Erin ’s Reviews > American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington > Status Update

Men were somewhat freer than women not to marry. For men the economic imperative was less as men controlled most of the resources.

The Pontiac uprising confirmed what British leaders already believed about the American frontier: that it was a sinkhole for imperial finance.

Benjamin Franklin proposed an American government consisting of a council chosen by the colonies and a president general appointed by the British crown.

Wars exhausted armies and depleted navies. They also eroded government finances.

"While Washington was fighting the French in Ohio"

What a weird sentence

Indentured service provided an alternative. English men and women who sought to emigrate to America but lacked the price of passage agreed to work for several years in exchange for transport.

The ways of the whites puzzled the Indians.

One third of people infected with smallpox died.

The gentry held balls. Men and women danced. The dancing provided exercise often vigorous without a descent into physical labor.

The Julian calendar long used in western Europe had been too generous accounting a year as 365 1/4 days and therefore added a leap year every fourth year. Pope Gregory XIII decreed in 1582 skipping 10 days and that the New Year started on January 1 which hadn't been uniform practice