Unit+3+The+Colonies+Come+of+Age

__Geography,Occupations, and Crops Produced__ Since the early days of Jamestown, when the planting of tobacco helped save the settlement, the Southern colonists had staked their livelihood on the fertile soil that stretched from the Chesapeake region to Georgia. Most farmers of the South specialized in raising a single **cash crop—**one grown primarily for sale rather than for the farmer's own use. In Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, farmers grew the broad green leaves of tobacco. In South Carolina and Georgia, rice and later indigo were successful cash crops. While small farmers formed the majority of the Southern population, the planters controlled much of the South's economy. They also controlled its political and social institutions
 * A Plantation Economy Arises**

Unlike farms in the South, those in the New England and Middle Colonies usually produced several crops instead of a single one. Long cold winters and thin rocky soil restricted New Englanders to small farms. Farmer in New England practiced **subsistence farming**, which means that they generally produced just enough to meet the needs of their families. Most Northern farmers relied on their children for labor. Everyone in the family worked-spinning yarn, preserving fruit, milking cows, fencing in fields, and sowing and harvesting grain.

In the more fertile areas of the Middle Colonies, such as New York and Pennsylvania, farmers raised a variety of crops and livestock, including wheat, corn, cattle, and hogs. They produced so much that they sold their surplus food to the West Indies, where raising sugar cane produced such tremendous profits that planters did not want to waste land growing food for the slaves who worked their fields.

A diverse commercial economy also developed in the New England and Middle colonies. Grinding wheat, harvesting fish (cod, halibut, crabs, oysters, and lobsters), and sawing lumber became thriving industries. Towns attracted skilled craftmans (artisans) who set up themselves up as blacksmiths, shoemakers, furniture makers, gunsmiths, metalsmiths, and printers. Colonists also manufactured impressive numbers of ships and quantities of iron. By 1760, the colonists had built one–third of all British ships and were producing more iron than England was. While at times the North's economy dipped, many colonists prospered. In particular, the number of merchants grew. By the mid–1700s, merchants were one of the most powerful groups in the North. These colonial merchants followed different trading routes. Some ships went directly from the colonies to England and back, others followed routes that came to be called the **triangular trade**.

If you look at a map of the Atlantic coast, you will see that inland from the Atlantic coast a line of hills and mountains extend from the northeast to the southwest. You will also notice that these hills and mountains are much closer to the coast in the North than in the South. As a result, the Southern Colonies had much more flat coastal land for farming than did the colonies in the North. Also, in the North that soil is rocky and farmers had to work harder to grow crops. Then too, the winters in the North are longer and colder than they are in the South. Farming at first was very important in all the colonies. Because of the different geographical conditions, however farming remained important much longer in the Southern Colonies tham in the Northern Colonies.

Now look at that map again. See how many rivers lead from inland areas to the coast, like threads worked into a piece of cloth. These rivers were the highways of the colonies, because good roads did not exist. Some people used this waterpower from the rivers and streams to run mills for grinding or wawing. At the mouths of many of the rivers, especially in the North, were good harbors. Because of these good harbors, trade and shipping became important in the North.

Between the New England and the South lay the Middle Colonies. This section was not exactly like either of the other two. Not only was it located between them on the map, but its way of life was midway between the other two. The soil and slightly milder climate of the Middle Colonies, for example was better for crops than those of New England but not quite so good as those of the South. In manufacturing and commerce, the Middle Colonies ranked next to New England. Their trade was carrred on in two big seaports: New York at the mouth of the Hudson River, and Philadelphia near the mouth of the Delaware River. Farm products were exported, along with timber and fur. In fact, the Middle Colonies produced so much wheat and corn that they were called the "bread colonies."

Like the New England Colonies, the Middle Colonies also had industries. Some were home-based crafts such as carpentry and flour making. Others included larger businesses such as lumbering, mining and small-scale manufacturing. One iron mill in Northern New Jersey employed several hundred workers, many of them from Germany. Other smaller ironworks operated in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

__Home Types__ Most people in New England lived in well-organized towns. In the center of the town stood the meetinghouse, a building used for both church services and town meetings. The meetinghouse faced a piece of land called the green, or common, where cows grazed and the citizen army trained. Farmers lived in the town and worked in fields on its outskirts. Throughout the South, plantations developed instead of towns. Because the long and deep rivers allowed access for ocean-going vessels, planters—owners of large profitable plantations—could ship their goods directly to the northern colonies and Europe without the need for city docks and warehouses. Because plantation owners produced most of what they needed on their property, they had little use for shops, bakeries, and markets. There were some cities in the South, including Charles Town (later Charleston), South Carolina, one of the most thriving port cities in the British empire. On the whole, the South developed largely as a rural and self-sufficient society. The Middle Colonies were a mixture in other ways too. There were not only big estates like the southern plantations but also many small farms and farm villages like those in New England.

__Religion__
 * Religion is important in colonial New England** In the heart of every New England village stood its church, for the New Englanders were deeply religious. Many of them were Puritans. They were conscientious people who believed that they had to lead lives of righteousness. God was just, they believed, but He would surely punish evildoers. To the Puritans many things were evil and life was serious. They disapproved of light-hearted amusements such as dancing and playing games. The church was the center of their social life, and before or after services on Sunday everyonemet friends and heard the news. The Puritans ministers were stern, God-fearing men. They had great influence among the people and were consulted on every question.

Sundays were important days in Puritan Massachusetts. Everybody was required by law to attend church services. The people listened to long sermons both morning and afternoon. Prayers alone often lasted three quarters of an hour. The churches were unheated, and the hard benches were uncomfortable. The men sat in one part of the church, and the women and girls in another. The boys usually sat together in the balcony, and if there was any noise, the offenders were punished in front of the whole congregation. No one could work or travel on Sundays. People were expected to read the Bible and think about religion.

