Colonial life in America. The story of the American colonists tells of the men, women, and children who left behind the Old World of Europe for a new life in North America. It describes the everyday life of the settlers in the communities they developed. It also tells of the meeting of cultures, as Europeans and Indigenous (native) Americans came into contact with each other. The British American colonial period began in the late 1500’s with English attempts to settle Newfoundland and Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina. It ended with the start of the American Revolution in 1775.
Many of the colonists came to North America from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. But the New World attracted settlers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and other European countries as well.
The majority of settlers came to the colonies for economic opportunity or to avoid political and religious unrest at home. However, not all colonists arrived voluntarily. The slave trade brought large numbers of people from Africa against their will. Some orphans were sent from England to America under labor contracts over which they had no control. Some English convicts were transported to the colonies to become servants.
When the Europeans arrived in North America, the continent was already home to many groups of Indigenous Americans with many different cultures. Indigenous people were originally helpful to the colonists, and trade developed between the two groups. This trade changed the society of both the Indigenous people and the settlers. Indigenous groups strongly resisted the settlers’ attempts to claim more and more Indigenous land. From time to time, fighting broke out between the colonists and the Indigenous people. Eventually, the colonists pushed most of the Indigenous people to the west.
Among the European colonial powers, the English arrived late in the Americas. By the time England colonized the New World, Spain and Portugal had already staked their claims there. Spain’s colonial empire, established during the 1500’s, stretched from South America to California. It also included Cuba, several other islands in the Caribbean Sea, and Florida. Portugal controlled what is now Brazil. In eastern North America, the English, French, Dutch, and Swedes competed for land and riches. For most of the colonial period, France claimed Canada and the Mississippi Valley. By the end of the period, the British controlled nearly all of North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. They also held several Caribbean islands.
The Spanish and French in North America were interested chiefly in sending furs, gold, and other riches back to Europe. They also wanted to convert the Indigenous Americans to Roman Catholicism. The early French and Spanish settlements served as outposts for soldiers and traders and as missions run by priests. The English colonies, on the other hand, were settled by people from many walks of life who wanted to set up permanent homes.
The English colonists built farms that grew crops which were sold overseas. They built schools and churches and founded thriving port towns. By the mid-1700’s, the colonists had a general standard of living equal to the wealthiest European nations. Also by then, the colonists had developed strong forms of self-government.
For the history of each of the Thirteen Colonies, from settlement to statehood, see the separate World Book articles on the states, such as Maryland (History). See also the article United States, History of the (The American Colonies (1607-1753)). For information on other colonial settlements in North America, see Canada, History of; Mission life in America; New France; New Netherland; and New Sweden. For a history of colonies in Central and South America, see Latin America (History).
Why the colonists came to America
The first permanent English settlement was founded at Jamestown in 1607. By 1733, the heart of the British Empire in the New World consisted of 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. Most of these colonies were founded by private joint-stock companies or individuals who had received permits from the English monarch to colonize lands claimed by England. Joint-stock companies, the forerunners of modern corporations, were companies that obtained funds to carry on business by selling shares of stock to individuals.
The companies and individual investors hoped to make a profit from their colonies and to expand English trade and industry. They advertised for settlers and pointed out that fertile land and valuable resources were available in the New World. The advertisements attracted many people who were willing to move to the newly established colonies.
People had many reasons for leaving England and the rest of Europe and making the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Landowners claimed land formerly available to small farmers, thus forcing some to leave. Children of small farmers saw little economic opportunity and moved to towns to look for work. Wars and revolts in Europe made people want a quiet home. Many rulers insisted that all people living in their country attend the same church. They persecuted those who could not agree. For example, more than 100,000 Protestants known as Huguenots fled Roman Catholic France for other countries.
Most of the settlers came from England. The colonists also included many people from Scotland. People of Scottish ancestry who had settled in the northern part of Ireland also came in large numbers. These people were known as Scotch-Irish. Other people who decided to head for the colonies came from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and other European countries.
Economic reasons.
Rising unemployment, several harvest failures, and other economic conditions in England influenced the decision of many colonists to migrate to the American Colonies. Many people looked to the New World as a place where they could buy land or find employment and eventually better themselves.
Of all the economic attractions of the New World, land was probably the greatest. Many settlers came to America because they were offered land free or at low cost. Land ownership made people independent and promised a better standard of living for themselves and their children. People who owned land in the colonies were called freeholders, and they had certain rights and duties in the community. Male freeholders generally could vote.
Land was distributed in various ways in the colonies. Technically, the colonies belonged to the English monarch. The king or queen issued permits called charters giving an individual or group the right to establish a colony. Investment companies received some charters. Individuals or groups called proprietors got others.
In Virginia, shareholders of the original joint-stock company included both settlers who came to Virginia and people who stayed in England and invested money. Several years after founding the colony, the company gave each settler 100 acres (40 hectares) of land to develop. A system of headrights was also established in the colony. Under this system, anyone could claim 50 acres (20 hectares) of free land by paying for their own transportation or that of other settlers.
In the colonies to the north, often called the New England Colonies, grants of land were generally given to groups of settlers who wanted to form a new community, or town. Some of the land was reserved for public use. The rest was divided among the settlers, who received lots for a house, a garden, and fields to farm. The town became a small company that governed itself.
In the other colonies, extremely large grants of land were sometimes given to individuals who had political power. These owners sold or rented sections of their land to people who wanted to have their own farms. In other cases, colonies offered cheap or free land to attract settlers.
Religious and political reasons.
Some of the colonists, beginning with the Pilgrims in 1620, came to the New World to create communities where they could worship in their own way. Throughout the colonial period, many groups headed for the colonies to escape persecution for their religious beliefs. Among those religious groups were Quakers and Roman Catholics from England, Huguenots from France, Moravians from Germany, and Jews from throughout Europe.
Before the arrival of the European settlers
When the European colonists arrived in the New World, they found a rich and diverse land. The eastern coastal region where they settled consisted mainly of a forested plain that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Appalachian Mountains. Major rivers and bays cut through the plain, which broadened in the south. Many of these rivers provided a means of travel to the interior.
Fish were plentiful along the seacoast and in the inland waters. Many kinds of animals lived in the forests. They included deer, rabbits and other small game, and birds, such as ducks and geese.
The area that would later become the Thirteen Colonies was also home to more than 500,000 Indigenous people. The tribes in the north included the Massachusett, Pequot, and Wampanoag. Among the groups in the central part of the region were the Lenape (Delaware), the Susquehannock, and the nations of the powerful Iroquois League—the Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, and Seneca. Farther south lived the Catawba, Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and other tribes.
The Indigenous peoples of eastern North America generally lived in villages near fields where they grew corn, squash, and beans. They also hunted and fished, and gathered wild plants, nuts, and berries.
For more information on the way of life of the Indigenous peoples of eastern North America, see Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Early English settlements
During the 1580’s, the English made several unsuccessful attempts to establish a colony in North America. For example, members of an English expedition landed on Roanoke Island off what is now North Carolina in 1585 but returned to England the following year.
In July 1587, another group of English men and women landed on Roanoke. They were led by John White, who had been a member of the earlier Roanoke settlement. In August, White sailed back to England for supplies. War between England and Spain prevented him from returning until 1590. By the time White finally made it back to Roanoke, all the colonists had disappeared (see Lost Colony).
War in Europe delayed further colonization efforts until 1606, when two groups of English investors formed the Virginia Company of London and the Virginia Company of Plymouth, also known as the London Company and the Plymouth Company (see London Company; Plymouth Company). These companies together received a charter from King James I to found one colony apiece. One colony was to be established somewhere between present-day New York and the Carolinas, and the other was to be set up between the Potomac River and present-day Maine. A group from each company arrived in the New World in 1607. The Plymouth group’s efforts in the north collapsed, but the London Company’s settlement at Jamestown held on.
