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Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution: Chapter 5

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13 Original Colonies Characteristics

• High population.- 2.5 million people- Half a million

slaves- Natural fertility of

whites and blacks Americans

eventually outnumbered the immigrant British and the balance of power shifted.

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Races Mingle • America had

numerous foreign groups.

• Germans arrived to avoid persecutions & economic oppression.

• They held no loyalty to the English crown.

• Kept to their language and customs.

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Races Mingle• Scots-Irish left

burdensome Ireland to the frontiers of the Pennsylvania.

• They rejected Puritanism and stabled strict governments.

• Held no close ties to the royal British crown.

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Races Mingle• The mixed diversity of the colonies

led to little loyalty to England.• The largest non-English group was

African. 20% of the population. • “a strange mixture of blood, which

you will find in no other country.” - Michel-Guillaume de Crevecoeur

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Structure of Colonial Society• Colonists were

generally equal (except for slaves)

• No titled nobility dominated.

• Mostly small farmers & skilled artisans.

• Hardworking people could climb the social & economic ladder.

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Structure of Colonial Society• War brought social & economical

changes.• Merchants profited from war supplies

& moved up social ranks.• War led to a class of widows who

needed to be supported through charity.

• The prospects of the New World began to dwindle. Land became scarce.

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Structure of Colonial Society• Southern power

became disproportionate due to slave ownership.

• A gap between wealthy slave owners and “poor whites” grew.

• They became tenant farmers.

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Structure of Colonial Society• British convicts

were also shipped to America. They were not loyal to the crown & some deportees became respectable citizens.

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Structure of Colonial Society• Slaves enjoyed no

equality & could not ascend the social ladder.

• Fear of slave rebellions plagued the colonists.

• Early attempts to end transatlantic slavery failed with Great Britain.

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Clerics, Physicians & Jurists• Professional clergy men lost some

influence as colonies grew.• Physicians were usually not educated

in college but rather apprenticed with experienced doctors.

• The law profession was not favorable because it wasn’t manual labor.

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Workaday America• Agriculture was the

main industry. 90%• Middle colonies:

grain• Southern

colonies: tobacco• Northern colonies:

fishing & ship building.

• In the colonies and overseas.

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Workaday America• Triangular Trade

was profitable. • A skipper would

travel from New England to Africa to the West Indies and then again to New England trading and selling various goods.

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Workaday America• Manufacturing was

a secondary.• American

populations grew and so demand to sell their goods also grew.

• Farmers and manufacturers began to sell their goods abroad

• Molasses Act: Aimed at taxing colonial exports it also greatly cut American profits coming from the West Indies.

• Colonist avoided the tax through smuggling and bribing.

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Transportation Problems• Roads were deficient

and dangerous. • Roads were muddy

while in the summer they were dusty.

• Traveling by river was slow but pleasant.

• Taverns began to spring up along road and water trails.

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Religion: People worshiped as they pleased

• Congregationalists: New England

• Anglicans: New York and the South

• Presbyterians: Frontier

• German Churches (Lutheran): Pennsylvania

• Dutch Reformed: New York & New Jersey

• Quakers: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, & Delaware

• Baptists: Northern• Catholics: Middle• Methodists:

Scattered• Jews: Northern

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The Enlightenment • Ideas about nature

in which philosophers valued reason and scientific methods.

• Ben Franklin believed in obtaining truth through experimentation and reason.

• These ideas spread from Europe to the colonies.

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The Great Awakening

• Church participation slumped. • Jacobs Arminius began to preach

that people were not predestined to go to heaven. People could save themselves with good works.

• Church conversion also • became easier.• Colonial clergy grew• alarmed.

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The Great Awakening• A Puritan religious

revival in the 1730’s to 1740’s.

• Jonathan Edwards preached that in order for people to be saved they must feel their sinfulness and feel Gods love for them.

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Effects•Caused people to question traditional authority.

•Created an intellectual and social atmosphere that eventually led to the American Revolution.

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Colonial Education

• Schools were established to educate good Christian boys. They were strict & mostly located in the North & Middle colonies.

• The South relied on private tutors.

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Colonial Education• College

education was geared toward preparing men for the ministry.

• Enrollment was low and curriculum was loaded with theology and dead languages.

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Colonial Presses• Most colonist didn’t

own or have time to read books.

• Pamphlets, leaflets and journals became popular.

• They became popular agencies to express grievances and rally British opposition.

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Printing Press