Mrs. Scherer
AP US History- Period 6
September 11th, 2014
Unit #1/A.S #4
Chapter 4: American Life in the Seventeenth Century
The Unhealthy Chesapeake
Life in the American wilderness was brutal for the earliest Chesapeake settlers.
Diseases such as Malaria, dysentery, and typhoid took 10 years of the life expectancy of the newcomers from England.
Half the people born in early Virginia and Maryland did not survive twenty years.
Due to disease, women were so scarce in numbers that men fought over them.
There was a 6:1 male to female ratio.
Many women were already pregnant before marriage.
It was extremely unlikely that a child grew up with two parents, or knew a grandparent.
After the peoples built up their immune systems, …show more content…
These desires rattled the established planters.
There was a lot of disaster and unhappiness as a result. The governor William Berkeley showcased this.
As misery in Virginia increased, nearly a thousand Virginians broke out of control in 1676, which were lead by Nathaniel Bacon.
The rebels mainly consisted of people who were forced into the untamed backcountry in search of land.
They resented Berkeley’s friendly politics regarding the Indians and their fur trade.
Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of brutal Indian attacks, Bacon and his followers took action.
They murderously attacked Indian settlements and chased Berkeley from Jamestown, leading to mass chaos.
In the middle of the civil war that was going on, Bacon suddenly died of disease.
The event became known as Bacon’s rebellion.
Colonial Slavery
African slaves were continuously being transported to the New World, but the amount since Columbus discovered the land decreased.
400,000 of a total of 10 million African slaves were brought over to the United States.
White people who could not afford living also became slaves. At the time the white slaves outnumbered the black.
In the 1680s there was a sudden change in the types of …show more content…
A new form of sermon was taken on, known as “jeremiad.”
In jeremiads, earnest preachers scolded parishioners for their waning piety in hope to improve faith.
Troubled ministers in 1662 announced a new formula for church membership known as the Hal-Way Covenant.
It is the agreement between the church and its adherents to admit to baptism, but not full communion, the unconverted children of existing members.
It weakened the distinction between the elect and others, further diluting the spiritual purity of the original settlers.
In effect, strict religious purity was sacrificed somewhat to the cause of wider religious participation (more and more women).
Women played a prominent role in one of New England’s most frightening religious episodes that took place in Salem, Massachusetts.
A group of adolescent girls claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women.
Thus creating a “witch hunt,” leading to lynching becoming legal.
What followed was a witch-hunt that led to the executions of 20 people (19 of which were hanged, 1 pressed to death) and two