U.S. History Chapter 4 Notes

U.S. History Chapter 4 Notes

American Life in the Seventeenth Century (1607-1692)
1600s- Encampments morphed into real settlements.
New lifestyles formed.
Puritanism softened due to circumstances in America.
Regional differences were strengthened, although everyone was connected to Atlantic economy and Britain.
Slave labor was increasingly important in the south.
The Unhealthy Chesapeake
It was bad and short- malaria, dysentery, and typhoid caused that.
They took ten years off the life expectancy of newcomers.
Early VA and MD- half of population died before age 20.
Thus, slow population growth in the 1600s in this area.
Most immigrants were single men in teens and twenties who quickly died.
Men outnumbered women six to one in 1650 and 3 to 2 by 1700.
Fought for wives.
Families were unsuccessful- most marriages were over in seven years due to death.
Few children had two parents. No one had grandparents.
Lots of pregnancies among unmarried young girls.
Eventually they got immunity and more women came.
End of 1600s- population was growing on its own birthrate.
Eventually VA became most populous colony.
The Tobacco Economy
Tobacco grew really well there- so well people neglected corn crops for food to plant it.
Growing a lot of tobacco destroyed the soil, so people always wanted new land.
This led to conflict with Indians.
About 1.5 million pounds of tobacco were shipped out of the Chesapeake Bay by 1630s.
40 million pounds by end of century.
This led to lowered prices, which led colonists to plant even more.
Labor was necessary.
Families were slow and unreliable.
Indians died too quickly.
African slaves were too expensive.
So…indentured servants!
They would have their passages paid and would then work for four to seven years for whoever had paid their passage.
They were also usually given some land, clothes, corn, or other.
VA and MD had a headright system.
Whoever paid the passage of a laborer got fifty acres of land.
This benefitted masters, not servants.
Already well-off people became mega-landowners.
Chesapeake got 100,000 indentured servants by 1700.
They were ¾ of immigrants to region in 1600s.
It was hard but hopeful.
At first they used to get land.
Later, though, not as much land was available and so they didn’t get any.
Punishments were draconian- often service terms were extended.
Freed servants had to hire themselves out for low wages to old masters.
Frustrated Freemen and Bacon’s Rebellion
A lot of poor freemen were wandering around Chesapeake by late 1600s.
Couldn’t find land, money, or women.
The indentured servants irritated the established planters.
1670- VA assembly disenfranchised them because they ‘didn’t have any stake in the country’.
1676- Bacon’s Rebellion:
Young planter Nathaniel Bacon led a thousand Virginians in a rebellion.
It was mostly frontiersmen forced away to find arable land.
They didn’t like Governor William Berkeley’s friendly policies towards Indians.
He was friendly towards them because he monopolized their fur trade.
Berkeley wouldn’t retaliate for Indian attacks on frontier settlements.
So, Bacon’s Rebellion people killed a bunch of Indians, and chased Berkeley from Jamestown.
They lit up the capital and chaos began.
But…Bacon and some friends died of disease, so Berkeley came back and crushed rebellion.
Berkeley killed a bunch of them.
(Charles II didn’t like that very much.)
Even after rebellion was suppressed, it was still tense.
Planters decided to look for some less troublesome workers.
Colonial Slavery
Three centuries after Columbus- 10 million African slaves were brought to new world.
Only about 400,000 were brought to North America, mostly after 1700.
(Most went to South America or the West Indies.)
Africans went to Jamestown as early 1619, but were only about 2000 in VA by 1670.
They were only about 7% of 500,000 in the southern colonies.
Colonists couldn’t afford slaves who often died fast.
1680s- Change.
Wages rose in England, so not as many were willing to leave.
Planters were getting scared of rebellious freed indentured servants.
Mid-1680s- black slaves outnumber white servants in arrivals for the first time.
1698- The Royal African Company (circa 1672) has its monopoly taken.
Rhode Islanders then rushed to become slave traders.
As a result, there were a lot more slaves.
More than 10,000 in first decade of 1700s.
By 1750, blacks were half of VA.
They were 2/3 of SC.
Most of slaves came from the west coast of Africa- mostly Senegal to Angola.
They had been captured by African coastal tribes who then traded them to foreign merchants.
The slaves were put on awful ships (death rates up to 20%) and then put up for auction.
Some of the earliest Africans became free, but then white colonists saw their increasing numbers as a threat.
At first, laws relating to slaves were unclear.
1662- In VA, first statutes appear that defined conditions of slavery.
Blacks and children were property (chattels) for life to masters.
In some colonies it was a crime to teach a slave to read or write.
Conversion to Christianity didn’t even exempt them.
What started as an economic venture turned into something based on racial prejudice.
Africans in America
Slave conditions were really bad in the Deep South.
Labor was hard and the climate was bad.
More slaves had to be imported to keep up with the death rates.
It was a little bit easier in the Chesapeake area.
Tobacco was easier than rice and indigo.
Tobacco plantations were large and close together, so slaves could have interactions with each other.
1720- More slave females, so families became possible.
This was one of the few slave societies to perpetuate through reproduction.
Slaves formed a new culture.
Islands off of SC, slaves made a new language, Gullah.
English was blended with some African languages.
Slaves brought new words into English, as well as dances and music (like jazz and banjos).
Some slaves became artisans, but most just did the hard labor that built the country.
