 |
Back to Classroom-tested Lesson Plans and Handouts
The
Peopling of America
Reading 1:
So lamentable was our scarcity
that we were constrained to eat dogs, cats, rats, snakes, toadstools,
horsehides, and what not. One man out of the misery he endured,
killing his wife, powdered her up to eat her, for which he was
burned. Many besides fed on the corpses of dead men, and one
who had gotten insatiable out of custom to that food could not
be restrained until such time as he was executed for it.
Journals of the Virginia House
of Burgesses, 1624,
on life in Virginia during the Starving Times
Reading 2:
Since I came out of the ship,
I never ate anything but peas, and loblollie (that is water
gruel) as for deer or venison I never saw any since I came into
this land, there is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed
to go, and get it, but must work hard both early, and later
for a mess of water gruel, and a mouthful of bread, and beef,
a mouthful of bread for a penny loaf must serve for 4 men....
Richard Frethorne, 1623
Reading 3:
The first object which saluted
my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave
ship which was then riding at anchor and waiting for its cargo.
These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted
into terror when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled
and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew, and
I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits
and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too,
differing so much from ours, their long hair and the language
they spoke (which was very different from any I had ever heard)
united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed such were the horrors
of my views and fears at the moment that, if ten thousand worlds
had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to
have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in
my own country. When I looked round the ship too and saw a large
furnace or copper boiling and a multitude of black people of
every description chained together, every one of their countenances
expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted my fate;
and quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless
on the deck and fainted....
I was not long suffered to indulge
in my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there
I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced
in my life; so that the loathesomeness of the stench and crowding
together I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat,
nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for
the last friend, death, to relieve me; soon to my grief, two
of the white men offered eatables, and on my refusing to eat,
one of them held me fast by the hands and laid me across the
windlass, and tied my feet while the other flogged me severely.
In a little time after, amongst
the poor chained men I found some of my own nation which in
a small degree gave ease to my mind. I inquired of these what
was to be done with us; they gave us to understand we were to
be carried to these white people's country to work for them....The
white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a
manner; for I had never seen among my people such instances
of brutal cruelty, and this not only shown toward us blacks
but also to some of the whites themselves. One white man in
particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged
so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast that he
died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side
as they would have done a brute....
Olaudah Equiano, a slave,
1793
Reading 4:
When the ships have for the
last time weighed their anchors in England, the real misery
begins with the long voyage. For from there the ships, unless
they have good wind, must often sail eight, nine, ten or twelve
weeks before they reach Philadelphia....But during the voyage
there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes,
horror, vomiting, many kinds of seasickness, fever, headache,
heat, boils, constipation, scurvy, cancer, mouth rot, and the
like, all of which come from old and sharply-salted food and
meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably....
Among the healthy, impatience
sometimes grows so great and cruel that one curses the other,
or himself and the day of his birth and sometimes come near
killing each other....Few women who give birth to children on
the ship escape with their lives and many a mother is cast into
the water with her child as soon as she is dead. Children from
one to seven years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time
parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer
and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness and then see them
cast into the water. I saw such misery in no less than thirty-two
children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea....
When the ships have landed at
Philadelphia after their long voyage, no one is permitted to
leave them except those who pay for their passage. The others,
who cannot pay, must remain on board the ships till they are
purchased and are released from the ships by their purchasers.
The sick
always fare the worst, for the healthy are always preferred
and purchased first; and so the sick and wretched must often
remain on board in front of the city for two or three weeks,
and frequently die....
The sale of human beings in
the market on board the ship is carried on thus: Every day people
come from the city of Philadelphia and other places and go on
board the newly-arrived ship that has brought and offers passengers
for sale....When they come to an agreement, adult persons usually
bind themselves in writing to serve from 3-6 years according
to their age and strength. But very young people, from ten to
fifteen years, must serve till they are twenty-one years old.
Many parents must sell and trade
away their children like so many head of cattle, for if their
children take the debt upon themselves, the parents can leave
the ship free and unrestrained but as the parents often do not
know where and to what people their children are going it often
happens that such parents and children, after leaving the ship,
do not see each other again for many years, perhaps no more
in all their lives.
