Lesson 2: Colonial Husbandry and Artisans
This lesson will take us through both Chapters two and three in Cowan's text. The lesson will take a look at both Colonial husbandry and artisanship. You may read all of both chapters or simply the pages mentioned in the sections of this lesson.
Colonial Farms
Agriculture was one of the first important forms of technology in Colonial times. There were four different types of colonial farms; the pioneer farm, the large plantation, the small “mixed” farm, and the subsistence farm:
The major colonial crops were corn, wheat, rye, oats, tobacco, rice, and indigo. There were also garden crops at this time such as potatoes, beans, cabbages, pumpkins, herbs, and onions.
The colonists were able to harvest these crops with the simplest of agricultural implements. These implements were the same ones that their pilgrim ancestors first brought to the Colonies. Many of these implements had been used in Europe since the Middle Ages.
The colonists practiced extensive agriculture. This means they preferred to clear and plow fresh land, instead of applying manure and then tilling and fallowing (using up land and leaving it seeded) the land. The plowing, planting, tending and harvesting of all colonial crops was very time consuming work, with processes that needed to be done before the crops could be consumed.
Farmers also kept domesticated animals. They had oxen and horses to help with the plowing; cows for milking, and steers and pigs for food. These animals had to be taken care of with forms of technology such as plows, milk buckets, and knives to cut up the steers and pigs and turn them into steaks and hams. There were also barrels needed for salting the meat so it would last longer, (as there was no refrigeration). Wild game had to be caught with nets, guns and traps while fish were caught with fishing poles and scoops or weirs (underwater traps which had to be attended to all the while they were in use).
In order for clothes to be worn, linen needed to be spun and woven into fabric. This was incredibly time consuming. Spinning is said to be the most tedious of all the colonial crafts, and was considered women’s work. So much so that the phrase “the distaff side” was coined to mean the female partner in a marriage. The distaff is an implement in spinning.
Weaving was also women’s work, although men did it too. Colonial looms were rectangular forms, which held together a set of threads that all ran in the same direction. The looms were very awkward. In most farm households the winter months were devoted to spinning and weaving.
The reading for this section is found in Cowan’s text on pages 28-39. If you read through the pages think about what life on a small farm would have been like during the Colonial times; try to imagine what your role would have been in sustaining a subsistence or mixed farm.
