What did colonists do on Sundays?

Inhabitants of the middle and southern colonies went to churches whose style and decoration look more familiar to modern Americans than the plain New England meeting houses. They, too, would sit in church for most of the day on Sunday.

What did colonists do in their free time?

Colonial life was filled with work, but it wasn't always hard or boring. Early Americans knew how to turn work into fun by singing or telling stories, having contests, or working together in spinning or quilting bees. Some liked to dance to fiddle and fife music.

What chores did colonists do?

Women were expected to run the homes and raise the children. Children had a lot of chores to do to help their families survive. Boys would chop wood, feed animals, and hunt. Girls would grind corn, spin, and weave.

What did people do in colonial times?

The colonists developed an economy based on farming, commerce, and crafts. Farm families produced most of what they needed for themselves. In the villages and cities, many trades and crafts developed.

What was daily life like in the colony?

For the majority of colonists, daily life consisted of supporting the profession the family was centered around. Nearly all rural communities were supported by farming while the larger, more concentrated port cities were hubs for mercantile businesses and artisan trades.

Why did the Colonies Declare Independence?

What was the daily life of a woman in the 13 colonies?

Most colonial women were homemakers who cooked meals, made clothing, and doctored their family as well as cleaned, made household goods to use and sell, took care of their animals, maintained a cook fire and tended the kitchen gardens.

What did people do for fun in the middle colonies?

In the middle colonies the Dutch Calvinist and Quaker influences initially put a damper on exuberant play, but later people enjoyed whist, croquet, tennis, lawn bowling, and badminton, even a rudimentary game played with "gouff sticks." In both New England and the middle colonies, taverns served as a center for ...

What did colonial kids do for fun?

Children in colonial times enjoyed many of the same outdoor running games children still play today, like tag, leapfrog, and hide and seek. These games are wonderful because they don't require any special equipment, just a group of children and room to run! Quoits is what we know today as ring toss or horseshoes.

What activities for colonial day?

PLAY colonial games like marbles, hopscotch, spelling bees, sack races, tug-of-war, jackstraws (pick-up sticks), whirligig, and ninepins. You can also construct hoop and stick games or graces.

What did colonists eat?

Colonial cooks fried, roasted, baked, and boiled. They used many of the same foodstuffs found in today's groceries: beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, vegetables, and baked goods. Then as now, coffee, tea, and chocolate were popular beverages. Beyond these common roots, though, little was the same as it is today.

What did colonist sleep on?

Early Americans slept on wooden bedsteads with rope or leather sacking, topped with mattresses of corn husks or horsehair, plus featherbeds, bolsters, and pillows. Betsy Ross made beds as well as flags, and some Native American tribes used wooden bedsteads too.

How did colonists earn money?

The colonial economy depended on international trade. American ships carried products such as lumber, tobacco, rice, and dried fish to Britain. In turn, the mother country sent textiles, and manufactured goods back to America.

Did the colonists have money?

The early settlers brought coins from Europe but they went quickly back there to pay for supplies. Without enough money, the colonists had to barter for goods or use primitive currency such as Indian wampum, nails, and tobacco.

What did the colonists not want?

By the 1770s, many colonists were angry because they did not have self-government. This meant that they could not govern themselves and make their own laws. They had to pay high taxes to the king. They felt that they were paying taxes to a government where they had no representation.

What did the colonists lack?

Early American colonists may not have had electricity, plumbing or cars, but they found ways to make daily life easier with these objects. It should come as no surprise that people living in the original 13 colonies lived harder lives than contemporary Americans, without the benefit of modern conveniences.

Why was New York a bad colony?

Because New York was the most vulnerable of England's colonies, it was the most oppressed with expenditures for defense, and it hosted a body of English regulars throughout most of its existence.

What sports did colonial kids play?

What was school like in colonial days?

Older children were educated at home or in a local schoolhouse and were taught to read the Bible. New England colonists were Puritans, and their education centered around religious life. In the Middle Colonies, children could be taught at home or in a schoolhouse with other children from the same religion.

What is a colonial day?

Colonial Day A day where students step back to the 1750s and put their studies into action by participating in hands-on experien.

What board games did colonists play?

Colonial kids typically played board games, puzzles, and cards. Some of these included chess, checkers, and backgammon. Wealthier families had wooden tables in their homes with boards carved into the tops of them. These games were popular among adults as well.

What would colonists do if they were sick?

Most sick people turned to local healers, and used folk remedies. Others relied upon the minister-physicians, barber-surgeons, apothecaries, midwives, and ministers; a few used colonial physicians trained either in Britain, or an apprenticeship in the colonies.

How often did English colonists take baths?

So a good, soaking bath was a luxury of only the well served, and few of them tackled the job more than a couple of times a year. Everyone knew that too much bathing would destroy your natural oils and leave you wide open to the ravages of various diseases.

What games did Puritans play?

Card games provide a particularly instructive insight into Puritan beliefs about fun. Games such as whist and cribbage were popular because they required skill and intelligence and did not encourage gambling; they were instructive as well as entertaining.

What did Massachusetts colony do for fun?

The Plymouth colony people carried out sports, played games, and danced in harvest and wedding celebrations for fun. Also, the children played with toys like marbles, tops, stilts, hoops, and pinwheels.

What did men do for fun in colonial times?

In taverns, colonists could enjoy a range of games, including whist, backgammon, chess, checkers (one of Samuel Sewall's favorites), dice, dominoes, cribbage, lotto, billiards, and piquet.