Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City

Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City PDF Author: David E. Narrett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Inheritance and succession
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book

Book Description
This book breaks new ground by offering the first detailed and systematic analysis of inheritance practices in New York City from the beginning of Dutch settlement in the 1620s to the onset of the American Revolution. By analyzing a broad range of original sources--including more than 2,300 wills--David E. Narrett shows how the transmission of property at death reflected the distribution of power and authority within the family. The author makes an especially important contribution to early New York history by explaining the Dutch origins of social and family customs, and by tracing the persistence of Dutch ways following the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664. He demonstrates that seventeenth-century Dutch law was particularly favorable to women since it sanctioned community property within marriage, the drafting of mutual wills by spouses, and the equal (or nearly equal) division of property among all children. While the book maintains its comparative focus on the Dutch and English traditions, it also includes material on other ethnic groups (for example, French Huguenots and Jews) living in a pluralistic society. Narrett utilizes both Dutch and English language sources to examine such pertinent topics as the relationship between law and social custom, primogeniture, kinship and communal ties, charitable bequests, the manumission of slaves, and the literacy level of testators.Written in a clear and precise manner, the book includes many tables that will give readers immediate access to supporting data, and a conclusion establishes the relationship of Narrett's findings to relevant scholarship. A valuable addition to the literature on inheritance, this is a book whose conclusions and data will be mined by colonialists, legal historians, and historians of women and the family.

Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City

Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City PDF Author: David E. Narrett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
This book breaks new ground by offering the first detailed and systematic analysis of inheritance practices in New York City from the beginning of Dutch settlement in the 1620s to the onset of the American Revolution. By analyzing a broad range of original sources--including more than 2,300 wills--David E. Narrett shows how the transmission of property at death reflected the distribution of power and authority within the family. The author makes an especially important contribution to early New York history by explaining the Dutch origins of social and family customs, and by tracing the persistence of Dutch ways following the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664. He demonstrates that seventeenth-century Dutch law was particularly favorable to women since it sanctioned community property within marriage, the drafting of mutual wills by spouses, and the equal (or nearly equal) division of property among all children. While the book maintains its comparative focus on the Dutch and English traditions, it also includes material on other ethnic groups (for example, French Huguenots and Jews) living in a pluralistic society. Narrett utilizes both Dutch and English language sources to examine such pertinent topics as the relationship between law and social custom, primogeniture, kinship and communal ties, charitable bequests, the manumission of slaves, and the literacy level of testators.Written in a clear and precise manner, the book includes many tables that will give readers immediate access to supporting data, and a conclusion establishes the relationship of Narrett's findings to relevant scholarship. A valuable addition to the literature on inheritance, this is a book whose conclusions and data will be mined by colonialists, legal historians, and historians of women and the family.

Colonial America and the Early Republic

Colonial America and the Early Republic PDF Author: Philip N. Mulder
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351950568
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 866

Get Book

Book Description
Reflecting the best recent scholarship of Early America and the Early Republic, the articles in this collection study the many dimensions of American political history. The authors explore Native American interests and encounters with settlers, diplomatic endeavors, environmental issues, legal debates and practiced law, women's citizenship and rights, servitude and slavery and popular political activity. The geographical perspective is as expansive as the topical, with strong representation of trans-Atlantic and continental interests of many nations and peoples. The international and interdisciplinary perspectives illustrate the dynamic transformations of America during this era of settlement, conquest, development, revolution and nation building.

Children in Colonial America

Children in Colonial America PDF Author: James Marten
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814757154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book

Book Description
Examining the aspects of childhood in the American colonies between the late 16th and late 18th centuries, this text contains essays and documents that shed light on the ways in which the process of colonisation shaped childhood, and in turn how the experience of children affected life in colonial America.

