Transcript American Life in the 17th Century

AMERICAN LIFE IN
THE 17TH CENTURY
Chapter 4
The Tobacco Economy
•Profit-hungry settlers often planted tobacco to
sell before they planted corn to eat.
•Because tobacco used up the soil’s nutrients
so quickly, the search for new land was
constantly underway, which provoked more
and more Indian attacks.
•Ships hauled 1.5 million lbs. of tobacco out of
Chesapeake Bay by 1630 and almost 40 million
lbs. by 1700.
The Tobacco Economy
•Because families couldn’t procreate fast
enough, Indians died to quick, and Africans
cost too much money, tobacco growers used
indentured servants from port cities like
Bristol and London.
•These laborers usually worked for 4-7 years in
exchange for transatlantic passage, an ax and
hoe, a few barrels of corn, a suit of clothes,
and a small parcel of land.
The Tobacco Economy
•The headright system was installed to
encourage masters to bring servants
into the colonies.
•If the master paid the passage to
America, they received the right to 50
acres of land.
Frustrated Freemen and Bacon’s
Rebellion
•Because most of the freed workers ended up
penniless, they wandered around Chesapeake
Bay looking for land and someone to marry.
•In 1676 about 1,000 former servants broke out
of control in VA led by 29 year old Nathaniel
Bacon.
•The rebels fiercely resented VA Gov. William
Berkeley’s monopoly over the fur trade with
the Natives.
Frustrated Freemen and Bacon’s
Rebellion
•When Berkeley refused to do anything about a
series of brutal Indian attacks, the rebels
murdered Indians, chased Berkeley from
Jamestown and torched the capital.
•Bacon died of disease and 20 of his men were
hanged by Berkeley, but his uprising ignited
resentment of landless former servants
against the rich gentry in VA.
Colonial Slavery
• More than 7 million African slaves were brought to
the New World between 1492 and 1860, but only
about 400,000 were brought to America (and most
of those arrived after 1700).
• Changes came in the 1680s when rising wages
decreased the number of discontented English who
were willing to gamble on a new life in the New
World.
• The trouble with indentured servants (who were
cheaper than slaves) were often mutinous and
landowners feared uprisings.
Colonial Slavery
•By the mid 1680s, black slaves outnumbered
white servants for the first time.
•After the Royal African Company lost its
monopoly on carrying slaves, Rhode Island
rushed to cash in on the lucrative slave trade.
•Most slaves came from the west coast of
Africa in present day Senegal or Angola.
•The slaves were sold to Europeans or English
traders and put on ships for the gruesome
middle passage.
Colonial Slavery
•The death rates on the middle
passage ran as high as 20%.
•They were sold on auction blocks in
Newport, RI or Charleston, SC.
Colonial Slavery
• The laws regarding slaves vs. servants were now
becoming clear.
• Beginning in VA in 1662 “slave codes” made blacks
and their children the property (“chattels”) for the
life of their white masters.
• Some colonies made it a crime to teach a slave to
read and write.
• It was clear that slavery was not only in place for
economic reasons, buy by the end of the 17 th
century, racial discrimination powerfully molded
the American slave system.
Africans in America
•Native-born African Americans contributed to
the growth of a stable and distinctive slave
culture; a mixture of African and American
elements of speech, religion, and folkways.
• In SC’s coast, blacks evolved a unique language,
Gullah (blending English w/ African languages)
• Goober (peanut), gumbo (okra), and voodoo
(witchcraft)
• The banjo and bongo drum also came from
African culture.
Africans in America
•The New York slave revolt erupted in 1712 and
claimed the lives of 9 whites and 21 blacks
were executed over a slow burning fire.
•An SC slave revolt erupted in 1739 when more
than 50 resentful blacks along the Stono River
tried to march to Spanish Florida, but were
stopped by the local militia.
•The enslaved Africans proved to be a more
tightly controlled labor force than the white
indentured servants they replaced.
The Half-Way Covenant
•Growing population gradually pushed Puritans
onto outlying farms, far from the control of
the church and neighbors.
•Although Puritan belief burned brightly, the
passage of time dampened religious zeal.
•During the mid 1600s, a new sermon was
flowing from Puritan pulpits called the
‘Jeremiad”, which was taken from the doomsaying Old Testament prophet Jeremiah.
The Half-Way Covenant
•In 1662, the Half-Way Covenant was
introduced, which modified the ‘covenant’, or
the agreement between the church and its
adherents.
•Basically, it made the church easier to become
a part of by taking out some of the steps to
becoming a member.
The Half-Way Covenant
•By conferring partial membership rights in the
once-exclusive Puritan congregations, the
Half-Way Covenant weakened the distinction
between the “elect” and others, further
diluting the spiritual purity of the original
settlers’ godly community.
•The widening of church membership
eventually allowed for women to become
members.
The Salem Witch Trials
• A group of adolescent girls in Salem, MA claimed
to have been bewitched by certain older women.
• A hysterical ‘witch hunt” ensued, which led to the
legal lynching of 20 individuals in 1692.
• 19 were hanged, 1 was pressed to death, and 2 dogs
were hanged.
• Most of the accused came from families
associated with the Salem market economy; their
accusers came largely from subsistence farming
families in Salem’s rural areas.
The Salem Witch Trials
• The Salem Witch Trials reflected the widening social
stratification of New England, as well as the fear of many
religious traditionalists that the Puritan heritage was
being eclipsed by Yankee commercialism.
• The hysteria eventually ended when the governor
prohibited any further trials and pardoned those already
convicted.
• “Witch-hunting” passed into the American vocabulary as
a metaphor for the often dangerously irrational urge to
find a scapegoat for social resentment.
The Early Settler’s Days and Ways
•The cycle of the season and the sun set the
schedules of all the earliest American
colonists.
•The overwhelming majority of colonists were
farmers.
•Planted in spring, tended crops in summer,
harvested in fall, prepared in the winter.
•They usually rose at dawn and went to bed at
dusk.
The Early Settler’s Days and Ways
•Women (free or slave): wove, cooked, cleaned,
and cared for children.
•Men: cleared land, fenced, planted, and
cropped; cut firewood; and butchered
livestock.
•Children: helped with all tasks, while picking
up as much schooling as they could.