1712- There was a slave revolt in NYC, which killed some whites and caused blacks death sentences.
1739- Stono Rebellion- some SC blacks revolted and tried to march to Florida but were stopped by militia.
Still, slaves were easier than the rebellious indentured servants.
Southern Society
The more slavery, the greater the gaps in the Southern social structure.
The defined hierarchy of the 1700s:
Top: mega-planters with tons of slaves and land- they had all economic and political power.
Some big clans (Fitzhughs, the Lees, the Washingtons) had most of VA.
They ran the House of Burgesses.
They were the ‘First Families of Virginia’.
Note: they weren’t all English aristocrats.
They did some refined English things, but mostly were hardworking business people.
It was hard to keep track of all of the servants.
Far below them: the small farmers (the largest social group).
They had small farms with one or two slaves and just subsisted.
Lower: the landless whites- a lot of former indentured servants.
Lower: some indentured servants still in their terms.
Lowest: Black slaves.
There weren’t many cities in the south.
Thus, there weren’t really any ‘urban professionals’.
Plantations were the center of society, with waterways for transportation.
Roads were really bad. (That’s why the south had family burial plots.)
The New England Family
It was much better in the north.
Water was clean, it was colder, so less disease.
They added ten years instead of losing it.
Life expectancy was around 70 years!
They migrated as families, so the family remained important. Populations grew naturally.
Early marriage was common, and childbirth was practically constant.
Women got worn down and wives often died and were replaced.
Usually up to 10 pregnancies with 8 surviving children.
Child-rearing was the full-time occupation of New England women.
Families were stable and taught children obedience.
There were actual grandparents!
Premarital pregnancy rates were low.
Southern Women:
Because families in the South were fragile, women got more economic security.
They got more property rights- they could have separate title to their property and could inherit their husband’s estates if widowed.
New England Women:
The government didn’t want to undermine marriages, so women didn’t have property rights.
But- widows did have property rights and women had protections in marriage.
Government did try to stop domestic abuse.
Midwifes were basically all women.
Divorce was very rare, and the government made separated couples unite.
Only abandonment and adultery were grounds for divorce.
Female adulterers were whipped and had to wear ‘A’ on their clothing for ever.
Life in the New England Towns
Villages and farms were the center of New England life.
Geography and Indians anchored people into place.
Puritanism also brought people together.
Growth was more orderly than it was in the south.
New towns were legally chartered by authorities.
Distribution of land was entrusted to proprietors (town fathers).
Most towns had a meetinghouse (for worship and town hall), and a place for militia.
Families then got some land- a woodlot for fuel, place for crops, and a place for animals.
Towns with more than 50 families had to provide elementary education.
1636- Harvard was made by MA Puritans.
It was for training boys for the ministry.
Democracy in Congregational Church Government and in the political government.
Town meetings- adult males met and voted.
They elected officials, schoolmasters, and did other things.
The Half-Way Covenant and the Salem Witch Trials
Lots of population growth was pushing Puritans outwards, away from the reach of the Church.
People were becoming less religious over time.
Jeremiads got popular- speeches scolding churchgoers for increasing secularism.
There was a decline in conversions.
1662- to combat this, ministers made the Half-Way Covenant:
Unconverted children of existing members would be given baptism but not full communion.
The Puritans became less spiritually pure for the sake of participation.
After this, there were more women in the church than men.
Salem Witch Trials:
1692- Some adolescent girls in Salem, MA, accused a bunch of older women of bewitching them.
Then there was a witch hunt and 20 were hanged.
Witch hunts were common in Europe and a few had occurred in the colonies.
But the Salem Witch Trials were spurred by social conditions:
Accused witches were involved in the new market economy.
Accusers came from subsistence farming families.
Puritans were afraid of commercialism.
1693- They came to an end because the girls accused the governor’s wife.
He stopped the trials and let the remaining accused free.
The New England Way of Life
It was really hard to grow crops in the rocky soil, so people were frugal.
Yankee traders were common- many of them sold nutmeg.
There was little ethnic diversity because no one wanted to come there.
Summers were too hot, winters were too cold.
But eventually, some agriculture and industry formed.
Tobacco wouldn’t grow, blacks weren’t useful, and no one wanted to go inland.
Native Americans had made trails for hunting and had burned forests, but didn’t know what ‘owning’ was.
The settlers laughed at this.
They cleared woodlands, built roads, and made settlements.
Livestock introduction led to changes:
They needed more land and they ended up causing erosion and flooding.
Harbors were very important.
Shipbuilding and commerce, as well as codfish.
New Englanders were generally stubborn, resourceful, self-reliant, and self-righteous.
They thought they were the best society ever.
The Early Settler’s Ways and Days
Seasons ruled the colonists’ lives because of when they had to plant.
They worked often from dawn to dusk.
Women everywhere wove, cooked, cleaned, and raised children.
Men cleared land, planted, and cut firewood.
Children helped and tried to get schooling.
Life- humble but comfortable. Much more affluent than in Europe.
Most immigrants weren’t rich or super poor- they were in the middle class.
The tough conditions made class distinctions less important.
But they still led to some rebellions- MD Protestants had uprising at end of 1600s.
Leisler’s rebellion- in NYC from 1689-1691 between merchants and landowners.
It was hard for the government to enforce class distinctions.