Pre Colonial America

As the number of indentured servants, and later slaves, increased in pre-revolution era America, elements of a new American way of life began to materialize. Among these were a dislike of doing our own work, and the mistreatment of people that were believed to be of a lower class. Although these ideals mostly began to disappear over time, they were a core part of the American culture for centuries. Over the course of about 150 years, the number of Africans being imported to the Americas rose from 500 to a quarter of a million. A very scarce few of these slaves were eventually released, therefore “the assumption slowly spread that blacks would remain in service permanently.” Americans were so used to having other people do their work and mistreating

This paved the way to a religious melting pot throughout the colonies, and along with it, more frequent persecution of religions in places that were not very tolerant. Despite England declaring the Church of England as the official colonial religion, most people completely disregarded it and followed whatever denomination they wanted. Unfortunately, some peoples’ views were not respected; Roman Catholics faced discrimination, especially in Maryland, where they were disallowed political rights and the right to practice their religion openly. Another religion that faced persecution was Judaism. Although the total number of Jews in America was never more than 2,000, they could only openly practice in Rhode Island; not even the Quakers in Pennsylvania were accepting of them. In the early 1700s, secularism was growing, but the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 40s completely turned the colonies around. In the 1730s, John and Charles Wesley visited Georgia and, with the help of George Whitefield, made evangelizing tours through the colonies and sparked a revival of religion in many people, particularly women and younger boys who faced uncertain futures because of their status in their

It expanded the use of technology and science and has continued to evolve over time and help shape the entire modern world in medicine, biology, nature, and more. The Enlightenment encouraged men and women to turn to themselves for guidance, as opposed to God. In the beginning, most Enlightenment ideas were borrowed from England, but Americans like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson made their own contributions. In 1647, a Massachusetts law stated that every town was required to have a public school, although a lot of towns failed to do so. Even though the vast majority of people only received an elementary education, more than half of all of the white men in the colonies could read and write by the time of the Revolution. Women’s literacy rates were way behind the men’s until the 1800s, but most children still didn’t go to school past elementary school. Unsurprisingly, practically no slaves had any education whatsoever, aside from the occasional slave owner teaching their slave children to read and write. In 1636, Harvard, the first American college, was established, and more followed. By 1763, there were six colleges in operation in the colonies, with four of them specifically founded for the training of preachers. Even though most of these