America Past; Do4; English Colonial Life

Bars and tone. [Music] [Music] In the spring of 1607 three ships sailed up a river bringing 104

settlers to the southern colony of Virginia. Within 20 years there would be another colony to the north in New England. Both were settled by Englishmen. Both faced many hardships but their lifestyles were different. The way of life in the south is best illustrated by visiting the area of Jamestown and Williamsburg. Jamestown was the first of the thirteen English colonies, colonies strung along the East coast from Massachusetts in the north to Georgia in the south. This is the site of the original landing at Jamestown. Not a very desirable site. Described by one of the first settlers as having an unwholesome and sickly air by reason of the fact it was on marshy ground, low and flat to the river. That assessment proved to be correct. The settlement here was always touch and go. By 1624, 17 years later,

four out of five had died. They experienced the 'starving time,' when it said that dogs and cats rats and mice were esteemed delicacies. You see, too many of the settlers that came to Jamestown came to find gold. The Spanish have been successful in finding gold; why shouldn't the English find it? They were not interested in hard agricultural-type work. They just wanted to wander around and get rich. and the colony will not prosper until that notion gets out of their heads. They might not have made it at all had it not been for the somewhat unpopular but firm leadership of John Smith, governor in 1608, and for the cooperation of the Indian Princess, Pocahontas, and her father the chief, Powatan. Nearby is Jamestown Festival Park and at that park the attempt to interpret the lifestyles of those early settlers. The settlers built houses the way they would have in England. Small, dark cottages with

steep thatched roofs and walls of wattle and daub. The effect was to make Jamestown on the James look like a medieval version of Stratford on the Avon. The thing that saved Jamestown saved the whole colony of Virginia, was the finding of a great staple crop in tabacco.. Tobacco became so popular it was grown in virtually every clearing in the south. It was grown in the streets in Jamestown. Tobacco is a weed and it grows very well in this climate. It was used throughout the world in the 17th and 18th centuries, primarily in the form of pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and snuff. The first man, here in Jamestown, who realized the commercial possibilities of it was John Rolfe. He married Pocahontas who had been so important to the survival of the colony, earlier. The year 1619 is significant for the settlers at Jamestown. In that year, they got their first elected law-making body. The first blacks

arrived with indentured servants. And the first large number of women. Described as pure and spotless, they were sent over to be sold to the men for a 120 pounds of tobacco. Jamestown is in Virginia. Jamestown is the first of the five southern colonies, all of which, within a hundred years, were characterized by the plantation system, a system producing some rice, some sugar cane, but basically, tobacco. The plantation system increasingly supported by slave labor. (New voice speaking) It was the reason for slave labor in that indentured servants of the 17th century began to stay in England and not come over here to do this kind of work. And there needed to be a replacement labor source. And Africa was the replacement. The combination of a saleable crop and cheap labor made possible the construction of grand houses by the plantation owners.

This is Gunston Hall, just a few miles south of Washington D.C. it adjoins the property of George Washington and Mount Vernon. This is the home of George Mason. In many ways Mason was typical of a Southern planter with a sense of responsibility. He was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights that later became the basis of the Bill of Rights and was added to the United States Constitution. But if you ask him what he was, he would say he was a farmer. Behind the house, beyond the garden, is the Potomac River and from that river, he shipped his produce to Europe, chiefly tobacco but also wheat. In one shipment, He sent 23,000 bushels of wheat to England. (Period music,) In their life style, they tried to emulate the life of an English country gentleman.

The well-bred Englishman would have felt at home with a well set table, a well-supplied wine cellar, the Chippendale chairs and Queen Ann table. Even the amusements that were popular were those that had been popular at home: fox hunting, horse racing. They had done those in England. Dances were common, maybe out of the central hall of the home, with musicians up in the stairwell. The most common religion in the south was the same as it had been in England. The Church of England. There were no large groups of Quakers and Puritans here. Most Southerners remain loyal to the King's church.

