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Colonial Society in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

A. Social structure

1. Family

2. Farm and town life; the economy

Resources:

Slave Resistance
Resource Type: Primary Source
A newspaper advertisement offering a reward for the return of a runaway slave (Virginia Gazette, February 15, 1770).

Systems of Slavery: The North
Resource Type: Primary Source
The Newport Historical Society cannot determine whether the black child depicted in this portrait of the Potter family in Rhode Island is free or slave. The adult male figure here may be the John Potter who manumitted his slaves after becoming a Quaker. The British influence on the fashion and tastes of American colonial elites is conveyed through dress (c.1740-70).

Systems of Slavery: The South
Resource Type: Primary Source
The labor-intensive process of rice cultivation on a plantation near Savannah, Georgia (1867).

Systems of Slavery: The South
Resource Type: Primary Source
Charleston, with its intense maritime activities and fine urban architecture (1737–39).

Systems of Slavery: The North
Resource Type: Primary Source
Slave market in the port city of New York (1730). Slavery figured in the economy of the Northern colonies though it was not central to it.

The American Revolution: Black Intellectuals
Resource Type: Primary Source
Phillis Wheatley (1753-84) is the first black woman whose poetry is published in the United States and Great Britain.

African American Cultures
Resource Type: Primary Source
The Old Plantation. Painting by an unknown artist (c. 1800). A spirited gathering of African Americans dancing to and playing music.

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