APUSH AMSCO Topic 2.7 Study NotesAPUSH AMSCO Topic 2.7 Study Notes

A P U S H I S T O R Y · UNIT2

Colonial Society and Culture

AMSCO Topic 2.7

Learning Objective: (1) Explain how and why the movement of people and ideas across the Atlantic shaped American culture. (2) Explain how the goals of European leaders and colonists affected how they viewed themselves and their relationship with Britain.

Study notes built from the AMSCO text only. No outside sources are added.

Big Picture

By the mid-18th century the colonies had a culture distinct from Europe's. Population exploded, immigrants and enslaved Africans changed the mix, religious revival and the Enlightenment spread new ideas, and colonists grew used to self-government. The colonists were both more like England and increasingly different from it. Population Growth

1701: barely 250,000 Europeans and Africans. 1775: 2.5 million. African American population: about 28,000 to 500,000.

Two causes: immigration (almost 1 million people) and a high birthrate. Fertile land and a dependable food supply attracted settlers and supported big families.

Group Where and how they lived Share in

1775

English Kept coming, but in relatively small numbers Most of the

population

Germans Farmlands west of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania Dutch country); kept language and customs; Lutheran, Amish, Brethren, Mennonite; little interest in English politics

6%

Scotch-

Irish

English-speaking Protestants from northern Ireland; little respect for the British; the western frontier (PA, VA, the Carolinas, GA)

7%

Other

Europeans

French Protestants (Huguenots), Dutch, Swedes 5%

Africans Largest single group not to come by choice; mostly field laborers; majority of the population in South Carolina and Georgia; every colony passed discriminatory laws; a few gained freedom

20%

(enslaved

and free)

Most European immigrants settled in the middle colonies and on the southern frontier; few headed for New England (limited land, Puritan dominance). American Indians: population growth caused conflicts; some formed alliances (Powhatan Confederation in Virginia, Iroquois Confederation in the Great Lakes region); others used settlers as allies against rival tribes. Relations were most peaceful in Pennsylvania, where Penn often got land by treaty.

Structure of Colonial Society

Religious toleration: all colonies allowed different religions, to varying degrees. Massachusetts was most restrictive (several Protestant types, but no Catholics or non-Christians). Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were the most open; Pennsylvania accepted all who believed in God, including Jews, but only Christians could take part in government.

No hereditary aristocracy: an economic class system developed; wealthy landowners on top, craft workers and small farmers the majority.

Social mobility: White residents could improve their status through hard work; land was far easier to get than in Europe.

Family: the center of colonial life. People married younger and had more children than in Europe; more than 90 percent lived on farms. Men could own property and take part in politics; the law gave husbands almost unlimited power at home. Women bore an average of eight children, did cooking, cleaning, clothes, medical care, and teaching children, often worked beside husbands; divorce legal but rare; limited legal and political rights.

The Economy

By the 1750s about half of Britain's world trade was with its colonies. The government limited colonial manufacturing (such as textiles), so colonies were almost entirely agriculture, forestry, and fishing. The quickest route to wealth was land.

Region Economy

New

England

Rocky soil and long winters limited most people to subsistence farming (farms under 100 acres). Profits from logging, shipbuilding, fishing, trading, rum-distilling.

Middle

Colonies

Rich soil: wheat and corn for export to Europe and the West Indies; farms up to 200 acres; indentured and hired labor; small manufacturing such as iron-making; trade grew Philadelphia and New York. In 1750 Philadelphia was the largest colonial city (about 25,000).

Southern

Colonies

Most people lived on small subsistence farms without slaves; a few on plantations of 2,000+ acres using slave labor, self-sufficient with enslaved craftworkers. Tobacco (Chesapeake, NC); timber and naval stores (tar, pitch) in the Carolinas; rice and indigo (SC, GA). Plantations sat on rivers to ship exports to Europe. Monetary system: Britain limited colonial use of money, so colonists spent scarce gold and silver on British imports. Many colonies issued paper money, often too much, causing inflation. Britain also claimed the right to veto colonial laws that might harm British merchants.

Transportation: goods moved by water more easily than on poor roads, so Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston grew on good harbors and rivers. Taverns served as social centers. By the mid-1700s there was a postal system using horses and small ships.

Religion and the Great Awakening

Denominations: New England mostly Congregationalists (Puritans) and Presbyterians; New York Dutch Reformed and Anglicans; Pennsylvania Lutherans, Mennonites, and Quakers; Virginia and the South mostly Anglicans; Maryland many Catholics and some Jews.

Challenges: Jews, Catholics, and Quakers faced intense discrimination; many resented the Church of England as a symbol of English control.

Established churches: in the 1600s most governments taxed people to support one Protestant denomination. Increased diversity gradually reduced this, though some direct tax support of New England churches lasted until the 1830s.

The Great Awakening (1730s-1740s)

Early 18th-century sermons portrayed a benign God and a perfect universe and stressed sin less. Then a wave of fervent religious feeling swept the colonies.