NHC+1690+Growth

NHC 1690 (1) GROWTH

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/growth.htm

The items on this wiki page are taken from the following website and are only intended for the use of my students:

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text1/text1read.htm
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The Colonies: 1690-1715

- Connecticut: Journal of a woman traveler, 1704 - New York: Report of an English chaplain, 1695 - Pennsylvania: Description by a German settler, 1700 - Virginia: Status report by a planter, 1705 - Carolina: Views of an official and a settler, 1699, 1712

Connecticut. While Massachusetts remained a homogenous colony of English settlers, other colonies became more diverse as German, Scot, Irish, Dutch, and French immigrants arrived by the thousands, a development often noted in colonists' diaries and travel journals. In 1704, a Boston widow named Sarah Kemble Knight began a five-month roundtrip journey to New York to complete some family business after a cousin's death. She traveled alone, staying in inns along the route, and employing local men as guides. (This was not 2004, but 1704, and Knight's now famous journey was remarkable for its time.) In these excerpts from her travel journal, Knight describes the colony of Connecticut, emphasizing the diversity and prosperity of its white inhabitants: "No one that can and will be diligent in this place need fear poverty, nor the want of food and raiment."

New York. John Miller, an Englishman and an Episcopal minister, gained his insight into the New York colony while serving as chaplain to the English soldiers stationed there in the 1690s. In his lengthy report to the Bishop of London, Miller surveys the colony's climate, resources, settlements, population, commerce, and military fortifications. Noting the colony's weaknesses, he offers proposals for the moral and religious improvement of the colonists, the conversion of the Indians, and the "subduing & resettlement" (i.e., invasion) of French Canada.

Pennsylvania. Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of the first German settlement in Pennsylvania (1683), wrote several accounts of the colony to persuade his countrymen in Europe to emigrate. He surveys the history, resources, government, inhabitants (settlers and Indians), farming, and commerce of Pennsylvania, emphasizing its inevitable prosperity and progress. "It is truly a matter for amazement," he exclaims, "how quickly, by the blessing of God, it advances, and from day to day grows perceptibly."

Virginia. An abundance of publications titled "The Present State of [colony name]" appeared in our colonial history. Some disappeared from notice after one printing, while others went through multiple printings and are often cited today. One of the latter is Robert Beverley's The History and Present State of Virginia (1705). Son of a prominent Virginia plantation owner, Beverley served as a Virginia legislator and official before writing his "status report" on the colony to refute errors in an Englishman's account. In these excerpts, he combines lavish praise of the colony's growth and potential with acerbic criticism of the governor's arrogance and the settlers' "slothful indolence."

Carolina. In 1690 the colony of "Carolina" included all the land south of Virginia and north of Spanish Florida (territory later divided into North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia). It had been settled only two decades earlier by English planters from the Caribbean island of Barbados, who brought with them African slaves and an entrenched slave culture. Here we read two viewpoints on Carolina's prospects—one from an English official who lauds the commercial potential of the colony, and one from a settler who employs a question-and-answer format to encourage other English farmers to emigrate. (Only the English official addresses the ever-present threat of the Spanish to the south and the French and Indians to the west.)

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text3/text3read.htm
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Coming to America - Europeans' journeys

Christopher Sauer from Germany, 1724 Gottlieb Mittelberger from Germany, 1750 John Harrower from Scotland, 1774 Emigrate or stay? writings from Ireland, mid to late 1700s Africans' journeys Olaudah Equiano from Benin, ca.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text4/text4read.htm
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New Settlers Irish in Pennsylvania: letter & journal French in Virginia: reports on a new settlement, early 1700s Germans and Swiss in North Carolina: letters and journals, 1710-11 Scots-Irish in South Carolina: settler's memoir of 1734 Germans in Georgia: journals, 1734

Irish in Pennsylvania. In 1790 Irish colonists and their descendants made up one fourth of the white settlers in Pennsylvania, and substantial minorities in other colonies.3 Among them were Robert Parke, a well-to-do Quaker from Dublin, and Francis Cample, a Catholic from northern Ireland. Parke emigrated with his parents and several siblings in 1724 and soon purchased land near Philadelphia. In a letter to relatives back in Ireland, he dispels the rumor that they were not "satifyed in Coming here, which was utterly False" and encourages them to come to America, "it being the best Country for working folk & tradesmen of any in the world." Francis Cample emigrated in 1734 and became a successful merchant, farmer, and land agent in Cumberland Valley. We read entries from his lively journal describing the creation of the town Shippensburg.

French in Virginia. Many French Protestants (Huguenots) fleeing religious persecution emigrated to America via England, which granted them tracts of frontier land to settle. One such settlement was Manakin Town, created in 1700 on the James River near present-day Richmond, Virginia. From about 400 original settlers, the town had fewer than 150 by 1705, as the newcomers went to live on their farms instead of the town, and as their children became assimilated into the English culture. By 1750 the town no longer existed. Presented here are excerpts from several reports and documents from the first years of the town.