Jamestown
became the first permanent English colony in America. The 104 original colonists—all men and boys—established a settlement on a peninsula in what is now the James River on May 24, 1607. The day was May 14 on the calendar then in use. The colonists planned to explore Virginia and trade with the Indigenous people there. The London Company investors hoped to follow the example of the Spanish colonies and make a quick profit from gold or other trade goods. But gold was not found. Instead, the company had to refinance with a lottery, new issues of stock, and a royal subsidy. About 1614, the colonists developed tobacco as a successful cash crop—that is, a crop grown for sale rather than for the colonists’ own use. Even then, the company did not become successful.
Survival of the Jamestown settlement was doubtful for the first 20 years. Swampy land, bad water, and inadequate food and shelter contributed to high death rates. Disorganized leadership also added to their problems. About two-thirds of the original group soon died of disease and starvation. The men and women who came in 1608 and 1609 also suffered serious hardships. So many of the colonists died during the winter of 1609-1610 that this period became known as “the starving time.” Only the arrival of ships with supplies and more settlers in 1610 saved the colony from abandonment.
The colonists also faced problems with the Indigenous peoples of the region. When the colonists arrived in Virginia, the area was home to about 18,000 Indigenous people. Over 30 of the tribes in the region were united in a confederacy under the leadership of Wahunsonacock, whom the colonists called Powhatan. The English also referred to the tribes of the confederacy as the Powhatan. At first, the settlers and their Indigenous neighbors got along. But by 1609, fighting had broken out between the groups, largely because the settlers tried to seize food from Indigenous people.
In 1613, the English took Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas hostage. A year later, after Pocahontas converted to Christianity, she and the colonist John Rolfe were married. The colonists and the Powhatan confederacy marked the occasion with a truce. That truce lasted until 1622, when the confederacy, under a new leader, launched a surprise attack on Virginia. The Indigenous warriors, who hoped to drive the English away, killed about 350 colonists. But the colony managed to survive the attack.
In spite of the many hard times, Jamestown endured. The London Company took a number of steps to persuade the colonists to stay and to attract more settlers. In 1619, for example, the company set up an elected assembly in the colony. This was the first elected representative assembly in the New World. Also in 1619, the company made special efforts to recruit women to go to the colony.
In 1624, the London Company went bankrupt. King James I then took over direct control of Virginia. See Jamestown; Virginia (History).
Plymouth Colony.
The English established their second permanent settlement on mainland North America in 1620 in the area now called Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Most of the original settlers of the colony, called Plymouth Colony, were Separatists. Later Americans called this group “Pilgrims.” The Separatists had cut ties with the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church. Before coming to America, the Separatists had moved to the Netherlands to escape persecution. 
The Pilgrims faced many hardships in the New World. Hunger and sickness killed half the original settlers during the first year. In the spring of 1621, however, a Patuxet man named Tisquantum (also called Squanto) taught them how to plant corn and showed them where to fish. In the autumn, the colonists celebrated their first harvest by sharing a meal with the neighboring Wampanoag people. This feast is now referred to as the first New England Thanksgiving. However, hunger, debt, and sickness continued to trouble New England for a decade.
The Plymouth colonists maintained friendly relations with the Wampanoag. In 1621, the settlers and Wampanoag signed a peace treaty that lasted more than 50 years.
The Dominion of New England controlled Plymouth from 1685 to 1689. In 1691, the colony became part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See Plymouth Colony; Pilgrims.
Development of the Thirteen Colonies
English expansion.
Before 1649, when King Charles I was executed as a result of the English Civil War, England established several additional colonies on the North American mainland. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded in 1628. Some colonists from the Massachusetts Bay Colony later moved away and established settlements in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Maryland was established in the Chesapeake region in 1634.
From 1649 to 1660, England did not have a monarch (see England (The Civil War)). During that period, the nation did not begin any new colonies in North America. After Charles II became king of England in 1660—an event known as the Restoration—he granted charters for areas that would later include the colonies of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and North and South Carolina. These colonies are sometimes called the Restoration Colonies. Some of these colonies were formed from New Netherland, which the English seized from the Dutch in 1664. The original Dutch settlement in New Netherland dated back to the 1620’s.
During the 1700’s, the English established several more colonies. For example, the first British settlers arrived in Georgia in 1733. The United Kingdom and France and their allies fought a series of wars ending in 1763. By that year, the United Kingdom had gained control of Canada, Florida, and the Ohio Valley. However, only Georgia became part of the 13 original United States.
Geographic divisions.
Historians often divide the Thirteen Colonies that would become the original states into four geographical groups. They are (1) the New England, or Northern, Colonies; (2) the Middle Colonies; (3) the Chesapeake Colonies; and (4) the Southern Colonies. Some historians consider the Chesapeake Colonies to be part of the Southern Colonies. 
The New England Colonies were Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. These colonies had small farms and compact towns. The generally rocky soil of the New England region discouraged most large-scale agriculture, but the area was rich in timber and fish.
The Middle Colonies were Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. These colonies had larger farms than New England, and they produced surpluses of corn, wheat, and other agricultural products for export. Philadelphia became the bustling trade center of the Middle Colonies.
The Chesapeake Colonies consisted of Maryland and Virginia. Large farms and plantations in these colonies grew wheat and tobacco as cash crops. Life was more rural in the Chesapeake Colonies than in those farther north, and towns developed more slowly.
The Southern Colonies included Georgia and South Carolina. North Carolina, though geographically a Southern Colony, was economically and culturally similar to the Chesapeake Colonies. For example, North Carolina, like Maryland and Virginia, produced tobacco and wheat. Plantations in South Carolina and Georgia grew rice and indigo. Indigo is a plant that produces blue dye for coloring textiles. The colonies of South Carolina and Georgia each had a thriving port town to serve them—Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia.
Changes in colonial control.
The 13 English colonies began as either corporate colonies or proprietary colonies. Corporate colonies had a charter granted by the English monarch to stockholders. Proprietary colonies were owned by an individual proprietor or by a small group of proprietors under a charter from the monarch. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia were founded as corporate colonies. The other nine colonies were established as proprietary colonies.
In 1624, the English monarch began to change the colonies into royal colonies. Such colonies were under the direct control of the monarch. By the end of the colonial period, only Connecticut and Rhode Island remained corporate colonies, and just Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were still proprietary. The other eight colonies had become royal colonies.
Population growth.
The population of the colonies increased rapidly during the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. By 1700, about 250,000 people lived in the English colonies. By 1775, the population had grown to about 21/2 million. Virginia was the largest colony. Its population of about 450,000 was nearly evenly divided between people of European descent and those of African ancestry. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania each had about 250,000 people. The Chesapeake and Southern colonies had the largest population, but the biggest cities were in the Middle and Northern colonies.
Colonial growth was the result of both natural increase and immigration. Large numbers of immigrants came to North America throughout the colonial period. By the early 1700’s, the colonists included a growing number of Scotch-Irish and Germans, who tended to settle in the back country, away from the developed areas along the coast. Imports of enslaved Africans also increased. All colonies had some slaves, but the Chesapeake and Southern colonies had the largest number. By 1710, Black people formed a majority of the population of South Carolina.
Commercial expansion
led to the rapid development of colonial port cities. These cities served as centers for crafts and for imports and exports for their region. In 1775, the largest colonial cities, in order of size, were Philadelphia; New York City; Boston; Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina; and Newport, Rhode Island. Philadelphia had a population of about 40,000, and New York City was home to about 25,000. Approximately 16,000 people lived in Boston, which had been the largest colonial city until the mid-1700’s. Charles Town had a population of about 12,000, and Newport had 11,000 people.
Colonists and Indigenous groups
As colonial settlement expanded, so did trade and war with Indigenous tribes. Indigenous people taught the colonists to grow such crops as corn and tobacco. Periodically, the colonists and Indigenous people fought bitter wars as colonists tried to eliminate nearby tribes, or tribes resisted further expansion into their lands. Indigenous groups sought allies among other tribes and European nations. As a result of these alliances, Indigenous people became involved in the wars that European powers fought in North America from 1689 through the American Revolution.
