Children in colonial America
James Alan Marten (Editor), Philip J. Greven
From the Publisher: The Pilgrims and Puritans did not arrive on the shores of New England alone. Nor did African men and women, brought to the Americas as slaves. Though it would be hard to tell from the historical record, European colonists and African slaves had children, as did the indigenous families whom they encountered, and those children's life experiences enrich and complicate our understanding of colonial America. Through essays, primary documents, and contemporary illustrations, Children in Colonial America examines the unique aspects of childhood in the American colonies between the late sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. The twelve original essays observe a diverse cross-section of children-from indigenous peoples of the east coast and Mexico to Dutch-born children of the Plymouth colony and African-born offspring of slaves in the Caribbean-and explore themes including parenting and childrearing practices, children's health and education, sibling relations, child abuse, mental health, gender, play, and rites of passage. Taken together, the essays and documents in Children in Colonial America shed light on the ways in which the process of colonization shaped childhood, and in turn how the experience of children affected life in colonial America
History
xiii, 253 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780814757154, 9780814757161, 0814757154, 0814757162
70219755
Pt. 1: Race and colonization
Indian children in early Mexico / Dorothy Tanck de Estrada
Colonizing childhood: religion, gender, and Indian children in southern New England, 1600-1720 / R. Todd Romero
Imperial ideas, colonial realities: enslaved children in Jamaica, 1775-1834 / Audra Abee Diptee
Documents: "The younger sort reverence the elder": a pilgrim describes Indian childrearing
"I have often been overcome while thinking on it": a slave boy's life
Pt. 2: Family and society
Sibling relations in early American childhoods: a cross-cultural analysis / C. Dallett Hemphill
"I shall beat you, so that the Devil shall laugh at it": children, violence, and the courts in New Amsterdam / Mariah Adin
"Improved" and "very promising children": growing up rich in eighteenth-century South Carolina / Darcy Fryer
Documents: "A dutiful and affectionate daughter": Eliza Lucas of South Carolina
"A most agreeable family": Philip Vickers Fithian meets the Carters
Pt. 3: Cares and tribulations
"Decrepit in their early youth": English children in Holland and Plymouth Plantation / John J. Navin
Idiocy and the construction of competence in Colonial Massachusetts / Parnel Wickham
"My constant attension on my sick child": the fragility of family life in the world of Elizabeth Drinker / Helena M. Wall
Documents: "I had eight birds hatcht in one nest": Anne Bradstreet writes about parenthood
Pt. 4: Becoming Americans
From German Catholic girls to colonial American women: girlhood in the French Gulf south and the British mid-Atlantic colonies / Lauren Ann Kattner
"Let both sexes be carefully instructed": educating youth in colonial Philadelphia / Keith Pacholl
From saucy boys to Sons of Liberty: politicizing youth in pre-Revolutionary Boston / John L. Bell
Documents: "Though I was often beaten for my play": the autobiography of John Barnard
"A bookish inclination": Benjamin Franklin grows up
In search of the historical child: questions for consideration