Gottlieb Mittelberger, a German
Redemptioner, 1750
Reading 5:
Many of these slaves we transport
from Guinea to America are prepossessed with the opinion that
they are carried like sheep to the slaughter, and that Europeans
are fond of their flesh; which notion so far prevails with some
as to make them fall into a deep melancholy and despair, and
to refuse all sustenance, tho' never so much compelled or even
beaten to oblige them to take some nourishment....I have been
necessitated sometimes to cause the teeth of these wretches
to be broken, because they would not open their mouths, or be
prevailed upon by any entreaties to feed themselves; and thus
have forced some sustenance into their throats.
John Barbot, 1682
1. Why do
you think the Virginians were incapable of feeding themselves--when
the Indians were able to grow corn, the woods were filled with
game, and the rivers were covered with geese and filled with
fish?
2. Why did
these individuals migrate to the New World?
3. Describe
their experiences in migrating to America.
4. What do
these quotations tell us about colonial attitudes toward labor?
Demographic Conditions in the English Colonies
|
Starving times: Crude
death rate first winter
|
| Jamestown |
Plymouth |
| 638 (per thousand) |
490 (per thousand) |
In 1607, the Susan Constant discharged
l05 passengers;
six months later, two-thirds were dead.
Between l607 and l624, 6,000-10,000
colonists arrived;
but only l,275 remained alive.
|
Child Mortality in New
England
|
| 180-200 of every
l,000 died first year |
35-40 percent
failed to reach adulthood |
|
Death rate for infants
in Salem, Mass. (per
thousand)
|
| |
17th
century |
18th
century |
| Girls |
313
|
178 |
| Boys |
202 |
105 |
|
Causes of Death in New
England
|
| Epidemic
diseases: |
| smallpox |
|
| diphtheria |
|
| pneumonia |
|
| measles |
|
| scarlet
fever |
killed
30 per l,000 during mid-l8th century |
| tuberculosis |
killed
20 percent |
|
Comparative Death Rates
|
| Jamestown, after
l630 |
40-50 per thousand |
| French and English
villages |
40 per thousand |
| New England |
24-26 per thousand |
|
Maternal mortality
|
| 1.5-2 percent
death rate per pregnancy |
|
Average Life Expectancy
at Age 20
During the Seventeenth Century
|
| Married Women
in Middlesex County, Virginia |
39 |
| Married Men
in Middlesex County, Virginia |
48 |
| Women in Andover,
Massachusetts |
62 |
| Men in Andover,
Massachusetts |
64 |
| Women in Plymouth,
Massachusetts |
62 |
| Men in Plymouth,
Massachusetts |
69 |
|
Growth of the Colonial
Population
|
| |
North |
South |
Difference |
| 1640 |
26,634 |
26,037 |
596 |
| 1670 |
111,935 |
107,400 |
4,535 |
| 1700 |
250,888 |
223,071 |
27,817 |
| 1740 |
905,563 |
755,539 |
150,024 |
| 1770 |
2,148,076 |
1,688,254 |
459,822 |
1. How did
life expectancy in the Northern and Chesapeake colonies compare?
What implications might this have upon the nature of family
life in the two regions?
2. What factors
may have contributed to the discrepancy in life expectancy in
the two regions?
3. Why might
women have had a shorter life expectancy than men?
| Declining
Mortality, 1780-1820 |
| |
1780 |
1820 |
Northern
states
Total population |
28
per thousand |
20
per thousand |
| Infants |
180-200
per thousand |
140-160
per thousand |
|
Population Statistics
|
| Population growth
rate |
3.5 percent |
| Doubling time |
20-25 years |
| Average number
of children per family |
7-8 surviving
children |
|
Marriage Rate
|
| New England
in the early 18th century |
| men |
98 percent |
| women
|
93 percent |
| End of the l8th
century |
| women |
78
percent |
| Average
age of marriage for women |
| New
England |
20 |
| Maryland |
18 |
Declining
Fertility
Proportion of families
with 6 or more surviving children |
| pre-1700 |
75 percent |
| 1700s |
67 |
| 1800-30 |
40 |
| 1830-60 |
20 |
| 1860-1900 |
10 |
1. How does
the growth of the colonial population compare to the growth
of the American population today?
