Haley Bracken (and friends) AP US History Summer Reading Notes 14 August 2013 Unit One: Founding the New

Nation Pages: 2-108 Chapter 4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century (P. 68 87) 1. The crude establishments of the first colonists slowly gave way to permanent settlements. a. Europeans/Africans began to adapt to the New World; Indians adapted to the English. 2. The Unhealthy Chesapeake a. Life in the American wilderness was harsh. b. Malaria, dysentery, and typhoid killed many. c. The life expectancy of most settlers was shorter than in England. i. Almost half of settlers died before 20; few lived to be 40 or 50 years old. d. Disease-ravaged Chesapeake grew slowly in the 1600s; most growth occurred through fresh immigration from England. i. Most immigrants were young, single men; and most died after arrival. ii. Surviving males outnumbered women 6:1. Women were so scarce that men fought over all of them. If a woman was of age, she wasnt single for long. e. Family Life Most men couldnt find mates. Most marriages ended quickly because one of them died. Very few children reached adulthood. Grandparents werent even a thing. i. Many young girls were pregnant before they even married. f. Slowly, colonists become acclimated to the new environment. i. Native-borns eventually acquired immunity to diseases. ii. Presence of more women allowed more families to form. iii. Population began to grow by its own birth rate; not by its immigration rate. g. Virginia, with 59,000 people, was the most populous colony. 3. The Tobacco Economy a. The Chesapeake was very good for tobacco cultivation. b. Intense tobacco cultivation quickly exhausted the soil, creating a new demand for land. i. Seeking fresh fields, many commercial growers pressed into Indian territory. c. Chesapeake Bay exported 1.5 million pounds of tobacco per year in the 1630s and almost 40 million pounds per year by the 1700s. i. More availability led to falling prices, but tobacco farmers still grew more. d. More tobacco = more labor needed. i. Families procreated too slowly to provide it by natural population increase. ii. Indians died too quickly on contact with whites to be a labor force. iii. African slaves cost too much money. iv. But, Europe still had a surplus of displaced workers and farmers. 1. These surplus workers wandered from city to city, often ending in port cities, where they would board ships for America as indentured servants. a. Indentured servants (voluntary slaves) In exchange for transatlantic passage, migrants who bound themselves to a colonial employer for a term of service. i. Facilitated settlement, addressed chronic labor shortage ii. Most laborers at this time were indentured servants. b. Freedom dues Farming tools, clothes, and sometimes land given to former indentured servants. v. Headright System Encouraged the growth of the Chesapeake. 1. If an aristocrat sponsored an indentured servants passage to America, the aristocrat earned the right to purchase 50 acres of land, at a cheap price. So the land was taken by the rich, and the poor were left without it.

Aristocrats became great merchant-planters; holders of massive estates that came to dominate Southern life. 2. White slaves came to represent of European immigrants to America. vi. Life for indentured servants was hard, but they were hopeful for freedom at the end of their 7-year servitude. But, As land became scarcer, fewer masters included land grants in their freedom dues. 1. Owners unwilling to free their indentured servants often extended their contracts for mistakes. 2. Even after freedom was granted, many freed workers had little choice but to hire themselves out for low wages to their former masters. 4. Frustrated Freemen and Bacons Rebellion a. By the late 1600s, there were many free, poor, landless, single men frustrated by the lack of money, land, work and single women. i. Planters disliked this growing group of bachelors, and the Virginia assembly even disfranchised them, saying that the riffraff had little interest in the country b. Bacons Rebellion (1676) Frustrated, Nathaniel Bacon led a few thousand of these men in a rebellion against the hostile conditions. i. Rebels Wanted arable land; resented Berkeleys friendly policies toward the Indians (Berkeley refused to retaliate against Indian attacks on the frontier). 1. Bacon and his followers murderously attacked Indian settlements. 2. Chaos ensued; frustrated freemen, resentful servants went on a rampage. 3. Chased Berkeley from Jamestown and set the capital afire. a. Civil war in Virginia 4. In the midst of the rebellion, Bacon died of disease; Berkeley then crushed the uprising with brutal cruelty. c. Results? Bacon had ignited the resentments of landless former servants and had pitted the backcountry frontiersmen against the haughty gentry of the plantations. i. Rebellion was suppressed, but tensions and paranoia persisted. 1. Lordly planters looked for less troublesome laborers; to Africa! 