Chapter 3

Putting Down Roots: Opportunity and Oppression in Colonial Society

“Families in an Atlantic Empire”

 The Witherspoons traveled to South Carolina and were shocked at the disarray of the
land
 Early colonial families lived in large communities
 All colonies were different based on their needs
 England starts to try to transform the new world provinces into a new empire

“Source of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century”

 Depending on the colony, the people had harder times adjusting to the new life they
were given.

“Immigrant Families and New Social Order”

 Early new Englanders believed God ordained the family for human benefit
 New Englanders had crossed the Atlantic with their families
 The ratio of men to women had always been fairly balanced

“Commonwealth of Families”

 Young men and woman were expected to marry and start a job on their land
 Early American farmers were not self sufficient
 New England communities were often communities of large families
 Schools were started in towns with more than 11 families in them
 Yale and Harvard are both made

“Women’s Lives in Puritan New England”

 Women were almost treated as men’s equal, not doing the same jobs but doing the
same amount of work
 Women joined churches more than men
 Divorce was very hard to come by

“Social Hierarchy in New England”

 Colonies attracted neither noblemen nor paupers

 Many people who were successful were given roles of leadership in the community
 Most northern colonists were independent farmers (yeomen)
 Few became rich, but even fewer fell into debt
 Children were often apprentices to another family
“The Challenge of the Chesapeake Environment”

 Virginia and Maryland were very different from New England

 Chesapeake had a much higher death rate

“Family Life at Risk”

 People came to Chesapeake as individuals, not families

 Ratio of males to females was 6 to 1 in 1640 but dropped to 2 ½ to 1 by the end of the
century
 Most immigrants died soon after arriving
 Marriages were very unhealthy

“The Structure of Planter Society”

 Tobacco was a staple of the Chesapeake

 Wealthy aristocrats controlled the tobacco trade, hiring slaves
 Most men arrived as indentured servants
 Rich became richer and formed a distinct ruling elite that newcomers found increasingly
difficult to enter
 Education wasn’t present, half of the children didn’t live to adulthood

“Race and Freedom in British America”

 Many people who landed in the colonies had no desire to come to the new world
 These people were Africans taken as slaves
 European planters were demanding even more work laborers

“Roots of Slavery”

 Carried 11 million blacks to America

 The Americans saw that slavery worked in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies
 Africans first landed in Virginia in 1619 as a cargo stolen by a Dutch trader from a
Spanish merchant ship
 Racism sets it roots, blacks were slaves solely because they were black
 Even conversion to Christianity didn’t save these people

“A Free Black Planter on Pungoteague Creek”

 Anthony arrived in Virginia in 1621 and faced terrible conditions

 He escaped slavery in the 1630s through self-purchase
 Then started a farm on the Pungoteague Creek
 He went on to have an extremely successful farm
“Constructing African American Identities”

 Daily life for a black person was very different from white people
 60 percent of the South Carolina lowland population was black
 40 percent in Virginia, 8 percent in Pennsylvania, and 3 percent in Massachusetts
 Blacks held onto their languages, but many were forced to speak English

“Rise of a Commercial Empire”

 English political leaders ignored the American colonists

 English monarchy begins to put regulations on the colonies

“Response to Economic Competition”

 The dominant commercial powers of Europe adopted economic principles that later
critics would term mercantilism
 One nation’s success, meant another’s loss
 The needs of several powerful interest groups led to the rise of English commercial
regulation
 The king wanted money, increase exports, decrease imports.

