How The 1700s Changed North American Society

The United States has dealt with so much in its early years. Various momentous occurrences by the 1700s changed the country forever. The English North American colonies experienced financial, governmental, religious, and civil diversity during this time. These dilemmas have constructed the country we know today as the United States.

Between the 1600s and the 1700s religion had an authoritative position in every English colony. Religion was rigorously imposed into both the colony governments and the local towns rules. Laws had assigned everyone to present themselves at a house of worship and pay for taxes that had provided money for the ministers. Those ministers were not allowed to hold office, meaning they could not pick their spiritual

views over the governmental issues. Most of the English colonies had settled upon one specific kind of religion, Christianity.

Even though most colonists viewed themselves as Christians, it didn’t mean they lived in a culture of religious solidarity. In Europe, Catholic and Protestant countries regularly abused or prohibited each other's religions, and English colonists often kept up limitations against Catholics. In Great Britain, the Protestant Anglican church had separated into hostile sections of classic Anglicans and improved Puritans, which had caused a war in the 1600s. Back in the British colonies, the acrimony between the two groups had still lingered. By the 1680s, the population of the English colonies started to grow, bringing newcomers who were apathetic to the Puritan movement. These newcomers included Quakers, Methodists, Dissenters, and Unitarians. In societies where there was a dominant faith, these newcomers had brought a disloyalty, which agitated the social order. Later, it seemed to be more ideal to stay away from political democracy, rather than being a part of it. Regardless of the efforts from the Puritans, society realized they are no longer in control, which made the power shift from the Puritans to the newcomers.

The lawmaking body became twisted up and frequently decreasing due to the low amount of population within the church. Church individuals turned out to be progressively advantaged members in Puritan democracy. Christianity was eventually replaced with astrology, witchcraft, and science. The age of the Puritans only lasted twenty years.
New England, during this time, was settled largely by farmers. In the course of time, Puritans and the rich communities helped with the agriculture of New England. New England eventually started to fixate over the idea of trading. The Puritan economy depended on the production of farmsteads, who only traded for possessions they could not manufacture themselves. New England’s economy was rising and that meant it was time to focus on another issue for the region. Communities started focusing on improved foundations, such as roads, inns, and bridges. They even built a constitutional system that was useful to businesses by solving issues, carrying out contracts, and defending property rights. With fishing, cultivation, ship-building, and deforestation, New England became the focal point of trading between the south colonies and Europe.
There were three different classes in New England by the 1700s: the poor, the middle class, and the rich.

In bucolic areas, almost every person produced crops. Budgetary status was resolved by how much land was owned and how good that land was. Workers were at the bottom of the social class, aiding at the docks by unloading shipments usually filled with wheat or corn. Most of these workers were African Americans who were either free or coerced. England’s lower class was attracted to the thought of work because it would provide them with home and food. These workers in the lower class were called indentured servants. Since farmers and merchants often needed aid to meet the demands of the region, many people decided to be involved in a contract that would make them work for those farmers and merchants. Once the contract was fulfilled, the servants were “free” and most eventually become merchants and farmers themselves. In the middle class were the farmers. Families of the middle class often increased production by trading goods or labor with each other. Government officials provided blotches of land for white men who were not indentured servants to support themselves and their families. Located in the high class of New England colonies were the politicians and merchants. The politicians were known for handing out land to the men who weren’t immorally confined in order to become self-sufficient. Numerous New Englanders participated in an advanced arrangement of exchange which

they sent out items toward the West Indies, and were traded for molasses, sugar, or gold. The gold would be shipped out to England, in exchange for goods, which would be sold with the sugar and molasses once they were converted into granulated sugar and rum to farmers. Additional dealers would take the benefit of fishing and ship the fish that were caught to the West Indies and Europe. Many merchants also took advantage of logging by funding sawmills that provided wood for men to build their homes or ships. The last of the high class of merchants built ships, which they would go and sell to American and British dealers. These actions of the three classes working together, creates a region that became incredibly wealthy and depended to other countries.

New England has gone through thick and thin, with its religion dominating the colonies and then drastically losing its power, to be the wealthiest region around due to the production of ships, goods, and tools. New England’s economic, social differences, political, and religious methods had shaped the region to what we now know today.