3) Colonial Society 1750s

Population Growth
 Population Growth
➢ 800% in 75 years
➢ Higher birthrate
 Immigrants
➢ More non-English than English
➢ French Huguenots
✔ Repeal of the Edict of Nantes (so they can leave)
✔ Were not welcome in New France
✔ Come to coastal cities
➢ Penn Duetch (Germans)
✔ Palatinate
✔ Became Indentures servants without contract
• No limit to serving time
➢ Scotch-Irish
✔ Appalachian Mountains
✔ Poor (hillbillies)
✔ Hot temper
✔ Ex. Andrew Jackson (110 duels but changed for his wife
Rachel)
➢ Slaves
✔ 55% of Immigrants
✔ Came from the Caribbean
Trade
 Problems
➢ Puritans did not like commerce
✔ Watered down
✔ But still possible to make money
 Triangular Trade
➢ New England-West Africa-Caribbean
➢ Gave New England something to do
Back Country
 Piedmont to Georgia
➢ Never got along with the coast
➢ Suspicious of change (conservative)
➢ Lived close to nature
➢ Communal culture (not a lot of privacy)
➢ Depended on neighbors
➢ Everybody equal
➢ Led to democracy
➢ Frederick Jackson Turner: Turner Thesis
✔ Education was not important
 ✔ Only practical learning
 Frontier Heritage
➢ Labor was forcer
➢ American Dream : property ownership
➢ Never seemed to be represented
➢ Cross-cultural swapping
➢ Indians knew about medicine and herbs
➢ Nobody traveled because it was inconvenient (Only politicians)
Plantations
 Why Plantations
➢ Boom and Bust cycle
➢ Small farmers could not grow cash crops
✔ Tobacco, rice, indigo
➢ Cost effective and self sufficient
➢ Rice
✔ Hard labor
✔ 15 slaves, white overseer (Gang labor)
✔ Ideal in Virginia but not in Carolina
✔ Task Labor in Carolina
➢ Indigo
✔ Can’t grow rice in the winter time
✔ Blue dye (Tweed suits)
➢ Planter’s Society
✔ Great Planters: 1%
✔ Small Farmers:4%
✔ Yeoman:75% (no slaves ) (supported slavery)
✔ Mountain People: 10-20%
➢ Slave Society
✔ Marriages illegal
✔ But had stable families
✔ No one wanted to be slaves
✔ Condemned
✔ Slave rebellions (Usually in the Caribbean)
• Stono: 1739 (20 died)
• Gabano :1800 (no one died)
• Vesy : 1822 (no one died)
• Nat Turner(biggest)
✔ Not 1% of slaves ran away
✔ 99% had passive resistance (being disagreeable)
✔ Slaves in the U.S. was not as bad as slaves in the
Caribbean
✔ Slaves population grew (birthrate)
 ✔ 10%African Americans were free, living along the
Mississippi River (Purchased Freedom)
✔ Manumission : slaves freed by master in his will)
✔ 1st Emancipation: Slave fought as soldiers in American
Revolution
The Great Awakening/The Enlightenment
 The Enlightenment
➢ Modern Mind= Enlightened Mind
➢ Isaac Newton
➢ Galileo
➢ Scientific Laws
➢ Reason and Logic
➢ Emotions left out
➢ Unitarian Church (cerebral)
 The Great Awakening
➢ Telinohuyen, Tenet Field
➢ Jonathan and Edwards Started
✔ Fire and Brimstone
➢ 26 yr old George Whitefield was the leader
✔ People flocked to his sermons
✔ Revivalism
✔ Benjamin Franklin, a great leader of the Enlightenment,
was even impressed
➢ Split between new lights and old lights (religious schism)
➢ 1st national event to unify the colonies
➢ Questioning Ministers= Questioning Authorities
Colonial/Imperial Policy
 Governor (loyal to England)
 Council (loyal to England)
 Assembly: elected by people
➢ Collects taxes
➢ Has the power
 William and Mary: Reorganization Act 1696 (To control the colonies)
➢ Privy council
➢ Board of Trade
➢ Colonial Agent
➢ Salutary Neglect