Colonial Kids

An Activity Guide to Life in the New World

By Laurie Carlson

Chicago Review Press Incorporated

Copyright © 1997 Laurie Carlson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55652-322-9

Contents

Time Line,
The People,
Sailing and Settling,
Clothes and More,
Home Sweet Home,
Dinnertime!,
Everyday Life,
Arts and Crafts,
School and Learning,
Fun and Games,
What Happened to the Colonies?,
Bibliography,
Acknowledgments,

CHAPTER 1

The People

What would you say if your parents told you they were taking you to an unknown land called the New World, where strange and unusual animals and plants lived? The trip would be made in a boat not much larger than a school bus. What if they mentioned there might be sea monsters, pirates, and, oh yes, worms in your food, during the sea voyage? And you would probably never be able to return to your homeland? Quite an adventure, wouldn't you agree?

A lot of children came to the New World and probably some of them really didn't want to. For most, though, the New World, and the opportunities that might be there were far better than where they had been living.

Look back into your own family's history — if they settled in North America before it became the nation it is today, they were colonists.

The North American colonies were settled by immigrants who came here and eventually formed their own countries — the United States of America, Canada, and Mexico.

There were people already here when the newcomers stepped off their ships. Native North Americans (North American Indians) already had built villages, even cities. They sometimes welcomed the new people, and sometimes fought them.

Native North Americans lived in villages all along the Atlantic coast when the European explorers arrived. Each Indian nation had its own territory, customs, style of dress, and language. The people hunted, fished, and planted gardens. They made things they needed out of wood, hide, bone, and shell.

Villages were usually small because too many people in one place would use up all the food. Many more people could survive in villages where gardens were planted.

Extra food was traded to other villages. People traded for items they couldn't gather or make. The Native North Americans depended on the land, the seasons, the weather, and on trading with each other for their survival.

Nations and villages sometimes fought each other over territory or trade — just like the European and Asian nations.

At the beginning of the colonial era in the New World, European explorers went everywhere they could looking for the most valuable things they knew — gold, jewels, spices, even the fountain of youth.

They were able to travel because ship building and navigation had become refined and well developed. Ship building, map making, and charting the night sky made it possible for explorers to head across the ocean, looking for great riches.

The first colonists were soldiers who, in their search for riches found rich land instead. Soldiers from one country fought soldiers from other countries to claim the most land. Kings and queens were eager to snap up the biggest piece of the New World for their country and sent explorers and soldiers to do this for them.

The colonists that came after the explorers came to stay. They built towns and raised families. They wanted to live in a country where they could have freedom and opportunity — the very things they couldn't find in Europe.

Norsemen from ancient Scandinavia, led by Leif Ericson (a sailor from Greenland) were the first Europeans to land in North America. Ericson sailed in the summer of 1001 A.D. landing in eastern Canada and later exploring it. There they discovered a new plant, one they had never seen before — grapes. The men filled their boat with timber, grapes, and vines to take back to Greenland to show evidence of their discovery. In honor of this new discovery, they called this new land Vinland.

Sagas are stories or very long poems that were spoken aloud. Sagas told about the history of a family. Norsemen wrote down the saga of Erik the Red. That's one way people today learned about the Greenland colonies.

Why not use a notebook to write your own family's history — a family saga? You can start as far back as anyone remembers, and tell the story up to today. Try to write down all the obstacles and difficulties your family faced, and how they overcame them. Keep the notebook to pass on to your own children and grandchildren.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus set out from Spain with three ships, trying to find a sea route to Asia by going west across the Atlantic Ocean. Ten weeks later he came to an island, Hispaniola, and thought he had landed in India, so he called the natives he met Indians. He soon realized that he hadn't landed in Asia, so he made four more trips, from Spain, still searching for a route. On some voyages, his crew of 150 included about fifty twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys — that was one-third of his crew!

As soon as the news about Columbus's trips spread through Europe, other kings and queens sent ships and people to claim and settle the land for their own country.

Spanish colonists settled in southern Florida and the Caribbean Islands. Dutch colonists settled in what is now New York. Swedish colonists settled in what is now Pennsylvania. French ships carried settlers to the southeastern coast and into Canada. English ships brought most of the colonists who settled in New England and Virginia.

At first, most colonists were men and boys. In October 1608 the first two women arrived at James Fort. They quickly married two male settlers. Other women came and ten years later there were almost a hundred single women coming each year. They were auctioned off to men for marriage. James Fort was later called Jamestown, as it grew from a fort into a settlement.

In the Virginia colonies, an English child could pay for ship's passage by working as an indentured servant until he or she was twenty-one years old. An indentured servant was owned by his master and could be sold, traded, or gambled away. Orphaned children worked their way to the New World in order to have a free life outside of an orphanage.

Most newcomers expected to find some sort of riches in the New World. They thought there would be a lot of gold, and some ships were sent back to England full of fool's gold — actually rocks of pyrite that sparkled like gold but they were worthless.

Every citizen in England had to belong to the Church of England, which was headed by the King. A group of people who called themselves separatists wanted to form their own church because they didn't want to belong to the Church of England. They went to the Netherlands, but weren't happy living there because their children were learning Dutch ways and forgetting their English culture. The separatists decided to journey to the New World on a ship named the Mayflower. In exchange for passage and some supplies, the future colonists agreed to send back valuable goods for the merchants to sell in England. Their ship landed a hundred miles north of the Virginia colony. They built their own colony, called Plymouth, in what is now Massachusetts.

The Mayflower was overloaded with 102 passengers, but only 44 were really pilgrims or separatists who intended to stay in the New World. The rest were called Strangers by the pilgrims because they were...