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CHAPTER 5

Colonial America in the Eighteenth Century 1701–1770

CHAPTER LEARNING ANNOTATED CHAPTER OBJECTIVES OUTLINE After reading and studying this chapter, students The following annotated chapter outline will help should be able: you review the major topics covered in this chapter. • Understand how eighteenth-century colonial I. A Growing Population and Expanding population growth and economic growth were Economy in British linked. 1. British America experienced a tremendous • Explain how the market economy developed in population explosion during the eighteenth New and in what ways Puritanism was century, rising from 250,000 colonists in weakened. 1700 to over 2 million in 1770. • Discern how the population growth of the 2. The growth and diversity of the colonial middle , particularly Pennsylvania, differed population in the eighteenth century from that of and the South, including stemmed from both natural increases and the role played by immigration. immigration, which shifted the ethnic and • Recognize how the large influx of slaves into racial balance of the colonies. the shaped the region’s economy, 3. The colonial economy also expanded society, and politics. during the eighteenth century. • Identify the shared experiences that served to 4. In 1700, nearly all the colonists lived unify the culture of the disparate colonies of British within fifty miles of the Atlantic coast. North America. 5. The almost limitless wilderness stretching • Comprehend how the policies of the British westward made land relatively cheap; land provided a common framework of political used for agriculture was worthless without expectations and experiences for American colonists, labor, and with the rapidly expanding including the relations between the colonists and economy the demand for labor in the their Native American neighbors both in British colonies was high. North America and in Spanish California.

59 60 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

II. New England: From Puritan Settlers to England commerce; by 1770, the richest 5 Yankee Traders percent of Bostonians owned half of the A. Natural Increase and Land Distribution cities wealth. 1. The burgeoning New England population 5. During the eighteenth century, the grew mostly by natural increase, much as incidence of genuine poverty did not it had during the seventeenth century and change much from patterns established in soon pressed against the limited amount of the seventeenth century, with about 5 land. percent qualifying for poor relief in the 2. The perils of childbirth gave wives a eighteenth century. shorter life expectancy than husbands, but 6. People of African ancestry (almost all of wives often lived to have six, seven, or them slaves) numbered more than fifteen eight babies. thousand by 1770 and lived in towns 3. By the eighteenth century, the original where they worked as domestic servants land allotments had to be subdivided to and laborers. accommodate grandsons and great- 7. By 1700, Yankee traders had replaced grandsons, causing many plots of land to Puritan saints as the symbolic New become too small for subsistence. Englanders. 4. During the eighteenth century, colonial III. The : Immigrants, Wheat, governments in New England abandoned and Work the seventeenth-century policy of granting A. German and Scots-Irish Immigrants land to towns and sold land directly to 1. Germans made up the largest contingent individuals, including speculators. of migrants from the European continent 5. Money, rather than membership in a to the middle colonies. community bound by a church covenant, 2. German immigrants included artisans and determined whether a person could buy merchants, but the great majority of them land; settlement on individual farms meant were farmers and laborers. that colonists regulated their behavior in 3. By the 1720s, German immigrants wrote newly settled areas by their own back to their friends and relatives, individual choices and not those of a extolling the virtues of life in the New larger community. World, which encouraged yet more B. Farms, Fish, and Atlantic Trade Germans to emigrate. Similar motives 1. New England farmers grew food for their propelled the Scots-Irish to come to the families, but their fields did not produce a middle colonies. huge marketable surplus. 4. German immigrants belonged to a variety 2. As consumers, New England farmers were of Protestant churches while Scots-Irish at the forefront of a diversified were generally Presbyterians; both groups commercial economy that linked remote were clannish, residing among relatives or farms to markets throughout the world. neighbors from the old country. 3. Fish accounted for more than one-third of 5. Scots-Irish immigrants flooded British New England’s eighteenth-century North America during the decades before exports; livestock and timber made up the . another one-third; Atlantic commerce 6. Many German immigrants were forced to provided jobs for laborers, tradesmen, ship become “redemptioners,” a variant of captains, clerks, merchants and sailors. indentured servants; Scots-Irish 4. Merchants, the largest and most successful immigrants paid for their passage by of whom lived in Boston, dominated New CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 61

contracting as indentured servants before wide variety of crops to feed their families they sailed to the colonies. as well as wheat in abundance. B. “God Gives All Things to Industry”: Urban 11. Flour milling was the number one industry and Rural Labor and flour the number one export, 1. New settlers, whether free or in servitude, constituting nearly three-fourths of all poured into the middle colonies because exports from the middle colonies. they perceived unparalleled opportunities, 12. The standard of living in rural particularly in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was probably higher than in 2. Most servants in the middle colonies any other agricultural region of the worked in , , eighteenth-century world. or one of the smaller towns or villages. 13. By 1776, Philadelphia was at the center of 3. Artisans, small manufacturers, and the crossroads of trade in wheat exports shopkeepers prized the labor of male and English imports and boasted a servants; female servants made valuable population greater than any other city in additions to households, where nearly all the , except . of them cleaned, washed, cooked, or 14. Many of Philadelphia’s wealthiest mer- minded children. chants were Quakers and influenced 4. Slaves comprised a relatively small aspiring tradesmen like Benjamin percentage of the total population of the Franklin, whose popular Poor Richard’s middle colonies because only the affluent Almanack preached the likelihood of long- could afford them. term rewards for tireless labor. 5. Small numbers of slaves managed to IV. The Southern Colonies: Land of obtain their freedom, but free African A. The and the Growth of Americans did not escape whites’ firm Slavery convictions about black inferiority and 1. The number of southerners of African white supremacy; ancestry rapidly increased from just over became scapegoats for European 20,000 in 1700 to well over 400,000 in Americans’ suspicions and anxieties. 1770. 