Stability and Instability In The American and British Worlds

By: Alejandra Ortiz, Diana Escobar, Jeannette Samayoa, Lizette Caldera

QuestionAnalyze the changes in the ideas and daily lives of the people in British North America in the 1700s as a result of events within and beyond the colonies.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692• Underlying tensions in colonial life surfaced in Massachusetts during the

harsh winter of 1691-1692.

• The residents of Salem and surrounding communities lived in fear because New England was under siege by Indians allied with French Canada, who had killed 50 residents and took another hundred hostage.

• The village of Salem fell into a mass hysteria and only got worse when 2 girls suffered fits and were diagnosed as bewitched.

• Thus began the Salem Witch Trials, one of the best known episodes of mass hysteria in the English colonies.

• Between February 1692 and May 1693, legal action was taken against 144 people--- 106 women, 38 men for being supposed witches or practicing witch craft.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692

• Witches are known as people who make a deal with the devil and can appear as ghost and can make other people or animals sick.

• By the fall of 1692 political leaders & Massachusetts authorities had began to doubt witch craft.

• This hysteria ended almost as quickly as it began because by the spring of 1693 it was all over.

• The Salem Witch Trials were one of the last times that people were executed for explicitly of religious reasons in North America.

Women’s Lives• Women who lived in farmland were more isolated than women who had lived in more

urban areas• Since women in urban areas could go to more social gatherings and go into town to

buy necessities while • Women in farmland had to stay home to do chores, raise children, and apparent

women duties• Though women in urban areas were more social, more than 90% of the British

Americans lived on farms• Male farmers on the other hand, had more flexible chores which increased their

social interactions, they had to travel to the cities for selling their commerce• Women were demanded to stick to the demands of the male and household

manners such as farm work• Giving birth was the way women in the country were able to socially interact with

one another • Women had been seen as if they were in the lowest hieararchy

Women’s Lives• Eliza Lucas was born into a wealthy sugar growing family in the

Island of Antigua, though born rich she was often left to tend for the sugar plantation since her father would have to trade

• Even after marriage, she was independent since her husband was often not around she had to take control over her plantation

• She had developed the cultivation of indigo plants, this created blue dye, this had then rivaled with wealth in South Carolina

The Growth of Cities: Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Charleston

• In the beginning of the 1700s, human population was estimated to be around 250,000• Boston was the largest city(8,000), then New York(6,000), after that was Philadelphia and

Charleston(under 3,000)• Trade and prosperity, the population would dramatically increase• By 1770s the populations in these areas was over 2.5 million with 500,00 being of African

descent • Port cities crucial for centers of trade for the British Empire• Tea and slave trade were the most significant for the economy• While commerce was able to support the people, there were those who still lived in fear over

diseases• It wasn’t until 1721 when a Boston clergyman Cotton Mather had invented the vaccine for

smallpox

Commercial Attitudes, Commercial Success- Mercantilism and the New Trading Economy

• Between 1689 and 1754, Europe and America had began to support mercantilism• Mercantalism slowly became known as capitalism, this was the

idea of economic transactions should be around the idea of increasing nation wealth, one country was the winner the other would be a loser

• The American colonies were used for the labor in transactions of raw goods, to increase England’s wealth

• Worldwide trade was crucial , it was believed that this offered Americans their independence and shifts in economic systems

Changing Social Systems • While the economic system was changing, around the 1730s, social systems in

America had gradually shifted• People had previously believed that there were only two classes(the sophisticated and

the mechanics)• Mechanics had consisted of the farm workers and tradespeople• Below the “mechanics” were slaves and servants

QuizHow did the witch trials change the outlook of people towards one another? How did this change their daily lives?

What were women viewed as? Who was able to shift this idea?

How did the population increase support the city changes?

How had mercantilism supported the Americans to their own “independence”?

BASICALLY……….

The witch trials had created hysteria towards everyone, no one had been able to trust each other completely and people become paranoid. In result, not much social interaction was available at this time

Originally, women were viewed as lesser than men and were only used for household chores. It wasn’t until Eliza Lucas was able to show that women were capable of being independent, they were more than able to do household chores.

Population increase had made people become more dependent on trade and commerce. This also shifted their ideas for cities due to influence, the outside provided more ideals for them to believe in and changed their closed minds.

Mercantilism had given the American their choice to break free, they had the idea of outside trading in their minds, this offered them to be more free with who they were able to interact with, it made Americans believe that there was more to the outside than supporting England with their “capitalist” ideas

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