“I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea.  I was dirty from my journey ... and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging.  I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper.”

With some of his money Franklin bought “three great puffy rolls ... and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other ... I made ... a most awkward, ridiculous appearance.”

Franklin’s passion for books and writing led him to Philadelphia, where he achieved success as a printer, writer, scientist, and philosopher.  By the time he was 42, the man who popularized the proverb “Time is money” could afford to retire and devote himself to public life.

—adapted from Colonial Pennsylvania:  A History

Family Life in Colonial America

Benjamin Franklin’s meteoric rise from poverty to riches was extraordinary.  However, his huge family—Franklin was 1 of 17 children—was not unusual in America in the 1700s.  The population of the American colonies was in a period of explosive growth, partly because people were having large families, and partly because immigrants—some willing, some forced—were flooding into the colonies from Europe and Africa.

Population Growth

The birthrate in the American colonies was high in the 1700s.  Most women married in their early twenties, typically to men in their early to mid-twenties.  On average, colonial women gave birth to seven children, although giving birth to twice that number of children was not uncommon.

Between 1640 and 1700, the population of the American colonies increased from 25,000 to more than 250,000.  In the 1700s, the population more than doubled every 25 years.  More than 1 million colonists lived in America in the 1750s, and by the time of the American Revolution, the population had reached roughly 2.5 million people.

Women in Colonial Society

In the American colonies, as in Europe, law and custom gave men greater authority and importance than women—in politics and in the household.  In the early colonial era, married women had no legal status.  A married woman could not own anything, and all of the property she brought into the marriage became her husband’s.  In most colonies, a married woman could not make a contract, be party to a lawsuit, or make a will.  Husbands were the sole guardians of the children and were allowed to physically discipline both their wives and their children.  Single women and widows, on the other hand, had considerably more rights.  They could own and manage property, file lawsuits, and run businesses.

In the 1700s, the status of married women improved considerably.  In most colonies, for example, husbands could not sell or mortgage their land without their wife’s signature on the contract.  Also, in several colonies, married women began engaging in business as well.  Despite the legal limitations, many colonial women worked outside of their homes.  Women operated taverns and shops, managed plantations, ran print shops, and published newspapers.

Health and Disease

Improvements in housing and sanitation helped American colonists resist some diseases.  Still, they frequently suffered from typhoid fever, tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, “fluxes” (diarrhea), “malignant fever” (influenza), typhus, and scarlet fever.

These diseases ravaged residents in colonial cities.  When an epidemic of deadly smallpox swept through Boston in 1721, the scientific interests of a minister and the knowledge of enslaved Africans combined to save hundreds of lives.  Reverend Cotton Mather, a Puritan leader, had read that the Turks had successfully developed an inoculation for smallpox.  Making inquiries among enslaved Africans, Mather discovered that they also knew this technique.  At Mather’s urging, Dr.  Zabdiel Boylston, a Boston physician and friend, inoculated willing Bostonians against the disease.  Despite furious opposition, Mather and Boylston persisted in their experiment.  In July 1721, Mather wrote:

“I have instructed our Physicians in the new Method used by the Africans and Asiaticks, to prevent and abate the Dangers of the Small-Pox, and infallibly to save the Lives of those that have it wisely managed upon them.  The Destroyer, being enraged at the Proposal of any Thing, that may rescue the Lives of our poor People from him, has taken a strange Possession of the People on this Occasion.  They rave, they rail, they blaspheme; they talk not only like Ideots but also like Franticks, ...  I also am an Object of their Fury....”

—quoted in The Colonial Image

The daring experiment proved to be a great success.  Of the 6,000 people who were not inoculated and caught smallpox, about 900, or 15 percent, died.  In stark contrast, only 6 of the 241 inoculated people, or less than 3 percent, died of the disease.

Summarizing
What rights did colonial law deny women?
 

Immigrants in Colonial America

The American colonies grew rapidly due to immigration and a high birthrate.  Hundreds of thousands of free white immigrants arrived between 1700 and 1775, settling throughout the colonies.  At the same time, traders brought large numbers of enslavedAfricans to America, mostly to the Southern Colonies.

German Immigrants Arrive in Pennsylvania

America’s first large group of German immigrants came to Pennsylvania looking for religious freedom.  First to arrive were a group of Mennonites who founded Germantown in 1683.  Large-scale German immigration to Pennsylvania started in the early 1700s.  By 1775, more than 100,000 Germans had arrived in the colony, where they made up about one-third of the population.  Known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (from their own word Deutsche, meaning “German”), these settlers became some of the colony’s most prosperous farmers.  They introduced the Conestoga wagon, which later generations would adapt for use in crossing the country.  As early as the 1720s, many Germans also headed south along the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road to the Shenandoah River valley of Virginia.  From there they spread throughout the backcountry of Virginia and the Carolinas.

