Part 18 (1/2)
Standard of living.--Practically all New Englanders were free settlers, but a limited number of indented servants and a few hundred slaves were intermixed with the population. In the regions near the coast the standard of living had materially improved. In the larger towns the inhabitants enjoyed even a degree of luxury in dress and table, and the log huts of the first settlers had almost disappeared, frame, s.h.i.+ngled, and even brick houses having taken their place. Most of the houses of the well-to-do had a second floor, attic, and lean-to. Every community had its meeting house, and in 1670 Boston had three places of wors.h.i.+p.
As the traveler pa.s.sed into the back country, he found roads growing poorer and poorer, gradually deteriorating into mere trails. The clearings and log cabins became less and less frequent until he finally reached the wilderness, which was penetrated only by the hunter and trader. When the settlements extended a considerable distance from the coast, they were usually along a navigable stream, the indispensable means of communication in a newly settled community.
Social standards.--Daily life was simple and devoid of ostentation, but in the older communities social lines were rigidly drawn. An austere aristocracy ruled. Admitted to the inner circle were the descendants of the early leaders or of families of rank in England, Oxford and Cambridge men, and those who were selected through natural worth to fill high positions in church and state. Intelligence and piety were more potent factors than wealth in the attainment of position. Of professional men the ministers held an exalted place, exerting a powerful influence socially, religiously, and politically. There were few doctors and lawyers, the latter being looked upon as undesirable trouble makers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Settled Areas in New England and on Long Island, about 1700.]
Religion.--Throughout New England, except in Rhode Island, church and state were united, the Congregational church being in the ascendency.
Though in 1660 Charles II commanded that the Anglican church be tolerated in Ma.s.sachusetts, the authorities resisted its introduction, and not until 1686 was an Episcopalian church established in Boston. In Connecticut there were a few Presbyterians and Quakers. In Rhode Island the Baptists and Quakers were the most important element.
Superst.i.tions.--The seventeenth century Puritan was intolerant and superst.i.tious. Men must conform or be persecuted. Signs and portents were believed in, and strange and often filthy concoctions and ointments were administered at the suggestion of midwives or knowing housewives.
Belief in witchcraft was usual both in Europe and America, and such learned men as Increase and Cotton Mather, prominent clergymen of Boston, wrote treatises to prove its truth. The Ma.s.sachusetts laws recognized it as a capital offense. In 1692 occurred the famous outbreak at Salem in which nineteen innocent persons were executed.
Education.--In the English colonies New England took the lead in provision for popular education. Men who believed that the Bible was the source of authority naturally thought that every man should have sufficient intellectual training to enable him to read the word of G.o.d.
In 1635 the first Latin grammar school in the English colonies was started at Boston, and several other towns soon followed the example. In 1647 Ma.s.sachusetts enacted a general education law which required every town of fifty or more freeholders to appoint a teacher to instruct children to read and write. Every town of one hundred or more freeholders was required to support a Latin grammar school which would prepare students for college. Connecticut and New Haven soon followed the lead of Ma.s.sachusetts. In Rhode Island and Plymouth each community was allowed to follow its own course. In Rhode Island the few schools were usually private enterprises. In Plymouth the first public school was not opened until 1671. Higher education was not neglected, Harvard being founded in 1636. In that year Ma.s.sachusetts voted 400 toward the support of a college. Two years later John Harvard bequeathed his library and one-half of his estate for the erection of a college, and Harvard College came into existence. For many years it was devoted mainly to the training of religious leaders, and its curriculum reflected the cla.s.sical viewpoint of the great English universities.
Literature.--The literature of the first century of New England was permeated with a gloomy religious viewpoint, but it was not lacking in dignity or power. It reflected the sternness of standards and purpose of the founders, who saw little of the humor, or of the lighter side of existence. The strongest of the writings were the histories, the best being the _History of Plymouth_ by Governor Bradford and _The History of New England_ by Governor Winthrop. Of less interest to the present day mind are the controversial religious tracts and sermons of Roger Williams and Cotton Mather, or the crude poetry of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet.
NEW YORK AND EAST NEW JERSEY
Population.--Economically and socially New York and East New Jersey were closely related. At the end of the Andros regime the population of New York was probably 18,000, and that of East New Jersey about 10,000. More than half of the New Yorkers were Dutch. The rest were mainly English, but there were some Huguenots and a few Jews. The settled area covered almost all of Long Island and the Hudson Valley to a point a few miles north of Albany. Most of the population of East New Jersey was along the coast opposite New York harbor. The English predominated, but there was a sprinkling of Dutch, Scotch, and Huguenots.
