Notes from Tuesday, September 19

Ok, so today in class we discussed the economies of the colonies.
South:
-major land owners had money and slaves (indentured servants were not used as much)
-chain of wealth: wealthy land owners, small plantations with a few slaves, small farmers with no slaves, and then slaves.
-whites without land usually worked on other people's land
-artisans of this time were part time so they could tend to crops/other duties
-depending on location in the south, the slaves were trained in skills

Middle Colonies:
-produced a lot of the same goods as Europe
-had a lot of grain to export to different colonies, Europe
-the population was more diverse than other colonies
-Irish, Germans, and Scots-Irish came and settled mostly in the country, mountains
-primary job was cattle raising

New England:
-had a large class of rising merchants
-depended on ship building and lumbering (to export) for jobs
-around 1720, the isolation from the other colonies made New England susceptible to diseases
-used the triangular trade to get products, slaves (look up in text book, I zoned out for that part of class)

Gang System vs. Task System (Slave techniques)

Gang System: had a supervisor making sure that the slaves were doing there work, hours of work were from dawn to dusk, they had little free time, mostly practiced in MD and VA, slave families are encouraged because more slaves=more work, the slaves under this influence are more likely to be artisans because they have skilled supervisors who can teach them.

Task System: owner assigns the workload for the day and when the slaves are done with the work, he lets them have the rest of the day to themselves, less supervision, used in the Carolina's.

*Liz Ziek*