Chapter 3

Colonial Ways of Life

Who were the American settlers?

• Young, male, poor• Over half = indentured servants• 2/3 = came alone

Why did they come?• European population growth• Rise of commercial agriculture• Political security• Religious freedom

Mass Migrations

1629-1641 – Puritans (Massachusetts)

Wealthy Royalists with indentured servants (Virginia)

Quakers (West Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware)

1717-1775 – Celtic and Scotch-Irish (Appalachians)

• Enduring folkways – settlers retained many of their different cultural attitudes and customs

• Changed landscape – deforestation, domesticated animals, ravaged large mammal populations

• Women – remained subordinate and domestic as in Europe

• Slavery – – Jamestown in 1619 (not treated much different than

white indentured servants)– Color differences = hereditary life service– Brazil – most “voracious appetite” for slaves– P. 116 – color was crucial difference

Triangular Trade – Atlantic Trade

Puritans

• Wanted purified form of Anglican church

• P. 128 – New England Puritans …

• Salem Witch Trials – from 1620 to 1700, 20 colonists were put to death for witchcraft– Adolescent imagination and contagious – Long standing feuds and property disputes– Women in power

The Enlightenment

•European movement that emphasized a search for knowledge. •Also called the Age of Reason•Brought on by scientific revolution – natural laws that govern universe

•Copernicus = earth not center of universe•Newton = natural order

REDUCED ROLE OF GOD TO REMOTE CREATOR

The Enlightenment and the American Colonies

•Jefferson used Locke’s theories when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

•Other American leaders used Enlightenment ideas when they drafted the United States Constitution.

•Franklin and Jefferson were also interested in science and invention, applying reason to ask questions and find answers.

The Great AwakeningEnlightenment thinkers questioned common beliefs

and deep-rooted superstitions.P. 142 – Evil in the world…

Changes in religious attitudes•Strict groups such as the Puritans were upset by the growing

tolerance for other beliefs.•Some religious leaders worried that material values and

concern for making money had displaced spiritual values. Clergy looked for new ways to bring people back to the church.

•Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield had little interest in merely engaging parishioners' minds; they wanted far more to elicit an emotional response from their audience, one which might yield the workings and evidence of saving grace.

•REVIVAL