Issue

New England (CT, ME, MA, NH, RI)

Middle Colonies (DE, NY, NJ, PA)

South (GA, MD, NC, SC, VA)

What was the difference in population trends (birth and death and male and female) in New England and the South and in proportions of blacks to whites in the three colonial regions?

Life expectancy = 70 (high for England).

Life expectancy = 40

Population increases 1650-1700 = 4X (Family = 6 to 8 children to maturity)

Death rate = 1 in 4 dead in infancy; 1 in 2 dead before 20

Male to female = 6 of 10 (early period), or a ratio of 3 males to 2 females

Male to female = 7.5 of 10 (early period), or a ratio of 3 males to 1 female

Blacks - 16,000 (1763).

Example: 3% MA

Blacks - 29,000.

Example: 8% PA

Blacks - 205,000.

Example: 40% VA, 60% Carolina (South)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Age – ˝ of population under age 16

Total non-Indian population = 2,000,000 in 1775 – Increase from about 1700 = 8 to 10X (depending on the estimate)

Total black population = 25,000 in 1700; 250,000 in 1760 – Increase = 10X; 1750 20% slaves - 40% in Chesapeake, lower South

What was the difference in transatlantic slave trade before and after 1700?

1672 – The Royal African Company received charter (monopoly) and then lost it by 1698, with any English merchant able to sell slaves. Most trading by English merchants; some by colonial merchants. Chief sales to VA, MD, the Carolinas. Reminder: Barbados planters brought their slaves with them to the Carolinas.

 

What was the population distribution of planters and slaves?

 

Slaves in

􀂃 Eastern NJ—iron work

􀂃 Narragansett region of RI

 

Ratio planter to # of slaves/servants:

􀂃 1600s, 1 to usually under 30

􀂃 Early 1700s, 1 to 10-50+

 

Early 1700s, slaves and plantation size:

􀂃 ľ on plantations of 10+ slaves

􀂃 ˝ on plantations of 50+ slaves

 

 

marriage and family in New England and the South?

Emphasis on family, marriage. Long lives. Economic responsibilities for women, but no legal protections (no divorce, no control over family property).

Women more often widows – younger than husbands at their marriage. Average marriage length 7 years (with death of one of the partners); remarriage and reforming of families accordingly.

What were early landowning patterns (an issue on the economy as well)?

Whether closed or open field system, common decisions by families about land use. Land allotment by hierarchical position.

Headright – VA, MD

1720s:

􀂃 40-50% - white families with no land

􀂃 5% - gentry with large land holdings

 

What happened in the late 1600s to indicate pressures on society?

Insufficient land available to divide up among subsequent generations.

Decline of religious intensity in 2nd generation – 1662 – Halfway Covenant.

Salem witchcraft trials – 20 dead (19 hanged). Note: Just to keep this in perspective, witchcraft laws were not repealed in England until the 1730s.

Signs of pressure: Insufficient land for the landless, change in voting rights.

 

What was happening with the permanence of slavery and slave codes or black codes and what kinds of actions by planters did those codes potentially permit?

Slavery shift post 1700 based on race.

Death to slave for disobedience; no death to the master for killing a slave.

What was the slave response (or white fear of response)?

NY – 1712 – arson – 9 whites dead. Later 13 slaves, hanged; 3, burned at stake; 6, suicide.

NY – 1741 – arson rumored by blacks/poor whites. Trial:

30+ executed (13 blacks burned alive; 18 black/4 whites hanged)

70+ banished

 

1739 – SC – Stono Rebellion:

·         Rebellion by 100-150 blacks; killed some whites

·         Were themselves killed in transit

 

 

 

 

Where did the indentured servants who came before and after the 1670s go?

After 1670s, indentured servants immigrated primarily to northern colonies.

Before 1670s, 7-8.5 of 10 colonists were indentured (owing their masters 4-7 years’ service, depending on their age, with young people owing longer).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why did the non-English immigrants (approximately after 1670s) come?

Religious persecution: French Huguenots, a Calvinist group, after 1685 (revocation of an agreement – Edict of Nantes − that had given them protection). Est. 100,000 German Protestants from Rhineland area mainly to PA (and called PA Dutch because of a name confusion). Minor groups as well. Note: Later Germans (mainly Lutherans) came for financial opportunity rather than escaping persecution.

Financial distress (Scotland; Ireland) – Scottish Presbyterians (called Scotch-Irish) – est. 150,000. Primarily move into “backcountry” – rural frontier – from PA through GA.

 

Where did most of them go?

French Huguenots − MA

French Huguenots − NY

Dutch Reform – NY, NJ

German, Moravians/Mennonites – PA

German – PA

Scotch-Irish – PA (“backcountry”)

French Huguenots − Charleston area

Scotch-Irish – VA, NC (“backcountry”)

Some Germans, Moravians – GA

 

 

 

 

In which colonial regions were the cities?

Boston = 16,000

(Data in this row from the 1770s)

Philadelphia = 28,000

New York = 25,000

Newport (RI) = 11,000

Charles Town = 12,000 with trade actually controlled by merchants from Britain/New England