6. Immigrants swarmed to the middle colo- 2. Southern colonists clustered into two nies because of the availability of land. distinct geographic and agricultural zones: 7. Pennsylvania’s policy of negotiating with the upper South, which specialized in Indian tribes to purchase additional land growing tobacco, and the lower South, reduced violent frontier clashes even which specialized in growing rice and though the Penn family sometimes pushed indigo. such land agreements to the limit and 3. The enormous growth of the South’s slave beyond. population occurred through natural 8. Owners of the huge estates in New York’s increase and the flourishing Atlantic slave Hudson valley preferred to rent rather than trade, which subjected hundreds of sell their land, and therefore attracted thousands of Africans to the infamous fewer immigrants. Middle Passage. 9. The price of farmland varied, depending 4. In 1789, published his on soil quality, access to water, distance account of the Middle Passage and his from a market town, and the extent of experiences as a slave. improvements. 5. Most slaves who were brought into the 10. Farmers made the middle colonies the southern colonies came directly from breadbasket of North America, planting a Africa, and almost all the ships that 62 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

brought them belonged to British autonomy within the boundaries of merchants. slavery. 6. Mortality during the Middle Passage 5. In Chesapeake tobacco fields, most slaves varied considerably from ship to ship, but were subject to close supervision by on average, about 15 percent of slaves whites, while in the lower South, the task perished during the journey. system gave slaves some control over the 7. Individual planters purchased, at any one pace of their work and some discretion in time, a relatively small number of newly the use of the rest of their time. arrived Africans (called “new Negroes”) 6. Eighteenth-century slaves planted the and relied on already enslaved Africans to roots of African American lineages help acculturate or “season” new slaves to whenever possible, establishing kinships the physical as well as the cultural, and incorporating many other features of environment of the southern colonies. their West African heritage, such as diet, 8. Planters’ preferences for slaves from music and dance, and religious practices specific regions of Africa aided slaves’ in their lives on plantations. acculturation to the routines of bondage in C. Tobacco, Rice, and Prosperity the southern colonies because enough 1. The slavery system brought much wealth linguistic and cultural similarities existed to the white plantation masters, as well as that they could usually communicate with British merchants, and the monarchy. other Africans from the same region. 2. The products of slave labor made the 9. Slaves who had endured the Middle southern colonies by far the richest in Passage were poorly nourished, weak, and North America. sick; they encountered the alien diseases 3. The vast differences in wealth among of North America without having white southerners engendered envy and developed a biological arsenal of acquired occasional tension between rich and poor immunities. but remarkably little open hostility. 10. The slave population grew due to a high 4. The slaveholding gentry dominated both rate of natural increase and by the , the politics and economy of the southern the majority of southern slaves were colonies and also set the cultural country-born. standards. B. Slave Labor and African American Culture V. Unifying Experiences 1. Southern planters expected slaves to work A. Commerce and Consumption from sunup to sundown and beyond. 1. The success of eighteenth-century 2. Some slaves resisted their bondage commerce whetted the colonists’ appetite through direct physical confrontation with for consumer goods, thus supporting the the master, mistress, or an overseer. growing Atlantic trade that took colonial 3. In 1739, a group of about twenty slaves goods to markets in England and brought launched an unsuccessful rebellion at consumer goods back to the colonies. Stono, South Carolina. The rebellion 2. British exports to North America illustrated that eighteenth-century slaves multiplied eightfold between 1700 and had no chance of overturning slavery and 1770, outpacing the rate of population almost no chance at all of defending growth after mid-century; colonial debts themselves in any bold strike for freedom. soared. 4. Slaves maneuvered constantly to protect 3. Despite the many differences among the themselves and to gain a measure of colonists, the consumption of English CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 63

exports built a certain material uniformity C. Trade and Conflict in the North American across region, religion, class, and status. Borderlands 4. The rising tide of colonial consumption 1. British power defended the diverse compelled colonists to think of themselves inhabitants of colonies from Indian, as individuals who had the power to make French, and Spanish enemies on their decisions that influenced the quality of borders and from foreign powers abroad. their lives. 2. The British, French, Spanish, and Dutch B. Religion, Enlightenment, and Revival all competed for control of the North 1. Eighteenth-century colonists could choose American fur trade. Native American from almost as many religions as they tribes often took advantage of this could consumer goods. competition promising access to territory 2. The varieties of Protestant faith and and furs to both the French and English at practice ranged across an extremely broad once and these shifting alliances and spectrum. complex dynamics struck a fragile balance 3. Many educated colonists became deists, along the frontier. looking to nature for God’s plan rather 3. The threat of violence from all sides was than in the Bible. Deists shared the ideas ever present, and the threat became reality of eighteenth-century Enlightenment often enough for all parties to be prepared thinkers, who tended to agree that science for the worst. and reason could disclose God’s laws in 4. During the Yamasee War of 1715, the natural order. Yamasee and Creek Indians—with French 4. Most eighteenth-century colonists went to encouragement—mounted a coordinated church seldom or not at all, although they attack against colonial settlements in probably considered themselves South Carolina and inflicted heavy Christians. casualties. 5. The spread of religious indifference, of 5. In 1754, the colonists’ endemic deism, of denominational rivalry, and of competition with the French flared into comfortable backsliding compelled some the Seven Years’ War, which would ministers to a new style of preaching that inflame the frontier for years. During this appealed more to the heart than to the period neither the colonists nor the British head; historians have called this wave of developed a clear policy of dealing with revivals the “Great Awakening.” the Indians but quickly recognized the 6. The most famous revivalist in the value of the tribes as allies. eighteenth-century Atlantic world was 6. The Indians’ potential as allies prompted . officials in New to mount a 7. Although the revivals awakened and campaign to block Russian access to refreshed the spiritual energies of present-day California by building forts thousands of colonists struggling with the (called presidios) and missions. uncertainties and anxieties of eighteenth- 7. By 1772, the Spanish had established a century America, conversions at the trail of Catholic missions from San Diego revivals did not substantially boost the to Monterey; for Indians, the Spaniards’ total number of church members. California missions had horrendous 8. Like consumption of goods, revivals consequences decimating Indian contributed to a set of common populations, as they had elsewhere in the experiences that bridged colonial divides Spanish borderlands. of faith, region, class, and status. 64 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

