Education • Most established for ministry/theological studies • Law, medicine developed later • New England Colonies • Parents responsible to teach children to read Bible passages and laws (1642) • Towns with over 50 families required primary schools; over 100 families, required grammar schools (1647) • New England Primer • Middle Colonies • Private and church education • Southern Colonies • Limited education due to agricultural lifestyle

16. Colonial Literacy and Literature • Literacy • 60% literacy in New England (1650-1670) • 85% literacy in New England (1758-1762) • Literacy rates higher among merchants and urban areas compared to farmers and rural sectors • Enlightenment, Protestantism/First Great Awakening, economic success fueled desire for literacy • Literature • Newspapers • Religious sermons, political essays, non-fiction books • Poor Richard’s Almanac - Benjamin Franklin

17. Settlement and Migration • 250,000 in 1701 to 2.5 million in 1775 • Europeans and Africans along with a high birth rate • Reasons: religion; economics; political turmoil • English, Germans (Pennsylvania Dutch), Scottish, Irish, Dutch, Swedish  OLD IMMIGRANTS • Africans forced to America; suffered discrimination and slave labor

18. Colonial Slavery • Indentured servitude • Why Slaves? • Increased wages in England • Labor shortages lead to importing slaves • Cheap labor • Dependable work force • Middle Passage • Part of the Triangle Trade • Slave Rebellions and Reactions • Stono Rebellion/Cato Rebellion (1739) • New York “Conspiracy” (1741) • Slave laws

19. Print of the Slave Ship Brookes (1789)

20. Slave Demographics

21. Historiography“The Atlantic Slave Trade: Racism or Profit?” Eric Williams – Capitalism and Slavery (1944) David Eltis – Atlantic History in Global Perspective (1999) But once the wall of African resistance helped force the plantation complex across the Atlantic, it seems self-evident that the transatlantic demand for labour from the Old World was economic. What do non-economic values have to do with shaping this pattern?... The explanation for the racial exclusivity of labour regimes and the transatlantic flows that supplied the labour itself must have been that Europeans were prepared to enslave Africans or use black slaves that other Africans had deprived of their freedom, but were not prepared to subject other Europeans, even despised minorities such as Jews, Huguenots, and Irish, to the same fate. • Here, then, is the origin of Negro slavery. The reason was economic, not racial; it had to do not with the color of the laborer, but the cheapness of the labor. As compared with Indian and white labor, Negro slavery was eminently superior… This was not a theory, it was a practical conclusion deduced from the personal experience of the planter. He would have gone to the moon, if necessary, for labor. Africa was nearer than the moon, nearer too than the more populous countries of India and China. But their turn was to come.

22. Colonial Economics • Mercantilism • Colonies for the “Mother Country” • Acts of Navigation • Trade on English ships • Imports pass English ports • Exports to England • Molasses Act (1733) • Triangular Trade • Middle Passage

23. Colonial Economics • Money • Commodity money (gold/silver) • Fiat money (paper currency) • Transportation • Rivers and coasts • Horse and carriage • Taverns and postal services

24. New England Colonies Economy • Subsistence farming • Shipbuilding • Manufacturing • Lumber • Fishing and whaling • Merchants/Trade

25. Middle Colonies Economy • “Bread Basket” • Wheat • Corn • Lumber • Manufacturing • Merchants/Trade

26. Southern Colonies Economy • Cash Crops and Plantation Systems • Tobacco • Rice • Indigo • Naval stores • Forced labor • Indentured servitude • Chattel Slavery • Charleston, South Carolina