The Colonial Society During The Colonial Society In The 18th Century

During the 17th and early 18th centuries, many American colonists took it upon themselves to unify the English colonies. As Puritans and other settlers began to establish villages across the eastern coast of North America, they found that the only way for them to function properly was through peace and order. Unity was attained through agreements and constitutions laying down the first steps to self-government and democracy, and to a lesser extent a call to action between the colonists and the English crown.

The English settlers of the thirteen colonies experienced political, social, and religious changes throughout the 1600s and 1700s that were considered to be both democratic and undemocratic as government was slowly developing.

2. What changes did the American military undergo from the Colonial Era to the Revolutionary Era?

Dinner! That simple word can inspire lots of emotions and excitement. If called to dinner, one would run in to eat a hot meal. In Colonial America dinner was the main meal of the day. The food that was served and how it was prepared depended on which region and what ingredients were available. Starvation was real in early American colonies. It was so bad in the beginning that in the first year, “Two desperate colonists were tied to posts and left to starve as punishment for raiding the colonies ' stores. One colonist even took to cannibalism, eating his own wife.”

The Great Awakening is where the political horizon for the United States began. As a result, the thirteen colonies became a part of the United States of America. It also brought about a commonality among the colonies. Politically, the nature of government was changing in the area of human rights. However, there was a vibrant political culture in the colonial society. With this in mind, the suffrage was extensive in the world with the majority of white American men had the privilege also eligibility to vote where democracy was taking place. And yet, being a part of America each colony had their own assemblies and county governments. They even managed their own taxation, land grants as well as

The study of American colonies is very interesting because it not only shows us a group of different people banding together to create a nation but also how they fended off another nation to become free. This is how our great nation became what it is today; freedom is all anybody ever wanted so they risked their lives and the lives of their family to make the dangerous journey. There were the original 13 colonies in American but what people forget about are the other Spanish holdings towards the West that played a huge role in the tensions that were created in the 17th century and 18th century. There were huge tensions between groups of people for various reasons and this can be found in several writings.

The beginning of colonial life started off with great living conditions. There was a lack of disease and good amount of clean drinking. These new conditions for the colonist added a few years to the life expectancies. Because of the new great life spans of the colonist, the growth of New England was at an all-time high.

By 1763, white Americans were united in their expectations that the Anglo-American defeat of the French forces had opened the door to unlimited expansion and boundless prosperity. Dufour wrote how a majority shared a moral vision of a future utopia shaped by the religious and civic dictates of republicanism and British Protestantism. American society has gradually become more modern, its social institutions are more complex and stable. Americans were divided by conflicts of every kind-between rich, poor, cities and countryside’s, east and west, north and south, and popular and elite culture. The scholarly article by T.H Breen states, “colonial American historians have understandably overlooked such trifling transactions. They have concentrated instead on the structure of specific communities, they have generally ignored the social an economic ties that counted colonist men and women who happened to dwell in other places” (Breen).

The new world in the 1700’s was anything but fair and equal between men and women. The utopist idea of the hundred pilgrims signing the First American governing document, Mayflower Compact (Plymouth, MA-1620) was about to be rocked by centuries of racial discriminations. The Stono rebellion will trig various changes in the Colonies, this event will reshaped the 1700s’ racial status, and provide Southern states with a great opportunity to capitalize on its outcome. North America in 1700s was engaged in becoming a nation of White Europeans Protestant Christians. After two centuries of European immigration to the Americas, those who were escaping the British Empire’s religious persecution and the ones who were seeking happiness and fortune saw a great opportunity in the Atlantic slave trade. Despite the goodwill of many, the eighteenth century America racial tensions can still be addressed today. Blacks in the 1700s America were enslaved, stripped of their fundamental human beings’ rights, tortured, abused, raped and lawfully considered as common properties. The late 1660s’ colonists settled in the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland introducing compulsory laws that deprived the Black population, freemen or enslaved men and women, of their fundamental rights and privileges given to any citizen in the colonies. In the mean time, they began to import a large number of slaves from Africa.

The Colonial Period in America sparked new ideas in ethics, science, government and literature, establishing a cultural independence and changing our world forever. During this time, the Americas were trying to win their freedom from the British, which influenced every aspect of their daily lives, and ultimately produced many of Americas greatest literary documents and speeches.

During the 18th century, the uprising of British North American Colonies “grew vastly in economic strength and forged a distinct identity”. After the French and Indian war, the Britain saw a need for the “more centralized control” (Outline of U.S. History, 2011, p.52). They felt as necessary to eliminate any interference from the colonialists. The colonies on the other hand, expected more freedom and independence. Hence there was a forthcoming conflict. When the organization of Canada and Ohio valley would not adopt the policies to “alienate the French and Indian inhabitants, and British needed more money and land for settlement” (54) and fear of more war erupting, the restricting and taxation laws were passed. For example the Proclamation

A key aspect that caused the American Revolution was people not only losing faith in their mother country of England, but not caring to obey the rules and laws that England imposed upon them, causing a lack of respect for England’s authority. This was brought about by the Navigation Acts, but also by the ideals that were brought about in the Great Awakening. People started becoming more bold and revolutionary, rethinking everything that they held to be true. There were certain political concepts that criticized the social hierarchies of colonial society, and eventually, this led to criticizing religious norms, which led to criticizing norms of all kinds, from what religion meant to oneself to how much authority of a government overseas really possessed over the colonists. However, the Great Awakening, while doing many benefits, also lead to some consequences for certain groups. The church and its associated clergy became less important as people started to believe that they could rely on their own beliefs. Colonists had their own religious power right in their hands, rather than in the hands of the Church of England. Traditional authority and everything a colonist took to believe was true was suddenly being

The role of religion must also be discussed. It is important to point out many dominations of Protestantism were prevalent in the American colonies. This is something J.C.D Clark points out, ‘Protestantism in the Anglophone world had from the outset been marked by its proliferating diversities’ (Secondary Source 17.2, 2015, p.2). However, the establishment of King’s College in 1754 was perceived in the periphery as Anglicanism being intertwined with government. The Anglican bishops were believed to be ‘agents of the government’ (Speck, 2008, p.22). The establishment of the Anglican Church was opposed for two reasons: firstly, it went against the character of the American colonies with all the different dominations living together without government

While the early American colonies struggled to move forward during the late 17th and early 18th century due to political disagreements over matters such as slavery, it was the seed of hope planted by the unity of different races that motivated the young country to change its ways for the betterment of its citizens, economy, and overall state of stability. At our nations lowest and darkest time, it was slavery that not only was the culprit for the separation of the young colonies from each other, but also the formula needed to unite the people who made up these states for the betterment of society. It was these bold acts from people of all ages and sizes only separated by different skin colors that powered our beloved country through a Civil War into an era of peace and prosperity. It was Woodrow T. Wilson who once said, “We cannot be

People were looked at in very different ways in New England compared to the Southern Colonies. The social structure in the New England Colonies based itself around family. Families would have around 8-10 children and at the same time, people began to live after 65, compared to the average of 40-50 before. Because of the high birthrate and the extended life expectancy, it is known as the New England colonists that invented the modern day grandparents. In the South there was a high rate of disease and the life expectancy was around 50 years old. There were very few women in the south, making the women very important, giving them more power then in the north. The southern children were rarely given education, if any it was by tutors. In the North almost all children got education. These factors of family lead to a change in the economic structures.