D. Colonial Politics in the British Empire Review Questions 1. The British Empire kept the door to its 1. How did the North American colonies colonies open to anyone, but restricted achieve the remarkable population growth of the colonial trade to British ships and traders. eighteenth century? (See the section “A Growing 2. British attempts to exercise political Population and Expanding Economy in British North power in colonial governments met with America” in your textbook.) success so long as British officials were Answer would ideally include: on or very near the sea. • Description of the increase: The colonial 3. The British government envisioned population underwent an eightfold increase during colonial governors, most of whom were the eighteenth century, growing from around born in England and appointed by the 250,000 colonists in 1700 to over 2 million in 1770. king, as mini-monarchs able to exert as • Natural increase: About three-fourths of the much influence in the colonies as the king population growth arose from reproduction, did in England, but in reality, they were demonstrating the stabilization and maturation of colonial settlements. unable to wield absolute authority in the • Immigration: Immigration accounted for about internal affairs of colonies. one-fourth of the growth, as people from Europe and 4. British policies did not clearly define the Africa continued to flow into North America. powers and responsibilities of colonial assemblies so the assemblies seized the 2. Why did settlement patterns in New England change from the seventeenth to the eighteenth opportunity to make their own rules. century? (See the section “New England: From 5. By 1720, colonial assemblies had won the Puritan Settlers to Yankee Traders” in your power to initiate legislations, including tax textbook.) laws and authorizations to spend public Answer would ideally include: funds. 6. The heated political struggles between • Population growth: Though it grew more slowly than other colonies, the population of New England royal governors and colonial assemblies continued to grow, primarily through natural increase. that occurred throughout the eighteenth The stringency of Puritanism and density of settlement century taught colonists to employ made it a less attractive destination to potential traditionally British ideas of immigrants than other colonies. representation and that power in the • Limited availability of land: Smaller than the British colonies rarely belonged to the southern colonies, New England pressed against hostile frontiers in the North and the West. This British government. restricted New Englanders’ access to new land for settlement. CHAPTER QUESTIONS • Partible inheritance: The seventeenth-century practice of distributing land equally among male heirs resulted, by the eighteenth century, in Following are answer guidelines for the Review allotments too small for subsistence farming, forcing Questions, Making Connections, Linking to the Past, some descendants to leave their home settlements. Visual Activity, Map Activity, Seeking the American • From land grants to sales: Needing revenue, Promise, and Documenting the American Promise colonial governments in the eighteenth century questions that appear in the textbook chapter. For abandoned the practice of granting land to towns and your convenience, the questions and answer instead sold it directly to individual purchasers. This guidelines are also available in the Computerized practice eroded the seventeenth century patterns of Test Bank. settlement in towns and villages as New Englanders increasingly settled on individual farms. CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 65

3. Why did immigrants flood into Pennsylvania practices and consumer goods. Each region relied on during the eighteenth century? (See the section “The some form of agriculture for trade: The northern Middle Colonies: Immigrants, Wheat, and Work” in colonies produced lumber and shipping; the middle your textbook.) colonies, like Philadelphia, were the center for wheat and flour; and the southern colonies produced rice Answer would ideally include: and tobacco. Despite exporting different products, • Appeal of Pennsylvania: During the eighteenth each region of North America was linked through the century, Pennsylvania had a reputation for Atlantic trade system, exporting agricultural products unparalleled economic opportunity and the vast and importing British consumer goods. availability of land. William Penn’s policy of • Decline of religion: The boom period of negotiating with Indian tribes lessened the immigration during the eighteenth century not only occurrence of land disagreements, encouraging brought different cultures to North America but also immigrants and potential land buyers to the area. a variety of dissenting Protestant faiths. Along with • Freedom of religion: The freedom of the influence of the Enlightenment and Deism, conscience promised in Pennsylvania was especially previous Puritan practices began to decline in this attractive to the large amounts of German and Scots- period and a general indifference towards traditional Irish immigrants who belonged to dissenting religious practices swept through the colonies. Protestant sects. • Identity as British colonists: During this period the colonists began to identify themselves as 4. How did slavery influence the society and not only colonist, but British subjects. The consumer economy of the southern colonies? (See the section trade practices brought decidedly British goods to the “The Southern Colonies: Land of Slavery” in your colonies and the institution of the Navigation Acts textbook.) solidified the colonies’ close connection with Britain. Answer would ideally include: The colonies also felt the influence of British ideas of representative government within their colonial • Population: Slaves of African ancestry grew assemblies. The colonial assemblies gradually from 20 to 40 percent of the population between established a strong tradition of representative 1700 and 1770 due to natural increase and the government they saw as analogous to English Atlantic slave trade. Parliament. The colonists used British ideas of • African influence: Large numbers of newly representative government to defend their own enslaved Africans coming into the southern colonies, colonial interests. who imported African kinship structures, naming patterns, food crops, and music, made the influence of African culture in the South quite strong. • Labor force: Slaves formed the basis of the Making Connections