Effects of contact on Indigeous people.
The settlers introduced the Indigenous people to metal pots and tools, textiles, and other goods. The colonists traded these products with Indigenous people in return for hides and furs, chiefly deerskins and beaver pelts. Many European traders lived in Indigenous villages and married Indigenous women. Some Indigenous people living near or among colonists worked as day laborers or sold baskets and other crafts.
Through the years, many Indigenous people began to depend on European textiles, tools, and pots obtained in the fur trade. As a result, their way of life began to change. Previously, these people had generally killed only as many animals as they needed for food, clothing, or shelter. But the growing dependence on trade goods led them to hunt and trap for commercial purposes rather than for personal or tribal survival. Game became scarce, and free-roaming colonial livestock ruined fields worked by Indigenous farmers. Some Indigenous people moved west. Others bought food from white people. The expanding fur trade also led to greater tensions among tribes as they competed for furs to supply the colonial traders.
The coming of the colonists also changed Indigenous ways of life in other ways. Missionaries who set up towns and missions for Indigenous people challenged traditional culture and beliefs. As a result of the missionary efforts, some Indigenous people converted to Christianity and adopted European customs.
In addition, contact with the settlers exposed Indigenous people to new diseases for which they had no immunity. Many Indigenous Americans—in some cases, whole villages—died from smallpox and other diseases the Europeans carried into the New World.
The struggle for land.
Although charters from the English monarch gave individuals or groups the right to establish colonies in eastern North America, the settlers had to obtain the land itself from the Indigenous groups living there. They generally did so by making treaties for the land or by buying it directly. Later, some Indigenous lands were taken by force, fraud, and other means.
Indigenous people and colonists had different views about the nature of land ownership. In “selling” land to the colonists, most Indigenous leaders believed they were giving the settlers only the right to use the area. The tribes expected to keep farming and hunting on the land themselves. The colonists, on the other hand, believed that land treaties and purchases gave them exclusive and permanent rights to the land. Disputes over land rights and ownership led to fighting between Indigenous people and colonists. Many of these conflicts consisted of isolated raids on colonial towns and on cabins in the back country, as well as attacks by colonists on Indigenous villages.
Additional fighting occurred as colonies tried to expand farther into Indigenous territory. The colonies claimed they needed more land for their growing populations. However, many tribes objected to giving up any more land, and a number of bitter wars between the colonists and Indigenous groups resulted.
Some tribes also took sides in the series of four wars that France and England fought in North America from 1689 to 1763. In the last of the wars, the one called the French and Indian War (1754-1763), for example, the Catawba fought on the side of England. See Indian wars; French and Indian wars.
After their victory in the French and Indian War, the British controlled nearly all of North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. In an effort to prevent more so-called Indian wars, the United Kingdom issued the Proclamation of 1763. This order reserved the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains for Indigenous peoples and barred colonial settlement there. A number of angry colonists, eager for new land, refused to obey the proclamation.
Some Indigenous tribes adopted Europeans or other Indigenous people captured during wars. This practice was especially applied to women and children. Some captives married Indigenous people and had families. At the end of each conflict, the colonies required the Indigenous groups to return their captives. A number of prisoners, however, chose to stay with the Indigenous communities. In some areas, Indigenous people captured by colonists or by opposing tribes were sold as slaves.
The structure of colonial society
Colonial society was divided into several social classes. Class helped determine much of people’s lives, from their political rights to what they wore or where they sat in church. In addition, some laws applied to one class and not to others.
The gentry
formed the wealthiest, best-educated, and most influential class. Some members of the gentry owned large farms or plantations. Others were merchants, doctors, lawyers, or ministers. The most prosperous skilled craftworkers, such as goldsmiths, also belonged to this class. By the mid-1700’s, the gentry lived in large houses and owned elegant furniture and carriages.
The gentry held most leadership positions in colonial communities. Many of the men held public office. Gentry women did many household tasks themselves, but they also supervised servants. Both men and women had time for visiting and for the arts and leisure.
The middle class,
or “middling sort,” farmed smallholdings, ran shops and small businesses, or worked at ordinary skilled crafts, such as shoemaking or cabinetmaking. Both men and women in middle-class families contributed to the family income. Women produced candles, cheese, cloth, soap, and other goods for the family and for sale. Many women also helped men in the family shops. Some women ran their own small businesses. Middle-class men could vote, and some held minor public offices.
The lower class,
or “lower sort,” included apprentices, day laborers, sailors, indentured servants and other servants, and enslaved people. Most members of the lower class did not own any property, and most could not read or write. They were not allowed to vote. Many members of the lower class moved from place to place frequently in search of work and better opportunities. Many of the poor were women who took in laundry, sewing, or spinning to support their families.
Indentured servants
formed a special group within the lower class. Most indentured servants signed a contract to work for several years to pay for their passage to the New World. A majority were young men between 15 and 24 years old who were looking for jobs and a better life. However, about one-fourth of the servants were women, and some were children. Most children who worked as indentured servants were orphans or came from families that were unable to support them. Some convicts and debtors were also sent to the colonies.
After 1720, many people came as redemptioners. Redemptioners were a special kind of indentured servant. They agreed to raise the money for their trip to America after arriving there. If they failed to raise the required sum within a stated period, they could be sold into service by the shipmaster.
Most indentured servants worked as agricultural laborers, but some were highly skilled craftworkers. Masters provided indentured servants with food, clothing, and housing. Masters typically gave servants freedom dues—that is, new clothes or tools—at the end of the contract.
Enslaved people.
Most enslaved people or their ancestors came from Africa. However, some Indigenous people were also forced into slavery. The first group of Black Africans to be brought to the North American mainland arrived in Jamestown in 1619. At first, Black Africans worked as indentured servants who would eventually be free. But by the mid-1600’s, a series of laws known as the slave codes had established slavery and kept the Africans in bondage for life—unless their owners chose to free them.
Enslaved people had few rights, and they generally could not testify in court against white people. As a result, even when owners brutally mistreated enslaved people, the owners received little or no punishment. The slave codes made it illegal for enslaved people to travel without permission or to carry weapons. They also set harsher punishments for enslaved people than for free people for certain crimes. According to the codes, owners could buy and sell enslaved people much as they would other property. The codes also established the legal status of the children of enslaved couples. For example, children of mothers who were enslaved were considered under the law to be slaves themselves—no matter who their fathers were.
Most enslaved people worked as field hands on farms with fewer than 20 slaves. Some learned skilled crafts or served in households. Every colony had enslaved people, though most of them lived in the Chesapeake and Southern colonies.
The colonies had a number of small communities of free Black people. Some free Black people had been born to free mothers. Others had been favorites of their owners and had been set free. Free Black people had to follow some of the laws that applied to enlaved people. Sometimes, free Black people had to prove they were free. If they failed to offer such proof, they could be arrested and sold as runaway slaves. Most free Black colonists were part of the lower class, but a few owned land or were skilled craftworkers. A small number were educated.
Government and law enforcement
Colonial government.
All the colonies had a governor, a legislature, a governor’s council, and a court system. In royal colonies, the monarch appointed the governor. In proprietary colonies, the proprietors did so. In the corporate colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the voters elected the governor.
All the colonies except Pennsylvania had bicameral (two-house) legislatures. Pennsylvania had a unicameral (one-house) legislature. The colonial legislatures generally were known as assemblies, though some had other names. For example, Massachusetts called its legislature the General Court, and the lower house of Virginia’s legislature was known as the House of Burgesses.
In all the colonies except Pennsylvania, the governor’s council served both as an upper house of the legislature and as the cabinet of the governor. Voters elected the members of the lower house in all the colonies. They elected representatives to the upper house only in Connecticut and Rhode Island. In Massachusetts, the lower house chose the upper house. In the other 10 colonies, the governor or proprietor chose the council.
Colonial legislatures debated issues and elected officers to preside over their meetings. They passed laws and could tax the people. The governor could veto any laws passed by the legislature. The governor also had the right to call elections and to call together and dismiss the legislature.
