Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake

by James Horn

Often compared unfavorably with colonial New England, the early Chesapeake has been portrayed as irreligious, unstable, and violent. In this important new study, James Horn challenges this conventional view and looks across the Atlantic to assess the enduring influence of English attitudes, values, and behavior on the social and cultural evolution of the early Chesapeake. Using detailed local and regional studies to compare everyday life in English provincial society and the emergent societies of the Chesapeake Bay, Horn provides a richly textured picture of the immigrants' Old World backgrounds and their adjustment to life in America. Until the end of the seventeenth century, most settlers in Virginia and Maryland were born and raised in England, a factor of enormous consequence for social development in the two colonies. By stressing the vital social and cultural connections between England and the Chesapeake during this period, Horn places the development of early America in the context of a vibrant Anglophone transatlantic world and suggests a fundamental reinterpretation of New World society.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Colonial Williamsburg Vice President

Reviews

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pleasant surprise. It's an impressive work of statistical history. I can't imagine how many probate, import-export, and tax documents James Horn pored over to reconstruct life in seventeenth-century England and Chesapeake America. But it's also a fascinating discussion of the factors (industrialization, poverty, conviction for crimes) that led to English subjects moving to America. Horn is an elegant writer, and when he rhetorically asks what settlers imagined of Virginia, you find yourself trying to grasp the settler's mindset, too. I bring this moment up as an example of how much the book grabs you.

[Dylan Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magisterial. Shorter on detail regarding the physical and environmental realities of colonial life but stunning levels of detail on the social practices, institutions, and legal/financial side of life and immigration to the Chesapeake.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has to be James Horn's best work, his magnum opus. It is well-researched, well-argued, and complete. No one else has completely joined 17th Century English Culture with 17th Chesapeake History. No one else should try on this scale, because Horn has mastered the work.