Unit 3 the colonial period

By the year 1733 the English owned thirteen separate colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. The colonies stretched from New Hampshire in the north to Georgia in the south. Most people divided them into three main groups. Each group had its own way of life and character.

In the far north was the New England group, centered on Massachusetts. It has generally thin, stony soil and long winters, making it difficult to make a living from farming. Since the time of the Pilgrims the people of New England had spread inland and along the coast. Most were small farmers or craftsmen, working the stony soil and governing themselves in small towns and villages.

Other New Englanders depended on the sea for a living. Good strands of timber encouraged shipbuilding. They felled the trees to build ships and sailed to catch cod or to trade with England and the West Indies, so it became the source of great wealth; in Massachusetts the cod industry alone quickly furnished a basis for prosperity. Boston and other coastal towns grew into busy ports, their prosperity depended on trade.

The nearest colonies to the south of New England were called the Middle Colonies. The biggest were New York and Pennsylvania. Society in the Middle Colonies was far more varied, cosmopolitan and tolerant of religious and other differences than in New England. Many people had German, Dutch or Swedish ancestors rather than English ones. As in New England, most people lived by farming. But in the cities of New York and Philadelphia there were growing numbers of craftsmen and merchants.

Philadelphia was one of the centers of colonial America and the capital of Pennsylvania. By 1770 it was the largest city in America, with twenty eight thousand inhabitants representing many languages, creeds and trades. The city had broad, tree-shaded streets, substantial brick and stone houses and busy docks. Visitors from England marveled at the speed with which it had grown. “It is not a hundred years since the first tree was cut where the city now stands”, wrote one of them, “and now it has more than three thousand six hundred houses.” But the size of the city was not the only thing that impressed visitors. Long before most English cities, its streets were paved with brick and street lamps were lit every night.

The next biggest cities after Philadelphia were New York and Boston, with about twenty five thousand people each. All three cities owed much of their prosperity to the profits of the transatlantic trade that they carried on with England. Their ships exported furs, timber, tobacco, and cotton, and brought back fashionable clothes, fine furniture, and other manufactured goods. Their merchants also traded with one another. This inter-American trade helped to produce a feeling between the cities that they all belonged to the same American nation.

The Southern colonies of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia were mostly rural settlements and formed the third group. In hot and fertile river valleys wealthy landowners farmed large plantations. The planters of the tidewater region held most of the political power and the best land. Southern planters adopted an aristocratic way of life and kept in touch as best as they could with the world of culture overseas. They lived in fine houses which had expensive furniture, imported from Europe, and wide, cool verandahs from which they could look out over their fields of cotton and tobacco. Close by the houses stood groups of smaller, simple buildings – stables, washhouses, blacksmiths’ shops and little huts for black slaves. Most of the work in the fields was done by black slaves. Slavery was rare in other American colonies, but the prosperity of the plantation-owning southerners was already beginning to depend upon it.

Charleston, South Carolina, became the leading port and trading center of the South. There the settles learned quickly to combine agriculture and commerce, and the marketplace became a major source of prosperity.

In all three groups of colonies most people still lived less then fifty miles from the coast. This was called the tidewater period of settlement. During the fifty years after 1733 settlers moved deeper into the continent. They traveled west into Central Pennsylvania, cutting down forests of oak trees to make hilly farms. They spread westward along the river valleys in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. They moved north along the fertile valley of the Mohawk River of New York.

Making a new settlement always began in the same way. The settlers cleared the land of trees and cut the trees into logs and planks. They used these to build a house or a barn. Then they ploughed between the tree stumps, sowed their seeds, and four months later harvested the crops of corn and wheat. If their soil was fertile the settlers lived well. But if the soil was rocky, or poor in plant foods, life could be hard and disappointing. Settlers with poor soil often left their farms and moved westward to try again on more fertile land. As they traveled inland they passed fewer and fewer farms and villages. At last there were none at all. This area, where the European settlement came to an end and the forest homelands of the Amerindian began, was called the frontier.

Fresh waves of settlers pushed the frontier steadily westwards in their search for fertile soil. They would often pass by land that seemed unsuitable for farming. Life on the frontier was hard and rugged. Most frontier settlers led isolated lives, because frontier farms and villages were often separated by miles of unsettled land. A family might be a day’s journey from its nearest neighbors. For such reasons the people of frontier communities had to rely upon themselves for almost everything they needed. They grew their own food and built their own houses. They made the clothing they wore and the tools they used. They developed their own kinds of music, entertainment, art and forms of religious worship. The men wore leather clothes made from the skin of deer and sheep, the women wore garments of cloth they spun at home. Their food consisted of venison, wild turkey and fish. They had their own amusements – great barbecues, dances, housewarmings for newly married couples, shooting matches and conquests for making quilted blankets. There were no schools and children had little formal education.

