The first American Way of Life•Basic livelihood of Early Americans•Based on: tobacco, rice, fur and fish

4 distinct patterns of life:•Southern Plantations•New England Towns

•Farms (middle colonies)•Coastal Cities

S. Plantations

• Single crop economies:– Tobacco- VA, MD– Rice, Indigo- SC– Sugar- W. Indies

• Plantation= settlement– Individual holdings

• Forced labor

Southern Plantation

• 1st: VA• 1620s- tobacco boom

– Labor force= white, cheaper– Lifespan of workers= 5-7 years– By 1650s life span ↑

• 1660s- production & pop increase– Navigation Acts make market go down– Price of tobacco↓– Land value ↑– Cost of production ↑– Class of indigent freedmen ↑

• Armed, wild

Bacon’s Rebellion 1676

• Burned Jamestown– Drove out Gov Berkeley

• Mostly servants, freedmen– Redistributed wealth

• Slaves – 20 £ (2x of indentured servants)– Less dangerous– Kept unarmed, unorganized– VA- lower death rate than W.I.

• Children= property of master (use or sell)• 4.5% of all slaves imported

– To American colonies

Plantations

• 30% of N. Amers = slaves

• Few plantations had large numbers– Small communities– On riversides, coast, self sufficient– Planters governed on assembly + served w

CT as magistrates• Dominated local society

England Towns

• Olde English Burroughs– Burroughs: town + charter from king, Mayor,

Aldermen– Village: cluster- houses, fields, shared land

• Open field system

– Parish- area served by church, some local gov

• Run by vestry (elite)

New England Townes

• Village, parish- church gathered as town built– Church officers diff from town officials– No property; no building– Meeting House: prayers, community meetings– Members elect minister

• Penalty: ex communication

– Sep of Church, State– Legislature= General court

Towns

– Applicants= proprietors of town• House lot in center• Meeting house in center• Land reserved for village green, school• Land w/ woods, meadows• Rest sold by proprietors

• Puritans ran their own churches– Democracy in Congregational churches led to

democracy in politics– Gov: town meeting

• Local affairs, elected reps to assembly• By 1648: all free adult men

18th Century

• Young go west for more land– More secular– More women join church– Men of town also met training day (militia)

• Tavern= meeting for social purpose

Farms

• Land picked for– Water – Even ground– Fertility

• Isolated because of size of farms– Soil depletion– Slow recovery– Max crops for min labor

Farm tenancy

• Common– Land speculation– Land value ↑ pop ↑– Women married by 23 in 17th c

• 21 in 18th c• Women average 5-6 children

– Largest group of immigrants: slaves– Middle cols: big waves of immigration

• Germany, N. Ireland

Middle colonies:

• At crossroads – stores– Trade hardware, clothing– Anglican church supported by taxes– Methodists, Baptists & Presbyterians move in to fill

gaps• Outside NE

– County court tried cases» Deeds, wills, care for orphans, poor

– Family serves all functions» Doctor, school, brewery, manufacture, worship» Children = labor» Multi generational homes

Coastal cities

• Streets paved w/ oyster shells– Wild pigs, dogs– Sheep, cattle herded to market– Shops w/ luxuries– Merchants = impt men– Distillers of rum– Import wool, hardware– Millers– Coopers– Sophisticated people

• Fashions, dance masters, barbers• Thieves, sewage problems• Lights, packed wood houses (fires)

Cities…

• Volunteer fire depts, police• Governments

– Boston, Newport: selectmen & town meetings– New York: pop elected city corporation– Phillie: self perpetuating closed corporation

• No reps– All: seaports, key rivers

• Trade, transportation– Boston: shipping center– NYC= supply point for Hudson Valley, CT, NJ– Phillie: served PA, DE valley, back country– Each city had at least 1 newspaper

18th century Americans

• No single polit org

• Nationality: English

• Institutions have local differences; not English– Puritan, Anglican flavor

Common ideas

• Representative gov• Gov should meet needs of people• Separation of Church + State• Some religious tolerance• Locke: human mind= blank slate

– Knowledge is acquired

• Natural law: all free men have rt to life, liberty, property• Freedom of printing press• Social mobility is possible here• Hard work is valued

Common institutions

• True Representation (not virtual)• Most free white males = land owners• Education = impt• Reading = impt• High literacy rate• Mostly protestant• Printing press + newspaper in almost all colonies• Schools• Colleges• Purpose of gov: to protect natural law

Attitudes by mid century

• Property qualifications to vote• Taxes born by people: voted by them• Clergy must serve; not rule• Suspicion of clerical authority (no bishops)• Fear of witchcraft• Sciences + discovery of universe via observation

– Enlightenment• Newton’s physics respected• Individualism• Self reliance• Ability trumps birth• Admiration of success/ wealth

Half-Way Covenant

• Mid 17th century sermons:– The Jeremiad

• Scolding parishioners about fading piety• Alarmed by declining conversions

– Testifying to receiving God’s Grace & auto admittance to Church

– Church now allows Half-Way Covenant• Partial church membership to the not yet converted

– Shows difficulty of maintaining the faith

• Results: widening membership erased distinction of elect– & women come to dominate membership

Salem Witch Trials

• Adolescent girls claimed to be bewitched by certain women in Salem– Hysterical witch hunt follows 1692

• Those accused tended to be prosperous elite• Accusers came largely from poor families• Showing class division & tension

– Hysteria ended 1693 when Governor’s wife was accused.

» Governor stopped trials and pardoned those accused but not yet executed.

The Great Awakening

• 1740s schisms, religious revivals, new groups• George Whitefield: Calvinist showman

– 27 yrs old, preacher: fire + brimstone– From despair + fear to hope of salvation

• For conversions

• Jonathan Edwards: Strict Calvinist sparks revival 1735– Conviction, conversion due to Spirit of God– New Lights: exuberant conversions

• Undermined position of clergy• Said minister must be saved to bring salvation• Education: handicap to saving Grace• Educated: less respected

Old Lights

• Anti revival – cool & rational– Re-examine predestination

• Unitarianism• Universalism• Deism

2nd Great Awakening

• 1790s-1840s- – Rapid Social & economic change

• New middle class (factory system)• Dorothea Dix & social reform

– Prison reform– Mentally ill– Abolition & Seneca Falls– Early prohibition

2nd Awakening…(b)

– Evangelical movement• Preaching, not rituals

– Anyone can be saved: good life; democratic!

• ↑ Methodists, Baptists• ↑↑Liberalness, competition: Anglicans,

Presbyterians & Congregationalists– Itinerant preachers- emotional messages– Resistance to authority– Chart your own spiritual course

» Lower classes, rise in democracy

2nd Awakening c.)

• Charles Finney– Revivalism -> science (**emotionalism)

• Timothy Dwight & Lyman Beecher– Revise Calvinism… appeal to youth

• Evangelism• Abolition

• Transcendentalism: – Educated N.E.s

• Romanticism, from lit & Eastern philosophy• Ties to social reforms

• Mormons• Communitarianism

– Rappites, Shakers, new Harmony, Brook Farm, Oneida, Phalanxes

3rd Gt Awakening• Atomic Age

– Anxiety, cold war, fear– NY Times: God is Dead

• 50s: Revivals- Billy Graham, TV– End of decade: slump in church attendance

• 60s: modernized message– Social causes, civil rights, anti war– Eastern Religions

• 80s: Protestant Fundamentalists– Old trad values– Moral Majority– Christian Coalition

• Legal & social changes are conservative