“Regulating Colonial Trade”

 Navigation act in 1660 – No ship could trade in the colonies unless it had been
constructed in either England or American and carried a crew that was at least 75
percent English.
 And it also said that certain enumerated goods of great value that were not produced in
England, could be transported from the colonies only to an English or another colonial
port.
 Staple Act – Nothing could be imported to America unless it had first been transshipped
through England.
 The staple act greatly increased the price of goods sold to the colonists
 Navigation act in 1673 – Sum of money equal to normal English customs duties to be
collected on enumerated products at the various colonial ports
 New Englanders could sail wherever they want in the empire but could not escape
paying customs
 Customs service didn’t have enough effective agents in American ports to enforce the
Navigation Acts fully
 Act of 1696 – Expanded the American customs service and set up vice-admiralty courts
in the colonies
 By 1700, American goods accounted for a quarter of all English exports
 Smuggling from Europe to America dried up completely during the 18 th century
“Colonial Factions Spark Political Revolt, 1676 – 1691”

 Navigation Acts created an illusion of unity

 This sparked rebellion
 Virginians rebelled, then through Maryland, New York, and Massachusetts Bay

“Civil War in Virginia: Bacon’s Rebellion”

 After 1660, the Virginia economy suffered a prolonged depression

 Navigations Act greatly reduced profits
 Nathaniel Bacon – entered Virginia in 1674, Bacon wanted to start a fur company but
was turned down. After an attack from some Indians, Bacon pushed for a defensive wall
to protect themselves against the Indians, the government refused. Bacon ultimately
then rebelled against the government.
 When Charles II learned of the fighting, he sent 1000 English troops to Jamestown, but
when they arrived, Berkeley had everything under control
 Bacon then died of an illness, and his band of rebels soon dispersed
 Berkeley was then recalled to England in 1677

“The Glorious Revolution in the Bay Colony”

 After 1660, it was hard for Puritans to think that they were a separate state
 They were constantly demanded to fully comply with the Navigation Acts
 Many bay leaders were divided
 In 1675, Metacomet, a Wampanoag chief declared war against the colonists.
 The Narragansett Indians joined the Metacomet, and in a year of fighting, the Indians
destroyed scores of frontier villages, killed hundreds of colonist, and disrupted the
entire regional economy
 The war left the people of Massachusetts deeply in debt
 In 1684, The Court of Chancery annulled the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company
 James II makes the Dominion of New England, incorporating Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Plymouth, New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire under
a single appointed governor
 James appointed Edmund Andros, who was comparable to the Roman tyrant Nero
 Glorious Revolution – The ruling class of England overthrows James II and placed his
Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange, on the throne as joint
monarchs
 William and Mary accepted the Bill of Rights and immediately the Bay colonists
overthrew Andros, and William and Mary gave the colonists a royal charter for
Massachusetts
“Contagion of Witchcraft”

 The terror in Salem Village began in late 1691, when several adolescent girls began to
behave in strange ways
 These girls blamed the fits on witches
 Court hanged nineteen people
 The scare eventually ended, and everything returned to normal

“The Glorious Revolution in New York and Maryland”

 Divisions within New York’s ruling class ran deep and involved ethnic as well as religious
differences
 Much like Bacon, Jacob Leisler led the rebellion against the ruling Dutch
 His rebellion was not successful, he was executed by the new royal governor Henry
Sloughter
 Colony Maryland was thrown into political turmoil as well
 John Coode, formed a group called the Protestant Association, which caused William
Joseph to resign as governor of Baltimore

“Conclusion: Local Aspirations within an Atlantic Empire”

 Rulers living more than three thousand miles away now made political and economic
demands
 The elements that sparked a powerful sense of nationalism among colonists dispersed
over a huge territory would not be evident for a very long time
 The coming of a revolution seemed impossible

“Witches and the Law: A Problem of Evidence in 1692”

 The events of Salem village still haunt the minds of many to this day
 It’s scary to think that good men and women fell into such chaos and judicial turmoil
 Puritans had always believed in witches and brought that belief with them to America
 There had been witchcraft charges before Salem
 Began in mid-january 1692
 People who went against normal customs were considered to be witches
 Originally, the court was full of fair, educated men but they all soon fell into the frenzy
 Many people were charged with ridiculous accounts of evidence of witchcraft
 After the trials ended, witch hunters turned into confessors
 What triggered the events still remain unknown