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76 PERIOD 2 Colonial America amid Global Change: 1607–1754

Daily Life in the Colonies
These sample pages are distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
In the first decades of settlement in the Chesapeake, the scarcity of women and workers
enabled many white women to improve their economic and legal status. Maintaining a
farm required the hard work of both women and men, which made marriage an eco-
nomic as well as a social and religious institution. Where women were in especially short
Copyright (c) 2024 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
supply and mortality was high, young women who arrived as indentured servants and
completed their term might marry older men of property. If their husbands died first,
Strictly for use with its products. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.
widows often took control of the estate and passed on the property to their children.
By the late seventeenth century, however, as the sex ratio in the Chesapeake evened
out, women lost the opportunity to marry “above their class” and widows lost control
of family estates. Even though women still performed vital labor, the spread of inden-
tured servitude and slavery lessened the recognition of their contributions. As a result,
most white women in the colonies were assigned mainly domestic roles during this time
period. They also found their legal and economic rights restricted in ways that mirrored
those of their female counterparts in Great Britain.
The divisions between rich and poor, created and sustained by the Chesapeake and
northern Carolina colonies’ economic reliance on the cash crop of tobacco, became much
more pronounced in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Tobacco was the most
valuable product in the region, and the largest tobacco plantation owners lived in relative

MAP 2.3 Ethnic and Racial ABENAKI
Diversity in British North MAINE
America, 1750 In 1700, the Q UEBEC VT. (MASS.)
English dominated most (part of N.H.
N.Y.)
regions, while the Dutch L. Huron N.Y.
controlled towns and estates MOHAWK
in the Hudson River valley. L. Ontario ONEIDA
SENECA
ONONDAGA
By 1750, however, growing TUSCARORA MASS.
numbers of Africans and CAYUGA CONN. R.I.
African Americans, Germans, L. Erie
Scots-Irish immigrants, and PA. LENNI-LENAPE
smaller communities of other MINGO DELAWARE
ethnic groups predominated SHAWNEE N.J. N
in various regions. W E
What accounts for the MD. DEL.
presence of these diverse S
populations in British North
America? VA.
AT L ANTI C
O CEAN

CHEROKEE
N.C.

S.C.
0 100 200 miles
0 100 200 kilometers
CREEK
GA.
Predominant Ethnic Group
African German
Dutch Scots-Irish
English Scots
FLORIDA and Welsh Swedish

HEW_9462_03_M03 Ethnic and Racial Diversity in British North America
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