Industry in New York.--During the first decades of the Dutch occupation of the Hudson Valley the fur trade had been almost the only business, but after 1638 many settlers came who began general farming. Lumbering also developed. The general lines of industry thus begun were carried on after the English occupation. The fur trade was greatly stimulated by Dongan and it was probably the chief source of wealth in the colony.
Population increased slowly. The advantageous position of New York attracted s.h.i.+pping, and the merchants developed a commerce with the West Indies and the Dutch possessions in the Caribbean to which were s.h.i.+pped bread stuffs, pease, meat, and horses. The returning vessels brought wine, rum, mola.s.ses, and various tropical products. To England the New Yorkers s.h.i.+pped furs, oil, and naval supplies in return for manufactured goods.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Settled areas in the Middle Colonies about 1700.]
A contemporary description of New York.--Governor Dongan wrote concerning the province in 1687: ”The princ.i.p.al towns within the Govermt are New York Albany & Kingston at Esopus. All the rest are country villages. The buildings in New York & Albany are generally of stone & brick. In the country the houses are mostly new built, having two or three rooms on a floor. The Dutch are great improvers of land. New York and Albany live wholly upon trade with the Indians England and the West Indies.... I believe for these 7 years last past, there has not come over into this province twenty English Scotch or Irish familys. But on the contrary on Settled Areas in the Middle Colonies Long Island the people about 1700 encrease soe fast that they complain for want of land and many remove from thence into the neighboring province.”
Religion and education in New York.--Regarding religion Dongan wrote.
”Every Town ought to have a Minister. New York has first a Chaplain belonging to the Fort of the Church of England; secondly, a Dutch Calvinist; thirdly a French Calvinist; fourthly a Dutch Lutheran--Here bee not many of the Church of England; few Roman Catholicks; abundance of Quakers preachers men & Women especially; Singing Quakers, Ranting Quakers, Sabbatarians; anti-sabbatarians; Some Anabaptists some Independents; some Jews; in short of all sorts of opinions there are some, and the most part of none at all.... The most prevailing opinion is that of the Dutch Calvinists.” This description applied to religious conditions in New York City, then as now a cosmopolitan place. On Long Island, where New Englanders were predominant, the Congregational church held sway, while in the Hudson Valley, where most of the settlers were Dutch, the Dutch Reformed church was in the ascendency. The Dutch had maintained elementary schools, but when the English occupied the country, most of the school-masters left, and little was done by the authorities to stimulate education. Such schools as existed were established by the local communities.
Large estates.--During the Dutch regime many large estates had been created, the most important being the patroons.h.i.+p of Van Rensselaer about Albany. Although the other patroons had surrendered their rights, the Dutch governors, officials, and merchants had acquired vast estates, which continued in their families after the English occupation. The English governors followed the example, and several large holdings were created, the most famous of these being the Livingston manor on the east bank of the Hudson below the Van Rensselaer tract.
Conditions in East New Jersey.--The people of East New Jersey came mainly from New England and Long Island, and they built up a miniature New England, each village being an ent.i.ty surrounded by tributary farm lands. Garden truck, fish, oysters, and fruits were the princ.i.p.al products. The proprietors hoped to develop commerce, but the Duke of York's restrictions throttled it, and East New Jersey was forced into the position of a supply station for New York. Gawen Laurie, the deputy-governor, described conditions as follows in 1684: ”There is great plenty of oysters, fish, fowl; pork is two pennies the pound, beef and venison one penny the pound, a whole fat buck for five or six s.h.i.+llings; Indian corn for two s.h.i.+llings and six pence per bushel, oats twenty pence, and barley two s.h.i.+llings per bushel: We have good brick earth, and stones for building at Amboy, and elsewhere: The country farm houses are built very cheap: A carpenter, with a man's own servants, builds the house; they have all materials for nothing, except nails, their chimnies are of stones; they make their own ploughs and carts for the most part, only the iron work is very dear: The poor sort set up a house of two or three rooms themselves, after this manner; the walls are of cloven timber, about eight or ten inches broad, like planks, set one end to the ground, and the other nailed to the raising, which they plaster within; they build a barn after the same manner, and these cost not above five pounds a piece; and then to work they go: Two or three men in one year will clear fifty acres, in some places sixty, and in some more: They sow corn the first year, and afterwards maintain themselves; and the increase of corn, cows, horses, hogs and sheep comes to the landlord;... the servants work not so much by a third as they do in England, and I think feed much better; for they have beef, pork, bacon, pudding, milk, b.u.t.ter and good beer and cyder for drink; when they are out of their time, they have land for themselves, and generally turn farmers for themselves.”