The Scotch-Irish Head West

The Scotch-Irish were descendants of the Scots who had helped England claim control of Northern Ireland.  Beginning in 1717, rising taxes, poor harvests, and religious discrimination convinced many Scotch-Irish to flee Ireland.  An estimated 150,000 Scotch-Irish immigrated to the American colonies between 1717 and 1776.

Although the Scotch-Irish settled in many colonies, most headed to Pennsylvania.  Unwilling and often unable to purchase land, many migrated west to the frontier, where they occupied vacant land.  Many Scotch-Irish also followed the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road south into the backcountry of the Southern Colonies.

Colonial America’s Jewish Community

A small group of Jews, fleeing from the Portuguese in Brazil and seeking an opportunity to practice their religion, first arrived in the colonies in New Amsterdam (later called New York City) in 1654.  By 1776 approximately 1,500 Jews lived in the colonies.  Most lived in the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Charles Town, Savannah, and Newport, where they were allowed to worship as they pleased.  They made their living as artisans and merchants.  Unlike in western Europe, where Jews could not own property or participate in professions, colonial Jews lived and worked alongside Christians.

Explaining
Why did many Germans immigrate to Pennsylvania in the 1700s?
 

John Peter Zenger 1697–1746

In 1710 Britain had paid for German families to immigrate to the American colonies.  In time, one of these immigrants, 13-year-old John Peter Zenger, would help change colonial society.  By 1726 Zenger was running a failing printing business in New York.  His only successful venture to this point had been to print the colonies’ first arithmetic text.

In 1732 Zenger’s luck changed when an unpopular royal governor dismissed New York’s chief justice from office.  The chief justice hired Zenger to publish an anti-government newspaper.  In 1734 Zenger’s paper called the royal governor’s supporters “the dregs and scandal of human nature.”

Zenger was arrested and charged for printing libel, or slanderous information.  Indeed, according to British law, criticizing the royal governor—even if the criticisms were true—was a grave offense.  For the eight months he spent in prison, a defiant Zenger continued to edit his newspaper through a hole in his cell door.

Zenger’s attorney, Andrew Hamilton, the colonies’ most famous lawyer, called Zenger’s cause “the cause of liberty.” Only a press free to criticize the government could prevent that government from abusing its power, Hamilton argued.  The jury took only a few minutes to reach its verdict.  They found Zenger not guilty.  Zenger’s trial helped establish the American commitment to freedom of the press.
 
 

Africans in Colonial America

Africans arrived in the colonies from many different regions of West Africa.  In the colonies, they tried to maintain their specific languages and traditions even though white planters intentionally bought slaves from different regions who spoke different languages to make it difficult for them to plot rebellion.

Africans Build a New Culture

In South Carolina, where rice cultivation required a large, coordinated workforce, Africans worked and lived in larger groups than in other Southern Colonies.  Their isolation from the white planters resulted in a more independent African culture, which developed its own language called Gullah.  Gullah combined English and African words, and it allowed Africans from a variety of homelands to converse.  In the Chesapeake region, where more of the enslaved population had been born in America, Africans spoke English.

Using a common language helped Africans from diverse backgrounds develop a new culture in America.  African traditional religious beliefs became mixed with the practices of the Christian faith.  African rhythms became a part of new musical forms.  The fear of being sold and separated from one’s family, however, was always present.  Despite these conditions, many Africans managed to pass on their family names and cultural traditions.

Oppression and Resistance

In South Carolina, where often as few as 5 whites would oversee roughly 100 enslaved Africans, authority was maintained through harsh means.  Whippings and beatings were common.  Disobedient workers were branded, and some planters would slit noses or amputate fingers and toes as punishment and to terrify other workers into obeying orders.  Africans in South Carolina needed passes to leave their plantations, and planters organized regular night patrols to watch for rebellion and runaways.  

In Virginia the enslaved population was smaller in relation to the white population, and the work was less tiring.  While planters still used harsh methods to force obedience, they also applied persuasion.  They might promise enslaved workers extra food or days off for completing a particular task.  While slaveholders tried to force enslaved Africans to obey, Africans themselves developed different ways to fight slavery.  Some used passive resistance; that is, they would stage deliberate work slowdowns, lose or break tools, or simply refuse to work hard.  A few even managed to gain freedom by escaping.  Others purchased their liberty with money earned on their own or were set free by their slaveholders.  By the mid-1700s, in fact, there were a few thousand free Africans living in the colonies.

