Colonial America: A History in Documents

193 Pages·2003·2.834 MB·English

by  Edward G. Gray

Colonial America:
A History in Documents
Edward G. Gray
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Colonial America
A History in Documents
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Colonial America
A History in Documents
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Edward G. Gray
3
For Sophie
General Editors
Sarah Deutsch
Associate Professor of History
University of Arizona
3 Carol K. Karlsen
Professor of History
University of Michigan
Oxford New York Robert G. Moeller
Professor of History
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai University of California, Irvine
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Associate Professor of History
Indiana University
Copyright © 2003 by Edward G. Gray
Design: Sandy Kaufman
Layout: Loraine Machlin Board of Advisors
Picture Research: Lisa Barnett
Steven Goldberg
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. Social Studies Supervisor
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, West Milford, N.J., Public Schools
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gray, Edward G.
Colonial America : a history in documents / Edward G. Gray.
p. cm. — (Pages from history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-513747-7 (alk. paper)
1. United States—History—Colonial period, ca.
1600–1775—Sources—Juvenile literature. [1. United States—History—
Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775–Sources.] I. Title. II. Series.
E187 .G73 2002
Cover: The active harbor of Charleston, South
973.2—dc21 Carolina, in 1740.
2002004285
Frontispiece:This scene of a New England
wedding was embroidered in 1756.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Title page:A colonial family painted in 1750.
Contents
6 WHAT IS A DOCUMENT? Chapter Seven
8 HOW TO READ A DOCUMENT 153 GENTLEWOMEN
AND GENTLEMEN
11 INTRODUCTION 156 How to Be a Gentleman
167 A Gentlewoman’s Burden
Chapter One
17 ENGLAND EXPANDS Chapter Eight
19 England and Europe Look West 173 A WORLD OF THINGS
28 The Push for Colonies
182 TIMELINE
Chapter Two 184 FURTHER READING
39 NEW LANDS, NEW LIVES 187 TEXT CREDITS
41 The Trials of Settlement 188 PICTURE CREDITS
48 The Great Migration
189 INDEX
Chapter Three
61 COLONISTS CONFRONT
FIRST NATIONS
63 War
71 Captured by the Indians
76 Costs of Colonization
Chapter Four
83 WHO BUILT THE COLONIES?
86 Bound for America
95 When People Became Property
Chapter Five
109 TIES THAT BIND
111 The Struggle for Family
115 Women’s Trials
121 Parents and Children
Chapter Six
129 A SPIRITUAL PEOPLE
132 Building a Church
137 A Diversity of Beliefs
147 The Awakening Comes
6 COLONIAL AMERICA
What Is a Document?
T
o the historian, a document is,
quite simply, any sort of histori-
cal evidence. It is a primary
source, the raw material of his-
tory. A document may be more than the
expected government paperwork, such as a
treaty or passport. It is also a letter, diary,
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will, grocery list, newspaper article, recipe,
memoir, oral history, school yearbook, map,
chart, architectural plan, poster, musical
score, play script, novel, political cartoon,
painting, photograph––even an object.
Using primary sources allows us not
just to read about history, but to read his-
tory itself. It allows us to immerse ourselves
in the look and feel of an era gone by, to
understand its people and their language,
whether verbal or visual. And it allows us
to take an active, hands-on role in (re)con- Cartoon
This political cartoon addresses the issue of church and
structing history.
state. It illustrates the Supreme Court’s role in balancing
Using primary sources requires us to the demands of the First Amendment of the Constitution
and the desires of the religious population.
use our powers of detection to ferret out
the relevant facts and to draw conclusions
from them; just as Agatha Christie uses the
scores in a bridge game to determine the
identity of a murderer, the historian uses
facts from a variety of sources––some, per-
haps, seemingly inconsequential––to build
a historical case.
The poet W. H. Auden wrote that his-
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tory was the study of questions. Primary Illustration
Illustrations from
sources force us to ask questions—and
children’s books,
then, by answering them, to construct a such as this
narrative or an argument that makes sense alphabet from the
New England
to us. Moreover, as we draw on the many
Primer, tell us
sources from “the dust-bin of history,” we how children were
educated, and
can endow that narrative with character,
also what the
personality, and texture—all the elements religious and
that make history so endlessly intriguing. moral values of
the time were.
THE DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL 7
