Life for children in
Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag Village was preparation for their roles as adults.
Probably from the age of five they were contributing to the family economy by
doing small tasks around the home. Later, they would work in the fields,
prepare meals, make household items, and perform other tasks to earn their
keep. Still, children found time for play. Young boys and girls in both
cultures played with their toys, imitated the roles of men and women in their
communities, and, most likely, occasionally got into mischief.
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Chores and working:
Life
in New Plymouth was much the same for children as it would have been had
they lived in rural England. Opportunities for them, however, were much more limited.
Almost all of the boys became farmers in early Plymouth Colony, For girls, it
was expected that they would marry and raise a family.
Just as the boys became farmers, so did the girls become
farmers' wives. Since there were not shops and markets in the early years,
housewives did their own brewing and baking. For the young men and women, all
of these skills had to be learned in their early years.
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For boys, this meant
accompanying their fathers or other men as they worked. They got the fields
ready for planting, sowing seed,
weeding, judging ripeness, harvesting and finally storing the year's crops They
also needed to learn how to tend livestock, hunt, fish, and do the woodworking
necessary. Most importantly, they had to be educated to fill the role of head
of household which they would some day occupy.
Girls likewise were
trained, but by their mothers and in the domestic arts required to run a house.
These would include gardening, cooking and preserving foodstuffs, tending
children, sewing and mending, etc
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Schooling:
Along with practical skills, it was important that Plymouth
children learn to read, as Separatists emphasized personal study of the bible.
However, there was no grammar school in Plymouth for many years. In the first
years parents taught their children themselves. A law was passed in 1658 that
each town in the colony should have a schoolmaster. Plymouth did not have a
school until the spring of 1672. Later in the century, Native children were
also enrolled in the colonial schools
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Games and Toys:
While children would
have worked much of the day, there was still some time for recreation. Drawings
and prints of the time reveal children engaged in games, such as leapfrog, cards,
marbles, walking on stilts and football.
In the famous painting Children's Games, one can see
boys playing Crack the Whip and Buck Buck, and
girls playing with dolls and staging a make-believe wedding, all of
which might still be played by children today. There were also board games such
as Nine Men's Morris and Fox and Geese, which have survived
scratched into barrel heads as well as in pictures.
However,
the Plymouth colonist feared the results of being too lenient on youth. They
believed that without constant correction and discipline a child would
naturally turn to sin. A common
expression of the time was that the top only spins if it is constantly
whipped. If the whipper stops and the
top falls, no amount of whipping will cause the top to arise and resume
spinning A good parent was constantly on the watch and quick to punish their
child to prevent small faults from growing into larger problems.
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| Native American Children |
Colonial observers
felt that the Natives gave in to all of their children’s desires and spoiled them
with a too much affection and too little correction.
But there was a reason
for the way the children were raised. The Wampanoag believed strongly in being
responsible for one’s self. As a society
they avoided forcing anyone to do things, instead individuals were expected to make appropriate decisions based upon
thoughtful deliberation.
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Chores:
As with English girls
and boys, the Native children spent much of the young life acquiring the skills
they would need as adults. Boys in their play copied their adult counterparts,
the hunters, warriors and male leaders of their community. They spent a great
deal of their time perfecting their hunting and fishing skills, often in the
company of other boys. As men, they would be expected to bring home game to
their families and fight in times of war.
The girls also tried to be like the female leaders within
their social setting. They also stayed closer to home, tending crops, cooking,
fashioning the clothes, baskets, pots and other household items needed, and, of
course, tending children. Unlike English women, they also constructed their
homes, weaving the mats that made the walls.
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Schooling:
The
education of children was mostly by example. Public praise and shame were the
most effective forces used to control personal conduct.. Children witnessed the
honors given to individuals exhibiting positive behavior as well as the
condemnation of negative. Their sense of pride was well developed as this was
seen as the ultimate controller, the power of self-control.
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Games and Toys:
Although information
on their games was not recorded, there is evidence that they had toys such as
dolls and small bows and arrows. Theirs was an oral rather than written
culture, so it is likely that stories and legends would be passed on generation
to generation by repetition and memorization
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