Colonial America

Colonial America PDF Author: Jerome R Reich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315510480
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book

Book Description
This brief, up-to-date examination of American colonial history draws connections between the colonial period and American life today by including formerly neglected areas of social and cultural history and the role of minorities (African-Americans, Native-Americans, women, and laboring classes). It summarizes and synthesizes recent studies and integrates them with earlier research. Key topics: European Backgrounds. The Native Americans. The Spanish Empire in America. The Portuguese, French, and Dutch Empires in America. The Background of English Colonization. The Tobacco Colonies: Virginia and Maryland. The New England Colonies. The Completion of Colonization. Seventeenth-Century Revolts and Eighteenth-Century Stabilization. Colonial Government. African-Americans in the English Colonies. Immigration. Colonial Agriculture. Colonial Commerce. Colonial Industry. Money and Social Status. The Colonial Town. The Colonial Family. Religion in Colonial America. Education in Colonial America. Language and Literature. Colonial Arts and Sciences. Everyday Life in Colonial America. The Second Hundred Years' War. The Road to Revolution. The Revolutionary War. Governments for a New Nation. Market: For anyone interested in Colonial History, American Revolution, or Early American Social History.

Colonial America

Colonial America PDF Author: Richard Middleton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444396285
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 579

Get Book

Book Description
Colonial America: A History to 1763, 4th Edition provides updated and revised coverage of the background, founding, and development of the thirteen English North American colonies. Fully revised and expanded fourth edition, with updated bibliography Includes new coverage of the simultaneous development of French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies in North America, and extensively re-written and updated chapters on families and women Features enhanced coverage of the English colony of Barbados and trans-Atlantic influences on colonial development Provides a greater focus on the perspectives of Native Americans and their influences in shaping the development of the colonies

Creole Gentlemen

Creole Gentlemen PDF Author: Trevor Burnard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136701818
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book

Book Description
Examining the lives of 460 of the wealthiest men who lived in colonial Maryland, Burnard traces the development of this elite from a hard-living, profit-driven merchant-planter class in the seventeenth century to a more genteel class of plantation owners in the eighteenth century. This study innovatively compares these men to their counterparts elsewhere in the British Empire, including absentee Caribbean landowners and East Indian nabobs, illustrating their place in the Atlantic economic network.

The Widows' Might

The Widows' Might PDF Author: Vivian Bruce Conger
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081471711X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book

Book Description
In early American society, one’s identity was determined in large part by gender. The ways in which men and women engaged with their communities were generally not equal: married women fell under the legal control of their husbands, who handled all negotiations with the outside world, as well as many domestic interactions. The death of a husband enabled women to transcend this strict gender divide. Yet, as a widow, a woman occupied a third, liminal gender in early America, performing an unusual mix of male and female roles in both public and private life. With shrewd analysis of widows’ wills as well as prescriptive literature, court appearances, newspaper advertisements, and letters, The Widows’ Might explores how widows were portrayed in early American culture, and how widows themselves responded to their unique role. Using a comparative approach, Vivian Bruce Conger deftly analyzes how widows in colonial Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Maryland navigated their domestic, legal, economic, and community roles in early American society.

Everyday Nature: Knowledge of the Natural World in Colonial New York

Everyday Nature: Knowledge of the Natural World in Colonial New York PDF Author:
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813543796
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
In Everyday Nature, Sara Gronim shows how scientific advances were received in the early modern world, from the time Europeans settled in America until just before the American Revolution. Settlers approached a wide range of innovations, such as smallpox inoculation, maps and surveys, Copernican cosmology, and Ben Franklin's experiments with electricity, with great skepticism. New Yorkers in particular were distrustful because of the chronic political and religious factionalism in the colony. Those discoveries that could be easily reconciled with existing beliefs about healing the sick, agricultural practices, and the revolution of the planets were more readily embraced.

Handbook to Life in America

Handbook to Life in America PDF Author: Rodney P. Carlisle
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438126972
Category : Amusements
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book

Book Description
Examines the history of people, places, and events that defined the American colonial and revolutionary era.