To visit the colonial plantation home today is to gain a sense of the wealth and the refinement that was so important for the plantation class. And if you come to Gunston Hall, you get a feeling for George Mason's intellectual and political interest. The plantation system also affected the system of education in the south. The southern colonies had the fewest schools of any of the colonial areas. Why was that? Well, because of the plantation. Many of the people who wanted to attend the schools were scattered around on farms. Any place you build a school it was going to be miles away from where the students live. So how do they get around that? Simple. The plantation owner hired a tutor who came and lived on the plantation and taught the owner's children. The Mason children were educated here in this building. They were taught Greek and Latin, that was

considered essential, mathematics French, perhaps some history. If you want to go to college, well, you could go back to England, but chances are, you would go to the College of William and Mary. William and Mary was in Williamsburg, established in 1693. It was the second college started in what is now the United States. The tutors in these plantations schools trained generations of children and provided the leadership for the South. If you were a leader in politics you wanted to be a member of the House of Burgesses. The House of Burgesses was the elected part of the Virginia State Legislature. The other part was appointed by the governor. It's significant because the House of Burgesses is the first elected law-making body in the New World. It met first in Jamestown, then later in the new capital, in the major city of

Williamsburg. (period music plays) Not only was it the Capitol, it was the cultural and social center of Virginia. Colonial Williamsburg today is the best place in the United States to see what life was like in the colonial town. Why? because in 1926 John D. Rockefeller Jr. decided to reconstruct it, Reconstruct it the way it was in 1770. Williamsburg was at its busiest when the legislature was in session. In the House of Burgesses, representatives such as Patrick Henry spoke out against British policy. In the evening, the Burgesses might assemble in one of Williamsburg's many taverns. This is a bar room in Raleigh.

On one occasion the House of Burgesses actually met in a back room here because the governor had dissolved their meeting at the Colonial Capitol. The taverns, they were the social centers of colonial America. Patrons came here to argue politics, to seal business deals, to drink, to smoke, to gamble, to play cards. A visit to Williamsburg meant to a chance for Virginians not only to socialize and conduct business but to shop for items made by local craftsmen, or goods imported from Europe. (Woman's voice) We'd be glad to sell you dinnerware, chocolates, books, puzzles, games, musical instruments, all of the latest fashions, and as long as we import from England we can have anything we want from anywhere in the world. (Lecturer's voice) If you went into someone's home in the 18th century and saw a silver tea service, you'd know that they were very wealthy to... World well-to-do people. Middle class to upper middle class people had pewter. which was... the tin was imported largely from Holland shipped to England and then

finished there and shipped here, and the poor people, below that, would use wood or pottery-type items. (Sounds of chairs being moved) (Woman's voice) Good morning, Jim. (Man's voice) Joyce. Wigs were status symbol labels in the 18th century and 17th century. and white was the most expensive color. It was very difficult to acquire because of the short life expectancy of a woman which was only 40 to 45. A white wig on a man's head was like what a tuxedo is, today. Styles were brought here in sketches. Hand-drawn and hand- colored sketches of the latest style in London so that if you were in the market for a latest style of coat you would go to the coach-maker, view these sketches and pick the style which suited your purposes best. The styles were definitely English. A visit to Williamsburg and its surrounding would give you a feeling for life in the southern colony

where towns were few that agricultural with the chief interest, and where the wealthy attempted to live as English gentlemen, but to the north, in New England, life was different. Religion was more important and the pilgrims saw even the hard times and difficult voyage as a challenge ordained by God. (New male voice, as pilgrim) The Lord did test us in those early years as it is many places in Scripture to give you to understand that God's chosen people must expect such. Ours is not an easy way and that the Lord will strengthed us that we can bear up and suffer even the most grievously in his name. (Lecturer's voice) Thus the Separatists recalled how God sustained the pilgrims after their perilous ocean voyage. (Lecturer's's voice) After they crossed that ocean, they ended up here. This is Plymouth Plantation overlooking Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts.

