Name: Answer Key
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Chapter 4: Life in the Colonies Section 1: Governing the Colonies The English Parliamentary Tradition •
English colonists brought the idea that they had political rights.
Magna Carta •
English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, the Latin name meaning “great charter”.
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It was the first document to place restrictions on the English ruler’s power.
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There were now limits on the monarch’s right to levy (to impose) taxes without consulting nobles. Also protected the right to own private property and guaranteed a right to trial by jury.
Parliament •
Under the Magna Carta, nobles formed a Great Council to advise the king. This body developed the English Parliament.
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Parliament was a two-house legislature.
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Legislature is a group of people who have the power to make laws.
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Members of the House of Commons were elected. Only a few rich men and landowners had the right to vote.
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Parliament’s greatest power was the right to approve new taxes.
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Power struggles between King Charles I and Parliament led to the English Civil War.
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Parliament won the war, executed the king, and ruled England by itself for about 20 years.
English Bill of Rights •
Parliament removed King James II from the throne and his daughter Mary and her husband William became the king and queen. This was known as the Glorious Revolution.
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King William and Queen Mary signed the English Bill of Rights.
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A bill of rights is a written list of freedoms that a government promises to protect.
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The English Bill of Rights restored many of the rights granted by the Magna Carta, including trial by jury.
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Habeas corpus is the principle that a person cannot be held in prison without being charged with a specific crime.
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The Bill of Rights declared no king or queen could impose taxes or raise an army without the consent of Parliament.
Colonial Self-Government •
Because Englishmen had a history of political rights, the colonists expected a voice in their government.
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Colonists liked a limited monarchy and a representative government.
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Colonists wanted to take part in governing themselves.
Colonial Legislatures •
Virginia Company allowed the House of Burgesses to make laws for the Jamestown colony.
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Massachusetts’s colonists set up a legislature called the General Court.
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The English government gave William Penn ownership of Pennsylvania.
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The governor and a large council made laws only an assembly could approve or reject. But Pennsylvania colonists wanted to draw up laws themselves.
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Pennsylvania colonists forced Penn to agree that only the General Assembly could make laws.
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By 1760, every British colony in North America had a legislature of some kind. However, they still clashed with the colonial governors appointed by the king.
The Right to Vote •
Colonies offered settlers greater political rights than they would have in England.
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50-75% of white males in the American colonies could vote. This was greater than in England.
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English women – even those who owned land – could not vote in any colony. Neither could Native Americans who still lived on land claimed by the colonists. Finally, no Africans, whether free or enslaved, could vote.
Freedom of the Press •
Colonists expected to enjoy the traditional rights of Englishmen.
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A notable court case helped establish another important right of freedom of the press.
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Freedom of the press is the right of journalists to publish the truth without restriction or penalty.
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Zenger, publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, was arrested for printing a series of articles that criticized the governor. He was charged with libel.
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Libel is the publishing of statements that damage a person’s reputation.
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English law at the time punished writings that criticized the government, even if the statements were true.
Regulating Trade •
Mercantilism means the colonies existed in order to serve the economic needs of their parent country.
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1651, English Parliament passed the first of several Navigation Acts to support mercantilism.
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These laws meant: 1. Shipments from Europe to English colonies had to go through England first 2. Any imports to England from the colonies had to come in ships build and owned by British subjects 3. The colonies could sell key products (tobacco/sugar) only to England
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Colonial traders had a sure market for their goods in England.
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Laws contributed to a booming shipbuilding industry in New England.
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However, as colonial trade expanded, many colonists came to resent the Navigation Acts.
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Laws favored English merchants.
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Colonists felt they could make more money if they were free to sell to foreign markets themselves.
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Some colonists got around the Navigation Acts by smuggling, which is importing and exporting goods illegally.
Section 2: Colonial Society The Family in Colonial Times •
Family was very important in colonial America. Many people lived with their extended family.
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Extended family is a family that includes, in addition to the parents and their children, other members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
On a Farm •
Most colonists lived on farms, where a large family was considered an advantage.
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Each member of the family had many responsibilities on the farm. They helped plant, cultivate, and harvest crops.
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There were also fences to mend, animals to tend, and wood to chop.
In a Town •
In the colonies’ few cities and towns, it was easier for single people to live by themselves.
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In Puritan New England, single men or women were expected to live with a family as a servant or a boarder.
Men, Women, and Children •
Husbands and fathers controlled a family’s income and property.
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Other family members were expected to accept the man’s authority.
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Men represented their families in public life as voters and officeholders.