5. Colonial Slavery a. In the 300 years following Columbus discovery of America, only about 400,000 of a total of 10 million African slaves were brought to the US. i. The majority of slaves were hauled to the sugar-rich Indies or South America. ii. Hard-pinched colonists, struggling to stay alive, couldnt afford to pay high prices for slaves that might die soon after arrival. 1. Even in the plantation colonies, slaves were only 7% of the population. b. Changes in the 1680s: For the first time, in the mid-1680s, black slaves outnumbered white servants among the plantation colonies new arrivals. i. Why? Rising wages in England shrank the surplus of young men without work, and fewer were willing to serve as an indentured servant. Also, landowners were afraid of possibly mutinous former white servants. ii. How? Royal African Company lost its monopoly on transporting slaves 1. Enterprising Americans rushed to cash in on the slave trade. 2. After 1700, more and more slaves were imported. a. Supply of slaves rose steeply. i. South Carolina Slaves outnumber whites 2:1. iii. Where from? Most slaves came from the west coast of Africa; Senegal to Angola 1. Captured by African coastal tribes; traded in crude markets to Europeans iv. Middle Passage Transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies. Slaves were bound, branded and herded aboard over-packed ships. 1. Death rates were notoriously high (around 20 percent) 2. Survivors were shoved onto auction blocks in New World ports

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v. Some of the earliest black slaves gained their freedom and became slaveholders themselves, but as the number of Africans rose, white colonists became crueler. c. Slave Codes Statutes that formally decreed the conditions of slavery for blacks i. Legal difference between a slave and a servant established; based on race ii. Made blacks and their children the property for life of their white masters iii. Some colonies made it a crime to teach a slave to read/write. iv. Conversion to Christianity couldnt qualify a slave for freedom. 6. Africans in America a. Slave life in the deep South was especially severe: the climate was hostile, the labor was draining, and growing rice was much harder than growing tobacco. i. Only fresh imports could sustain the slave population under these conditions b. Blacks in the tobacco-growing Chesapeake region had it somewhat easier. i. Tobacco plantations were larger and closer together, so slaves could see their friends and relatives more often. 1. Proportion of females rose, and family life was made possible. 2. Black population of the Chesapeake area soon began to grow through its own natural reproduction. c. Native-born African Americans contributed to the growth of a distinctive slave culture. i. Mixed African and American elements of speech, religion and folkways ii. Many blacks evolved new languages, blending their native tongues with English. 1. Gullah Unique language developed off the coast of South Carolina a. Some words passed into American language; i.e. gumbo, voodoo iii. Blacks also contributed to music with instruments like the banjo/bongo drum. 1. Ringshout W. African religious dance; foundations of jazz d. A few of the slaves became skilled artisans (carpenters, bricklayers), but most were downgraded to sweaty work (clearing swamps) and other menial tasks. e. Revolts did occur frequently, but no slave uprising matched that of Bacons Rebellion. i. New York slave revolt (1712) 9 whites died, 21 blacks executed ii. Stono River slave revolt (1739) 50 South Carolinian blacks tried to march to Spanish Florida but were stopped by local militia. 1. Overall, slaves were more tightly controlled than white servants. 7. Southern Society a. Defined hierarchy of wealth and status in the 1700s; social gap widened i. Top Powerful covey of great merchant planters 1. Owned gangs of slaves and vast dominions of land 2. Virtually ruled the regions economy, monopolized political power a. In Virginia, the Fitzhughs, Lees, & Washingtons owned massive tracts of real estate and dominated the House of Burgesses. i. Known as the First Families of Virginia (FFVs) ii. Pre-Revolution, they dominated VA legislature 3. Didnt try to emulate the English gentleman customs; hard-working, business-type lot that labored long hours managing their vast plantations a. Dealt with farm problems mostly with drunk laborers. ii. Second Small farmers (largest social group) 1. Far beneath the planters in wealth, prestige and political power. 2. Had 1-2 slaves; modest plots of land iii. Third Landless whites, many former indentured servants iv. Fourth Indentured servants 1. Numbers slowly diminished as black slaves replaced indentured servants. v. Fifth and Last Black slaves (enchained in societys basement) b. Few cities, so an urban professional class was slow to emerge. i. Charleston, South Carolina, was the largest city/port in the rural colonies. ii. Life revolved around the great plantations, which were isolated from one another.