Occasionally groups of slaves banded together to resist the slaveholders.  In the late 1730s, the governor of Spanish Florida, in an attempt to weaken South Carolina, promised freedom and land to any enslaved Africans who fled south to Florida.  In 1739, 75 Africans gathered near the Stono River, attacked their white overseers, stole their guns, and raced south toward Florida, attacking whites as they traveled.  The local militia eventually ended the Stono Rebellion, killing between 30 and 40 of the Africans.

Summarizing
In what ways did Africans resist their enslavement?
 

The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening

Ideas as well as people made their way to the English colonies.  During the 1700s, America came under the influence of two great European cultural movements.  One movement, the Enlightenment, challenged the authority of the church in science and philosophy while elevating the power of human reason.  In contrast, a religious movement, later known in America as the Great Awakening, stressed dependence on God and gained wide appeal among farmers, workers, and enslaved people.

The Enlightenment

Enlightenment thinkers believed that natural laws applied to social, political, and economic relationships, and that people could figure out these natural laws if they employed reason.  This emphasis on logic and reasoning was known as rationalism.

One of the earliest and most influential Enlightenment writers was John Locke.  His contract theory of government and natural rights is a good example of the way Enlightenment thinkers attempted to use reason to discover natural laws that applied to politics and society.

Even more significant in some ways was Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding.  In this work, Locke argued that contrary to what the Church taught, people were not born sinful.  Instead their minds were blank slates that could be shaped by society and education, making people better.  These ideas that all people have rights and that society can be improved became core beliefs in American society.  French thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau carried these ideas further.  In The Social Contract, he argued that a government should be formed by the consent of the people, who would then make their own laws.  Another influential Enlightenment writer was Baron Montesquieu.

In his work Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748, Montesquieu suggested that there were three types of political power—executive, legislative, and judicial.  These powers should be separated into different branches of the government to protect the liberty of the people.  The different branches would provide checks and balances against each other and prevent the government from abusing its authority.  Montesquieu’s idea influenced many of the leaders who wrote the American Constitution.

The Great Awakening

While some Americans turned away from a religious worldview in the 1700s, others enthusiastically renewed their Christian faith.  Many Americans embraced a European religious movement called pietism, which stressed an individual’s piety (devoutness) and an emotional union with God.

Throughout the colonies, ministers spread the message of pietism through revivals —large public meetings for preaching and prayer.  This revival of religious feeling is known as the Great Awakening.  In New England the Great Awakening was, in part, a response to declining religious fervor and a reaction to the ideas of the Enlightenment.  In 1734 a Massachusetts preacher and philosopher named Jonathan Edwards aimed to restore New England’s spiritual intensity after experiencing his own conversion.  His terrifying sermons pictured humanity dangling on the brink of damnation, suspended only by the “forbearance of an incensed [angry] God.” Edwards argued that a person had to repent and convert, to be “born again.” This idea of having an internal emotional experience that brings one to God was a central idea of the Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening began in earnest when the Anglican minister George Whitefield arrived in Philadelphia in 1739.  The ideas of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, influenced Whitefield, and both had an impact on America.  Whitefield was a powerful, emotional speaker, and he attracted large crowds everywhere he preached.

Whitefield also warned of the dangers of listening to ministers who had not been born again.  This challenge to the authority of other ministers created tensions within colonial congregations.  During the Great Awakening, nearly all New England churches split into factions called the New Lights and the Old Lights, or the New Side and the Old Side.  Many ministers found themselves dismissed by their congregations depending on which side they took.  Those churches that embraced the new ideas—including the Baptists, some Presbyterians and Congregationalists, and the new group called the Methodists—experienced a surge in membership, while other churches’ memberships declined.

The Great Awakening also had a profound effect in the South, where the emotion and energy of Baptist preaching won converts among poor tenant and backcountry farmers.  Baptists also welcomed enslaved Africans at their revivals and condemned the brutality of slavery.  Hundreds of Africans joined Baptist congregations and listened to sermons that taught that all people were equal before God.

The Baptist effort to preach to the enslaved Africans provoked a violent response from the planters, who feared losing control of their workforce.  Sheriffs and justices of the peace organized armed groups of planters to break up Baptist meetings by force.  Despite the violence, by 1775, 20 percent of Virginia’s whites and thousands of enslaved Africans had joined Baptist congregations.  Within the enslaved community, converts spread the word even further, creating a separate African Christian culture 
on the plantations.
The Great Awakening was one of the last major cultural developments in America before the American Revolution.  Like the Enlightenment, it implanted ideas that are still a very powerful part of American society.

The Enlightenment and the Great Awakening had different origins and directions.  Both movements, however, served to emphasize an individualism that supported America’s political independence.  The Enlightenment provided arguments against British rule.  The Great Awakening undermined allegiance to traditional authority.

Describing
How did the Great Awakening affect New England churches?
 

REVIEW & DO NOW Answer the following questions:
?	.