Most of the southern planters belonged to the Church or England rather than to a strict Puritan church, like the one in Massachusetts. Although the Southerners went to church on Sunday, religion did not influence their lives as much as it did the lives of people in New England. Nor were ministers as powerful in the South as they were in New England.

In the Mid-Atlantic region, there was no single main religion, like that of the Puritans in Massachusetts. The Middle Colonies had Quakers, Catholics, and people of other religions. In fact, the idea of religious freedom was established from the beginning in Pennsylvania.

__Education__
 * New Englanders believe in Education**. Because it was very important for every Puritan to be able to read the Bible, more children in New England were sent to school than in any other section. In fact, as early as 1647, Massachusetts passed a law requiring all villages with a certain number of families (50) to provide tax money for schools. Reading and writhing and [[image:mrcarpenito/hornbook2.jpg width="129" height="227" align="left"]]arithmetic were about the only subjects taught. Children did not learn much more than you learn in the first few grades of school, but what they learned they learned thoroughly. Hornbooks taught them the ABC's. A hornbook was a wooden frame holding a piece of paper protected by a thin covering. Textbooks were difficult and rather dull. Books such as //The New England Primer//, taught behavior along with reading. Teachers were strict. Children who misbehaved in school would be whipped. By 1750, New England had a very high level of literacy, the ability to read and write. Approximately 85% of the men and about half of the women could read.

In larger communities, there were more advanced schools called Latin grammer schools that boys, but not girls, attended. And in 1636, only six years after the colony itself was established, Massachusetts had a college. A minister named John Harvard gave all of his books and half of his money to start it. Other people contributed what they could. Today Harvard University is the oldest institution of higher learning in the US. In the early days, however, it was not much like our idea of a college, for its chief purpose was to prepare young men to be ministers. Since only men could be ministers, no young women attended Harvard.

Many colonial schools were "dame schools," run by widows or unmarried women who taught classes in their homes. In the Middle Colonies, some schools were run by Quakers and other religious groups. In the towns and cities, craftspeople set up night schools for their apprentices.

In regions where ways of living were so very different, you might also expect to find differences in education. Each snug New England village could have its own school, but the southern plantations were so widely scattered that children had to be taught at home. Or in some cases, teachers from England taught the children from several plantations. The children of slaves and indentured servants, however, had little chance to get an education. Few of them learned to read and write.

The sons of some rich planters were sent to college in England. But others went to the College of William and Mary in Virginia. This college, founded in 1693, was the second in the English colonies. As in New England, young women in the South were not expected to go to college.


 * THE ENLIGHTENMENT** Since before the Renaissance, philosophers in Europe had been using reason and the scientific method to obtain knowledge. Scientists looked beyond religious doctrine to investigate how the world worked. Influenced by the observations of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Sir Isaac Newton, people determined that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa. They also concluded that the world is governed not by chance or miracles but by fixed mathematical laws. These ideas about nature gained prevalence in the 1700s in a movement called the **Enlightenment.**

Enlightenment ideas traveled from Europe to the colonies and spread quickly in numerous books and pamphlets. Literacy was particularly high in New England because the Puritans had long supported public education to ensure that everyone could read the Bible. One outstanding Enlightenment figure was **Benjamin Franklin.** Franklin embraced the notion of obtaining truth through experimentation and reasoning. For example, his most famous experiment—flying a kite in a thunderstorm—demonstrated that lightning was a form of electrical power.

__Workforce__ had traded a life of prison or poverty in Europe for a limited term of servitude in North America. They had few rights while in bondage. Those who lived through their harsh years of labor—and many did not—saw their lives improve only slightly as they struggled to survive on the western outskirts of the Southern colonies.
 * INDENTURED SERVANTS** Low on Southern society's ladder were indentured servants. Many of these young, mostly white men

While historians estimate that indentured servants made up a significant portion of the colonial population in the 1600s—between one-half and two-thirds of all white immigrants after 1630—their numbers declined toward the end of the century. With continuing reports of hardship in the New World, many laborers in Europe decided to stay home. Faced with a depleted labor force and a growing agricultural economy, the Southern colonists turned to another group to meet their labor needs: African slaves.

The English colonists gradually turned to the use of African **slaves**—people who were considered the property of others—after efforts to meet their labor needs with enslaved Native Americans and indentured servants failed. As the indentured servant population fell, the price of indentured servants rose. As a result, the English colonists turned to African slaves as an alternative. A slave worked for life and thus brought a much larger return on the investment. In addition, most white colonists convinced themselves that Africans' dark skin was a sign of inferiority, and so had few reservations about subjecting them to a life of servitude. Black Africans were also thought better able to endure the harsh physical demands of plantation labor in hot climates. By 1690, nearly 13,000 black slaves toiled in the Southern colonies. By 1750, that number had increased to almost 200,000. had less incentive to turn to slavery than did Southerners. However, slavery did exist in New England and was extensive throughout the Middle colonies, as were racial prejudices against blacks—free or enslaved.
 * Slavery Becomes Entrenched**
 * SLAVERY IN THE NORTH** Because raising wheat and corn did not require as much labor as raising tobacco or rice, Northerners

While still considered property, most enslaved persons in New England enjoyed greater legal standing than slaves elsewhere in the colonies. They could sue and be sued, and they had the right of appeal to the highest courts. As in the South, however, enslaved persons in the North led harsh lives and were considered less than human beings. Laws forbade them to gather or to carry weapons, and there were no laws to protect them from cruel treatment.