The British Parliament passed some laws for the colonies, especially ones regulating trade. It also created a postal system and certain courts for the colonies. British officials reviewed all laws passed by colonial legislatures in royal and proprietary colonies. These officials could disallow—that is, reject—laws that they considered to be contrary to English law. Only about 5 percent of colonial laws were disallowed. However, even these few acts of disallowance caused resentment in the colonies. In some cases, decisions of colonial courts were appealed to England.
Local government.
In New England, the main unit of local government was the town. Voters at town meetings chose most local officials and decided on local laws. All adult residents of a town could attend a town meeting, but only those men who met certain qualifications could vote. Town governments collected taxes, built roads and bridges, and organized the militia.
In most areas outside New England, the county was the chief unit of local government. Towns with charters from the assembly could run their own affairs. County courts performed the functions of local government, including setting taxes. The courts also handled matters of land ownership, wills, and other legal cases. Justices of the peace, appointed by the governor, together formed the county courts. Other county officials included county clerks and sheriffs.
In many areas of the South, parishes were units both of the Church of England and of county government. The parishes elected church officials known as vestrymen to take care of the poor and to set taxes.
Voting and other rights.
Not everyone had the same rights in the colonies. Single adult women had the same rights as men except for voting. Married women, however, usually did not have independent control of property. Some women kept control of property through marriage contracts or trusts. Enslaved people could not sue or be sued. Slave codes limited travel for enslaved people and set harsher penalties for some crimes.
Not all adult colonists were permitted to vote. Qualifications for voting varied among the colonies, though generally they set property ownership as a requirement. Depending on the colony, this requirement could be satisfied by owning a town lot or a small farm, or by holding a long-term lease. In some cases, people could qualify to vote by paying taxes of a certain amount. Enslaved people could not vote in any colony. Laws and custom usually kept women from voting as well.
Some requirements restricted voting to members of certain religious faiths. In the 1600’s, New England voters had to be members of the Congregational Church. In royal colonies, voters needed occasionally to attend the Church of England. In practice, this policy kept Jews and Roman Catholics from voting. By the 1700’s, in practice, most adult white males could vote at some point in their lives.
People voted in person, often by announcing their vote to officials. There were no political parties or organized campaigns. Some candidates, however, hosted social gatherings and provided food and drink for voters. Some colonies had groups of men who worked together in politics and elections in much the same way later political parties would.
The gentry held most elected positions. Many offices paid no salary, and only people with money could afford to serve. The gentry saw public office as a duty and a right. Ordinary voters usually agreed that leaders should come from the gentry class.
Crime and punishment.
Constables and sheriffs arrested suspects, kept order, and enforced court orders. Jails were used mainly to hold people for trial or until they paid their debts. Local courts and juries ruled on cases involving enslaved people and on minor offenses, such as drunkenness and disturbing the peace. Certain high courts tried people accused of a major crime, such as murder or treason.
Punishment was direct and swift. Men and women convicted of adultery, gossip, slander, petty theft, drunkenness, or disturbing the peace faced fines, whipping, or shaming. Shaming consisted of subjecting a person to public disgrace.
Common forms of shaming included the pillory, stocks, and ducking stool. The pillory and stocks stood in a town square. They were wooden frameworks with holes cut in them. In a pillory, the holes held the arms and head of the victim. In the stocks, the holes held the victim’s legs, and sometimes also the arms. Prisoners were locked into the holes for a certain time. The ducking stool was a chair attached to the end of a long plank extended from the bank of a pond or stream. The victim of the punishment was tied securely to the chair and ducked (plunged) into the water several times. See Ducking stool; Pillory; Stocks. 
Punishments given for the same type of crime often depended on who the criminal was. A member of the lower class might receive a harsher punishment than a middle-class person, and a woman might receive a shaming punishment for committing a crime for which a man would pay a fine. People convicted of burglary, counterfeiting, murder, piracy, rape, or treason faced death by hanging.
Colonists at home
Colonial households were places of work, play, and family life. They were not private places. Rooms served many purposes. Neighbors walked in and out. Colonial households often included servants, enslaved workers, and visitors. Families in the colonies generally had more children than those in England. The average was seven children. Many households included stepchildren, grandparents, aunts, or cousins. Families of enslaved people did not always live together. Enslaved children lived with the mother, but the father sometimes lived apart.
The father was the head of most colonial households. The mother was expected to be his companion and helper. When the father was absent or ill, the mother could represent the family in financial dealings and other matters. She was supposed to obey her husband, and he was to respect her. Children, servants, and enslaved people were also expected to obey the head of the household. All members of a household were supposed to work for its well-being.
Houses.
When the colonists arrived in the New World, they at first made temporary shelters. Early colonists built one- or two-room huts of wood and mud. The settlers later began to build dwellings that resembled those they left behind in England. However, the colonists adapted building design and construction to local conditions and materials. For example, many colonists near the Appalachians used local limestone for their homes, and some in New England used rocks from the fields as their building material. By the 1700’s, many wealthy families built their homes of brick.
The chief building material throughout the colonies was wood, which was plentiful in the eastern forests. Most early permanent dwellings were simple cottages with walls made of shingles or planks and roofs of thatch or shingles. Houses made of planks became known as frame houses. Most windows were small.
Houses in New England commonly had two rooms in front with a third running across the back. Many homes had a second floor over the front two rooms. In some homes, a brick or stone central chimney served two fireplaces that stood back to back. Most houses in the Chesapeake and Southern colonies consisted of one or two rooms connected by a central hallway. Above these rooms were lofts that were used mainly for sleeping. Fireplaces stood at two opposite ends of these houses. Chimneys stood outside the framework of most homes.
Many houses in the Delaware River Valley and the Hudson River Valley were of Scandinavian or Dutch design. The Swedish colonists who came to Delaware in 1638 built the first log cabins in America. The log cabin became the typical frontier home after 1780 (see Log cabin). Most of the houses built by the Dutch settlers had 11/2 stories. Their doors were divided into upper and lower parts that opened separately. These doors became known as Dutch doors.
During the 1700’s, many wealthy colonial merchants and planters built homes in a style called Georgian architecture. Most Georgian houses were square or rectangular, with a central stairway and many tall windows. Above the doors and windows were decorative frames of stonework. The homes had fine wood trim and were planned to look balanced and orderly. The wealthiest families imported wallpaper or had fine paneling made for some rooms. See Georgian architecture.
A typical plantation home of the gentry stood on a hill and overlooked a bay or river. Gardens and orchards framed the main views from the house. A typical mansion had eight rooms and stood two stories tall. The kitchen, laundry, and other one-room buildings known as dependencies stood nearby. Some enslaved people were housed in the dependencies. Others lived in small one- or two-room houses in a special area called the slave quarter. These dwellings typically had dirt floors and no windows.
Furnishings.
Most colonial homes had simple and sturdy homemade furnishings. Many had little more than a few tools and cooking utensils, a storage chest, a table made of planks, and a few benches or stools. Some tables converted to chairs, and other pieces folded for storage.
Many colonists slept on mattresses stuffed with straw or cornhusks. Mattresses were laid on the floor or on a wooden frame strung with rope several feet off the floor. The space between the floor and mattress generally was used to store a child’s bed during the day. This movable bed, called a trundle bed, was pulled out at night. Many colonial women made quilts to cover beds. Quilts consisted of scraps of cloth stitched together to form several layers.
One or more fireplaces provided a colonial home with light and heat. The fires also served for cooking. Candles and lamps that burned animal fat provided extra light.
Colonists had few tools and utensils. Some families owned only simple woodworking tools, a few iron pots for cooking and cleaning, and a spinning wheel. Most dishes were made of wood or pewter. Pewter is made by combining tin and other metals. In many cases, each person at a meal did not have a separate plate. Instead, two people shared food from a deep wooden plate called a trencher. Wooden or pewter spoons were the main eating utensils. 