iii. Waterways provided the principal means of transportation. 8. The New England Family Very different from the Southern way of life a. Better Conditions than in the disease-ridden South: In New England, there was clean water and cool temperatures, so disease was not as predominant as in the South. i. By migrating to the New World, settlers added ten years to their life span. ii. Had an average life span of seventy years b. New Englanders tended to migrate as families, not as individuals, and thus the family remained at the center of New England life. i. Children grew up in nurturing environments where they learned to respect their elders and obey; intergenerational families were common. ii. Family stability reflected in low premarital pregnancy rates. iii. New Englands population grew through natural increase. iv. Early marriage encouraged the birth rate many women wed by their early 20s 1. Women gave birth every 2 years until menopause c. Death in childbirth wasnt uncommon. i. A typical woman could expect to have about ten babies and raise eight of them. ii. Child-raising was essentially a womans full-time occupation. d. Women Men didnt have absolute control, but they did have much control. i. In the South, women usually had more power, as many men died young and women could inherit their husbands estates; in N.E., the opposite was true. 1. Women gave up their property rights when they married. a. Why? They feared it would undermine family unity. ii. Women couldnt vote; were viewed as morally weaker than men (thanks, Eve). iii. However, unruly or abusive husbands were punished. iv. Many women became midwives a trade in which only women were allowed. e. New England law was strict. Puritan laws defended the integrity of marriages. i. Divorce was a rarity; separated couples were often ordered couples to reunite. ii. Abandonment and adultery were the only grounds for divorce. 1. Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter (Easy A) Female adulterers were forced to wear a red A on all their clothes. 9. Life in the New England Towns a. Basis of the tightly knit New England society was small villages and farms. i. Why? Anchored by geography, hemmed in by the Indians, French & Dutch ii. Puritanism united the people with a common purpose. b. New England society grew in an orderly fashion. i. New towns were legally chartered by colonial authorities. ii. Distribution of land was entrusted to proprietors 1. Proprietors received a grant of land from the colonial legislature, and then moved their families to the designated place and laid out a town. a. A town usually had a meetinghouse surrounded by houses and a village green for militia drilling. c. Towns with 50+ families were required to provide elementary education. i. 1636 Mass. Puritans established Harvard College. ii. 1693 College of William and Mary was established by Virginians d. Puritans ran their own churches, and democracy in Congregational church government led logically to democracy in political government. i. Adult males met in town meetings and each man voted. 1. Classrooms for democracy 10. The Half-Way Covenant and the Salem Witch Trials a. As Puritans began to worry about their children and whether or not they would be as loyal and faithful as their predecessors, as the passage of time had dampened the first generations religious zeal, a new type of sermon became popular. i. Jeremiad Sermons scolding worshippers for their waning devotion.

