Life in the Colonies - Section 5, Ch. 4 - Southern Colonies

Review of material from pp. 125-130 about the colonies in Ch. 4 of Prentice Hall's The American Nation - Beginnings through 1877 (Grade 6 social studies)

SETTING THE SCENE: During the 1700s, England's 13 colonies became societies with their own ideas and traditions. On a warm day in May of the 1750s, a parade made its way down a street in Rhode Island. Many Africans came for the holiday called Negro Election Day. They dressed in their fine clothes. All Africans, slaves and free men alike, sang and marched. There were many different African languages mixed with broken English and the sound of the fiddle, tambourine, banjo and drum. Negro Election Day was a real American custom with traditions that came from Africa and England. Old customs and ideas were changing and being shaped into a new American culture in the colonies that was very different from British culture in England.