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The conquest of the cradle, and by this time there were a number of colonies that were about to rebel. We see the process of colonies getting tastes of freedoms and rights. Once this started happening it was very difficult for them to stop doing those things. They got that taste and they wanted to keep that taste of freedom.

This chapter starts to talk about society as a whole. Chapter 6 talks about the Indian wars and then the revolution comes in Chapter 7. So first we want to talk about the structure of the colonies.

The mingling of the races was very characteristic of the times. The Germans left to escape persecution in their country. The Scott-Irish were squattors - they stayed until they were given the boot. We tended to see the educated Germans. Once they got here, 1890s, they had the ability to move on and do something. The Irish tended to find jobs in the cities and the factories because they were less educated. The other groups like the French and the Dutch, the ones that showed the least diversity were the Puritans.

This map on the overhead is just to show you where we talk about the predominant infiltration like by the German in the Pennsylvania area. The English is predominantly along the East coast where the original colonies were founded. The Jewish faith was finding its own in different places as well. Again, kind of the groups that came in.

The structure of the colony was very similar to what we talked about the other day. There is a pyramid (shown in a second). Merchants found much support by providing military supplies to England. Remember, we are still focusing on England being the economic --- supporter? We provided most of the natural resources to send back to England. We had these different groups like the Merchants and the Planters. We start to see the stratification of the society. Where do I belong in this big pyramid?

Indentured servants were kind of on the lower end of this social pyramid. One of the worksheets talks about the group that was the “jayle birds” - the paupers - the so poor and the jailed. Sometimes the poor were forced into the lifes of crime so that they could survive. So this is why they saw them as the “jayle bird” population. This was the riffraff, undesirable.

The slaves had no ability to move up in the social ladder. The jayle birds had some ability to move up. The lesser trades (like the manual workers) were slightly above the jailbirds. The ones at the top were the professional men and then the aristocrats like the leading planters, merchants, lawyers, clergymen, and respected officials.

So, the clerics, the physicians and the jurists in this time of society - the most revered were the priests. They were not above the law, but they were the height of respect in terms of what people look up to. The physicians were not as well respected. The physicians were not very intelligent at the time - they would normally try to “bleed out the disease” which would cause further problems - Oops. Not much malpractice cases. People were already on the deathbed anyway so they couldn't come up with a way to sue the physicians really. Mid 1800s we have guys that sell goods - “This little potion will cure anything from cancer to hangnails.” It was mostly alcohol anyway. Were you cured? No, but you sure felt good. No pain period. Same with the cough syrups … because they were intoxicated.

The physicians were not esteemed because of the problems associated with curing people. Lawyers were the same way. There are still jokes around about lawyers. People are not thinking that laywers are the greatest people in the world. Sometimes we look at laywers and just question them, especially the ones that go into the public service. “How could you as a lawyer ever take that case”. But, again, that is there job. People saw lawyers as taking advantage of people. They were not looked upon so well, until the people started to try to talk their way getting away from the mother country.

So we leave the issues with the workaday American population. These people, again, the clerics and physicians were really just the top of the pyramid. Agriculture was the leading industry (tobacco and grain were high on the list). Ship building was seen in lumbering and manufacturing ships. Of course, for England, that helped enable their naval superiority. As we continue to build these ships for England, when we get our independence, we just build our own military.

Sea men who knew how to sail the ships (how to get the most out of the wind and being able to maneuver the ships) became very important in the triangular trade. The colonies didn't really work so well on the manufacturing of goods, as many just saw us as the lumber store, the Home Depot. England would just come in and take it all away and then make something and then sell it back to us as a product. We were giving all of our resources back to England. This is an important economic relationship. Some people started to question the validity of this as a viable economic scheme … especially as we moved towards industrialization. They started to think about taking out the middleman and the cost of shipping the goods across the ocean (and then shipping them back to us, plus the manufacturers had to have a payment).

Lumbering was the single most important manufacturing activites that we had - building ships that England needed to ship goods, obviously in times of war - troops as well. We had the resources. Tobacco we already mentioned as being one very important aspect as well.

We see the growth of all these different things. Everyday America here. What are the things that are the colonists doing to promote the colonies, anyway?

Horsepower and Sail power. There were problems with ship building and transportation. We did not have a lot of help with the roads. The development of the Model T was so versatile that it could go anywhere like on muddy roads. At this point all of the roads that we would have were dust. 25 inches of rain would make the dirt roads mud - so the Model T was a great development on top of those poor roads.

Most roads did not connect major cities. We used horse and carriage to get between cities. The railroads became our major mode of transportation for people and goods. People tended to cluster around rivers. Most of the big cities were around the big rivers. The major cities are around the Mississippi River, for example.

Taverns within the city were centers of gossip and sometimes misinformation. The more alcohol they drank the better the stories got. This became the hotbed of agitation. As you sit around and talk about how much you don't like somebody, people can get really excited about doing something about whatever the cause was. We see the seeds of revolution finding its means in these taverns.

We did have private curriers. Sometimes by rail and sometimes by stage-coach. To pass the time sometimes the mail-men would just read the letter. They may say that they didn't read it at all. But it was generally considered fair game.

