LIFE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES

DIFFERENT LIFESTYLESFOR

DIFFERENT REGIONS

NEW ENGLAND COLONIES• Most people made a living on small family

farms or from the sea.• A short, 5 month growing

season meant crops were used by the family, with not much left to sell or trade.

• Small town life – close knit communities began to develop.

• Religion a big part of their lives.

FAMILY LIFE

• All life centered around the family.• Families of 8-9 was considered normal.• Everyone expected to help around the house.

BOYS• Would help Mom around the house, chopping

wood, carrying water, etc.• At 8 or 9 years old they would

then help Dad out in the fields, hunting, fishing, etc.

• At around age 12 things got really interesting.

• At around the age of 12, if the family could afford it, a boy could be sent to work as an apprentice to a master craftsman.

GIRLS

• At around the age of 13 or 14 girls might sometimes be sent out of the home to work as servants for more affluent families. They would do all the things a mom would do.

RELIGION IN NEW ENGLAND• In order to understand the Word of God a

person had to understand the Bible. To understand the Bible you had to be able to read.

• The Puritans valued LITERACY and education.

• In 1647 a law was passed in Massachusetts saying that any town with 50 or more families had to provide an instructor to teach reading and writing to the children (mostly boys) of the town.

• Younger children were taught at home until they reached school age.

• Children who showed intellectual promise sometimes went to Harvard.

• Girls went to school to learn reading, writing and basic math.

THE MIDDLE COLONIES• Settled by those looking for job opportunities,

good farm land and religious freedom.• Rivers in the Middle Colonies

were used to power mills and for transportation.

• The Middle Colonies became a center of trade.

• New York and Philadelphia became major ports.

• Skilled craftsman also came to this region.

• Education in the Middle Colonies was handled by religious groups.

• If your family wasn’t religious then you were taught at home. If Mom or Dad had no formal education, chances are you wouldn’t either.

THE SOUTHERN COLONIES• Southern Colonies drastically different than

Middle and New England.• An 8 month growing season allowed for the

growing of cash crops such as tobacco, indigo, rice and later cotton.

• Southern colonies did not evolve into close-knit communities. No small towns here.

• Plantations had to be SELF-SUFFICIENT.• There was no formal schooling. If your

parents were educated you might be taught at home.

• Rich families would sometimes hire tutors from the north to teach their sons.

• Sometimes their sons would be sent to college in England.

THE BACKCOUNTRY• Stretched from Georgia to Pennsylvania,

behind the coastal plain, just east of the Appalachians.

• Good hunting and fishing areas.

• Settled by mainly Irish and Scottish settlers who wanted to get as far away from the English as possible.

• Their lives centered around the family.• They had no particular religious beliefs.• They had no formal education.• If Mom and Dad weren’t educated, then you

weren’t either.

COLONIAL DIVERSITY• Early prejudices were tied to religion. Roger

Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Thomas Hooker, etc.

• Later prejudices included racism, nationalism, and sexism.

• RACISM: The belief that one race of people is superior to another.

• The first accounts of racism in the colonies was against the Indians.

• The Indians were here first, they had a thriving culture, a history and a heritage that should have been respected. Instead all those things were destroyed. Every time the colonists and Indians got near each other there was conflict.

• The next example of racism was beyond brutal. Literally millions of innocent people taken from their homes and forced into servitude and a life of hard labor. I’m referring to the enslavement of AFRICANS.

THE TRIANGLE TRADE• Rum, Guns, Bibles, Cloth and other items are

loaded on ships and sent to Africa.

• The ships are unloaded and captured slaves are put on board.

THE MIDDLE PASSAGE• The part of the Triangular Trade Route that went

from Africa to the West Indies.

• The Middle Passage can be considered one of the worst treatments of human beings against other human beings in the history of the world.

• The month long journey was barbaric and cruel.

• The slaves are taken off the ships and sold at auction. Some stay in the Caribbean, others are taken to the Colonies.

• The ships are loaded with sugar & molasses and travel to North America, where the process begins again.

SLAVE LIFE

• A slave could be expected to be sold at least once in their lifetime, maybe more.

• While working they were watched by an overseer, who would whip them if necessary.

• Slaves worked from Sunup to Sundown or longer if there was a “Harvest Moon”.

• They lived in a one room shack with a dirt floor, that bred multiple diseases.

• Slaves were beaten on a daily basis. For any one of a number of offenses.

• Families were broken up.• They could run away, but that was a big

mistake.

COLONIAL TRADE• One area of life colonists did not control was

trade.• Parliament passed the Navigation Acts, laws

designed to control trade in the colonies.

NAVIGATION ACTS• Any products going to or coming from the

colonies had to be carried on British or colonial ships.

• Certain ENUMERATED ARTICLES could only be sold to England:

Rice Furs

Tobacco Indigo

SugarCotton

Lumber

• Any item going to the colonies from any other country had to go to England first to be taxed.

• Colonists got around these laws by smuggling goods into the country.

• By the 1750’s the British government was starting to crack down on smuggling.