agricultural workforce on the tobacco, indigo, and 1. Colonial products such as tobacco and sugar rice plantations. Their productivity allowed the transformed consumption patterns on both sides of export of these products and made their masters and the Atlantic in the eighteenth century. How did the southern colonies quite wealthy. Slaves consumption influence the relationship between the supported slaveowners’ leisure and achievement. American colonies and Britain? In your answer, • Slave ownership designates gentry: Slave- consider how it might have strengthened and holders were the wealthiest, most powerful weakened connections. (See section “Unifying southerners. They dominated culture, politics and the Experiences” in your textbook.) economy and created a society which made slave rebellions nearly impossible. Answer would ideally include: 5. What experiences tended to unify the • Unifying dimensions of consumption: The colonists in during the economy that made patterns of eighteenth-century eighteenth century? (See the section “Unifying consumption possible forged bonds throughout the Experiences” in your textbook.) Atlantic world. For example, New England fish fed the Caribbean slaves who produced the sugar that Answer would ideally include: graced the tables of English consumers. The wealth • Economy: All of the colonies in North that these economies concentrated in the hands of American experienced an increase in both trade planters, merchants, and the crown created shared 66 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

interests amongst Atlantic elites. Protecting trade value and capacity to act found an audience amongst from Indian disruptions and competing European thousands of colonists in the mid-eighteenth century. powers led colonies to look to England for military support. 3. How did different colonies attempt to manage • Colonial consumption and British identity: relations with Indians? How did the Indians attempt The availability of English goods throughout the to manage relationships with the Europeans? In your colonies offered colonists ways to assert their British answer, consider disputes over territory and trade. identity despite geographic separation. (See section “Unifying Experiences” in your • Colonial consumption and colonial identity: textbook.) The opportunities to exercise individual choice Answer would ideally include: through consumption provided colonists lessons in individual prerogative and self-determination. The • New England: Sharing borders with powerful bonds of the Atlantic community could not soothe all tribes like the Iroquois and the Mohicans, as well as the tensions between the colonies and England, the French to the North, constricted New England’s especially in the face of royal attempts to closely territorial expansion, suggesting the ways other direct colonial affairs and colonists’ growing sense groups in North America could constrain colonial of distinct interests and privileges. Nevertheless, expansion. colonists would draw on British ideas of • Pennsylvania: From the time of its representative government in attempting to negotiate establishment, Pennsylvania had pursued policies of their disputes with England. negotiation with Indians, purchasing rather than simply annexing Indian lands. This policy of 2. Why did the importance of religion decline purchase reduced the frequency of violent conflict throughout the colonies from the seventeenth to the with Indians in the . eighteenth century? How did American colonists • Indians’ engagement with Europeans: Indians respond to these changes? (See sections “New both desired to protect their territorial claims and England: From Puritan Settlers to Yankee Traders,” derive benefit from trade with European powers. “The Middle Colonies: Immigrants, Wheat, and They recognized and took advantage of the Work,” and “Unifying Experiences” in your availability of multiple European powers in North textbook.) America, often attempting to play one off the other to their best advantage. Answer would ideally include: • Trade and shifting alliances: British colonists • Massachusetts example: The religiously recognized that Indians could be pivotal allies or organized colonies of New England offer case enemies in conflicts with the French and Spanish in studies in the difficulty of maintaining religious the New World. These complex power dynamics fervor, especially in the face of expanding and were on display in the conflicts that arose in relation diversifying populations. to the fur trade. • Enlightenment influence: Deism, and its compatibility with explorations of science and 4. Varied immigration patterns contributed to reason, attracted many educated colonists. These important differences among the British colonies. beliefs demoted the value of the Bible and churches. Compare and contrast patterns of immigration to the • Denominational rivalry: The dizzying middle and southern colonies. Who came, and how diversity of religious options available in the did they get there? How did they shape the colonies made it increasingly difficult for a single economic, cultural, and political character of each church to dominate a region. colony? (See sections “New England: From Puritan • Responses: Many colonists embraced the Settlers to Yankee Traders,” “The Middle Colonies: freedoms of religious indifference, declining to Immigrants, Wheat, and Work,” and “The Southern attend, let alone become members of, churches. Colonies: Land of Slavery” in your textbook.) Others, however, were troubled by these Answer would ideally include: developments and tried to revive Americans’ religious fervor. The preachers closely associated • Diversity in Pennsylvania: Available land, with the Great Awakening stoked these fires with freedom of conscience, and a reputation for appeals to emotion. Their message of individual economic opportunity drew immigrants from CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 67

Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Many unevenly in the region, hostility between whites in were farmers and artisans—members of European the South was largely restrained. The gentry enjoyed middling classes. great power, controlling voting and acting as arbiters • Redemptioners: Many Europeans who of cultural standards. The sense of whites’ common immigrated to Pennsylvania had to take the gamble interest and privilege, made stark against the of a hazardous ocean trip and selling themselves for alternative of black slavery, helped unify southern a time as indentured servants in the colony. Such whites even in the face of internal inequality. servants supplemented family-based labor, which dominated Pennsylvania agriculture. • Land availability: Residents of the middle Linking to the Past colonies pushed westward in pursuit of cheap land, establishing flourishing farms that produced 1. How did the British North American colonies affluence for them, and food for other colonies. The in 1750 differ politically and economically from ratio of available land to labor helped ensure that those in 1650? Were there important continuities? most colonists avoided poverty. (See Chapters 3 and 4.) • Urban life: Agricultural production made possible high levels of consumption in the middle Answer would ideally include: colonies, as well