There were dominant dominations. The Anglican and Congregational issues are in the book. Congregational dealt with those that ran the church. Sermons tended to be shorter. The clergy still supported their King. Religious toleration made enormous strides. Catholics were still discriminated against. People saw them as a bad thing for the development of the colonies. They did not like the religions of the Church of England.

We talked about during the Puritan Era where people just started to say “this isn't for me - time that I leave this”. As people started to move away from religion we see the Great Awakening as a movement. “Hey, wake up, time to go back to God. Everybody wake up.”

Liberal ideas challenged old ways. Again, we saw a change, and we saw main religions started and then we saw smaller branches like derivative branches. Now we have many churches that we can put under many different headings. People wanted to twist it this way or twist it that way. We want to sing these sort of songs and these kind of songs - Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ, all under one big heading, but they all turn to their own means. This was part of the development of religion at the time. We saw the need of religion so that people could go back to God so that we would have stronger developing community.

Jonathan Edwards was pounding on the pulpits in his sermons to get people back. George Whitefield started evangelical preaching. Preachers that are on television are evangelical - they tend to run the revivals. We see this mainly in the south and we see big giant tents set up, bringing communities back into the church for more church participation.

The “new lights” defended the new revival-awakening for religion. The “old lights” were not sure of this new revival. Could we do this and change the religion? There were many compromises that the “new lights” provided. They were just trying to get the colonies back on track in terms of religion.

The Great Awakening did break down some sectional barriers. It started to allow people to say “religion is religion and it's okay”. It drew some groups together and this sort of stopped the nation from diving apart. This was one of the first spontaneous movements by the American people. It was a step for doing something for ourselves. This only gave us more beef behind to get the ability to get what we want out of everything.

The schools and colleges are the next topic. Just as we think about today, we think that education has its place. Farm labor took a lot of time away from the youth of the time. The parents would tell the kids that they have to get the crops out of the field so they wouldn't go to school on some months (because of harvest). Sometimes these schools didn't go for a 9 month period. When it was a harvest time the school stopped for that month, and once that was over you would resume school. When it was planting time you would stop and then go back to school once you're done. At most they were attending school at 4 to 6 months per year.

Sometimes wealthy families used private tutors and mentors. Sometimes they would ship them off to England for boarding school. We would see this today as sending kids off to private schools. They felt that that was what would give them the best education. Some instruction was poor. A lot of the instruction was loaded with theology and the dead languages (Latin, Greek, …). Is it important that I know Latin? Maybe not. I need to learn how to work the farm but I also need to know how to read and write.

The University of Pennsylavina was the first to be free from denominational control in the American colonies. It was not a religious school.

The culture in the backwoods was rather odd. The clergy saw art as the invention of the devil depending on what was in the pictures. It was such that the pictures were drawn in such methods that they thought it was a product of the devil. The painters included Trumbull, Peale, West, Copley. All of those guys brought in some artistic contributions to colonial America. It reflected some ideas, and again, we start to see literature as well as some of these writers, we started seeing things that reflected what was there at the time. What was happening in America? We stopped worrying about writing English history and we started to write about colonial life and what was going. We started to break the stories about the new life they had their.

Colonial literature included stuff by Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac ( a collection of sayings ). We saw some experimental science like flying kites in electrical storms.

The Pioneer Press, here we see the first advent of the freedom of the press. They were very few private libraries. Ben Franklin was trying to push for private libraries by 1776. Things by the King and documentation had to be in the library, he thought. Hand operated presses, pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers - this is how the information got to the people. The news from the taverns were not always the best of quality. John Peter Zenger was fighting for freedom of the press. He printed some things that people disagreed with, so he ended up fighting for freedom of the press - this doesn't mean he started off with that fight. He was tried for libel (telling mistruths). People didn't like what he said and so they took offense to that. This set the standard for freedom of the press.

The Great Game of Politics - the next issue. The government structure varied. We were still under the rule of the crown. The proprietors were put in charge of the property. The crown set up a 2 house legislator which at some point could have been the model for our present day legislator. The upper house was appointed by the crown. The lower house was chosen by the people (with land). The Upper probably had more power. You think the crown is going to give the colonies an edge?

What's the biggest reason that people give for the colonies revolting? Taxation without representation. Could the story have been any different if the crown just said “we're going to give you 15 people in legislator to talk about taxes”. If they gave us those 15 people into the Upper house this may have not changed much.

Colonial Folkways - the next topic. Everyday life was very drab and tedious. Labor was constant and heavy. Basic comforts were lacking. It was just existence. People were not necessarily incredibly unhappy. They kind of dealt with what they had. They only had what they needed - family, farm. Amusement was like house-raising (let's all go build a house), quilting bees in the church, and so on. There was not really much amusement. Winter sports were available, actually. Card playing and horse racing was available. Fox hunting was another topic. Lotteries were used to raise money for the church. Thanksgiving became an American festival - obviously dating back to the Indian relations from the past.

This is painting a pictureas to what colonial society was like at that time. They were obviously not the most comforted in their home and living conditions. There wasn't much stuff. They didn't know of technology really, so they didn't know and thus didn't really care. Fun really was going to the social. They had fun just spending time with family and friends.