The economy and society of the British colonies study guide

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The economy and society of the British colonies study guide

SSUSH2 The student will trace the ways that the economy and society of British North America developed.

Questions on the EOCT for this standard will measure your knowledge and understanding of ways the economy and society of the British colonies developed. All the colonies developed economies that allowed settlers to survive and even prosper, yet each colony differed in its religious, cultural, and political customs.

a. Explain the development of mercantilism and the trans-Atlantic trade.

Mercantilism

The founders of the British colonies were greatly influenced by an economic theory known as mercantilism. This theory held that Earth had a limited supply of wealth in the form of natural resources, especially gold and silver, so the best way to become a stronger nation was to acquire the most wealth. Because the world’s wealth was thought to be limited, the more one country had, the less any other country could have. Consequently, as a nation became stronger and wealthier, its enemies became poorer and weaker.
Mercantilism inspired the British government to view its American colonies as sources of wealth that would make Britain wealthier and stronger. The more land the British could colonize in America, the less land in the New World there would be available to France and other European countries. The more American goods the British could sell to other countries, the less money those countries would have for themselves. Great Britain would get greater, and its European rivals would get weaker.
Mercantilism also inspired Parliament to control trans-Atlantic trade with its American colonies. All goods shipped to or from British North America had to travel in British ships, and any goods exported to Europe had to land first in Britain to pay British taxes.
Some goods could be exported to Britain only. These restrictions were designed to keep the colonies from competing against Britain. Some Americans responded by becoming smugglers.

b. Describe the Middle Passage, growth of the African population, and African-American culture.

Growth of the African Population

As tobacco and other cash-crop farmers prospered, they greatly expanded the size of their farms. There were never enough workers available to plant, grow, and harvest the crops, so farmers turned to African slaves to do this work. Many white colonists believed every black person was a savage who needed to be taken care of by white people. When the
Virginia Company founded Jamestown in 1607, there were no African slaves in British North America. By 1700, however, there were thousands of African slaves throughout the British colonies. The vast majority of these slaves were located in the Southern colonies where they supplied the labor required to support the region’s agriculturally based economy.

The Middle Passage

The sea voyage that carried Africans to North America was called the Middle Passage because it was the middle portion of a three-way voyage made by the slave ships. First, British ships loaded with rum, cloth, and other English goods sailed to Africa, where they were traded for Africans originally enslaved by other Africans. Then, in the Middle Passage, the slaves would be transported to the New World. The crew would buy tobacco and other American goods from profits they made by selling the slaves in the colonies and ship the tobacco and goods back to Britain. This process was repeated for decades.
It was said that people in the colonial port cities could smell the slave ships arriving before they could see them. The slaves were packed like bundles of firewood. About two of every ten slaves died during the passage.

African American Culture
In America, slaves attempted to “make the best” of their lives while living under the worst of circumstances. Slave communities were rich with music, dance, basket-weaving, and pottery-making. Enslaved Africans brought with them the arts and crafts skills of their various tribes. Indeed, there could be a hundred slaves working on one farm and each slave might come from a different tribe and a different part of Africa.

c. Identify Benjamin Franklin as a symbol of

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, along with George Washington, is the best known of America’s Founding Fathers. Franklin was born into a poor Boston family in 1706. At age 12 he became an apprentice to one of his brothers who was a printer. At age 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia to start a life of his own choosing, independent from his family. A few months later, he sailed to London to gain more experience in the printing business. He returned to Philadelphia in 1726 as an experienced printer, writer, and businessman. These are just some examples of how, throughout his life, Franklin sought ways to improve himself (individualism) and rise in society (social mobility). Over his 84-
year life, Franklin succeeded in making himself one of the world ’s leading authors, philosophers, scientists, inventors, and politicians.
social mobility and individualism. n the significance

of the Great Awakening.
d. Explain the significance of the Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening

Christian worship changed in the 1730s and 1740s in the northeastern colonies. Ministers said the people would feel God’s love only if they admitted their sins. The people were told that each believer should seek his or her own personal and emotional relationship with God, and that doing this was more important than the Puritan idea of congregations needing to gather together to hear intellectual sermons. Ministers preaching such sermons attracted enormous audiences and often traveled from colony to colony to preach to anyone who wanted to listen, regardless of what church he or she might belong to. Christianity grew although established churches lost members to the new way of Christian worship. Some preachers said American society had become as corrupt as the English society the colonists’ ancestors had escaped. As a result, some people started saying that America needed to cut its ties with Britain to keep its religion pure.

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