1. Named after the doom-saying prophet Jeremiah b. Half-Way Covenant A new formula for church membership; agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children. i. Showed waning of religious zeal among second and third generation Puritans ii. Weakened the distinction between the elect and others; diluted the spiritual purity of the original godly community 1. Proved difficult to maintain the religious devotion of the first gen. iii. Eventually, all people were allowed to come and participate in the church, whether converted or not; strict religious purity was sacrificed to the cause of wider religious participation. c. Large-scale witchcraft persecutions were already common in Europe, but didnt begin in the colonies until the early 1690s, when a group of teenage girls from Salem claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women, resulting in a hysterical witch hunt. i. Salem witch trials Series of witchcraft trials after the adolescent girls accused the older women of witchcraft. 1. Causes? Superstitions, prejudices, turmoil of war with Indians, unsettled social and religious conditions 2. Who? Witchcraft hunts were often directed at property-owning women. a. Women involved in Salems market economy were targeted by rural farming families. b. Women were a scapegoat for social resentments/problems. 3. How many? 20 people (19 hanged, 1 pressed) and 2 dogs were executed ii. Witchcraft hysteria ended in 1693 when the Mass. governor prohibited further trials (his wife and several other clergymens wives had been targeted) 1. Accused witches were then pardoned. 11. The New England Way of Life a. Due to the hard New England soil (rocks), New Englanders became great traders. b. New England was less ethnically mixed than its neighbors. i. Why? Non-English immigrants werent attracted to a site where soil was stony. c. The climate of New England encouraged diversified agriculture and industry. i. New England region had extremes of weather ii. Staple products, like tobacco, didnt flourish like in the South. iii. There were no broad, fertile expanses of land like those in the South. 1. Black slavery was attempted, but didnt work. It was unnecessary since New England was made of small farms rather than plantations. d. New Englanders shaped the land in many ways. i. Indians understood the right to use the land, but didnt understand the English idea of exclusive, individual ownership of the land. ii. English settlers chastised the Indians for wasting the land, and felt a need to clear as much land for use as possible. 1. Wanted to improve the land by clearing woodlands for settlements 2. Livestock was introduced to the land. a. Herds required a lot of pastureland, and colonists continually cleared forests, and animals hooves sped up erosion. e. Repelled by the rocks, New Englanders turned to natural harbors. i. Became experts in shipbuilding and commerce ii. Fishing became a very popular industry, esp. fishing for cod. 1. New England was built on cod and God. f. New Englanders prided themselves on being Gods chosen people; combo of Calvinism, soil and climate resulted in Yankee ingenuity. g. New England also had a major impact on the filling in of the rest of the nation. i. Driven away by the sterile soil, many moved around, scattering from Ohio to Oregon, sprinkling the land with communities modeled on those found in N.E.

12. The Early Settlers Days and Ways a. Cycles of the seasons and the sun set the schedules of the all early American colonists. i. Rose with the sun, went to bed at dusk ii. Few things were done at night if they were worth the candle. b. Overwhelming majority of colonists were farmers. i. Planted in spring, tended crops in summer, harvested in fall, prepped in winter ii. Women wove, cooked, cleaned and cared for children. iii. Men cleared land, fenced, planted, cut firewood and butchered livestock. iv. Children helped with these tasks and attended school. c. Life was humble but comfortable. Americans lived in abundance. i. Land was relatively cheap, though less available in the South ii. Dukes dont emigrate and the poor dont have the means = the people who emigrated from Europe to America were usually lower middle class citizens seeking a better future in the New World 1. Except the impoverished indentured servants d. Sameness Werent really class distinctions in the crude frontier i. Some settlers tried to re-create the social structure in the Old World 1. Resentment against upper-class pretensions helped spark certain outbursts, like Bacons Rebellion and Leislers Rebellion a. Leislers Rebellion Fighting between aspiring merchants led by Jacob Leisler and the ruling elite of New York. i. One of many uprisings that erupted across the colonies when wealthy colonists attempted to recreate European social structures in the New World. 13. Makers of America: From African to African-American a. Africans arrival into the New World brought new languages, music, and cuisines to America. b. Africans worked in the rice fields of South Carolina due to (a) their knowledge of the crop and (b) their resistance to disease (as compared to Indians). i. The first slaves were men; some eventually gained freedom. ii. By 1740, large groups of African slaves lived together on plantations, where female slaves were expected to perform backbreaking labor and spin, weave, and sew. c. Most slaves became Christians, though many adopted elements from their native religions. i. They infused their worship with singing and dancing. ii. Drew their own conclusions from Scripture iii. Slaves used religious songs as encoded messages about escape/rebellion. d. Many African dances led to modern dances (i.e. the Charleston). e. Jazz is the most famous example of slave music entering mainstream culture.