Toys In the South

    Most of the colonist had a simple life.  There was so much work to be done that there was little time left for play.  When families got together to build houses, they often spent time “playing” when the work was done.  Men and boys had foot races and shooting contests.  The women had corn husking contests and quilting bees.  At a quilting bee the women would sew pieces of cloth together to make a quilt.  One quilt was made at every quilting bee.  The young children played hopscotch and marbles.  They made kites to fly.

        The colonists did not have movies, or TV, but they still found ways to have fun.  The children would play a game that was similar to soccer and baseball that we play today.  The adults would race horses. Families had puppet shows. There was a traveling circus that went from town to town.  The people would get to see wild animals and watch acrobats swing from the church steeples. 

The people in the south did not feel, like their neighbors in the New England colonies that play was a dangerous and wasteful activity that distracted children from their religion.  They felt that play and recreation was important for their children who would need to be social later in life.  As soon as their children were old enough to sit in a saddle, they were taught how to ride a horse.  Boys raced horses, they hunted, and they played cards.

        Children also had toys made for them.  They had miniature solders and cannons.  They had store bought marbles, and musical instruments. They had tops, and whirligigs.

        In the south, the slave children would have to start working at the age of six or seven.  They would do the chores in the house, and take care of the white children who were younger than they were.  When they were ten or eleven years old they were old enough to work in the fields.  They had to join the grownups and work in the hot fields.  They worked in the tobacco, cotton, and sugarcane fields.  They had to work ten to twelve hours a day.