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Treaty
A government document such as this
1805 treaty can reveal not only the
Map
details of government policy, but
A 1788 British map of
information about the people who
India shows the region prior
signed it. Here, the Indians’ names
to British colonization, an
were written in English translitera-
indication of the kingdoms
tion by U.S. officials; the Indians
and provinces whose ethnic
added pictographs to the right of
divisions would resurface
their names.
later in India’s history.
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Literature
The first written version of the Old English epic Beowulf,
from the late 10th century, is physical evidence of the tran-
sition from oral to written history. Charred by fire, it is
also a physical record of the wear and tear of history.
8 COLONIAL AMERICA
How to Read a Document
Source
By the middle of the 18th century, every colonial city had at least one
regularly printed newspaper. Next to word of mouth, these cheap
T periodicals became the primary source of news and information for
here are many ways to approach colonists. Perhaps the most influential colonial newspaper—the
source of this advertisement—was Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania
the history of colonial America.
Gazette,first printed in December 1728. It set the standard for colonial
One might simply read some of newspapers with its combination of political and social commentary,
the many books about the period news, advertising, and amusing anecdote.
written in our own times. One might also
go directly to the sources themselves and Fine Print
As the central source of information in the colonies, newspapers
read what historians read: primary source
came to serve a crucial role in the business affairs of colonists. In a
material, or documents written by people series of finely printed columns, the newspapers ran announcements
who lived during that peculiar period in our and advertisements such as these. The first advertisement annouce-
mences an exchange of paper currency and the second offers a slave
history. Primary sources give the reader an
woman and her two children for sale. A newspaper’s fine print pro-
opportunity to become his or her own his- vides significant information about the colonial economy—including
torian, to engage with some of the very the types of “goods” for sale, the price of goods, methods of pay-
ment, and details about the “goods” themselves.
same documents that professional histori-
ans use when piecing together the stories of
the early American past.
Such documents might include hand-
written letters or diary entries, or printed
material such as sermons, political pam-
phlets, almanacs, government documents, Material Culture
or newspapers. These are fairly convention- Historians often use the phrase “material culture” when referring to
the things of everyday life. Objects such as this chest reveal what the
al sources. It is not difficult, for instance, to
colonists purchased, what they made, what they traded, what they
extract information from the page excerpt- sold, and what they used to help them live and work. These material
ed here from the May 3, 1733, edition of goods also provide information about colonial manufacturing and
craftsmanship.
Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette.
Other kinds of documents are, at first
Status
glance, somewhat less revealing. Perhaps the
Much as in our own day, things in colonial America had the power
most important of these are material arti- to confer status on their owners. They, as much as education or ways
facts: furniture, Indian ceremonial objects, of personal conduct, distinguished prominent colonists from ordinary
ones. Something so simple as this small chest made in 1679 for
weapons, clothing, tools, houses, and other
Thomas Hart of Lynnfield, Massachusetts, would have been afford-
things acquired by the peoples of colonial able only for well-to-do New Englanders.
America. Careful study of such things, how-
ever, can reveal much about how the peoples Style
of early America organized their households, The fine carving that gives Hart’s chest its distinct style also distin-
guishes it as an object of particular value. Hart’s initials and the
how they treated personal property, and
date the chest was made are carved in the decorative center star.
how possessions defined families, as they Only a person of means could afford to pay for such stylish embell-
were passed from one generation to the next. ishments as these that transformed an ordinary chest into a desir-
able work of craftsmanship.
Combined with more familiar sorts of writ-
ten or printed documents, such artifacts
allow us to assemble a more complete and
vivid picture of life in colonial America.
THE DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL 9
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