Ian Van Kula

Brenton
Early Am History
6 October 2016
What Life Was Like For Native Americans, Colonial Women, And Slaves
What was life like for Native Americans, slaves, and women in Colonial Times? Well,
Native Americans had a sort of easy life, slaves had a hard life, and women had a life better than
slaves and sometimes not as good as the natives. Life in the colonial times was anything but for
the colonists, the native americans, and the slaves.
Life for the native americans was was pretty basic. They lived in simple buildings like a
village. They hunted to feed themselves and their children. They used the skins from the animals
they hunted to clothe themselves. They also had small gardens for fruits and vegetables. Native
Americans didnt go to work, instead men would go out to hunt and women would work in the
gardens or weave clothing and blankets. The Native Americans didnt have any money. They
traded goods with each other instead. The government was just a chief who led the village and
the next chief would usually be one of his children. Native American children were basically free
to do what they wanted to, but parents would teach their children how to hunt if they were a boy
and how to weave and or work in the gardens if they were a female. Children also had toys to
play with like corn husk dolls and a small bow and arrows. Not all tribes had the same traditions
either, life for

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a west coast native was a lot different from an east coast native. Life for a Native American was
a lot different from the english way of life, which was a lot more organized.
20 percent of the population in the first thirteen colonies were African. The of
enslavement of African Americans occurred in all of the colonies. During the time of the
Revolutionary War, over half of all African Americans lived in Virginia and Maryland. Most
African Americans lived in the Chesapeake region. They made up more than 50 to 60 percent of
the overall population there. The majority, of these African Americans were slaves. The first
official United States Census taken in 1790 showed that eight percent of the African American
population was free. Whether free or enslaved, African Americans in Chesapeake established
relationships, networks for disseminating information, survival techniques, and forms of
resistance to their condition.
In the 1790s, life for women was very different than it is today. Back then, women were
pretty much a mans property. If a women didnt do what her husband asked her to, he could hit
her. Womens lives were more difficult mostly because men had way more power than the
women. If a women didnt do what her husband asked her to he could hit her. Besides men
women had the most power over slaves. Most women stayed at home with their younger children
to teach them how to read and write.
In conclusion, life wasnt too bad for the native americans. The women had a good life
aside from them occasionally disobeying their husbands and getting hit. Yet, although the slaves
had a harder life than the natives and the women, they still survived in their conditions.