mcgraw hill, chapter 3 summery

CHAPTER 3

Society and Culture in Provincial America 

CHAPTER SUMMARY

As the settlement of English colonies in North America grew and economic success began to take hold, it became evident that the colonists were beginning to develop characteristics that were distinctly “American,” although marked by regional differences. Although they were still transplanted English subjects and still greatly influenced by European ideas and institutions, colonists were also influenced by their specific labor needs, the development of cities, the trans-Atlantic trade, and the changing patterns of immigration. Provincial America exhibited modifications to English medical care, family structure, and technology. American religious thought, education and intellectualism, and scientific pursuits also developed with and apart from European concepts. Within North America, one sees a continuation of the social and economic differences that defined the northern and southern colonies. Although differences in geography, economy, and population gave each colony its own particular character and problems, there remained many common concerns, not the least of which was how to deal with or avoid dealing with British mercantile restrictions. In sum, between 1700 and 1750, Britain’s American colonies began to show signs of becoming less English and more American with each passing year. This chapter explores the larger, soon to be ominous, differences between the colonies and England.

OBJECTIVES

A thorough study of Chapter 3 should enable the student to understand:

1. The development of colonial labor, including indentured servants, women, and African slaves

2. The differences between Chesapeake society and New England society, and the impact of demography on colonial life, especially family life, in both places

3. The accepted theories and practices of colonial medicine

4. The disagreements among historians concerning the origins of slavery

5. Immigration patterns and their effect on colonial development

6. The emergence of the plantation system and its impact on southern society; and the increasing differences between the northern economy and the southern economy during the first half of the eighteenth century

7. The development of colonial industry and its technological features

8. The progress of colonial trade outside of North America

9. The nature of the Puritan society, and the Salem witchcraft trials as a reflection of that world and the mounting turmoil within it

10. The reasons for the appearance of and diversity in religious denominations and sects in the colonies, and the reasons for and effect of the Great Awakening

11. The ways in which colonial literature, education, science, law, and politics combined with Enlightment thought to influence the developing American mindset

MAIN THEMES

1. How the colonial population grew and diversified

2. How the colonial economy expanded to meet the needs of this rapidly growing population

3. The knowledge and limits of colonial medicine, technology, and science

4. The emergence of a uniquely American mind and spirit

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION

1. How and why did the institution of slavery begin and develop in colonial America? Analyze the various historical interpretations of the origins of slavery. In that context, explain the difference(s) between fact and interpretation.

2. What reasons did the colonists give for keeping slaves? On what grounds did some colonists oppose slaveholding?

3. What were the problems with indentured servitude that encouraged the growth of slavery? 

4. How did colonists compare and contrast with Europeans in their medical practices?

5. Compare and contrast the economies of the northern and southern colonies. Why did each region develop as it did? How did the economic system of each affect the social system of each? How did demographic changes, north and south, affect family life, north and south?

6. Discuss regional differences in longevity, women’s roles, and family structures. What were the important consequences of those differences?

7. Were the American colonists creating their own mercantile system by developing their own trading patterns (which were often in violation of the British Navigation Acts)? What implications did this new colonial mercantile system have for future relations between the British North American colonies and England (whether the crown or Parliament or both)?

8. How did Puritans organize their local communities? How did they define and organize their religious lives? How did witchcraft in New England reflect social tensions in the Puritan society? What were local Salem officials trying to accomplish by bringing suspected “witches” to trial?

9. Why did the Great Awakening take place? What key doctrines were preached by ministers during the Great Awakening? How did those doctrines differ from early seventeenth-century Puritan beliefs? What was the impact of the Great Awakening on colonial religious and social life?

10. Describe the various populations that settled the British American colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Assess overall population growth during the colonial period. What factors contributed to a steadily increasing colonial population? Why did certain immigrant groups settle where they did?

11. What role did the Enlightenment play in the advance of education in colonial America? How did the Enlightment affect religion?

12. What were the fruits of education in colonial America? How did education help form a uniquely “American” character?

MAP EXERCISES

1. Identify the major rivers and lakes in the area that in the future will become the United States.

2. Identify the areas of non-Indian settlement in 1700. What forts, outposts, and towns had been established by that time?

3. Identify the British North American colonies, around 1760, and place them in their colonial groups: southern, middle, and New England.

4. Locate the major settlements and rivers in each of the British colonies.

5. Locate the dominant immigrant groups in these colonies.

6. Identify the trade routes that defined the “triangular trade.” What were the products traded, and with whom were they exchanged?

