Chapter 5: Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution Patra Dunston

Conquest by the Cradle 1.    By 1775, Britain ruled 32 colonies in North America. The saying “thirteen original colonies” can be found deceptive. 2.    Ultimately settlements started to rebel, in 1700 they contained fewer than 300,000 people, about 20,000 were black. By 1775, 2.5 million people occupied the thirteen colonies. Half a million were black. About 400,000 of the increase number were made up of white immigrants. a.    Outrageously the colonists were doubling every twenty-five years. b.     The average age of the population in 1775 was 16. c.     Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Maryland all out populated the other colonies. 3.     Only four of the colonies could properly be called cities: Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Charleston. Still, 90 percent of the people lived in rural areas in the country.

A Mingling of the Races

The Structure of Colonial Society

Clerics, Physicians, and Jurists Because religion was mostly practiced, the most honored of the professions were ministries. Physicians were poorly trained and not highly esteemed. In 165 the first medical school was established. Smallpox and Diphtheria were just two of the epidemics that swiped the colonies,

Workaday America Agriculture was the leading industry. Maryland and Virginia’s number one cash crop was tobacco. Triangular trade occurred because of the exchange of rum, slaves, and molasses between the North America colonies, Africa, and the west Indies. Also a small portion of the Atlantic trade.

Dominant Denominations The Anglican and the Congregational were two tax-supported churches. Anglicans were common in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and a part of New York. The Congregational Church had grown out of the Puritan Church, and was found in New England colonies except Rhode Island.

The Great Awakening The Great Awakening was a spiritual renewal that swept the American Colonies, particularly New England, during the first half of the 18th Century. Certain Christians began to disassociate themselves with the established approach to worship at the time which had led to a general sense of complacency among believers, and instead they adopted an approach which was characterized by great fervor and emotion in prayer. This new spiritual renewal began with people like the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield in England and crossed over to the American Colonies during the first half of the 18th Century. Unlike the somber, largely Puritan spirituality of the early 1700s, the revivalism ushered in by the Awakening allowed people to express their emotions more overtly in order to feel a greater intimacy with God.