History 2700   MacKay 

Week 4    Colonial American Life; Subsistence economies

    In the broadest sense the American colonial experience was not unique in history. Following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, the European nations—primarily Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and England—set out to build colonial empires based on certain assumptions: First, colonies would make them wealthy and powerful and give them advantages over their neighbors. Second, the acquisition of colonies would enable them to solve various social problems such as overpopulation (relative to available land and food supplies), poverty and the crime that was often related to chronic underemployment for much of the population. Third, there existed a general sense that since the poorer classes knew that they had little chance of improving their lives, which might tend to make them rebellious, colonies could serve as a sort of escape valve for pent-up frustrations. Whatever the motivations, most major European nations vigorously pursued colonial policies.
    By the time the first English colony in North America was established in Jamestown in 1607, Spain and Portugal had colonized most of what we now call Latin America, and French and Dutch settlements were being established in the Caribbean area as well as in east Asia and elsewhere around the globe. By the time of the American Revolution Great Britain possessed 31 colonies around the world, including some—Canada and Florida for example—wrested from colonial competitors such as France and Spain. Thus the American colonies in 1776 were but 13 small parts of vast colonial empires that had been growing since the early 1500s.
    The first thing to remember about the colonial experience is that it was difficult. Imagine getting into a ship in which you and about 100 other people, mostly strangers, have not much more space than exists in your college classroom or perhaps a small house, carrying with you only as much personal property as you can fit into a couple of suitcases You sit in that ship for perhaps days or even weeks until suitable winds and tides take you out to sea, and then you toss and rock for weeks or months, as food spoils, water becomes foul, people get sick and often die, storms threaten (and often take) life and limb of everybody on board. If you survive that ordeal (and many did not) you finally arrive on a distant shore, disembark with whatever provisions have not been ruined by salt water, and set out to make yourself a life. Particularly in the earlier years of colonization, there was not much there to greet you when you arrived.
    The second point about the colonial experience has to do with the people who came. Many came voluntarily, many came under duress of some kind. (We will discuss the African experience, which brought thousands of slaves to the New World, below.) Those who came voluntarily thought they could make a better living. They dreamed of finding gold or silver, or of a life that would reward them in ways that were impossible in their circumstances at home. Some felt oppressed by political conditions—required obedience to king or duke or other landlord—which they found intolerable. Some came for religious freedom, to be able to practice their faith as they wished. Some were moderately prosperous, and saw the New World as an opportunity for investment which would allow them to move up a few notches on the economic scale. Most had to have something to offer—a skill such as blacksmithing or farm experience or the price of passage—so the poorest of the poor, who were generally chronically unemployed and had no skills to speak of, tended not to be among the colonists who came voluntarily. Naturally the very wealthy—the landowners, the nobility, the prosperous merchants—did not come because they had too much to lose and the risks were too great.
    Those who came involuntarily, aside from the African slaves who were brought to the Americas, included prisoners, debtors, young people who were sold by their parents or people who, in effect, sold themselves into indentured servitude. That experience—indentured servitude—was as varied as the people who practiced it, either as owners of their “servants’” time for a stipulated period or those whose time belonged to somebody else. Some indentured servants—say a young married couple with skills to offer, the husband perhaps as a carpenter and the wife a seamstress—might make a decent bargain for themselves, and given a decent person for whom to work, come out of the experience with a little money, or some land or perhaps a set of tools which they could use to start their own lives. Periods of service varied from two or three to seven years or more, depending on all kinds of variables. Quite often, possibly in the majority of cases, indentured servants found their lives less than ideal. Laws tended to protect the masters, punishments for laziness or attempting to run away were frequently harsh, and both men and women were subject to various kinds of abuse. For most, the period of indenture was most likely seen as a trial to be endured as best one could, with a reasonable hope of some sort of a stake in the future when the service was complete. In some cases, very warm relationships no doubt developed, and indentured servants could find themselves more or less adopted into the family, perhaps through marriage or extended friendships. Whatever the odds may have been at any given time for any person or group, indentured service was a gamble. When the contracts were signed in Europe, those offering themselves for service had little knowledge or control over who might eventually buy those contracts. If they survived the voyage to America, they then had to go through a period of acclimatization, and if they were not brought down by diseases to which they had never been exposed, then they had at least several years of hard work before they could again call their lives their own.
    Many prisoners were also sent to America by the English courts, generally as a means of ridding the mother country of the chronically unemployable or incorrigibly criminal. So many were sent in one period, in fact, that the governor of Virginia sent a letter of protest to England complaining about the influx of criminals. Given the conditions of chronic underemployment and want, the vast majority of crimes at that time were property crimes, sometimes accompanied by violence, Many imported thieves, however, finding opportunities available in the New World that did not exist in the old, managed to go straight and become productive citizens. Others, of course, continued their violent ways, to the consternation of the colonial population.

