Sports in Colonial

America

Early sports not like

modern sports
Sports as we know them are a recent

development (19th century)

Amusements, leisure activities, recreations
Will see problems (impediments) in the early
development of sports

American Indians
Many sports, some similarities
Stickball (Lacrosse in French)
Ritualized
English settlers did not copy the natives true

Englishmen! (kept what they had learned in

their villages/parishes)
Perhaps wanted to preserve old way of life.
Also did not understand or want to copy the
customs surrounding Indian sports. (sacred
dancing, chanting, drumming, shamanism,
body painting, pipe smoking, etc.)

Earliest American Sports

(English in America)?

Games/amusements/sports in
colonies
Horseracing
Cockfighting
Animal baiting
Angling
Fowling
Horseshoes
Pre-baseball
Pre-soccer
Pre-cricket

English background
Renaissance tradition praised sport
Importance of leisure Renaissance ideal
Love of play!
Elites and social control
Sports as preparation for war
Common folk
Sabbath, saints days
Violent
Masculinity not space for women, children

Cricket in colonial America played as

early as 1709

Common folk
Played on religious holidays/feast days
Rough football games playing field was

sometimes the area between two villages!

Running, jumping, wrestling
Area nobles might give prizes, feast for all!
Gained loyalty social ties
Aggressive, even violent! Brawling!

Masculinity
Wrestling
Violent football match
Cockfighting
Exclusion of women, children, elderly
Masculine prerogative in family, society!

Brueghel mid 16th

century Flemish painter

English King, James I,

Book of Sports 1618
Sports (amusements) a good thing
Sabbath activities good!
Why did he have to pronounce sports as

good? Puritanism, sports diverted persons

attention from God
Entertainment good avoid radical politics,
religious fanaticism!
Controversial document!

Puritan opposition
Puritans Protestant Reformation basic

Christianity
Sports dangerous
Sports Popish
No basis in early Christianity
Distraction from diligent work and pious
worship!

Bifurcated English sports

heritage
Dual leisure tradition inherited by Americans
In all colonies there was a
1. spirit against sport, also 2. for sport

Regional
Regional variations
1. Southern Colonies
2. Middle Colonies
3. New England

General rule
Austerity stronger in North
Leisure/sport stronger in South

South
Virginia
Gentry male elites carried drinking,

gambling and old pastimes of Old England to

New World
At home, has social privilege of hunting and
fishing
Leisure
Luxury
Work not an end-all of life

1607 - Jamestown
Captain John Smith 4 hours each day was

spent in work, the rest in pastimes and merry

exercise
Hundreds died of disease and famine do
desperate men deserve free time?

South and lower castes

Slave system in south
Slavery degraded labor
Leisure was good (for those who could!)
Lower castes fighting dirty (eye-gouging)
Mutilated persons in south?
Blood sports

Southern gentlemen
Cricket, billiards, horse racing
Encouraged by clergy and law
No resistance from Anglican clergy
Law upheld private gambling debts

South and male power

Lower class whites - gambling trying to

upset the order of things

Blacks as boxers hyper-masculinity of
dominated race
Elite white population pastime prerogative
of leisure, gambling
Honor, virility!
Rituals of manhood despite variations of
class, race theme of gender sports were
for men! Playing sports, watching sport,
gambling on sport!

Description of Virginia
sports culture (1809)
A race is a Virginians pleasure,
For which they always can find leisure:
For that, they leave their farm and home,
From evry quarter they can come;
With gentle, simple, rich and poor,
The race-ground soon is coverd over;
Negroes the gaming spirit take,
And be and wager, evry stake;
Males, females, all, both black and white
Together at this sport unite. Anne Ritson

Racing
Virginians of all ranks and denominations

were excessively fond of horse racing.

New England
Puritans
Fewer sports, less leisure
Distrust of Christmas
Not too many worldly delights
Dont be tempted to not labor, or to not pray
Yet, not fanatical
[sometimes the problem was the gambling and

the drinking!]

New England (Yale,

Connecticut) view
Jedidiah Morse, father of American

geography
Diversions were sign of flawed society
Time not employed in study or useful
labor . . . is generally spent in hurtful or
innocent exercise.
Against spirit of gaming and barbarous
sports

Morse against Virginia,

South
Virginia too many billiard tables, card

games, and backgammon boards

the gambling gentry . . . resort to kill time,
which hangs heavily upon them.

Not one view in north

though
Benjamin Franklin?
Also taverns, community gathering (election

day)
Challenges to Puritan view

Middle Colonies
Diversity
Pennsylvania toleration
Maryland toleration
Quakers plain
Not church, is meeting house, no art in
meeting house
Dutch NYC, Hudson Valley gander pulling
New York City and Philadelphia port cities,

important centers for landed and commercial

gentry to have fun