Many colonial tables had special features that saved space. These features included gate legs and tops fitted with drop leaves. When a larger tabletop was needed, the gate legs swung out like a gate to support the hinged leaves. At other times, the gate legs were folded and the drop leaves lowered. The most popular chests of drawers were lowboys and highboys. Lowboys were short chests that served as side tables. Highboys were tall chests with short legs and many drawers. Many highboys were built by placing one chest on top of another.
Wealthier families ordered furnishings from England or from a local skilled worker. Many of these pieces were finely carved and covered in elegant fabrics. Local workers used native cherry, pine, and walnut, or imported mahogany. Items that were made by colonists often followed English furniture designs, but colonists also created new styles. For example, the American inventor, author, and statesman Benjamin Franklin put curved wooden slats at the ends of chair legs to create the rocking chair.
Wealthy colonists imported delicate dishes and elegant wallhangings. Dutch pottery called delftware and English china known as creamware were popular among the gentry. Silk, damask, or linen curtains and wall coverings hung in well-furnished homes. Some of these homes had a clock. The best-known colonial clock was the grandfather clock. It had a tall, elegant case that stood on the floor. The case covered the pulleys, weights, and swinging pendulum that ran the clock.
Families prized mattresses stuffed with feathers, seton frames with high posts, a canopy, and curtains. Women embroidered curtains for these four-poster beds. The curtains kept out drafts and provided some privacy.
Clothing.
The clothes people wore told much about what they did and their place in the community. Most colonists wore clothing made of linen, wool, or leather. These clothes followed simple styles from England but were made at home. Families of merchants, wealthy farmers, and prosperous craftworkers purchased cloth from Europe, or they imported finished apparel. These garments followed the latest fashion and were made from elegant fabrics.
In most colonial homes, women had the responsibility for making clothes, and they spent many hours at this task. They spun linen from flax and wool yarn from the fleece of sheep. They wove these materials into cloth to be made into clothing. Nuts, berries, roots, and bark provided dye. Sometimes women wove together linen and wool to make a cloth known as linsey-woolsey.
Men generally wore long linen shirts and wool breeches gathered at the knee, long knit stockings, and simple leather shoes, boots, or moccasins. Some who worked in the fields went barefoot. For warmth or for formal events, men wore a long vest and jacket over the shirt and a long piece of linen, called a stock, tied at the neck. In winter, men added leather leggings, wool mittens, and an overcoat.
Some fashionable men wore wigs. Beginning in the late 1600’s, a number of colonial men began wearing the long, flowing wigs fashionable in Europe. In the 1700’s, smaller wigs came into use. The most common style was a close-fitting wig, which was drawn back into a braid or small tail. Especially in the 1700’s, wigs were powdered to make them white.
Fieldworkers wore straw hats for shade. Laborers and tradesmen wore caps. The most fashionable style had a turned-up brim and was known as a cocked hat.
Most women wore a dress of linen or wool, a petticoat, and a long linen undergarment known as a shift. For cold weather, they added a cape or hooded cloak.
Adult women wore head coverings both indoors and outdoors. Linen caps were the most common covering. In the summer, however, some women wore a straw hat, and in the winter, a felt one. Women had long hair, which they wore pinned up in a bun or braid. In the 1600’s, fashionable women let one or two long curls reach their shoulders. In the 1700’s, some women wore elaborate styles for special occasions. They piled their hair high on frameworks they wore on their heads.
Colonial babies and toddlers of both sexes wore a dress that reached to the ground. Older children wore clothes similar to those of adults.
Wealthier colonists had clothing made of fine linen, cotton, silk, satin, and velvet. Men wore linen shirts with lace cuffs and ruffles. Their coats, shoes, and breeches had silver buckles or decorative buttons and trim. Many coats were brightly colored. Wealthier men wore silk hose and carried linen handkerchiefs.
Women from wealthy families also dressed in fine fabrics. They wore low-necked dresses that fit tightly at the waist and above and were trimmed with lace at the neck and sleeves. Tight corsets slimmed their waists. Whalebone or wire hoops supported the skirts, which were drawn back to show elegant petticoats. Wealthy women wore silk or leather shoes with silk stockings.
The clothes of enslaved people depended on the work they did and the wealth of the family. Those who worked in the fields often wore simple shifts of homemade cloth, or a breechcloth—that is, a piece of cloth tied about the waist. Some enslaved people wore old clothes given to them by their masters and mistresses.
Food and drink.
After the early starving time, colonists had plenty to eat, even if the meals seemed much the same from day to day. They ate a breakfast of mush and meat or cheese followed at about noon by their main meal of the day. Most midday meals consisted of stews cooked in a pot hung in the fireplace. The evening meal was often bread, cheese, and anything left in the pot from midday. Meats and vegetables for the stews changed with the season because the colonists had few ways of preserving foods. For example, they salted some meats and dried certain vegetables. Root crops, such as squash, turnips, or carrots, and fruits, such as apples and pears, could be kept in a cool, dry cellar.
Corn was one of the most important foods eaten by the colonists. Women made mush and hoecakes and other kinds of corn bread from ground corn meal. They also prepared a dish called hominy by softening whole, dried corn in sodium hydroxide (lye) or water to remove the hull. They made succotash by combining corn and beans. Corn roasted in its husk over the fire was a special treat. Servants, slaves, and poor families often had little besides corn and garden vegetables for food.
The most common meats were ham, bacon, and other forms of pork. Hogs ran loose around the farm and countryside, eating what they could find. Colonists also kept sheep and chickens. Hunting added turkey, deer, squirrel, and other game to the diet. Colonists ate both fresh and dried fish.
Cattle and goats provided meat as well as milk for drinking. Women made butter and cheese from the milk.
Colonists grew wheat, rye, and oats for grain, which was used chiefly to make bread. Colonial women baked the bread in fireplace ovens or in iron containers called bake kettles. Fireplace ovens were openings built in the stone or brick and warmed by the chimney. A bake kettle had a tight lid and was placed on hot coals with embers piled around it.
Colonial families also gathered fruits, nuts, and berries in season. Sage, marjoram, and other seasonings came from the garden.
The most common drinks were beer, ale, and cider, all brewed at home. The colonists drank imported and local wines and rum. They consumed very little water, which they feared would make them sick.
After 1700, colonial cooking began to change to include more roasted meats, separate vegetable dishes, and more baked items. Colonists began to import chocolate, coffee, tea, and spices. The new cooking required more tools, including pans and spits for turning meats on open fires.
Recreation.
Social gatherings were an important part of colonial life. Colonists often combined work and play in parties called frolics. When colonists worked together to raise the frames for buildings, for example, they also held games and contests, such as plowing contests and footraces. These gatherings also featured food, drink, and music. Except for Puritans, Quakers, and certain other religious groups, colonists of all classes enjoyed dancing. Jigs, reels, and other lively dances were especially popular.
Colonists gathered on Sundays to visit one another before and after church services. Monthly court sessions, election days, and militia drills also gave colonists chances to get together to exchange news and eat and drink. Weddings became occasions for parties and gift giving. Colonists sometimes held local fairs, which often featured horse races and fights that pitted animals against each other. People living in colonial towns could hear lectures on science, join literary clubs, or attend concerts and plays.
Holidays provided another opportunity for people to get together. The celebration of holidays varied among the colonies. The most widely celebrated holidays were four days that marked the seasons. March 25 was called Lady’s Day; June 24, midsummer; September 29, Michaelmas; and December 25, Christmas. Most New England colonies followed Old World traditions of holding harvest festivals in the fall. A number of colonies celebrated traditional church holidays, such as Easter, Whitsunday (Pentecost), and St. Valentine’s Day. Puritans in New England recognized only Sunday as a special day and passed laws against celebrating Christmas.
Taverns, sometimes called ordinaries, were favorite gathering places for men. There, they smoked, drank, read newspapers, and played cards. Some women worked in taverns, and a number of women became tavern owners. Some taverns offered dancing or billiards.