INTERPRETATIVE QUESTIONS BASED ON MAPS AND TEXT

1. Note the location of various immigrant groups as of 1760. How do you account for these settlement patterns? How might those patterns help explain differences between not just the North and the South, but also between New England and the mid-Atlantic states and between the South and the mid-Atlantic states?

2. The “triangular trade” was not just one pattern of trade, but embraced a variety of patterns. How did all patterns tie the British Empire together? How might the trade have contributed to a colonial American desire for independence?

3. Examine the maps on pages 42 and 45 in Chapter 3 of the text. In what ways might the patterns of “triangular trade” have contributed to the patterns of immigration settlement that had been established by 1760?

4. What was the major non-English immigrant group in the southern colonies? What circumstances led to their immigration to the New World? Why were they concentrated in the South rather than in other regions?

5. Who were the Scotch-Irish? Why did they leave their homeland, and why did they settle where they did? How would the conditions that led to their immigration and settlement have affected their attitude toward England and English colonial governments?

6. Note the location of German immigrant groups. Why did they leave their homeland, and why did they settle where they did? How would the conditions that led to their immigration and settlement have affected their attitude toward England and English colonial governments?

7. Why were the Dutch located where they were? Was this a post-1700 immigration group? Why did they leave their homeland and settle where they did? By 1760, what changes in society in this region might you expect?

8. Note where the English were concentrated. Which are the most “English” colonies and regions? Why would the southern colonies continue to have a strong English orientation despite the presence of a large immigrant group?

9. Note the goods that the various colonial groups exported. If economic ties correspond to political ties, what do these markets indicate about the various regions’ obedience to the Navigation Acts and their loyalty to England?

10. Trace the route of the so-called triangular trade. Which region of Britain’s North American colonies benefited most from this trade? How did this lead to the creation of a colonial mercantile system outside the British Empire?

11. In general, the colonies sent raw material to England and in return bought manufactured goods. What effect did this exchange have on the colonial economy? How did British policies contribute to this pattern?

12. Compare the concentration of black population to total population in the southern colonies. In which areas did blacks outnumber whites? What type of economy existed there? What was the nature of black–white interaction in these areas?

13. In which areas of the southern colonies did whites outnumber blacks? What type of economic system existed there? What was the nature of black–white interaction in these areas?

14. In which areas would blacks have more day-to-day contact with other blacks than with whites? How would this have influenced black life and culture?

15. Which white immigrant groups would have had the most interaction with blacks? Which would have had the least?

16. Notice the absence of blacks in the middle colonies and in backcountry Virginia and North Carolina. What factors contributed to this? What type of socioeconomic system was common to this region? How did it differ from the socioeconomic system found in areas with heavy black concentrations?

ESSAY QUESTIONS

These questions are based on the preceding map exercises. They are designed to test students’ knowledge of the geography of the area discussed in this chapter and of its historical development. Careful reading of the text will help students answer these questions.

1. How did the New England economy reflect the culture of the dominant immigrant group in that region? Examine the sort of commerce this region carried on and with whom, and assess the impact this commercial activity had on the culture responsible for it.

2. What commodities were exported from the southern colonies, and where were they sent? How did the geography of that region contribute to its economic development, and what impact did this have on its cultural evolution?

3. Why didn’t the New England town system develop in the South? In the middle colonies? What geographic factors contributed to the success of the town in New England and worked against its success in other regions?

4. How was the development of industry and technology influenced by geography? What geographic factors encouraged or limited industry or technology? What colonial regions had more or less success?

5. How was the plantation system a response to geographic conditions in the southern colonies? What impact did this system have on the cultural development of the region?

6. Why did slavery flourish in some parts of the southern backcountry and not in others? What geographic conditions contributed to this?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jean-Christophe Agnew, Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750 (1986)

Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (1986) 

Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Copy of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (1986)

J. C. D. Clark, The Language of Liberty, 1660-1832 (1994)

David Conroy, In Public Houses: Drink and the Revolution of Authority in Colonial Massachusetts (1995)

David Freeman Hawke, Everyday Life in Early America (1988)

Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619-1877 (1993)  

Frank Lambert, “Pedlar in Divinity”: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737-1770 (1994)

Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (1998)

Bernard Rosenthal, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (1993) 

Sharon U. Salinger, “To Serve Well and Faithfully”: Labor and Indentured Servants in Pennsylvania, 1692-1800 (1987) 

Darren Staloff, The Making of an American Thinking Class: Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in Puritan Massachusetts (1998) 

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Images and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (1982)

Marilyn Westerkamp, Triumph of Laity (1988)

Michael P. Zuckert, Natural Rights and the New Republicanism (1994)

For Internet resources, practice questions, references to additional books and films, and more, see this book’s Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/unfinishednation4.