Roles of Women •
Most women were expected to marry men chosen by their parents.
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When a woman married, her property and money became her husband’s.
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Besides childcare, the woman had many domestic responsibilities including cooking, laundry, and spinning yarn into cloth for clothing.
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Outside, the women took care of the garden, milked the cows, tended the chickens, churned butter, and preserved food.
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Women had little or no role in public life.
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Women could not hold office or vote.
Young People •
If they survived infancy, colonial children had to start working around the age of 7.
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Children played many games, such as marbles, hopscotch, leapfrog, and jump rope.
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Girls played with dolls made out of cornhusks and scraps of cloth.
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Boys built houses of corncobs.
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At age seven, most children worked doing household or farm chores, but those how where poor may have become servants in other families.
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Children were expected to fetch water and wood and to help in the kitchen and in the fields.
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Older children had greater responsibilities like work the fields with their fathers, while girls labored beside their mothers learning how to run a house.
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An apprentice is someone who learns a trade by working for someone in that trade for a certain period of time.
Social Classes •
Many European colonists came to America in hopes for a better life.
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Land was the main measure of wealth in Europe, which American had a lot of. This played a large role in the appeal of America.
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In Europe, if you were born wealthy you would most likely stay wealthy, and if you were born poor it was hard to improve your station in life.
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In colonial America, there was more social equality among settlers, but there were still class distinctions.
The Gentry •
The gentry were the upper class of colonial society.
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It included wealthy planters, merchants, ministers, royal officials, and successful lawyers.
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The gentry were a few in numbers, but they were the most powerful people.
The Middle Class •
The great majority of colonists were called “the middling sort”.
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The middle class was made up of small planters, independent farmers, and artisans.
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Middle-class men could vote and few held office.
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Middle class was mostly white, but some were of African descent.
Indentured Servants •
Lower on colonial America’s social scale, and just above enslaved Africans, were farmhands and indentured servants.
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An indentured servant signed a contract to work from 4-10 years in the colonies for anyone who would pay for his or her ocean passage to the Americas.
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In the late 1600s, most indentured servants came from England, and by the 1700s, many came from Ireland and Germany.
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During the time of service, indentured servants had a few if any rights.
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They were bound to obey their masters, who could work them almost to death.
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Those who disobeyed or tried to run away risked being whipped or having time added to their service.
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At the end of a term, an indentured servant received a set of clothes, tools, and 50 acres of land.
Free African Americans •
Free people of African ancestry were never a large portion of the colonial population.
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In 1790, there were nearly 60,000 free people of African ancestry compared to more than 757,000 enslaved.
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Free African Americans were allowed to own property, even in the South. This permitted them to become slaveholders.
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Most African American property owners were not allowed to vote or sit in on juries.
Section 3: Slavery in the Colonies The Atlantic Slave Trade •
Slave traders set up posts along the West African coast. Africans who lived along the coast made raids into the interior, seeking captives to sell to Europeans.
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Bound at the leg and neck, captives were forced to march as far as 300 miles to the coast. Half died along the way.
Middle Passage •
Captives were traded for guns and other goods.
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They were loaded onto slave ships and transported across the Atlantic Ocean on a voyage known as the Middle Passage.
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As many as 350 people might be bound together in a tiny space below deck without light or air.
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Other captains provided better conditions, in the hope that more captives would survive in good health to be sold at a higher price.
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Due to terrible conditions, 15-20% of enslaved Africans died or committed suicide during the Middle Passage.
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Once they reached the Americas, healthy men, women and children were put up for auction.
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About 500,000 enslaved Africans ended up in British North America.
Triangular Trade •
By around 1700, slave traders in British colonies developed a regular routine, known as the triangular trade.
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The triangular trade was a three-way trade between the colonies, the islands of the Caribbean, and Africa.
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Ships from New England carried fish, lumber, and other goods to the Caribbean islands, or West Indies.
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Label what was traded:
Rum, guns, other goods
Sugar, molasses
Slaves •
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Many New England merchants grew wealthy from the triangular trade and disobeyed the Navigation Acts, which required them to buy only from English colonies.
Slavery in the Colonies •
Slavery had existed since ancient times, but in many cultures it was not for life. In early Christian societies, slaves were freed if they became Christians. In many African societies, people captured in war were only enslaved for a few years.
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In America, a harsher system of slavery developed over time.
Slavery Takes Root •
First Africans who reached Jamestown were treated as servants.
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A major reason for slavery was the plantation system as tobacco and rice made huge profits; they needed many people to work the fields.
