Chapter 5 Colonial America in the Eighteenth Century

Chapter 5

COLONIAL AMERICA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

1701-1770

Document 5-1

1. What did Arthur’s confession reveal about his experiences as a slave? What kind of work did he do? With whom did he associate? How might his experiences have differed from those of young, free white man of the era?

2. Why was Arthur able to escape so often? How did his master and his employers treat him? What did they and his parents expect him to do, and why?

3. What did Arthur’s confession disclose about relations among slaves, Indians, and whites in eighteenth-century Massachusetts?

4. To what extent might this confession “prove a warning to all persons” reading it or hearing it read by others? Might they believe that it revealed more about “those of my own colour” than about free white people? In what ways did Arthur’s confession reinforce community values?

Document 5-2

1. According to Father Abraham, what temptations were likely to lead his contemporaries astray, and how could they resisted?

2. In what way were idleness, pride, and folly taxes? How would industry, frugality, and reason avoid or minimize such taxes?

3. According to Father Abraham, what were goals of disciplined behavior? Did people who did not discipline their behavior appropriately have different goals? What, for example, did they think about time, consumption, and debt?

4. After the speech, the people who heard it began “to buy extravagantly.” What does their behavior suggest about the old man’s wisdom? To what extent did Father Abraham’s advice partake of the ethos of individualism and to what extent did it criticize that ethos?

5. Many of Father Abraham’s maxims are still repeated today. Why? Do you think they are more or less important today than they were in the eighteenth century? Why?