-Regional differences
-The reasons for African slavery
-The institutionalization of African slavery
-The triangular trade
-The rise of African American culture
-Resistance to slavery
-City life
-Life in the backcountry

[SLIDE 1]

Going back to the Puritan's hub-and-spoke design, New England towns were laid out in an orderly fashion. Puritan culture, however, had given way to a more secular tone to life once political control was taken away from the Puritans. Still, some of that Puritan heritage remained in the community commitment to supporting public institutions like schools. Massachusetts' Harvard College had been founded long before, in 1636, during the days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but now Yale opened in Connecticut. 

[SLIDE 2]

Going back to the Puritan's hub-and-spoke design, New England towns were laid out in an orderly fashion. Puritan culture, however, had given way to a more secular tone to life once political control was taken away from the Puritans. Still, some of that Puritan heritage remained in the community commitment to supporting public institutions like schools. Massachusetts' Harvard College had been founded long before, in 1636, during the days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but now Yale opened in Connecticut. 

[SLIDE 3]

Until the late 1600s, slaves were simply too expensive for Chesapeake planters because the Dutch controlled the slave trade and the prices. In addition, life expectancy for laborers was poor in the Chesapeake due to the unhealthful climate and harsh labor. It simply wasn't worth investing in slaves. Instead, the work on plantations was done by European indentured servants. Yet as economic conditions improved in England it was becoming harder to obtain indentured servants. By now, life expectancy in the Chesapeake had also increased. This made it less of a risk to invest in slaves. Then, in the 1670s, the English broke the Dutch monopoly on the slave trade. English slavers brought in large numbers of slaves, and the price of buying a slave dropped. An estimated 9.5 million Africans were transported to the Western Hemisphere, yet only 5% of that number was brought to mainland North America. By the time of the Revolutionary War, however, 40% of the population of Virginia was black. That percentage was considerably higher in South Carolina. The domination of the large plantations meant that immigrants did not come to the coast or the piedmont. Farmers needed to go west for available land. And because the wealthy planters bought directly from England or relied on slaves to manufacture needed products, merchants and artisans also needed to go elsewhere to ply their trades. Because of this, few sizable towns developed in the region.

[SLIDE 4]

African slavery on the mainland began slowly, with the first small numbers arriving in Virginia around 1619. Although slavery on the mainland was not initially as harsh as in the sugar islands, over time the practices of the islands were introduced and the discrimination became institutionalized by law. At first slavery was not hereditary, but it would become so. A law in 1662 Virginia made slavery hereditary based on the status of the mother. Other cruel laws followed.

[SLIDE 5]

In the 1700s, sugar and tobacco drove the Transatlantic trade. Slaves worked the plantations that produced the cash crops in North America and the Caribbean. This resulted in what is known as the triangular trade, trade among three regions, which moved between Africa, the West Indies and North America, and Europe. Although in the 16th and early 17th centuries the slave trade was run by government monopolies, in the 18th century, private individuals assembled as investment groups were able to be involved.

The total number of people who died from the beginning of the capture process until arrival in the New World is estimated to have been between two and four million. 

[SLIDE 6]

Much was designed to prevent slaves from developing a community, especially one that could rise against its overlords, but the basic circumstances of life were also formidable. Slaves were isolated on rural plantations. Slave owners were encouraged to "Christianize” slaves, but new laws made it clear that baptism would not free an infant or adult slave. Incoming slaves came from different African cultures and spoke different languages. They needed to learn English and adjust to survival as a slave. Over time, however, the Africans forged a distinctive African American culture out of diverse streams of African and European traditions. Resistance to slavery was also a feature of daily life as a slave, and could take many forms.

[SLIDE 7]

Pennsylvania was filled with small family wheat farms. In New York, great estates flanked the Hudson River Valley. In both NY and NJ, the best farmland was controlled by wealthy landowners, resulting in friction with tenant farmers. By 1770, the two largest cities in the colonies were New York and Philadelphia, both located in these Middle Colonies. Urban life in those days included chickens and livestock and roving packs of dogs and pigs. Streets were cobblestoned or gravel and filled with pedestrians, horses, carts, and cattle. They were redolent with the scent of garbage and excrement. Sailors on the docks brought disease, which could spread rapidly in congested conditions. Buildings and wharfs were wooden, so fire was also an ever present hazard. Young men went to the cities in search of opportunity. The fortunate might find work as apprentices in such crafts as silversmith, shipbuilding, or rope making. The less fortunate might find work as servants, or as laborers on the docks, or they might put out to sea as sailors. Women had more limited opportunities. Slaves were not generally used for farm work but were employed as domestic servants and dockworkers. New York City had the largest population of African Americans in the northern colonies.

[SLIDE 8]

The non-Indian population of the mainland skyrocketed between 1688 and 1775. Much of this jump was due to natural increase, which is seen in the fact that more than half of the European Americans 1775 were under the age of 16. The rest was due to the huge numbers of immigrants arriving from Europe. Most of these newcomers wound up settling in the backcountry.

[SLIDE 9]

The greatest flow of population went to the backcountry, where squatters staked out a claim by clearing land and settling on it. British immigration continued, but Scots-Irish and then Germans made up the largest numbers, with smaller numbers of diverse others. They were brought by religious persecution, crop failures, and unemployment, but also by the lure of cheap land and greater opportunity.