Religion and education in East New Jersey.--Another letter of the same date says: ”There be people of several sorts of religions, but few very zealous; the people, being mostly New-England men, do mostly incline to their way; and in every town there is a meeting-house, where they wors.h.i.+p publickly every week: They have no publick laws in the country for maintaining publick teachers, but the towns that have them, make way within themselves to maintain them; we know none that have a settled preacher, that follows no other employment, save one town, Newark.”
COLONIES ALONG DELAWARE RIVER AND BAY
Population.--The settlements along Delaware River and Bay formed an industrial and social group. In 1700 the population numbered less than 20,000, from 12,000 to 15,000 being in Pennsylvania which included Delaware. The interior of West New Jersey was unoccupied, the population remaining close to the coast. From Barnegat to Cape May the settled area was about ten miles wide. Along the eastern sh.o.r.e of the bay and river the population belt widened to twenty-five or thirty miles. In Pennsylvania and Delaware the settled area was continuous from the mouth of the Lehigh River to the southern boundary of Delaware. Back from the river the habitations extended for forty or fifty miles, but on the bay sh.o.r.e none of the settlers were more than ten or fifteen miles inland. The population of the Delaware region was composed of many nationalities. West New Jersey contained many English, but the descendants of the early Swedish and Dutch settlers were there in considerable numbers. Pennsylvania contained about 1,000 Swedes, Dutch, and Finns, the remnant of the early occupations. Penn's advertising and reputation for philanthropy brought to his colony English, Germans, Scotch, and Welsh.
Conditions in West New Jersey.--The following description of West New Jersey, written in 1698, gives an excellent picture of the colony: ”In a few Years after [1675] a s.h.i.+p from _London_, and another from _Hull_, sail'd thither with more People, who went higher up into the Countrey, and built there a Town, and called it _Burlington_ which is now the chiefest Town in that Countrey though _Salem_ is the ancientest; and a fine _Market-Town_ it is, Having several Fairs kept yearly in it; likewise well furnished with good store of most Necessaries for humane Support, as _Bread_, _Beer_, _Beef_, and _Pork_; as also _b.u.t.ter_ and _Cheese_, of which they freight several Vessels and send them to _Barbadoes_, and other islands.
”There are very many fine _stately Brick-Houses_ built [at Salem], and a _commodious Dock_ for _Vessels_ to come in at, and they claim equal Privilege with _Burlington_ for the sake of Antiquity; tho' that is the princ.i.p.al Place, by reason that the late Governor _c.o.x_, who bought that Countrey of Edward _Billing_, encouraged and promoted that Town chiefly, in settling his _Agents_ and _Deputy-governors_ there, (the same Favours are continued by the _New-West-Jersey_ Society, who now manage Matters there) which brings their a.s.semblies and chief Courts to be kept there; and by that means it is become a very famous Town, having a great many stately _Brick-Houses_ in it, (as I said before) with a great _Market-House_...; It hath a n.o.ble and _s.p.a.cious Hall_ over-head, where their _Sessions_ is kept, having the Prison adjoining to it....
”A s.h.i.+p of Four Hundred Tuns may sail up to this _Town_ in the River _Delaware_; for I my self have been on Board a s.h.i.+p of that Burthen there: and several fine s.h.i.+ps and Vessels (besides Governour c.o.x's own great s.h.i.+p) have been built there.... There are _Water-Men_ who constantly Ply their Wherry Boats from that Town to the City of _Philadelphia_ in _Pensilvania_, and to other places. Besides there is _Glocester-Town_, which is a very Fine and Pleasant Place, being well stored with Summer Fruits, as _Cherries_, _Mulberries_, and Strawberries whither Young People come from Philadelphia in the Wherries to eat _Strawberries_ and _Cream_, within sight of which city it is sweetly Situated, being but about three Miles distant from thence.”