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From the moment they woke up until they lay down exhausted at the end of each day, the behaviour expected of the colonists was governed by rigid rules and an elaborate social hierarchy.
When the New England minister John Cotton asserted that God's plan was that civilised people had 'to live in societies, first of family, secondly church and thirdly commonwealth', he was stating a truth that most 17th century folk believed.
According to these Christian pioneers, God had created a hierarchical society in which God appointed the monarch, and the male head of the household was a petty monarch. In this scheme, men had all the property rights, legal powers and political authority. Women were their subordinates.
Although one reason for people emigrating to the colonies was to create a better life in a world where old customs were often more relaxed and new opportunities more available, social norms in the colonies were as rigid as those in England.
Religion
Everyone was assumed to believe in God. The pioneers needed faith to explain a world they didn't fully understand and to give them fortitude to survive adversity, with hope for a life after death.
Christianity provided a world-view which explained why things happened, and was a way of maintaining discipline in a turbulent society. But although a refusal to believe in and worship God was severely punished, some people were beginning to have doubts, preferring new explanations based on science.
The church served as a communal meeting point and a place of news: the long sermons from the pulpit not only expounded biblical texts but also spread news of events in the wider world.
The first colonists were Protestants, and they reflected the division in English society between mainstream Christians and militant fundamentalists, known as Puritans. The mainstream Christians were comfortable in Protestant England while the Puritans were persecuted because they questioned the authority of the established church.
So the Puritans left to seek a new life in America and were called Pilgrims because they wanted to create a new society based on religion. What united ordinary Christians in the established church with Puritans was a hatred of Catholics, who they saw as evil foreigners and heretics. Only a handful of English Catholics went to America, mainly in the 1630s – sponsored by Charles I who tolerated them more than Puritans.
Anyone foolish enough to voice their doubts about the existence of God risked terrible punishments: atheists or heretics were burned at the stake. Other irreligious behaviour, such as swearing by taking the Lord's name in vain (for instance, Goddamit), or immoral acts, were also punished. In the more religious New England colonies, sexual immodesty was punished by public humiliation – and you could be fined for profanity.
Religion also influenced attitudes to the Native Americans. In the early 17th century, the Europeans considered Native Americans as inferior, not because of their skin colour, but because of their way of life. They saw them as 'savages' because of their 'primitive lifestyle'. But many Europeans thought they could be converted to Christianity and taught how to be 'civilised'.
Women
Women were subordinate to men. In the new colonies, the same laws existed as in England. Under common law, married women were not allowed to possess property, sign contracts or run their own businesses. Their menfolk owned everything, including the couple's children. Divorce was rare, and a separation would mean loss of access to the children. Only widows who did not remarry could own property.
Women had to wear modest dress, covering their hair and arms. They would be expected to bow to their husbands and fathers, and usually to obey their orders. They had no political rights, so could not vote.
But in New England women had an advantage. Puritanism regarded men and women as spiritual equals. The men might be the church leaders but women were seen as the more disciplined and moral sex. They supported each other and excluded men from the risky moment of childbirth, supporting the mother-to-be with beer as well as prayer.
Even if they had no official standing, women exercised a lot of informal influence. Few male leaders, especially religious leaders, could survive the widespread disapproval of a community's women. Women frequently appeared in court charged with slander or as plaintiffs in a variety of cases. They also played a part in policing sexual morality in the community.
Social expectations
Society was tight knit and intolerant of anyone who did not conform to the rigid social norms derived from the Bible and from accepted practice. Society was unequal and rigid and the most important fact of life was your position in the elaborate social hierarchy. The wealthy wore rich clothes and enjoyed the advantages of deference and political power. The poor had to obey the gentlemen and women on whom they depended for employment or alms.
In between the titled aristocracy and the vagabonds, came the ranks of gentlemen, free citizens, yeomen farmers and day labourers and servants. Indentured servants had no voice or power, but had to obey their 'betters' – an indenture was a legal document which set out the terms of the apprenticeship which bound these settlers to their masters in a kind of semi-slavery.
About half the settlers in the southern colonies came to America as indentured servants. Although most of them fulfilled their legal obligations, some ran away from their employers. Nevertheless, many of these were able to secure land and set up homesteads, often in neighbouring colonies. No social stigma was attached to a family that had its origins in such semi-bondage. Every colony had its share of leaders who were once indentured servants.
Ideas about sexuality were also rigid. Homosexuality was illegal and seen as 'unnatural', a prejudice supported by certain biblical verses, and in some cases, people were executed for such 'unnatural acts' as anal sex.
Punishment
Punishments could be draconian. Women found guilty of immodest dress could be stripped to waist, tied to a cart and whipped until their backs were bloody. Public humiliations in a small community could involve having to wear a large red letter, for example A for Adultery, on your clothing, or being made to stand up and confess your sins in public in front of the whole church congregation.
Although many of the early settlers believed in various kinds of sympathetic magic, including lucky charms, herbal remedies for illnesses and harmless superstitions, they sometimes became vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft, which carried the death penalty.
In Salem, a New England village, there was a witch craze, a kind of hysteria that swept through the Puritan community. From June to September 1692, 19 men and women were convicted of witchcraft and hanged on Gallows Hill. Another 80-year-old man was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations; dozens languished in jail for months without trial.
Various reasons have been given for this outbreak of witch hunting – from the insecurity of the community to the fact that children were affected by fits that 17th-century medicine could not cure. Whatever the reason, the episode is a reminder that pioneer life was precarious in many ways.
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