UNITED STATES HISTORY UNIT I: COLONIZATION Life in the Colonies

Education in the Colonies  Greater emphasis on education in New England. Puritans founded Harvard College in 1736 and were the first to require tax-supported public education.  In the Middle Colonies families and churches started private schools for those who could afford tuition.  In the Southern Colonies, wealthy Southerners hired private tutors to teach their children at home. The poor rarely received any formal education. William & Mary College (1693)

Religion in the Colonies  What colony was known as the “Bible Commonwealth?”  Pennsylvania was founded by?  The vast majority of American colonists were deeply religious and worked to maintain their churches.  On the frontier, people would often travel for miles to attend services.  The Great Awakening ( ) was one of the first national events in colonial history. It worked to promote religious toleration and acceptance; all were welcome to attend revival services.  It made people responsible for their individual salvation.  It also worked to promote democratic ideals. Why?  Preachers George Whitefield (Philadelphia to Savanna) and Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God swept audiences off their feat and won many souls over to Jesus Christ.

Women in the Colonies  Unmarried women were recruited by the London Company and husbands paid for voyage upon marriage.  They also came as indentured servants.  Marriage was more for practical reasons than romance.  American men treated women better and with more respect than European men.  Married women were not permitted to own property, they couldn’t vote, and divorce was next to impossible.  Women were the “Jills-of-all-trades!”  They often learned to use guns and run the family farm out of necessity – this was virtually impossible for women in Europe.  Martha Dandridge Custis was one of the wealthiest women in the Colonies as she inherited much land while in her 20s when her husband died. She would later become famous through her second marriage.

Life on the Frontier  1750 – est.1.2 million people live in the 13 colonies  The frontier had reached the eastern slopes and valleys of the Appalachian Mts.  Conflicts existed over land (Mason-Dixon Line-1760s), Easterners vs. Western Frontiersmen, representation in the legislatures, and local politics.  Life on the frontier was hard and dangerous.  What famous frontiersmen blazed the trail into KY?

Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)  Virginia settlers killed 24 Susquehanna Indians in a retaliatory attack. The Indians then killed 36 settlers.  Nathaniel Bacon, a tobacco farmer, raised a volunteer militia and wiped out an Occaneechi settlement that had no part in the rebellion.  Governor Wm. Berkley ordered him to put down arms and he marched on Jamestown, burned the town, and drove the governor out.  When Bacon died in Oct. 1676, the rebellion collapsed.  Was Bacon a hero or villain?  There had not been an election for seats in the House of Burgesses for 15 years and Governor Berkley had an interest in the fur trade.

The Seventeenth-Century Colonial Family Mark each statement as True or False. 1. Most colonists lived in extended families, that is with husband, wife, children, and close relatives living together. 2. Most colonists had very large families. 3. Childhood lasted until the “teen” years. 4. Teen years were times of rebellion, drama, stress, and uncertainty. 5. Most colonial men and women married young. 6. Life for most colonial men and women was short. 7. The leading cause of death among colonial women was complications from childbearing. 8. Most colonial men remarried at least once. 9. Colonial families were patriarchal in that a man’s role was to be the “head” of the family, and a woman’s basic duty was submission. 10. A strict, repressive Puritan-like ethic controlled the moral behavior of colonists.