as giving rise to an urban merchant • Political differences: The political life of the class concentrated in Philadelphia. colonies in 1650 was directly impacted by the • Shifting southern populations: The white motivations that brought the settlers to those regions. population of the southern colonies continued to Massachusetts Bay, for example, was a colony run grow through natural increase and immigration. The by Puritans for Puritans; while southern colonies, most dramatic development in the demographics of with settlers whose economic interests were tied to the southern colonies was the growth of the slave England, saw more political involvement by the population, both through natural increase and forced crown. By the late seventeenth-century all of the migration of enslaved Africans. The proportion of colonies were increasingly under the control of the southerners who were black grew from 20 percent in crown and common political interests were being 1700 to 40 percent in 1770. shaped across colonial borders, including relations • Regional divergence in the South: The with Native Americans and trade with England. influence of the slave trade produced two distinct • Economic differences: Import and export of regions: the upper South around the Chesapeake products grew to be a significant interest of colonists Bay, which continued to focus on tobacco production in all regions of English North America. As the and maintain a white majority, and the lower South, production capacity of the colonies increased, so did which specialized in rice and indigo production. The political interests by the crown to control trade in and labor demands of these crops led to a black majority out of the colonies. population in this region. • Continuities: Until the , the colonists • Slavery versus servitude: Most Africans, still viewed themselves, largely, as English men and unlike white immigrants, came as slaves, forced to women. They shared many cultural similarities with endure the dangers of the Middle Passage under those across the Atlantic in England and valued the duress, only to be sold into permanent servitude in protection of the English military when needed in North America. Slavery differed from indentured conflict with the French, the Spanish, and the Native servitude not just in the near impossibility of Americans. freedom, but also in the absence of legal checks on masters’ authority over slaves. The inherited status 2. Is there persuasive evidence that colonists’ of slavery also meant that slaves would increasingly outlook on the world shifted from the seventeenth to be born in the , living for generations in the eighteenth century? Why or why not? (See the colonies but without ever enjoying the benefits of Chapters 3 and 4.) the freedoms and opportunities immigrants pursued. Answer would ideally include: • Wealth and disparity: Slavery produced enormous wealth for the southern colonies and • A shifting world view? Examining the colonies England. Free whites in the South enjoyed per capita by region, students might first point to the wealth four times greater than that of New England- diminished role of Puritanism in the northern ers. Although this wealth was distributed very colonies, which resulted from both the 68 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Enlightenment and the increased commercial him with a broader understanding of the world and interests of the colonists. In the middle and southern its challenges than was held by the typical male colonies, the growing number of slaves entering the colonist of his time. colonies from the and Africa influenced not only the way that the colonists saw themselves as participants in a global market, but also the culture of Documenting the American colonies where the population of Africans and African Americans was increasing. White men and Promise: Spanish Priests Report women of English descent increasingly used skin on California Missions color to delineate the social classes and keep themselves in a superior position economically and 1. In what ways did Jayme and Serra agree politically. about the motivations of the Indians in and around Mission San Diego de Alcalá? In what ways did they disagree? How would Serra’s recommendations for Seeking the American Promise: A rebuilding the mission have addressed the problems Sailor’s Life in the Eighteenth- identified by Jayme that caused the revolt? Century Atlantic World Answer would ideally include: • Agreements: Jayme and Serra agree that the 1. What attracted Ashley Bowen to a seafaring Indians’ rebellious behavior at the mission was life? How successful was he? motivated, at least in part, by Indians’ desires to protect themselves against soldiers’ actions. Jayme Answer would ideally include: sees Indians’ responses to the soldiers as self- • Brown likely went to sea because he wanted to defense; Serra sees the Indians’ actions as an enraged earn wages, to rise in the ranks from seaman to mate response to soldiers’ efforts to chastise them. and possibly master (or captain), to save enough • Disagreements: Jayme sees the Indians as money to marry and support a family, and then retire more virtuous and moral in their behavior than the comfortably after twenty or so years of work. He was soldiers, while Serra sees the Indians as heathens and not successful because he learned very little from his the soldiers as people who were trying to do their captain and ran away after only four years of service. jobs, but approaching those jobs in the wrong way. • Serra’s recommendations for soldiers: Serra 2. How did Bowen’s experiences as a seaman believed that the soldiers’ job was to protect the compare to those of farmers in the colonies? mission and the missionaries, not to conquer the Answer would ideally include: Indians. If Jayme had ordered the soldiers to focus on protecting the mission and prevented them from • Bowen’s wages of five dollars per month were maltreating the Indians, the revolt might not have roughly equivalent to that of a farmer. However, to happened. earn this wage he experienced dangers he would not have experienced on a farm. Bowen was indentured 2. How did the goals and activities of the to a captain, suffered through sickness, Spanish soldiers compare with those of the Catholic imprisonment, foul weather, and accidents. missionaries? 3. How might Bowen’s outlook on the world Answer would ideally include: compare to that of the vast majority of colonists who • Missionaries’ goals and activities: The seldom or never went to sea? missionaries seem to be genuinely interested in Answer would ideally include: converting the Indians to Christianity but they—and especially Serra—appear to think that successful • Unlike those colonists who looked towards the conversion of the Indians requires at least some farms and forests for their future, Bowen had the element of control over them. opportunity to visit dozens of ports in North • Soldiers’ goals and activities: The soldiers are America, the West Indies, the British Isles, and interested not only in controlling the Indians but also Europe. Bowen experienced foreign languages and in exploiting and harassing them by raping women, cultures in his travels, which undoubtedly provided CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 69 ruining their crops, punishing them for perceived partially successful self-defense against Christians misdeeds, etc. and soldiers’ efforts to annihilate them. • Reasons for differences and similarities: The primary differences come from motivation. The missionaries are religiously motivated in their efforts Visual Activity with the Indians and the soldiers are motivated more by their own self-interest. Missionaries’ and soldiers’ Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (p. 134) desire to control the Indians comes from their mutual belief that they are racially and culturally superior to Reading the Image: What does this painting the Indians. indicate about the colonists’ priorities? 