Religion

While Massachusetts was founded by strict Puritans seeking reform from the Church, the level of piety had notably decreased by the turn of the 18th century. By 1730 church membership had diminished and in most congregations only a minority of townspeople, mostly men, were members. "Sexual morality, one indicator of piety in practice, had become so relaxed that the parents of children born within seven months of marriage were frequently treated as if they had not engaged in fornication." By 1740, when English evangelist George Whitefield visited Massachusetts, a revival was at hand. " Whitefield preached for a month at Boston, converting hundreds of people, sailors, slaves, and apprentices as well as merchants and manufacturers." The work of Whitefield and other evangelists were a product of what would be known as the Great Awakening. All of a sudden: "loose women, impudent boys, and hardened sinners felt themselves filled by the workings of the Lord's spirit." This reawakening of faith was welcomed by some, but not all colonists in Massachusetts.

This 'awakening' brought with it a new style of evangelical preaching must less stringent and traditional than Puritan customs. "This assault on the time honored plain style of Puritan preaching aroused defensive reactions from clergymen who neither knew nor wanted any other way" The Great Awakening in the end "divided the people of Massachusetts into two camps, those who saw the new light, and those who, unmoved, continued to worship under the guidance of the old light." By the mid 1740's the Great Awakening left Massachusetts society more divided than ever before.

References:

Brown, Richard D. and Jack Tager. Massachusetts: A Concise History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.

Frontiers

As the 18th century began Massachusetts began to a period period of economic growth. This growth led colonists in to the Connecticut valley and western Massachusetts. Land in New England was scarce and colonists looked westward to the virgin forests and pasture lands of western Massachusetts. Colonist set up large farms in the western regions of Massachusetts. Unlike the eastern Massachusetts, the frontier regions of western Massachusetts offered ample land to farm and raise livestock. many of these farms were large enough to require a source of labor that exhausted the available indentures and led the use of slave labor. Since the early colonial period, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had hoped to control and protect colonists that braved the wilderness and settled on Massachusetts' frontier. "In 1690, a committee of the General Court of Massachusetts recommended the Court to order what shall be the frontier and to maintain a committee to settle garrisons on the frontier with forty soldiers to each frontier town as a main guard." Frontier settlers on the outskirts of Puritan civilization took up the task of bearing the brunt of attack and pushing forward the line of advance which year after year carried American settlements into the wilderness. Settlers in Western Massachusetts came into conflict with Iroquois Indians and others as their western migration progressed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

References:

Brown, Richard D. and Jack Tager. Massachusetts: A Concise History. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.

18th Century Economic Expansion

Economic Expansion in

18th Century Massachusetts

While the Southern economies began to expand into an agrarian society of plantations, slavery and large scale commercial production, the northern colonies developed and expanded in a different way. The lack of ample land, unlike the South, drove the economies of Massachusetts in a unique direction. The farming that had been a foundation of 17th century economy of Massachusetts continued. Small farms produced wheat and corn and in the 18th century farm production of cider from apple orchard began to expand because of the ideal conditions and climate. In the 18th century, residents of Massachusetts began to expand and settle in the Connecticut valley and western Massachusetts because of more access to land and the ability for larger scale commercial agriculture. Though indentures still comprised the majority of the labor force in 18th century Massachusetts, slave labor was used in the Connecticut valley and in Western Massachusetts as the growth of larger scale agriculture increased.

As it had in earlier centuries, animal husbandry for the production of milk from cows and the slaughter of hogs and steer remained a staple of New England's economy. Fishing remained a core element of the economy and the expansion of whaling in Cape Cod and Nantucket saw an explosion of growth in coastal town and seaports. New Englanders also began to build mills along rivers and streams to process grains, lumber and wool produced in the region. International trade also flourished and expanded in the 18th century. Ships carried timber and salt fish to the Caribbean and returned with molasses and sugar. Rum, distilled in Medford and Newburyport, was carried to West Africa along with cloth and simple utensils to be traded for slaves who were, in turn, carried to the Caribbean Islands and South America. These routes came to be known as the "Triangular Trade."

References

Butler, John. Becoming America:The Revolution Before 1776. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).