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The southern economy came to depend on slavery.
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Slaves were preferred to indentured servants as servants were for a term and slaves were for life.
Enslaved for Life •
Need for cheap labor grew, causing the colonies to make slavery permanent.
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1639, Maryland passed a law stating that baptism did not lead to liberty.
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1663, Virginia held that any child born to a slave was a slave.
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1652, Rhode Island passed the first antislavery law, however it did not survive as the colony’s shippers made high profits from the slave trade.
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Slavery became legal in all colonies.
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Not every African in America was a slave, but slavery became restricted to people of African descent, linking it to racism.
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Racism is the belief that one race is superior or inferior to another.
Resistance to Slavery •
As the number of enslaved people grew, whites began to worry they would revolt.
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Colonial authorities wrote slave codes, which are strict laws that restricted the rights and activities of slaves.
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Under these codes, slaved could not meet in large numbers, own weapons, or leave a plantation without permission. It also began illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write.
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Masters who killed enslaved people could not be tried for murder.
Section 4: The Spread of New Ideas The Importance of Education •
In early New England, everyone was expected to read the Bible.
Puritan Beginnings •
Parents were required to teach their children and servants to read.
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Every town with at least 50 families was to start an elementary school. Every town with 100 families was to start a grammar school for the older children.
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These laws in Massachusetts were the beginning of public schools in America.
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A public school is a school supported by taxes.
Colonial Schools •
Colonial schools included the instruction of religion.
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Colonial elementary schools taught basic skills, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic.
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In the South, people were greatly separated, so there were not many schools. Members of the gentry hired private tutors to instruct their children. Children from poorer families often received no formal education.
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Some colonial elementary schools admitted girls or others taught them in the summer when the boys were not in schools.
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Girls could attend dame schools, which are schools that women opened in their homes to teach girls and boys to read and write.
Education for African Americans •
In New York, an Anglican church group ran a school for free African Americans, as well as for Native Americans and poor whites.
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Some Quaker and Anglican missionaries taught enslaved people to read.
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After slave codes in the South outlawed teaching to slaves, some enslaved people learned in secret. Others taught themselves from stolen or borrowed books.
Upper Levels •
Some boys went to grammar school after elementary school, which are like modern high schools.
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Grammar schools prepared boys for college. Students learned Greek and Latin, as well as geography, mathematics, and English composition.
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The first American colleges were founded largely to educate men for the ministry.
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Harvard was the first college in the English colonies.
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College of William and Mary was the first college in the South.
Roots of American Literature Poetry •
First colonial poet was Anne Bradstreet. Her poetry expressed the joys and hardships of life in Puritan New England.
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A later poet, Phillis Wheatley, was an enslaved African in Boston.
Ben Franklin •
The best-loved colonial writer was Benjamin Franklin. He stated the newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. It became the most widely read newspaper in the colonies.
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His most popular work was Poor Richard’s Almanack.
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He was more than a writer, and was also businessman, community leader, scientist, inventor, and diplomat.
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He is also a founder of the United States.
The Great Awakening •
From the start, religion played a key role in the 13 English colonies.
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By the 1700s, rules on religion had become less strict in many of the colonies.
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Churches remained centers of faith and community life in the colonies.
Religious Revival •
The period of religious revival in the colonies was known as the Great Awakening.
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Began as a reaction against what some Christians saw as a decline of religious zeal in the colonies.
Impact of the Great Awakening •
The Great Awakening led to the rise of many new churches.
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Growth of new churches led to more tolerance of religious differences in the colonies.
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The Great Awakening was the first national movement in the colonies.
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It reinforced democratic ideas. People thought that if they could decide on their own how to worship God, they could decide how to govern themselves.
The Enlightenment •
A group of European thinkers came to believe that all problems could be solved with human reason.
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A new intellectual movement came to be known as the Enlightenment.
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Enlightenment thinkers looked for “natural laws” that governed politics, society, and economics.
Locke •
Locke argued that people have certain natural rights, that is, rights that belong to every human being from birth.
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These rights include life, liberty, and property.
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Locke challenged the idea of divine right, which is the belief that monarchs get their authority to rule directly from God.
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Government exists to protect the rights of the people, if a monarch violates those rights, the people have the right to overthrow the monarch.
Montesquieu •
Montesquieu argued that the powers of government should be clearly defined and limited.
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He favored separation of powers, or division of the power of government into separate branches, which keeps one group from gaining too much power.
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Suggested government be broken into three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.
