Chapter 5: Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution 1700-1775

Intro:

• Britain had 32 colonies, including Canada, Jamaica, and the Floridas.
• The 13 "American" colonies revolted for independence for certain reasons...

Conquest by the Cradle:

• Population growth - black slaves, white immigrants, having kids like crazy! Average age was 16.
• America population was catching up with England - slow power shift.
• Most populous colonies: Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Maryland.
• 90% lived in rural areas

A Mingling of the Races:

• 6% German (fleeing religious persecution, economic depression). Protestants, "Pennsylvania Dutch"
• 7% Scots-Irish (fled economic depression). Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas. "Great wagon road." Fought w/ Indians. March of the Paxton Boys on Philadelphia - protested Quaker's leniency towards Indians.
• 5% French Huguenots, Welsh, Dutch, Swedes, Jews, Irish, Swiss and Scots Highlanders.
• 20% African
• South: black-white, North: Puritan, least diversity, Middle: white immigrants

The Structure of Colonial Society:

• Most people small farmers - not difficult to ride social ladder
• Rich elite in New England - 10% of Bostonians and Philadelphians owned 2/3 of taxable wealth in their cities
• Some, but few, destitute - almshouses. Homeless people had to wear P on their clothes.
• Plantation and slave-owners became rich, gap widened -> indentured servants
• "Jayle birds" 50,000 shipped to America - riffraff (paupers and convicts)
• Black slaves - colonists feared slave revolts - wanted to slow slave trade - British vetoed.

The Scots-Irish:

• Scottish lowlands -> Northern Ireland -> New world
• 1600s - poverty in the Scottish lowlands.
• Most came to Pennsylvania (religious tolerance and abundant land)
• Backcountry of Virginia, Carolinas, Georgia
• Presbyterian - churches - against Anglicans

Clerics, Physicians, and Jurists:

• Christian ministry: most honored profession
• Physicians - poorly trained and not highly esteemed
• Epidemics - smallpox (powdered dried toad was treatment!) - Diphtheria
• Lawyers not esteemed (drunkards, noisy windbags)

Workaday America:

• Agriculture - 90% of people
• South Chesapeake area: tobacco and now wheat
• Middle - "breadbasket" grain!
• New England: fishing (and whaling)
• Commerce: New england - molasses for rum. Gold Coast Africa - rum for slaves. West Indies - slaves for molasses.
• Skilled craftspeople highly prized
• Lumbering - most important manufacturing activity
• Made ship parts for British navy - trade imbalance with Britain - seeking foreign markets.
• Traded w/ France and West Indies => Molasses Act - squelch trade with French West Indies => bribing and smuggling.

Horsepower and Sailpower:

• No roads until the 1700s - dirt roads -travel very slow
• Waterways more useful
• Taverns - all social classes would mingle
• Intercolonial postal system

Dominant Denominations:

• 2 tax-supported churches: Anglican and Congregational
• Church of England official faith in Georgia and N&S Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, part of NY. - church softened.
• Congregational (=> Puritans) New England. Rebels.
• Religious toleration for the most part - few Catholics - they were discriminated.

The Great Awakening:

• Religion cooled down - droning preachers - more liberal about congregations - new ideas like Arminians (free will, not predestination).
• The Great Awakening: 1730s and 1740s: Pastor Jonathan Edwards (God's grace, not good works). Passion for religion. Hell, hell, HELL!
• George Whitefield: amazing orator. Preached spiritual awakening and human helpfulness, excited people!
• Emotion in religion: "new light" - Baptist churches
• Schisms set off

Schools and Colleges:

• English tradition was that education was for male aristocrats.
• New England most interested in education. Religious reasons (individuals should read the Bible).
• Cambridge in England = the best. New England: some primary and secondary schools.
• South: population spread out, public schools hard. Wealthy=> private tutors.
• Education religious, not logical. Severe punishment.
• 9 colleges in the colonies: religious -> slowly moved towards important stuff.
• Ben Franklin -> U of Penn (nonreligious)

A Provincial Culture:

• No time for the arts
• John Trumbull - painter, CT
• Charles Wilson Peale - museum, portraits of G. Washington
• Benjamin West and John Singleton Copely - famous painters, but had to go to England to study.
• Architecture - slightly altered from Old World. Red-bricked Georgia style from VA.
• Phillis Wheatly: former slave, wrote book of poetry
• Ben Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanack - 2nd most read to the Bible in America
• Science - slow -Ben Franklin - kite lightning, bifocal spectacles.

Pioneer Presses:

• Ben Franklin - first library
• Hand-operated printing presses - pamphlets, newspapers
• John Peter Zenger: newspaper printer. 1734-35: accused royal governer of NY "seditious libel." Lawyer Andrew Hamilton. Not guilty! Steps beginning freedom of the press.

The Great Game of Politics:

• 8 colonies under royal governers, 3 (MD, PA, DE) under proprietors, 2 (CT, RI) under their own elected governors.
• 2-house legislation, upper house =royal. lower house = elected by people.
• Self-taxation
• Lord Cornbury - English gov of NY and NJ - drunkard and fool.
• Assemblies would hold Governor's salaries until he succumbed to their wishes.
• London government - poor administration
• south: county government
• New England: town-meetings
• Middle: modification of the two
• Religious and property qualifications for voting
• Much more democratic than England/Europe, but not a democracy yet.