Life for early Carolina colonists held many challenges Life for early Carolina colonists held many challenges. Most of the land was covered by dense forests, which colonists had to clear to make room for plantations. The damp, hot climate bred mosquitoes that carried deadly malaria. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvlTOhCmxvY Men who were involved in dangerous jobs, such as logging, hunting and seafaring, often faced life threatening conditions. Many colonial women were married and widowed several times in their lives. Still, some families prospered. In early colonial days, the Albemarle area was not home to enough people to establish towns or government buildings. It did not even have a church. Community members gathered to socialize conduct business and talk business at each others home or business establishments.

Colonial Women The colony’s wilderness environment meant women had to develop many skills. Virginian William Byrd we especially impressed with a woman he met on a surveying trip through the Carolina woods. “Shee is very civil woman and shews nothing of ruggedness, or Immodesty in her carriage, “ he wrote. “Yet she will cary a gunn in the woods and kill dear, turkeys, and shoot down wild cattle, catch and tye hoggs, knock down cows with an ax and perform the most manfull exercises as well as most men in those parts.” Legally, however, women had few rights. When a woman married, for example, her husband gained complete control over her property. This was a practice called coverture. One of North Carolina’s most successful innkeepers Diana Harris Foster was trapped by this law when she married her third husband, Thomas White. White was heavily in debt, and despite Diana’s objections he began to sell her property to pay his debts. Within a few years, the home and business she built up over decades were gone. Legally there was nothing she could do.

Most of not all the governors were weak and not good at all. Colonial Government Government also began to take shape. The Lords Propertiors crafted a plan called the Fundamental Constitution of Carolina, which gave them the right to appoint a governor to rule the colony. Male colonists who owned at least 50 acres of land could vote for members of an assembly that passed local laws. The governor chose members of a council that helped enforce whose laws. Governing the colony however proved far from easy. The lords Proprietors wanted to use colonies to make English merchants rich and to strengthen England’s economy. Most colonists did not share those goals. They had left England in search of opportunity and independence. They had no desire to serve the interests of aristocrats in England. The tension between Proprietors and colonists was heighted by the weakness and inefficiency of Carolina’s colonial government. Governing a far away largely undeveloped colony was not an attractive challenge, and the Proprietors had trouble finding effective leaders to send. Most of not all the governors were weak and not good at all.

Religion in the colony Slowly, the colonist began to build religious institutions. Officials from England promoted the Anglican Church, the official Church of England. But Quakers dominated the religious scene during the first decades of Carolina settlement. Several Quaker missionaries, including the group’s founder George Fox, established a handful of congregations in the colony. Other Quakers from Pennsylvania moved south adding to the growing population of the Carolina colony http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJXdICz1nA4

Questions for Life in the Colony List 4 reasons why being a colonists was so dangerous. Why were so many women married and widowed several times? How did colonists socialize? What was William Byrd impressed with about the woman he saw in North Carolina? What is coverture? What happened to Diana Harris Foster? What did the Fundamental Constitution do? Who made it? Why did the colonists not like it? What were two reasons why the government in North Carolina was ineffective? What were the two main religious groups in the new colonies?