Assignment: The Cost of Expansion

Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

Textbook: Chapter 3, 4
Lesson
Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook)

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Initial Post Instructions
For the initial post, pick two (2) of the following settlements:

Southern colonies
Chesapeake colonies
Middle colonies
New England colonies

Then, address the following for your selections:

Compare and contrast the settlement patterns.
What forces and ideas shaped their origin?
Examine the influence of religion for those settlements (e.g., Puritanism, Quakers, and the Anglican Church).

Professor’s post: Welcome to this first discussion board, which opens Monday, Sept. 2. I’m looking forward to our conversation through this term.

“Writing in 1782, J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur tried to define “the American, this new man.” He was, Crevecoeur argued, “neither a European nor a descendant of a European” but an “American, who, leaving behind all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.” Crevecoeur presumed that America was a melting pot, that the environment created a homogeneous American culture, with similar values, beliefs, and social practices” (Kulikoff, 1991, p. 197).

I hope you enjoy interacting with the unique history of two of these sections of the colonies. We have our ways of defining the sections of our country today, like South or Northeast, or West or mid-West, etc. These were the general ways they referred to the areas that comprised the British colonies.

While there are general reasons people came to the colonies from Europe, there were more particular reasons for each section they desired to emigrate to, as you’ll see.

Remember to interact with the text and lesson in your responses, as well as any other authoritative sources. By ‘authoritative’, I mean sources written by experts in the discipline.

And just to review the discussion board requirements:

Post a minimum of 3 substantive posts in each graded discussion: 1 initial post and 2 follow-up posts.

These 3 posts must be on 2 separate days Monday through Sunday.

The initial post in each graded discussion must be completed by Wednesday, 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time (MT).

Thanks very much!

Reference

Kulikoff, A. (1991). Colonial culture. In The Reader’s companion to American history (pp. 197-201). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Professor’s comment: We know that many of the colonist came over in a state of being indentured servants. A curious practice. For a period of years, perhaps three to seven, another could own your labor. Today, we have internships and apprenticeships, some paid, some not, but these are set up to be win-win relationships. Well, the indentured servant did earn something: his passage over, and he was given some room and board for that time.

By the way, this was not only men. Women and even children could enter a contract to serve a term of four to seven years in return for passage from Europe to the British Colonies, then room and board. During this contract, a servant could not enter a marriage, unless allowed by the owner. At the end of the contract, the owner paid “freedom dues,” which was usually some food, tools and clothes. Sometimes the servant would be given a plot of land, as part of the contract. They could not leave you with nothing (Indentured Servants, 2015).

These binding contracts could be inherited or sold! So an indentured servant might go from a nice overseer to a terrible one, which he/she had never anticipated. If a servant ran away and was caught, increased time would be added to the contract as punishment (Indentured Servants, 2015).

So it seems that selling oneself into indentured service involved some risk. Persons would not logically pursue this path unless their present circumstances were pretty awful, one would assume.

Reference

Indentured servants. (2015). Stratford Hall. Retrieved from https://www.stratfordhall.org/educational-resources/teacher-resources/indentured-servants/

*Required textbook: OpenStax. (2019). U.S. history. OpenStax CNX. Retrieved from https://cnx.org/contents/p7ovuIkl@6.18:gMXC1GEM@7/IntroductionLinks to an external site.