In the 1760s land-hungry American settlers moving westwards were stopped by a major obstacle, the Appalachian Mountains. This thickly forested mountain range runs roughly parallel to the Atlantic Coast of North America and stretches for hundreds of miles. When settlers reached the foothills of the Appalachians they found waterfalls and rapids blocking the rivers they had been following westwards. In 1775 a hunter and explorer named Daniel Boone led a party of settlers into the mountains. With a party of thirty axemen he cut a track called the Wilderness Road through the forested Cumberland Gap, a natural pass in the Appalachians. Beyond it lay rich, rolling grasslands. In the years which followed, Boon’s Wilderness Road enabled thousands of settlers to move with horses, wagons and cattle into these fertile lands. They now made up the American states of Kentucky and Tennessee.

A special spirit grew out of frontier way of life. People needed to be tough, independent and self-reliant. Yet, they also needed to work together, helping each other with such tasks as clearing land and building houses and barns. The combination of these two ideas – a strong belief that individuals had to help themselves and a need for them to cooperate with one another - strengthened the feeling that nobody should have special rights and privileges. The frontier way of life helped democratic ideas to flourish in America. Today Americans like to think that many of the best values and attitudes in modern United States can be traced back to the frontier experiences of their pioneer ancestors.

In the 18th century Britain and France fought several major wars. The struggle between them went on in Europe, Asia and North America. Though Britain got certain advantages from them, primarily in the islands of the Caribbean, the struggles were generally indecisive. France remained in a powerful position in North America in 1754 and claimed to own Canada and Louisiana. Canada, or New France, extended north from St. Lawrence River and south towards the frontier areas of the English colonies on the Atlantic coast. Louisiana, named for the French king Louis XIV, stretched across the center of the continent. It included all the lands drained by the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It was a vast crescent-shaped empire stretching from Quebec to New Orleans with very few people. By that time France had also established strong relationships with a number of Amerindian tribes in Canada and along the Great Lakes.

In the middle of the 18th century most of the forests and plains of both of these vast areas were still unexplored by Europeans. The French claim to own them was based upon journeys made in the previous century by two famous explorers Samuel de Champlain and Rene La Salle. The French claim that Louisiana belonged to them worried both the British government and the American colonists. A glance at a map explains why. If France had sent soldiers to occupy the Mississippi Valley they would have been able to keep the colonists to the east of the Appalachian Mountains and stop them from moving westwards.

After several wars earlier in the 18th century, Britain and France began fighting the Seven Years War, known also as the French and Indian War. The war represented a series of military engagements between Britain and France that took place in 1754-1763. The first armed clash took place in 1754 at Fort Duquesne, the site where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is now located, between a band of French regulars and Virginia militiamen under the command of 22-year-old George Washington. British Prime Minister, William Pitt, sent soldiers and money to North America and won an empire. British forces captured the French strong points in Louisburg (1757), Quebec (1759) and Montreal (1760). The war was ended by the Peace of Paris, which was signed in 1763. The dream of a French empire in North America was over. France gave up its claims to Canada and to all of North America east of the Mississippi River. Britain also got all of Spanish Florida as Spain had helped France in the war.

But after the triumph over France Britain faced a problem it had neglected before – the governance of its empire. British territories in North America had more than doubled. A population that had been mostly Protestant and English now included French-speaking Catholics from Quebec and large numbers of partly Christianized Amerindians. Defense and administration of territories in North America required huge sums of money and increased personnel. And the old colonial system was obviously inadequate to these tasks.

DISCUSSION

1. How many English colonies were there in the New World by 1733? How many groups were they divided into?

2. What was the geographical position of New England?

3. What did most New Englanders do for a living?

4. What were the biggest cities of New England?

5. How did attitudes of towards life of New Englanders and those of the Middle colonies citizens change?

6. What do we learn about the capital of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia?

7. What did merchants from Philadelphia, New York and Boston import from Great Britain and what did they export there?

8. What colonies belonged to the Southern group?

9. What do we learn about southern planters’ way of life? What did their prosperity depend on?

10. Why were these years called the tidewater period of settlement?

11. How did American colonists make their new settlements?

12. What was the American frontier?

13. Why did those who inhabited the frontier have to rely upon themselves for almost everything they needed?

14. What do we learn about a person named Daniel Boone?

15. How did life in the frontier influence American values and ideas?

16. What countries took part in the Seven Years War? Was it fought only on the territories of North America?

17. What were the territories in North America that France claimed to own?

18. Why did the presence of France in North America anger both the British and the American settlers?

19. What do we learn about the battle of Fort Duquesne?

20. Where were the French strong points located?

21. What were the results of that war? What territories were acquired by Britain?

22. What were the problems Britain had to face after the war was over?

GUIDED TALK

Develop the following points using the words given below.

