COLONIAL LIFE
Chapter 3
Colonial Life
“History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.” ~Winston Churchill
The colonial era, like any period past or present, is far more than the sum of its great leaders
The farmer and the merchant, the butcher, the baker, all of these played a role in colonial society
Looking inside their homes, meeting their wives and children, joining them for a meal, and quietly looking over their
Colonial Life
Whether we observe these things from a delicate
Chippendale settee imported from London or an oak bench as rough as the frontiersman who carved it, we should catch a glimpse of a varied and vibrant time that has been called “the morning of America”
The Rhythms of Life
Patchwork Population
Although English colonists constituted a clear majority, there was a remarkable degree of ethnic diversity in the colonies, particularly after 1700
The two largest groups of non-English settlers were Scots- Irish (often erroneously called “Scotch-Irish”) and Germans Many arrived in Philadelphia, but most did not stay. Hungry
for land, they migrated west and southwest
Their avenue through the wilderness was an old Iroquois Indian trail dubbed the “Great Wagon Road”
The Rhythms of Life
A number of German immigrants remained in
Pennsylvania, where they became known as Pennsylvania Dutch
German and most other European immigrants quickly adapted to English ways while maintaining their own traditions
The blending of non-English cultures into the social
landscape was an important influence in the development of America
The Rhythms of Life
Immigration was, of course, a contributing factor, but
equally important was the high birthrate, which was twice that of Europe
Earlier marriages and large families were also favored because they provided an important labor source for the home
The scattered settlements of the New World and its
productive and plentiful land inhibited the disease and
At Home
The material for house exteriors depended to a large degree upon location
Brick
Split cedar or oak clapboard Field stones
Log homes
As a colony took on a more settled aspect, its residents built houses patterned after the styles they had known in England
Diet
The adage “you are what you eat” would certainly hold true in the colonial period
The standard fare for most families, particularly on the
frontier, was salt pork, corn meal, Indian beans, and greens in the summer
Dinners for the wealthy included; baked Indian whortleberry pudding, steaming succotash (a soup containing fowl, pork, and corned beef), a dish of clams on the half shell, a dish of oysters and codfish, roasted venison, a dish of duck, a dish of cod and eels, spicy apple pies, and a final course of succulent cranberry tarts and cheese
Diet
Hard cider and brandy were common beverages in the colonies; rum was more prevalent on the coast
The first Europeans in America discovered a new world of food:
Corn
A variety of beans (such as snaps and limas) Cacao (chocolate)
Tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, peppers, and peanuts These were all Native American contributions to the colonial
Diet
Europeans also introduced foods to America:
Bananas, melons, rice, wheat, oats and potatoes Coffee
An array of farm animals were also transplanted to America: Cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens
America was a breadbasket to the world, and clearly God’s providential hand was at work in providing the blessing of food
Education
Whether children learned the “3 Rs” at home or attended a village school, the purpose behind the education was to
provide basic skills and the ability to read the Bible
A child’s first “book,” the hornbook, was a board shaped ominously like a paddle
A child usually “graduated” from the horn- book to a primer The New England Primer served as the standard text
Education
There were village schools, such schools, open to boys and girls, were often called dame schools since they were
generally taught by a widow or a village spinster
In the middle colonies and the South, farms were more scattered and families more isolated
The majority of people living in the rugged backcountry did not have the luxury of a village school, if parents were
illiterate, their children would likely be as well
Although education in the backcountry was often
hit-or-miss, those who could afford it hired private tutors for their children. A number of towns with greater resources made efforts to establish schools
“Old Deluder Satan” Law
Leaders of the Massachusetts colony passed three laws dealing with public education in the 1640s
The most famous began with the words “ye ould deluder
Satan” and explained that illiteracy enabled Satan to prevent men from direct access to God’s Word
The Puritans, along with other Protestants, saw the importance of being able to read and viewed a basic education as essential to an informed and Christian-influenced society
These laws became the foundation upon which others built compulsory public education
Britain’s Grip Loosening
In the growing, varied leisure time of the period is an underlying fact—the colonies were maturing and prospering
Political and economic freedom leads to material prosperity and the invention of
time- and labor-saving devices, which allow more leisure for the development and pursuit of the finer things of life and culture
As future president John Adams explained to his wife:
“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study
mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval
architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain”
The colonies were maturing, Britain’s grip on her offspring was loosening, and Americans were gaining a greater sense of independence