3. How did the religious convictions of Jayme Answer would ideally include: and Serra influence their reports? What might • Priorities: This painting of Bethlehem, Spanish soldiers or Indians have said about these Pennsylvania, shows an orderly settlement events? What might they have said about dominated by straight lines and right angles. Crops missionaries like Jayme and Serra? (to the right of center) and garden areas (center) are Answer would ideally include: laid out in tidy rows; the houses and buildings are rectangular. The only exceptions are the roads that • Religion and Jayme’s point of view: Jayme follow the banks of waterways: Presumably, even the seems to be most concerned about Christian industrious residents of Bethlehem could not behavior. He suggests that the Indians behave convince the channels to change course. Settlers in virtuously and morally and that they want to be the town clearly believed in keeping things in their Christians. He wants Indians to convert officially, places, with penned livestock separated from fields but is very pleased that they behave “like and forested areas banished to well beyond the Christians.” He sees soldiers, on the other hand, as outskirts of human habitation. It also is evident from Christians in name who behave in very unchristian the multistory, centrally located town buildings that ways. His report is focused on the need to bring residents appreciated communal life, even if they did soldiers’ behavior in line with their avowed religion. settle on individual farms like the one in the • Religion and Serra’s point of view: Serra, foreground. unlike Jayme, focused on bringing Indians into the Christian church. He sees them as heathens who need Connections: Why might Pennsylvanians have been to be saved. He is less explicitly critical of the so concerned about maintaining order? soldiers. He doesn’t condemn their behavior but only Answer would ideally include: suggests that they need to guard the missionaries more effectively. • The importance of order: Moravian • Soldiers’ likely perspective: If soldiers had immigrants, members of a dissenting Protestant sect made a report, they probably would have focused on who were persecuted in Europe for their refusal to the Indians as pagans who needed to be controlled bear arms and swear loyalty oaths, founded the town first and forced into Christianity second. They would of Bethlehem. For immigrants like these, it was very likely focus on the Indians’ paganism and their lack important to establish control over their lives and of virtuous behavior. They would frame their also over their surroundings. The name “Bethlehem” treatment of the Indians as a necessary part of indicates that they saw their new town as a sanctuary converting them. or the birthplace of something holy. They would not • Indians’ likely perspective: If the Indians were have wished to encourage disorder to such symbolic reporting, they would probably focus on the ways the new beginnings. Moreover, many Europeans reacted soldiers’ exploited them. They might also complain to the wilderness of the New World by working about the missionaries who did not respect their extremely hard to maintain what they saw as culture and whose criticisms legitimated the soldiers’ civilized standards of behavior and life, including the bad treatment of them. Indians’ report of the attack imposition of “rational” towns on an inherently on the San Diego Mission would be framed as a irrational landscape. 70 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Map Activities Answer would ideally include: • Origin of the slave trade: Most slaves originated Map 5.2: Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth from the Congo and Angola in West Africa. The trip Century (p. 128) to Brazil, one of the two most common New World Reading the Map: What were the major markets for destinations, was about 3,250 miles; the trip to the West trade coming out of Europe? What goods did the Indies was about 5,400 miles. British colonies import and export? Connections: Why were so many more African Answer would ideally include: slaves sent to the West Indies and Brazil than to British North America? • Imports and exports of the British colonies: European products went to the major port cities of Answer would ideally include: the North American colonies (Boston, New York, • Patterns of the slave trade: More slaves went Philadelphia, Norfolk, and Charleston) and also to to the West Indies and Brazil for several reasons. the West Indies and the Ivory, Gold, and Slave coasts West Indian and Brazilian planters grew sugarcane, a of western Africa. The most common items that labor-intensive crop that required year-round colonists imported from England were manufactured attention under unhealthy working conditions. In goods; there was some trade in linens and horses as British North America, not only did slaveholders well. There was, however, a thriving trade between grow less demanding crops, like tobacco and rice, the colonies and both Africa and the West Indies, they also lived in societies with higher numbers of with the colonies exchanging fish, livestock, flour, free workers whose labor supplemented that of lumber, rice, and rum for slaves and sugar. Most slaves. The more healthful conditions of North other exports went to England and revolved around American agriculture meant that slaves in those raw materials and foodstuffs. Boston, for instance, colonies experienced natural increase—that is, more shipped fish, furs, and naval stores, while Norfolk births than deaths—whereas slaves in the sugar provided tobacco, and the West Indies shipped colonies experienced the reverse: natural decrease. molasses and fruit. The West Indies and Brazil imported the most slaves Connections: In what ways did the flow of raw because of their high demand for labor, an absence materials from the colonies affect British industry? of free workers to perform it, and the need to replace How did British colonial trade policies influence the existing slaves who died quickly under the harsh Atlantic trade? conditions of the sugar economy. Answer would ideally include: • Raw materials: The raw materials provided by LECTURE STRATEGIES the colonies provided a spur to the growth of the mass market. Colonial flour, sugarcane, and tobacco Lecture 1: Ethnic and Religious Heterogeneity leaf could be processed into relatively inexpensive in Colonial America consumer commodities, like crackers, sweets, and Colonial America demonstrated remarkable diversity in pipe tobacco, which were within the reach of a broad the eighteenth century. Consider focusing