The_English_First_Came_to_America

Thomas Malone Burns, 2B 9-25-10 Did the colonist preserve an English way of life or create an entirely new and different culture' There are several things that prove they created new culture, but that doesn’t mean they always wanted to create a new culture. When the English first came to America it was groups of “unruly gallants packed thither by their friends to escape ill destines… condemned wretches, forfeited by law by law... strumpets and bawds, for the abomination of life spewed out of their country… poor gentlemen, broken tradesmen, rakes and libertines, footmen and such others fitter to spoil or ruin a commonwealth than to help raise and maintain one (pg1).” Some went as part of their sentence and some because they needed to start a new life, but they all had the energy, strength, and courage to go on this journey. The largest group though was the “middle and lower-middle classes—farmers, shopkeepers, artisans, and, yes, lively, saucy young women in search of husbands (pg2).” This is the Europeans were before the headed over to the new world. There were more economical changes in the colonist’s culture. One, the ideas for women slightly changed. They not only did the normal womanly chore but also had to work in the fields. Also if she was bright enough, “she became mare than a helpmeet, as were English wives; she became a partner, sharing in her husband’s efforts to scrabble a living from the wilderness (pg64).” And if she survived and outlived her husband to the age of forty-five she would be able to remarry and have a better choice of who she wanted, because, “Into the marriage she brought property and possibly children who could work the land. She also brought the experience of a previous partnership and an authority that her English counterparts had never shared. (pg65)” Women with experience also had a strong voice within the family.