1. Topic: How did American society change in the early 1700s?

2. Colonial Careers Top positions: Emergent groups: Commerce, Fur trade
Clergy, public officials, large landowners
Emergent groups:
Doctors and Lawyers
Commerce, Fur trade
Most Americans in small agriculture
Triangle Trade
Little Manufacturing
Smuggling w/ France

3. “Class” in the Colonies
No “real” Aristocrats
Southern Plantation owners
Relatively few poor
Indentured Servants
High standard of living for most people

4. American Population Shifts
1600s: Fight to survive
1700s: Stability, relative safety
Increased birthrate
Doubling population every 25 years
Continued immigration
Who’s bigger: Britain or 13 colonies?
Virginia the most populous colony

5. American: “the new man”
A “melting pot”?
Vast majority English (49%)
Africans second 19%
Pennsylvania:
Germans (Dutch country)
Scots-Irish- Paxton Boys
Intermarriage of all groups
de Crevecoeur: “mixing of blood” new man

6. America’s Ethnicity: 1700s

8. Conclusion
1) What conditions caused the American population to increase? How would this impact the colonies?
2) Was America a “classless” society in the 1700s? Explain.