COLONIZATION AND THE ENGLISH NEW WORLD: Points to think about ...

• European myths about America developed early. Books were written about Utopias in the West. Myths of cities of gold and silver ("El Dorado") flourished. Early settlers and investment company hustlers tried to make the colonies sound as attractive as possible to attract colonists.
• Native Americans were seen in various ways: the "noble savage" was a common characterization, though others thought of them as barbarians. Some religious groups saw the Indians as as the lost tribes of Israel. Both sides took from each other--both good and bad, in what became known as the "Colombian exchange."
• For the most part the colonization of the West was seen as an investment. Joint stock companies were formed by merchant capitalists, and the birth of America coincides with the development of modern capitalism: invest money, get rich quick by discovering and mining gold and silver, etc. Actually the "gold" in North America turned out to be the land which produced tobacco, cotton, etc.
• Nationalism and the competition it spurred was also a major factor. In order to be great, England felt she needed colonies in America. The English had multiple goals: produce, consume, protect weaker rivals; convert heathens; carry out the missionary spirit, which was also driven by Catholic-Protestant competition.
• The companies first offered their investors the promise of profits from discovering gold and other treasures, but when that did not materialize, they declared dividends of land—their only asset. The great problem in Europe was finding enough land for the people: in America, the reverse turned out to be true. The fact that labor was scarcer than land made it worthwhile to trade land for labor, which constantly undercut European notions of class differences; in Europe landowners were aristocrats; in America, landowners were beggars.
• The hope was that the English would provide capital and management, Indians would provide labor. They might have been able to get along together. Indians were good farmers, but burned to clear land. Idleness was a virtue among male Indians. They laughed at white men farming, declaring that they were doing "women’s work."
• England began to venture out into the North Atlantic in the latter half of the fifteenth century, in search of better fishing areas and, possibly, a short route to Asia, the mythical northwest passage. The Protestant Reformation permanently shattered England’s and Europe’s religious unity. As Protestantism became increasingly associated with English nationalism, the English longed for victories over Catholic Spain.

(Copyright © Henry J. Sage 1996-2004)

We will again consider two major sections of colonial America: The South and New England.

Subsistence Economy-  the products are made not for sale but for consumption inside of economically closed producing unit (the family, the community); it is opposite the market economy, where the products of work are intended for sale in the market. 

Plantation South    Brief description of the colonial South from U.S. State Department

Slave labor on an indigo plantation, detail from Henry Mouzon, Jr. & John Lodge, A map of the Parish of St. Stephen, in Craven County... (London: 1773)
Source: Special Collections Library, Duke University

1. Tidewater region featured wide coastal plain, wide rivers, and rich soil particularly well-suited to tobacco farming.
   a) Large plantations became economically more successful as soil was exhausted, leading to self-sufficing economic units.
   b) As indentured servants became harder to obtain (and retain), demand for slaves increased (400,000) in colonies by 1777.
2. Only children of planters were educated and higher education was only for those who could afford it.
3. Plantation owners became the leading economic, political, and social forces of the South. Democracy limited to wealthy landowners.

New England    Brief description of colonial New England from U.S. State Department

1.  95% English immigrants, most from villages
2.  Came in groups and settled in self-governing towns. New England town meeting as center of power at first, but shifted to selectmen in time.
3. Occupations included farming (scarce labor, tough conditions), fishing, and commerce

a) Shipbuilding became major supplement to fishing and trade
b) Slavery, rum and the triangular trade with West Indies and Africa brought economic wealth to New England

Readings:

• Zinn: 3
• Work with the Colonial section in the Digital History presentation on Mothers and Fathers.
• Tour a colonial family farm site from the Henry Ford Museum
• Short article on Indentured Servitude

Discussion topic: Imagine yourself to be a member of American colonial society. Create a persona for yourself--indentured servant, plantation owner, tradesman, woman on colonial farm, etc. What are the major issues of your daily life?

Project #5:  Explore either: Virtual Jamestown or Plymouth Colony Archive Project. Describe how these sites provided you with new insight into colonial America.