Transcript Document 7182525

Colonial period
1607-1775

1607-1860, Approximately 200 years

Based on subsistence agriculture
 Little mechanization
 Limited labor
 Goal was “get rich schemes”
 Ex. Virginia Company that founded James Town
 Everyone was a farmer, regardless of previous profession or
trade as it was necessary for survival
 Cottage industries: manufacturing goods (non-food) in the
household, primarily for personal use at this time

Theocratic societies developed
 Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Harbor , MA
 Failed settlement by 1620
 Created a homogeneous cultures with shared dissents and
values
 Protestant Work Ethic: value placed on hard work, savings, and
investment

Feudalism
 Though this is not traditional feudalism there was a defined
system of paying goods and revenue to higher royals
 American Feudalism was based on:
 Quit Rents which were yearly rent payments to the king, even if a
person owned the land
 Primogeniture: total estates and privileges awarded to the eldest
son
 Entail: Permanently owned land, extending though the family heirs
Population Doubled almost every 30 years in this
period

 Reaching 2.7 million in 1780
human labor was primarily used because of lack of
efficient technology (other than hand tools) and lack
of livestock
 Three typical labor forms

1.
Indentured servants: individuals contracted into service for
passage fare to the new world.


Usually for 10 year contracts.
Abuse of this system was common but did help get many
(eventually) free individuals over to popular colonies
2. Families: Families were large to make up for high incidents of
death and for more hands for help.

Primogeniture was the flaw in this system, and with vast
unclaimed land to the west, these children quickly left to find their
own claim.
3. Slavery: This system was common in the southern colonies
where plantations produced export cash crops with African
slaves.


This labor system and crop varieties had been proven to work in
the West Indies, a similar climate.
This institution was firmly establish by 1650
Crops that thrived in the colonies were foreign to
colonists, and they struggled to survive until they
mastered cultivation of these plants.


The food staples were:
 Corn
 Squash
 Beans
Exhaustive agriculture was practical because Of low
prices of expansive land.

 Though crop rotations and other conservation practices were
known, they were rarely utilized.

Livestock
 Livestock agriculture was not practiced on a large scale.
 Animal husbandry was mostly ignored, resulting in poor stock
 Hogs, which were the most common stock, wandered the forests
and therefore grew rough and poorly

Markets
 There was little trade within the colonies because of poor or no
infrastructure
 Profitable markets were abroad
 Great population and wealth were overseas, espcaily for new
American goods
 Sea transportation was the most efficient means of travel, and
transport and roads were almost nonexistent other than southern
river travel.
Exports were as important in the colonies as the
large markets (and money) was abroad.

 The colonies were isolated from major wealthy populations

Each region had its specialty
 Southern: Tobacco, rice, indigo, and short-staple cotton
 Middle: was the bread basket: wheat, rye, and barley
 New England: Furs, fish, and other resources
Tobacco became a craze in
England

 Colonies were required to market their
product exclusively to England to meet
this demand

Corn was used for everything
 food
 export/processing for whiskey
 feed (in later times)
British restriction on trade limited the markets to
the motherland

 This is mercantilism, which was a British policy that
demanded that the colonies exclusively supply Brittan with
the raw materials and the colonies exclusively purchased
Brittan's textiles
 This was implemented through the many Navigation Acts…

Navigation Acts required
 Ships and their crews to be British
 All imports to come from England (if not produced there, it
must first pass through its ports)
 Enumerated commodities could only be shipped and sold
to England
These acts were the key impetus for revolt and
revolution


Trade patterns
 Direct Trade: Commodities shipped directly to England
 mostly involved Southern commodities such as indigo and tobacco
 Triangular (Indirect) Trade: involved the processing of products
before reaching England
 Most processing and shipping enterprises were based out of the
many bays and coves of New England and Middle colonies
 Most important examples: the movement of Rum, Slaves, Molasses

Types of disposal
 Political Land Grants: The King grants tracts of land to political
allies or proprietors
 These proprietors often want to continue feudalistic structures in
the south.
 This failed as settlers refused to move into the same exploitative
system that existed in Brittan.
 So these proprietors would gift this land to friends and family
 Headright System: A person was granted 50 acres of land in
designated, unappropriated areas for himself and every
additional person that he brought with him
 Common in Virginia and Maryland
New England Land Grant Method: Land distributed
into strips including a common cultivation area by a
utilitarian and fairly egalitarian method using a criteria
of:

 Amount of investment and
 Ability to use the land
 Started by the Massachusetts Bay Company, and the practice
continued to 1725.
 Groups (usually religious) would petition local government for a
grant of land.
 This method is important in cultural development such as developing
strong sense of community and greater equality and preventing land
speculation by equal disposal .

Land Restrictions along the
Appalachian Mountains
blocked western
development and trade
 Beginning in 1763, the British
government reserved all land
from the Appalachians to the
Mississippi River for Native
Americans
 Again this caused conflict
because of the results of
primogeniture.
Regional Differences began to develop and
would set the stage for economic, cultural,
and policy divergences and conflicts.

Who:
•
Difficulties
• Opportunities
 Multi-national
 Poor, rocky soil
Excellent use of natural
 Religious dissenters  Cold climate
resources
 Tradesmen
 Indians and other
Use knowledge of
ethic/national colonies other settlers

New York & New Jersey
 New Netherlands in 1624
 fell to British in 1664
 Many conflicts inhibited
growth
 Broad ethnicity
 No major export market

Who:
 Religious dissenters
 Families
 Indentured servants

Difficulties
 Poor soil
 Dense forests for clearing
 Inexperience with native crops and growing cycles

Opportunities
 Citizens were there for establishing sustainable communities

Pennsylvania
 Grant to William Penn in 1681
 Quickly growing Puritan colony
supporting a liberal, fairly
egalitarian society with a strong
work ethic
 Large export grain crops such as
wheat and rye

Who:
 Nobility
 Slaves
 Gentlemen adventures

Difficulties
 High rate of disease and death
 Isolated

Opportunities
 Experience with viable cash crops from the Indies
 Little competition for land (because it was already all owned
and granted in)
 Navigable rivers

Maryland
 Land Granted to George Calvert (Lord Baltimore) in 1632
 Haven for Roman Catholics, as well as liberty for all Christians
 Feudalistic practices failed so a headright system enveloped and
prospered
 High Religious freedom, high level of self governance, free land,
and tobacco export helped the colony thrive

Carolinas
 Proprietary grant in 1663
 Settled by landed, wealthy owners who continued the
feudalistic state through large estates and slavery with cash
crops such as rice and indigo
 The region remained isolated because of hazardous coasts and
lack of land owning opportunity
Agriculture vs. Agri culture
Culture:
Values
Beliefs
Lifestyle
Farming
•Culture of
Food
Production
Rural Communities
•Values
•Beliefs
•Lifestyle








Freedom to make own decisions
Opportunity for self-improvement
Way of life vs. business
Ability to work outdoors
Good place to raise a family
Independence--be own boss
Work with nature
Feelings of doing something worthwhile
A
B
C
1607
1800
1900
Agrarian Culture Modernization
Native
Founding
American of
Culture-- Jamestown
hunting &
Colonial Rule
gathering,
hoe
culture,
tribal
Scientific
Industrialization
Commercialization






SURVIVAL
Subsistence
Life was fluid
Theocracy
Feudalism gets its roots
Integration of food production with daily living
• everyone is a farmer--farming and agriculture are synonymous

Importance of religious values
• Protestant work ethic

Navigation Acts

Abundant land

Labor scarcity

Export crops