Project: Life in Colonial America

Updated May 25, 2008

This project asks you to look at life in Colonial America, which was rich in its variety and diversity and built on a blending and clash of cultures in ways rarely seen in the world before 1600.

For starters look at this paragraph by historian Page Smith about the evolution of colonial America. In volume I of his A New Age Now Begins: A People's History of the American Revolution (McGraw-Hill, 1976) Smith writes of the “remarkable diversity” in the colonial world (p. 27):

A number of human varieties and social forms, some as old as England itself, others as new as the new commercial and mercantile spirit of the age, were planted in the virgin soil of the New World. There they would grow luxuriantly, each in its particular way, in a vegetative mold made up of new ideas and opportunities. There religious enthusiasm and rigid orthodoxy would shape one colony, while tolerance and a vigorous commercial spirit would place an unmistakable stamp on another. In the South, the best traditions of the English landed gentry would grow on the incongruous foundation of black slavery. In the North, the democracy of the New England village would be nurtured by a spirit that seems to the modern consciousness to be marked by simple religious fanaticism. America was like some strange new garden where all kinds of transplanted vegetables and flowers lived together in vigorous incompatibility, growing with astonishing speed in that fertile ground and developing, in the process, new strains and varieties. The New Englanders indeed liked the image of a new land of Canaan, a refuge for a new Chosen People; other colonists spoke of a Garden of Eden, a world of innocence where humanity might start anew. Perhaps it was this vision of a new world and a new opportunity that ran as a common theme through all the colonies. North or south, all reverberated to that grand chord, a silken thread that tied them all together and that, in time, would become a mighty rope.

First, finish reading the pertinent sections of your text and get a sense of the story line.

Then go to History 121, Part 1 and read the topic summaries and look through the documents linked from that page.

Select from the documents those that strike you as having a common thread. Then write an essay about what these writings reveal to you about life in the colonial world. You will find documents about the legal foundation of the colonies, descriptions of what life was like for those who struggled merely to stay alive, and others about those who came in contact with the Native Americans. All describe the conditions faced by those who in one way or another helped to create the American Colonial experience. Choose a topic and build your essay around the supporting documents.

Begin by reviewing the documents listed below. Select at least five and read them carefully, taking notes and jotting down ideas. Use the information or sentiments expressed in your selections to build your essay. You may use additional documents besides those listed as long as they are original sources and relate to your topic. Many may be found at Internet sites linked to the History 121 page, in the library, and elsewhere. Be sure to list all sources at the end of your essay. (You do not need to list documents you mention by name in your essay.)

Use the text and lectures for your own background, but do not summarize them in your essay . I would also prefer that you not use secondary sources outside the text, but instead build your own essay from the primary sources, using as many as necessary to make your points, but at least five. "Research" papers using secondary sources generally turn out to be rehashes of the ideas of others.

In these essays I am interested in what you think. Therefore it is most important that you bring your own ideas and opinions to your essays based upon your reading of the sources.

Documents:

• The Mayflower Compact
• Letter from an Indentured Servant
• Willam Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation
• Mary Jemison's Indian Captivity
• Anne Bradstreet
• A Sermon by Jonathan Edwards
• The Mayflower Compact
• The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639
• The Maryland Statute on Religious Toleration
• A Description of the Middle Passage
• Gottlieb Mittleberger: Journey of an Indentured Servant
• John Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity"
• The Albany Plan of Union 1754
• A Large Collection of Colonial Documents May be Found at Yale's Avalon Project
• See other American History Links

Requirement:

Select from the documents those that strike you as having a common thread. Then write an essay about what these writings reveal to you about life in the colonial world. You will find documents about the legal foundation of the colonies, descriptions of what life was like for those who struggled merely to stay alive, and others about those who came in contact with the Native Americans. All describe the conditions faced by those who in one way or another helped to create the American Colonial experience. Choose a topic and build your essay around the supporting documents.

The basic questions you want to address in this essay are these:

• How did life in colonial America shape the American people-the settlers whose descendants were our forefathers and mothers?
• How hard was life in those times compared with ours, and how did that affect their thinking?
• Why did people come to America and take all those chances? What did they expect? What did they find? What do the hardships they endured tell you about the life they left behind?
• What helped form their political attitudes? How did primitive concepts of democracy evolve during the colonial period?

Naturally you do not have to address all those points, and in fact you should not try. Just read, think, develop and idea and support it with the material. In fact, you do not even have to answer any of them as long as you discuss the documents. Keep in mind that there are no “correct” answers, only your thoughtful opinions.

Projects Home