1. The colonies in the northwest of America known as New England had their own way of life and character.

to make a living from farming, along the coast, to depend on smth for a living, a source of great wealth, a basis for prosperity

2. Settlers of the Middle Colonies differed from New Englanders in many ways.

tolerant, an ancestor, a merchant, a busy dock, to marvel at smth, to impress visitors, to carry on trade with smb, manufactured goods

3. The Southern Colonies were mostly rural settlements.

a fertile valley, a landowner, a tidewater region, an aristocratic way of life, slavery

4. Making a new settlement always began the same way.

to spread along the river valleys, to cut down forests, to clear the land, to plough, to harvest the crops, fertile land

5. New settlers pushed the frontier westwards in search for fertile land.

to be separated, to be a day’s journey from smth., a community, to rely upon smb. for smth., an entertainment

6. In 1760s American settlers moving westwards were stopped by a major obstacle, the Appalachian Mountains.

land-hungry, thickly forested, foothills of the mountains, an explorer, to lead a party of settlers, a natural pass

7. A special spirit grew out of Frontier way of life.

a pioneer, tough, independent, self-reliant, to clear land, a strong belief, a need to cooperate, to have special rights and privileges, a democratic idea

SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES

1. Have you ever heard the term “witch hunt”? It is used to describe any extremely emotional investigation in which innocent people are harmed or harassed. Read the text to learn more about it.

THE WITCHES OF SALEM

In 1692 a group of adolescent girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, became subject to strange fits after hearing tales told by a West Indian slave. When they were questioned, they accused several women of being witches who were tormenting them. The townspeople were appalled but not surprised: belief in witchcraft was widespread throughout 17th-century America and Europe.

What happened next – although an isolated event in American history – provides a vivid window into the social and psychological world of Puritan New England. Town officials convened a court to hear the charges of witch­craft, and swiftly convicted and executed a tavern keeper, Bridget Bishop. Within a month, five other women had been convicted and hanged.

Nevertheless, the hysteria grew, in large measure because the court permitted witnesses to testify that they had seen the accused as spirits or in visions. By its very nature, such "spectral evidence" was especially dangerous, because it could be neither verified nor subject to objective examination. By the fall of 1692, more than 20 victims, including several men, had been executed, and more than 100 others were in jail – among them some of the town's most prominent citizens. But now the hysteria threatened to spread beyond Salem, and ministers throughout the colony called for an end to the trials. The governor of the colony agreed and dis­missed the court. Those still in jail were later acquitted or given reprieves.

The Salem witch trials have long fascinated Americans. On a psycho­logical level, most historians agree that Salem Village in 1692 was seized by a kind of public hysteria, fueled by a genuine belief in the existence of witchcraft. They point out that, while some of the girls may have been act­ing, many responsible adults became caught up in the frenzy as well.

But even more revealing is a closer analysis of the identities of the accused and the accusers. Salem Village, like much of colonial New Eng­land at that time, was undergoing an economic and political transition from a largely agrarian, Puritan-dominated community to a more commer­cial, secular society. Many of the accusers were representatives of a tra­ditional way of life tied to farming and the church, whereas a number of the accused witches were members of the rising commercial class of small shopkeepers and tradesmen. Salem's obscure struggle for social and political power between older traditional groups and a newer commercial class was one repeated in communities throughout American history. But it took a bizarre and deadly detour when its citizens were swept up by the conviction that the devil was loose in their homes.

The Salem witch trials also serve as a dramatic parable of the dead­ly consequences of making sensational, but false, charges. Indeed, a frequent term in political debate for making false accusations against a large number of people is "witch hunt".

Commentaries:

fit – приступ, припадок

to provide a vivid window into smth. – дать четкое представление о ч-л

“spectral evidence” – спектральное доказательство

reprieve – отсрочка приговора

frenzy – помешательство, безумие

secular – cветский

bizarre and deadly detour – странный и смертельно опасный путь в обход

the devil was loose in their homes – дьявол проник в их дома

2. Listen to a special program from Voice of America – an intermediate listening comprehension course. Decide whether the statements below are true or false. During listening you will hear the following proper names:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Fort Duquesne

General Edward Braddock

Lake George

Lake Champlain

Montreal

Quebec

Hudson River

Fort William Henry

Marquis de Montcalm

Fort Carillon

General Jeffery Amherst

Fort Ticonderoga

Saratoga

BRITISH DEFEAT THE FRENCH IN A STRUGGLE FOR NORTH AMERICA

1. During the 18th century three nations controlled land in North America. Spain controlled Florida, France was powerful in northern and southern areas, Britain controlled the east.

2. The powerful European nations had already been fighting each other for land and money for more than a century.

3. British explorers had been the first Europeans in the areas around the Great Lakes.

4. European settlers never took possession of land which belonged to Indians.

5. French settlers did not have religious freedom. All settlers in French colonies had to be Catholic.

6. The British claimed that Fort Duquesne belonged to them and immediately forced the French out.

7. The French and Indians did not use the fighting tactics that the British used.

8. The British had military bases in Quebec and Montreal.

9. The French built Fort Carillon at the southern end of Lake Champlain.

10. The British built a fort similar to Fort Carillon at the southern end of Lake George.

11. The British troops were treated fairly after they surrendered in 1757.

12. General Jeffery Amherst built a new military base – Fort Ticonderoga.

13. The battle for Quebec was the turning point of that war.

14. After the French and Indian War Indians controlled western lands in Texas and New Mexico.

15. Today the two forts are tourist sites.