They came in 1620 aboard the best known ship in colonial America, the Mayflower, and they faced a wild and savage land. (woman pilgrim's voice) In truth, if there is any greater wilderness than a forest, sir, tis an ocean and there's nothing more than being inside of a ship, sir, and seeing the ocean coming to greet you. This is no civil place. Even the weather is wild and savage. (Male pilgrim's voice) Come over on the ship we were out there at sea nearly a half a year on the ship many of us. Two months coming across but we spent time on the ships even in England before we left and then had to live on the ship during that dreadful winter and a ship is no place for a man to live you cannot .... in any way you get good food there or make yourself in any manner comfortable, so we were very weakened by the time we got off the ship and some had died while we were still on it. And before you get them over to get on the land and then some as soon as we got over here died soon after. We had not good housing built up and nothing good to eat. Plymouth was the first of the five New England colonies. In

some ways, those colonies were similar to all of the English colonies. All the colonies spoke English, as most of the people did. They had certain notions about government and self-government that they shared. They'd all faced that perilous voyage aboard small ships. They had a common background. But in other ways, New England was distinctive. This was the land of the Puritans. (Period music) The scriptures were always in the forefront of their minds. The Sabbath at the heart of their week. The meeting house. at the center of their town. Meeting houses, in which there are severe Calvinistic doctrines, permitted no priestly robes, no crucifixes. no kneeling, and no organs. Organs where the 'Devil's bagpipes.' Religion had been a key motivating factor in getting the Puritans to come here

in the first place. Oh, some of them are more interested in the adventure and land. Land was probably the key reason that most people came to the New World. But in New England you get the addition of religion as a motivating factor. Many of them are tired of the formality and the teachings of the Church of England. They wanted to get away from it. One group was willing to stay in the church but they just wanted to purify it. Hence, we get the name 'Puritan'. Others decided that it couldn't be purified. They wanted to separate from it completely and they were called 'Separatists'. They're the group that are often referred to as 'Pilgrims' and it was those separatist pilgrims that started the colony here, at Plymouth, in 1620. On the surface, the people here at Plymouth would seemed to have been ill fitted for

establishing a new civilization in a wilderness. They tended to be craftsmen some small farmers, middle class merchants, the sort of people who are not accustomed to doing all of the various chores that had to be done in a new world. (Sounds of woman's voice singing and scraping tool in use) But they were not discouraged. It (Male Puritan's voice) It is not with us as with other men whom small things can discourage. (Sounds of Woman's voice singing and scraping tool in use) (Lecturer's voice) Considering the fact that half of them died the first winter, it would seem that there was something besides small things to discourage them. But they knew why they'd come; they knew what they had to put up with and they had come to stay. (Voice of child servant) Shall I bring the other one, Master? They didn't intend to give up and go back. (Voice of male pilgrim) It's a man somewhat desperate's going to come across the sea in the first place and there's not much we'd

have to return to, so our congregation, of course, we were strongly committed to come here and there's nothing for us to go back to say they had the jails in England or a life in Holland what is not for a good Christian, I fear. Of recent years, we have nothing but to give thanks to give for the blessings upon us. After that first year of trial it seems that was the time when the Lord did test us and found us good here and found this land good for us and now He does intend for us to set it in the proper order. (Voice of Lecturer) Feudalism put rigid demands on its followers – as far as how to worship and behavior was concerned. But it also told them that God was pleased with hard work. And that earthly success was a sign of God's favor. As a result, you find in New England the most most industrious, the most hard-working settlers in all of the colonies. And hard work was something that contributed to success. They wanted to do everything they did as well as they could because they were doing it to glorify God.

