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"Everyday Life in Early America"


Jib

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Just finished "Everyday Life in Early America" by David Freeman Hawke. Covered some interesting things I never new about colonial life. I never knew that the main farming technique was to cut a ring around a tree to kill it, thus the following year it will produce no leaves and create no canopy allowing light to reach the floor. Planting was then done around the dead tree. Little effort was made to remove the trees since the task was labor intensive and oxen a rare beast. The book also describes the labor that went into the creation of a saw mill and later a grist mill. Well written and an easy read.

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One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was the section that discussed regional speech. I grew up just outside New York City and spent many years working in the field of Colonial History, but I had never imagined an African-American New Yorker with a strong Dutch accent. When asked if New York was nearby, the young woman in question replied "Ja, dat are Yarkee." Melting pot indeed!

Red Sea Trade

In days of old when ships were bold just like the men that sailed 'em,

and if they showed us disrespect we tied 'em up and flailed 'em,

often men of low degree and often men of steel,

they'd make you walk the plank alone or haul you 'round the keel.

--Adam and the Ants

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I liked that part too! The ways of speech often attached to African Americans came from learning English from Indentured Servants was very interesting!

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I've never read it, but it sounds very interesting. It's going on the list.

Also worth a read, though perhaps a little dated these days, is G.F. Dow's Everyday Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Foxe

"With this Fore-Staff he fansies he does Wonders, when, God knows, it amounts to no more but only to solve that simple Question, Where are we? Which every chi'd in London can tell you." - Ned Ward The Wooden World Dissected, 1707


ETFox.co.uk

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Jib -

Book sounds interesting, I ordered it through the south american river company yesterday. :rolleyes:

Jas. Hook

"Born on an island, live on an island... the sea has always been in my blood." Jas. Hook

"You can't direct the wind . . . but . . . you can adjust the sails."

"Don't eat the chickens with writing on their beaks." Governor Sawney

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just finished "Everyday Life in Early America" by David Freeman Hawke. Covered some interesting things I never new about colonial life. I never knew that the main farming technique was to cut a ring around a tree to kill it, thus the following year it will produce no leaves and create no canopy allowing light to reach the floor. Planting was then done around the dead tree. Little effort was made to remove the trees since the task was labor intensive and oxen a rare beast. The book also describes the labor that went into the creation of a saw mill and later a grist mill. Well written and an easy read.

Or to start an orchard on the site of an abandon privy. :wacko::D

A lot of insight into the lives of the early settlers... it is a wonder that they were successful at all.

Edited by Jas. Hook

"Born on an island, live on an island... the sea has always been in my blood." Jas. Hook

"You can't direct the wind . . . but . . . you can adjust the sails."

"Don't eat the chickens with writing on their beaks." Governor Sawney

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