6.1 The New England Colonies pp. 150-155

Objectives: Identify the ways in which New England colonists made a living. Explain how community life was organized in New England.

A. Making a Living (pp. 150-152) New England’s hills, rocky soil, and short growing season led to subsistence farming, a type of farming in which just enough food is produced for the family’s own needs. Fishing and whaling became important parts of the New England economy. Timber from New England’s abundant forests proved valuable for shipbuilding.

B. Triangular Trade Routes (p. 152) New England’s trading ships followed what came to be called the triangular trade routes because the routes formed a triangle. Colonists used sugar and molasses from the West Indies to make rum. The rum trade helped finance the purchase of more West African slaves for the sugarcane plantations of the West Indies.

C. A Belief in Education (pp. 152-153) Puritans believed that people needed enough education to read the Bible and understand laws. In New England’s dame schools, women taught the alphabet, reading, verses from the Bible, and perhaps simple arithmetic. Books were scarce, so most dame schools had a hornbook, a wooden, paddle-shaped board that held a sheet of paper printed with the alphabet and the Lord’s Prayer.

D. The First Public Schools (pp. 153-154) Under the Massachusetts School Law, every township with more than 50 households was required to have someone teach its children to read and write. This law marked a step toward universal education. The first college in the colonies, Harvard (1636), was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the purpose of educating ministers.

E. Community Life (pp. 154-155) Towns were often built around an open field called the green or common. The church, or meetinghouse as it was often called, stood on one side of the green. In 1692, in the village of Salem, Massachusetts, 20 innocent people were accused of being witches and executed.

F. Town Meetings (p. 155) The meetinghouse was also where New Englanders met to deal with community problems and other issues. At the yearly town meetings, all the free men of the town discussed and voted on important community questions. Although not every community member could vote, town meetings were an important step toward democracy.

Review: 1. What factors made farming difficult in the New England Colonies? 2. Define subsistence farming— 3. List three ways colonists in New England made a living. 4. Define export— 5. Define import— 6. What were some products traded along the triangular trade routes? 7. Why did Puritans believe it was important to be able to read? 8. Define dame school— 9. What was a hornbook? 10. What did the Massachusetts School Law (1647) require? 11. What was the name of the first college in the colonies? 12. What did New Englanders call the open field around which they built their towns and villages? 13. What were two functions of the New England meetinghouse? 14. Which Massachusetts village experienced a series of witch trials and executions in 1692?