Children played with homemade toys, including balls, marbles, kites, and dolls. They also played hopscotch, leapfrog, London Bridge, and other games. Children of the gentry had imported toys, such as tea sets and finely crafted dolls and toy soldiers.
Education and religion
Education.
Colonial children learned many practical lessons at home. Fathers taught sons how to farm, hunt, and build and repair things. Mothers showed daughters how to care for gardens, sew, spin, cook, and look after livestock. Some children worked with their parents in skilled crafts, such as shoemaking or weaving.
Some children and young adults joined other households as apprentices to skilled workers or professional people to learn trades or such professions as medicine and law. The families that took on an apprentice signed a contract promising to provide the apprentice with bed and board and the skills of a trade. In exchange, they were to receive faithful service from the apprentice for a certain period. Orphans were often bound out—that is, placed as servants—to families who promised to teach them skills.
Some families who wanted their children to read and write taught them at home. However, books were expensive, and many families owned only a Bible. In the 1700’s, many families bought almanacs and newspapers. The gentry, on the other hand, could afford libraries for their homes, and many members of this class hired tutors for their children. Some apprenticeship agreements included a promise to teach reading and writing.
Schools.
Some colonial families joined together to hire a teacher to run a small school. During the early colonial period, schools known as free schools were established. These schools charged tuition and were free from church oversight. Some teachers opened schools in their homes. For example, dame schools were run by women who taught basic reading and writing to young children.
In 1642, Massachusetts passed a law requiring parents to teach their children to read. In 1647, the colony passed the first law in America requiring communities to establish public schools. The law stated that every town with at least 50 families had to start an elementary school and every town of at least 100 families had to have a Latin grammar school. Today, elementary schools and grammar schools are much alike, but the grammar schools in colonial times were more like today’s high schools. Colonial elementary schools taught religion, spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Grammar schools prepared more advanced students for college. They offered lessons in religion, Latin and Greek, English composition, geography, and mathematics.
Some grammar schools were run by colleges, but others were private. Many elementary schools provided only a short summer session for girls or taught them at hours when boys were not in school. Grammar schools did not admit girls.
By the mid-1700’s, schools called academies began to be established in the colonies. They offered more practical courses than did grammar schools. Subjects ranged from the liberal arts, such as history and philosophy, to practical subjects, such as navigation and sewing. Some academies admitted girls, and some were for girls only. By 1775, a majority of white adults could read and write.
Only a few enslaved and free Black children attended school. Some religious and charitable groups set up schools for Black students. Very young children attended schools for Black people, but usually only for short periods.
In 1636, Massachusetts established what is now Harvard University, the first college in the colonies. Women were not admitted to any college in America during the colonial period. By 1775, there were colleges in five colonies. Some colonists went to England to study.
Learning materials.
Colonial schools had few books or other learning materials. Children often learned lessons from hornbooks. A hornbook was a paddle-shaped piece of wood with a sheet of paper pasted to it. A thin layer of transparent horn protected the paper, which was scarce and expensive in colonial times. Typically the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Roman numerals were on the paper.
The most widely used textbook in the colonies was the New England Primer, which was first published about 1690. It included information from the hornbook as well as the Ten Commandments, a catechism, and bits of moral instruction. It also featured rhymes for learning the alphabet. For example, the rhyme for the letter M was “The Moon gives light/In time of night.” 
Religion
had a strong influence on the social and political life of the colonists. Many of the colonists had come to America chiefly so they could worship according to their beliefs. Some European governments had persecuted certain religious groups for breaking away from traditional or state-supported churches and trying to establish new forms of worship.
Most colonial religious groups dated from the 1500’s. They developed during the Reformation, a religious movement in Europe that resulted in the birth of Protestantism. Many Anglicans moved to the colonies, as did large numbers of Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, Huguenots, and other persecuted groups.
Established churches.
Members of the various religious groups that came to America usually settled near others with similar beliefs. These groups were more interested in finding a place to live according to their religious rules than in granting religious freedom to others. As a result, some colonies supported one church, often called an established church, within their boundaries and denied freedom of worship to other religious groups. Established churches received tax support from colonial legislatures.
The Puritans established the Congregational Church in the New England colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Pennsylvania and Delaware granted all churches freedom of worship, but laws reflected Quaker beliefs. Rhode Island also welcomed all groups. In New York and New Jersey, which the English captured from the Dutch in 1664, no single religious group was strong enough to force its church to become the established church. Maryland, founded partly as a refuge for Catholics, had many Protestant settlers. In response to religious unrest, Maryland’s colonial leaders in 1649 passed the first religious toleration act in the British Empire. This law granted religious liberty to all Christians, but it was soon repealed. In 1692, the Anglican Church became the established church in Maryland. The Anglican Church was also the official church in Virginia and the Southern Colonies.
A colonial Sunday.
The colonies set aside Sunday as a day of worship. Regulations known as blue laws kept stores and businesses closed on Sundays (see Blue laws). Even enslaved people had part of Sunday as free time. Sunday services included long sermons by the clergy and psalm singing by the congregation. Church seating was assigned by sex, race, and wealth. Before and after services, the churchyard served as a social center for neighborly visits, exchange of news, and courtship.
Witchcraft.
Colonists brought traditional beliefs in folk magic and witches with them from Europe. They blamed unexplained misfortunes on witchcraft. Several colonies tried individuals as witches, and some people were executed. The last—and largest—witchcraft trials were held in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. Fourteen women and three men were executed as a result of the Salem trials. Between 150 and 200 people were arrested and imprisoned during the witchcraft scare, which lasted about a year. See Salem witchcraft trials; Witchcraft.
Religious diversity and tolerance
increased in the colonies during the 1700’s. Many Germans, Scots, and Scotch-Irish migrated to the colonies and brought their religious traditions with them. These new immigrants included members of the German-Reformed, Lutheran, Moravian, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches. Jews, forced out of Europe and South America for their religious beliefs, settled in small numbers. Africans, captured and imported as slaves, brought Muslim and traditional African religious beliefs with them. The clergy and some owners made occasional efforts to convert enslaved people to Christianity during the colonial period, but for the most part, enslaved people were left to follow their own beliefs.
Beginning in the 1730’s, a series of religious revivals called the Great Awakening divided existing churches. During the Great Awakening, traveling preachers drew large audiences to hear their sermons. Some preachers were women or enslaved people. Revival meetings were often held in the open air. Preaching was lively, and people responded emotionally. Listeners sometimes wept, fainted, or shook all over.
The stirring sermons of George Whitefield and other Awakening preachers called on listeners to repent of their sins and seek salvation. The evangelists discouraged cardplaying, dancing, and other amusements that they considered “worldly.” They criticized established churches and pushed to separate church and state. See Great Awakening.
Transportation and communication
Transportation
in the colonies was slow and difficult. In general, colonists traveled by boat or horse, or on foot. Most colonies had at least one major river that could take boats inland for many miles before reaching a rapids. Major rivers in the Southern and Middle colonies were deep enough for ocean vessels. The colonists built many boats for trading along the coast. The vessels used by colonists for transporting passengers and freight by sea included brigantines, schooners, shallops, sloops, and other sailing craft. On rivers and bays, these vessels were joined by canoes, flatboats, and rowboats.
The first colonial roads were merely paths through the woodlands and countryside. The colonists widened the paths for travel on horseback and later for carts and wagons pulled by horses or oxen. Most colonial bridges were made of wood, and many were in poor condition. Consequently, most travelers on horseback or in wheeled vehicles forded rivers at shallow spots or paid to cross on a ferry.
The colonists put much effort into building roads, and local work crews worked to keep them in repair. By 1760, the colonies had several major roads. For example, one road linked New York City and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and passed through Boston and other cities along the way. The Great Wagon Road ran through mountain valleys and connected Philadelphia and the back country of Georgia. By the mid-1700’s, stagecoach lines ran between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island; and linked New York City with Philadelphia and Annapolis, Maryland.
Communication.