on ethnicity range of purchasers. and religion to prove this point, going from region to • Trade policies: Colonial trade policies region. New England was the most homogeneous, with guaranteed that the British benefited from the a predominance of English descendants who practiced a Atlantic trade; they had a virtual monopoly over mainly Puritan-derived religion. Even in New England, colonial raw materials, and so collected customs however, diversity was present. Explain the Great duties on them and also re-exported them at Awakening in New England, and then ask how considerable profit. widespread deep religious devotion was at the time. (Be sure to cover the “threats” that the Enlightenment, Map 5.3: The Atlantic Slave Trade (p. 136) denominational rivalry, and backsliding posed to Reading the Map: Where in Africa did most slaves religiosity in New England.) originate? Approximately how far was the trip from Next, move on to the middle colonies and the busiest ports of origin to the two most common explain the coming of the Germans and the Scots- New World destinations? Irish. With them came more diverse religions, such CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 71 as the Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations. was goal oriented: Racism amounted to the Discuss George Whitefield’s visits to America and systematic oppression of a racial minority designed how the revivalism he championed paralleled the to maximize exploitation of that minority. There will egalitarian values expressed by colonists’ patterns of be a lot to talk about. consumption. Finally, discuss the ethnicity of immigrants to the South. You may want to direct Lecture 3: The Colonial Economy in the students’ attention to Map 5.1, “Europeans and Eighteenth Century Africans in the Eighteenth Century,” to demonstrate the racial and ethnic diversity of the colonies. Leave The British colonies in America were embedded in a most of the discussion on slavery for the next class, system of economic relations that benefited crown and but point out that southerners differentiated between colony alike. Draw students’ attention to Map 5.2, ethnicities among slaves. Using the discussion of “Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” and to ethnicity as a starting point, begin exploring the Figure 5.1, “Colonial Exports, 1768–1772.” Ask construction of the concept of race. students to consider the questions posed by Map 5.2, focusing on the ways in which trade policies influenced Lecture 2: Solidly Establishing Slavery both Britain and the colonies. Reintroduce the original Navigation Acts of the 1650s and 1660s as they related In this lecture, you can introduce students to the to the American colonies. Explore the impact of the institution of slavery. Direct students’ attention to on American commerce (it was Map 5.3, “The Atlantic Slave Trade,” and Table 5.1, minimal, with the exception of the re-exporting of “Slave Imports, 1451–1870” to emphasize the tobacco). Show the agricultural basis of colonial solidification of the institution of slavery in the prosperity (and how it rested on slave labor) and how Western Hemisphere. Using the textbook, that prosperity translated into increasing consumerism. reconstruct the violence that permeated slavery. Explore the extent of that prosperity by discussing the Africans were kidnapped, abused, and sold to slave distribution of wealth in America compared with that of traders. The Middle Passage killed at least 15 to 20 England. Who became rich in America? Did one’s percent of all Africans transported to the . region make a difference in one’s options? How Here, you can refer students to the account of important were merchants? Were farmers absolutely Olaudah Equiano’s capture and his experience of the independent of the market? Use the Middle Passage. Slavery in the West Indies meant vignette at the start of the chapter to discuss how certain death, and even coming to mainland America widespread prosperity and consumerism encouraged did not drastically improve a slave’s chances for people to think of themselves as individuals capable of survival. Ten to 15 percent died in their first year as making their own choices for good or evil. Finally, slaves in America, while they were “seasoned.” They discuss the perks of the empire that made this could not communicate with the master, who often prosperity possible. The crown regulated trade and considered them little more than livestock. Other collected some taxes in the process, but the colonists slaves helped them make the transition from free benefited from being included in the empire’s persons embedded in systems of social relations to commerce on the same basis as citizens of England. slaves who had no legal rights at all. Slaves might The American colonists could trade with other British have been able to negotiate and resist the will of the colonies and enjoyed the protection of the British navy. master to a certain degree (describe such instances if These advantages could not have been provided by the possible), but ultimately the master prevailed through colonies themselves. sheer brutality and a legal system that legitimized all that he chose to do. Ask students to consider the textbook’s account of the Stono rebellion and its Common Misconceptions and consequences as a means for understanding how slavery permeated society. Finally, reintroduce your Difficult Topics discussion of race and extend it to define the word racism. Students may need an explanation that 1. Slavery Was a Monolithic Institution racism means more than mere prejudice. Help students understand that racism stems from the belief Many students consider slavery a monolithic in the biological inferiority of other races—in this institution and are unable or unwilling to see the case, nonwhites. They also need to understand that differences in ancient, medieval, African, and New eighteenth-century racism entailed action and that it World slavery. You should quickly clear up this 72 CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

misconception. Be sure to illustrate the role that race governmental policies that promoted immigration. Very played in African slavery in the New World. You little was asked in return at this time. The crown will also want to cover the role of natural increase profited from its American colonies, but the colonies and a resident master class in the American South. profited as well. To explore the variances in the institution of slavery, point students to the differences outlined in the textbook in the tobacco and rice cultures in the IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES American South. You may have a student who asks which system was better. Resist value judgments and Class Discussion Starters stress difference instead. The brutality of the system should be self-evident in both cultures. Have your students consider the possible course of colonial development had New England and the 2. Colonists Were Self-Reliant Frontiersmen middle colonies adopted cash-crop agriculture. How would the patterns of settlement have been different? Students frequently misunderstand the social and Would plantations have been possible in the northern economic order of colonial America in the eighteenth colonies, considering the climate? Would