Colonial Society Development

Overview

This lecture explores the development of American colonial society in the seventeenth century, focusing on regional differences, labor systems, family life, and the evolution of social structures in the Chesapeake and New England colonies.

Chesapeake Colonies: Health, Family, and Society

• Early Chesapeake settlers faced high mortality due to diseases, leading to short life expectancy.
• Colonies grew slowly, mainly through male immigration; women were scarce, and families were fragile.
• Over time, native-born colonists acquired immunity, and population growth relied more on natural increase.
• The social structure included great merchant-planters at the top, small farmers, landless whites, indentured servants, and enslaved Africans.

The Tobacco Economy and Indentured Servitude

• Tobacco cultivation was profitable but exhausted the soil, causing continual expansion and conflicts with Native Americans.
• The headright system rewarded masters with land for importing servants, leading to large estates.
• Indentured servants mortgaged years of labor for passage, freedom dues, and sometimes land, but their prospects worsened over time.
• Freed servants often remained poor and landless, fueling social unrest.

Bacon’s Rebellion and Its Impact

• Tensions between landless freemen and elite planters erupted in Bacon’s Rebellion (1676), highlighting class conflict and frontier grievances.
• The rebellion led planters to seek a more controllable labor force, accelerating the shift to African slavery.

Colonial Slavery: Growth and Codification

• The use of African slaves increased after 1680 as indentured servant numbers declined and planters sought stable labor.
• Slave codes established strict racial distinctions and made slavery hereditary.
• The transatlantic slave trade brought about 400,000 Africans to North America, most after 1700.

Slave Life and Culture

• Slave life was harshest in the deep South; Chesapeake slaves sometimes formed families and developed a unique African-American culture blending African and Christian elements.
• Resistance included revolts (e.g., Stono Rebellion), but these were generally suppressed.

New England: Health, Family, and Society

• New England’s healthier climate led to longer life spans and stable, multi-generational families.
• Society was tightly knit, organized around towns with local governance and required education.
• Women had fewer property rights than in the South, but some legal protections existed.

Religious Life and Social Structure in New England

• The Half-Way Covenant (1662) weakened the distinction between church members and non-members, opening participation but diluting Puritan purity.
• The Salem Witch Trials reflected social tensions and religious anxiety.
• New England towns were orderly, promoting democracy and collective moral oversight.

Economy and Land in New England

• Poor soil and climate fostered diversified agriculture, shipbuilding, and trade instead of plantation crops.
• Settlement patterns and land use reflected a sense of communal improvement and individual landownership.

Colonial Life and Social Mobility

• Most colonists were farmers; land was relatively cheap, and class distinctions were less pronounced than in Europe.
• Periodic social unrest arose, but attempts to replicate European aristocracy largely failed, laying the groundwork for American egalitarianism and democracy.

Key Terms & Definitions

• Indentured Servant — Person working for a set term in exchange for passage to America, with hope for land/freedom dues.
• Headright System — Grant of land given to masters who paid the passage for imported laborers.
• Bacon’s Rebellion — 1676 uprising of frontier settlers and former servants against Virginia’s elite.
• Slave Codes — Colonial laws that defined slavery as a lifelong, hereditary status based on race.
• Half-Way Covenant — Church policy allowing partial Puritan church membership for children of baptized but unconverted members.

Action Items / Next Steps

• Review the chronology of key events (e.g., arrival of Africans in Virginia, Bacon’s Rebellion, Salem Witch Trials).
• Prepare for discussion or written response on regional differences in colonial America’s development.
• Read assigned primary documents related to indentured servitude and slave culture.