Germans & Swiss in North Carolina. The new settlements of New Bern (1710) and Bethabara (1753) have markedly different histories—most notably one's success and the other's failure. New Bern, founded near the coast by Swiss and German refugees fleeing war and religious persecution, failed after several years of hardship including Indian wars, disease, and lack of supplies. Bethabara, founded in the backcountry by German Moravians from Pennsylvania, flourished and led to the group's permanent settlement at Salem. To study the towns' founding and fate, we read from founders' accounts—the memoir of New Bern's founder and the diaries of Bethabara's founder and earliest settlers.

Scots-Irish in South Carolina. While most emigrants from Ireland, Scotland, and England traveled to Philadelphia, the family of James Witherspoon joined the several thousand emigrants from Ireland who settled in South Carolina in the 1730s. The family was Scots-Irish, as Witherspoon's parents were among the thousands of Scot Presbyterians who had fled economic hardship in Scotland several decades earlier. In 1731, the family took an enticing package offered to the Scots-Irish by the English governor of South Carolina—land, money, tools, and provisions for a year—to settle in the Carolina backcountry. With the family was six-year-old Robert, who wrote a memoir of the experience half a century later.

Germans in Georgia. In 1734 the town of Ebenezer was founded inland from Savannah by German Protestants fleeing persecution in central Europe. Here we read side-by-side entries from two leaders' journals describing the group's arrival and the siting and provisioning of the new town.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text5/text5read.htm
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Servants & Slaves

Indentured servants from Europe: William Moraley, servant in Pennsylvania, 1730s Elizabeth Ashbridge, servant in New York, 1730s Elizabeth Sprigs, servant in Maryland, 1756 John Grimes, servant in middle colonies, 1765

Slave from Africa: Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (Job ben Solomon), slave in Maryland, 1730s

European indentured servants. Impoverished men and women, many young and unemployed, took their chances on a better life by signing "indenture contracts," committing to work for a specified number of years in return for sea passage plus lodging and provisions in America.

- William Moraley, having been "reduc'd to Poverty" in England, contracted in 1729 to go to America in "View of bettering my Condition of Life." He worked as a "voluntary slave" in Philadelphia for five years before returning to England and writing his memoir, titled The Infortunate.

- Elizabeth Ashbridge arrived in New York City in 1732, a "Stranger in a Strange Land." Forced to sign an indenture to pay for her passage, she worked as a house servant in conditions that "would make the most strong heart pity the Misfortunes of a young creature as I was." After three years she bought out the remainder of her contract and supported herself as a seamstress.

- Elizabeth Sprigs, a houseservant in Maryland, wrote an anguished letter in 1756 to her father in England, describing "what we unfortunate English people suffer here" and begging him to send her "some relief," especially clothes.

- John Grimes was one of 50,000 convicts shipped to America by the British government to be "sold" as indentured servants (they cost about a third of the price of slaves).1 He and two other Irish servants were convicted of burglary in 1765 and sentenced to death by hanging. Felons' final statements (often published as pamphlets during this time, partly as morality lessons), lay out their life histories that led them to crime and execution in America, a fate suffered by many convict-servants.

African slaves. A critical and rapid transition occurred in the late 1600s in the colonies' imported labor supply—from indentured servants to slaves. In human terms, that means that more English chose to stay in England (which had become more economically stable) and many thousands more Africans were enslaved and transported to America. Numbers tell the story. By 1710, writes historian Jon Butler, "captured Africans outstripped indentured servants by a ratio of at least 6-1 and established a pattern of colonial labor consumption not broken until the American Revolution."2 From 1700 to 1775, more Africans were brought to the colonies than all European immigrants combined.3 Throughout the entire colonial period, 250,000 Africans were brought to America, which by 1780 had a black population of 576,000.4

In contrast to the letters and journals of indentured servants, we have few first-person accounts of enslavement before 1800. Here we read from two of the rare accounts, both by elite west Africans who were captured in the 1730s and enslaved in America. - Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (named Job ben Solomon in England) was an educated Muslim from west Africa who was captured in 1730, enslaved for two years in Maryland, then freed through the efforts of attorney Thomas Bluett, who compiled and published Job's narrative in 1734. Bluett helped Job ben Solomon return to his homeland in Africa "where we hope he is safely arrived to the great joy of his friends, and the honour of the English nation."

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text9/text9read.htm
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The Colonies: 1720-1763:

Pennsylvania: An immigrant's overview, 1750

Pennsylvania immigrant. In 1750 the German schoolmaster Gottlieb Mittelberger traveled to America with four hundred other emigrants. So distressed by the fate of many who were sold into indentured servitude by "Dutch man-dealers and their man-stealing emissaries," he returned to Germany in 1754 and published an account to dissuade others from emigrating to America. In stark contrast to this warning, however, is the second half of his book, a personal and often admiring view of Pennsylvania in the early 1750s. Here we present brief sections from the topics he surveys, including the colony's fast-growing population, its religious diversity and tolerance (and the "godless life of some people in this free country"), its open-doored courts for the common man, its capitalistic fervor and growing prosperity among free white colonists, the fashion sense of its wealthier citizens, and the arduousness of its travel. "There is a current saying," he writes, "to the effect that Pennsylvania is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses."