Colonial Recreation

In today’s society many things influence the reasons for why and how we do things in our everyday lives. Take recreation for example. Many Americans participate in various forms of leisure activities. These leisure activities are influenced by many factors. This is also true throughout history. Take recreation and leisure activities during the colonial era. During this era there were at least three things that influenced how theses people participated in recreation. Social standing, geographical location, and gender all played a role in how colonial people participated in recreational entertainment.

Social class affected recreation in colonial America in many ways. The rich planters were able to partake in many more expensive forms of entertainment. According to David Hawke author of The Colonial Experience, “These people enjoyed horse racing, drinking, and cockfighting” (495). Hawke also talks about how the wealthy plantation owners differed from the poor farmer. The difference between the wealthy and the poor was the ability of the wealthy farmer to provide the horses and the racetracks. Louis B Wright, Author of Everyday life in Colonial America states:

In all the southern colonies, horse racing was a favorite sport enjoyed by everyone. The rich planters were proud of their racing stables and they jealously guarded their privilege of entering horses in the races, though the whole countryside was welcome to come and enjoy the sight. (195)

Not only did the wealthy planters raise and enter horses for racing they were also responsible for the cocks for fighting. According to Wright, “these planters bred gamecocks and bet on their favorite as they did their horses.” (197)

The wealthy again differed from the lower classes by their means of entertaining. The way these people participated in recreation separated the poor from the well to do because of the wealthy peoples participation in many differed forms of recreation. Wealthy people during this period were more inclined to attend private balls, dinners, amateur and professional theatricals, and politics. However, these two social classes did participate in dancing, this an activity that all classes enjoyed. Incidentally, they ways they participated in dancing differed a great deal. The upper class plantation owners were famous for hosting lavish dances. The wealthy were able to hold such lavish balls because these plantation owners had stately ballrooms in their homes and skilled musicians accompanied their dances. Because of their wealth they were able to hold these more frequently and they normally lasted the entire night. Julia Spruill author of Women’s Life and Work In the Southern Colonies, states: “Dancing was the darling amusement of young and old, and no social occasion was complete which was not followed by a ball” (107). According to David Hawke the wealthy constituted a certain group, “This was made up of small groups of whites living on the edge of the wilderness. They lived in elegant houses, dined with the best wines, and dressed in London’s latest fashions.” (494). Louis B Wright talks of four popular planters famous for holding balls during this time. These men were Henry Corbin, Thomas Gerald, John Lee, and Isaac Allerton. In the late sixteen hundreds these men built a banquet house to be used by each family for entertaining wives, girlfriends and friends. Reasons for why theses men built this house was because the ballrooms in their homes were not of adequate size for entertaining such large groups. (193) It is clear to see that the wealthy planters and their families were able to entertain in style. They were up to date on the fashions, had the money to pay musicians, and of course had lavish rooms just for dancing and entertaining. Incidentally, the lower class people did not have such ballrooms or musicians to play music for them. These people made the best out of what they had. Wright goes on and talks about the tenant farmers and the slaves and how they developed characteristic dances to be accompanied by clapping and fiddle playing. One dance he talks about is the “jig” and how the Scottish colonialists invented it. (195) Another form of recreational entertainment that the wealthy had more participants was the game of billiards. In the book The American Eras, Kross states:“ Southern plantation owners were also drawn to billiards for a variety of reasons. The table itself made a statement about wealth and the game and required only two people.” (416). These backcountry planters also participated in recreational activities such as cards, dice, drinking, and horse racing

The lower classes on the other hand enjoyed many of the same activities but not to the same degree. They enjoyed gambling on horse racing and cockfighting but were unable to provide the necessary animals or tracks to hold the events on their own. According to Wright, “ A scandal was caused in York County, Virginia, in 1674 because one James Bullock, a tailor was so presumptuous as to enter his horse in a race against a gentleman’s horse.” (197) The lower class also enjoyed hunting, fishing and man-to-man fighting as forms of entertainment. Man to man fighting was considered a lower class sport due to its crude nature. It was a type of sport that a “gentleman” would bet on but would never participate in. A popular pastime for men of all classes was cockfighting. This activity was participated by men of the highest gentry to the lower class farmer or slave. However, what differed with lower class farmers and slaves was their use of make shift rings instead of taverns for sites for fighting. Wright goes on to about how backwoods chicken raisers would raise and fight their chickens for themselves and for their neighbors for entertainment purposes. (197) Some taverns catered to slaves and to lower class people. These taverns provided an atmosphere for card playing, dice throwing, and gambling. The poor man would play for pennies while the rich planter played for higher stakes. Taverns for wealthy were known as social clubs, places where men of wealth gathered for social interaction and entertainment. At last, you can see that even though these two social classes were interested in some of the same activities, the way in which they were involved were often times different. Their social class had an effect on how and why they participated in such activities.

The Rhythm of life differed up and down the land. Not only did social standing influenced colonial recreation but geographical location did as well. In the north the recreational activities differed because of the climate. Being that the northern colonies had a longer cold season they were forced to spend much of their time indoors. This affected their forms of recreation. In the book Colonial America the author Richard Middleton says: “ In the winter people had to make their own entertainment once the sun had gone down.” (266). He goes on to say that these families would partake in a variety of activities. These activities would range from reading the bible, needlework, card playing, playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing, dancing if there was room available.(266 ) They were unable to gamble on horse racing and cock fights as often as their southern counterparts. However, northerners were commonly looking out for the horse rather than themselves. According to Louis B Wright, northerners raced horses with the excuse that it made the breed better. (197) In the book American Eras The Revolutionary Era 1754-1783, it talks about how the northerners were able to participate in activities like ice skating, sledding, and sleigh rides due to their location and the climate that accompanied it. (415) When the climate warmed up northerners did have the opportunity to spend their time enjoying recreational activities similar to their southern friends. This book goes on and talks of how Foot racing, boat racing, spinning, ax-throwing matches were common among northerners. (415) One form recreation that emerged from the north was the game of cricket (370).

Southerners on the other hand are identified more as entertainers than the northerners. Julia Spruill states that: “ Even in the county social life among the wealthy was easy and pleasant and was always characterized by a great deal of entertaining”(101). A major form of entertainment for recreational purposes in the South was dancing. Another source on colonial dancing was Richard Middleton, he states “Balls were popular in the south, where existence of more lavish houses enabled the gentry to accommodate their guests for prolonged entertainment (267). As stated earlier in the paper, lavish balls were held for entertaining guests and loved ones. Not only did southerners participate in lavish ballroom dances they enjoyed more outdoor activities. From The Journal of Sports History Nancy Struna proclaims:

In the more recently settled backcountry, especially in the south, colonists constructed a variety of human and animal contests notably baits, cockfights, and gouging matches, that tested the mettle of the contestants and appealed to the gambling interests of many. (10)

According to Thomas Purvis, author of Colonial America to 1763, he states:

Southerners in particular embraced games of chance with true gusto, as a French visitor named Durand discovered while visiting Jamestown, Virginia, in 1686. After taking lodging at a tavern, he found that his companions started to gamble soon after dinners and were still hard at it past midnight. (303)

Gambling was coming of age during the colonial era and was form of recreational activity enjoyed by all genders and classes. There is a difference in how people of different lands participate in certain leisure activities. The land, the climate, and the location all played an interracial role in how colonial people participated in recreation.

Along with social standing and geographical location, gender and race played an important role in the forms of colonial recreation. In the Colonial Experience Daniel Boorstein professes “evidence suggests that women in colonial America were more versatile, more active, more prominent and a lot more successful in activities outside the kitchen.” (186) Women spent most of their leisure time participating in what was considered healthy recreation. Healthy recreation consisted of carriage and sleigh riding. Often women participated in card games, spinning, gambling, fishing, ice-skating, and foot racing. These activities were common among middle to upper class ranked women. But women of all ranks formed the art of spinning into competitive contests. They divided themselves into groups by neighborhood or skill. Julia Spruill states:

For women of the poorer classes, life was a continual round of household duties. Their diversions were mostly of the nature of work converted to pleasure by cooperative effort, such as spinning matches, candle-dippings, and quilting parties. (110)

Slave women rarely had the opportunity to participate in recreation except for holiday celebration and weekend or evening breaks. They generally participated in dancing. Occasionally both men and women participated in the same leisure activities. According to Julia Spruill, “ Cards, backgammon, and billiards were pleasures of women shared with men.” (108) However, there were certain activities that men participated in by themselves. In The Colonial Era, Kross states: “Heavy gambling was a male vice since women did not have access to taverns and private clubs where much of this play occurred.” (415) Not only were women not allowed in taverns but also they were not able to serve in the militia. Louis B. Wright professes: “ The militia was a time for musters, horse races, and other forms of jollification. There was much drinking of cider and beer, card playing, and sometimes fighting to add to the excitement.” (73) Fishing and hunting were predominately a male leisure activity. Starting out as a means to finding food for the family later became a means to pass time during the day. In the Book Early Life in Early America, author David Freeman Hawke states: “ These sports helped to stock the family larders but more often became ends in themselves, created to break the dullness of daily routines.” (96) According to Nancy L Struna, she states: “ We may conclude that men were the major consumers of particular sports, especially sports like billiards, cards, racing, fishing and hunting.”(21)

Even though, both men and women occasionally involved themselves in the same recreation activity there were more times when they participated as an individual gender group rather than a mixed one. Here is where you can see that gender played a role in separating men and women and separating what they did for recreation.

In conclusion, we can see that certain elements can factor the outcome of certain activities. Their social class, geographical location and their gender contributed to the way colonial people participated in recreation. What colonial people did for a living played a huge factor in how and what they did for recreational purposes. How colonists differed form the southern regions to the northern regions and how there gender played a role. It has been proven that these people participated in the same sorts of activities but there was always some factor that differed between them. Whether in a small or large way it influenced the way they did them differently. I believe that it is still true to this day, how gender, race, social standing and location influence how and what we do for recreational amusement.

Work Citied

Boorstin, Daniel. The Colonial Experience. New York Random House, 1958

Hawke, David. The Colonial Experience. New York, The Bobbs Merrill Company, Inc.

1966

Hawke, David Freeman. Everyday Life In Early America. New York, Harper and Row,

1988

Kross, Jessica. The Colonial Era 1600-1754. Amanly Inc Book, 1998 ed.

Middleton, Richard. Colonial America.. Massachusetts, Balckwell Publishers, 1992

Purvis, Thomas. Colonial America to 1763. New York, Fact on File Inc, 1999

“Overview” The American Eras:1754-1783. 1998 ed.

Spruill, Julia. Women’s Life and Work In The Southern Colonies. North Carolina, The university of North Carolina Press, 1938

Struna, Nancy. “Gender and Sporting Practice in Early America”, 1750-1810.” The Journal of Sport History Spring. 1991: Vol. 18, 10-30

Wright, Louise B. Everyday Life in Colonial America.. New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965