During the 1600’s, the colonists exchanged news chiefly by word of mouth. Gossip spread swiftly at church, court days, or public gatherings. Official notices were announced at church or posted on the doors of public buildings. Towns and cities had a crier who read announcements on the street. Much of the news from outside a community was learned informally as visitors came to an area. Travelers passed letters, carried letters for friends, or left them at inns for others to claim or pass on.
Individuals called post riders carried mail along routes called post roads. They picked up mail and left it at inns, taverns, or other established stopping places. The English government allowed a private postal system to be set up in 1691 and took over its operations in 1707. Service to all areas, especially the Chesapeake and Southern colonies, came slowly. In 1753, Benjamin Franklin became a deputy postmaster general for the colonies. He improved the frequency and speed of postal service.
Newspapers came into general use after the mid-1700’s. The Boston News-Letter, founded in 1704, was the first successful colonial newspaper. By 1775, all the colonies except Delaware and New Jersey had at least one newspaper. Newspapers appeared weekly. They were passed from one person to another and were available in taverns. They had stories from other newspapers; local advertisements; short items of local news; and letters, poems, and essays by local writers.
Arts
In the early years, colonists had little time or money to support the arts. But by the 1700’s, they developed a lively interest in music, art, theater, and literature.
Literature.
Some of the early colonists wrote to tell Europeans about life in the New World. For example, the colonial leader John Smith wrote about Jamestown. Other early colonists translated classics or wrote sermons. At first, colonial works had to be sent to England for publication because the colonies did not have a printing press. In 1639, however, Stephen Daye and his son Matthew set up the first printing press in what is now the United States, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Most early colonial literature was religious. The Bay Psalm Book, published by the Dayes in 1640, was the first book printed in the American Colonies. It was a collection of psalms prepared by several ministers.
By the late 1600’s, colonial printers were still publishing sermons and other religious writings, but they were printing almanacs, essays, histories, satires, and travel accounts as well. Mary Rowlandson’s description of her capture by a band of Indigenous people, published in 1682, became the first of many captivity stories. The religious leaders Jonathan Edwards, John Woolman, and Cotton Mather produced a number of important works during the 1700’s. Benjamin Franklin published the highly successful Poor Richard’s Almanac for each year from 1733 to 1758. This work became known for its wise and witty proverbs. After 1750, colonists wrote and published many essays and pamphlets about political controversies.
A number of volumes of poetry were published by colonial writers. Readers also passed around unpublished poems and plays. Anne Bradstreet became the first colonial woman to have her poetry published when her collection The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America appeared in England in 1650. Michael Wigglesworth’s long religious poem, Day of Doom (1662), became the most popular poem of colonial times. Phillis Wheatley, who was born in Africa and enslaved as a child, became known for her collection of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), published in England. 
For a detailed account of colonial writers and their works, see American literature (Colonial literature [1608-1764]).
Painting.
Early American artists had little formal training. They traveled throughout the colonies and earned a living by painting portraits. After 1700, some European-trained painters who had arrived in the colonies painted portraits of the wealthy. Among the most skilled were Charles Bridges, Gustavus Hesselius, and John Smibert. The American-born painters Ralph Earl and Robert Feke also became known for their portraits.
Beginning in the mid-1700’s, some of the finest American artists spent time studying or painting in Europe. They included John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and Benjamin West.
Decorative arts.
During the early colonial period, most of the settlers made their own furniture and household articles. Wealthy colonists generally imported their furnishings from England. During the 1700’s, skilled colonial craftworkers turned everyday items into works of art. They made many fine products of wood, silver, pewter, or glass.
Furniture
in the early colonial times was heavy. But in the early 1700’s, styles became lighter and more graceful. During the 1700’s, some wealthier colonists imported finely crafted pieces from the workshops of the famous English furniture makers Thomas Chippendale, Thomas Sheraton, and George Hepplewhite.
Gold, silver, and pewter.
Colonial goldsmiths and silversmiths created elegant bowls, tableware, and tankards. Pewter provided less expensive ware. Smiths melted the metal and then poured it into molds. Engraved designs on gold, silver, and pewter items resembled the patterns that appeared in furniture.
Other decorative arts
included glassware and needlework. Many of the bottles and much of the fine table glass produced by colonial glassmakers were beautifully colored and molded in patterns. The detailed needlework produced by colonial women was used to decorate homes. For more information on colonial decorative arts, see Antique.
Music
was a part of many church services. Congregations sang musical versions of the psalms. Only a few parishes owned organs, and so most singing was unaccompanied. Music also was important in the daily lives of the colonists. They played music at weddings and other celebrations and at home. They often composed new words to accompany old melodies they brought with them from Europe. Professional musicians performed at concert halls and theaters. The first colonial orchestra formed in Charles Town in 1750.
Colonists played a variety of musical instruments. Settlers bought or brought with them violins, guitars, and other European instruments. Some wealthy Southern planters purchased expensive harpsichords for their homes. Enslaved Black people made banjos and other stringed instruments similar to those they used in Africa. Many enslaved people also became skilled fiddlers and were in demand to play at dances.
Science, health, and medicine
Science.
Colonial scientists kept careful records of the weather and the laboratory experiments they performed. They were well informed about new discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, meteorology, and physics. They exchanged ideas with European scientists and sent reports and specimens to Europe.
A number of colonial scientists studied the plant and animal life of the New World. In 1728, the botanist John Bartram planted the colonies’ first botanical garden, near Philadelphia. Other colonial naturalists included Bartram’s son William, John Clayton, Cadwallader Colden, Alexander Garden, and John Mitchell.
Benjamin Franklin became known throughout the world for his experiments and inventions. He gained particular fame for his work on the study of electricity. In 1743, Franklin and other Philadelphia scholars founded the American Philosophical Society. This organization became the chief colonial scientific body.
A number of other scientists also made valuable contributions to scientific knowledge in the colonies. For example, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather published one of the first good descriptions of smallpox inoculation.
Health and medicine.
Colonists suffered from a wide variety of diseases. Colds and influenza were common. Scurvy—that is, a lack of vitamin C—occurred widely among the early colonists. Many settlers in the Southern and Middle colonies suffered from malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid. Many colonists also developed pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diphtheria. Beginning in the mid-1600’s, several epidemics of measles and smallpox swept through the colonies and killed large numbers of people. Measles and smallpox proved fatal especially to Indigenous Americans, who had no immunity to these diseases.
Colonists relied mainly on home cures and folk remedies to treat diseases. They often borrowed African and Indigenous cures. Such treatments typically involved the use of barks, herbs, and roots. Quinine, for example, is a bitter substance taken from the bark of the cinchona tree. The colonists used it to treat malaria and a malarial fever called ague. Doctors still use it today to treat some forms of malaria.
There were few formally trained doctors during most of the colonial period. Skilled midwives delivered most babies. Most doctors either taught themselves or studied medicine by helping experienced physicians, but some attended medical schools in Europe. Established medical practice of the day maintained that illness resulted from an imbalance of four fluids called humors that were believed to be in the body. One of the chief methods physicians used in their attempts to restore the balance of the humors was bloodletting—that is, removing blood from a patient.
The economy
Farming was the chief economic activity of the colonists. Colonists raised crops for export to other colonies and to England. The main colonial cash crops included corn, wheat, rice, indigo, and tobacco. Rum also became an important export. In return for their products, the colonists imported manufactured goods from England for their own use and for trade with Indigenous people.
Through the years, the colonies developed a number of industries. These industries included fishing and whaling, lumbering, ironmaking, and shipbuilding.
Farming.
Nearly all the colonists did at least some farming. Colonial farms produced enough food to provide a comfortable, but limited, diet to all. Settlers brought wheat, oats, rye, and barley from Europe. They learned to plant corn and tobacco from their Indigenous neighbors, and enslaved Black people probably taught the white colonists to plant rice. Nearly all colonial farmers owned a few cattle, hogs, and chickens, and some raised livestock commercially.
