Topic 2.7

📍Topic 2.7 Colonial Society and Culture

📖 AMSCO p.63 - p.74

Main Idea

Key Timeline

Image Courtesy of Samhitha

Things to Know

European Immigrants:

• English: Settled throughout American colonies. Their population numbers are smaller than other groups due to less conflicts faced in England.
• Germans: Settled in an area known as Pennsylvania Dutch country, maintaining their customs and obeyed colonial laws.
• Scottish-Irish: Protestants whose ancestors moved from Scotland to Ireland. They didn’t like the British, who forced them to leave Ireland. Many settled in western Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

Africans:

• Largest group in the English colonies.
• Were forced onto ships
  • Working as laborers, bricklayers, or blacksmiths.
• Mainly lived in Southern colonies, such as South Carolina and Georgia.
• Slaves were freed, which was rare, by buying their freedom or being emancipated by plantation owners.

Native Americans:

• Some native Americans protected their land through alliances with other tribes.
• Others became allies with settlers to fight rival tribes.

Liberty and Opportunity:

• Religious Tolerance
  • Permitted practicing different religions, but not on an equal base of freedom.
• Social Mobility
  • White settlers were able to improve their lifestyle by acquiring land.

Economy:

• New England colonies
  • Primarily earned through logging, shipbuilding, fishing, trading, and rum-distilling.
  • Subsistence farming: Harvesting crops only to feed oneself.
• Middle Colonies
  • Known as the “bread basket” colonies, they exported wheat and corn to European countries.
• Southern Colonies
  • Established plantations that primarily grew tobacco, indigo, and cotton.

Great Awakening:

• Movement that emphasized religion and the Bible throughout the colonies.
• Jonathan Edwards: Writer of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
• George Whitefield: Preached that God will only save those who believe in Jesus Christ, and those who don’t believe go to Hell.

Arts and Sciences:

• Georgian Style of London is common on buildings.
• Stucco homes were common on the east coast; lob cabins are common on the frontier.
• Painters commonly painted family portraits.
• Literature is primarily based on religion and politics.
  • “Poor Richard’s Almanack” by Benjamin Franklin highlighted the relationship between colonials rights and English authority.

Education:

• Elementary Education
  • Towns established elementary schools for boys and the curriculum is based on the Bible.
• Sectarian
  • Colleges that taught the doctrines of a religion.
• Christian Ministry
  • The only well-educated people in colonies.
• Physicians
  • Those who received training from knowledgeable physicians and ‘cured’ colonists of diseases.
• Lawyers
  • Those who began to advocate for colonial rights.

Politics:

• Colonists established local governments, where colonists directly voted on issues in town hall meetings.
• Governor: Chief executive of the government
• Voting
  • Democracy given to only land owning white men.

Terms to Remember