They worshiped God at the workbench, as well as in the church. (Voice of female Pilgrim) I think that you should be looking for ways to place the Lord in everything what you do in reading of scripture whenever you have time for it to be singing of the Psalms so you'll go about your other labors and tending to those labors well and working hard to show His greater glory by the profit you incur there. (Background female voice singing) [sing] (women's voices singing) (women's voices singing) (women's voices singing) (Lecturer's voice) Their religion didn't only effect their attitude toward work. It effected affected their education. New England became the best educated section of the colonies. Why? Well, partially because they had towns that was very convenient. If you're going to build a school, it's much nicer to put

it in the middle of a town where there's children to attend it. New England had a lot of towns – the largest town in America was there: Boston. But there also was a religious factor here. (Voice of male Pilgrim) Most important for here, where we have to divide our lands soon, it'll put some of our planters far away, but if you move far away and you know not the word to read how will you study the gospels, or your children? (Voice of Lecturer) The first college in America. Let's establish New England College. Harvard College, established to train ministers. Eventually Plymouth merged with a settlement at Boston and formed the Colony of Massachusetts.

which grew and prospered, once the settlers learned to adapt to their environment. The geography and climate of New England put a premium on the hard work. The large plantation system that developed in the South wasn't suitable up here. The rocky soil made farming difficult but the good harbors encouraged fishing and trading. So they became merchants, they became sailors, they became ship builders, In a sense, the climate said, 'make do or go without.' So they made do and they made do by turning to the sea. One historian has said that the basis of New England was two things: God and Cod. After 1650, the New England landscape was dotted with towns. In the center of those towns was the meeting house. It not only served as a

church, but as a center of local government. It was where they held their distinctive New England town meetings. Certainly the most democratic example of local government in America. Now don't carry 'democratic' too far, remember this is the 18th and 17th century we're talking about, but probably more people participated in local government in New England than in any other section of the colonies, but you had to be a man, you had to own property in most cases. That was no great problem, most people did own property. And eventually you had to be a Puritan. If you met those qualifications you could come to the local church the local meeting house and vote. And express your opinion on local matters. Now this local government was in charge of enforcing the law. And that meant carrying out the various Puritan punishments.

They had an exhausting list of prohibited delights. Plays are forbidden, bowling, shuffleboard, over-dressing. Dice, sleeping in church, card playing. It isn't so much that those things were sinful in and of themselves it's that they took your mind off of things that were more important. There's a common image of the Puritans as people running around all in black with their pointed hats with a nagging fear that somehow, somewhere, somebody might be happy. That's probably isn't totally fair. They had fun. They wore colorful clothes, actually. They liked to dance; they could even have lotteries if the money went to the church. They fell in love, they got married, they liked social occasions like weddings and funerals. There's a record of one funeral where they spent eight shillings for the casket. But 12

shillings for the beer to celebrate afterwards. They did not, however, celebrate many of the major holidays that we take for granted. (Voice of male Pilgrim #1) They Separatist? They're over-strict. (Voice of male Pilgrim #2) If there's anything that be fun, they're against it. They do not allow any of the great celebrations of the King's church. Any of the the great holidays. They will not allow us to celebrate Easter or Christmas, or any of the Saints' days. All they can think of is work. And yet they will stand there in the middle of the street and sing psalms when there is work to be done. (Lecturer's voice) The pilgrims not only didn't celebrate Christmas, here at Plymouth, they actually began to build their first houses on Christmas day just to emphasize the fact that it was a day like any other. What do historians have to say about the Puritans? Well, depends on the historian.

They've been both criticized and praised. Criticized basically for being intolerant; that having come to the new world for religious freedom they felt no compunction to grant it to other people. They did for a while here at Plymouth, but later if you weren't a Puritan, you weren't going to be happy in New England. There had been praised for taking a rather inhospitable, rocky New England soil, turning it into a small farm, building bustling towns, making a go of the whole thing. Being industrious. They've been praised for their education. The best educated colonists in America. Modern America is a result of the contributions of many races, many faiths, many ideas mixed together, and in that mix. You certainly have the ideas of the Puritans.

One historian even maintains that their contribution was the most significant. (Voice of unidentified historian) In the life of their community. In good sense. in public spirit, In humaneness and punishment, in mutual help in time of need, they did exemplify higher standards than any other English society and this society more than any other was the making of the American nation. (Elizabethan music) And why.