When possible, colonial farmers planted crops on only a portion of their farms. They usually planted the same kind of crop repeatedly, and the land became exhausted after a few harvests. The farmers then cleared a new field and let the old one become pasture or return to scrub. After 1750, some farmers added fertilizers to the soil, rotated crops, and used other methods to keep their land productive.
Farm tools were simple. Most were handmade or bought from local blacksmiths. The hoe was used to cultivate corn, tobacco, and other crops. Colonial women and children often did the hoeing. Colonists used scythes and sickles to cut grass and grain, and spades to turn the earth. The mattock, a tool like a pickax but with flat blades, broke up soil and cut roots. During the 1700’s, more farmers began using wood plows pulled by teams of horses or oxen to prepare soil for planting.
The kinds of crops planted varied among the colonies. Farmers in New England grew grains and garden crops. In general, the soil there was too poor and the farms too small to produce crops for trade. However, the Connecticut Valley grew some tobacco for export, and Rhode Island developed a dairy industry.
Farms in the Middle Colonies benefited from fertile soil and a favorable climate. The Middle Colonies shipped large quantities of wheat, corn, rye, dairy products, and meat to colonial and international markets. They produced so much grain that they became known as the “bread colonies.”
The plantations of the Chesapeake Colonies grew tobacco for export. Large farms in the region produced wheat and meat. Farmers in South Carolina and Georgia exported rice and, after 1750, indigo. Most farms in North Carolina were small, and farmers there generally grew only enough food for their own use.
Fishing and whaling.
Massachusetts became the center of colonial fishing and whaling. The region was close to the Grand Banks, off Newfoundland, and other rich fishing areas. Boston, Gloucester, Marblehead, and Salem became the most important fishing ports. The catches included cod, herring, halibut, and mackerel, which were dried and salted on shore. The best grades of fish usually went to southern Europe. Much of the rest was shipped to the Caribbean to be used as food for enslaved people who worked on sugar plantations.
New Bedford, Provincetown, and Nantucket Island became centers for whaling. Whales were valuable for whale oil, which was used in lamps, and for whalebone, which was used to stiffen women’s clothes. For details of the early whaling industry, see Whale (Whaling).
Lumbering and shipbuilding.
Every colony had large supplies of timber, and lumber became one of the chief exports of the colonies. Colonists built houses, fences, and boats from wood. Many wood products also played an important part in other colonial industries. Millions of wooden staves were used to make barrels for shipping rice, tobacco, fish, and other products.
The vast timber resources of the colonies helped them develop a thriving shipbuilding industry. New England was the main colonial shipbuilding center, though the Chesapeake Colonies and South Carolina were important in the industry as well. New England forests provided good ship timber, including cedar, maple, and oak. The tall and thick white pines of the region were used for ship masts. Pine also provided pitch and tar for keeping ships watertight. The live oak trees of the Chesapeake Colonies and South Carolina also provided excellent shipbuilding timber.
England encouraged colonial shipbuilding because its own best timber had been used up. By the end of the colonial period, about a third of the United Kingdom’s merchant ships were being made in America.
Ironmaking.
Iron ore was mined in most of the colonies. The colonists obtained charcoal, the chief fuel used to smelt iron ore, from their large supplies of hardwood trees. Colonists began operating a blast furnace near Jamestown in 1621, but it was destroyed during a Powhatan raid in 1622. In 1646, the first North American ironworks to maintain production for a long period started in what is now Saugus, Massachusetts. By 1775, the colonies were producing about one-seventh of the world’s iron.
Some colonial iron went to England in crude forms known as pig iron and bar iron for English workers to finish. But the colonists themselves provided the most important market for the ironmaking industry. Blacksmiths in colonial communities hammered out various products, including nails, tools, hinges, and weather vanes. Large ironworks also manufactured these products, as well as kettles, pots, wire, and parts for wagons and carriages.
Other industries
in the colonies included brewing, papermaking, ropemaking, and tanning. Some colonial towns became centers for craft manufacturing, such as glassmaking or silversmithing. Many industries developed because communities needed certain products or services. Almost as soon as a colonial village was established, for example, someone set up a grist mill to grind grain into flour or meal. As the community grew, it needed a blacksmith to make and repair tools and a cooper to make barrels. Skilled carpenters and shoemakers also established businesses throughout the colonies. 
Trade.
England regulated the trade of the colonies according to an economic system known as mercantilism. English mercantilism was designed to protect the nation’s industries against competition from the industries of other countries. Under mercantilism, England expected the colonies to supply it with raw materials and to buy finished English goods.
Beginning in 1651, Parliament passed a series of laws aimed at strengthening the English government’s control over colonial trade. These laws, which were called the Navigation Acts, required the colonies to export certain items only to England or other English colonies. These items included fur, indigo, iron, naval products, and tobacco. The Navigation Acts also required the colonies to receive almost all imports through England, and to ship and receive goods in English or colonial ships. See Mercantilism; Navigation Acts.
Colonial trade flowed in several patterns. The colonies on the North American mainland engaged in lively coastal trade among themselves. They also shipped tobacco, indigo, and lumber directly to England. Men and women traded small surpluses of yarn, cloth, cheese, poultry, eggs, ale, and garden products for goods at local markets. Colonists traded cloth, guns, and metal tools to Indigenous groups for furs and hides. In some years, certain individual colonies might ship as many as 40,000 deerskins to Europe.
Colonial ships carried rum to Africa and grain and livestock to the Caribbean region. In Africa, the rum was exchanged for slaves. In the Caribbean, colonial products were traded for slaves, sugar, and molasses, which was used to make rum. This trade pattern among the mainland colonies, Africa, and the Caribbean is sometimes called triangular trade.
Some colonial ships followed another triangular trade route. These ships carried fish, lumber, meat, and grain to southern Europe, wine and fruits to England, and manufactured goods back to the colonies.
Money
was scarce in the American Colonies. The English government did not allow coins to be exported from England or to be minted in the colonies. As a result, the colonists were often short of cash.
Instead of money, the colonists used a variety of forms of payment for goods. They used barter—that is, the direct exchange of goods or services without the use of money—for some local transactions. They also kept book accounts, which let people pay for goods and services over time with their own goods and services.
Barter was the main method of exchange in the fur trade with Indigenous people. Beaded necklaces or belts known as wampum sometimes were used in the exchange. Occasionally, colonists traded wampum belts among themselves.
At one time or another, colonial governments accepted commodity money as a form of payment of taxes. Commodity money included beef, pork, corn, rice, flax, and certain other farm products that were assigned a certain value.
Various certificates and documents were also used as money. For example, some planters in Maryland and Virginia used tobacco certificates as money. These certificates showed that the planters had tobacco of a certain value stored in a public warehouse. The person who received such a certificate had the right to export the tobacco. After 1700, mortgages and loans expanded colonial credit and created an investment market.
The colonists also used any foreign money they could get. Many of the coins in the colonies were Spanish gold or silver money, including dollar pieces. The coins came to the colonies in trade from the Caribbean and were given a value in terms of English pounds, shillings, and pence.
From 1652 to 1682, Massachusetts produced several kinds of silver coins despite an English law that said only the monarch could issue coins. Coins issued by Massachusetts included the pine-tree shilling and the oak-tree shilling. The colony dated all coins 1652, no matter when they were made. In 1652, there was no monarch in England. In this way, the colonists could claim the coins were minted at a time when royal authority did not exist and therefore were legal. In the 1700’s, several colonies issued paper money that they accepted for payment of taxes. Shortly before the Revolutionary War in America, England passed several laws to stop this practice.
A visitor’s guide to colonial America
Every year, millions of visitors tour the region that once was colonial America. Throughout the region, historic sites offer interesting glimpses of colonial life. Almost every town or city has churches or houses that date from the 1700’s and a few from the 1600’s. In some places, a visitor may walk through the streets of an entire colonial community that has been rebuilt. Many public buildings and museums display colonial items in cities that were important during colonial times—Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; and Philadelphia. Newport has more than 300 colonial buildings.
