COLONIAL SOCIETY Family Social Order and Religion Sources

COLONIAL SOCIETY: Family, Social Order, and Religion

Sources of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century • New Englanders replicated traditional English social order • Contrasted with experience in other English colonies • Explanation lies in development of Puritan families

Immigrant Families and New Social Order • Puritans believed God ordained the family to prevent temptation outside the family • Reproduce patriarchal English family structure in New England • Greater longevity in New England results in “invention” of grandparents • Multigenerational families strengthen social stability

Commonwealth of Families • Most New Englanders married neighbors of whom parents approved; chose “godly” partners • Education provided by the family • Towns of families, not of individuals • New England families did not need indentured servants

Women’s Lives in Puritan New England • Women not legally equal with men • Marriages based on mutual love • Most Women contributed to society as – – – wives and mothers church members small-scale farmers • Women accommodated themselves to roles they believed God ordained

Women’s Roles • Women cooked, • washed, made clothes, milked the cows, and gardened day in and day out “deputy husbands” – there was both dependency and independence

Social Hierarchy in New England • Absence of very rich necessitates creation of new social order (neither rich nor poor) • New England social order becomes -leader not based on wealth but other criteria - much greater social mobility than in England

The Challenge of the Chesapeake Environment • Imbalanced sex ratio among immigrants • High death rate • Scattered population

Family Life at Risk • Normal family life impossible in Virginia – – – mostly young male indentured servants most immigrants soon died in marriages, one spouse often died within a decade • Serial marriages, extended families common • Orphaned children raised by strangers

Women in Chesapeake Society • Scarcity gives some women bargaining power in marriage market • Women without family protection vulnerable to sexual exploitation • Childbearing extremely dangerous • Chesapeake women died 20 years earlier than women in New England

The Structure of Planter Society: The Gentry • Tobacco the basis of Chesapeake wealth • Early gentry become stable ruling elite by 1700

The Structure of Planter Society: The Freemen • The largest class in Chesapeake society • Most freed at the end of indenture • Live on the edge of poverty

The Structure of Planter Society: Indentured Servants • Servitude a temporary status • Conditions harsh • Servants regard their bondage as slavery

The Structure of Planter Society: Post-1680 s Stability • Gentry ranks open to people with capital before • • 1680, no matter reputation or social standing Demographic shift (life expectancy increased)after 1680 creates creole(born in America) elite Shift adds stability/legitimacy to colony Ownership of slaves consolidates planter wealth and position Freemen find advancement more difficult

The Structure of Planter Society: A Dispersed Population • Large-scale tobacco cultivation requires – – great landholdings ready access to water-borne commerce • Result: population dispersed along great tidal rivers • Virginia a rural society devoid of towns • Dispersion results in lack of institutions, like schools

Rise of a Commercial Empire • English leaders ignore colonies until 1650 s (Salutary Neglect) • Navigation Acts passed to regulate, protect, glean revenue from commerce

Regulating Colonial Trade: The Navigation Act of 1660 • Most important law passed by the Crown prior to • the American Revolution Ships engage in English colonial trade – – must be made in England (or America) must carry a crew at least 75% English • Enumerated goods only to English ports – – 1660 list included tobacco, sugar, cotton, indigo, dyes, ginger Pay tariff at port, England makes money, colonists lose money (initially)

Regulating Colonial Trade: The Navigation Act of 1663 • Goods shipped to English colonies must pass through England • Increased price paid by colonial consumers because colonists had to pay the duties added on in the English port.

Results of 1663 Act 1. Encouraged 2. domestic shipbuilding Prohibited European rivals from getting these enumerated goods anywhere else but England

Regulating Colonial Trade: Implementing the Acts • New England merchants skirt laws • English revisions tighten loopholes – governors now responsible to keep other countries out of ports • 1696 --Board of Trade created(to enforce) • Navigation Acts eventually benefit colonial merchants because 25% of all England’s needs come from American Colonies.

Civil War in Virginia: Bacon's Rebellion • Nathaniel Bacon leads rebellion, 1676 • Rebellion allows small farmers, blacks and • • • women to join, demand reforms Governor William Berkeley regains control Rebellion collapses after Bacon’s death Gentry recovers positions, unite over next decades to oppose royal governors

COMMON EXPERIENCES, SEPARATE CULTURES

Growth and Diversity • 1700 -1750 – colonial population rises from 250, 000 to over two million • Much growth through natural increase • Large influx of non-English Europeans, especially African, Scotch-Irish, and Germans