American History: A Survey (Brinkley), 13th Edition

Chapter 3: SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN PROVINCIAL AMERICA

Main themes of Chapter Three:

• The growth and diversification of the colonial population



• The expansion and diversification of the colonial economy to meet the needs of this rapidly growing population



• The rise of slavery as the labor system of choice in British North America



• The development of multiple religious communities and religious tolerance in the colonies



• The social and political life of English colonists in the various colonies



• The emergence of a particularly American "mind and spirit" in literature, philosophy, science, education, and law

• The sources of colonial labor, including indentured servants, women, and imported Africans



• The reasons behind the gradual shift from indentured servitude to African slavery



• How patterns of birth and death influenced and reflected cultural development in the colonies



• The nature of colonial medicine and its impact on women of the seventeenth century



• The social and familial roles of women in both the Chesapeake and New England



• The historical dispute over the origins of slavery



• The origins and social contours of slavery and racial discrimination in English America



• The changing sources of European immigration throughout the seventeenth century



• The ways in which factors of soil and climate determined the commercial and agricultural development of the colonies, despite crown attempts to influence production



• The importance, extent, and early limits of technology in the colonial economic system



• The beginnings of colonial commerce and consumerism, and the early attempts at regulation by Parliament



• The emergence of the plantation system, and its impact on Southern society



• The New England witchcraft episode as a reflection of Puritan society



• The rise and importance of cities in the colonial system



• The reasons for the appearance of a variety of religious sects in the colonies, and the effect of the Great Awakening on the colonists



• The ways in which colonial literature, education, science, law, and justice began to diverge from their English antecedents