2. What were
the major contributors to the growth of the colonial population?
3. What factors
may have contributed to the decline in fertility after 1800?
The Roots of American Slavery
|
Slave Imports into the
Americas, 1500-1870
|
|
Area
|
Number of imports
|
Proportion
|
Proportion of black
population
in the Americas in 1825
|
| British
North America |
523,000 |
6 percent
|
25 percent
|
| Spanish
America |
1,687,000 |
|
|
| British
Caribbean |
2,443,000 |
17 percent
|
10 percent
|
| French
Caribbean |
1,655,000 |
|
|
| Dutch
Caribbean |
500,000 |
|
|
| Danish
Caribbean |
50,000 |
|
|
| Brazil |
4,190,000 |
|
|
| Old
World |
297,000 |
|
|
| Total |
11,345,000 |
|
|
|
Slave Population in
the Colonies, 1650-1770
|
| Year |
North |
South |
Total |
| 1650 |
880 |
720 |
1,600 |
| 1670 |
1,125 |
3,410 |
4,535 |
| 1690 |
3,340 |
13,389 |
16,729 |
| 1710 |
8,303 |
36,563 |
44,866 |
| 1730 |
17,323 |
73,698 |
91,021 |
| 1750 |
30,222 |
206,198 |
236,420 |
| 1770 |
48,460 |
411,362 |
459,822 |
|
Origin of Slaves arriving
in Virginia
|
| |
1710-18
|
1727-69
|
| British West
Indies |
2,399 |
4,983 |
| Africa |
1,892 |
32,314 |
| British North
America |
101 |
1,417 |
| England |
6 |
|
| Unknown |
130 |
|
| Total |
4,528 |
39,679 |
| Slave
Mortality during the Middle Passage |
| Years |
Slave Trading Nation
|
Total Number
|
Mortality Rate of Slave
Deaths
|
| 1680-1688 |
English
|
60,783
|
23.6
|
| 1715-1775 |
French
|
35,927
|
14.9
|
| 1795-1811 |
Portuguese
|
162,225
|
9.3
|
1. How many
slaves were imported into the American colonies and the United
States?
2. Which
country imported the greatest number of slaves?
3. Construct
an explanation of why the United States, which imported a relatively
small number of slaves from Africa, had by far the largest black
population in the New World by l820?
4. During
which period did the American slave population grow most rapidly?
5. How likely
was a slave to die during the "middle passage" from
Africa to the Americas?
| Chronology:
Founding of the American Colonies |
| Date |
Colony |
Founders |
|
| 1607 |
Virginia |
London Company |
Established
1st assembly in 1619
Royal colony after 1624 |
| 1620 |
Plymouth |
William Bradford
and Pilgrims |
Became part
of Massachusetts in 1691 |
| 1623 |
New Hampshire |
Puritans |
Royal colony
after 1680 |
| 1626 |
New Netherlands |
Dutch West India
Co. |
East and West
Jersey united and become a
royal colony in 1702 |
| 1664-85 |
New York |
|
a proprietary
colony and becomes a royal colony in 1685 |
| 1630 |
Massachusetts
Bay |
John Winthrop
and Puritans |
Royal colony
after 1691 |
| 1634 |
Maryland |
George Calvert |
Toleration Act
of 1649 guaranteed religious freedom to Protestants and
Catholics Proprietary colony from 1632-91; a royal colony
from 1691 |
| 1636 |
Rhode Island |
Roger Williams |
Royal colony
after 1663 |
| 1636 |
Connecticut |
Thomas Hooker
and Puritans |
Fundamental
Orders of 1639 was the first written constitution in the colonies |
| 1638 |
New Sweden |
Swedes |
Part of Pennsylvania
until 1776 (Delaware) |
| 1650 |
North Carolina |
8 proprietors |
Royal colony
after 1729 |
| 1670 |
South Carolina |
8 proprietors |
Royal colony
after 1729 |
| 1682 |
Pennsylvania |
William Penn |
|
| 1733 |
Georgia |
James Oglethorpe |
Only colony
to attempt to prohibit slavery
Royal colony after 1754 |
|
|