slavery century. They believe that a general self-sufficiency have become more entrenched in the North if a translates into absolute self-reliance. They fail to plantation-based economy had prevailed? If your understand that, whether colonists were located in students respond positively, follow up by asking coastal cities or on the frontier, they continued to be them to consider whether slavery was merely an embedded in a network of relations: political, economic institution—in other words, whether it economic, social, and familial. As the textbook makes reflected ideological differences between northern clear, the colonists did engage in market activities, in and southern whites or whether it was merely a pursuit of consumption of manufactured goods. But response to economic needs. even when colonists failed to participate in market economic relations, there was still an exchange of goods taking place. Consumption did not necessarily mean that a cash transaction took place. One might Using Primary Sources exchange one’s own labor or the loan of livestock for a Francis Daniel Pastorius, a well-educated German, manufactured good. The nonmarket, local exchange of went to Pennsylvania in 1683. He later wrote of his goods, even on the frontier, rested on the ability of experiences and observations in the newly forming merchants to obtain goods, and sometimes credit, from colony: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/7439. Britain and Europe. Have students look at Figure 5.1 on Throughout the eighteenth century, a diverse colonial exports and the photo of the English glass population of Europeans immigrated to the Middle mirror to demonstrate the web of market relations. Colonies including Gottlieb Mittelberger, who Discuss how people perceived themselves as described conditions in the New World that fell far interdependent within the colonial economy. short of his expectations: http://historymatters.gmu .edu/d/5712 and http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/ 3. American Colonists Did Not Profit from 5713. Compare Mittelberger’s reported experiences Their Participation in the British Empire to those of Pastorius. What factors might account for Because the colonies ultimately rebelled against the the differences in the two men’s perspectives? British Empire, some students will assume that the Americans never benefited from being a part of the empire. Make the point that the American colonies’ Using Film and Television in the prosperity, as evidenced by the increasing consumption described in this chapter, was a direct result of their Classroom participation in the British Empire. In many ways, the colonists got the best of all worlds. The British navy When discussing the Great Awakening, you may protected them and their ships of commerce, while the want to consider showing your class “Revolution,” American merchants did their best to avoid taxation the second episode of the PBS series Africans in whenever possible. The colonists benefited from a America, which covers the revival’s impact on the stable governmental system in which they (at least the institution of slavery. elites) helped make the rules. And they benefited from CHAPTER 5 • COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 73

Historical Debates edited with an introduction by Serena R. Zabin, Carleton College Have your students debate the degree to which colo- • THE LANCASTER TREATY OF 1744 with nists considered themselves British (or French, Dutch, Related Documents, edited with an introduction German, etc.) and the degree to which they considered by James H. Merrell, Vassar College themselves Americans. You might wish to have • Slavery, Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic students review the conclusion of the chapter, “The World: A Brief History with Documents, Sue Dual Identity of British North American Colonists” and Peabody, Washington State University then discuss the growth of public opinion and its Vancouver, and Keila Grinberg, Universidade influence on the creation of an American culture. When Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro can (or should) historians reasonably begin to speak of • THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE something as identifiable as “American culture”? Did it LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO WRITTEN BY exist by 1760? Why or why not? HIMSELF with Related Documents, Second Edition, edited with an introduction by Robert J. Allison, Suffolk University Additional Bedford/St. Martin’s To view an updated list of series titles, visit Resources for Chapter 5 bedfordstmartins.com/history/series. PowerPoint Maps, Images, Lecture Outlines, Reading the American Past and i>Clicker Content The following documents are available in Chapter 5 These presentation materials are downloadable from of the companion reader Reading the American Past the Instructor Resource tab at bedfordstmartins by Michael P. Johnson, Johns Hopkins University: .com/roark/catalog, and they are available on our Bedford Lecture Kit CD-ROM. They include ready- • Elizabeth Ashbridge Becomes an Indentured made and fully customizable PowerPoint multimedia Servant in New York: Some Account of the presentations built around lecture outlines that are Early Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge, embedded with maps, figures, and selected images Who Died in . . . 1755 (1807) from the textbook and are supplemented by more • Poor Richard’s Advice: Benjamin Franklin, detailed instructor notes on key points. Also Father Abraham’s Speech from Poor Richard’s available are maps and selected images in JPEG and Almanac, 1757 PowerPoint format; content for i>clicker, a • An Anglican Criticizes New Light Baptists and classroom response system, in Microsoft Word and Presbyterians in the South Carolina PowerPoint formats; the Instructor’s Resource Backcountry: Charles Woodmason, Sermon on Manual in Microsoft Word format; and outline maps the Baptists and the Presbyterians, ca. 1768 in PDF format for quizzing or handouts. All files are • Advertisements for Runaway Slaves: South suitable for copying onto transparency acetates. Carolina Gazette and Virginia Gazette, 1737– 1745 The Bedford Series in History and Culture • A Moravian Missionary Interviews Slaves in the West Indies, 1767–1768: Christian George Volumes from the Bedford Series in History and Andreas Oldendorp, History of the Evangelical Culture can be packaged at a discount with The Brethren’s Mission on the Caribbean Islands, American Promise. Relevant titles for this chapter 1777 include: • A BRIEF NARRATIVE OF THE CASE AND Online Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/ TRYAL OF JOHN PETER ZENGER, Printer of roark the New York Weekly Journal with Related The Online Study Guide helps students review Documents, edited with an introduction by Paul material from the textbook as well as practice Finkelman, Albany Law School historical skills. Each chapter contains assessment • The Great Awakening: A Brief History with quizzes and interactive activities accompanied by Documents, Thomas S. Kidd, Baylor University page number references to encourage further study. • The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741: Daniel Horsmanden’s JOURNAL OF THE PROCEEDINGS with Related Documents,