John

Colonists’ Way of Life

Introduction

Have you ever wondered what it was like to live in colonial times? It was very different from life today. Colonists had different food, homes, schools, jobs and different laws than us.

Food

Settlers ate squash, corn, potatoes, carrots and they chewed on tobacco. They ate fish, dairy and fruit. They also ate meat. For example, they ate deer, rabbit, moose and lots more. Whenever they had meat left over they put salt on it to preserve the meat. There were no stoves or ovens, so when a family wanted to cook something they cooked their food in fireplaces. It usually took a long time to cook things.

Indians helped the settlers with their food. They would come to the settlers and trade food and lots of other goods. The indians also taught settlers how to plant their crops. Usually settlers that went to a new place like Roanoke and Jamestown were not skilled farmers. The indians had to teach them.

Water

The settlers didn’t have clean water like us. Their water was dirty. All they drank was cider or alcohol. Even the children drank rum and beer. Back then, you didn't need to wait until you were 21 to drink alcohol. Settler kids were allowed to drink rum no matter how old they were.

 

Homes

Many of the homes in colonial times were called “wattle and daub” homes. They had wooden frames and the rest was filled in with sticks. The holes were filled in with a mixture of clay, mud and grass called daub. They had a thatched roof made out of dried grass. Colonists brought this method of building homes to America.                 

The inside of colonial homes was usually one room with a fireplace. The fireplace was used for cooking and to keep the house warm during the winter. The early settlers didn't have a lot of furniture. They usually had a bench to sit on, a small table, and some chests where they stored their clothes. They didn’t have the kind of beds that we have. Their beds were usually a straw mattress on the floor.

School

Schools in colonial times where only meant for boys. Girls were taught at home by their mothers. Boys learned how to do math, how to write and the alphabet. Girls learned how to sew and cook. If a boy did the wrong thing the teacher would let everybody make fun of him. Girls did not have the same kind of punishments. They would just get warnings. Boy’s way of learning and girl's way of learning were very different. Schools did not have a bunch of rooms like schools today. Schools back then where just one room.

Jobs      
Jobs today are different than jobs in colonial times. In colonial times there were not a lot of jobs where you had to think a lot. Men were stronger so they worked doing hard physical jobs, and women usually did sewing work. The kinds of jobs in colonial times were blacksmith, gunsmith, cabinetmaker, candle maker and much more!

Lots of work today is done in factories. Most of our factories are bigger than schools. In colonial times they made materials by hand in a small shed or shop.  The location of the shop or factory is very different because factories in modern times are built far away from homes because of smoke and pollution. In colonial times, they didn’t have machines like we do. The only smoke might be from a blacksmith shop. In colonial times, the shops were built right in the towns.

Laws

Laws were not fair in colonial times. For example, men could disobey women but women could not disobey men. If they did, there was a punishment. One of the punishments was called the ducking stool. As you can see in the picture, ducking stools where chairs fastened to the end of a pole used to plunge the person into a pond or river. We would never see anything like this today.

There were some other strange laws in colonial times. When a man wanted to marry a woman, he had to pay her with 120 pounds of tobacco. If you stole something as small as a silver spoon, the punishment was death! Isn't that crazy!

During the starving time in Jamestown some men would be so hungry that they would go absolutely insane and kill their wife or even their kids just for food! If someone got caught doing this, the punishment was to get hanged. There were also other punishments that we don’t have in modern times like stocks and wiping posts.

Conclusion

As you can see, colonial times are way different than now. For example, the food, water, houses, jobs, laws and schools were different. If you were the leader of a colony, what would you name it? What would your laws be? Would you change anything?