Household Size and Composition in the British Colonies in America, 1675-1775

Abstract

Household Size and Composition in the British Colonies in America, 1675-1775 Between 1607 and 1776, the British empire in America underwent striking growth and diversification. Fron the first primitive settlement at Jamestown, the empire expanded until, by the time of the American Revolution, it encompassed over thirty colonies stretching from Newfoundland in the north to Barbados and Tobago in the south. Although almost three million persons living in these colonies by 1775 shared similar forms of government, different environments, economies, and societies produced important variations in the style of life from one colony to another.I Virtually all historians of the period would recognize as valid such sectional divisions as Canada, New England, the Middle Colonies, the South, and the West Indies. Indeed, some might argue that important social and economic differences existed within each of these regions.2 Clearly, the English possessed a complex assortment of colonies by I775. In view of this fact, it is of considerable interest to study the composition of families and households in the colonies. Did family size and household structure change as the colonial population grew out of its frontier stage ? Were there regional variations which set families in New England apart from those in Newfoundland or Jamaica? Given the remarkable stability in the size of English households during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that Laslett has described, these questions become all the more intriguing.3 Did the same stability carry over to